by Schow, Ryan
He needed to never go home.
But to do that, he’d need someone else to love, someone to love him, someone to understand and hear him.
Why wouldn’t Leighton love him?
Why didn’t she listen?
When he rolled over and screamed into his pillow, when he barked out her name in fits of hostility and rage, he couldn’t make his mouth stop shouting. He needed so much from this life, from Leighton, so very, very much.
But no one wanted to give it to him. Not his crazy mother, and certainly not Leighton.
Chapter Thirty
Amell Benson
Before Amell left Nicholasville, Diesel warned him that if he came back without the gun, he’d better have Leighton McDaniel’s head in a bag if he wanted to live. He knew Diesel didn’t care about Leighton’s head, only the gun. Returning without the weapon, even if he did have the girl’s head in a bag, was the real death sentence. Amell had seen the former spec-ops man blow a gasket before, but that would pale in comparison to losing the gun.
This Colt Single Action Army pistol had been in Diesel’s family since 1892. It was the exact gun Billy the Kid had been carrying the night Sheriff Pat Garrett put him down. That was July 14, 1881, in Lincoln County, New Mexico.
Legend had it one of the lawmen with Garrett that night grabbed the Colt off the dead outlaw, then snuck it away, and later sold it to a friend for a small fortune. The friend then sold it to Diesel’s great, great, great, great granddaddy (or something like that, as Diesel tells it) in late January of 1892. Since then, the piece of history had been passed from one ancestor to the next until it landed in Diesel’s lap a few years ago.
Diesel’s father had always described the weapon as his lucky charm. It was both power and outlaw strength. The day his father passed the gun down to him, things had turned around for Diesel. Some said he had betrayed his nation to serve the false idol while others relinquished their former lives and pledged service not to the nation, as before, but to Diesel and the outlaw future.
Alone, at auction, the weapon was worth ten grand. But this being Billy the Kid’s pistol, made it worth ten times that amount, maybe even more. Diesel didn’t give two hoots or a smeary crap about the gun’s monetary value, he intended to kill the president with it.
“You fire a bullet from this gun into the head or heart of our president…the revolution hits a whole new level,” Diesel had proclaimed. “If I do that—and I will—Billy the Kid lives forever. Think about the symbology of that! Billy the freaking Kid. He’ll live in me, and in all of you, and isn’t that what America is really about? Outlaws and ingenuity?”
Amell nodded, fully on board. He had to recover that gun if it was the last thing he did. So he would wait for this little blond nuisance—this Leighton McDaniel turd—and if she didn’t come back to the dorms, he’d track her down, find her, and kill her for that gun. But if he couldn’t find either her or recover the weapon, he’d probably start running as far west as he could. Or maybe he’d just kill himself. Either way, there was no going back to Diesel empty-handed. That was a death sentence, plain and simple.
For the hundredth time, he wondered why Diesel hadn’t tasked him with recovering the stolen gold. His life would have been so much less stressful that way! Why did it have to be that stupid gun? He knew the answer, though. Diesel’s gold would fund the Hayseed Rebellion through the collapsing society. But more importantly, it would get their small group to Washington D.C. to finish what others had started. But without the prophesied tool, Diesel had explained to the point of excess, he couldn’t stand across from Madam President and do what fate had intended him to do.
To Diesel and their benefactors, Billy the Kid’s Colt held a certain symbology. That was the symbology that guaranteed Diesel and the Hayseed Rebellion a seat at the table in the first place. If he couldn’t make that all-important kill, with that all-important weapon, Diesel and his men would not have a seat at that or any other table in the new world. With what was coming—a new world order—they all knew that promises made weren’t always promises kept. If he wanted to take care of himself and his boys, he had to make good on his promises. If not, it was made clear that Diesel would be the first to catch a bullet.
Amell would likely be next.
Chapter Thirty-One
Hudson Croft
Just before daybreak, Hudson, Kenley, and Leighton commandeered the early ’60’s light blue and white Suburban, the one they shot up pretty good in an over-and-done gun battle. When they got the old SUV running, they headed back to Silver Grove in silence. Hudson understood exactly what this was—the calm before the storm. But not any storm Mother Nature could produce. This was a storm waged in the hearts and minds of patriots, a storm waged by the defenders of life and liberty. Now was the time to cast aside civility in favor of wholesale retribution.
Much of the Suburban’s interior was affected by rust, a bit of rot, and the ravages of time. Beneath the corroded floors emerged a loud and constant hum from oversized tires on a wet road, and the transmission was as loose as a West Hollywood streetwalker on a Saturday night. Other than that, the ride was cherry.
When they arrived in Silver Grove, they found most of the town burning. There were dead people everywhere, and a few remaining survivors being corralled by a bunch of skinny white men with bats and rifles.
Hudson’s stomach dropped. He felt sick seeing such destruction. There was no rhyme or reason for what these degenerates were doing.
“We have to do something,” Leighton finally said.
Hudson was extra quiet until he wasn’t. He looked at her and saw she was watching his mouth. “And we will.”
In the back seat, Kenley was busy watching the firelight, the thugs, the sad state of affairs. She said, “I don’t understand any of this.”
“Hudson, we have to do something,” Leighton pressed again.
“Not yet,” he said. “Patience.”
Outside the Suburban, a few of the scumbags with guns looked at the Suburban. Hudson waved like he knew them, which worked because these guys apparently knew the Suburban. Even though the firelight gave these destructive maggots a good view of the SUV, the reflective light off the windows preserved Hudson’s and the women’s anonymity.
Just outside of town, when they pulled off to the side of the road and parked, Leighton and Kenley looked at him like they couldn’t believe the three of them weren’t already pumping those meat sacks full of lead.
As Leighton stared at him, he sensed her restlessness. He turned and said, “We need to exercise a bit of patience if we want to get them all. If you want to start a firefight we can’t win with the fifty or hundred guys they’ve got in and around the fire station, that won’t end well for us.”
“I don’t care,” Kenley mumbled.
“You will when you’re on the ground dying, or worse. If you want to do that, I won’t stop you. Just remember…I told you so.”
“Fine,” Kenley said. “We’ll wait.”
“Why aren’t you more nervous?” Leighton asked Hudson.
“Because I’ve come to accept my fate,” he said. “I said this already.”
“I haven’t forgotten,” Leighton said.
“Only when you decide you’re ready to give up everything, including your body, do you really have nothing left to lose. I’ve got nothing. In fact, if it weren’t for you two, I would already be out there shooting those clowns.”
Kenley asked, “What’s your dog in this fight, Hudson?”
“I hate getting pushed around by mentally-inferior delinquents with weapons,” Hudson explained. He was getting cold, even though he had his heater vent aimed at his face and neck. “Plus my future ex-wife left me, so I’m kinda bummed about that and taking it out on them. Really, if you think about it, for me, it’s a win-win. Win for me, win for America.”
“Your future ex-wife left you?” Leighton asked. “That’s why you’re doing all this?”
“Uh-huh. Plus I love America. Wha
t’s happening, you know this is about as anti-American as you can get.”
In the back seat, Kenley started crying again. Hudson assumed she was thinking of her father. Leighton crawled in back, scooted close, and hugged her. Pretty soon both women were crying. He felt bad for them, for they’d both lost people close to them, but in truth, the only crying he wanted to hear was the Hayseed Rebellion crying for mercy. He would give them no such reprieve.
“Channel it into rage,” he finally said, thinking of how he was getting through this Emily situation.
“Done,” Kenley said. “Insensitive, but done.”
When it got too cold to just sit there, Hudson started the SUV again, made a U-turn, and headed back toward Silver Grove. Up ahead, he saw four guys near the burned-down car dealership. They saw him coming and started jumping up and down with glee. All four of them stepped into the road and held out their thumbs, not knowing their enemy, and not one of their comrades, was in the driver’s seat.
“Run them over,” Kenley said.
Hudson stepped on the gas, cranked the wheel, and ran over their mangled bodies in yet another attempt to level the playing field.
“That felt good,” Kenley said. “I know I shouldn’t have enjoyed that, and I’m sort of embarrassed to admit it, but it’s true.”
“Don’t feel bad for having human thoughts,” Hudson said.
“I know, but…what does that say about me?”
“Who gives a crap what it says about you?” Leighton mumbled, apparently staring at both their mouths like a pro. “Dead is dead and the world is better for it.”
“I know, it’s just…” Kenley started to say. No one obliged her to finish the sentence, so she didn’t.
Outside, night had fallen, and the glowing embers of the earlier fires cast an eerie light over the town. To his relief, there was hardly anyone on the streets. Hudson turned into the neighborhoods, cruised past the destruction, tried not to look at the downtrodden. He thought about driving to his own house but decided he couldn’t do it.
“Is it smart to be so close to the fires in a mobile bomb?” Leighton asked.
The entire back of the Suburban was filled with metal gas cans and plastic gas jugs, all of them filled to the rim with gasoline siphoned from Melbourne’s nearby vehicles.
“Probably not,” Hudson said, adjusting the heater. “But at least my eyes and throat are burning.”
“I burped and tasted ninety-one octane,” Kenley said, no longer crying. She and Leighton laughed, but it was a short laugh, prompting her to again fall into sadness, then into anger.
They waited out half the night in front of a dark, untouched home. When he was sure the rodents were finally inside for the night—when there would be only a few guards at the fire station—Hudson started the SUV and drove two blocks to where the fire station was now in sight.
“Stay put,” he said. “I’ll clear the perimeter.”
Neither woman objected.
He put the mask on, crossed the vacant road, walked up to the two guys in front of the roll-up doors, and said, “Is everyone done for the night?”
“Seems like it,” one of the guys said, nonchalant.
The smell of smoke was heavy in the air, all of them wearing masks. As he looked at these two guys, he wondered how much of that smoke was from burned homes and buildings and how much was from the humans they saw torched all along the streets.
“What are you still doing out?” one of them asked.
“I got left behind,” he said. “But that was because I found this girl and she was just too cute.” He nodded, and they nodded. He pulled off his mask, eliciting no response except for one of the guys. “Before I head in for the night, check out what I got from this house on West 2nd.”
The moment that one of the guys looked down, Hudson thrust a knife into his Adam’s apple. Without pause, he pulled out the blade and rushed the other guy. He tackled him without remorse, the guy’s head bouncing off the cement. When scumbag number two opened his mouth to scream for help, Hudson drove the knife into his throat, silencing whatever scream had been building.
Hudson rolled off him quickly, felt a bit dizzy from the exertion, but pushed through it anyway. He scrambled to his feet, went after the first guy when he saw the man wandering around, gagging, and holding his throat. Hudson stabbed him in the back to stop him from walking. The man stopped and made some awful horking noise, but he didn’t fall.
Hudson pulled out the blade. “Just die already.”
The man fell to a knee. Hudson grabbed his head, changed direction with his feet, then whipped him around and cranked his neck hard, using momentum and force to snap his neck. He didn’t want to stab him again. But his job wasn’t done until everyone was dead.
Around back, the stairs leading to the second-floor housing were being guarded by one man, a skinny white kid (aren’t they all skinny white kids? he thought). He walked almost carelessly toward the young wraith and said, “Yo, bro, I’m your relief watch if you want to get some shuteye.”
The guy nodded, yawning, then said, “I’ve barely been out here, but whatever.”
As the guy turned to head upstairs, Hudson hooked an arm around his neck, then jammed the blade into his spine. The guy froze, standing on his tippy-toes for a moment. Hudson wiggled the knife into the sliver of space between the vertebrae, really putting his weight into it. The blade finally slid in, severing the spinal cord, and that was that.
Hudson lowered him to the ground, let him fall down face-first between the two fire station buildings. He was still twitching, his fingers working an invisible ten-key. It was uncomfortable to watch. Was he suffering? Maybe. But was he dead?
Hudson couldn’t be sure.
In an act of mercy, he sunk to a knee, drove the blade down into the back of the man’s neck, right into the vertebrae at the base of the skull, then he heel-punched it in another inch, waited, twisted, and then waited a bit longer. The body finally stopped moving.
“That was for Pete and Judy, you freaking Muppet.”
When he was done, he dragged all three bodies off, then jogged back to the Suburban and told the women to get ready.
“We’re more than ready,” Kenley said, “unless we pass out from the fumes first.”
They’d cracked several windows, but the air inside was still an unhealthy mixture of oxygen and gas fumes.
When they drove up to the fire department’s only working garage door, Hudson skillfully parked the Suburban against it, fully blocking the exit to about five feet high. The Suburban’s side almost scraped on the brick, but thankfully, it didn’t touch.
“Time to go,” Hudson said.
The main fire station was situated over a four-door garage that faced west(ish). Right next to the main house, situated only a few feet away, was a large two-bay garage for the ladder trucks (that were no longer there). This garage was about three quarters the size of the fire station’s main garage and faced north(ish).
On the other side of the Suburban, Hudson flicked on a lighter so Kenley and Leighton could see him. Quietly, he said, “There’s a set of stairs leading to the second floor where the main firehouse is located. Kenley, you access it around the front and through the alley next to the ladder-truck garage.”
“That’s the long building?” she asked. “The one facing the highway?”
“Yes. I’ve been inside, so I can tell you, both floors are packed tight with these clowns, and you’re going to be watching the only door that leads both in and out of the second story.”
“For real?”
Hudson nodded. “The second I kick this thing off, they’ll start flooding out of there. That’s when you shoot the jerry can.”
“What’s a jerry can?” she asked.
“It’s an old metal gas can. We have a couple of them for your part in this. Basically, you’ll set them just outside the second-floor door, so when the first guy opens it up to run out, you take the shot and ka-boom, bye-bye birdy.”
“I like your thinking,” Kenley said, although it looked like she was swallowing hard at the prospect of murder.
“Anyone that gets through the fire,” Hudson reinforced, “you shoot them, too.”
Kenley nodded, nervous, looking like she was going to puke.
“You still want to do this, right?”
“Absolutely,” the ginger said without hesitation.
“Good, because if any of them get through, you will be putting Leighton’s life and my life at risk. You don’t want to be responsible for one of us dying, do you?”
She shook her head, no.
“Good,” Hudson said. He turned his attention to Leighton. “You get two three-gallon gas cans. Rags will be tied around the gooseneck nozzle of each can and I’ll give you a lighter. The second the ladder truck’s garage door opens, you light the can and slide it inside. Then get back because it’s going to get ugly.
“Isn’t that a bit risky?” the blond asked.
“It’s totally insane, and probably pretty stupid, but it’s what I’ve got.”
“We don’t share the same feelings about dying,” Leighton said.
“I was pretty sure you didn’t. Do it anyway or you’re going to make it so that we all die.”
“What are you going to be doing through all this?” Kenley asked.
He and Kenley thought they heard something. Both of them stopped, fell still, and listened. Leighton carefully watched their expressions, probably so she knew whether or not to exit stage left.
Hudson relaxed, then said, “I’m still on you, Leighton. When that first can of gas you shove into the garage explodes, the only other way out is the other garage door. They’ll open it up, and that is when you slide the second gas can underneath and run.” He pointed to the second can of gas he had pulled out of the ancient SUV. “It’s going to be tricky, and not without considerable risk, but this is the only way we contain these guys.”
“What about the guns?” Kenley asked.