R. Ruggiero - Brushfire Plague

Cooper interrupted, “But…”

“Just let me finish. On the face of it, there’s not a lot here. But, what’s filling it in is your instincts. Now, I trust those as good as any facts. The Major, however, doesn’t know you from Adam. So, the connections we have just don’t pencil out for a career military officer. You know that, brother.”

Cooper took a deep breath, “Alright, you’re right. You’re right.” He paused for a long moment. “Then, it’s time for Plan B,” he declared.

“What’s Plan B?”

A dark gleam came to his eyes and his words were sinister, “Tonight, we visit Mr. Mitchell at his home. Unannounced and uninvited.” Then, he relaxed before continuing, “Now, let’s talk to Joe’s cousin and hope it goes better than it did with the Major.” He pivoted sharply and resumed walking back to the GMC pickup truck.

Dranko called after him, “Brother, you might have a short fuse, but at least you recover quick!” He hastened an extra few steps to catch up.

Dranko rumbled the old pickup truck eastward, taking a route to avoid the bar where the bikers were congregated. They passed more of the same: burned out buildings, wrecked and burned cars, scattered dead bodies, followed by stretches of normalcy where everything looked the same as before. Usually, these stretches were guarded by people behind barricades or on top of roofs. They experienced a few tense moments, but Cooper would raise the military-style FAL above the cab level so others could see they were well armed. On this trip, the display worked.

Along the way, one burned out shell of a building made Cooper’s heart leap into his throat. As they approached, everything moved in slow motion.

“Wow, that’s the Pinehouse Arcade?”

“It used to be,” Dranko intoned.

The building had burned almost to the ground. The neon sign that had for many years proclaimed “Pinehouse Arcade, Fun for All!” lay half-splintered on the ground. Shattered glass and a few piles of debris lay strewn about where the front entrance had previously resided. The buildings to either side lay singed, but mostly intact. It was clear the fire had started inside the arcade.

“Why the hell would anyone do that?” Cooper bellowed.

“Who knows? What’s the big deal? It’s just a bunch of old coin-operated video games from the 1980s,” Dranko asked, surprised at his friend’s outburst.

Cooper’s face grew long, “It was more than that.” He inhaled deeply, “Jake and I used to come here all the time. It was his favorite place.”

Dranko responded with awkward silence, but reached across the cab to put his hand on Cooper’s shoulder, “You’ll come here again someday, just like before.” Dranko’s forced optimism sounded like an instrument played off-note. Cooper managed a quick grin for his friend’s effort.

They drove onward in silence through the decaying city.

As they rounded a corner, Cooper exhaled, “Well, look at that!”

A blazing neon sign above a low-slung, nondescript building, called out, “Hungry Hoang’s, Chinese-American Cuisine.”

“They still got juice,” Dranko said, stating the obvious.

“Lit up like this, they want everyone else to know that they do,” Cooper added.

As they approached, the parking lot was full of vehicles: lowered Hondas, Toyota pick-up trucks, a few Cadillacs. Cooper did a double-take when he saw a World War Two-era halftrack with a machine gun mounted on top.

“Well, I’ll be…” he exclaimed.

Two of the Toyotas were configured as “Tacticals”: pickups with an improvised machine gun mounted in the bed. “Those are straight off of CNN when they report on an uprising in Africa,” Dranko called to Cooper out of the side of his mouth. The welding work on the machine gun mounts were shiny and appeared hastily done.

A half-dozen guards were scattered throughout the lot, as well. One was resting on the halftrack’s machine gun. Two stood by the main entrance with matching Uzi submachine guns. The others were armed with an assortment of M16’s and AK-47’s. While their weapons were different, they wore a common uniform made up of dark sunglasses, black slicked back hair, black dress pants and white-button shirts that had the first few buttons undone. The crew wore identical black leather jackets and similarly wore them unzipped.

“These guys out front are going for the look of TV gangsters meant to intimidate the general public. I wonder if they have more men either hidden or inside that are the real deal—dressed for, trained for, and ready for combat?” Cooper asked himself as much as Dranko. Dranko simply grunted in agreement.

All the guards moved from their various positions of relaxation to alertness as Dranko navigated the pickup into the lot. The guard nearest to them spat his cigarette out and gestured with an AK-47.

“Come out. Real slow. Hands where I can see them.”

Cooper and Dranko complied. As soon as they had disembarked from the pickup, the guard asked, “What’s your business here?”

Cooper responded, “We are here to see Michael Huynh. We are here at Mr. Joe Vang’s recommendation.”

The guard nodded and barked orders in Vietnamese to one of his men near the door. Everyone waited in silence as several minutes ticked by. Cooper noted how quickly the guards lowered their alertness and slowly drifted back to relaxed positions, although no one resumed sitting. The guard closest to them wore a deep scar across his right cheek, most likely the result of a knife wound.

The other guard returned and waved Dranko and Cooper on to approach the door.

“You’ll need to leave your weapons…all of them…in your pickup. We’ll keep a good eye on them,” the first guard grunted with a mischievous grin.

They both removed the pistols from their holsters and laid them on the seat in the pickup. Cooper gave the guard a stern look as he did so, telling him not to disturb their weapons with the cock of his left eyebrow. They turned to the entrance and briskly walked towards it. When they arrived, the guard frisked them and then told them to follow him inside.

As they entered the restaurant, another half dozen men in black fatigues and carrying M16s were lounging in the lobby. Three were shooting dice in the corner, one dozed in a chair, and the remaining two were playing a card game that Cooper couldn’t decipher. They barely gave Cooper and Dranko a glance as they passed through.

The guard talked as they walked, “It is well you were recommended by Mr. Vang. He is respected here. The boss is comfortable with those he recommends to us. What part of town are you in?”

“Near Mount Tabor,” Cooper replied curtly, hoping his gruff tone would curtail the conversation. It didn’t.

“That is a nice part of town. Very close to here. How are things there?”

“We’re doing OK. Better than most.”

“Yes, it’s been very bad in parts of town. Did you hear what happened over in Sellwood?” he asked.

“No, I haven’t,” Cooper replied.

“Burned to the ground, all of it. Last night,” the guard said nonchalantly.

“All of it?” Dranko asked in surprise.

“Nearly so.”

“Why?” Cooper asked.

“We heard it was a very large group of teenagers from over in South Portland. Some clown down there claiming the plague is here to end the old world and that the youth must rise to build a new one.”

“Why Sellwood?”

“Not sure. Because it was close by? They just rioted after a speech given by this guy. Hundreds of them. Lots and lots of dead. They killed and burned without discretion,” emotion did not cloud his voice. It was if he was reporting the weather. “OK, we are here. It was nice talking to you gentlemen.”