by Tom Abrahams
“I’m alive,” he called out. He was only fifteen feet or so from the fence. The treehouse was another twenty feet beyond that.
“There’s one left,” she called back. “He’s in the house. And there’s the one you brought with you.”
“Salomon Pico?”
“He’s in the house too.”
Battle wasn’t sure he heard her correctly. “What?”
“He’s in the house. Both of them. They bolted for the house when you killed those first three guys.”
Battle rolled over onto his stomach and pushed himself to his feet. He moved to the fence, trying to ignore the thick heat on his right side. He looked up at Lola peeking through the slats.
“You stay up there,” he said. “I’m going to get them.”
Battle found the Browning he’d tossed to the ground and started reloading it as he walked along the fence line toward the open gate at the driveway. He was walking straight toward the house, scanning the windows for signs of life, when the front door swung open. He hadn’t finished with the Browning.
A worn-looking man with a limp emerged from the house. He was wearing a hat. He had his shotgun aimed at Battle’s head as he shortened the distance between them.
Battle realized he’d lost his hat, and his weapon wasn’t loaded and ready to fire. The cripple had the drop on him.
“So you’re Mad Max,” the cripple called, his bad foot almost dragging behind him. “You’re Battle. Is that it? Battle?” Half of his face was hidden behind the Browning.
“Yeah,” Battle said.
“And this is your land, you say?”
“Yeah.”
“Tell the woman in the treehouse to get down here or I blow your head off right now.”
Battle raised his hands over his head, one of them holding the partially loaded shotgun. McDunnough was tucked into his back. If he could only—
The brown-hatted cripple snapped, “Drop the weapon and get the woman to come here. I ain’t up for games.”
Battle lowered his arms and tossed the Browning onto the ground. “Lola,” he called. “C’mon down.”
“Good boy,” said the man. “Now, I reckon you killed a lot of my men. That so?”
Battle shrugged. To his left, Lola was scrambling from the treehouse. The brown hat called over to her without taking his eyes or his aim from Battle.
“Leave your weapon over there, darlin’. You ain’t got no use for it. You hear?”
Battle could sense Lola moving from the back side of the treehouse to the driveway. He glanced to his left. She was slowly moving toward them, her hands above her head.
“This’ll be over for you in a minute, Battle,” said the brown hat. He shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “I ain’t gonna keep you long, but I’ll be taking the woman with me.”
A breeze swirled past Battle and he caught the smell of smoke. He looked past the cripple to the house. His eyes drifted to the roof. There were wisps of white smoke curling up into the sky. His eyes darted between the intruder and the smoke.
A grin as wide as the brim of his hat spread across the cripple’s face. “You smell that, huh?” He inhaled deeply through his nose, puffing his chest. “Yeah.” He snickered. “Your place is burning.”
The white smoke was darkening in color, blooming into a grayish black. Battle’s neck stiffened. His hands balled into tight fists. His jaw set.
“It’s the least I can do for you,” he said. “Like I said, you killed a bunch of my men. I can’t let that go unnoticed. What kind of boss would I be? What message would that send if I let you get away with that?” He motioned with his head to Lola. “Come closer, woman.”
Black smoke poured from the roof. The hint of orange flames began licking at the sky, growing in intensity. Battle could feel the heat.
Lola limped to within a few feet of the cripple. Her hands trembled. Her shoulders hunched.
“Get over here!” he snarled.
When she refused to move closer, the man stepped to her. He pulled her in front of him, pressing himself against her while managing to keep the weapon leveled at Battle.
“You’re gonna help me kill him, woman,” he spat. He grabbed her hand, and despite her effort to free herself, he pulled her hand to the trigger. “Now just aim like so and—”
Lola raised up her injured foot and slammed it down onto the cripple’s club foot. He shrieked and let go of her. She jabbed her elbow into his gut and he fell backward onto his tailbone. The shotgun flew into the air and landed some five feet from them and slid across the driveway.
Battle pulled McDunnough from his waistband and aimed it at the brown hat. He leveled the Sig at his face.
The cripple crossed his arms in a futile attempt to block however many nine-millimeter slugs Battle decided to unleash. He shook his head, protesting his impending death when a voice called from the western edge of the driveway.
“Battle. Stop.” It was Salomon Pico. He was carrying Inspector and had it aimed at Battle.
***
“What are you doing?” Battle snarled. He kept the Sig aimed at his target. He wasn’t letting him move. From inside the house, glass was breaking, wood was snapping, and smoke was leaking from the front windows and from underneath the door.
“Put down the gun, Battle,” Pico said forcefully. He licked his mustache and repeated himself. “Put it down now.”
Battle cursed at him and tossed McDunnough to the ground. He was sick of giving up his weapons. It was almost comical.
The cripple pushed himself to his feet, struggling to stand on one foot. “Pico? That you?”
“It’s me.” Pico nodded. “I ain’t dead.” His eyes narrowed. The smoke was blowing in waves.
The brown hat chuckled nervously. “I can see that,” he said. “I’m thankful you ain’t dead.”
“C’mon, Pico,” said Battle. “He will kill you.”
Pico held the rifle like an amateur. He adjusted it against his shoulder and aimed it at Battle’s chest. “I don’t think you should be talking right now.” He walked closer to Battle.
“All right, Pico.” The cripple sucked in air through his teeth and tottered on his good foot. “You got ’em. You redeemed yourself. You proved it.”
Pico looked over at the man. “What do you want me to do to him, Queho?”
The crackle of the flames inside the home was nearing a roar. Smoke was pouring from the house. It was stinging Battle’s eyes and intermittently obscuring his view of the others. He couldn’t act; he was unarmed and beaten.
Pico wiped his own eyes and cleared his throat. “You tell me where to shoot him. You want it slow or quick?”
“We ain’t got too long,” Queho said and coughed. “This house is gonna blow. Shoot him in the knee first.”
Lola coughed too. She stood, her hands in the air and trying to balance on her uninjured ankle and foot. “Don’t,” she said. “You don’t have to—”
Thump! Thump! Thump!
Lola screamed. She rushed the short distance to Battle and grabbed him through the smoke. “Battle!” she cried. “Battle!”
It was Queho who took the three shots. The first was in his left knee, splintering the kneecap into nasty shards. The second hit his left thigh, boring through the femur and expanding as it nestled inside the thick bone. The third drilled into his gut. He dropped onto his knees, crying out. He fell onto his side, roiling with pain and the knowledge that he was about to die. He grabbed at the hole in his abdomen, thick dark blood leaking uncontrollably from the wound.
Pico offered Battle the rifle and walked over to Queho. He crouched down into a catcher’s position, squatting in front of the boss who’d tried to end his life. He looked into Queho’s eyes but said nothing. He watched the once-powerful boss, hatless, gasping for air like a grounded fish. The color was fading from his face. His lips were blue. His nostrils were flared.
He blinked rapidly, tears draining from his eyes.
Battle stood next to Pico, as di
d Lola, and they watched Queho take his final breath. His body shuddered, twitched, and went limp. His mouth fell open, his eyes fixed. He was dead.
“Thank you,” Battle said. He offered his hand to Pico.
Pico took it and pulled himself to his feet. “You were right. He’d kill me the minute he got the chance.”
Battle coughed against the thickening smoke and heat. He pulled Lola with him away from the house. Pico followed. Battle directed the two of them toward the barn, and he stood in the driveway, watching the flames consume his home.
He cupped his hands around his mouth. “Go to the barn! I’ll be right there.”
Pico put his arm around Lola and led her away.
Battle wiped his eyes clear of smoke and ran around the right side of the house toward the garage. He rounded the corner into the back of the house and was met with a wall of thick, black smoke. He pulled his shirt collar up over his nose and mouth and stepped back to the eastern side of the home. There was a window leading into the master bedroom. The shutters were drawn, so he couldn’t tell if the flames had consumed the room yet. He touched the glass with his hand. It was hot, but not searing. Battle leaned the rifle against the side of the house. He turned his head away from the window, drew back his elbow, and drove it through the glass.
Smoke spilled out of the jagged opening. Battle tried to take a deep breath but couldn’t because of the shotgun wound in his side. He closed his eyes, pulled up a mental image of his bedroom, and climbed through the window.
He landed awkwardly on the floor, knocking over a bedside table. He felt a tear along his thigh followed by the deep sting of a cut. He pressed forward along the floor. The room was black with smoke. It didn’t help the shutters were drawn on all of the windows.
As best he could tell, the flames hadn’t yet engulfed the bedroom. Though, through the darkness, he could see an orange glow outlining the bedroom door. He could taste the smoke.
Battle slid along the floor, trying to hold his breath in between filtered sips of air through his shirt. It wasn’t really working. He couldn’t see. His nose and throat were burning.
He felt the edge of the bed and yanked on the duvet. He tugged on it twice more until he popped a pillow from atop the mattress. Battle put the pillow over his face and sucked in as deep a breath as he could muster. It was only slightly better, but it helped.
He pulled himself under the bed and crawled flat against the floor to the other side. To his left he heard an explosion. It sounded like a mortar. His mind flashed to Syria, but he brought himself back, emerging from underneath the bed. He felt around blindly with his fingers spread wide, his eyes squeezed shut. Under his hand he felt the nylon sleeping bag in which he’d spent five years’ worth of nights.
He groped around aimlessly. He was coming up empty.
Battle felt the concussive force of another explosion, and a blast of heat poured into the room. He’d been inside the house for less than a minute. He had seconds left. He coughed and felt the dizziness in his head. He was about to black out.
He extended his arm as far as he could reach and felt what he’d come to get. Battle gripped the picture frame and slid it across the floor. He held it with one hand, pushing himself backward along the floor.
The orange glow had spread. The room was on fire. His skin was burning from the ambient heat. He scrambled out from under the bed and opened his eyes, only to close them against the sting of the smoke, and pushed himself to his feet. He held his breath and scrambled for the window, pulling himself through it.
He spilled out of the window, landed on his shoulder, and hit the ground with a thud. He rolled onto his back, coughing and gagging involuntarily. His chest hurt; he was cut and burned and no doubt had sucked in too much smoke.
He crawled to the Inspector he’d left against the side of the house, struggled to his feet, and stumbled away from the house to the garden. He tripped over a thick root exposed from the rain and fell forward, sliding face first onto the ground.
He couldn’t catch his breath. His skin hurt. His side ached. His leg stung.
Battle lay there in the grass and felt the waves of heat from his burning home. He was sinking into the ground from exhaustion. He couldn’t get up. He didn’t want to get up. He opened his eyes and looked at what little was left of the home he’d built with his own hands. It was collapsing in on itself. Despite the care, the planning, the craftsmanship, the security, the home was lost. All it took was a spark, an unconfined spark.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered. He couldn’t have managed more than a whisper if he tried. “I’m. So. Sorry,” he wheezed.
“You need to get up, Marcus,” Sylvia’s voice implored. “You need help. Get up. Make it to the barn.”
Battle tried to swallow. He couldn’t. He couldn’t muster enough saliva.
“Marcus,” the voice repeated. “Get up. Get to the barn. I need you to get to the barn.”
“Dad!” Wesson’s voice joined his mother’s. “Please get up. Please, Dad.”
Battle clenched his jaw. He didn’t want to move. He couldn’t move. He would rest here. This was a good spot. He closed his heavy eyes and sank deeper into the ground.
“Get up, Battle!” It was another voice: Lola’s. “Get up! You need to get away from the house.”
Battle was slipping into unconsciousness. His breathing was shallow and ragged. Lola and Pico stood over him. They bent over and grabbed his arms, trying to drag him toward the barn. Slowly, they trudged backward until they reached the edge of the driveway where it met the barn.
“We can’t pull him across the driveway,” Lola said. “He’s already bleeding. His skin looks burned. His breathing doesn’t sound good. We need to pick him up.”
Together they managed to lift him up and draped his arms around their shoulders. Battle was in and out of consciousness, his wheezing more pronounced by the time they crossed the threshold of the barn.
Along the back wall of the barn, Lola found a folded military cot on the bottom shelf below the first aid supplies. She gingerly walked back to the middle of the open space and unfolded the cot.
Pico lowered Battle onto the cot, and the warrior’s injured body sank deep into it, stretching it nearly to the floor. Pico looked at Lola and shrugged. “What now?”
“We need to help him breathe,” she said. “He’s having trouble breathing. Check the freezer for drugs. I’ll check the shelves.”
Lola limped back to the shelf and rifled through the selection of first aid supplies. She found plenty of things that would help the burns on his arms, neck, and face. There was antiseptic and Polysporin for his shotgun wounds. She grabbed handfuls of what she could carry and lugged it back to the cot.
“Did you find anything?”
Pico was opening and closing freezer doors. He stopped at the third one on the right, leaning into the freezer and calling out over his shoulder, reading labels. “Tetracycline, imipenem, ciprofloxacin. Will any of those work?”
Lola shook her head. “No,” she said. “He needs a steroid. A steroid will open up his lungs. It’ll help him breathe.”
Pico turned and looked at her sideways. “How do you know that? You a doctor or something?”
“No,” she said and knelt beside Battle. “I’m a mom, remember? Every child who gets bronchitis takes steroids to open up their lungs.”
Pico turned back to the freezer. “Ibuprofen? Naproxen sodium?”
“Those are painkillers,” she answered. She struggled to pull Battle’s shirt over his head. “He’ll need those if he survives this.”
Despite the first-degree burns, his skin looked pale. The smoke inhalation was damaging his lungs, and he wasn’t able to breathe beyond gulps of air.
“Albuterol?”
Lola nodded, her eyes wide. “Yes! That’ll work.”
Pico slammed shut the freezer and returned to the cot with the painkillers and the steroid. “What is it?”
“It’s a bronchodilator,” she said. “N
ot quite as good as a steroid. It won’t last long, but it’ll help him breathe. My son used the liquid for breathing treatments. I haven’t seen the pill before. It’ll have to do.”
“We don’t have any water,” Pico said. “There are jugs in the freezer, but they’re ice.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Lola said. She lifted up Battle’s head and his mouth dropped open. She popped two of the pills into his mouth, shoving them as far back as she could. He gagged and coughed. His body shuddered. “Go thaw a couple of the jugs. We’ll need the water.”
Battle stopped coughing and Lola laid his head back onto the cot. She took his hand in hers and, for the first time in a very long time, prayed. She asked God to save her friend. She asked Him to bring Battle back. She needed him to help her. It was a selfish prayer. She knew it was. But she hoped God would reward her prayer and reinstall the faith she’d lost with two-thirds of the world.
Lola squeezed Battle’s hand. It was hot from the burns and lifeless.
CHAPTER 23
JUNE 13, 2023, 8:40AM
SCOURGE -9 YEARS, 4 MONTHS
ABILENE, TEXAS
The doctor held the transducer probe in his gloved hand. “Do you want to know?” He looked at Sylvia before glancing at Marcus. “I can tell you.”
Sylvia squeezed her husband’s hand. Her faded “Make America Great Again” T-shirt was pulled above her belly, her maternity jeans unbuttoned. “What do you think, Marcus?”
Marcus returned the squeeze. “It’s up to you,” he said. “I’ll paint the room blue regardless. If it’s a girl, she’ll live with it.”
Sylvia giggled. She was a beautiful pregnant woman. She radiated joy. Even on the worst of the days, when the baby gave her horrific nausea and debilitating exhaustion, she was as happy as she’d ever been. She’d told Marcus more than once that the only thing better than being married to her hero was having his child.
Marcus remembered the moment she’d told him she was pregnant. It was the last Monday in February. He was in Raqqa, more than two hundred miles from Aleppo, Syria. American, French, and Russian forces had taken control of the city after a month-long siege versus ISIS and antigovernment forces who’d assassinated the previous three Syrian presidents. Marcus, barely six weeks into a three-month deployment, had been on the verge of earning a battlefield promotion to lieutenant colonel. His CO had handed him a satellite phone. Sylvia had said two simple words. They’d changed everything.