by James Tarr
Jason was nodding at all the instructions, heart in his throat. His hands were sweaty on the rifle, and he had to keep wiping them on his jeans.
“If you see me stop, you stop. If I crouch down, you crouch down. If I start shooting, I want you right on my ass immediately. That way neither of us will pop you accidentally. Move slowly. Slowly and quietly, no sudden movements, move no faster than I am, and that’s not going to be fast. Freeze if you see trouble, then slowly get down.”
“As we’re walking along, you watch your muzzle. I don’t know how competent you are with that thing, but if Early sees you sweeping me—pointing your gun at me, accidentally or otherwise—he’s just as likely to put a bullet in your head as abandon you before we get there. We’ve got enough bastards trying to kill us without getting shot by our own people by accident. You understand?”
Jason swallowed, nodded, and tried to be subtle checking that his rifle was pointed in a safe direction.
“No talking. None. As in zero. I’ll use basic hand signals until you get up to speed. Now, what do you do if the shit hits the fan?”
Jason cleared his throat. “Get on your ass as fast as I can.”
“Right.”
“There’s been a dusk-to-dawn curfew in effect since before the war started, so just leaving now, with us, could get you arrested if you got caught. Or shot.” Ed was giving him every excuse to change his mind but the kid wasn’t biting.
“Where are we going?”
Ed hit him with an unreadable stare. “To meet up with the rest of the squad.”
“No, I mean, how far are we going?”
“When we get there I’ll tell you. Saddle up, grab your pack. Early,” he said, and jerked his head again. They moved into a corner, and Jason watched as the skinny leader unfolded a paper map. The two men had a brief hurried conversation, which left Early looking like he’d eaten something distasteful. “In case both me and the SatLink get it,” he heard Ed say. Then the two men were at his side again. Early grabbed the backpack straps around the young man’s shoulders and tightened them.
“You gotta run, you don’t want this floppin’ around,” he murmured. “Backpack should be on your back, on your shoulders, not your ass.” He glanced down at the lever action in Jason’s nervous hands. “Haven’t seen one of those in forever, but took my first deer with one just like it. Keep your finger off the trigger less you’re pullin’ it. And keep that hammer down. You’ll have plenty of time to cock it when you’re eatin’ dirt.” He looked over. “Ready, Cap’n.” His own rifle made the lever action look tiny.
Ed moved to the front door and peered out the small window left and right. “You stay out of trouble, Colleen.”
“I try.”
“You sure you can spare all this water?” They’d filled all their canteens. Jason only had one, the other men carried two or three each.
“I’ve got rainwater traps all over this block,” they heard her voice from the kitchen. “If I couldn’t spare it I wouldn’t be giving it away.”
“Fair enough.”
“You make sure those biscuits get to your boys, Ed. I know Early, he’s liable to eat ‘em between here and the next block.”
“Why Coll!” Early tried to sound offended but they could all hear the smile in his voice.
Ed quietly swung the wood door open and cracked the storm door. He checked left and right again, up and down the dark, quiet street, then quickly jogged across the lawn and street to the fenceline.
Early put a hand on Jason’s shoulder as he tried to follow. “Jes wait,” the big man whispered in his ear. They watched Ed stand perfectly still, rifle at the ready, looking and listening. The chain link fence at his left shoulder stretched away before and behind him. He stood in waist-high grass, a four-foot-wide belt of it between the fence and the curb running up the street. The fence was topped with a vee of barbed wire, rusty but still unbroken, and was choked with weeds and grape vines growing rampant and unchecked in the summer heat. In his earth-colored clothes and gear he nearly disappeared against the mottled backdrop.
Facing north he scanned the empty street, a line of small homes to his right. Halfway up the block an electrical power line had fallen across the pavement. It was quiet, no sparking, but you never could tell for sure. He looked left, through the fence, then back over his shoulder. The night was silent and still but for the conversation of a few birds.
From the doorway they watched Ed slowly advance up the street, swishing through the tall grass, just a shadow. Jason saw him pause, and then the slender man just disappeared. Where the hell had he gone? There was nothing for him to hide behind, no bushes or trees. Jason gripped his rifle tighter.
Ed stepped back into view and lifted his hand. Jason felt Early squeeze his shoulder. “Head right for ‘im boy,” he whispered. “Don’t dawdle, but don’t tear ass. Be quiet, most of all.”
Heart a jackhammer in his chest, Jason left the safety of the doorway and almost tripped going down the concrete porch steps. He looked left and right, then jogged at an angle across the street. Ed vanished again, right in front of his eyes.
Jason reached the curb out of breath and sweaty, the tension wracking his body. He moved into the tall grass, hearing the rush against his legs. He was right on top of it before he noticed the slit cut into the fence. Cautiously he pushed through, big grape leaves brushing his face. There in front of him was a small hill, barely more than a mound six or eight feet high and maybe thirty wide, overgrown with grass and weeds. It sat at the edge of what appeared to be an empty field, featureless in the dark.
Ed squatted near the top of the hill, his rifle up and sweeping back and forth. Jason’s heart leapt into his throat but after a second he figured out that the man was merely looking using the scope of his weapon to study their surroundings. Jason could see a faint glow around Ed’s eye and guessed, correctly, that he was using some sort of night vision scope.
As his heart slowed down Jason watched Ed lower his weapon and peer with his own eyes over the small hill. Some sort of aging white cross was stuck in the ground beside him. A few trees dotted the otherwise flat landscape.
Jason waited at the fence, not sure what he was supposed to be doing. He looked around, back over his shoulder, wondering where Early was. A hiss snapped his head back around. Ed had climbed down the slope and was moving around the small hill to the right. Jason followed him at a distance, trying to remember what he’d been told and not screw up.
Around the tiny rise they headed west, Ed moving slowly through the tall grass. Jason followed him, staying in the same trail of broken stems, after a few seconds thinking to check behind him. Early was right there, about forty feet back, moving soundlessly with his rifle sideways across his body. He caught Jason’s look, nodded, then went back to scanning the tall grass. Jason’s eyes moved to the small hill. Cut into its short slope were five wide wooden steps leading to the flat summit. Up there, dangling from the white crosspiece by one rusty chain was a sign. 5TH HOLE, he read, 134 YARDS PAR 3. Even in starlight the dark lettering was plain to see on the white background.
As they moved west a berm rose to their right, blocking their view of the weed-choked fence there. A street bordered the course on the north side, just on the other side of the fence, and there were houses there overlooking the links. Between the grape vines and the berm they were hidden from any casual observers as Ed slowly worked his way west. There were a few big trees, beeches and maples, but no actual cover other than the berm to their right.
Ed paralleled the 4Th hole, gazing south over the expanse of the course. It was empty and overgrown, but you never knew who might be wandering around at night. He glanced up at the sky. They should be dead, really. All of them. With the technology available to the army, satellites and aircraft and drones of every size, the dogsoldiers were barely more than well-armed hobos in comparison. But this city wasn’t the front. Wasn’t anywhere near the front. Hell, from everything he’d heard and seen this city was the opposit
e of the front, in every way. Even if it wasn’t, the government reportedly still had problems inside its own ranks in addition to having to fight an actual war that had ground on far longer than anyone could have imagined. Tanks going missing, spy satellites spinning off into space because the guidance update had been hacked, whole trainloads of gear diverted from the military to the ARF even at this late date.
Whether it was a lack of them or something else the Army wasn’t using the big armed drones to secure this dead husk of a city. Word was they were being used at the front, although news of that fight was sketchy at best, and nobody trusted anything coming out of the government-approved news sources.
Personally, Ed believed the Army had very few of their high-tech toys left to use over the city, if for no other reason that the ARF Irregulars, dogsoldiers, doggies, guerrillas, freedom fighters, resistance, rebels, whatever you wanted to call them, were still alive and fighting in and around the city, with very few craters to be found. Bombings were still out of the question, and officially had never happened, even though the truth was a bit different. Air-to-ground missiles were always on the menu, however, although he hadn’t heard of any in close to two years. Ambushes of squads like his were even rarer, which made him think that the military didn’t have access to many satellites.
They used to be pretty common, but he couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen unmanned aircraft, drones, of any size. All he’d seen for months were helicopters heading in and out of the military base near the city center, and jets and cargo planes landing and taking off from the large regional airport thirty miles west of the city. Luckily, jets and helicopters were big and loud. So unless God was really pissed at them they’d hear any aircraft long before it came into view, but he scanned the starry sky anyway. They had a portable jammer which worked on the small unarmed recon drones, but when the squad was split up and he was with the element that didn’t have the drone jammer….
Near the fourth hole tees the berm sunk back into the ground, leaving just the weed-choked fence to their right to provide concealment. He moved that direction, hugging it, passing the small, foul-smelling pond. Once, Canadian geese had lived around it, but none were to be found now. Eaten or scared away, he supposed. Most likely eaten.
He worked his way through a small stand of trees, checking over his shoulder. The kid was maintaining a good interval, keeping his natural urge to hurry in check, but was likely to have a sore neck tomorrow the way he was whipping his head around, trying to eyeball everything at once.
Off to the southwest he could just make out the tiny clubhouse, a black blot against a charcoal background. He stayed close to the fence, walking slowly, listening more than looking. The night was alive with the sounds of birds and insects. He was listening for any sudden changes in that tune, indicating they weren’t alone on the links. Away from the houses and buildings, which universally smelled of dust and decay, his nostrils filled with the odors of dirt and grass
The mercury had dropped into the seventies, but they were sheltered from any breeze by the fence and the humidity was still hellish. All three of them were slick with sweat within minutes. Whole squadrons of mosquitoes descended upon their moist flesh. They were in Jason’s eyes, his ears, even his nose, driving him crazy. He smacked at his skin, waved at them swirling around his head, until he saw Ed slowly turn around and glare. Jason remembered the forceful “no sudden movements” command, and put his hand back on his rifle, chastened and angry. The pointman’s face and neck were covered with the bloodsuckers, but he never made a move to touch them. How could he stand it?
Jason looked around him, trying not to make fast, jerky movements. The rolling grass of the decrepit golf course didn’t look much different than the fields behind his parents’ property, but there he was relaxed. Here, he was terrified. He kept expecting soldiers to pop out from everywhere in the night, shouting, searchlights blinding him. It turned what would have been a pleasant walk, but for the humidity, into a kind of waking nightmare. And yet, he reminded himself, this was what he wanted. He’d searched these men out. Came far south to the city, to find them, find the war, no matter how dangerous or stupid or traitorous their cause was—according to his father. After wandering through the abandoned suburbs for a week he wasn’t sure these neighborhoods were anything but where the dreams of so many had died, but it was the closest thing to the war this side of the front.
Up ahead the fence turned to the south, and Ed angled toward where he knew there was a concealed break in the chain link. Even left unmowed for a whole season the grass on the 3rd hole green was barely ankle high and felt strangely crunchy underfoot, like toasted moss. Ed always felt nervous edging through the fence here—maybe it had something to do with the big propane tank squatting in the parking lot just a few feet away. Even if there were only a few wisps of gas left in the tank it would make quite an impressive bomb with only a few minutes work. With a grenade or some plastic explosive—homemade or military—even just a properly connected car battery, in five minutes he could rig the tank to blow with enough force to kill anyone in the lot. Which was why he hadn’t vented the tank, just in case someday he needed a big boom.
Sometimes it frightened him just how much he’d learned about how to kill human beings. Now, he could hardly remember a time when it had been otherwise. He knelt in the long grass and checked for trip wires, disturbed grass or weeds, then peered through the gap in the fence, listening intently. Nothing.
Ed dug around inside the cargo pocket of his pants and found the small flashlight, the one with the red cellophane taped over the lens. Aiming it as well as he could in the dark, he hit the button once, waited five seconds, then hit it again.
After a long enough wait he was wondering if he’d have to send his signal again, he saw an answering red light. Two blinks, then a five second pause, then a single blink. All clear, come on in. He checked over his shoulder. Early was with the kid about twenty feet back, both of them squatting in the shadows of the fence.
Taking a deep breath, Ed pushed through the cut in the chain link into the small parking lot.
The industrial park was little more than a short street lined with small one- and two-story machine shops. The tan brick building to his right had once housed a fire defense equipment business, selling and serving extinguishers and sprinkler systems. To his left was a two-story grey building; whatever it had once sold was now buried under a layer of bricks from the dump truck that had long ago careened through the front door. There were bullet holes in the door frame.
Ed hugged the brick wall to his right and moved cautiously forward, scanning the street in front of him and the building fronts on the far side. When he ran out of wall he checked left and right. Nothing moving, no sounds other than one bird and a few crickets. He checked back over his shoulder and saw Early had cleared the fence, then quickly jogged across the street.
CHAPTER FOUR
The building was musty and dusty. It smelled of old paper, damp drywall, and, oddly enough, burnt metal. Jason caught just a quick glimpse of a small cluttered office space, after following Early up the stairs, dark figures rising and turning to look at him, before he was violently shoved up against the wall and the rifle ripped from his hands.
“Hey! What the—”
“Shut the fuck up!” somebody snarled. A flashlight came on in his face, soon joined by others. After moving around in nothing but moonlight the flashlights seemed bright as the sun. He was surrounded by men and could sense them pressing close, but with the lights in his eyes he couldn’t see a damn thing.
“Strip,” he was commanded.
“What?”
Into the cone of light around him came the muzzle of a rifle, pointed right at his face. From the long flash hider he recognized it as Early’s. “Don’t mess with us, boy,” came the familiar drawl, the big man a vague silhouette beyond the lights. “Ain’t nobody jokin’ here.” The strong smell of unwashed bodies filled his nostrils.
“Backpack firs
t, hand it over,” someone else growled.
Jason couldn’t take his eyes from the rifle bore just a few feet from his head. What the hell was going on? Were they robbing him? These were supposed to be the good guys. Suddenly a thought occurred to him—how did he really know who they were? They could just as well be thieves, running a con on Colleen, taking whoever she rounded up, stealing their gear and killing them. Hell, she could be in on it, bringing them idiots who were easy pickings. Oh my God, or worse—maybe they planned to rape him, or—
“You don’t start stripping they’re gonna hold you down and cut your clothes off,” Early warned him.
Jason jerked, then with fumbling hands pulled off his pack and handed it over.
“You got anything you want to tell us?” He recognized the voice as Ed’s.
“What’s going on?” He couldn’t decide whether to be angry or scared. Ed noticed the anger, nodding, filing that information away. Anger was good.
“We don’t much like being lied to, boy,” Early said warningly. His shoulders were starting to ache from holding the rifle up for so long. With his forefinger he checked to make sure the safety was still on.
“What are you talking about?” He stood there, a nervous grimace on his face, until one of the figures smacked him on the shoulder. Clumsily he pulled off his shirt, which was taken from his hands.
“Even in this godawful heat all of the troops wear their body armor when they go outside the wire. The plate stuff’ll stop anything we’ve got, even the hotrodded stuff they’re shootin’, but I don’t think your thirty-thirty’ll even go through the soft part of their vests. If you’d ever shot one of them you’d know that. Six or seven people my ass.”