Stryker: A Post-Apocalyptic Tale (5 page)

“How you been?” he
asked.

“It don’t suck
being me, I guess. How about you?”

“Same.” He shrugged
once. “What do you have today?”

“Notebooks, gold,
and a handheld ham radio.”

“What’re you
looking for?”

“Solar panels.”

“Come with me,” he
said, after looking thoughtful for a while. They moved to the last foldable
table, where a woman sat with a boy that he guessed was her son. “This is
Sara.” They shook hands.

“Name’s Stryker.”

“That a first or
last name?”

“It’s the only
name.” She looked a bit puzzled. She was an attractive woman, with dark hair
that was as smooth and shiny as an otter’s pelt, and even features.

“He’s looking for
solar panels,” Tom explained.

“I have eight of
them, still in boxes, in my van.” She nodded toward the parking lot.

“What do you want
for them?” Stryker asked. He really needed twice that number, but had to start
somewhere.

“What you got?”

“I have gold, a ham
radio, and two notebooks.”

“How much gold you
have?”

“How much do you
want?”

“Two ounces.”

“Done.” He extended
his hand and they shook. Tom followed them to the van and she opened the rear
doors.

“I’ll give you a
hand loading them,” Tom said. The two men made four journeys between the van
and the Jeep before Tom asked, “You need anything else?”

“I dunno. I guess
I’ll pay her and look around.”

“Okay, see you
later.” Tom left to greet another shopper. Stryker paid the woman, and then
walked from table to table looking at the merchandise. He was leaving when he
spotted a giant of man, even larger than he was, screaming at the woman who
sold him the panels.

“I want those
panels!” he yelled again, shaking a fist at the woman. She backed up, looking
fearful.

“I already sold
them.”

“You said you’d
save them for me.”

“I said no such
thing. You weren’t willing to pay what I wanted, so I sold them to somebody
else.” The woman was beginning to look really frightened. The man started
walking around the table to close on her.

“I bought the
panels,” Stryker said as he approached. The man turned around and stared at him
with an angry expression. He had close to three inches and fifty pounds on Stryker.

Assess and
evaluate.

The man was large,
but fat around the middle. He was wearing coveralls and a baseball hat, and was
flexing his meaty fists. He wore a pistol in an old-fashioned Western holster
with a strap on the top. He would never clear the holster before Stryker
cleared and fired his XD, but he would keep a wary eye for any sign the man
intended to escalate the conflict. He took an angry step toward Stryker, then
stopped and glared at him.

“You falling in
love with me? You can’t seem to stop staring. Are you transfixed by my good
looks?” The man looked confused for a moment, then angrier. Apparently, it took
him some time to process what he heard.

“I want those
panels,” the large man growled.

“Those panels are
just like a woman. Let’s call her Suzy. Suzy is leaving the dance with me. She
is sitting next to me on the way home. So, that means you’re leaving the prom
alone. You understand that or do I have to slow down and say it again?”

“What? You some
sort of smart ass?”

“Smarter then you,
although that really isn’t saying much. I’ve seen dishrags smarter than you.
Hell, one-celled organisms look like Nobel Prize winners next to you. You need
me to repeat that?”

The man took one
stride towards Stryker and launched a huge roundhouse that seemed to be coming
at him like a freight train, until Stryker batted his arm down, grabbed it, and
spun the man so he faced away. He deliver two kidney punches, really world
class in his book, and the man stumbled and stepped away. Stryker closed on him
quickly, spun him around, kneed him in the balls, then head-butted his nose and
heard a satisfying crunching sound. The man stumbled away again but Stryker
delivered a half-knuckled blow to the man’s throat, hard enough to temporarily
close the larynx, but not the killing blow he could have used. Still the man
would not go down, and again charged him swinging wildly. Stryker used his
momentum against him, and delivered a viscous blow to the side of his head with
an elbow.

This time the man staggered
away with one hand held up as a sign of surrender. But, he was wearing a
handgun and Stryker couldn’t take any chances. He closed on him again and
delivered two solid shots to his head with the sides of his fists and one more
to the throat. This time, the man went down and stayed there. Stryker reached
down and removed his pistol as Tom came running toward the scene, AR at the low
ready.

“What happened
here?” he asked the woman.

“The big guy on the
ground attacked Stryker. He wanted the panels.” Stryker handed the pistol to
Tom and started to leave.

“Wait,” the woman
said as she came out from behind the table to stand with the two men. “Thank
you so much. Can I ask you what you did for a living?”

“I was a garbage
man.”

“A garbage man?”

“Yeah. It was nice
returning to my former occupation today. That was garbage,” he said, pointing
to the unconscious man. “I took it out.” She shook her head slowly and smiled.

“Thanks again. He
was going to start something with me.”

“I know. I guess
I’ll see you both next week.” They all nodded at each other and Stryker went to
his Jeep and left town.

As Stryker drove
back to the ranch, he remembered how his grandpa added on rules of fighting as
he got older. The third rule was to never punch a man in the face with a fist.
He explained the rule as they were watching a boxing match and the fighter on
the defensive never tried to parry a blow. Rather, he pulled his chin to his
chest, turtle like, and took the blow on the crown of the head. “The bones in
the front of your skull are really thick,” he explained. “The bones in your
hand are really small, thin, and long. No way to win that one.”

Years later, Gramps
added a new rule. “Once you have a man backing up, don’t give him time to
recover; stay after him until you take him down.” Stryker wondered why the
rules were added when they were, and again considered the man who had raised
him. A kinder, gentler man he never knew; but there was also a warrior side to
his character that was always present, like a spark that could, at any time,
explode into a raging fire.

He drove through
the gate and saw a beat-up F-150 parked beside his house. The bed was covered
with a tarp. He jammed on the brakes, grabbed his M-4, and jumped out of his
Jeep. He looked through the scope and saw a man sitting on the rocking chair of
his house. Something about the man tickled his memory. He looked again. Then,
he moved forward, gun up, and walked toward his house.

He was furious at
the intrusion, at the idea that anybody thought they could occupy his house and
not face the consequences. As he grew near, the man raised a beer bottle and
shouted, “About time you got home, Stryker. Been waiting for hours.” He looked
more closely at the man, noted the ponytail and bearded face, and then a
glimmer of recognition passed through his brain.

“Sergeant Keynes?”

“The one and only.”
Stryker lowered the weapon and joined him on the porch

“You’re alive!”

“Last time I
checked.”

“How the hell did
you find me?”

“Went to Pendleton and
got your separation address. I figured that the only things that were going to
live through the plague was you, me, and cockroaches.” He took a deep pull from
the beer bottle, burped, and then added, “you don’t seem happy to see me.”

“More shocked than
anything.” He walked over to where the small man sat perched on a chair,
plucked him out of it, and embraced him in a fierce hug, then noted that he
seemed even smaller and much more frail then that last time they were together.
He set the sergeant down and looked at him with a question mark in his eyes.

Keynes looked away
briefly, took a breath, and said, “Lung cancer. Diagnosed over two years ago. I
got through the chemo before everything went to crap, so who knows.”

“Sorry.”

“Not a problem. I
just have one last thing I have to do before I go.”

“What’s that?”

“My granddaughter
called me from Baton Rouge last week. I have no idea how the call came through.
I left my cell phone on the charger. I don’t know why, after all this time, but
yesterday it rang. It was my granddaughter and she was calling to get help.”

“Tell me more.”

“In a second. Did
you lose your wife and kids?”

“Yes. You?”

Sarge nodded his
head. “They all died. I buried my daughter and son-in-law on the way here. They
lived in Yuma, Arizona. I don’t know why I bothered to stop. My daughter and I
had a falling out a few years ago. We didn’t even see each other for two years
before the disaster.” Sarge wore a grim expression as he said it, as if he was
still trying to remember what went wrong between him and his daughter.

“Where were you
living when the plague hit?”

“On a small ranch
outside of Fallbrook, California.” Stryker wondered how they lost touch of each
other when Sarge had only been an hour away from San Diego, but decided to get
back on point.

“Tell me what’s
going on with your granddaughter.”

“Her name is Erin
and she and her sister, Haley, were students at LSU. Apparently, they had some
campus police and ROTC units that protected the campus. So there were a few
survivors of the plague. They didn’t let anyone near the place. I guess the
guards got the plague, and it was overrun a few days ago by some gang. They
killed all the male students and captured the females. They’re selling the
females to the local men and Erin was sold, but escaped, found a working cell
phone, and called me from a farmhouse northwest of the city, where she’s
hiding. I guess some satellite somewhere hiccupped and the call came through. I
tried to call back after we got cut off, but no luck.

“Baton Rouge,
right?”

“Yes. And you
happen to be right on my route.”

“How many are
there?”

“I didn’t have time
to ask.”

“You want me to go
with you?”

“You bet.”

Stryker thought it
over for a minute, then said, “‘
honor, perseverance, spirit, and heart.
Never shall I forget the principles I accepted to become Force Recon.’ You
remember that?”

“Of course.”

“So you have my answer.”

“I guess we can leave in the morning. If
I don’t get some sleep, I’ll be worthless tomorrow.”

“Of course. We need to eat first and get
some sleep. We can be there a little after noon tomorrow with an early start.”
Stryker paused for a moment, then said, “I hope you have some goodies in that
truck.”

“You do remember who you’re talking to?”
Keynes replied. “Half of Camp Pendleton’s good stuff is in the back of the
truck.”

The men walked
inside and Stryker prepared another meal from cans. Halfway through dinner and
a few beers, Keynes was sleeping in his chair. Stryker nudged him awake and
pointed to the spare bedroom. Sarge got up with a groan and went to bed.
Stryker finished his meal, washed it down with a third beer, and went to bed as
well.

The following
morning, they started to Baton Rouge before sunup. They ate MREs that Keynes
brought, Stryker topped off the saddle tanks on the F-150, and they poured cups
of road coffee before leaving. Stryker eyed the weapons in the bed of the
truck. Sarge had loaded two M-40 snipers rifles, four AT-4 anti-tank launchers,
two M4A1s, three PRC 155 radios, and a case of M33 hand grenades. Ammo cans, suppressors,
NVGs with spare batteries, binoculars, cans of spare fuel, and cases of water
filled the bed as well.

As they pulled out
of his driveway, Stryker said, “Is all that stuff back there loaded?”

“Wouldn’t do us
much good if it wasn’t.”

“Why the AT-4s?”

“They’re more
reliable than the new ones and they never misfire.” Stryker just shrugged.

They rode in a
comfortable silence, moving east by southeast on secondary roads until they reached
Interstate 10. They drove for another two hours, occasionally seeing cars and
trucks moving along the road. Stryker figured they were people going to see if
loved ones were still alive. They passed an intersection that had an old gas
station on one corner and a vacant lot on the other. Hot air puffed off the
land and created a dusty heat shimmer. Then they passed south of Austin and
stopped at a truck stop to change drivers.

Sarge kicked the
F-150 up to 100 miles an hour and the miles flew by. South of Houston, he
slowed for an old construction zone where the highway narrowed to one lane. The
signs and barricades were still there, a reminder of another time. Once they
crossed Burnett Bay, they again traded, and Stryker took the wheel. They
stopped at a rest stop. Sarge pulled a road map out of the glove compartment
and studied the map with narrowed eyes, stabbing it with a finger and grunting
with satisfaction.