Read Betrayal: Society Lost, Volume Two Online
Authors: Steven Bird
With his boots propped up on the nightstand next to the bed where Leina slept, reclining in an office chair he found in the study of the abandoned home, Jessie’s eyes felt heavy as he gazed out the window on the other side of the room. Jessie was thankful for the illumination the full moon was providing them, helping him to keep an eye on the goings-on in the surrounding neighborhood.
Chills ran up Jessie’s spine as he heard a low and ominous growl coming from just outside the window. Standing up slowly, drawing his trusty old Colt from its holster as he crept across the room, Jessie’s heart skipped a beat to see a large, gray wolf standing just outside the window, its fangs exposed with the blood of a fresh kill still dripping from its muzzle.
As the wolf raised its head toward the moonlit sky, it let out a spine-chilling howl as other wolves in the pack began howling all around the house.
Nearly falling out of his chair as he was startled awake, Jessie reached for his Colt, almost dropping it on the floor, still in a half-awakened state of confusion. Realizing it was only a dream, Jessie’s spine tingled.
Something is wrong!
he thought as he shook Leina by the arm, awakening her from her much-needed rest.
“What, what is it?” she asked, trying to focus her eyes as she looked frantically around the room for a threat.
“We’ve got to get the hell out of here,” Jessie said with a look of panic on his face.
“What? What is it?” she again asked.
“No time. Just come,” he said as he grabbed his rifle and pack, peeking out the window. Seeing one of Peronne’s SUVs parked just down the street, parked almost out of sight, he said, “Crap. Let’s move.”
Leading Leina down into the basement, Jessie hurried over to a window built into the block foundation of the home. Having previously stacked several boxes beneath the window, preparing it in advance for such an occasion, he said, “The moonlight is on the other side of the house. It should be dark along the foundation. I’ll climb out and stay low. Once I determine it’s safe, I’ll help you out, and we’ll make a run for that old metal garage behind the house across the street. We’ll make a plan up on the fly from there, based on what we see.”
Trusting Jessie’s insistence in the matter, Leina watched as he climbed atop the boxes, tilted the window open, and pulled himself up and outside. After a quick scan of the area, she saw Jessie reach down into the basement from the outside, saying, “Come on.”
Working her way outside and alongside the house as Jessie recommended, Leina whispered, “What is it?”
“I don’t know, but trust me,” he said again, insistently.
As he looked around trying to assess the situation further, Jessie and Leina were both startled by a loud and powerful impact of a battering ram smashing through both the front and back doors of the house simultaneously, followed by the concussive blast of what appeared to be flash-bang grenades.
“Now!” he said as the two began running across the lawn, hidden in the shadows of the moonlight toward the old, metal garage as planned.
Ducking behind the garage, in between the adjacent neighborhood street, a row of trashcans, and several overgrown shrubs, Leina grabbed Jessie by the arm and asked, “How the hell did you know they were coming?”
“I didn’t,” he replied, still scanning the area for more threats.
“What?” she asked, confused by his short and nonsensical answer.
“I’ll explain later,” he said, fixated on the SUV parked just fifty yards from their current position up the adjacent street.
“It looks like there is only one man by that vehicle. They must have had him standing watch on the perimeter while they made their move. I would assume each of the streets surrounding the house will have similar watches,” Jessie said, explaining their situation.
“Are you sure he’s alone?” she asked.
“It looks like it. I wouldn’t normally expect them to leave a critical position staffed with only one man, but they do have fewer officers on the roster now than they did at the start of the day yesterday.”
“I’ve gotten around seven of them, myself,” she said. “I’ve lost track, though.”
Glancing at her with an impressed look on his face, Jessie said, “Damn, that’s... that’s impressive and scary all at the same time. I’m glad I took your pistol until you awoke,” he said with a chuckle.
“Don’t mess with a momma bear’s cubs,” she replied.
“Good point,” he said. “Okay, back to our friend out there by the SUV. If we can take him down, we can get our hands on a second rifle and some ammo that we will desperately need sooner rather than later.”
“Just how do you plan on doing that without alerting the rest of them?”
Pulling the pack off his shoulder, Jessie removed the bow, took an arrow from its quiver, and secured the nock of the arrow at the nock loop.
“Are you sure you can hit him from here... in the dark?” she asked, uneasy about Jessie’s intentions.
“With my own bow, yes. Not knowing exactly how the pins on this sight are sighted in, or if it’s even sighted in at all... no. I can assume the yardage for each of the fiber-optic sight pins, and estimate the yardage to the target, and if it’s set up the way I hope, I can pull it off. If not, well, we run, because he will be on the radio as soon as the arrow bounces off of whatever it hits.”
As he drew the bowstring back to full-draw, Jessie said, “Damn, I wish I had a mechanical release. If you’ve got a better idea, now is the time to share it with me.”
“Make it count,” she replied.
“Roger that. Here goes,” he said as he floated what he assumed was the fifty-yard pin on the target, controlled his breathing, and let the string fly, following through with his hold until the arrow had cleared the bow and was on its way to the target at over three-hundred feet per second.
With a deep thud, the arrow struck the man in the gut, just below his ballistic vest, dropping him instantly to his knees. Seeing him writhe around in pain, Leina sprang to her feet and sprinted toward him with everything she had as Jessie watched her pounce on top of the injured man with extreme violence of action, stabbing him repeatedly in the neck until he fell over, dead upon impact with the ground.
Running up to her side, Jessie saw her breathing heavily with blood splatter on her face. He stood there for a brief moment, speechless to what he had just witnessed.
Looking at him while wiping the blood from her face with her own shirt, she said in a calm and collected voice, “He was gonna die, but wasn’t dead. He had a radio and a gun. He could have given it all away.”
“Good job,” Jessie replied, still in awe of her actions. Releasing his duty belt to retrieve his radio and sidearm, Jessie shoved it into his pack while Leina unclipped the sling of man’s rifle, removing it from around his body.
Searching the SUV for anything else of use, Jessie heard over the vehicle-mounted radio:
The
house is clear. They were here, but are gone.
Followed by a profanity-laced tirade in Peronne’s voice:
G— damn it! Get that son-of-a-b— and that wh—! Tear this town apart until you find them! Kill anyone who gets in your way! I want them, and I want them now!
Removing a pen and a notepad from the vehicle, Jessie wrote a note and tacked it to the man by shoving the pen into his flesh. Leina looked at the note, which read,
If you keep serving Peronne, we will keep stalking you.
Looking at Leina, Jessie said, “Never miss an opportunity to f— with the enemy’s mind. Get in his head and stay there. Never relent.”
Nodding in agreement, the two slipped away into the darkness just as an SUV from the raid on the house reached the scene. Turning to watch for just a second, Jessie and Leina saw the men reading the note. Wasting no further time, they slipped away from the scene, putting as much space between them and the officers as they could.
Slowly working their way across town under the cover of the remaining darkness, Jessie and Leina could see the sun shining its first rays of morning light over the eastern horizon. “Our cover is almost blown,” Jessie said, admiring the beauty of the glowing orange horizon. “You know, I’ve always had a thing for sunsets and sunrises. We had magnificent views from our Rocky Mountain homestead. Sunrise was when I would have my first cup of coffee in the morning, and sunset was when I would have my first sip of wine at night. Although I no longer have that life to celebrate with the rising and setting of the sun, I still hold onto them as my most favorite moments of the day. These days, the sunrise lets me know I have at least one more day on Earth to leave my mark, and the sunset lets me know I survived another day.”
“Pretty deep thoughts for a man who doesn’t hesitate to kill,” Leina said, remarking about the complexity of Jessie’s personality.
“I don’t hesitate when, in my opinion, the person on the other end of my gun, my knife, or in last night’s case, my bow, has voluntarily put themselves in a position where their death is required so that others can live. Peronne’s men, for example, choose to kill and oppress others. So the way I see it, they are the ones making the decision to die, more so than I am making the decision to take their life. The lives of the innocent and the good are what matter in this world, not the lives of the wicked. The wicked have a choice. They don’t have to go down that path.”
“Have you ever killed someone who wasn’t...wicked, as you put it?” she asked, probing deeper into Jessie’s thoughts.
“There was one, not so long ago,” Jessie replied, with a softening of his voice. “He had lost his mind. I tried to reason with him, but he was in another world than me. I pleaded with him to stop what he was doing, but there was no reasoning with him. I waited until I basically saw the flash of light from the muzzle of his rifle before I fought back. Sometimes I wonder if I should have just let him take me. He wasn’t a bad man. He had just been beaten down by this world to the point that he had no ability to see what was really around him anymore. Perhaps the world would have been better off with him in it today instead of me? I dunno. I acted in self-defense, but it sure doesn’t make it easier to know that.”
“It sounds to me as if he wanted out of this world, too.”
“Maybe so,” Jessie replied. Changing the subject, he pointed up ahead and said, “There it is, we’re almost there. I just need to check on one thing before we lie low for the day.”
“What? Where? The cemetery?” she asked, unsure of what Jessie was pointing out.
“Yeah, in that mausoleum to the left of the front gates. That’s where I left Jack and Rosa,” Jessie said, noticing that Leina was giving him a strange look. “It’s another one of those long story things. Hopefully, we will live long enough for me to catch you up on everything,” he said with a crooked smile.
As they approached the cemetery, the sun was now over the horizon, and the night had fully given way to a magnificent morning. Pointing to an old abandoned seventies-era pickup truck on the side of the road, Jessie said, “Take up an over-watch position from the bed of that truck. That old aluminum camper top on the back should allow you a decent view while staying out of sight. I’m gonna slip on over to the mausoleum to check on Jack and Rosa.”
Turning toward the old truck, Leina paused and said, “Be careful.”
Answering with only a smile, Jessie worked his way to the cemetery, taking cover along the way where he could. Upon reaching the cemetery gates, he stayed low, using the surrounding headstones as visual cover.
Upon reaching the mausoleum where he had left Jack and Rosa, he slipped whispered softly, “It’s me, Jessie,” but heard to reply. Peeking in the front door, Jessie pushed it open to find no trace of them, other than footprints on the dusty old granite floor. With mixed emotions, he slipped out of the mausoleum and worked his way slowly to Leina’s position. As he neared the truck, he signaled for her to exit and join him and led her away from the cemetery, south toward the Rodeo Grill restaurant, which appeared to have long since been abandoned.
Stopping just short of Sumner Avenue, Jessie said, “I’ll cover you while you cross. Once you get on the other side, check the area, then wave me over while covering me. This wide open street will be one heck of a kill zone if anyone is watching.”
Nodding in the affirmative that she understood, Leina ran across Sumner Avenue, taking a position of both visual and physical cover behind an old, steel barbecue smoker built onto a pull-behind trailer that was located within the restaurant’s parking lot. Waiting a moment while scanning for threats, Leina waved Jessie across, where he joined her behind the smoker.
“Well, what did you find? Are they gone?” she asked.
“They aren’t there. There’s no sign of them. But on the bright side, there is also no indication of a struggle. There are no spent shell casings on the ground or anything else to indicate that they were taken by force. I’m just gonna stay positive for now and assume they slipped away to get Jack the medical attention he so desperately needed.”
Looking around, Leina asked, “Now what? We can’t just keep creeping around in broad daylight.”
“Let’s try to find a way inside this old restaurant. It looks like it’s been vacant for some time.”
“Yeah, I would imagine it became hard to get the Sysco truck to bring supplies after it all started falling apart,” Leina added.
“Is that a sense of humor, or sarcasm?” Jessie asked. “Either way, it’s good to see you coming out of your shell.”
“I’m just trying to keep my mind occupied to avoid thinking about unwanted things. You can call that whatever you want,” she said, leaving Jessie’s position while slipping in between the building and two rusty, old fly-infested commercial trash receptacles.
Joining her alongside the building, Jessie noticed that the back door by the dumpsters had been pried open, and the lock busted. “I’d say this place was ransacked for food quite some time ago, which sucks because I’m getting pretty dang hungry.”
“Me, too. I could eat a horse,” she replied as she held the door open while Jessie slipped inside with his rifle at the low ready, prepared to engage any possible threats that might lie in wait.
Nodding for her to follow, he said, “I just happen to know where one is. His name is Eli. He’d probably be tough and gristly, though.”
“What?” she asked with a confused expression on her face.
“A horse. I know where one is if you’re that hungry.”
“Oh, shut up,” she replied. “I could never do that.”
“Then you’ve simply yet to get that hungry,” Jessie said as he leaned his rifle against the wall and slipped behind the counter.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
“Like you, I’m sure this place has been cleaned out. But I’d be a fool to not at least try to find something,” Jessie said as he rummaged through each of the drawers, cabinets, and underneath the counter. “Just keep an eye out while I look.”
Walking over to the heavily tinted and dust covered window, Leina patiently watched the street for any signs of activity when she heard Jessie say, “Jackpot!”
Turning to see what the excitement was all about, she asked, “What? Did you find food?”
“Yep. They’re like mini MREs. There are dozens of them. Do you prefer ketchup or mustard?” he said as he tossed her a small packet of ketchup.
Seeing the disappointed look on her face, Jessie added, “Hey, don’t knock it. Ketchup is basically tomatoes, sugar, and salt. That’ll help keep you alive until something better comes along. If nothing else, it’ll give your taste buds something to do.”
Tearing the packet open and sucking out the contents, Leina nodded in agreement and turned her attentions back to her view of Sumner Avenue, which passed just in front of the building.
Walking back around from behind the counter, Jessie joined Leina and said, “We’re kind of in a hotspot, here. We should see some activity that gives us an idea of what move to make next. The county courthouse is in view from here. That’s where they were keeping Rosa. And city hall is just a few blocks over that way,” he said, pointing toward the northeast. “One way or another, we should be able to get a good view of Peronne’s activity from here while we rest up.”
“I’ll take the first watch this time,” Leina said. “I’ve got a lot on my mind and probably couldn’t sleep, anyway.”
“I’ll take you up on that,” Jessie said. “Dozing off for a few moments last night was the first sleep I’ve gotten in days.”
Walking to the pantry area, Jessie looked around for a suitable place to take a nap. Finding a shelf that was previously used to store bread, Jessie said, “This will work. Wake me when it’s my turn to take the watch.”
“Will do,” replied Leina as she gazed out the window, taking a seat in a corner booth in the restaurant’s seating area.