R. Ruggiero - Brushfire Plague

“Psychosis,” Dranko mumbled. “It must be overtaking a good number of people as the situation overwhelms them.”

“And medications run out,” Cooper added.

As they crossed the bridge, they scanned in all directions. The elevation the bridge provided helped them see further around the city. To the south, fires burned.

“Sellwood,” observed Cooper.

“Looks like it’s spread beyond that area,” Dranko said.

“Those hills to the west, there’s fire there too. West Linn and Lake Oswego,” Angela whispered, her voice weakened by disbelief.

In fact, scattered fires burned in all directions. Most looked limited to a house or two, but others appeared to cover entire blocks. They saw the eerie, blood-orange glow that signified fires in the distance as far north as Vancouver and as far south as Wilsonville. To their east, Mount Tabor and Powell Buttes limited their view. To the west, the hills there did the same. As they witnessed the city burning, Dranko couldn’t help but shudder.

“Roll up the windows,” Angela called. Dranko had them all cracked a bit to allow the night air in and prevent fogging of the windows. As if conjured by her mention, Dranko and Cooper both could now smell what Angela had already. The mixture of odors that assaulted them was a contradiction of allurement and repugnance. The nostalgic wood smoke, reminiscent of fireplaces and campfires, abutted sharply against the acrid smell of tires and other plastics burning. Most disturbing was that the sickly sweet smell of flesh burning mixed with the cavalcade of aromas.

“Maybe it’s just animals,” Dranko offered weakly as he pushed buttons to close the windows up tightly.

The road that led to Mitchell’s home was lonely, with homes spread out amidst the forest. Cooper pulled the car off into a pullout and they quickly gathered their gear from the car. They disappeared into the woods. They made their way slowly and carefully in the near total darkness. The moon was at half-strength and her light battled mightily to peak through the towering trees above. Mostly, she failed.

Cooper picked his way carefully through the woods, taking each step in time. He carried a small flashlight with a red filter on it, but he used this with great caution. He was thankful that after only a few hundred yards, he was able to find a small clearing that was completely hidden from the road.

“Let’s post up here. Change your clothing and we’ll begin moving towards Mitchell’s from here. He felt their heads nod.

The soft swishing noise of clothing moving was all that was heard as the three of them changed into the darker clothes they would wear in the assault on Mitchell’s home.

“It’s not a hot cup of joe, but it’ll do,” he heard Dranko say, pressing his hands toward theirs. Cooper felt something fall into his palms and he popped them into his mouth, tasting the delicious chocolate-covered espresso beans. He gobbled down a dozen or more, grateful for the caffeine rush. Angela murmured softly, “Mmm….”

Within seconds, they were moving again, leaving their unneeded clothing behind. The dark woods seemed to close in and swallow them up. Perfect cover for an approach though. About halfway there, they came to a stream that ran bubbling across their path.

Cooper pulled Angela close and breathed into her ear, “You follow this up to the road, cross it, get on the reverse slope and then move the last quarter-mile to take up position across from Mitchell’s home. Take your first shot in fifteen minutes. Exactly, OK? Be careful.”

Her hair brushed his cheek in a rapid up and down motion as she nodded. She found his ear, “You too.” She gave him a kiss on his cheek and then disappeared into the dark. Cooper pushed aside the warmth that flushed across his face. He stared after her into the dark, until her shadow disappeared.

He and Dranko resumed moving, climbing slowly up a hillside that would bring them to the west side of Mitchell’s estate. Their breathing was rhythmic as they fell into a deliberate climb. Cooper didn’t risk using the penlight at all now, and so they picked their way carefully amidst the underbrush. Here, a loud crash to the ground on a tangled root could prove catastrophic.

Soon, between the trees, they could see the lights from Mitchell’s home. It was a well-lit area, covered by floodlights. Cooper recounted the layout from the photographs: a large central mansion that must have covered five thousand square feet, a guest home about one-quarter of that, a garage as big as Cooper’s home, and two other small outbuildings would dot the grounds. Twin tennis courts were to the south of the main home. An enormous swimming pool was to its west. As they moved closer, they could see the buildings come in and out of view as they moved between trees and up and down small rises in the ground.

They were probably a hundred yards from the edge of the woods when a shot rang out from where Angela would have been positioned. A loud yell of pain responded from in front of them. Cooper glared down at his watch. The illuminated dial screamed back at him. She was three minutes early!

“Damn!” he let out a whispered curse.

They began double-timing it through the woods. Cooper decided that speed mattered more than stealth, and flicked on his red-filtered flashlight so they could see the ground in front of them.

A second shot thundered from their left and this time they heard shattering glass, but no shrieks of pain. Dranko grunted next to him as a shin smashed into an unseen rock. They were both breathing hard. Covering wooded, uneven ground at breakneck speed, while carrying weapons, ammunition, and body armor was taking its toll.

An alarm sounded from the Mitchell home, just as Cooper and Dranko made it to the tree line.

A third shot from Angela found home as another painful shout came from near the garage to their left. About twenty yards in front of them was the first outbuilding they planned to leapfrog to. Dranko already had the M16 unslung from his back, aimed at a guard he saw on the balcony, and waited expectantly for Cooper.

Cooper deployed the shotgun, welcoming the heavy weight of steel in his hands. He pushed the safety to “off”, scanned the ground in front of him, and sprinted to the building. He heard Dranko’s M16 crack from behind him a moment after he began running. A loud yell, followed two seconds later by a loud thud told him Dranko’s shot had found its mark. His boots kicked up forest duff as he ran, his heart pounding in his chest, and lungs sucking in the cold, stinging, air.

As he approached the outbuilding, the lone door swung open. A guard wearing black military-style clothing and carrying a pistol on his hip emerged. He bore a grim look of determination on his face; ready to do his duty and defend the Mitchell estate. He saw Cooper and the looming shotgun barrel. A look of shock rocketed across his face. He grabbed at the pistol and yanked it from his holster. In the long silence that precipitated death, the Velcro fastener that held the weapon sounded like angry lightning tearing across the sky.

Cooper fired from his hip, never breaking stride. At this range, there was no way to miss. If he’d had time, he would have felt pity. The guard only had a scant second to open his mouth wide in shock, before all nine pellets of 00 Buck blasted him squarely in the chest. His body was thrown back a few feet, where he slammed into the building. His body slowly slumped to the ground, leaving a dark streak along the wall. Instinctively, Cooper racked the shotgun’s slide to chamber another shell.

He crashed into the wall. Without wasting a moment, he used the barrel of the shotgun to open the door all the way, flicked on the powerful flashlight attached to the barrel, and swept the small room inside. A bank of monitors adjoined a small desk, but no one else was inside. Cooper took a moment to scan the monitors. He found what he was looking for quickly: a bedraggled and silk pajama-clad Mitchell being ushered into a vault-like office by two armed guards, who looked nervously about them as they moved. Cooper studied the other monitors and was able to determine that the room they were in led off from the library which, in turn, was off the main hallway.