D Carpenter - Infertile Grounds

A shout from the front suddenly interrupted his thoughts.

“Miguel!” Jake exclaimed as he stomped on the accelerator, the engine roared and the car lurched forward.

Camilla smiled at Sarah as she opened the fifth bottle of wine. Sarah was feeling a little tipsy. Standing up would be the test but there was no need to do that right now. They had spent the evening playing cards at the kitchen table, drinking excellent wine and listening to music. Exhausted from the long drive, Albert had gone to bed hours ago.

As Camilla came back to the table with the fresh bottle, Jerry stood up and said, “That’s it for me. I’ve got to get some sleep.”

“Me too,” Seth said as he too stood with a groan. “See you in the morning.”

He looked awful – burnt, uncomfortable and worn out from the events of the past week. Sarah smiled at him. After hearing the details of what happened back in Maine, her anger had faded quickly. Thank God all of them hadn’t been killed. That would’ve ruined the entire operation. Their departure left just Sarah, Camilla, and Mike at the table.

“Are you two up for another game?” Mike asked.

“Hell, it’s too early to go to bed,” Camilla said.

“You’re still a night owl,” Sarah said.

“Always have been, always will be,” Camilla replied as she refilled everyone’s glass. Mike shuffled the cards. They had been playing poker, dealer’s choice.

“I think that this place will work out well,” Sarah said. “It’s so quiet.”

“It certainly is that,” Mike agreed dealing out the cards.

“I can’t believe we’re here,” Camilla said.

“Me neither,” Mike replied. “It almost seems like we’re on a set, doesn’t it?”

“That’s exactly what I feel like,” she replied. “All that’s missing are the cameras and directors.”

“Well, we’re definitely not acting here,” Sarah said. “This is as real as it gets.”

“There is no going back now,” Camilla said.

“Not a chance, at this point we’re all committed,” Sarah replied.

“We’re doing the right thing, aren’t we?” Mike asked.

“What do you mean?” Sarah asked.

Mike placed the deck on the table and leaned back in his chair. He combed his short beard with his fingers. “I feel kind of different now that it’s achievable. Almost like I’m second-guessing my ideals. The other day when you were explaining how it works and what it’s going to do – at first I was happy. I felt successful. But the more I thought about it, the more I began to question what we were doing.”

Camilla frowned as she said, “It’s the right thing, Mike.”

Sarah was frustrated. “The Earth simply can’t support this many people indefinitely,” she said. “We’ve been through this. Slowly but surely, day after day, we’re consuming the planet. Resources aren’t infinite. There’s just too much of everything. We have to – we can – do something about it.”

“And look at all of the suffering,” Camilla said. “Remember how you felt after you went to India a few years ago? What about our trip to Mexico City? It’s all a matter of population and we’ve got a relatively painless cure.”

“This is no time to be questioning your commitment and ideals Mike,” Sarah said. “Don’t let the emotions of the moment skew your view.”

“I know,” Mike said. “But before it was less tangible – a dream, a philosophy. Now it’s going to be a reality. Doesn’t that make it different for you?”

“Not at all,” Sarah said. “This was always reality. I need to know that you are one hundred percent committed at this point Mike. I don’t want to hear that you’re having doubts.”

The music stopped. Camilla walked across the room and fiddled with the iPod that was inserted in a portable speaker system. Stevie Ray Vaughn started singing that ‘The Sky is Crying’ and she turned up the volume. “Lighten up, Mikey,” she said as she strode seductively back to the table. “We’re doing the right thing. You’re doing the right thing. There’s no question about it.”

“You’re right,” Mike nodded filling his glass with more wine. “I’m not sure what I expected. But I am committed, no second thoughts. You can trust me one-hundred percent. Maybe it’s from the trouble back in Maine. I don’t know. You know me, Camilla. I’m never tense but, man, my shoulders are in a knot.”

Camilla walked behind him and started rubbing his shoulders.

Sarah watched the massage and listened to Camilla and Mike change the conversation and banter between themselves playfully. She didn’t like the way they had both referred to this as like being in a movie and now here they were laughing and joking. She hadn’t really trusted Mike from the beginning but now she had reason to mistrust him. He wasn’t committed. He had just admitted as much and then as quickly changed his mind, almost protesting too much about how committed he was. She had better keep a very close eye on him over the coming days.

The rapid, percussive pops of machinegun fire erupted outside. The car accelerated rapidly. Ted and the banker tried to get to their guns. Chris ducked down. Bullets peppered the car. The windows blew out. Jake’s head jerked back and to the right violently. Chris pressed himself down on the floor.

The banker and Ted screamed as the car spun out of control and launched off the road into the woods. They rammed into a tree head-on. Chris slammed into the back of the front seat with incredible force. The engine was running at full throttle as the car came to a stop. It howled at an unsustainable pitch. They must have shattered the axle or blown out the transmission and the accelerator was stuck at full throttle. Ted and the banker moaned, obviously injured. Chris flung his door open, rolled out onto the ground, and stumbled into the dark forest, away from the car.

Tripping on a log, he fell to the ground. His chest heaved. He felt like he was going to have a heart attack as he sat up against a tree and forced himself to take deep breaths – to calm down. He couldn’t see any signs of Ted or the banker. Through the trees, he caught glimpses of Miguel and one of his men approaching on the road. As they swaggered along with their weapons leveled at the car, they exchanged a low-fisted high five and spoke loudly in Spanish. The other thug drove their car. Its lights illuminated the wreck. A thick cloud of steam and smoke poured out from under the hood. The engine continued to howl. The men opened fire. Their machine guns blasted away at the now-shattered hot-rod until the engine made a loud sound and went silent, as did their guns.

The three men walked down to the car. Chris watched in horror as they pulled the bodies of Ted, Jake, and the banker out and laid them on the road. Miguel fired a single shot into each of their heads.

“My name is Miguel,” he said before pulling the trigger each time. “And don’t you forget it.”

“What about the other one?” One of the other men said to Miguel.

“He must be in the woods,” Miguel replied.

Miguel seemed to look right at him as he yelled into the dark forest, “This is what happens when you cross us.”

He sprayed a burst of bullets into the woods. One hit a tree about ten feet from Chris. He couldn’t have moved if he had wanted to.

“You tell your friends that if they ever do business with Miguel, they better treat me with respect.”

“Yeah, we are businessmen too,” one of the other men said in his Latino street accent.

They popped the trunk on the wrecked car and pulled out a bale of pot.