The Storm (31 page)

              “I remember you,” he said hoarsely and with a small cough of blood.

              I lowered my rifle a touch and tried to reciprocate the smile as best I could. “And I you. What happened here? I thought you said there was no more police force?”

              Alex gave a gentle nod and continued rocking his head a few seconds. He reached up with his right hand and rubbed his left breast for a moment and then put it back down. When the hand came away, it was covered in shiny fresh red blood. “We were just going to stay here and hope that our presence might make people think twice about going crazy.” Another cough with more blood came out. He was still a handsome young man, but his teeth were half white and half red with his own blood. “They were trying to kill us for a couple of days now. They set up a few guys out there and have been watching the windows for days. Alex and I stayed in the basement for the most part and kept the door locked. They got lucky and picked her off this morning.”

              Another cough mixed with blood as he tried to raise his left hand to cover his mouth, but he was unable. He was dying, and quickly. “We heard a gunfight or something close by, and she went up to the roof to see if she could get a view. They shot her in the head, and with her gone, they knew it was just me. They came after me, but I took a couple of the bastards down.”

              Again I was speechless. I didn’t know what to say or do. “Is there anyone else here?”

              He looked at me with eyes quickly turning bloodshot, “Just you two. You all need to get out of town. Everyone is going mad.” His breathing was now very labored. “Everything is going to hell.” With that, he let out a deep breath and then made a gurgling sound. His eyes still staring at me, or through me, displayed a false sense of cognizance. Alex was dead.             

              With Alex’s death, Miller stood up and popped his neck by moving his head left to right. He then looked at me and placed his hand on my shoulder. “Forget him, Josh. It sucks, but we got these guys back. Teach them to mess with us. I figure we capped at least ten.”

              Slowly I nodded in agreement and continued to stare into Alex’s now dead eyes. I wondered, is Alex now in a better place and have the dead finally seen the end to war? The pale rider had been busy, and Alex’s death gaze warned me that he was coming back for all of us soon. Miller was right though, we had exacted a pretty strong vengeance. It was time to get out of here before they organized and came back.

Chapter 16

Castlewood Ridge

              Every night, nightmares continued to plague me, and every day I awake and realize that my day ahead may be scarier than what I had just dreamt. Two days had passed since the police shooting, and that time had been anything but serene. The entire neighborhood was on edge, everyone carrying a gun and snapping to attention anytime a noise was heard. Few people went outside except to travel from point A to B. Stacy and our children already were displaying some symptoms of cabin fever. They wanted to go outside, but home was the only place that felt safe.

              While we hadn’t seen any further shootings or violence, the threat loomed over us like a black cloud about to burst with rain and lightning. Like the storm cloud, its thunder at random intervals nearby reminded us that the storm was coming. The community’s food situation was growing desperate more quickly than anyone had imagined. More families continued to run out of food, and those who had it didn’t want to share. I was guilty of this too and only made a niggardly contribution to the central food depot, which was depleted almost before it was formed.

              Our options were few and growing more radical. We had convened a town meeting the day before and put our new plan to a vote. With an overwhelming majority, we decided to wage war on our neighboring community, Castlewood Ridge. It was an affluent subdivision, large houses and probably full pantries, everyone figured. Everyone kept referring to them as “richies” and not being deserving of their food. I wondered if that was how the people in the apartments felt about us, but I stayed silent. Emotions were running high, and I didn’t have a better plan to offer.

              Samantha had asked Slav to come up with a plan for us, and we were to set out before dawn. At least we had one day of respite, and I was able to spend it with my family. I felt myself skirting some various forms of psychosis. The pressures, stresses, and near-deaths in battle were struggling to push me over the edge of a cliff while only the love and duty I felt for my family kept hold of me and prevented me from taking the dive. My duty to them drove me forward.

              The time was the quietest of night, the hour that preceded dawn. We were back in warrior mode and mentally revving up for what may lie ahead. Each of us made a vow to try and not kill indiscriminately, to only fire back when we felt threatened. We were there for food, not their lives or rape or any other despicable act. I wondered, what mercy are we showing them if we take their supplies and starve them to death? What if a child is present and looks at me? Could I condemn a poor kid, knowing in the back of my mind that I would be going home to mine? These were difficult questions I thought about in the dark as we marched silently, but I resolved myself again that my family came before others. If we didn’t take their food, someone else would. If people still had doubts about Darwin’s theory, they weren’t living in the same world as I am. We were in position to move, but something just felt wrong.

              Earlier that morning before we left, Slav gave us specific instructions. He kept insisting we cut through the woods and take a well-known path that was made by some neighborhood kids who frequently went back and forth to play with each other. I told Slav I didn’t like how the path emptied into a hill and a clearing that was wide open. One person with a gun could mow us all down in that field if he were awake and saw us. He had tossed aside my objections and assured me we had surprise on our side. He even said he would take Miller to the entrance of their neighborhood and create a distraction that should keep them occupied.

              I had agreed with this plan when it was rammed down my throat and everyone else was looking on nodding in agreement with Slav. He may have fought people in Bosnia or wherever he served previously, but this plan just didn’t make sense to me. We could pop out of the forest at a hundred spots with better concealment and cover. This was the obvious point of entry to their neighborhood and we had no intelligence if they had guards or were armed. Something about the whole operation just felt rotten.

              With me were Nana, Rick and Roald, and young Zeke. Jean Pierre had volunteered to go but suddenly had a sniffle and couldn’t be found. The air was pleasantly cool and we had another cloudy sky concealing the moon, although it hadn’t rained yet. Zeke had brought a pair of binoculars he’d found in a closet. I put out my hand with palm facing skyward and raised my fingers a few times. He knew exactly what I wanted and handed them to me. The late night or early morning is a freakishly odd time of day. It’s the darkest part of the night and also the most quiet. All seemed still as we hunkered down in the forest.

              As I unbuttoned the cover that protected the binoculars, it made a small pop sound. In total silence, a small sound’s decibel level is magnified. We were about thirty feet from the edge of the forest and had each silently taken cover behind trees. So far, we’d been careful and the only noise we had made were the occasional small shuffling of leaves. It hadn’t even occurred to me to ask Slav what kind of distraction he was going to make. It was that realization alone that caused me to stop from rushing into Castlewood Ridge and wait.

              As I put the binoculars to my eyes, I swept the hill ahead of me. The hilly field looked like it was mowed maybe once or twice a year, and the grass was already lengthy from this past year. Behind the field were three large houses at the top. Each had a big back porch while the house in the middle displayed a large playground behind it.
Great
, I thought,
we will be stealing from kids
. I continued to stare intently through the binoculars, looking for anything other than shadows of shadows. The darkness of night holds many secrets. Suddenly I caught a touch of movement on one of the porches. It was a flash, an image that lasted quicker than the blink of an eye, but I was certain I had seen something move.

              Slowly I pulled the binoculars down and gazed with my eyes up the hill. All I could make out was a sea of nothingness with the faint outlines of the houses in the distance. Something twisted in my stomach and gave me pause. I looked over my shoulder at my group and could see each of them looking back at me, waiting for the all clear to move ahead. It was dark, but I could make out each of them, except Nana. Only his white eyes betrayed his position to me. Being black in society may have had certain disadvantages at times, but tonight he had an extra card at the poker hand, and I was jealous. “Nana!” I whispered over to him.

              “Yeah,” came the hushed reply that was barely audible.

              “I think I saw something move up there.”

              His pause made me uneasy as he thought about what I had just said. Finally Nana suggested, “A cat, maybe?”

              “Maybe,” came my reply. I had a bad feeling about all this and turned to look up the hill again. At this point, we were waiting for Slav’s distraction, but I just wanted to go home. I had food enough for a year and didn’t need to risk my neck like this. My sole raison d’
ê
tre at this point was to protect my family. Still, nobody could know about our secret stash, or they would clean us out, and then we would be destitute, so I had to go along with what benefited the neighborhood. Soberly I stared deliberately up the hill again.             

              After a quiet minute of seeing nothing, I heard a small rustling sound behind me. Someone was coming closer. “Josh,” said Zeke in a voice that could have been a mouse speaking.

              I lowered the binoculars again and slowly turned around. “What’s up?” I asked him in a rushed but whispery voice.

              “I was thinking this is like when I go out and go toilet papering. Everyone up there is probably asleep. I used to have fears I would get caught . . .” he then looked at down at his feet. “Well, you caught me but that was the first time. I’ve papered dozens of houses over the years. It’s always like this outside, and I used to be paranoid too. I’m going to go up there and show you that everything is safe.”

             
Little Zeke had suddenly grown some balls
, I thought. I was about to send us all home, and he wanted to be the hero and go up there. Who was I to stop him? “Okay, Zeke. Go quietly. We will cover you from here. Clap your hands three times at the playground if it’s safe.”

              Zeke’s smile was hard to distinguish in the dark, but he nodded and started walking forward back on the dirt path. My group was starting to move, and I raised my clenched fist upward to gesture them to halt. As if that wasn’t enough, I was a bit loud but uttered, “Stop, guys.”

              “What the hell is he doing?” whispered Rick.

              At almost the same moment Nana asked, “Why is he going alone?”

              I couldn’t explain it all to them in detail without making too much noise. Zeke was at the edge of the forest and about to venture into open ground. Our focus had to be on him now. “Just cover Zeke, guys,” was all I gave them.

              My mind flashed back to that moment when Tom Jones died a few days before. It was so sudden and broke my well insulated bubble of security that I had let inflate leading up to that moment. I wondered if Zeke was going to meet the same fate. He was a punk kid but didn’t deserve to die. I held my loaded rifle in my right hand as I used my left to steady the binoculars. Just as Zeke was coming out into the open field, he slowly lay down on his stomach and began crawling forward. I was thirty feet from him and already could barely see him. Maybe he wasn’t as brain dead as I thought, and his toilet papering experience had prepared him for this night.

              Fifteen minutes of silence went by, and every time I looked back at my buddies, their faces failed to conceal their nervousness. After several more minutes of silent waiting, I noticed Roald was starting to stir and was continually adjusting his position from one tree to another. Each time it made a small noise but probably not enough to give away our position. I wanted to shout at him to stop, but I was on edge too. The waiting game is worse than anything else in life. I kept expecting to hear three claps anytime, but they didn’t come. Intently I continued to sweep the horizon with the binoculars, but all I saw was darkness. Whatever that flicker of movement was earlier, it hadn’t reappeared, and Zeke wasn’t visible to me either.

              I started to bite my nails. It was an old habit I had kicked as a kid, but right now, there was just no other way to pass the time. No distractions came from Slav, and Zeke was out there, somewhere. Suddenly, a sound from up the hill carried aimlessly through the early morning air.

             
CLICK . . . CLICK

             
Two metallic clicks separated by a second. Immediately my mind started spinning, and I wondered if Zeke was horsing around at the playground but then something more insidious flashed across my cortex. That sound was the same as someone loading or arming a rifle. If someone was up there and had a rifle aimed at the field, it almost certainly had a bullet in the chamber and was only waiting for the small pull of the finger to unleash its fury. There was nothing I could do but wait, and wait we all did.