The World On Fire Read online

  “Here you go,” Stu said, snaking his hand out of his pocket and handing Maria a Payday bar.

  “Where’d you get that?” I asked him, stunned.

  Stu looked at me and shook his head. Right. Randolph was Joe’s friend, and they’d gone through the house and barn looking for anything that might be of value or use to the town. He wasn’t planning on taking it for himself, but the people of Spafford were already in a bad spot. Several townsfolk had stopped in and asked to use the hand pump for their own water and he had obliged. In all, their best guess was twenty to thirty people left in town.

  “Vending Machine,” he said after a moment, smiling.

  “If you find another one Mister Stu… wait, I had you for dinner?” she broke up into giggles.

  He looked at me questioningly.

  “Stu ate stew also,” I told her, which made her laugh even louder.

  “Honey…” Marcy’s voice drifted out of the darkness.

  “Ooops,” she said and opened the candy bar as she slid off the stool and went to check on her mom. Tired, but smiling.

  “So, about your guns,” Stu said.

  “Yeah, leave me the SKS and an AK with about five magazines. I’ve got plenty of my own ammo but I’d like to have a backup gun in case my SKS has a hiccup again.

  “Good thing we were thinking alike. Let me go get you those magazines, and then we’re out of here.”

  I nodded and I followed him to the door. I heard the goats bleating from the back of the truck which now sported staked sides, with the goats we were going to trade tied off. They could move, just not very far, nor very much. With me staying, somebody didn’t have to ride with them back to town. Stu brought back a double handful of magazines and gave them to me. He gave me a bro hug and then left without words.

  Why was I staying to look after the Garcia family? That was the question. It had to be done, but why me?

  “Mister Brad, my mom is awake. She wants to talk to you.”

  “Ok,” I said.

  I’d lost my night vision watching the truck leave, so I felt along the wall and found my bag in the chair on the other side of the shoe rack. I found my emergency candle and screwed off the top and lit it. The soft glow lit up the rooms as I walked my way towards the bedroom that Marcy was in.

  “Maria, you should be going to bed,” she told her daughter, who hugged her tight and headed to her bedroom.

  “Are you feeling ok?” I asked her, putting the candle on the bed stand so we could see each other.

  “I’m feeling all kinds of better,” she said. “Ate something bad the other day and couldn’t stop getting sick.”

  “It’s hard,” I told her, “especially in Texas.”

  “Thank you for your help. You really didn’t have to stay…”

  “Ma’am, you can’t get out of bed,” I told her.

  “I probably can, but I haven’t tried. Actually, would you make sure I can get to the bathroom without falling? I think I’ve bruised every bone in my body already and I have to…”

  “Sure, yeah sure.” I told her.

  It was awkward, but she made it down the hallway without tumbling. I put the candle on the sink so she’d have light and waited in the kitchen till I heard the toilet flush. I’d refill the tank later, but that was my signal to give her a hand.

  “For a second there, I thought the power had come back,” Marcy said, “When the toilet flushed.”

  “Yeah, I filled the bowl and tank with the buckets. I’ve got backups for you.” I told her, “But it’s goat water, don’t drink it.”

  “Thought it smelled a little funny,” she said smiling at me.

  “You need to get some more liquids in you and, if you can, I’d like you to try some stew again.”

  “Is this what you do to all your dates?”

  “This isn’t a date, I’m not… I mean…” I was flustered and she let out a dry chuckle of her own.

  “I heard you talking to Stuart earlier. Just teasing you. I think I know why you’re doing this.”

  “Why?” I asked her.

  “God has you looking out for us,” she said.

  “I’m not sure I believe in that, in him. With everything that’s happened…”

  “It doesn’t matter if you don’t believe in him,” she said, walking towards a bar stool instead of the bedroom, “he believes in you.”

  She sat down and folded her hands, resting her chin on them. It wasn’t an act of seduction or being coy, she was simply almost ready to fall over. I still had the leftover stew in the pot, as I’d been planning on eating it later, but it had dried out a little bit. I relit the burner and put it on, adding some more water.

  “I guess that’s ok with me then,” I told her, “and Stu was right. Before the EMP, before the war or whatever this is, I was all about me. I’m a professional hunter and it was always an ego thing with me. Had to be the best at what I did, had to do everything the way I wanted. Like I said, it was all about me. Sharing and caring, hell, even marriage material… that was never in my cards. I was going to be the eternal bachelor.”

  “Do you have any coffee?” she asked after a pause.

  “I’ve got instant coffee,” I told her.

  “Then you’re marriage material.”

  We laughed quietly, trying not to wake her daughter.

  “So are you still feeling nauseated?”

  “No,” she said after a pause, “I think the food poisoning worked its way out, but I had already lost too much fluids. I couldn’t think straight.”

  “If you think me having coffee makes me marriage material, I think that’s a good example of you still not thinking straight,” I said with a grin.

  She fell silent, smiling. Even sharing words with a woman was calming somehow. I did not feel any sort of attraction or affection towards her, other than wanting to do the right thing by her and her daughter. I mean, I felt bad. If we’d come a day later, Marcy could have been too far gone. As it was, she’d drank seven bottles of water before she’d even felt like she had to use the bathroom. She would have been in bad trouble if we’d been any later.

  The stew started steaming and I gave it a few good stirs and then handed her a spoon and a hot pad so she wouldn’t burn herself. She ate while I found my tin coffee cup and a foil pack of Folgers. It wasn’t my favorite coffee, but it worked in a pinch and it came in single serving pouches. Great for back packing, hunting, hiking and prepping. Now, it had basically got me a marriage proposal. Even if she was teasing me.

  The mug started steaming about the same time she finished the stew, so I made the coffee black and handed it to her and put water back into the pot to heat up again.

  “You can’t be serious,” she said, “I think I’ll bust if I have anything more than that.”

  “It isn’t for you,” I told her grinning and showed her the single serving packet of Mountain House.

  “You like that stuff,” she said.

  “I have an addiction,” I corrected, “But there’s this twelve step program I heard about, not the one with God… but something about The Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster…”

  “Are you trying to make me laugh?” she asked.

  “No,” I lied.

  “Good; you’ve got to work on your jokes.”

  “I’m no good at this,” I told her, “Small talk.”

  “You’re doing just fine. You uncomfortable with long silences?”

  “Not really,” I admitted.

  “Same boat,” she said, and sipped the coffee. Her eyes rolled with pleasure, “Not too hot. I have to be careful, I haven’t had coffee in months and months.”

  “I don’t know if that’s good for your stomach, now that I think about it,” I told her.

  “I’m already feeling human again,” she shot back, “I’ll stop if it bugs me.”

  “As opposed to?”

  “Not bugging me?”

  “No, as opposed to feeling human?” I meant it to be funny, but again humor fa
iled me.

  “No. I think… I remember when you came in. I thought you had done something to my Maria or were about to. You carried me in here and you literally saved our lives.” She paused, waiting for me to say something but I didn’t. Couldn’t.

  “And then you fed us, made sure I was on my feet. I wasn’t feeling much when you came in,” she said, “other than being confused and scared. Now I am… full, content, sleepy.” She took another sip.

  I didn’t know where she was going with all of that, but I appreciated it. In the end it sort of made sense.

  “You can go to sleep,” I told her, “I’m going to sleep in the chair by the door.”

  “Tell me about those men who came,” Marcy whispered, looking back at the door.

  “One was Mexican,” I winced, I’d been trying not to use that word, but I went on before I could embarrass myself further, “and the others looked middle eastern. They had AK-47s.”

  “Did your friend go and check to see where they came from?”

  “Not very far, just a couple miles until he couldn’t follow through the desert with the truck anymore. They didn’t leave much in the way of tracks. Probably crossed the area and then walked along the roads till they found a meal.”

  “Do you think we are in danger here?” she asked, taking another drink.

  “No, I doubt it,” I told her, halfway lying, “no more than anybody else with the way the times are.”

  “You said Mexican, you mean Hispanic or do you mean from Mexico?”

  I winced again. Here we go, I thought, I know I’m going to make myself sound stupid. I owed it to her to answer.

  “I believe he was from Mexico. It was the clothing he wore, the brand shoes he had on.”

  “Then he would be a coyote, an escort. I wonder why he was escorting three men in?”

  I told her what I knew about the coming war. The news was grim, but she took it well.

  “So when I am ready to travel, I’ll head out and go further north, when I can walk.”

  “I think we can do better than walking.” I told her, thinking of the car we found in the barn.

  * * *

  The door splintering startled me awake. I reached for my SKS in my lap when a bright light shone on me and a blow sent me and the chair toppling to the right. I felt my flesh tearing as another blow landed close to the one that had knocked me over. It was something sharp. I couldn’t see, but I felt the crushing weight as somebody pulled on my arms. My body wasn’t responding and the flashing of lights throughout the house were the only thing I saw. I heard the screams… The gunshot and a child yelling for her mother.

  * * *

  My muscles hurt, and I felt like I had to puke. I had no idea where I was, but I could feel the wind and every time the bed of the truck bounced… I opened my eyes wider. I’d been tossed in the back of the truck with Maria. She was hogtied, gagged and on her side the same way I was. Three men were sitting near the tailgate by my feet with their rifles held up at the ready.

  “You go back to sleep, or I’ll put you there,” a man said in broken English, noticing me move.

  “Are you ok?” I asked Maria, who was staring at me silently.

  “I think so,” she said.

  I saw a tear run down her cheek.

  “Your mother?” I asked her.

  She shook her head, “A loud bang woke me up and some men grabbed me. Then they put us in this truck.” She started to cry.

  “No talking!” A man who’d been standing in the bed near the cab kicked me viciously and the world went dark again.

  I fought the urge to puke all over his combat boots and won after a long silent stretch of minutes. Instead I turned to look around. Two more men stood by the cab of the pickup. The paint was an old faded blue. It looked like the Chevy we’d passed walking to the Garcia’s house. I’d assumed it was out of gas if it was there. Unless whoever these guys were, were the ones staying at that house.

  When they’d kicked in the door, I had assumed it wasn’t to talk about Jesus or the new brand of Tupperware they were peddling; without even seeing their faces I thought it was more likely the kind of men who’d been killed at Joe’s house. Now in the faint light of dawn, it looked like I was right. Every person who was riding in the back of the truck with us looked Middle Eastern.

  “Don’t look at me.” The foot wound up for a kick again and I tried to tuck my chin to my stomach just in case.

  Apparently the fake out was enough. As it was, every pothole and bump felt just as bad as the kick, but I was conscious for those, and the ride seemed to take forever. When we finally stopped, a lot of words were exchanged as the men left the truck and other voices joined in. Now, living and growing up in Texas, I was bilingual. We all were down close to the border. It wasn’t that we had to be, it was just how things were. None of what I was hearing was English or Spanish.

  “Them,” somebody said, and I felt someone undoing the bonds at my feet.

  I hadn’t realized how tight the ropes had been tied, because as soon as they were let loose the blood flow caused pins and needles so badly that when they dragged me to my feet, I almost fell. As it was, I was already a bit dizzy. I heard screams and looked to see them attempting to cut the bonds off Maria.

  “Let me,” I yelled.

  They ignored me, so I tried to yell again until I got the butt of a rifle in the stomach. I fell to the ground, almost heaving. I held my bound hands up to my face, maybe to try to hold my gorge back in, when I felt the sticky mess on my cheek. I pulled my hand away and wasn’t surprised to see the clotted and half dried blood. From when they knocked me out.

  “I said, don’t touch me!” Maria said, and she sat down on the ground by me, her hands still tied.

  They may have undone our legs, but they had earlier tied our arms and legs together. Now, they took the long ends of the rope and started pulling. I staggered to my feet and Maria popped up before she got hit and started following. She was crying and screaming the whole way.

  “Shut up, we are going to talk to Khalid. He will ask you questions. No lies,” one of the men said.

  Maria started reciting The Lord’s Prayer softly in Spanish under her breath. If I believed, I might have joined in.

  10

  They walked through Brackettville in the dark, electing to go straight through than detour. Normally King wouldn’t chance it, but there was nobody out there and they expect to run into any of the forces of the New Caliphate anywhere near here. Latest intelligence had them further north and west. So they were caught a little off guard when they were past town as the sun was rising. They were trying to find a shady spot when King noticed a dust cloud moving in their direction.

  “What is it?” Michael asked.

  “Truck coming,” King told him.

  “How can you see that far?” Michael asked.

  “When you’ve seen one desert…”

  “You’ve seen them all. Great, it’s a dust cloud caused by a truck kicking it up from the sides?” Michael asked.

  “Yup. Dust’s too high to be a small car. Besides, everyone down here has trucks.”

  Michael smiled at that and nodded. For the most part, that was true from what little they’d seen. They started moving off the road and towards a brushy area to hide when Michael had an idea.

  “Is there any reason we can’t hitch-hike?” he asked.

  “Suppose not, but we’re leaving a footprint if we do.”

  “Two men on foot leave an impression, don’t ya think?”

  King thought about it. It went against his training and everything else, but he focused on one thought. He was not behind enemy lines like he had been in hot spots all over the world. He was right here in America. Over there, even friendlies were considered unfriendly. Over here…

  “Do it,” King said nodding towards the road.

  They started walking, readjusting their packs to give them access to their long guns. King held out a thumb when the truck pulled into sight.


  “Think they are going to stop?” Michael asked, mirroring the gesture and walked backwards the same way King did.

  “They will or they won’t,” he said.

  The truck seemingly grew larger in size the closer it got to them until they could make out that it wasn’t moving fast. If it had been, it’d slowed down a bit as the dust cloud seemed to be dissipating. The truck put a blinker on and, when it pulled to a stop, the driver leaned out of the window.

  “You two fellas need a lift?” he asked, his accent so thick that King had to run the man’s words through his head twice before answering.

  “Yes sir, that’d be appreciated, if you’re going south?”

  “Yes, a few miles but it’ll be a few closer to where ya want to go?”

  “Sounds good,” Michael answered. “I’m Michael, this is King.”

  “King huh, well I don’t got room in the cab for you both. If one of ya wants to hop in the back and another up front…”

  “We can ride in the back, it’s hot out and the wind will feel nice,” Michael said, knowing that there was no way King was going to fit in that truck with the other two. He’d take up half the vehicle as it was.

  “Suit yourself. I’m Randolph, this here’s Stuart. We’re headed to Spafford. Probably can take you a few miles past that if you want.”

  “That’s fine with me, a few miles is half a day’s walk,” King said putting his bag into the bed of the pickup and then took his M4 off his shoulder and put it in as well.

  Stuart was eyeballing them as they were getting ready to get in and he turned to watch.

  “Those aren’t civilian models,” he said to King, who’d positioned himself in the passenger side.

  “Neither is your AK, son,” King said.

  Stu’s eyes widened and then he nodded in understanding. One soldier to another. Michael turned to see what he’d been looking at and saw the gun rack on the roof of the cab. Two AK-47s were in it, alongside a scoped rifle. He didn’t recognize the rifle, but it looked like something his father would have used when hunting. Not a military issued weapon. He hurried to get seated and the truck took off.