“So, Smith really did…” I stumbled upon my words, cleared my throat and went back to business. “So my son is…” It happened again, only this time I could feel the loss rip through me, tearing out my heart. That flammable vapor returned and I wanted it to explode with the effects of a nuclear weapon. Every person wearing a guard uniform was now a target that I would go after, as if God himself had sent me to cleanse the world of all the remaining evil.
“I don’t know what happened to your son,” she said softly. “The military did show up and took quite a few people from us, although it wasn’t as pleasant as Smith and Morris put it, but it did happen. I don’t want to get your hopes up…” Her words were cut off by my own.
I shoved the pistol back at her and pointed toward the window in the far bedroom at the back of the house. “Take this and go out the back. Climb down to the ground and get the hell out of here.”
Standing there with the Glock in her hand, her look turned to concern. “You’re not going to fight them… I mean, you can’t! They’ll kill you! They have you outnumbered and you cannot hold them off by yourself.” Her words came quickly and I could feel the emotion spewing from her mouth like it was a warm breeze through an open window.
I basked in it for a single moment, and then pointed toward the window once more. “Go!”
I turned and headed toward the window as she watched me from the hallway. I knelt by the window and began placing all of my mags near my feet, that way I could get to them quicker when I was ducking from their return fire. She hadn’t moved a muscle, so I pointed toward the window for the last time, to which she nodded and ran.
“You want a fight you son of a bitch? Then I’ll give you a fight you’ll never forget, all the way up to your last breath… which hopefully won’t be any longer than a few minutes from now,” I said aloud. I tried not to envelope my confidence into a cocky attitude. I need to be focused and sure with each squeeze of the trigger, not hate filled and arrogant to the point of knowing I had already won, as the roles could abruptly slid in Morris’ favor with the slightest of mistakes.
The street was empty of anyone but Morris. He leaned against the door of his cruiser smoking a cigarette, watching the clouds above move slowly past. He was in the perfect position to do nothing when the bullets started flying other than falter to the ground. He scratched the back of his neck and was about to pull the smoke from between his lips when a random gunshot broke the silence and he spun viciously the opposite direction. A few moments passed by, and then a sharp scream echoed and was swiftly cut off by another gunshot. Morris grabbed the radio on his left shoulder. “What’s going on? Who’s shooting?”
A barely audible voice spilled from the radio. “McNeal was shooting, sir. We ran into a small group of those things, we were all so busy we didn’t see the last one and he had to shoot or it would have gotten him.”
“Who was screaming?” Morris asked.
“I was just about to get to that, sir. Apparently McNeal didn’t see one – I have no idea how he didn’t, but it jumped him! Oh, God these things can move when they need to,” the voice informed Morris. “He’s bleeding pretty badly, sir. We need some medical staff here quickly.”
“Finish them off and keep everyone quiet,” Morris spat into the radio. “And make sure you idiot’s walk with your eyes open! We don’t need the whole neighborhood of those things descending upon us, understand?”
“But, sir. What about McNeal?” the voice added.
“There’s nothing we can do for him,” Morris stated without any linger of care in his voice. “Just leave him there and continue with clearing those houses. That little bastard is around here somewhere, I can feel it.”
“But McNeal is one of us,” the man added further.
Anger crept from Morris. “Then put a fucking bullet in his head if that’ll make you feel any better, but keep your asses moving! I want this guy found, now!”
The radio returned nothing but silence. Everyone had heard the communication and was either stunned by the lack of empathy for one of their own or they were so accustomed to it that it wasn’t worth arguing over.
Morris took a drag of his cigarette and turned around, resting against the cruiser once more, his eyes dancing from house to house still looking for anything out of the ordinary. “I swear these dumbasses are going to get me killed one of these days,” he mumbled.
The rain had stopped falling several hours ago, yet the darkened clouds still hung overhead. A cool breeze blew down from the north, whipping through his hair, across the street and blowing debris from one yard into the next. It was quiet, ominously quiet, and he still hadn’t gotten used to the lack of noise. It was like being in an airliner with the engines roaring one minute, pushing you up to your cruising altitude, only to suddenly hear absolutely nothing but the passing wind. A shiver ran down his spine and he tried his best to shake it off.
Peering through the small red dot sight, I replayed what the Young Woman had taught me about shooting at distance without a magnified optic. She had told me that even the greatest of snipers never went for a headshot, as there was too much that could go wrong either before or after the trigger had been pulled. She had instructed me to shoot for center mass – the area between the neck and waist – which was a larger target and increased the likelihood of scoring a direct hit and bringing whatever you were shooting at down. In this case, that target of opportunity was Morris and I had to get it right the first time. There wasn’t enough distance between the two of us that in the unlikely chance I missed, I’d be able to get off another shot before he was alerted to the fact that someone was shooting at him. Although there would not be much he could do if I did miss, I still didn’t want to risk him calling for backup, as the Guards were already worked up and would work together without any confusion.
If things were going to go wrong, I’d rather confusion be on my side, that way I could sneak away unseen and live to fight another day.
I propped the end of the weapon on the window ledge for better stability and placed the red dot on Morris’ neck, an area I was certain that had no protection and would offer the least likely chance of him surviving. I wanted him dead, not injured and fueled even more by hatred for me… he needed to no longer exist. The world would be a better place without him in it.
You had better be one hundred percent sure about this, because when the first rounds go off, there’s no going back. It’s either all or nothing.
My mind said, as I watched Morris finish his smoke and crush it out. I hesitated on pulling the trigger, trying my best to play out every possible scenario in my head before actually living one of them out. I took my finger off the trigger and scanned above the optic for the rest of his guard dogs, realizing that I hadn’t paid much attention to which houses they were in, knowing only that they were across the street from me. Soon though, they would exit and cross to my side, putting themselves in perfect position for an ambush, yet even that had its own drawbacks. There wasn’t much cover for them in the street, so they would have to displace immediately or die trying. They would also be more in tune with things once the shooting started.
And I had the high ground, which only added to my advantage, so if all of that was the case, then why was I so hesitant to pull the trigger and simply slip away? I didn’t have to kill them all. I just needed to kill Morris to call it even.
The unmistakable sound of footsteps on a hardwood floor –just like the ones outside the bedroom from earlier when Rachel appeared – alerted me to the presence of someone fast approaching. I spun to see Rachel moving into the small bedroom, her weapon holstered, her eyes staring directly at me, as a question forms upon her lips. “Why didn’t you shoot me?”
“What?” I asked, wondering if I had heard her correctly.
“When I first came up on you, you could have easily just shot me and been done with it,” she said. “Why didn’t you?”
I looked at her and asked my own question. “Why didn’t you scream and alert your buddies? You might not have made it very far, but at least they would have known I was nearby. So what gives?”
She said nothing, as she pushed several strands of hair behind her ear. We were at the awkward crossroad where we didn’t know whether to proceed forward or back up and try things once again. We were each different in our own way, yet there was that small speck that seemed to line up like the stars in some ancient constellation myth. It was as if destiny was trying to tell us that we were supposed to meet, however, I totally believed that no one’s destiny was set in stone and anyone could alter the outcome by simply changing how they reacted to what transpired around them.
“I think we should just leave,” she said suddenly.
“Leave?” I asked her. “Do you not realize what this guy was helping Smith do? The lives that he helped destroy, as well as take?” The anger was filling my voice to the brim. “No! I will not run away from this asshole and let him pick up where Smith left off. He needs to pay for what he’s done.”
“And what about your son and daughter?” She asked me, coming closer to me, yet keeping her distance at the same time as though at any minute I might turn the gun on her for trying to convince me otherwise.
“Smith told me what happened to my son – I don’t believe him of course, but there’s no evidence to support any claims of fact or fiction. And my daughter, she left with the only friend I had left. Once again, I have no evidence to prove if they are safe somewhere or not. So the way I see it, right now, the only option that I have, the only
real
evidence I have, and the only thing keeping me going, is knowing that Morris will get his… and I’ll be the one to give it to him.”
She couldn’t argue with the way I looked at the world any more than I could argue that what she saw wasn’t real. Different perspectives were just that. Views and opinions expressed through the eyes of the beholder.
“And without positive proof that either of them have passed on, don’t you think it’s at least you job as their father to make sure you know the whole truth before blindly racing into a situation that’s ultimately going to be your last?” She asked me. “Make sure they are either alive or not first, and then do what needs to be done. Give them a chance to continue to have a father and not a picture that cannot hold them when they need you most.”
She was right, even if I didn’t want to believe it. What she was saying meant more to me than I could reveal to her and without proper conclusion, I could easily be racing towards a date with disaster.
“So, I just let him live, is that it?” I asked her. She nodded to my question.
“Just let him do whatever it is that he’s been doing and turn a blind eye to something I know is there? How does it make me any better than he is?”
“You can’t change what happened to those poor people,” she said. “But the moment you start shooting, you won’t be any better than he is. In fact, you’ll be worse than he ever was.”
Why did she have to be so damn logical and right?
“You aren’t looking for justification in your actions or trying to change the world.”
“I’m not?” I asked her.
“No. What you’re looking for is revenge,” she added. “Just like he is.”
I cut my eyes toward her. “And?”
“What will killing him accomplish?” She asked. “Will it put the world right again? Will it miraculously bring you back to your children? No, it won’t do any of those things, but what it will do is lead you down the same road he’s on.”
Our engaged conversation masked the other sounds around us, making us blind and deaf when we should have been fully aware of our surroundings, because if we would have, then we would not only have seen the Guards exit the houses on the opposite side of the street, but we would have heard them enter the first floor of the house we were in.
Trying to prove the other wrong did nothing but distract us further.
“I got a body here,” a voice from below said, sending me and Rachel to look at the floor, as if we could somehow see through to the threat that had entered without our knowledge. I quickly placed a finger to my lips in order to keep her quiet and pulled her away from the doorway.
“We have to get out of here,” she whispered to me. I shook my head.
“No. It’ll attract to much unwanted attention now. We have to stand our ground,” I told her, to instantly see she was not accepting of that idea.
“Are you nuts?” she asked me. “We’re outnumbered here and we need to put as much distance between us and them, to have any real chance at living longer.”
I looked at her. “Listen to me,” I said. “We have the advantage up here. If they want us, then they’ll have to mount those stairs to get at us, causing them to have to stack up on top of each other almost to get up here. When they do that they’ll be utterly defenseless, not to mention how vulnerable they’ll be.” I pointed toward the staircase. “It’ll be like shooting fish in a barrel.”
Rachel shook her head violently at my idea and backed away from me. Her foot hit a sore spot on the hardwood floor and it groaned.
“Is someone up there?” The voice called out from the first floor.
Rachel froze, yet I pushed up to the stair banister and crouched like I had earlier.
“We’re armed, so if there’s someone up there, then you’d better come out with your hands up or risk getting shot!” The Voice added.
They wouldn’t remain on the first floor all day. Eventually they’d have enough courage built and climb the stairs in groups, looking for the one responsible for the noise. I took a few quick seconds to rethink what was about to happen and also took into account what Rachel had suggested. If we moved now, this very instant, we could probably make it to the far bedroom, sneak out onto the roof, and climb down to the ground before they came up after us. The only problem was if someone was waiting for us in the backyard.
One simply cannot descend and shoot all at the same time. I have two arms, not ten.
“Come on,” Rachel told me and wave with her hand. “We can make it to that bedroom, but we have to leave now.”
“You had your warning… here we come,” the Voice announced.
Rachel grabbed my hand and yanked me from the bedroom, almost pulling me over as I was bent to pick up my mags from the floor. We raced down the hallway as the Guards on the first floor heard our tromping footsteps thunder past. They barreled up the stairs screaming for us to stop, drawing the attention of the rest of the Guards outside of the house on the street.
We reached the far bedroom and I stuck my head out the window to make sure no one was waiting for us, and then pushed Rachel toward the escape route. “Go!” I told her.
“I’m not leaving you here to die,” she stated furiously.
I watched the hallway in front of me with hawk like eyes. “I’ll be right behind you,” I insisted and motioned for her to exit the window. She stood there looking from me to the window, and then me once again.
“Rachel, please just go. I can’t run and cover at the same time,” I told her.
“So, you’ll be right behind me, right?” She stated.
I nodded my head as the distant sound of thunder pulled me from the remaining strands of sleep. I was fully awake now and could fight if pushed, which would be obvious in just a few more seconds, as I could hear the boots pounding the stairs and quickly lost count. “Go.”
Rachel climbed out onto the narrow roof, located the drain pipe and made her way toward the earth in a controlled and slow descent.
The first set of Guards reached the second floor and filtered into the hallway. I could see them, although they hadn’t spotted me yet, so I remained part of their unseen surroundings for as long as I could, giving Rachel desperate time to flee into the large grove of trees behind the house. It wasn’t a massive forest, but one could easily duck inside for cover and not be spotted if one remained perfectly still and silent.
“Try the other rooms,” the Voice shouted. “They’re up here somewhere.”
Two Guards popped into my sight. I was at the foot of the bed and had pulled the garbled covers toward me to try and conceal my location for a while. The barrel and optic were the only things peeking out. They raced toward me, and although they could see the foot of the bed, they were unable to distinguish my presence from an unmade bed. I fired three well placed shots and both of them went down in a pink mist. Their buddies cleared the front room and stumbled out into the hallway to see the two men down, instantly wishing they had never entered the house to begin with.
With guns up, they moved slowly forward. “You better give up!”
At the first door, which was to their left, the Voice I had been hearing stepped in and cleared the small room. I had no idea what it was, as I had never entered any of the rooms the night before. I had simply made several loud noises upon entering in hopes of drawing any of the undead out into the open. None had come out, so I figured it was clear.
They continued forward, and although they had reinforcements coming, I could see the fear on their faces as they grew ever closer to me. The Guard in the lead was a stranger to me – in all actuality, all of them were strangers to me. I didn’t know them from the next guy and I was only able to put a face to the voice I had heard a minute or so ago, because he was still issuing orders to me to come out with my hands held up. That sure as hell wasn’t going to happen.
No matter what they lied and told me, I knew that the moment I gave up I’d be brought to Morris who would make it his life’s mission to see that I suffered in ways no human should ever have to suffer… and he would enjoy every painful second of it. My options were non-existent and there was no way in hell I was going to surrender to them or anyone else for that matter. I’d rather die fighting than bow.
The name tag on the second man said Talbert. He was the voice of reason, you could say. The one with all the wisdom and knowledge. The one that was walking directly into a trap.
“Stop pissing me off and show yourself!” Talbert shouted. The radio on his shoulder came to life with a voice I was all too familiar with.
“Is it him?” Morris asked.
Talbert stopped to respond as his partner continued forward.
“We haven’t found anyone yet, sir. But from what I’ve seen so far, I’d say that it was,” he replied.
“Good. Flush him out and we’ll be waiting,” Morris announced. His words seeped from every radio that was on sight, mixing with one another and distorting his already hate filled voice until one could almost swear it was the devil talking.
Talbert and his partner, Scales moved to within ten feet of the bedroom. A hushed clack of metal on metal swooped through the silent house and Scales screamed abruptly and fell to the hardwood floor clutching at his left leg. Talbert looked at his friend, the confusion was evident but the obvious was nowhere to be found.
“What’s wrong?” Talbert asked. Before any answer could resonate, a bullet slipped through Talbert’s right leg, just an inch above the knee and he crashed earthward, his pistol hitting the floor and sliding away from his grasp. The pain radiated within him and was vindictive, molesting every inch of his wounded body.
Both men now lay on the floor, neither knowing where the shots originated from. Talbert reached for his radio, but a bullet to his hand stopped him. More screams pierced through the empty house. “Son of a bitch!”
I removed the covers and stood. Both men caught the movement and looked in my direction. Their pain mixed with rage and fear, until both of them had no idea what emotion to put forth as I approached. I knelt next to Talbert and grabbed his radio while using my foot to kick his pistol further down the hallway. “No, don’t get up guys. I got this,” I said sarcastically to them and grabbed the radio, keying the mic.
Morris stood next to his car watching the house in question. Ten other Guards stood beside him waiting as well. The radio came to life and jumbled noises were ejected into the overcast sky. More thunder, low and distinct, propagated from the west as the inaudible sounds began to take form. They were cries of pain.
“What’s going on in there?” Morris asked demandingly.
“You should have left me alone, Morris. You should have stayed well enough away from me, but you didn’t,” I said into the radio. “Now you’re short five more men… and one female.”
A light rain began to fall as Morris kicked the side of his cruiser and looked at his men. “Well, what the hell are you idiots standing around waiting for? A fucking invitation to a party? Get in there and kill that guy!” He shouted.
The Guards raced across the street toward the house and Morris watched them.
“This ends right here!” Morris said calmly into the radio. “Today you get to die.”
“We’ll see about that,” I replied and smashed the radio against the wall.
Guards flooded blindly into the house, breaking into two groups of five. One group stayed on the ground level to search and kept anyone from exiting through the front door, while the second group climbed the stairs to the second floor. Upon the second group’s arrival and subsequent inspection of the hallway, they found four of their own dead. They hurried through the process of clearing each room before declaring that the second floor was clear and returned to the four fallen in the hallway floor.
One Guard knelt and checked for a pulse on the last two men closest to the rear bedroom. Neither had one and he shook his head as he stood. “How about those two?” He asked. “Are they breathing?”
A nearby Guard checked and looked at the Guard who had asked the question, shaking his head.
“God dammit!” He shouted and kicked the wall, knocking a large hole that swallowed his foot. “Where the hell did this guy go?” It took him a moment to pull his foot from the hole.
“We have to find this asshole and make him pay,” another Guard stated, gripping his pistol so tight that his hand was turning ghostly white from blood loss. His nametag said Greer. “I say we tear this fucking place apart, he’s gotta be hiding somewhere in this damn house!” Everyone agreed with him except a single Guard named Dillon.
“No.” he said quickly and everyone turned to look at him.
Greer asked him in a rude tone. “What the fuck do you mean
no
?”
“How many of us has he killed so far by himself?” Dillon asked. “A dozen or so at the school and now four or five of us today? This guy is dangerous and Morris is going to get us all killed.” He holstered his pistol. “Do any of you see Morris in here with us, or how about in any of the other houses we’ve searched, because I don’t. That should tell you something. We lost a man in the house across the street, because Morris didn’t want to call the medics in. Wake up guys, he’s no leader. He’s a child in a man’s body that throws temper tantrums when he doesn’t get his way!” He shook his head and crossed his arms. “If Morris wants this guy, then let Morris come and get him.”
Greer shook his head. “You can pussy out if you want to, but the rest of us are going to get this son of a bitch. Like Morris said on the radio… this guy dies today!” His words carried weight with the other Guards who applauded his speech.
“No,” Dillon stated coldly. “You guys are going to die today.”
A few moments later I watched a Guard stick his head out of the rear window and glance around at the grove of trees. He turned his head and followed the scenery from left to right, almost stopping on my exact spot. But I was sure that even if he had stopped on me, he couldn’t really see me. The underbrush and closely planted trees saw to that. I raised my short rifle and was about to take him out when Rachel stopped me.
“No, we need to keep going,” she said softly.
“There’s no need in running if we are always running from the same number of assholes,” I told her. “We eliminate them whenever possible and eventually they’ll be none left to chase us.”
Her dark uniform, although blending well with the environment when stationary, made as much noise while moving as a herd of elephants trying to sneak into a dark house filled with china furnishings. She had moved to either get a better look at my target, or she was setting up to take off again. Any way you flushed it, her movement had betrayed us and the Guard locked onto where we were.
“There he is!” He shouted and began shooting.
Bullets whizzed past my head, a few hit the dirt in front of me and kicked up debris, while two more slammed into the tree nearest to my face and sent slivers of dangerous projectiles exploding in all directions. I withdrew from the open and shielded my eyes to see Rachel move behind a tree in front of me with her pistol drawn.