The World On Fire Read online

  His rifle shot almost deafened him and the flash suppressor kept him from being completely blinded. He moved as fast as his body would let him out of the doorway and behind what he hoped would be a good spot behind a pile of pallets and shouted, “Police! Freeze!”

  One man almost fell over backwards in surprise, two flinched at the sound of the shot but the last man he could see, turned towards him with his hands held at waist level pointing….

  “Shit,” Joe muttered quietly as the night was broken again by the sounds of gunfire.

  The ground between the stack of pallets and the open barn door erupted into explosions of dust and dirt as rounds were hosed into where the shooter thought Joe was. The gunfire had an odd stuttering chatter, one that made his heart almost stop beating. The sound of an AK-47 was unmistakable to folks in the military or law enforcement, and on tilt, his beloved IMI Galil sounded much the same if bump fired, but it fired much different rounds than the little 7.62x39’s the AK favored.

  The other difference he saw as he peeked around the corner when the gunfire went silent was the shooter reloading. Coming to a kneeling position, Joe fired two shots center mass at the man. He flinched when the pallets started spraying him with wooden shrapnel as two more guns opened up.

  “What the…”

  A sharp sliver hit Joe in the face, right under his left eye and he cried out, dropping his gun for a moment, fearing for the loss of his eye. All coherent thought stopped as he pulled the nearly 2” long sliver out of his skin. It hadn’t gone deep and was well under his eye and he almost missed hearing the footsteps over the constant gunfire. Grabbing his gun from the dirt he shook it to make sure nothing solid was lodged in the barrel and considered his options.

  He was being pinned down behind a poor piece of cover and the men seemed to have started spreading out. Joe considered making a break for the barn when a man stumbled over a small scrub the goats had missed. Half a heartbeat to get the gunsight onto the dark figure in the dark. Half a heartbeat to ensure himself of the target and pull the trigger. The figure fell and, in an instant, Joe realized what had happened.

  The men had been hosing the area with bullets, and if the gun flashes hadn’t blinded them he would have been dead. Instead, the man missed a stupid little bush and stumbled, giving Joe time to put the bullet where it needed to go. Deciding to try his luck before Murphy of Murphy’s Law showed up, he ran backwards towards the barn, expecting to feel the hot burn of a bullet in his back. Making it into the darkness surprised him, but he could hear two men conversing now.

  He’d expected to hear Spanish earlier and had gotten Arabic, but now he was hearing a voice cursing someone named Rishaan in Spanish, and the unmistakable sound of a magazine change. Joe wedged himself back into the darkness until his bony ass found the edge of his workbench, an old solid piece of oak that used to be the front door of his parents’ original house. It was old, weather beaten and a good place to hide and not expose himself to the front door. More shouts, more cursing.

  “They must have found Rishaan,” Joe thought to himself and waited.

  What happened next wasn’t what people would think an honorable man would do, not one who was elected Sheriff of the county for many years until he retired to care after the goats and his small piece of heaven… but times had changed. Two figures stepped into the doorway, the scant moonlight silhouetting them walking in, rifles up to bear. Joe fired at center mass, two for each figure. One dropped and the other ran, stumbling.

  “Oh shit,” Joe told the darkened room when it became apparent that the threat was over.

  A crushing pain started somewhere on his left side and Joe grabbed for the side of the bench as his feet went rubbery.

  “That damn goat better stay in his pen,” Joe panted.

  5

  Brackettville Texas - Brad

  Hot damn, but I was tired. The wind up alarm clock had been found, and it was now going off. Before it was even light out. We’d sat through the Mayor’s radio conversation with a friend of his, a retired sheriff or chief or something. The job was going to be a piece of cake. We’d go there, help the old man fix things up, learn about the goats and how to milk them, and after a week we’d come home.

  “Kill that thing,” I heard from the other room.

  Stuart hated mornings, especially now that he was back.

  We had talked to the Mayor for a while last night. Stu was worried about not going and reporting in immediately, but without transportation, the closest military base was Laughlin Air Force Base, thirty miles away. I didn’t have enough gas for a round trip, and the Mayor hadn’t seemed inclined to help in that regard, even though there were plenty of vets and volunteers.

  “We just lost too many people,” he kept saying.

  We’d also talked about the coming invasion. That seemed unreal. I mean, with the Air Force base in operation nearby, surely they’d pound any large force into the dirt.

  “On it,” I said, hitting it again and swinging my legs out of bed.

  We’d negotiated with the Mayor for gas and food. Almost five gallons of gas for a week’s worth of labor. It would be more than enough for me to get Stuart to the base and back, and then he wouldn’t be worried about not reporting in as directed. Walking, it’d take him a few days.

  “You going to bring your kit?” Stuart asked me, his voice floating out of the darkness.

  My kit was modeled after his. It was an old framed Molle pack much like his was. I kept spare clothing, belt, socks and three one-liter canteens on it. Inside, he’d helped me put together a ‘survival kit’, in case of emergencies. I doubted I’d ever need half the stuff, having grown up playing in the scrub, but it made sense. I decided to add more ammo than I normally carried in case I got some hunting in while I was down there. Who knows, maybe I could bag a nice fat buck.

  “Yeah,” I said, already dressing for the day.

  Lights filtered in through the bedroom as a pickup truck crunched the gravel of the driveway, its headlights blinding me. I finished in half a heartbeat and slid my feet into my boots. It was hot already, and I knew it would only get worse. Nowhere near as bad as the dog days of summer, but I’d learned quickly that a life without air conditioning was something that took some adjusting to.

  “C’mon man… he’s here,” Stuart yelled.

  “I know,” I grouched, grabbing my pack and my gun.

  I’d added extra clothing and toiletries before falling asleep last night, so essentially I was ready. My gun, besides the 1911, was an old SKS. Ammo was easy to find, cheap and, if I wrecked it, I literally had three spares in the safe. I just had to trust Randolph’s word that everything in the house would be looked after and safe from looters while we were gone… that was the one thing that had really bugged me.

  A horn honked just as I made it out the front door and I turned to lock it. It was a very quick muted beep, one probably designed to hurry me up but not wake all the neighbors. I ignored everyone and did both the handle lock and the deadbolt, knowing that it wasn’t that much of a deterrent when sheets of glass could be gone through easily. I was probably paranoid but I didn’t care. I tossed my pack into the bed of the old Chevy that looked like it’d been put back together with duct tape and bailing wire. Despite that, I could hear the motor humming in perfect tune.

  “Let’s go ladies, I have to go pick up Spencer on our way out to Spafford,” Randolph said, a grin on his face.

  “Is that coffee I smell?” I asked, pushing Stuart to the middle next to the Mayor.

  “Sorta, smells and tastes like it but it’s more of a tea…” Randolph paused and handed a thermos over to us, “It’s roasted mesquite pods. Make it every year for my parents… except… well, I still made it this year.”

  I nodded silently; we’d all lost someone.

  “So wait, that’s from those seeds? We just threw them out when they fell to the lawn,” Stuart said.

  “Yeah, you pick them sometime in July or August when the pods turn tan or
a white color. Bust them up into two-inch chunks. Then you roast them over low heat like you would a cake and when they are dried out, you can grind them up and cook it like cowboy coffee.”

  “Your wife’s percolator?” I asked him.

  “Smart aleck, yeah, a percolator. Cowboy coffee. Come on, we’re guys, this is a guy thing. You really didn’t know that? Yer a Texan, aren’t ya?” His tone was teasing, but his eyes never left the road.

  “I know that the critters like it sometimes,” I admitted, “But I’ve always been more into the… meat group side of things.” I told them.

  “Just like I’m into the shooting and blowing up things?” Stu said, grinning.

  “Something like that,” I agreed.

  “You two should keep all the pods you find next year. You can grind the seeds and make a kinda flour meal, or just eat them. Lots of good things come from the regular plants around here.”

  “Just like they taught us in SERE,” Stuart tells me with a grin, “if it’s good enough for the animals, it’s probably good enough for us.”

  “You can eat your worms and berries, I’d rather have a steak,” I told them grinning, watching the landscape change as we approached the outer edge of the county.

  I knew we were going to pick up Spencer, but the truck had one long bench seat. One of us was going to have to ride in the back and I liked my kidneys, so I hoped the younger man didn’t mind it too much. As it turns out, he didn’t. He had a pack of his own and made himself a comfortable spot and tipped his hat low before we pulled out. He would probably be asleep by the time we got there. Listening to Stuart and Randolph talk, I leaned against the glass and drifted off.

  * * *

  “Something’s wrong, hey…” Stuart’s voice broke through, interrupting my dream as he nudged me awake with his shoulder.

  “What?” I asked sitting up.

  The truck had stopped, but we weren’t parked in any driveway. I felt the truck shift as Spencer hopped out somewhere behind me. I knew that because he was opening the door I was leaning on and…

  “Shit,” I mumbled, almost falling on my head.

  I was saved that embarrassment by Stuart grabbing me. I got out and looked around. Cars that had stalled and left, lined the highway here and there. The dust covering the windshields almost made them dark inside, but it wasn’t the stalled cars that the three of them were looking at… It was the birds circling the sky. Carrion birds.

  “Where are we?” I ask them.

  “Half a mile from Joe’s place. There’s too many of them for it to be from him processing a goat. Something’s wrong,” Randy said.

  “How’d you even see them? The sun’s barely up.”

  “Isn’t a lot else to look at out here. Was picking my way through the road and saw a slow moving cloud. Turned out to be crows or some such. You ever seen something like this?” he asked me.

  I nodded, “Yeah, when I make a lot of kills on a farm somewhere. Unless they’re paying me to dispose of the hogs, I just leave them in a pile or row. That’s why I love shooting from my fourwheeler. At the end of the trip I just drag them off with a tow strap.”

  The Mayor nodded.

  “So what’s been dragged into a pile there?” he asked no one, then reached behind his seat and grabbed his rifle.

  I grabbed my backpack, and got my rifle out of the back of the truck as well.

  “Let’s go in quiet,” Stuart said.

  We all nodded and followed him. He hadn’t brought a rifle, but he did have his .44, and he pulled that out of the holster. Randy and I were both holding guns, but seeing Stuart un-nerved enough to draw his put me on edge. His whole body language had changed as well. He moved with purpose, and I followed him. Behind me, Randolph and Spencer tried to emulate his body language.

  Fear, real fear, made my adrenaline soar. It does funny things to your body. Your senses get cranked up past the normal levels, and it becomes hard not to get tunnel vision. I’d had that happen to me on several hunts where a wild boar I’d shot turned and charged. This was different. I’d been on enough hunts with Stuart that I recognized when he put his hand up into a fist that it meant stop. I slid behind some scrub on the edge of the road and peered around and watched him move from cover to cover.

  It wasn’t long and he was back, the color drained out of his face.

  “We’ve got a problem,” he whispered when the four of us were all together again.

  “What’s going on?” Spencer asked quietly.

  “In the yard, there’s four or five dead tangos. Looks like a hell of a gunfight happened,” Stu told us, his voice quiet.

  “Is Joe…?” Randolph asked.

  “I don’t know. I… I didn’t see him. Other than the goats, it looks like there’s no movement,” Stu said, his words sinking in, making Randolph wince.

  “Let’s go check it out,” I said, surprising everyone.

  “What?” Spencer asked.

  “The die-off happened everywhere. If something happened, there’s bound to be people who heard it here in town…”

  “Dude, this is like the world’s smallest small town ever.” Stu said.

  “I still need to check on Joe,” Randolph said.

  “We will. Spencer and Randolph, cover Brad and I at the fences, that way if we need to leave in a hurry…”

  “Got it,” Spencer said and Randolph nodded.

  I had done it enough in game drives with Stuart, and we spread out by five or six yards and slowly advanced on the farm. His handgun was out, ready to use and I made sure my SKS was still ready to roll. The first thing I noticed was the smell. The heat hadn’t really kicked all the way in, but already, I could smell the goats and their enclosure. It doesn’t matter how clean you keep farm animals, they are still farm animals and each has its on odor. This wasn’t horrible, but there was something else in the air and I didn’t like it.

  I could smell something coppery, overlaid with something much worse. The goats made noises, and I went in through the front gate, joined by Stu a second later. The farm was laid out in what looked like a haphazard pattern of small outbuildings and fences. The house was made of cement block, and the barn looked old and ready to fall down. I know looks can be deceiving, but out here, when something sits in the sun and bakes for fifty years, it all starts to look washed out, dried up and ready to…

  “Look alive,” Stu said pointing.

  Two dead men were laid out on the ground. One had died on his side, the other face down. Their features were dark and I covered Stu with the rifle while he went and checked each of them for a pulse. I could smell the voided bowels and shuddered. Hunting animals was one thing, but I don’t think I could ever do what Stuart did for the Army, I didn’t think I could take a life. I saw two forms in the open doorway of the barn, arms and legs akimbo and pointed with my right hand when he was done looking at the dead men on the ground.

  He followed my hand with his eyes and nodded. When he stood, his knees popped, the loudest thing I ever heard it seemed, and my heart started thundering, making it hard to listen to everything else. He walked slowly to the barn, not taking cover as he went, just walking slowly, heel to toe, not making much noise. He used his foot to kick away the guns near the dead men, and headed into the darkness.

  “Stay there,” he said.

  I reached down and grabbed one of the guns and immediately realized what it was. It was an AK-47, something that shot the same ammunition as my SKS. I used to own one, but when I checked closer I realized that it wasn’t the same gun you could find in gun shops all over the country. The wood on the stock looked kind of orange and the grip almost felt greasy. I put the SKS over my shoulder and held the AK up and smelled it. It still had the packing grease on it in some areas.

  I felt the dead man’s pockets with dread, but found nothing. He had a small pack and I pulled that loose. A few bottles of water and some spare magazines already loaded were the only thing inside of it. I moved on to the second dead man and checked him for we
apons or traps, and I could hear Stuart inside the barn moving around. My eyes were starting to adjust to the gloomy interior and I could make out his shape as he went through it. The second man’s pack held much of the same. I almost missed something with the second body and stood up and looked.

  Their skin tone was a little darker than mine, but that had always seemed par for the course down here where Hispanic and Native blood was involved, but it was their features that gave me pause. I leaned the AKs on the wall outside he barn and gave a short whistle. When Stuart didn’t respond, I walked in.

  “He’s over here.” Stuart’s voice floated out from a dark corner and I followed it until I saw him kneeling down, feeling for a pulse on an inert body. It must be Joe.

  “Is he hit?” I asked him.

  “No, but he’s dead,” Stuart told me.

  “How?” I asked him, feeling confused and nervous.

  “He’s clutching his left side. If I had to guess, he had a heart attack after the shoot ‘em up.”

  I looked him over, and couldn’t see anything wrong, but the older man looked gray in the gloom, probably a side effect of the lighting.

  “He’s got an AK also?” I asked, picking a gun up from the work bench he’d collapsed near.

  “Think that’s something else. Looks like a Galil. It’s like an AK but shoots a .308,” Stu told me.

  “Huh. I wonder why he wanted that sharpshooters gun then? I mean, that’s one of the trade items on the list…”

  “I have no idea. I’m just trying to figure out why a coyote was with these guys. Lately traffic seems to go south across the border, but I doubt these guys were traveling south.”

  “You noticed the men aren’t all Mexican then?” I asked him, that still worrying me.

  “Yeah, I can’t pin country of origin down, but these guys are not from here. I’d say they’re recently off the boat from somewhere. Maybe a forward recon group?”

  “Dude, maybe you’re paranoid,” I told him.

  “Hey, you guys all right?!” The shout startled me, but Stu put a hand up on my shoulder to steady me.