“At least one was, Jimmy. The guy to the left had an AK.”
“We don’t want to risk driving through in this thing, and driving around means going off road.”
Dillon knew that off road was problematic, at best. They wouldn’t be able to stay out of range of an AK, and they were likely to bottom out on rocks or get stuck in the sand.
“Back up behind that outcropping. I have an idea.”
A minute later, Jimmy was moving his way up the side of the outcropping with Dillon. Mikey was still in the ZIL down below, occasionally bringing the engine from a slow rev to a higher rev by tapping the gas pedal.
Jimmy and Dillon saw four men a half of a minute later. Dillon’s plan had counted on a lack of training and human curiosity, and the men seemed to have both of these qualities to spare. The men carried AKs. Dillon motioned to Mikey to get out of the ZIL and hide. The men crept forward slowly, trying to figure out where the revving engine sound was coming from in the echoing wadi. Dillon waited, hoping that the other two would be along soon. He had no desire to leave them as a loose end that could get the drop on him in the same way.
The four men were a fifty meters out. Soon, they would enter into an area that opened up significantly, with no cover larger than a basketball. That would have to be the kill zone. Dillon said a silent prayer that the other two would show themselves soon.
“Come on, you bastards.” he whispered. He breathed a sigh of relief when he noticed the other two were thirty meters farther out, attempting a flank. They were already past the point of no return. They had better cover, and Dillon decided to take them out first. He exchanged a few quick hand signals with Jimmy, then returned to his sights. At eighty meters, it was not the easiest of shots, but he was in a prone, unsupported position. Dillon took a few deep breaths to steady himself, then nodded. Jimmy fired first, and Dillon tried not to reflexively fire. The men ducked down a foot or so, and then Dillon fired.
Dillon didn’t know what had happened to Jimmy’s target. Dillon’s target had dropped, and Dillon had put a second round in the body as it hit the ground. Two of the men were running and two were looking around. Dillon chose to flip his selector switch to automatic and fire at the runners before they became loose ends. He quickly realized that Jimmy had thought the same way. Soon, the two runners were down and Dillon had rolled to the side to reload.
Jimmy was firing short bursts and then he dropped back under cover as the two remaining ambushers fired shots in his general direction. Dillon popped up and fired a short burst. He was pretty sure he missed but the fire snaked towards him, allowing Jimmy to reload and move to a different firing position. Soon, Jimmy popped up and fired a short burst. Dillon heard the fire on his position lessen and popped up to scan for a target. Jimmy had taken one down, and Dillon saw the other running, his AK clattering to the ground. Dillon thought about letting him go, but worried what the man might do. Would he warn others? Would he set up an ambush a quarter of a mile down the road? What if he killed Mikey? Finally, Dillon squeezed off a round that hit the running man in the center of the back. The man hit the ground, clawed at his back for a few seconds, and then was still.
Jimmy and Dillon moved forward slowly, a hundred meters apart, to check the area ahead. Dillon waited until Jimmy found good cover and was set to shoot before moving to the next spot of cover to do the same for Jimmy. After five minutes of moving and then waiting, Dillon and Jimmy were satisfied that the area was clear. They jogged back to the vehicle, still staying close to cover and wary of their surroundings, not wanting to leave Mikey for longer than they had to. Dillon stopped to pick up an AK-47 from a dead man, and picked up a spare magazine the man had in his pocket. Another man had a CZ-75, a Czech pistol in 9mm Parabellum that was a standard issue sidearm in Egypt. As he reached the ZIL, he handed both to Jimmy.
“Mikey, come on out!”
Mikey appeared from behind a small boulder a few seconds later. Dillon hugged him and mussed his hair before picking him up and carrying him to the ZIL.
“The magazine is half empty.” Jimmy commented, inspecting the AK.
Dillon handed him the other magazine. “I thought it might come in handy. It’s a lot easier to get ammo for that AK in Egypt.”
“Yep. You driving?”
“Sure, I’ll take the next shift. Good shooting back there, Jimmy.”
Jimmy shrugged in response. “They weren’t shooting back much.”
Dillon backed the ZIL up and then put it in forward, pulling back onto the road. He took a few seconds to weave between the bodies of the men they had just killed. Sometimes, it just took some time to process everything that had happened. Those men had, without a doubt, intended to rob them or kill them. Those men had, most likely, done so to others in the last few days. They were not good people.
“No, but they were shooting back enough,” Dillon replied after he had finished his thoughts.
The drove until they ran out of wadi. For the last mile they could see apartment buildings begin to loom up around them on three sides. It was sparse, Dillon would have described it as barren, but it was still a suburb, and this was a desert nation.
Ahead, an oily cloud of black smoke rose out of an apartment complex courtyard. To Dillon, it smelled like someone was burning corpses. He had smelled it a few times in his life, and it always sickened him to realize just how much one kind of meat smelled like any other when burnt. Here and there, they saw infected, and on two occasions they had to shoot “zombies” that came too close. There were a few people out and about, scavenging the empty villas for food and water by the looks of it. They wore rags over their faces and carried homemade clubs and spears.
“They look like they’re from a Mad Max movie.” Mikey said, pointing. Dillon didn’t like the comparison. He didn’t like thinking about what it would be like for Mikey to grow up in a world like that.
“Hey, look who’s talking, kid. You have a shield and a sword.” responded Jimmy, warily eying the locals. The locals were keeping their distance. Dillon was sure this had something to do with the three of them being westerners and carrying guns. Guns beat spears and knives any day of the week in open ground.
Mikey waved, and received a few waves back from a younger group of scavengers. Dillon smiled. Despite troubles with a corrupt Egyptian Army, and groups of locals that were outright hostile to Americans, here were a bunch of teenagers waving to his son. It was good to remember that these were just people, for better or worse. It was important to remember. Dillon had seen people lose sight of that before, and he decided in that moment not to ever forget that they were people.
Dillon drove another hundred yards and realized that it was time to climb out of the wadi. Dillon was roughly familiar with the area, having jogged here a few times with Hannah. Though they could kept driving, it would have meant finding a dirt road out of the wadi, and the closest one was at least a half mile back. Plus, there would surely be road blocks and the ZIL would not have the horsepower needed to push through them, or the armor to protect them from an ambush or from a horde of infected. No, it was time to ditch the vehicle for good and go on foot.
“Hey, I have an idea.”
“Sure, what is it?”
“Let’s try to trade this ZIL and the gas for some water and maybe someone to help us navigate into town, at least as far as the Maadi Grand Mall.”
“You mean to tell me you don’t know your way home?”
“Shit Jimmy, I know my way. I know it like a guy who drives it, not like a guy that grew up walking around in it. These kids might be able to seriously help us avoid the main streets.”
“Okay, let’s be careful, though.”
“I know. The last kid I turned my back on shot me.”
“That sucks. How long ago was that?
”Two or three days ago.”
“Great.”
It took some time to convince the kids to come down to speak with him, but his Arabic was good and they were curious. After a bit, four of the older kids came down and the haggling started.
“
The Zil is nice, but it is very loud. We want guns
,” said the oldest kid. He had crooked teeth and his ears stuck out.
“
Guns are loud too. The Zil has extra gas.
”
“This is Egypt. Gas is easy in Egypt.”
“Guns are easy in Egypt.”
“Not for a kid. Guns are hard, like finding a safe way to the river will be hard without us. We want guns.”
“Maybe we can give you one gun. Do you want a Kalishnikov?”
“We want bullets.”
“We have bullets, and bullets are easy to find for Kalishnikovs.”
“We want the American guns.”
“You won’t be able to find bullets for the American guns.”
“We want a Kalishnikov and one American rifle.”
“My boss would be very angry if I gave you my American rifle. We will give you a Kalishnikov and all of the bullets for it.”
He took a second to ask Jimmy how many rounds there were in the two magazines. Jimmy told them there were forty nine.
“We will give you a Kalishnikov, fifty bullets, the Zil, and the gas.”
“Okay, American. Okay. Good trade.”
“Good trade.”
Dillon finally made a deal that two of the local kids would guide them to the railroad tracks that led to the Maadi Grand Mall in exchange for the AK. Dillon insisted on leaving the unloaded AK with the kids in the Wadi and not giving them the magazines until they reached the railroad tracks.
“Won’t the railroad tracks be exposed?” Jimmy asked.
“They shouldn’t be. They’re from the old British rail, and haven’t been used in a couple of decades. They’re pretty remote, running through back yards and mostly full of trash these days.”
“Fantastic.”
“And dogs, dad. Don’t forget the dogs.” Mikey said.
“Yeah, there’s a lot of street dogs back there, too.”
“I hate wild dogs.”
“Better than a horde of infected, right?”
“Barely.”
“Really, Jimmy?”
“Dogs bite harder.”
“I’ll protect you, tough guy.”
“Bite me.”
One of the kids, probably about ten years old, came over to them and said something in Arabic to Dillon.
“They’re ready. This is one of the kids that is taking us. His name is Hamid. The other is the taller kid over there, his name is Abdul.”
“Tasha rafna, Hamid wa Abdul. Ana ismi Mikey.” Mikey said, remembering just about all of the Arabic he had learned in school. The other two kids nodded and smiled. At that moment, Dillon couldn’t have been more proud.
Despite having wanted it before, Mikey didn’t want to carry his shield, so they left it behind with the ZIL. The initial awesomeness of fighting “zombies” with a sword and shield had worn off and the awareness of how heavy it would be to carry a shield around had dawned. They worked their way through parts of the suburb that Dillon had not even known existed, machetes at the ready in case they needed to defend themselves in the twisting alleys between the villas and apartment complexes. In Dillon’s estimation, there were too many concrete walls and too much chance of ricochet. They entered the rear garden of a villa through a back gate and then moved through a side gate to a small, trash filled alley. Then, moving quietly up to the street, they looked for infected. There were four, three scattered on the street and one in a car. Dillon looked at Jimmy and then at Mikey, Hamid, and Abdul.
“We’re going to try to sneak across, okay?”
“I think we should take our shots from here, including the one in the car, before they make too much noise and draw others or we get caught out in the open.”
“Shit. Shit. Shit.” Dillon said. He didn’t like the idea of risking Mikey’s life. “Okay, but we move out of this alleyway to do it.”
“Alright.” Jimmy moved first, and Dillon was only a step behind him. Moving at a slow walk with their weapons at the ready, they easily downed the first two before they were even noticed. Jimmy killed the third while Dillon had to use two rounds to kill the one in the car. Three others had already showed up, drawn to the sound of the breaking glass. Jimmy fired a short burst at two as they ran towards him, then fired another short burst into them as they lay on the ground. Dillon fired two rounds into the third, both smacking into the chest.
Dillon stopped and checked his side of the street and knew that Jimmy was doing the same. Finally, he motioned to the kids to move up to him and Abdul took the lead again, moving along a weed-choked, rusty, iron-wrought fence that sat less than four feet from the side of a long-abandoned building until they came to an equally abandoned courtyard. There were a few date palms and sycamore in large concrete planters, and even an old lemon tree.
“This is the old international school. They closed it about a decade ago when they opened the CAS campus.” Dillon said, happy to recognize where he was.
“Yeah. Some of my classmates used to skateboard here, and they would get into fights with some of the local kids,” offered Mikey.