Charlie's Requiem: Democide (32 page)

A few more shots rang out from his rifle and he sprinted by me, taking a firing position above his now dead comrade. I moved back to the outside wall and peeked back where he had just come from. With no movement to the rear, I turned back and watched as the man leaned out of the doorway he had taken refuge in. Less than 20 feet away, I aimed at his back and pulled the trigger. Two shots rang out from my handgun, each round causing the heavy pistol to kick back in my hand, and each explosion sending a deadly lead pill into the man’s neck and back. He flew forward, bouncing off the corner of the wall, and spinning out of the door’s landing, landing face-up in the building’s garden bed.

“JORGE! GARRETT! It’s me! Are you guys OK?”

A head popped up from the wall, and Jorge rose and sprinted toward me.

“Come on!” I practically shouted. “All hell’s going to come down on us if we don’t get out of here!”

“No! We need their weapons!” He yelled back. “GARRETT! A little help!”

Garrett popped out from the side of the building where they had broken into one of the other offices to take cover. Jorge moved to the two men who lay in front of me, rolling the first man over and searching him for weapons and spare magazines.

Garrett stopped and stared at the second man I shot. A low moan came from the downed thug.

“I can’t move!” he whimpered. “Please help me. I can’t move my…”

A single gunshot spat from Garrett’s Glock as he put the man down with a shot to the head.

“Screw you!” Garrett hissed. “You tried to kill us. You tried to kill Janice!”

He stood over the now-dead body, frozen as he assessed the damage he had wrought.

“I’m going to get the other one!” Jorge said as he finished stripping the dead thug. “Garrett, get his rifle and check him for magazines! We need to move!”

“I didn’t kill him!” I yelled at Jorge who was running back to the first man I felled.

“What?” He stopped and asked. “What do you mean you didn’t kill him?”

“I hit him over the head,” I said. “I didn’t want the other guy to know I was back here.”

“Oh, OK.” Jorge replied.

He brought his revolver up and advanced on the man I had knocked out. I watched as Jorge carefully, but quickly made his way back to the downed criminal. A single blast from his handgun ended the man’s life, and within another 30 seconds we were all running down the street, ducking into several backyards of homes that were either burned or had been broken into. We didn’t stop running until we had passed the elementary school and found a safe house beyond it, almost a mile from where the gunfight had occurred.

Out of breath, we flopped on floor of the bungalow and lay silently, trying to catch our breath and shaking as the adrenaline that had been dumped into our blood burned itself away. As I lay on the hardwood floor, I couldn’t decide if I needed to cry or laugh. I took two men’s lives and wouldn’t have hesitated to take more if it had meant the safety of our group, and that made me sad. So I closed my eyes and lamented the fact that I had become a killer, not by choice, but by necessity. It helped that there had been no other way to save my friends; and it really made it tolerable that it had been dark enough that I didn’t see their faces.

After reflecting on it for a moment more, I decided that I was going to be alright. It was a new world now and you either fought, or you died. There were no other choices left to me. With my heart finally slowing down and my friends at my side, I did what I had to do and I began to laugh. I laughed at death and how I had cheated it so far. I laughed, because for the first time in weeks, I finally felt in control in a world full of death and confusion.

Strangely, I was the only one to have that reaction. The others lay silent, the dark hiding their reaction to my emotional outburst. Finally, I stopped as my feelings leveled off. I sat up and found my pocket flashlight. Turning it on and covering it with my hand, I let a bit of light filter out from between my fingers. I rose and did a quick survey of the house while the others continued to recover in the home’s living room.

“In here!” I whispered to the group. “And bring the stuff we got back there.”

I found a hallway bathroom with no windows and put my flashlight face down on the floor. The light that escaped from it was enough to illuminate the hallway without creating a lot of additional light that would give our position away.

Three “black” rifles and eight additional magazines lay on the floor. A pistol similar to Garrett’s was recovered and two extra magazines for the handgun were salvaged as well.

Jorge seemed to have some firearms knowledge, and my father had taken me to the range, giving me some rudimentary knowledge of the AR-15 style rifles we had recovered. Also, my dad had a few of these in his gun closet, and it’s my hope that I’ll find them still there when we get to his house.

“OK.” Jorge said. “Who’s used one of these before?”

I raised my hand, the only one of us other than him that had fired an AR-style rifle.

“You pick!” He said.

I looked over the three rifles, picking each one up to feel its weight. The third one I held was distinctly lighter than the other two. It didn’t have anything attached to it other than a small scope that was the size of a spool of thread. I put the gun to my shoulder and looked through the little device that was attached to the top of the rifle.

“Nice choice!” Jorge said. “That’s an Aimpoint.”

“I chose it because It’s the lightest rifle you had there,” I replied, admitting my ignorance at the lucky choice I’d made.

“Have you ever used a red-dot sight before?” He asked.

“No, my dad has regular telescopes on top of his rifle,” I replied.

Jorge chuckled. “They don’t put telescopes on rifles, but I know what you mean. He has the long tube scope on his gun?”

“Exactly, a telescope!”

Everyone laughed but me. I didn’t get why they thought that was funny, but I don’t know guns too well. But I do know how to operate them; My father saw to that.

I took the rifle away from Jorge and, pointing it in a safe direction, I ripped the magazine from the gun, pulled the charging handle back and released it to clear the rifle of a bullet that might be chambered. I locked the bolt back and inserted a fresh magazine from the spares on the floor and released the bolt back into a firing position. Shouldering the rifle, I looked through the scope and saw the image it projected.

“Cool,” I said as I observed the glowing red dot that floated in the scope’s glass.

“Now you know why they call it a red dot sight. Just look through the scope and put the dot on what you want to kill, then pull the trigger. It’s that easy.”

Jorge took the next rifle, leaving the last one for Garrett. We quickly reviewed the operations of the guns; and after practicing several operations, including flipping the safety on and off and replacing the magazine, we continued our journey north.

Janice was given Jorge’s revolver since it was the simplest weapon to use with no magazines to swap, just point and shoot.

We moved with purpose for the next hour, stopping often and listening as we went from street to street and sometimes, just backyard to backyard. Each house presented a potential trap, and each street, with its dead cars and blocked road, was a possible ambush site. We took no chances; and although our progress was slow, it was safe.

After midnight, we came to Leu Gardens, a 50-acre botanical site that hosted weddings and weekend outdoor movies. Approaching from the backyard of a home across the street from the lakefront garden, we scouted for an opening in the wrought iron gated facility where large vines spilled out over the top of the 8-foot-high fence. Unfortunately, the Virginia Drive entrance had been locked shut, preventing us from gaining easy access to the property.

The home we were hidden behind was empty, its back door open to the outside, and not a peep coming from within.

“Let’s take a break in there,” I said. “15 minutes of rest and we can decide our next move.”

The old home, a wood-framed house from the 1920’s, had original wood floors that creaked as we walked on them. In the tomb-like air of the old house, it sounded obnoxiously loud.

“Well, if anyone is in here, they know about us now!” I whispered as we all stopped in the kitchen, which was the first room we encountered.

“Yeah,” Jorge replied. “But they can’t move without us hearing them too. Let’s just stay in this spot and avoid any problems.”

He spread out the map and we reviewed our pathway north. It still didn’t look good. With the town of Winter Park between us and our destination, and multiple lakes to go around, we still had a lot of work cut out for us before we reached my dad’s house.

“I don’t like this at all,” I said as we planned our route. “There are too many choke points as we pass between the lakes.”

“Agreed,” Jorge said. “They’re natural ambush points. I know if I wanted to waylay any travelers, those spots are where I’d set up my trap.”

Jorge pointed to three areas where we had to pass between adjoining lakes to make it past the town itself.

“We need to get by Lake Sue,” I said, pointing to a large body of water just north of the botanical gardens. “We can cut through Leu Gardens and take Lakeside drive west of Lake Sue and approach Winter Park from the south.”

“Yeah,” Jorge said. “But I agree with John, we need to avoid the downtown area. I went to school at Rollins College, which is at the south end of town, and it’ll potentially be a mess with the student dorms full of kids that can’t get home. Besides, with the jewelry shops and other high-end stores, there’s no way the gangs haven’t taken that area over.”

He looked at the map for the hundredth time and tapped the map on the north side of Lake Sue.

“I have an idea. Have any of you done the boat tour of the Winter Park chain of lakes?”

None of us knew what he was talking about.

“Really?” He said with surprise. “There are canals that connect all these lakes, some of them deep enough for a tour boat to slide through. I think we should scout out the homes on Lake Sue and see if any of them have a shallow drafting craft instead of walking through all these ambush sites. I say, we float to your dad’s place.”

“But won’t the boats be just as dead as the cars?” Garrett asked.

“NO!” Janice said. “Back in ‘Bama, my brothers had a Jon boat that had an electric trolling motor. It was a simple device that wasn’t attached to anything other than a battery. If we can find one of those, I’ll bet it still works and we can use it to move quietly on the lake.”

We all agreed with the plan; but with the wall facing us across the street, we had to decide if we wanted to scale it or go around.

“I think there was a ladder outside the garage,” Maria said. “I don’t want to go around on the street; there’s no cover, and Corrine Drive is a busy road. I think we should jump the fence.”

Sure enough, Maria was correct. A well-used wooden ladder was lying against the wall of the detached garage out back. Sprinting across the street with it, we quickly made it over the wall. Reaching through the wrought iron pipes, I pushed the ladder down into the overgrown grass and we disappeared into shadows of the garden’s hundred-year old oaks.

Even with the world falling apart around us, and with several weeks of neglect, the ancient lakefront garden dripped of elegance and charm. The moonlight once again became a welcome companion as we carefully slid from shadow to shadow, never in a straight line and never without a random pause in our journey. We were ghosts in an ancient Florida landscape, blending in with the night and its ever-changing nature.

Frogs croaked their evening aria, and the flutter of nighttime hunting raptors rustled in the branches above. Several paths through the garden brought the sweet smell of jasmine, while a gentle breeze brushed our faces with cool, dry night air.

By the time we made it through the property, my nerves were calmed and my senses restored, that is until we ran into the same wrought iron fence we had scaled on the south side of the property.

“What now?” I asked. “I don’t see a ladder anywhere, do you?”

No one had an answer, and we sat down on the grass, the night air still warm and dry enough to hold its moisture. In a few more hours, the temperature would cool down enough to hit the dew point, and the air’s moisture would begin to saturate the ground and bushes with life-giving moisture.

“How did you do it?” I heard as Janice sat next to me. “How did you kill those men?”

“I don’t know,” I replied honestly. “I guess I just did what I had to.”

The other three listened as I tried to explain how a person can adapt to such a quantitative change in their lives.

“I know one thing,” I added. “If I hadn’t done that, if I hadn’t killed those men, you all would be dead or worse.”

“But you were so calm about it,” Janice replied. “How do you do that?”

“I remembered something John said,” I stated. “Remember when he talked about surviving and what we needed to prioritize? I spoke with him afterwards and said I didn’t think I could do all that. I didn’t know if I could become that person.”

I stared out onto Lake Rowena, the body of water that the botanical garden sat by, and pondered the dark silhouette of Florida Hospital that projected into the western sky. The huge 1200-bed facility showed signs of a fire, many of its windows broken and scarred with a dark, sooty residue that marred the glowing blue light that was a reflection of the night sky. Moonlight shimmered off the lake’s surface as the gentle breeze created ripples on its glassy surface. It was then that it hit me on how to explain what I had done and how I had done it.

“It’s like the ocean or that lake,” I started. “The water reacts to the environment. When there is a storm, the lake gets angry. But when it’s beautiful and calm, the water reflects that as well.”

I turned back to the group and finished. “What John told me was that when the time came to fight, when it was me or them, that I had to get nasty. I had to get ugly and mean and become what the situation called for. If I want to survive, I have to become a killer, without remorse and without guilt. Because the other guy, the one that wants to kill me, is a bad and nasty person. It takes a strong, merciless person to kill the merciless. When those three men attacked you, I became a fighter that was angrier and more vindictive than them. I suggest that you do the same, because if you don’t, you’ll die. And like a body of water, you need to reflect your environment. When it gets tough, you need to be tough too.”

No one spoke, because the truth of it was that none of us wanted to kill. Unfortunately, we were now living in a world that didn’t give us that choice. We couldn’t walk away from conflict when the war was all around us. We just had to accept that for now, when we were confronted by murderers, rapists and thieves, we had to sink to their level and get them first.

“Well, I don’t know about you, but after that little talk, I’m feeling a lot better.” Garrett said, eliciting chuckles from us all. “But how do we get by that fence.”

“If we can’t go over or under it,” Maria said, pointing to Lake Rowena. “I say we go around it.”