Brushfire Plague: Reckoning

by R. P. Ruggiero

  Machinegun bullets splintered the pavement to the right of his truck and began stitching closer as they sought their target. He shot another glance into his rearview and cursed in disgust.

  Peter had run into the street and now stood in the middle of it without any cover. He was firing round after round at the driver of the HUMVEE. It bore down upon Peter as he pumped rounds into the windshield, which was already pockmarked from previous bullets hitting home. Everything slowed as Cooper saw the machinegun pivot on its pintle mount and fire at Peter from a mere dozen yards away. Cooper marveled at how he simultaneously looked naked, exposed, and small against the hulking HUMVEE coming at him, but also heroic and larger than life standing his ground on the asphalt.

  A burst of rounds from the heavy machinegun pulped him. His body twitched about like a shredded plastic bag in a gusty wind. Red clouds of misty blood peppered the air all around him. Then, the HUMVEE crashed into his body and Cooper heard the crunch of bones breaking. He fought the bile that rocketed from his stomach at such a horrible scene. He could see the HUMVEE’s machinegun slowly searching for him once again.

  Just then, the HUMVEE swerved to its right, collided with a parked minivan and rolled. That’s when Cooper registered that Peter had not died in vain; he had killed the driver and enabled them to escape. The driver’s side windshield was riddled with bullet holes and was painted red. As the first HUMVEE came to a screeching halt, it neatly blocked the road and prevented the one following from pursuing them.

  Cooper cranked his steering wheel hard to the left to get themselves out of the field of fire from the second HUMVEE. He breathed easier once his house on his left shielded them.

  He mumbled, “Thank you, Peter Garcia. Thank you.”

  Out of the corner of his eye, he caught sight of Jake who was turned around in his seat and had seen the whole thing. His eyes were haunted, unblinking. Automaton-like, his body shifted back toward the front; his face frozen in shock. He stared off into the distance while a lonely tear descended down his left cheek. Cooper, in turn, stared at him in disbelief. His stomach fell out and he ground his teeth in frustration.

  Damn this world to hell! Cooper cursed without uttering a word.

  Chapter Three

  Dranko had expertly guided the vehicles through the eastern barricade. He had waved at those remaining at their post, but their attention was consumed by the sounds of battle coming from behind them and they didn’t see him. Once free of the obstacles, they drove at breakneck speed eastward on Division. Angela rode shotgun in Dranko’s Jeep, while Lily and Peter sat in back. Next to Cooper, Calvin sat, cradling an M4 rifle. Behind him, sat Julianne and Jake; a look of shock still gripping his face.

  “Keep a good lookout,” Cooper said unnecessarily as they passed a burned-out minivan. Calvin grunted and tightened his grip on the rifle.

  “If you are doing aimed fire, keep it on single-shot mode. Flip it to burst only if you are just spraying and praying,” Cooper advised.

  Calvin laughed, a deep baritone, “Can you please speak English to me? I did not serve in the Corps like you did!”

  Cooper smirked, “That’s Dranko who served with the wet boys. I was in the Army. But yeah, sorry, I just mean only use burst fire if you are trying to keep the other guys’ heads down. Until you get used to it, one shot per pull is best if you’re actually aiming.”

  Calvin nodded, “Alright, that I understand.”

  Dranko’s Jeep took a sharp right onto 82nd Avenue, which was a major roadway heading south. From the news reports during the first days after the Brushfire Plague hit, they knew the freeway was hopelessly blocked when it had appeared that the entire city had decided on the same day to flee the plague by getting out. It had made the worst Los Angeles traffic jam look like a lonely desert highway in Arizona. Traffic became snarled on every lane, the emergency lanes, and the medians. Eighty-second had its share of abandoned vehicles, likely refugees from the freeway disaster, but it was still navigable.

  “I think what saved us was that people waited too long to exit, and even those routes were blocked, and most people were trapped on the freeways,” Calvin offered.

  “You could be right,” Cooper agreed. “Michael Huynh’s group is headquartered not far from here. I wonder if they’ve kept this area cleared out, too.”

  Calvin recoiled at the mention of the name of the leader of the Vietnamese gang that Cooper had sought assistance from, “You mean gang? We shall see. As we go further south and away from that gang, we will see what happens to the roads.” Calvin managed to pack a truckload of derision into just one word. Cooper would never forget how vehement Calvin had been in discussing the idea of having the gang assist them with security. The neighbors had deadlocked. Of course, if I’d lost a brother to gang violence, I’d probably feel the same way.

  “That’s true. We’ll find out.”

  They drove on in silence for several minutes, winding their way through the abandoned, or destroyed vehicles, they encountered. Looks like a war zone. The vehicles alternated between those that had simply run out of gas or broke down and had been left, to those that had been burned, to those that were riddled with bullets. Too often, those were metal coffins, holding dead bodies, some of which had begun to decay.

  When they encountered the first car with dead inside, Cooper told Jake to get down on the floor so he wouldn’t have to bear witness.

  This woke him from his torpor and he yelled, “Why? I’ve seen everything already!”

  Cooper’s heart broke at the words and the wounds they held. He stifled this and lowered his voice, “Just do it, son.” Jake obeyed, but with a defiant look upon his face.

  It pained Cooper to know his son was likely right. Suddenly, he felt exhausted, like the Dutchman trying to plug the holes in the dike without enough fingers or toes. As if he needed another reminder about his futile efforts to protect his son from the horrors all around them, they soon passed a Chevy sedan riddled from stem to stern with bullets. Inside, a woman at the wheel and two kids in the rear were dead from gunshot wounds. Decay had set in and, despite their closed windows, the foul smell found them. Seconds later, Cooper heard Jake whimpering. Julianne reached down to comfort him, but he slapped her hand away. She looked out the window and tears rolled down her face.

  Cooper wrenched the steering wheel toward himself in futility and wished it would all just go away. Calvin offered a look of sympathy to Cooper. He appreciated the effort but realized it was as inadequate as trying to wipe with one square of toilet paper. Thanks, but there’s just too much shit for it to matter.

  **********

  A bit later, they all tensed up as they approached a mother and two young children who were sitting on the curb next to a minivan. They looked dirty, and tired. Cooper imagined they were very hungry, as well.

  “Keep an eye out, could be a trap,” Dranko warned over the radio.

  They parked their own vehicles about a hundred yards away and Cooper, Dranko, and Calvin approached with their weapons out and ready.

  “What’s going on?” Cooper called out.

  The woman’s head turned toward him listlessly, “Nothing.”

  The men looked at each other in confusion, but kept approaching. When they were within talking distance, the woman clutched her kids a bit closer. She looked up at the men facing her. Her face was dirty and tear-stained. Her eyes were sunken and hollow. Already dehydrated, Cooper thought.

  “Whatcha want?” The woman queried belligerently.

  “What happened to you?” Calvin asked first. Dranko drifted around to look inside her van.

  The woman’s head spun lazily from side to side, “What hasn’t happened?” Her laugh was as hollow as her eyes. “I was just trying to make my way to my Aunt’s place in Salem. I ran out of gas.”

  Cooper jumped when Dranko’s voice thundered from the other side of the minivan, “Your van is full of crap! Toys and knickknacks! Where the hell is your food and water?”

  His words rou
sed her and she fired back, “It’s our stuff, mister! Look, it’s only a forty-five drive from here to Salem. How was I to know we’d get stuck in the worst traffic jam of the century?”

  “By watching the news maybe,” Dranko said sarcastically.

  The woman stood up, unsteady on her feet, “Look, mister, I don’t know who you are, but I don’t want to hear it from you.”

  Dranko couldn’t wipe the sneer off his face fast enough and she exploded, “We haven’t eaten in three days. And that was only two cans of soup I got by having sex with some foul-smelling redneck who had less IQ than teeth. I can’t even remember how long we been stuck here.” When she finished, she collapsed onto the pavement and began wailing. Cooper noted how the children didn’t even flinch at their mother’s description of trading sex for food. They either already knew about it. Or, worse, had seen it. He shuddered at the thought.

  Cooper began to motion to Calvin to get some food out of the truck for her, but Dranko’s blazing eyes stopped him.

  They retreated from the woman, Dranko still fuming, “How could someone be that stupid? Setting out without any thought to food or water? Never mind gas!”

  Calvin’s voice was soft, “Look, Dranko, not everyone can adjust as fast as you when the world dramatically changes before their eyes.”

  Dranko scoffed.

  “She said it all. ‘I had a forty-five minute drive’. She was prepared for that.”

  Dranko was undeterred, “That’s just it. You gotta be prepared for when things don’t go as planned. Hell, I had a ‘get home’ bag in my Jeep before Brushfire hit. But, seriously, to set off at the beginning of a crisis with nothing but toys, bobbles, and some clothes? It’s amazingly stupid!”

  They walked the rest of the way back to their vehicles in silence. When they drove past them, Cooper winced when one of the children looked up at him with plaintive eyes. He was looking at a little girl, probably eight or nine, with brown, dirty curled hair framing deep green eyes. With a washcloth and some soap, Cooper knew she’d be darling cute. Instead, he felt as if he was looking at a child’s corpse. He damned Dranko and threw a protein bar he had on the truck’s dash to her. The girl fell onto it like a ravenous wolf.

  **********

  Dranko led them into the parking lot of a looted Home Depot and Cooper followed, wondering. The lot looked like a flea market and a demolition derby had been thrown into a blender, whirled around, and then tossed back out. Shattered cars and a plethora of discarded and broken goods competed for his attention. That’s when he noticed it. The dead lay here, too. A limp arm, hung lazily from a Honda sedan. Crow-pecked. A woman lay sprawled across the black pavement, half her body underneath a minivan. She’d clearly been there for days and flies harried about her. The entrance had been riddled with gunfire and several men lay dead about it.

  A whimper from behind made Cooper spin his head around. Jake’s vacant eyes and gaping mouth told him the damage had been done. Damn, how could I’ve forgot!

  “Son, lay down in the back seat there, please. You don’t need to see this,” Cooper’s voice was soft, pleading, and miserable.

  Trance-like, Jake folded himself into the seat. Julianne started when he placed his head in her lap. She recovered, and began stroking his hair gently. When she saw Cooper’s look of surprise, she shrugged her shoulders to tell him she didn’t know, either. Cooper shuddered to think about where Jake’s mind had gone; that he would overcome his hostility toward Julianne enough to seek her comfort.

  Dranko was at his window, rapping knuckles on glass. Cooper yanked his door open, “I’ll be right back.” He stepped out. Calvin joined him.

  “Why’ the hell did we stop here?” Cooper asked.

  “Supplies.”

  “The place has been looted already.”

  “You wanna bet there are still good hand tools in there?” Dranko replied. “Electricity’s only been out a few days. I’m guessing…and these bodies likely prove…that the looting happened before that.”

  Cooper nodded in understanding.

  “So, that looting would have taken the high end stuff that works with electricity, like power tools and such.”

  “You got it. We might even get lucky and there might be a generator in there left over.”

  Calvin took a step closer, “I will come with you.”

  Cooper nodded, “Alright, why don’t you take Calvin and either Angela or Freddie. I gotta stay here. Jake’s on the edge.”

  “Right.”

  “But, be quick. Ten minutes until I come in after you.”

  “You are the optimist, brother. When’s the last time you been in a Home Depot? You can’t even get from the entrance to a freakin’ aisle in ten minutes!”

  Cooper chuckled, “That’s true, but only by half. I’ll give you fifteen. Any sign of trouble though, fire a weapon. One shot means come and help. Two shots means get the hell outta here. Got it?”

  “I don’t mean to show you up twice in one day, but why don’t you just use this instead?” Dranko asked as he took something off the backside of his belt and tossed it to Cooper. “Channel’s already set.”

  Cooper looked admiringly at the walkie talkie. “Nice. I must be slipping because I saw that on the list earlier!”

  “Don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone about it,” he smirked.

  Dranko walked back toward his vehicle and Calvin followed. Dranko motioned for Angela to get out and Cooper watched as the trio moved towards the entrance, wary eyes on watch and weapons at the ready. Cooper saw Dranko talking to Angela and Calvin on the way, briefing them on his plan.

  Cooper poked his head back into his pickup. Jake still laid, eyes closed, with his head in Julianne’s lap. Cooper informed them of what was happening. Julianne’s smile told him she understood, while Jake remained silent.

  “I think he’s asleep,” she whispered.

  “Probably for the best,” Cooper responded.

  Cooper grabbed his rifle from the front seat and cradled it as he stood watch, constantly scanning in all directions. With their force divided, the last thing he wanted was any hostilities now. The FAL, a rifle that fired the robust .308 round, felt reassuring in his hands. Every time he hefted it, he admired the quality design of the rifle and the good workmanship that had gone into it.

  The creak of a door opening on Dranko’s Wagoneer told him Freddie was getting out. Freddie paused, lit a cigarette, and came over to join Cooper.

  “I didn’t know you smoked,” he commented.

  Freddie laughed his infectious laugh, “I didn’t, until all this started. I figure cancer is the least of my worries now!”

  “You picked a bad time to start. Those are going to be hard to find mighty soon,” Cooper said, a grin alighting across his face.

  Freddie’s cigarette bobbed up and down as he rocked onto his heels, “I suspect you’re right about that!”

  At the edge of the lot, Cooper saw him before he heard the rattle of a shopping cart on pavement. A homeless man was ambling in their direction, his cart burdened with goods.

  “Keep your eye on our rear, in case he’s a distraction for something else,” Cooper told Freddie as he moved in the homeless man’s direction. Cooper remembered reading somewhere, even before the Plague, that distraction was a favored tactic of criminals and con men. “And, make sure your safety is off,” he added as he flicked his own to ‘off’.

  “Right, got it,” and he heard Freddie’s click, as well.

  As the homeless man drew closer, Cooper squinted to get a better look. The man was in his sixties with a mane of gray hair flowing in all directions. A few moments later, he was surprised to see it was the same man that he, Jake, and Dranko had encountered on Hawthorne Boulevard several days ago. At that time, the man had been giving away bottled water and dispensing his own brand of wisdom to those he’d encountered.

  “Well, I’ll be,” Cooper muttered to himself. Then, he called back to Freddie, who was now ten yards away, “I think I know this guy!
But, keep a lookout still.”

  “All right,” Freddie called back.

  Cooper’s walk became brisk until he’d closed to within twenty yards of the old man, “Howya doin’?”

  The old man jerked his head up, as if he hadn’t seen Cooper until just then, “Howdy to you, stranger,” he said, stopping about fifteen yards from Cooper.

  Cooper offered a broad smile, “We aren’t exactly strangers. I believe we met a few days ago on Hawthorne, when you were passing out bottled water.”

  The man looked intently at Cooper, studying. Suddenly, his head jerked backward, “Oh, yes! I remember you. You had a boy with you, right?”

  “Yes, I did. How are you? What are you giving out these days?”

  The man’s face grew long, “I’m afraid I’m back to what I’m more familiar with, asking for help, rather than lending it.”

  Cooper’s eyebrows kneaded together, “What do you need?”

  The man loosed a loud guffaw, “I need what no one is giving these days! A gun. That’s what I need. Right after I saw you, I was robbed of my last few cases of water and the other meager things I had. I even lost my last picture of my darling deceased wife.” He choked on the last words and wiped a dirty sleeve across his face to catch the tear that fell from his eye, smearing grime on his left cheek.

  Cooper thought for a moment and then decided, “You taught us all a good lesson about charity. And, at the worst of times. I think I can help you out.”

  The old man’s face alighted, “Really?”

  “Yeah,” he said and then directed his attention back to Freddie. “Grab that .45 we have in the supply box and a box of ammo for it, will ya?” He waited, watching the old man, as Freddie retrieved the items and brought it to him.

  Cooper took the pistol, made sure it was unloaded, replaced the magazine into it and approached the old man.

  “Here’s a .45 pistol and some ammunition for it. Just don’t try to load it until you’re ought of sight. I’m sure you know this rifle has better range than this pistol, right?” Cooper said, only half-joking.