Midnight Skills

by William Allen

  “Uh, not really?” the teenager replied. “I’ve heard of General McMillan over at Fort Polk, but don’t know him from Adam. I guess if I needed to, I could get word to Captain Marino, though.”

  “Marino? Guard or Regular Army?” David asked, like he was worried what the answer might be.

  Mike interrupted, trying to hide a laugh he couldn’t suppress.

  “Neither, really,” Mike chortled. “7th Special Forces out of Eglin, on a training mission to Polk when the lights went out. General McMillan sent an SF detachment over here to settle McCorkle’s hash.” Then his voice darkened, “They didn’t get here in time to stop the DHS attack, but they put paid to that fucker McCorkle.”

  “Man, I wish we could get some of those guys back,” Sam Messner mused. “They are perfect for training up irregular forces like we have. Freedom fighters, you know? Not like those lousy Taliban.”

  “I wonder if those cave-dwelling assholes have even noticed the change yet?” Mike mused.

  “What? This is Allah’s will,” Sam Messner intoned, his voice dripping with sarcasm. “That is, until they can’t get their Pakistani soap operas, and then all hell will break loose.”

  Mike laughed, and the two old Marines shared a fist bump that made Luke want to cringe.

  “Alright,” David interjected, but he couldn’t hide a little grin. “Let’s get back on the plan.” He was happy to see Sam lighten up a little, after the death of his brother. David hadn’t known Billy Messner, except by reputation, but everyone agreed the man had died a hero. The kind that got medals draped over his casket in time of war. Might want to look into that when this is over, he thought.

  “Ah, Mr. Metcalf, sir?” Amy asked, and when Luke glanced over, he had to hide his own grin. Like the schoolgirl she was, Amy had her hand raised.

  “Yes, Miss Landon?” David asked, and he felt like he was back in the classroom again.

  “If we are going to be running tanker trucks back and forth to the oil collection tanks, do you think it might be a good idea to stock up on spare parts for the semis?” She paused, then continued shyly, “My daddy used to drive one, a big rig, and he was always griping about needing repairs at the worst possible times. I don’t know any of the repair shops here locally, but I’m sure we can find some places on the way if we check the phone book.”

  “Out of the mouths of babes,” David said, then looked over cautiously at Luke. The kid had a monstrous rep, after all, and despite their conversations, he knew the young man to be a remorseless killer in the heat of the moment. He might have taken the reference the wrong way. But when he met Luke’s gaze, all he saw was pride in the girl he’d chosen to spend his life with.

  “Amy, that is an incredible idea, and I see why the logistics people at Fort Chaffee didn’t want to let you go. If we can find some old phone books, would you mind taking charge of that part of our mission? Just prepare a list of locations based on the proposed route we are going to run up, and maybe some alternatives, in case we need to go a different way?”

  “Yes, sir,” Amy replied proudly. “That’s the kind of contingency planning Luke and I did anyway when we were traveling.”

  “Fair enough,” he replied, and all six of the planners moved close to scrutinize the detailed maps Sam Messner had produced from his massive stockpile of maps, atlases, and geologic surveys.

  “I make it an hour and a half, one way,” Sam finally announced, looking at the route they’d pondered, taking Hwy 87 up to Hwy 84, and then cutting over to Hwy 259.

  “Means going through Henderson,” Mike pointed out. “Think that will be a problem?”

  “Could be, but I’m more worried about taking some of these back roads,” David said. “We saw more roadblocks and activity trying to go those routes. We got any intel on the city?”

  Sam looked thoughtful before answering.

  “Just what Major Warren said at the last security briefing. He said they saw little sign of occupation in the city itself, though there were widespread examples of looting,” Sam said, then added in a softer voice, “Imagine that.”

  “Alright, we will try that route, and if we have problems, like Miss Amy said, we will have contingencies,” David said in agreement. “I want the team going out on this mission to get together this evening after dinner, and we can agree on the distribution of personnel in the vehicles. I take it, we are getting one of the M-249s?”

  “Two of them,” Sam replied. “We are still relinking up some new belts, but I have six of the two hundred round belts allocated for the trip, as well as some of those forty-two round magazines that will fit. Makes them lighter and more maneuverable, but you know the tradeoff there. The high rate of fire leads to some feeding issues, but better than throwing rocks.”

  “Yeah, that will work. Angel, you game?”

  “You know it,” the slender Hispanic man responded. He’d been quiet and still throughout the meeting, but Luke saw he was following the details closely. He’d only started to get to know the young man in the last few weeks, but Luke liked what he saw. Angel wasn’t one of David’s kids, but then, his adopted children were all really young. No, Angel synched with David in a way that indicated a high level of trust between them.

  Thinking about David’s kids reminded Luke, he needed to do more for the younger residents of their extended community. Kofi, Dale, Alex, and Regina had been accepted into the group, but they still needed more one-on-one time. Teambuilding, he thought, using the hackneyed old football phrase. These youngsters would in time, be the leaders of their community. He also knew Kofi’s little sister, Regina, was the darling of the young tween crowd, as she was only ten years old but held herself with the poise of a warrior princess. And that Alexandra. She might be Amy’s age, but she gave off a seriously dangerous vibe that made Luke think ‘wounded predator’.

  Back on topic, Luke reminded himself as he studied the map, then asked his own question.

  “Any particular reason we are going so far just to check for wells and tanks? I mean, there’s a lot of them over by Carthage, and that’s a lot closer.”

  Mike took over then, explaining his reasoning.

  “There are, and I’ve worked on some of them, not long before the lights went out. The problem I see there, are most of the pumpjacks were tied into the grid there or powered by diesel generators. I want to check those later, to see if we can salvage any of the generators for repair. Kilgore, though, had several pumps run off the natural gas byproduct, and I think that will be our best bet. Plus, the expert David has in mind, Hank, knows that area better and has worked in the fields there. He’ll know which tanks to check first. I imagine we’ll eventually get our tankers over to draining any existing tanks in Carthage, at some point.”

  “Alright, then,” David said. “We leave tomorrow morning at first light. Any more questions?”

  “So, I’m going?” Amy asked.

  “I think so,” David replied, then looked around the room. “Is there any particular reason you shouldn’t?”

  “Well, Luke gets very anxious now when I go out, but I think I should go,” Amy said with confidence. “I do know a little about those maintenance issues for the big rigs. Plus, if I’m there, maybe Luke will try to be a little more careful.”

  The little good-natured barb at the end earned a chuckle around the room, and Luke managed a sheepish smile as he opened his mouth.

  “Just one time,” Luke chimed in, shaking his head in mock consternation. “If all goes according to plan, where are we going to install the mini-refinery? In town, or out here on our property?”

  “Here,” Sam Messner said, decisively. “We aren’t in this to open up the Exxon station in town. This is intended to provide the ranch and our neighbors with fuel to run our ag operations. We are taking the risk, we are expending the resources, and by God, we will see the benefits first. I want that plant set up where we can defend it, and if that makes me a selfish bastard, then so be it.”

  Nobody said anything after tha
t, but when he went to give Amy a hug and escort her from the room, Luke was thinking the idea wasn’t selfish at all. If they could ensure crops were planted in the spring and harvested with the help of the tractors, then it would benefit the entire community. The council was thinking about survival past the winter, but all that hinged on living through the coming maelstrom. If people were starving and desperate now, what would happen when the first snow hit the ground?

  A lot more people were going to die before spring, Luke thought sourly. He just needed to make sure his friends and family weren’t in that number.

  CHAPTER 6

  “Where you from, Hank?” Luke asked as they rolled down the still highway, with Hank carefully but skillfully steering the heavy Suburban in a slalom through the stilled cars, like icebergs in the middle of the road. They were well past Ripley now, and out into territory where the road clearance crews still had not ventured. Judging from the dust in the road, this stretch of Highway 87 looked like nothing on wheels had traveled this way in weeks, if not longer.

  “Originally, I was from a little town in Mississippi. Batesville, not that far from Oxford. I came over to Texas in the nineties, though. Chasing money in the oilfields. Set roots in Tyler, and eventually got a job at the refinery. When the lights went out, we headed down to Center to be with my wife’s family on their little place outside town.”

  Hank Birnbaum looked to be in his mid-forties, medium height, but wide across the shoulders. Like most folks, he was slender, almost gaunt, and his face showed a still-healing scar across his left cheek that looked like a knife wound.

  Of course, Luke already knew some of that. When Mike mentioned the idea of the recon mission, he’d had two men in mind for the trip. He’d filled in Luke and his father a little about both men, and where their areas of expertise would come into play. What Mike was promising Hank or the other man, Lee Farrell, for their services, Luke didn’t know, but he suspected at least part of it was food. Food was the new greenback, the most relevant form of currency in this starving world.

  Well, for Lee Farrell, he would take something for his trouble, but Luke knew the Farrell’s were partners with the Messners on this whole venture. After the attack on the ranch that’d claimed Billy, the Farrell’s were the first ones after the Greenville crew to show up, and this solidarity resulted in a merger of sorts between those three groups in particular.

  After a pause, Hank gave Luke a sideways glance and asked, almost diffidently, “You really took this rig from the DHS pigs?”

  “This one? No,” Luke replied, then when he saw Hank sit back in his seat a bit, he continued. “This one, we salvaged from the Homeland strike team that tried to murder my family. The one I seized myself, well, that’s my baby. Didn’t bring it with us today.”

  “Lord, I heard about what happened,” Hank continued, his voice low, so as not to be overheard by their backseat companions. “Real sorry about what happened to your uncle and the rest of your folks. We got hit out at our place two weeks ago, and I’ll admit, that was scary as hell. Was only three of them, but they started off by sniping at the house. That’s where I got this,” he gestured to his cheek, “from a piece of glass. I can’t imagine how hard it must have been, fighting off forty or fifty of those bastards.”

  Luke wrinkled his brow at the news. “Seventy-two,” he corrected softly. “Everybody else out at your place okay?”

  Hank nodded. “They were trying to keep us pinned down with two shooters while the third hit the chicken house. My brother-in-law got one of the snipers and I got the one making for the coop. Shotgun. After that, the third one run off.”

  “Glad to hear it,” Luke commented. “I hate what we’ve had to do, killing off these people whose only crime was to be unprepared, or who had the misfortune of having their supplies stolen, but what else can we do?”

  “I know,” Hank said. “My wife has us on a strict diet as it is, trying to make every calorie stretch. At least nobody is bitching at me about my high cholesterol.” He looked away, before muttering, almost to himself, “Before the lights went out, I had a bit of a weight problem. Came from sitting on my ass in a control room all day.”

  “Well, no more problems like that. I was in pretty good shape before, but once we got home, Miss Beth put me on a feeding program to help get my weight back up.”

  “Bad?” Hank asked, almost afraid of the answer. He’d heard tales of this kid, the one some called the Traveler, but he’d never spent any time around him before this morning, when they’d met to start this trip. Luke still looked skinny, but his frame under the layered sweatshirt and body armor looked sturdy enough.

  “Well, I was trapping squirrels and rabbits, but they didn’t have enough fat, so I was slowly starving, and so was Amy. I showed up at the ranch still pretty malnourished, even after spending some time eating regularly when we were in Arkansas. I lost some ground after I got shot, though.”

  “Jeez,” Hank said, pausing his comment until they’d steered around a wrecked delivery van. “Where’d you get shot?”

  “In a little town outside McAlester, Oklahoma,” Luke replied absently, missing the point, his attention suddenly attracted to a clump of trouble, just coming into view in front when the SUV topped a small hill.

  Ahead, maybe two hundred yards away, Luke could make out a large, rubber-tired gardening wagon overturned in the middle of the road, the load dumped into the middle of the right lane with two small figures huddled behind it. Luke quickly tallied a group of six men approaching in a broad fan from the left side of the road. Luke couldn’t hear the shots, the SUV was too well insulated and armored for that, but he could see the projection of flame erupt from several of the rifles and shotguns carried by the group of men. Bandits, he immediately classed them.

  “Hank, call this in to David. Possible ambush,” Luke barked as he rose up in the passenger seat and slid open the sunroof. He was hauling up the M-249 as he stood, and by the time his chest was pressed against the front of the roof hatch, he had the light machine gun shouldered. Without looking back, Luke called out, “Amy, get your grenade launcher ready, but don’t load the round yet. Alisha, drag out that trauma kit from under the seat. We may need it.”

  By this time, the half dozen men were reorienting on the rapidly approaching SUV, but Luke was already squeezing the trigger, walking the rounds from his first burst right through the middle of the group. He thought he’d hit three of them, two fatally, before the others spun off to flee in different directions. The scattered flight meant he couldn’t get them all, but he was satisfied when two more short bursts clawed down a pair of the attackers. Leaving the lone bandit to escape, never looking back as he dropped his rifle and bolted like a scared rabbit.

  Hank brought the truck to screeching halt, spraying up a rooster tail of dust as he slotted the heavy truck between the shot-up bandits and the cowering pair still sheltered behind their wagon. He made out what he thought were small caliber barrels poking out from behind the pile of items, but they remained pointed in the opposite direction. For now.

  Luke could hear some radio traffic in the cab of the SUV, but his abrupt climb into the makeshift cupola had dislodged his earpiece, and he played the barrel of the SAW back and forth in an arc when he heard the squeak of back door of the SUV crack open.

  “Stay in the car!” Luke roared, then he continued at a lower volume. “Wait for David to close up first. They may have more shooters.”

  For the next thirty seconds, Luke strained his eyes while he scanned the wooded sides of the road and he sought signs of movement. He heard the sound of the approaching big diesel but dismissed the interruption while he switched from one side of the road to the other. Every time his eyes swept back across the road, he spared a glance for two huddled shapes behind the wagon, and the men he’d gunned down. None were moving now, judging from the rapidly expanding pool of blood surrounding the jumble of bodies. These five wouldn’t be much of a problem to Luke, this side of the Resurrection.


  The pin oaks and larger bushes had already shed their leaves, leaving gaps in the cover provided by the still-green pines. Luke thought he caught sight of movement next to an old sycamore tree, but realized it was the wind stirring a sun-faded aluminum can caught up in the underbrush.

  Taking a second, he fished the earbud out of where it had fallen into his shirt and plugged it back into place, to catch the tail end of the last message. Only then, did he think to pull up the sound-deadening earmuffs his father had insisted he use. Fat lot of good they did him hanging around his neck. They were the good ones too, designed to cancel out the high decibels of the gunshots without disrupting his normal hearing.

  “…hold tight with what you got,” David’s country accented voice drawled, like he was discussing a golf game. “I’ll drop Angel at the next stand of trees to watch our rear, then we’ll move up.”

  “Roger that,” Luke replied, and he heard his voice repeated below on the radio. “Maintaining overwatch. Count five bandits down, one in the wind, over,” Luke continued, using one of his favorite ‘cop show’ phrases.

  “Pulling up at an angle behind you, Car One,” David replied. “And out.”

  “Out,” Luke replied when he heard the big truck downshift and then chuff to a halt.

  When David came up on foot, he whistled first to alert Luke. He approached from the passenger side, nearing where the two small shapes kept their position. Luke noted the movement, but didn’t want to split his attention.

  “You guys okay? We are just passing through,” David said, using what Luke thought of as his schoolteacher voice. “We don’t want nothing from you, but if you’ve got injuries, we have a medic who can take a look.”

  “We’re fine, mister,” came the female voice. “Much obliged to you for your help, but we don’t need anything else.”