Jeff Brackett - Half Past Midnight

Ken returned wearing cammies. He had helped himself to one of my sheath knives, as well. Everyone was ready, or as ready as we were likely to get. We told the women we would be back before dark and set up recognition signals, so they wouldn’t shoot us if we came back in a hurry.

I turned to Megan. “Just one more thing. This isn’t paintball.”

Her face was set, silent and intense. She tended to get that way when concentrating on something important. I had seen her like that many times before sparring in class or tournaments.

I continued, “There are two big differences. First, the range on these guns is much farther than paintball guns. Always remember that.” She nodded.

“And second-”

“I know,” she interrupted. “If you get hit, you don’t come back in for the next game.”

“You got it.” I pushed back an urge to force her to stay behind. Instead, I turned to Ken. “Ready to go?”

Ken hefted the AR-15. “Waiting on you.”

I took a deep breath to calm my nerves, then slung my machete over my shoulder. “Let’s find out what all the ruckus is about.”

Megan and I quickly taught Ken our hand signals, and we trudged through the brush in silence. For me, the feeling of deja vu was intense. The last time I had gone sneaking through the woods like this had very nearly been fatal. Actually, it had been fatal, to Edgar and Michael.

The shots had come from south of Amber’s spread, past Ken and Cindy’s place. That was all we had to go by, so Ken led us through the brush on barely seen game trails. He whispered that he and some of his neighbors used many of these trails when they were hunting, so a multitude of crisscrossed tracks led to and from most of the homes in the area.

After several minutes, Ken signaled for us to slow down and come forward cautiously. When we moved next to him, he whispered, “This is the back of old man Kindley’s place.”

I pointed out that the house looked vacant.

“Yeah,” he agreed. “Do you want to check it out?”

I remembered what Amber had said about all of the deaths and radiation sickness in the area. “Not really…” Visions of grisly, mummified carcasses filled my head. “But I guess we should.”

First, we skirted all around the house making sure no unfriendlies hung about. Then, we quickly ran up to the back door.

“What do we do now?” I asked. “Kick it in?”

Ken turned the knob, and the door swung inward. “The trouble with living in the city is that you can’t trust anyone.” He grinned. “You wouldn’t even dream of leaving your house unlocked, would you?”

I shook my head, and Megan and I followed him in. A quick search of the dark and musty interior revealed it to be mercifully empty. We noted a pantry full of canned goods that we could come back for at a later date, but there were no bodies.

The next house was two miles further, and turned out to be much the same as Kindley’s. As we trekked down the trail, Megan snapped her fingers to get our attention. She pointed to her nose and mimed sniffing the air.

I sniffed and, sure enough, I faintly smelled burning wood. Ken nodded as well. We were getting close to something.

He led more cautiously, stopping frequently to peer intently ahead before leading us into any especially thick brush. As we proceeded, the smell got stronger. And every so often, we could hear the faint sound of voices, several voices.

Finally, Ken signaled for us to stop and wait. The sound of voices had grown steadily stronger until we could nearly distinguish the words of the conversations. It sounded like someone was throwing a party, and we were nearly on top of them. Ken inched his way around a curve in the trail ahead. He returned only a few moments later, jaw clenched in barely controlled fury. “Just around the next bend is John and Pat Robertson’s place,” he whispered. “There’s a group of eight men dressed in camouflage and armed to the teeth having a party on the back porch.”

Obviously, there was more, so I just waited for him to drop the other shoe.

He took a deep breath before he continued, “It looks like they killed John. They just dragged his body out into the backyard and left it.”

Now I thought I understood. Ken felt the need to avenge his friend. But he also knew we couldn’t afford to do anything to attract attention to ourselves unless we had no choice. John Robertson was beyond help, and revealing ourselves this soon wouldn’t change that. But perhaps his wife was still alive.

“Mrs. Robertson?” I asked.

He answered slowly, watching for my reaction. It occurred to me that he seemed more unsure of me than I was of him. “She’s the party. They’re taking turns…” He glanced at Megan. “They’re gang-raping her.”

I knew it wasn’t logical the way my gut twisted at those words. After all, they had murdered a man. But hearing that they were raping the man’s wife put them into an even lower category. They were lower than animals-diseased.

I looked Ken directly in the eyes. “If we do this, we shoot to kill. No one gets away. We can’t risk any of them following us home.”

He didn’t bat an eye. “Suits me fine.”

I turned to Megan. “Do you think you can find your way back?”

“No way,” she slung the crossbow and hefted the Kalashnikov she’d brought. “I’m staying. I don’t have any problems with this.” I recognized the stubborn set to her jaw, the same one her mother displayed when her mind was made up about something. “It’s not like murder, Dad. It’s justice. Besides, what do you think would happen if we didn’t kill them? They would find us on down the road tomorrow or the next day, and they would come after us next. Or maybe they’d find someone else. We have to stop them now.”

She was right, of course, but I was surprised to find that she saw the same implications in the situation that I did. As far as she was concerned, the discussion was over. I couldn’t force her to go back, and she knew it. She would simply follow as soon as I turned my back.

“I know what the stakes are, Dad.”

“All right, then,” I conceded. “Just don’t forget what you learned in paintball. Don’t stay in one place too long. Shoot and move. Don’t get pinned down.”

She nodded, and we planned our attack.

First, watching for any guards, we skirted around the tree line to the right. We found only one. He was poorly hidden in the trees and obviously more intent on watching the abuse of Pat Robertson than doing his job. We got within twenty feet of him, where Megan felt sure of her shot. A single bolt from behind into the base of the skull ensured his silence.

I searched her face for a reaction. I saw her pain at having killed again, but there was also determination.

Ken and I left Megan there, where she would wait for a gunshot from one of us. At that point, the element of surprise would be gone anyway, so we would all simply try to take out as many as possible, as quickly as possible. The tricky part would be doing so without hitting Mrs. Robertson.

Ken led me back to our original location, directly opposite the back porch, and then skirted alone around to the left side of the house. When he got into position, he would signal by beginning the melee, and Megan and I would join in after his first shot.

From where I knelt, I had a clear view of the proceedings in the backyard. One rough-looking man sat in a chair smoking a cigarette, apparently in deep contemplation of the universe. Four more were having a great time as they sat on the tailgate of an old four-wheel-drive pickup passing a bottle of bourbon. I could hear them joking and congratulating themselves on the ease with which they had “wasted that old geezer.”

Pat Robertson was tied to a picnic table where two men with no pants waited their turn behind the one currently violating her. Mercifully, she appeared to be unconscious. I carefully took aim at the head of the man hovering over her. When Ken fired that first shot, the rapist would never hear the second one. I waited for ages.