by Bobby Adair
“But reloading that—don’t I have to feed those shells in one at a time? No magazine, right?”
“That’s right,” Murphy nodded emphatically. “You’re better off with the silenced M4. You’ll just need to carry lots of ammo.”
“Sounds like maybe we need to visit Camp Mabry again.”
“Ugh. I hate that place.”
Chapter 3
We left the lake house mid-morning the next day and motored at a gasoline-efficient speed down the lake. With enough water and food in our bags to keep us fed and hydrated for a few days, the pontoon boat held plenty more water and food items hidden in storage compartments under the seats. We figured we could leave the boat anchored in a cove beyond the easy reach of any passing Whites. That would provide us two places—the boat and the lake house—that were safe and stocked, awaiting our return.
You never can be too safe.
At least that was a phrase I told myself as congratulations when I felt like I was doing something smart. The rest of the time—which seemed like most of the time—I ran on a full-tilt mix of testosterone and stupid and didn’t deserve any self-congratulating clichés.
A thin layer of high, gray clouds kept most of the morning’s sunshine off of us. A wind carried bow spray across the deck, putting an unpleasant edge on the chill.
Murphy piloted the boat between two rows of widely spaced white and faded orange channel buoys through the winding center of the lake. I sat on one of the bench seats, watching the green shoreline pass by, seeing the empty branches of trees that only weeks before were full of leaves. Houses occupied slices of lakefront property both large and small. All appeared to be deserted. Even the Whites were out of sight.
I laid my arm on the rail, hanging it out over the water. I wondered if I’d still had all the sensation in my skin if I’d need to put on a heavy coat. I wondered what exactly it was about cold sensation on skin that made a person need to dress more warmly. I wondered how the Whites would react to the cold spells to come. Would they seek shelter as I guessed they were doing now? Or would they run around chasing each other half-naked through the cold until their teeth chattered enough to push them back indoors to huddle their stinking bodies out of the wind?
I noticed Murphy was steering pretty close to one of the lines of buoys.
“You dozing off back there?” I asked. “I can drive if you need me to.”
“I’m thinking about that shotgun thing again.”
I said, “I thought that was settled.”
Murphy took a magazine out of his vest and tossed it over to me. I reached out, fumbled the catch, and it clattered on the deck. He shouted, “Don’t let it—”
I jumped to my knees and trapped the magazine as it slipped near the edge of the deck. I caught it and held it up with a grin full of false confidence.
“You need to get active again,” he said. “Lazy time has made you clumsy.”
I pretended to check that the magazine was full as I ignored Murphy’s remark. I was getting a little clumsy, but it wasn’t because I’d been lazy. I suspected it was the virus affecting my motor skills. “What do you want me to do with this?”
“It’s for your rifle,” said Murphy.
“You want me to shoot?” I shook my head, giving Murphy an obvious hint on what I thought the answer to that question should be. “We’ve only got three hundred rounds, right?”
“We need to give you some practice shooting from the hip and see how that works out.”
“You sure?” I asked.
“If it costs two or three magazines to find out, that’s cheap compared to what it’ll cost us later if you can’t hit anything.”
I nodded. He was right.
Murphy pointed at a buoy bobbing on the waves coming up on our starboard bow. “I’ll pass by about ten feet out.” Murphy throttled down. “Three-round bursts. We’ll see how you do. Then we’ll see how far we can get from the buoys and still have a hope of hitting one.”
I wanted to think I couldn’t miss the buoy. It was basically a white plastic tube—probably filled with foam—standing four feet out of the waves, maybe ten inches in diameter. This particular one had a faded orange diamond shape with a speed limit in the center. It wasn’t as big as a man, but it presented a target the size of a kid on profile.
I positioned myself on the starboard bow of the boat just past where the side rail ended. I leveled my weapon and squeezed off three rounds.
The water splashed way out in the distance.
Keeping my curses to myself, I fired again.
More splashes.
Again.
With nine rounds spent, all sinking to Lake Travis’ rocky bottom, I looked at Murphy and faked a smile. “I think I missed.”
He nodded.
Still, I hoped. “Maybe I got a few rounds in but… you know.”
Murphy raised his own weapon, took quick aim and fired one shot.
The buoy slammed backwards onto the surface of the lake, leaving only a small drifting cloud of white plastic dust to mark the space it had been standing in a second before.
“Dammit,” I muttered as I watched the buoy pop back vertical and wobble to and fro before it settled into its previous position. Once it settled into a rhythm on the waves, I fired another nine rounds. Nothing hit.
Murphy sped the boat toward the next buoy. “I’ll get closer to this next one.”
“Closer?” I asked.
Murphy shrugged. “We gotta know.”
What the fuck is wrong with me?
I wanted to shout out in frustration, but I knew what was wrong. The virus was debilitating my coordination and I just didn’t want to accept it. I could only hope it would stop before I was an invalid or a brain-fried White.
The next buoy came up again on my side of the boat. We slowed. I fired three rounds. “Dammit.” They all missed. How could I miss from so close? I fired again. The plastic popped loudly and the buoy fell back into the water. When it popped back up, it splashed me. I fired another burst and then another. A few hits, mostly misses. I clenched my jaw and glared at the buoy. The boat wasn’t moving by then except for being pushed slowly by the wind.
I swung my rifle down in its sling and pulled my machete out, swinging it in an arc at the top of the buoy. The brittle orange-decaled plastic cracked and the machete jammed in the foam. I yanked hard, letting my temper do the thinking. The boat drifted. I lost my balance and fell in.
Chapter 4
Murphy pulled me out of the lake and retrieved my machete from the buoy, letting me sulk for a while as he motored up the lake.
After the wind had blown over my skin long enough to dry it out, leaving me with cold, wet pants and a soaked shirt, I said, “You remember how I told you I used to play paintball all the time, right?”
“You mentioned it,” said Murphy.
“There was this one time, I was down in San Antonio with some friends,” I said. “There was this indoor course set up in an old warehouse with lots of obstacles and stuff.”
“Like what?” he asked.
“They made ‘em out of plywood, little house-like things, and mazes and stuff, a couple of towers. They kept the place dimly lit. They had black lights and strobe lights. Hell, they even had a disco ball.”
Murphy laughed. “Sounds like a skating rink.”
“They wanted the players to be able to sneak around inside,” I said. “You know, to make it interesting.”
Murphy grunted an acknowledgment.
“My buddy Rusty and I were on different teams. And…” I looked back at Murphy. “You’ve played paintball, right? You know how the guns work?”
“Little hopper on top full of paintballs,” he said, “compressed air canister. Sure.”
I rolled my eyes. A yes or no would have been sufficient. “Well I’m not sure what happened exactly, but we were playing this game and it got down to just me and Rusty. I was running down to get behind this obstacle over by a wall, thinking I was going to flank him
and shoot him in the back.”
Murphy laughed. “That’s always the best way to shoot somebody.”
I smiled. Paintball had been fun back in those days. “The real shock came when I realized he was thinking the same thing as me, running around the obstacle from the other direction. We both got there at the same time, surprised as hell.”
“I’ll bet.”
“We both came to a stop,” I continued, “and unloaded at each other from like ten feet away.”
“Sounds painful,” said Murphy. “Those paintballs leave a welt.”
“That’s the funny thing.” I shook my head to emphasize my point. “He never hit me.”
“He was a terrible shot,” Murphy concluded.
“I never hit him either.”
“Wait.” Murphy had been looking out over the bow but turned to look at me directly. “You used to be pretty good with a gun. Are you saying you’ve always sucked? I’m confused.”
“No,” I told him. “Not that at all. I think we surprised each other and our adrenaline was pumping and we were so busy trying to shoot as many balls off as we could that our aim went wild. Even from that close we couldn’t hit each other.”
“So your point is that you’re excited when you shoot now?” said Murphy. “That’s why you miss?”
“No,” I said. “Let me finish. I think something about the virus in my brain is making me a shitty shot. I think if we get in a situation where I need to be able to shoot something, I may be calm, I might not be. If I’m not, my aim will get worse. I think I’ll be useless with the M4.”
“Those buoys are smaller than people.”
“Yeah, but I need to hit a lot more than three or four out of thirty shots,” I said, “and from a lot farther away.”
Giving up, Murphy nodded. “What do you think then, no gun for you?”
“I think maybe a shotgun like you suggested is the best thing, at least for a last resort weapon.”
Nodding, Murphy said, “Then we should saw it off if we can find a hacksaw.”
“I’m all for the cool factor of a sawed-off shotgun,” I said. “Besides that, why saw it off?”
“Sawing it off will make it spread faster so you’ll be more likely to hit what you’re pointing at.”
“Any downside?” I asked.
“Sawing it off reduces its lethal range, but that won’t matter to you,” Murphy laughed. “You won’t be able to hit anything that’s not pretty much standing next to you anyway.”
“I’ll update the shopping list.” Having made my attempt at humor, I thought to ask, “Do they make suppressors for shotguns?”
“Yes, but they don’t quiet the weapon down as much as you might think. And they’re long and bulky. One would make the shotgun too clumsy to do you any good.”
Chapter 5
I removed the suppressor from my M4 and put it in my backpack. It was too valuable to leave with the boat, which is where the M4 was going to stay with one full magazine attached, placed in a bin under one of the seats along the port side. With a weapon added to the stores of food already onboard, the pontoon boat would be a great backup plan for whatever crazy shit befell us as we tromped around town.
Murphy pulled the boat into shallow water near the bank as we started to survey houses for candidates—something pretty close to shore, no Whites around, looking like it might have a shotgun inside. We didn’t have any criteria for the shotgun part. Not really. I was looking for oversized pickup trucks parked by the houses. In my mind, guns and 4x4 pickups with big knobby tires correlated strongly. No point in risking a house search if the odds aren’t in your favor.
I didn’t ask Murphy what he was looking for.
Murphy throttled back on the engine, putting it briefly into reverse before cutting it off, letting the boat drift toward a dock extending out from the shore by a few boat lengths.
With the sound of the boat’s engine silenced, I noticed the whup-whup-whup of the helicopters moving across the sky on their morning run south. I stepped over to the port side of the boat and leaned out from under the canopy to see. The sound was louder than usual, closer.
Murphy leaned out to look up. He pointed. “That helicopter is circling back. You think they’re coming this way? It sure looks like it.”
Behind our boat, the white foam of our wake was dissipating in the waves, but would have been visible from afar. “Maybe they saw us.”
Murphy looked from left to right, I think searching for a place to hide.
I walked out from under the canopy and onto the bow deck. The helicopter was definitely headed our way. “If they come over here and land, it could save us a trip downtown.”
Murphy shook his head. He was nervous and I’d learned to trust his instincts. He was seldom wrong.
The helicopter descended down near the water fifty or so yards out. Waves flattened as the helicopter pushed a rush of air down. Engine noise drowned out our words. The rotors blew a spray of lake water over the boat and into our eyes.
Murphy raised his rifle to his shoulder.
With my rifle stowed under a bench already, I raised my machete as I eyed the greenish, dark water, hoping it was deep enough for a dive, hoping I could swim the long distance down shore to the next dock. I didn’t know if I’d have to make the attempt, but if I found myself in the water, I’d need to find somewhere to hide.
The helicopter’s skids weren’t ten feet above the surface.
In the cockpit, the copilot stared at us. The side doors of the cargo area were pushed all the way open. Several men in ragtag military uniforms sat inside—some looking out, others bored and staring at nothing. One sat with his legs dangling out in the air from his seat beside a mounted machine gun on the side of the helicopter. Through the passing of a second or two they all saw us—faces showing first their surprise, then their fear.
Shit.
“Go!” Murphy shouted.
The guy by the machine gun scrambled to get behind it as the helicopter lurched left and started to rise.
Murphy jumped out of the boat and onto the dock.
The machine gun ripped a rapid series of wildly aimed, panicked bullets. They tore through our boat’s deck and aluminum pontoons.
I dove for the water as another burst shredded our boat.
Chapter 6
Well, I can’t outswim a helicopter underwater. Not even on the surface. No surprise. I could swim deep though, and I knew that all I needed was a little more than three feet. Hey, I used to watch TV before the Whites made a mess of everything. You can learn some stuff there. What I knew was that about three feet was plenty of water to keep me safe from bullets. The other factor in my favor was the pea-green murk of Lake Travis that left visibility near the surface at maybe five feet on a sunny day. Thankfully, the sun was still behind a layer of clouds, which meant less visibility.
I swam.
With my backpack and my machete weighing me down, it was no problem to keep my depth.
I spun in a barrel roll as I kicked, getting a long glance at the surface and seeing nothing but glowing green. If I couldn’t see the helicopter, it couldn’t see me. I still heard its repetitive thumping. I still heard the machine gun fire. I heard rounds splash the surface and I saw bubble trails emerge from the glow. I let myself sink deeper. After all, you can’t believe everything you see on TV.
Feeling momentarily invulnerable, I was glad the helicopter’s gunner was firing at me, probably the most prominent blur of fast-moving white skin he saw after pulling his trigger. That would give Murphy time to escape. I didn’t entertain the possibility that Murphy was laying on the dock full of holes and bleeding.
I swam away from the direction implied by the bullet’s bubble trails. The gunner had guessed where I was based on how I dove into the water. I wasn’t going to come up for air along that vector. I wasn’t going to be easy prey.
Instead, I turned on a path that paralleled the shore, putting me on an intersecting course with the other dock I’d seen
. I didn’t think I had enough air in my lungs to reach the dock, but I needed to try.
No, I needed to make it.
It was that kind of situation. To come up for air with nothing to hide me—a bright, white-skinned head with little hair against the green water—would make me an easy target.
The dock was cover. If I could get there and swim below it, I could surface on the other side where the men in the helicopter wouldn’t see me. I liked the unrealistic idea of surfacing in the air gap beneath the dock, but those gaps were only under the docks on Lake Austin below the dam. The water there was kept at a constant level—when it wasn’t flooding. The water on Lake Travis rose and fell by dozens of feet through the course of a year of normal rainfall. All the marinas and docks were built on enormous cubes of foam to keep them afloat on the water’s surface leaving no room for coming to the surface beneath them.
The sound of bullet splashes grew faint.
The helicopter was so loud it was impossible to tell where it was.
The machine gun fire stopped.
I pushed on.
I needed air, but that was nothing new. It seemed like every time I got into the water anymore, I needed to hold my breath way past the point of comfort. I was becoming very familiar with how far past my perceived limits I could actually push myself.
I was way past the point of protests from my lungs and into that part of oxygen deprivation where my vision was starting to tunnel black around the edges. It was time to surface or drown. I curled into a ball, put my feet in the muck on the lakebed, and exhaled all of my air as I pushed to the surface. I was only going up long enough to suck in some air, then go right back down again.
My shoulder hit something hard and my head bounced against foam.
I’d made it to the other dock.
But I needed air, right now.
I scrambled through the water, grabbing for the dock’s edge, found it, and pushed my face above the surface. I sucked in my breath, got a quick glimpse at the sky, and went back down again, moving over beneath the dock.
I found a cable support on the bottom side of the floating structure to hold onto. I needed to keep myself still. I also needed another breath. After holding my breath too long the first time, the second one didn’t last.