The World On Fire Read online

  “…That is why with great regret, I have one last sad piece of news. The South West of the country is being invaded, for lack of a better term, by a private army whose members are from all over the world, seemingly financed by agents of ISIS and North Korea, being guided into the country by the Cartels. Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and parts of California are now open battlefields. There is very little information to go on right now and, even if I had it, I could not share it openly before verifying its sources. We believe it to be the start…” The President made another long pause, “We believe it’s the start of a land campaign the likes of which Americans haven’t seen in many lifetimes. As soon as our Navy and Airforce bring personal and equipment back, they will be pressed into service defending our borders and key infrastructure.

  My fellow Americans, it is now time to take back our country and pull ourselves out of the ashes of a charred existence. I will be in touch. God Bless.”

  The church went silent for several moments and then everyone began speaking at once. The noise was insane, and I couldn’t make out any individual voices. The pastor had promised the congregation a radio broadcast by the president, and oh boy, did he deliver!

  There were quite a few people who had working radios and transportation. I was one of those lucky enough to have a form of transportation, but only if you like to eat bugs. My truck was dead in the water the day the EMP happened. I’d been hooking up the trailer to it for a Saturday hunt. I was supposed to have been a paid guide for some folks from up north to hunt feral hogs and javelin. It wasn’t a big deal; I’d planned to take them out to a farm near the deer lease and let them take some long distance pot shots and help them pack up their kill before they turned and went back up to Indiana or wherever it was they said they came from. Five hundred dollars for half a day’s work, and the farmer paid me a bounty of fifty dollars for every dead hog.

  I know that was double dipping it a bit, but I’d always considered myself a young entrepreneur who had an expensive habit. I loved my truck, I loved my dirt bike and quads, and I loved my guns. I was more than a little shocked when I heard more than saw everything get fried. There wasn’t much electronic in my buddy Stu’s house, but when the radio fell silent, the lights went out and everything smelled like ozone on a hot summer’s eve, I knew something was up.

  “Let’s go man, this is going to get ugly,” Stuart said, bumping my shoulder with his.

  “All right man,” I told him, “We still going to Randolph’s house?” I asked.

  “Yeah, drive us by there,” Stuart said, “Before we head home.”

  We made our exit slowly. I didn’t have to hear individual voices to know what everyone was talking about. The invasion. We’d felt rather safe, being so close to the air force base, but little things were starting to happen. Theft had gone through the roof. In town last week alone, somebody had stolen a ham I’d had hanging in a makeshift smoker that Stuart put together. Stealing food was pretty much a capital crime at this point, and the world had gotten so scary that people coming onto your property without permission were often times met over the sights of a gun if you didn’t know them.

  Not that town was large. I actually lived outside of town, and had three neighbors. That was a pretty sweet deal when the world was normal and sane, but it sucked horribly now. Going anywhere took gas, and that had become one of the key barter items. Gas, ammunition and food. Food itself was getting hard to find. I’d been lucky that Stuart was home on leave when the EMP hit, because I’d had a group of people try to come and take by force just about everything I held dear.

  It hadn’t been a week after the grid went down that I heard something in the garage. Being the dumbass I was, I headed out through the laundry room in my boxers, without a gun. There was a light in the garage and that had puzzled my sleep-addled brain, until I’d realized that the garage door had been jimmied open and there were five men working on pushing the three quads and two dirt bikes I used on my paid hunts down the driveway. I’d called out to them, and three of them had scattered. Two had pulled guns, and suddenly the only thing between me and them was a hair’s breadth of space.

  A form came out of the darkness behind them and the slide racking of a pump action twelve gauge made them look back to find Stu ready and willing to start the dance. That incident had happened almost three or four months ago - time has been funny since every day is the same now - but walking out of the church, I’m reminded of it because I’ve got three assholes surrounding my quad, and one of them has the cover open, exposing the wires.

  “Really? Gonna hotwire a fourwheeler?” I asked, drawing my 1911, my backup gun when I go hunting.

  “This is ours,” a thick Spanish accent replied, definitely not a local. The accent didn’t even sound Mexican, more south American.

  “No, that’s mine,” I said, pissed that the gun pointing at them wasn’t scaring them off.

  I’d been spared having to shoot anybody ever, but Stuart blurred into motion. He was dressed like he always did, boots, jeans and plaid shirt. The rangy look was deceptive, trust me, I know from experience… because he was also fast, and he knew how to fight dirty. His fist swung out, clipping the man sitting on the seat and making him pitch off into the two that were on the other side. Since we’d been the first out of the church, I also figured we were the only people about. Great. No backup and Stu had picked a fight with three when there were only two of us.

  “You’re dead,” the man spat, reaching into his waistband.

  Gun? Hello, I already had one out… Maybe they didn’t see me as a threat? I squeezed the trigger. In the darkness the flames that shot out of the .45 were bright and would have blinded me if it was full dark and not just getting there. The bullet ricocheted off the pavement and off into the scrub in the distance and everyone froze for a moment, considering me.

  I’m not much, young, thinner than my normal because lack of food and dietary choices and, at twenty four, I’m often told I don’t even look eighteen sometimes. That used to be funny, but now it was working against me as one of the dudes gave a laugh and reached for his waist again. A revolver cocking made everyone pause, including me. Stuart had pulled his .44 and was holding the big gun on the three Hispanic men.

  “My friend here gave you a warning shot. I won’t. Light up out of here before I bury you in a shallow ditch somewhere,” Stuart spat.

  “What’s going on?” Somebody shouted from behind us, and I recognized the voice.

  “This isn’t over,” the man Stu punched said through bloodstained lips.

  “Yes it is, because if I see any of you again, I’ll put a bullet into you,” Stuart told them, ignoring Pastor Steve’s voice from behind us.

  I could hear the murmur of voices, but I never moved and kept my gun trained on them. I knew at least one of them had a gun; one for sure had a wicked looking hunting knife strapped to his belt.

  “What is going on?” Pastor Steve shouted, repeating himself.

  “They’re trying to steal our ride,” I said.

  “Not on church property! Do not…” his words cut off, and he must have moved somewhere behind me but I never turned to look.

  “What’s it going to be, guys?” I asked them, knowing I couldn’t pull the trigger, but I kept my father’s old gun trained on them anyways.

  One of them spat on the ground, and as one, they turned and started walking. It was silent for long several moments and I could hear the voices of the small town’s congregation behind us talking. When the three men were out of range, I holstered the .45 and turned to face the pastor.

  “You brought guns to a house of God? I know you both, and I’ve asked you please not to bring firearms into the service. They’re dangerous!”

  “This wasn’t a service, preacher,” Stuart said, “And guns aren’t dangerous, they’re tools. One you should probably learn how to use with your church in the middle of nowhere.”

  “I’d never… you can’t… I won’t have it. I do not want firearms on th
e church property. Those things are dangerous, despite what you boys have said over and over… Do you all hear me?” His words thundered in volume at the end.

  A couple of good men came and stood at our side, pushing their shirts away from their waists, exposing their pistols as well.

  “Looks like we won’t be welcome either then?” the eldest Garcia brother asked. George? Jorge? I couldn’t remember what he went by, I only knew him from the services when my parents were still alive and had dragged me along when we had a Texan as a preacher, not some lily-livered Democrat from Chicago. He was five or six years older than his brother, if I remembered correctly.

  “You? You both?” The pastor sputtered.

  “Lots more than him, Pastor Steve,” I said, “and I bet you every pickup truck still running has at least one rifle in the rack.” I turned so I could see his expression.

  His liberal views might have gone over in a big city like Dallas or San Antonio, but down here near the border of Mexico, we’d all been taking bets on how far he’d make it before he asked for a re-assignment. Pastor Bill and his wife Miss Sally had been here until two years ago when he up and retired.

  “Yeah, there’s a few of us, Pastor. If you have an outright ban, I don’t think there’ll be much in the way of people to come to your service. World’s gotten to be a dangerous place,” Ramone Garcia said.

  Him I remembered for sure; we’d played football together in Brackettville. He was often the linebacker for the team, whereas I was one of many receivers. He was built like Stuart, tall and strong. He could speak English fluently, without an accent. He wasn’t an immigrant, his family lived here when Texas joined the union. There’s a lot of folk like that, and there’s a lot of bigotry in the worked but it wasn’t something we put up with here. Most of us had Spanish blood of some sort, unless we were imports like Pastor Steve.

  The Pastor sputtered and I shook my head and sat on the quad. No wires had been cut, but I could see they were looking to bypass the kill switch in the ignition and then all it would taken was them touching the ignition wire to a hot wire and it would have been running. But the steering still would have been locked, and I have no idea how they would have gotten around that… The stupidity of my fellow human beings shocked me sometimes. I knew it shouldn’t, but Darwin’s law never seemed to apply to stupidity.

  “Did they mess it up?” Stuart asked, putting the hand cannon he was holding back into the holster.

  “Naw,” I said, locking the cover back into place and putting the key in.

  It was my older quad, almost no electronics on it, and no lights that worked. Just a brush guard and a pull start.

  “Let’s get out of here. If the pastor is too stupid to realize the world…”

  I let Stu drone on as he swung into the seat behind me. I could still hear him, but he was ranting about gun control, the stupidity of people who advocated it for the wrong reasons, the mental health laws… I took off, the knobby tires making a quiet rumble on the pavement. We had to go visit the mayor and, if we wanted to be home before it got extremely late, we’d need to hurry. We’d built him a fancy goat pen at the edge of the small city in exchange for some gas and dried foods that the city had in stores from the last FEMA group that had come through.

  No camps for us Texans. I remembered hearing about the FEMA camps and the President’s words on the radio address. I hadn’t even heard of camps… Just the FEMA representative saying help was coming soon… Other than the truck full of dried food, the man hadn’t been able to tell us much or help us much. It sounded like the government was coming out of hiding. Finally. If it weren’t for the occasional truck from Laughlin AFB, I’d almost think we’d have something to be worried about.

  According to the President, we did. Maybe we were just too far off the beaten path, but other than some minor violence and thefts from drifters, it had been a sleepy summer. I’d been doing more to scrounge up food than keep in touch with world events though. In no time at all, I turned onto the road that led up to the small ranch the mayor owned. He had just a couple of bulls and a few cows, having sold his stock up in the spring time.

  “Lights are still on,” I said, turning the quad off and climbing off.

  “Yeah,” Stuart said, quiet and probably pissed that I’d tuned him out.

  We’d been friends since my Junior year of high school and, when my parents died, I moved in with him so I could finish up and think about college. Instead, I went a little wild. I worked when I felt like it, hunted every moment I could and, when I found out I could make money hunting, it was a match made in heaven. Stuart had bought a house, was settling down to marry a beautiful woman… Life was easy, until things fell apart for him. Maria left him after an argument I never heard about, and he ended up enlisting.

  I kept the house up for him and he paid the taxes and part of the bills, I paid the other part… Only luck had him on leave from the Army when the EMP hit, or God knows where he’d have been stranded. Probably someplace with power and air conditioning. He said even the tents in Afghanistan had air conditioning. How can a tent in a third world country have air conditioning when a house in the USA couldn’t?

  I let Stuart knock and stood back behind him. He was friends with the Mayor, and he’d gotten us the gig. I just hoped there was more work coming. The food helped a lot, but it wasn’t going to be enough for the winter time. Both of us were a little food obsessed and missing being able to just go buy a Big Mac, an extra large Slurpee or even a Coke. God, I missed Coke.

  “Hey boys,” Randolph Stephens said, opening his door wide to let us in, “I’m glad you came. Did you hear the President’s address?”

  “Yes sir,” We both chorused.

  “Good, good. I’d like to ask you two about a job I have in mind. Might have you gone for a week or more, but you’d have food provided for you while you’re gone, and something for the leaner months.” He glanced down at my jeans that had been cinched tight, the new holes in my belt evident.

  “Sure,” we both said, following him to the kitchen table.

  “Sit, let’s hash this out. Anybody care for a Coke?”

  I smiled; maybe there was a God after all.

  3

  King’s head snapped up at hearing the shout, to see a woman he had thought dead running towards him. Her stomach was swollen with baby and a look of surprise was etched on her features. As she neared him, she launched herself and the big man caught her with one arm as she threw her arms around his neck and hugged the life out of him.

  “How can this be?” he asked, putting her down and pushing her hair out of her eyes.

  The woman he remembered had always had a short if not buzzed cut, and she had gone from whipcord thin to pregnant and curvy with hair down to her chin. Despite the differences though, he recognized his apprentice at once.

  “I thought you were dead!” he whispered to her, “They told me you went down in Afghanistan on the next mission and you were killed by the insurgents.”

  “I’m glad to see you,” she said burying her face into his chest and trying to squeeze him to death.

  She broke off and turned to find Blake standing about ten feet back, a puzzled expression on his face.

  “Blake, this is King; he was my mentor and teacher.”

  Blake walked forward slowly, his hand extended. His wife had opened up a little to him, but it was when she was sleeping that she let things slip. Missions that didn’t involve helicopters or mechanics. He’d heard as much from Boss Hogg’s men who tried to abduct her, but here it was in the flesh, almost 300 or 350 pounds of it.

  “Thank you,” Blake said, his hand dwarfed by the giant’s.

  “Did my job,” King told him.

  Blake was tall, but King was a giant, and although they weren’t eye to eye, it was a close thing. Blake didn’t feel any menace coming from him and relaxed even further.

  “If you hadn’t done it so well, I might not have ever met her,” he told him.

  “She’s my b
est student. Got better than me a long time ago.”

  Duncan picked that time to walk up and take in the scene as the rest of the group gathered around and stared in shock.

  “Let’s make introductions. My name is Chad, this is my fiancée Rose, my comrade Michael Lewiston and his mom Anna,” Chad said, as clearly as he could.

  “I’m Blake,” he said shaking hands. “I’m not here for long, but I think we’ve got some talking to do. Anybody hungry?”

  They nodded.

  * * *

  They never told Blake everything, but a lot of the general holes in Sandra’s time had been filled in. There were operations where the quick insertion of a person who could get out of sticky situations was needed. The military had been training people for special missions for a long time, but when they needed to find a woman to fit a specific mission profile, Sandra had been selected and sent to King for specialized training.

  They heard how the quiet Kentucky woman ignored the idiocy that some of the men in uniform seemed to thrive on and instead focused on the training. Soon, the naysayers were trying to keep up. After a while, they struggled to even compete at anything near her level of competence and physical fitness. When it came to books she was quick, and she matched that with an uncanny ability to read people. She was admired and when she left training, people knew she would go on to make the country proud.

  John had been sent on one such mission and gotten stuck behind enemy lines. Sandra and her friend had stolen a chopper, rescued John and had almost had the Armed Forces Oversight Committee tied in knots in congressional hearings. To make things disappear, Sandra had died in a subsequent mission, ending the investigation. That hadn’t really happened, but it worked long enough for her to leave the military and resume civilian life with a modified DD-214 and some papers that probably came from the CIA.