After The Fires Went Out: Coyote atfwo-1

by Regan Wolfrom

  “I don’t want to waste my time on this.”

  “You won’t be wasting your time,” I said. “You see, I won’t just be taking Kayla with me. I’ll also have Fiona. So if I renege, you get to take both of them. Three girls instead of two.”

  It felt weird to talk about them like they were commodities; but that’s all they are to guys like Justin Porter.

  Justin nodded. “I think we’ve got a deal,” he said. “Don’t fuck this up, Baptiste.”

  “I wouldn’t dare.” I tapped Matt on the shoulder. “Time to go, buddy.”

  “This isn’t the plan,” Eagle said.

  “Just shut up,” Justin told him. “We’ll buy you someone better.”

  “I want Kayla.”

  “Shut up, goddamnit. Or I’ll shoot your goddamn nuts off.”

  That shut him up.

  Matt and I climbed down from the truck.

  I looked over at Gwyneth.

  She gave me a nod.

  It looked like she knew.

  I figured that Justin knew, too.

  That I wasn’t about to let him walk away with anything.

  We took one of the cargo trucks back to McCartney Lake; I had Matt drive as I sat in the back, to make sure we weren’t being followed.

  The gate on Nelson Road was wide open, as though someone from McCartney Lake had opened it up after I’d left for New Post. Part of Matt’s deal, I assumed.

  Matt pulled in front of our cottage.

  I waited until he got out of the truck before I climbed out of the back.

  “Tell me you’ve got a plan,” Matt said.

  “Other than letting Justin kill you?”

  “Come on, Baptiste…”

  “I’ve got a plan…well…I’m working on it.”

  “That’s something, I guess.”

  “Give me the truck keys.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I don’t trust you. Now wait here.”

  I went down to the basement. I pulled up the plywood subfloor with no real thought to the mess I was making.

  I grabbed a bag of MDMA and a bag of meth.

  I loaded them into the front of the truck.

  “Get in,” I said as I climbed into the driver’s seat.

  “Still not getting this plan…”

  I drove the truck up the road, to the Williams cottage.

  “Fiona isn’t there,” Matt said. “I looked.”

  I climbed out of the truck. “I know. Maybe if you hadn’t booted me off the network, I’d be able to find her.”

  Matt got out, too.

  We walked over to the shed.

  “She didn’t take her tablet,” Matt said. “She didn’t want to be found…guess she didn’t want to waste time figuring out how to disable the locator.”

  Fiona would have known I’d come looking…

  “Get back in the truck,” I said.

  “What?”

  I got back in.

  Matt hopped in just as we started moving.

  I took the keys with me again, having Matt wait at the truck. I ran down the path that followed the lake, around the bend, to the maple tree.

  I stepped off the path. And that’s where I found her.

  Well, the dogs found me first. Des and Juju ran up and started jumping.

  Fiona was sitting in the snow, keeping her head low with the thicket.

  “You’re okay,” I said. “I’m glad you took the dogs this time.”

  “I’m okay.”

  She stood up.

  I gave her a hug and a kiss on the cheek.

  “Have you found Kayla and Gwyneth?” she asked.

  “I know where they are. We’re going to get them back.”

  We jogged back to the cottage.

  “What’s he doing here?” Fiona asked, pointer her finger at Matt. “He’s working with them.”

  “He’s an idiot,” I said. “Not a traitor.”

  “He let them in. He opened the gates. He pointed the shotgun at Kayla.”

  “Yeah…he tends to do that. He pointed an unloaded rifle at me. We need his help to pull this off.”

  “What is it we’re going to do?” Matt asked.

  “Simple,” I said. “We’re going to burn the forest down.”

  Fiona drove the truck, which I think was the first time she’d ever driven anything other than an ATV; luckily the truck wasn’t old enough to have a manual transmission.

  Des and Juju were on the bench beside her, happy to be going for a ride.

  Matt and I were in the back.

  He had my C12 hanging from his shoulder, and a pack containing four of Ant and Kayla’s pipe grenades.

  I had a shoulder-mounted foam launcher strapped to my back, along with four grenades of my own. And a few other odds and ends: a spool of fishing line and a steak knife, a box of matches, scotch tape, a ball of yarn, Des’ food dish, and a big bottle of lighter fluid.

  It was one of those ideas that had sounded a little stupid even when I’d first thought of it. I’d made a MacGyver joke about it, and Fiona had thought I’d meant to say “MacGruber”; the whole exchange had been a little depressing.

  The first piece of the plan didn’t have to work; it was the second step that counted. Ant had brought back a half dozen fire suppressors from the test site on Wade Lake, so he’d felt free to make a few creative alterations to one of them.

  I hoped it would do the job.

  Fiona took us to Murphy Road, stopping just north of the junction with Highway 652.

  Matt and I hopped out. I had all my gear, while he was wearing nothing more than mechanic’s coveralls.

  But in my defense, my job was harder.

  “Remember,” I told him, “what you care about is making sure the girls are clear. Don’t start until they’re in the cab with Fiona.”

  “I know,” he said.

  “And if you try and fuck me over…”

  “I know.”

  I walked over to the driver’s side door.

  Fiona opened it.

  I handed her my SIG. “They’ve got armour,” I said. “So hide this until they let their guard down. If things go bad…if I’m gone and Matt’s down, they’ll probably take off their helmets and relax. That’s when you start shooting.”

  “I’ve never done it,” she said.

  “I know. Your goal isn’t to kill them; it’s to slow them down enough that you can back this truck out of here. If they’re on your tail, you take this truck to New Post and you cross the bridge. Keep driving ‘til you get to the Walkers.”

  “What if we haven’t found Kayla and Gwyneth by then?”

  “You leave them, Fiona. I need you to be safe. That’s what matters the most.” I stepped up and gave her a kiss on the cheek. “I love you, Fiona. You know that.”

  She nodded.

  I hopped down and closed the door.

  “Now remember guys,” I said, “as long as I can hold them back, you head to Helena with the girls and wait for me. And if I’m not there by tomorrow morning, you take the old rail bed to Aiguebelle.”

  I made my way into the forest of blackened trees and young gray birch. I wouldn’t have much cover.

  But I had my armour, and a couple of pipe grenades, and the box of fire on my back. There wasn’t much stealth required for this plan.

  There were nine men total.

  And two prisoners.

  I had to put something between them.

  With my binoculars I was able to count off five. Justin and three others were out of my view. Maybe one or two were taking a dump in the woods, or maybe they were all packing up the remaining lab equipment in the underground school bus.

  I didn’t know where they were.

  I snuck around to the north side of the trucks…northwest, really. As far from Kayla and Gwyneth as an attacker could get.

  I took out the fishing line and tied a loop around one of the charred pine trees that stood lifeless in the burned forest. I pulled the line back slowly, moving t
he trunk along with the warm south wind.

  Justin should have told his men to keep an eye on all approaches. The boys from Detour Lake had no clue how to set up a defensive perimeter; you’d think that would be mentioned on the first day of prepper school.

  I cut the fishing line with the knife, and tied the end to the base of a foot-tall birch,

  I poured some of the lighter fluid into Desmond’s metal food dish, and then I cut a two meter length of yarn. I soaked it into the bowl of lighter fluid for a few seconds, then I laid it out from the base of the birch, making sure to wrap it around the fishing line for good measure.

  And I did the same thing at another pine tree a few metres to the west, with a slightly longer stretch of yarn.

  With both pine trees pulled back, and both little birches wrapped in fluid-soaked yarn, I used the scotch tape to cradle two grenades in each of the bent-back trunks; the tape would hold, right up until those trees really started to move. That or I was just wasting my time.

  I pulled out the box of matches.

  I set the farthest line of yarn on fire, and ran back to the other. Once both were lit, I kept on moving east, hoping to circle around before the fun started.

  The closer line went first, snapping the tree forward and tossing the two pipe grenades.

  I saw them launch but I didn’t stop moving.

  Both grenades struck about three meters away from the first truck. That didn’t do much to blast it; I’m not sure that truck felt more than a little vibration.

  But that was never the point.

  The five men behind the trucks rushed northward, keeping on my side of the vehicles in the hope of staying covered from whoever was coming in from the northwest.

  They were maybe ten meters away from me.

  The second tree went. Two more grenades, but only one made hard contact. It landed even farther away from the trucks, but it was convincing.

  They weren’t looking in my direction.

  I started running toward the third truck.

  I heard someone yell out as I reached the back. I’d been seen.

  Then they opened fire.

  “Hold your fire!” someone yelled. I think it was Justin.

  They didn’t hold it.

  “Stop shooting, dammit!” Justin yelled again. “Don’t hit my girls!”

  The shooting stopped.

  I saw Justin running up from the entrance to the lab. He’d dropped a box of glass equipment in the snow.

  I waved Kayla and Gwyneth down from the back of the cargo truck. “Head into the trees,” I said. “Towards the highway.”

  I opened the fuel line of my foam pack. I pointed the hose toward the trucks and pulled the trigger.

  The canvas caught fire.

  I released the trigger. I didn’t have much fuel.

  I pulled one of the last two grenades from my pack.

  I threw it at the far truck. It hit.

  They wouldn’t be able to chase Fiona.

  I started walking backward, behind the girls, making sure that I kept enough of a buffer that the girls would be out of firing range.

  Once I reached the trees, I aimed for a stand of birch and pressed the trigger again.

  I tore the cap off of the half-empty bottle of lighter fluid. I tossed the bottle at the burgeoning fire.

  I heard the gunfire again.

  I guess Justin had given up much hope of keeping any of the girls.

  “They’re clear!” Matt yelled from behind me.

  I was almost at the truck.

  I dropped down to the ground.

  Matt opened up with the C12. Not much accuracy, but enough to slow them down.

  I crawled over to Matt.

  He handed me the gun and his pack with the extra magazines.

  I was a little overloaded; I could feel my breath shortening.

  I put down the suppressant pack.

  “Get the SIG from Fiona,” I told him. “Then climb in the back and go.”

  I couldn’t leave with them; I couldn’t leave until Justin was no longer a threat to us.

  I changed magazines in the C12 and fired a burst. I fired again until the chamber was empty.

  I checked back.

  Fiona had put the truck in reverse. They were almost at the highway.

  I heard another volley from the north.

  I picked up the foam pack and started moving again.

  I felt my left leg give out on me.

  I looked down and saw the blood.

  Not far from the last hole they’d put in that thigh.

  There was no way I could carry the C12 and the foam pack across the highway.

  I wasn’t going to be able to lead them on a chase, to pick them off in pieces.

  Whoever was left would come for me, and they’d find me.

  So I had to make it count.

  The flames from the stand of birch had spread, but not by much, since the ground was cold and wet with snow. I limped over to the edge of the fire, dragging the suppressant pack behind me and hoping that it wasn’t particularly susceptible to exploding from the bumps.

  I put the C12 down and threw the suppressant pack over my shoulders.

  I pulled the trigger and drew an arc around me with the flames, leaving only two small gaps, one between me and Justin’s men, and the other to my rear.

  That was all the fuel I had in that suppressor.

  I dropped the pack and picked up my light machine gun.

  I waited.

  Two men approached, Leopard Spots and what looked like Bee Stripes. Or maybe a wasp.

  They walked into the gap.

  I opened fire.

  I got one in his side.

  Leopard Spots fell into the snow.

  The other took cover before I could hit him.

  I felt a sharp pain in my left shoulder.

  I pushed back through the narrowing gap behind me.

  I heard one of the men coming after me.

  I saw Bee Stripes.

  I fired at his right kidney.

  He dropped his gun.

  I rushed him. I knelt down and pulled off his helmet.

  I took out my steak knife and slit his throat.

  I fell back farther as the flames started to follow me. The fire was heating up, to the point where I wasn’t sure they’d be able to reach me.

  One gunman was dead, one was wounded. Those were the numbers I had so far.

  I headed west. I’d sweep that way and then I’d head south to meet anyone taking the highway.

  Some might choose to cut through the woods to McCartney Lake.

  It wouldn’t matter.

  My people were halfway to Helena.

  As I moved west I saw another, the man with the Tiger Stripes.

  I got low; he hadn’t sighted me.

  “Did you see him?” I called out.

  No answer.

  I tried again. “Porter says he was heading west.”

  “Nothing here,” Tiger said. “I bet he caught up to that truck.”

  “He’s laid out traps,” I said. “I’m caught on some type of snare.”

  “Don’t you have something to cut it?”

  “Dropped my knife.”

  “Jesus…”

  I’d irritated him enough to lower his weapon.

  I stood up and started firing.

  Tiger Stripes dropped.

  I couldn’t tell if I’d hit him.

  I heard a radio call.

  “Pull back. I repeat…pull back to the rally point.”

  Justin was ordering a withdrawal.

  I wouldn’t get my shot at him.

  I heard more gunfire. I dropped to the ground.

  It was probably Tiger Stripe. Covering his exit.

  He hadn’t hit me.

  But I’d already been shot twice. The leg wasn’t bad; I could find some way to tourniquet it…but the shoulder…the shoulder was going to be a problem.

  I was feeling the blood loss. I was weak…I wasn’t su
re I could get up.

  The flames had caught up to me. It had reached a point where the snow and damp weren’t stopping it anymore. I wasn’t sure if it had enough heat to jump the highway in the middle of winter…but I realized that I wasn’t going to make it to the highway.

  I wasn’t going to make it back to being upright.

  I heard the handheld.

  It was Matt.

  “Baptiste…come in.”

  I reached into the pack that Matt had given me. I found a handheld tucked inside.

  “I won’t be coming in,” I said. “Hopefully I’ll bleed out before I’m burned alive.”

  “What’s your twenty?”

  “You mean where am I, jackass?”

  “I’m coming to get you. Where are you?”

  “I’m gone, Matt. And you don’t owe me anything.”

  “I’m coming ―”

  “You need to get those girls to Aiguebelle. Do whatever it takes to get them across the border. Do not come for me.”

  I turned off the handheld.

  I didn’t want to give him more of a reason to think he’d find me.

  I knew Matt was an idiot…but I hoped for once he’d use his head.

  I was slipping…I could feel it…

  I closed my eyes.

  And wondered if I’d see Cassy again.

  I woke up in the backseat of a car.

  The car wasn’t moving.

  The fabric seats smelled like canned ham.

  “Your car stinks,” I said to whoever.

  I tried to get up, but it hurt.

  So I decided against it.

  I saw that my shoulder was bandaged up; not professionally, but better than I could have done at the time. My thigh was bandaged, too.

  “Is your place safe?” someone asked me.

  I thought I knew the voice. “What?”

  “Your place…McCartney Lake. I need to know if it’s safe, Baptiste.”

  I realized who it was. Fisher Livingston apparently drove a car that smelled like canned ham.

  “Did you spill something on the seat?” I asked.

  “Your place…”

  “I don’t know…it might not be safe. Are we there?”

  “We’re on Nelson Road,” Fisher said. “At your gate. Do you have the key?”

  “Should be open…Matt opened them.”

  “I already checked, Baptiste…it’s locked.”

  “You check my pack?”

  “I didn’t find your pack. You’re lucky I found you.”