by JJ Zep
Jojo meanwhile, was working the radio. “Listening Post Zero, come in. Galvin, are you receiving me?” The radio returned nothing but static.
“Listening post Zero?” Kingston said. “Isn’t that the call sign the Loot was using?”
“Yeah, it is,” Jojo said. “One of his men, Galvin, responded to one of my transmissions. He’s out here somewhere is this mess.”
Kingston blew through his teeth. “If he’s out here in this he’s likely Z burger by now.”
“Look out!” Jojo shouted as a figure loomed out of the dark.
Kingston leaned hard on the wheel, turning the Humvee side-on in the road, standing on the brakes, bringing it to a shuddering halt. Sparks of red light suddenly seemed to ignite in the blackness, as though a swarm of diseased fireflies was descending on the vehicle. The Z’s staggered forward, into the arc of the Humvee’s headlights, into the deadly field of fire Mons was laying down with the fifty. Jojo scrambled out of his seat and clamored over the diesel cans and ammo boxes in the back of the vehicle. The figure that Kingston had swerved to avoid had tried to wave them down as they passed. It was Galvin. It had to be.
The vehicle lurched backwards as Kingston reversed then straightened. Jojo was thrown off balance, flung into the door “Go! Go!” Mons screamed as a figure pushed headfirst through the firing hatch and dropped into the cab. Then Kingston floored it, and the Humvee raced forward again.
The man grabbed the side of the bench and pulled himself upright. He was a big guy with a thatch of reddish hair, his face blackened, eyes rendered large.
“Galvin?” Jojo said.
“Yes sir,” Galvin said, his voice wavering.
“The rest of your crew?”
Galvin shook his head slowly. “There was only me and Lieutenant Pasquali left by the time we saw your headlights approaching. We made a run for it. Pasquali got taken by a Quick just short of the road.”
Galvin sounded close to tears so Jojo didn’t push him any further. He climbed back into the front seat and buckled up. To his right the landscape rose steeply into the hills. The dark was alive with the specks of red light Jojo had seen earlier. It was as though a million sparks had sprung up on the hillside and it was about to burst into flame. An apt description, Jojo decided. He just hoped that Buckland’s convoy was already well underway.
The road east was now clear of Z’s and Kingston put his foot down and they began making good time. Soon the onramp to the I-15 loomed out of the dark and Kingston took it. He made a right turn at the top.
“You don’t want to go that way,” Galvin said. “Thick with Z’s, not to mention our guys shooting up anything coming up the road.”
Kingston swung the wheel and started across the blacktop. “Don’t you worry about that, feller. Dog Company’s been working the beat from the 15 to the Salton Sea for the past 18 months. I figure we know every back road, dirt road and deer trail from here to old Mexico.” He raced the Humvee across the highway, rounded a burnt out wreck and sped down the off ramp, turning right as he hit bottom. A mile further on, he swung onto a dirt track.
“Where we headed?” Galvin asked.
“El Centro,” Jojo said. “We’re going back to pick up Charlie. Be useful if you could tell us what went down there.”
“I didn’t see it go down myself,” Galvin said. “Lieutenant Collins ordered us to head for Pendleton while he and Corporal Reed went to evacuate Morales and his people.”
“Corporal Reed?” Kingston cut in. “You mean Wackjob?”
“Yeah, that’s him,” Galvin said. “Crazy son of a bitch.”
“Crazy don’t even begin to cover it,” Kingston chuckled. “Man, Wackjob and the Loot together. That’s excellent news.”
“How so?” Jojo said.
“The two of them together, you’ve got to feel sorry for any Z’s that cross their path.”
nineteen
Charlie crouched among the foliage at the edge of the fairway and looked back towards the village. The human chain was still passing buckets, the flames now all but extinguished. On the opposite side of the square, Charlie could make out the posts where he and Wackjob had been tied up. The Rooster boy prowled that area, looking like a primitive warrior with his bamboo spear. Every now and then he stopped to glare out towards the fairway. But he remained within the circle of light, either out of fear or under instruction from the father he’d called out to.
No search had yet been launched. Neither, Charlie realized, was there likely to be one. Goliath was no fool. He wasn’t about to send his men blundering around in the dark where they might be ambushed and stripped of their weapons by a couple of trained soldiers. He knew that their only chance of escape was to make a play for one of the vehicles. That was where he’d have his men, lying in ambush.
“We should get out of here,” Skye said, placing a hand on his shoulder. “While it’s still dark, while they’re still fighting the fire.”
Charlie put his hand over hers without turning round. “We can’t,” he said.
“Why not?” Skye asked. No hysteria, no judgment, just a genuine question. He loved her for that. Now he turned to face her. Her eyes were large and as green as he’d imagined. There was no fear in them.
“We’ll never make it out of here on foot.”
“How then?”
“We’ll have to try for one of their trucks.”
Skye contemplated the idea for less than a second. “Okay, let’s do that.”
Charlie couldn’t hold back the chuckle that came. He had to admire her determination. A look of annoyance crossed her face.
“They’re likely to be guarding the vehicles. They’ve got guns. We’ve got that.” He nodded towards the large carving knife that she clutched in her hand.
“So we just give ourselves up?”
“I didn’t say that. But we’ll need to improve our situation. Need to come up with something that negates their firepower.”
“Like what?”
Charlie had been contemplating that very question, ever since they’d made their escape. One picture kept pushing itself to the front of his mind, the Rooster boy calling out a warning. They’re getting away, Dad! That’s what he’d said. Charlie had seen who had responded to that call. It gave him the inkling of a plan. A risky plan sure, but the only thing they had going for them, and then only if he executed it immediately, while the window of opportunity still remained.
“Stay here,” he said, getting to his feet. “Riley wakes up, you tell him to stay put too.” He stepped from cover before Skye could protest.
The overgrown expanse of fairway provided concealment. Charlie ran hunched over, treading lightly, the waist-high grass brushing against his clothes, making a racket anyway. He wasn’t too concerned about that. The fire and the activity from the village would mask his passage. His greater concern was that the Rooster boy would look out into the dark and spot him.
He’d just had that thought, when the boy appeared between the huts, shaded his eyes and did a scan of the perimeter. Charlie dropped immediately into a crouch. He peered through the grass at the boy standing just fifteen feet away, his chest puffed out, the spear held upright by his side. Charlie attention was drawn to the hunting knife that dangled from the boy’s belt.
twenty
Charlie waited until the boy disappeared from sight behind the shacks. Then he walked quickly to the cover of the nearest hut, pressed himself up against it and edged along the wall until he reached a corner. He waited and listened, acquainting himself with the sounds of the camp – the hiss and crackle of fire, various footfalls, the clank of metal jangling against metal, snippets of conversation, less panicked now that the immediate danger had passed.
He sneaked a peak around the corner, picking up the posts where he’d been tied up. Blood was congealed in the dirt, most probably from the injuries Grunewald had received. But Charlie saw neither Grunewald nor Harrow - at least not at first. Then he elevated his view and instantly wished he hadn’t. A
metal frame of the sort used for lifting engine blocks stood to one side of the yard. Harrow and Grunewald’s headless corpses hung suspended by their feet, bleeding out into a couple of buckets. One of the old-timers was at work on Grunewald, slicing along his gut with a butcher knife.
Charlie drew back immediately, took in air through gritted teeth. He’d not had much regard for either man. It was still not any way for a man to die. And it could quite easily have been him and Wackjob and Skye up there, but for Goliath’s timely arrival.
A thought occurred to him. What the hell had Harrow been doing out here anyway, and without his personal guard? Charlie couldn’t even guess at an answer. Not that it mattered one way or the other. What mattered now was getting out of here.
A foot scuffed against dirt and alerted his attention. He shrunk back into the shadows and waited. Presently, the Rooster boy appeared, walking out beyond the hut where Charlie crouched. He did his usual scan of the fairway, then placed his spear on the ground, dropped his pants and began relieving himself.
Charlie waited, tensed, ready to pounce. The Rooster boy finished taking his leak, crouched and pulled up his jeans, buckled his belt. Then he bent to pick up his spear and Charlie sprang into action. He crossed the gap that separated them in an instant, got an arm around the boy’s throat cutting off the cry of alarm that the kid was trying to form. Charlie swooped with his free hand and wrenched the dagger from the boy’s scabbard. He pressed the slightly upturned point to the kid’s jugular, hard enough to show that he meant business. Then he marched the kid back into the square formed by the huts.
Other than the elderly butcher, who was now hauling out Grunewald’s guts into the bucket, all of the Eaters were at the other end of the square. Some were engaged in dousing the dying remnants of the blaze, other clearing away the debris from the blast. Charlie spotted the diminutive, redheaded form of Goliath, directing operations like a leprechaun foreman. His back was to Charlie.
Charlie loosened his grip slightly on the boy’s throat, at the same time pushing harder with the knifepoint. “Call for your daddy,” he whispered in the boy’s ear and the kid responded immediately, all of his earlier bravado evaporated. “Dad!” he bawled. “Help!”
The Eaters swung immediately towards the sound of the voice. Goliath’s reaction was almost comical. His mouth gaped open. Then he blinked in an exaggerated double take. The old man to Charlie’s left backed away from Grunewald’s corpse with a bloody butcher knife in his hand.
“Don’t even think about it, old-timer,” Charlie said. “Get across there and join the others.” The old man complied right away.
Charlie saw that he’d been right about Goliath sending his men to guard the vehicles. None of his armed crew was in the square, and none of the Eaters in the square were packing. Still, some of them edged forward, one or two stopping to pick up stones and planks of wood.
“Back them off,” Charlie said. “Back them off or I paint this kid’s shoes with his blood.”
“Back off!” Goliath barked immediately. “You heard the man!”
Charlie waited until the Eaters dropped their weapons and retreated, then he turned his attention back to Goliath.
“You’ve got men out back protecting the vehicles,” he said, then when Goliath didn’t respond. “You’ve got men out there –”
“Of course, I have,” Goliath said. “What do you think I am, stupid?”
“No, not stupid,” Charlie said. “Clever enough to know that I’m the one holding the aces, so listen up. Here’s what’s going to happen. You’re going to give me one of those vehicles, whichever one has the most gas in it. Me and my friends are going to drive out of here.”
“Why would I let you do that?” Goliath sneered.
“Because I got Rooster boy here, that’s why, and unless you do what I say you can add him as a side dish to Colonel Grunewald over there.”
“His name is David,” Goliath said, his voice rising. “And he’s a stupid goddamn asshole for letting himself get caught. What makes you think I care about the little brat? Cut his throat, see if I care.”
“Don’t you?” Charlie pressed down on the blade, hard enough to draw blood, hard enough to make the kid squeal.
“Okay, okay!” Goliath said. “Didn’t think you had it in you to hurt a kid, but I can see you’re a man of low morals. Let the boy go and you and your friend can leave. Not the woman, though, she stays with me.”
“No chance,” Charlie said immediately.
“No chance? Whatever happened to give and take? It’s not like I’m planning on eating her or anything. I was figuring on using her for breeding stock.”
“I said, no chance,” Charlie said, a little more harshly than intended.
“Okay, okay!” Goliath said, holding up his hands, “You’re sweet on the dame. I get it. How about –?”
“When did I give the impression that this was a negotiation?” Charlie said. “There are two components to this. We drive away from here and your boy lives. Alternatively, I cut the kid’s throat and we see what happens next.”
“Mister,” Goliath said, “You’re one curmudgeony son of a bitch. No offence to your mother.”
twenty one
Joe Thursday had been off the sauce for five days and he missed it about as much as a landed fish misses water. There were mornings when he woke with a blinding headache, days when he had to keep his hands pocketed to stop them from shaking. He felt nauseous and cranky most of the time and for the rest he felt downright homicidal. At times, it was all he could do to stop himself from raiding one of his hidden stashes. Except those stashes were gone. Joe had poured every last bottle of Maker’s Mark into Big Bear Lake. He had responsibilities now. He had Hooley.
“What you want to do today?” Joe said. He was sitting in one of the matching rockers on Hooley’s front porch. Hooley sat in the other, a blanket drawn over his knees despite the warmth of the day, staring out towards the tree line. He made no response to Joe’s question.
“How about we take that old rust bucket of yours up to the lake and throw a couple of lines in the water?”
Hooley said nothing. Joe let it stand for less than a minute.
“Want to play poker? Far as I recall we left a few games unfinished in New York. Whumped your cracker ass a good few times back then as I recall.”
This was, of course, untrue. Hooley had been by far the better player and had beaten Joe time and again, something that he’d seldom let Joe forget. But if Joe was hoping to get a rise out of his old friend, he got nothing. Not even a grunt.
“Hey, you remember that chick that moved into Cal and Yonder’s place, real hot tamale. What was her name again?”
He let out a chuckle that was more for effect than anything else.
“Remember that time she interrupted us right in the middle of our game, swinging that little tush of hers in that little leather outfit. Man that girl was all over me like white on rice, I could have –”
“Only reason she was all over you was ‘cause she was plannin’ on blowing up the barricades, and figured you might have information she needed,” Hooley said in monotone.
“Oh, so you do speak,” Joe said. “For a moment there I thought all that cracker moonshine had rotted your tongue.”
Hooley let out a long sigh.
“What was that chick’s name again? Jesamine? Jasmine?”
“It was Justine.” Hooley said.
“That’s it, Justine. Man, that was one –”
“I miss her, Joe.”
“Who Justine?” The words were barely out of Joe’s mouth when he wished he hadn’t made the wisecrack. “Sorry amigo. That was in bad taste.”
“Bad taste and you’s been bedfellows for a while,” Hooley said and Joe didn’t bother contradicting him.
They sat in silence, Hooley punctuating the quiet with occasional sighs. Somewhere a woodpecker was hammering away at a branch and Joe watched a family of squirrels chasing one another up and down a tall pine. T
he sky beyond the trees was an eye-watering shade of blue. But for the somber mood, Joe could have felt contented. For the first time since he’d stopped drinking he actually believed that he might be on his way to kicking the habit.
“What’s it all about, Joe?” Hooley said eventually.
“What is what all about?”
“All of this? Life?”
“Hell,” Joe said, straightening himself up in his chair. “You’re asking the wrong feller there, Hooley. Chris, now he’s more your deep thinking type. Ol’ Joe Thursday doesn’t see much further than booze and women. Well, not so much booze any more.” He paused a moment. “Or women for that matter.”
That elicited a dry chuckle from Hooley. Joe took it as progress.
“Far as I can figure,” Joe said after a while. “We’re born, we do stuff in between, then… we die. Wham bam thank you ma’am and we’re worm food.”
“So you don’t believe in heaven,” Hooley said.
Joe thought about that for less than a second. “Not in the sense that a preacher would have you believe,” he said. “The way I figure is, we all have a life force. Now, this ain’t bullshit either. Scientists will tell you the same thing. We are all made up of energy, amigo. And not just us, but animals, trees, even that chair you’re sitting in. When we die that energy gets released and becomes a part of everything again. That’s what I figure.”
Hooley took a moment before replying. “So what you’re sayin’ is that my Janet’s life force is in this chair I’m sitting on, in them trees over there, in them squirrels running in the trees?”
“Something like that,” Joe said.
“Bullshit,” Hooley said. “That what you just said is bullshit from a prize steer. Janet’s in heaven, Joe. She’s in heaven and she’s waitin’ for me to join her. Which I will, God willing, not too far down the track.”
“Just repeating what I read, Hooley. Scientists –”
“Don’t know shit from shinola,” Hooley finished for him, in a voice that suggested that the subject was closed.