Peter Heller - The Dog Stars

You want to stay here?

Nodded.

Okay.

I walked back around, reached across my seat and unclipped the Uzi from its rack and held it out to her.

If someone shows up that doesn’t look like me or your dad, plug em. It’s charged.

She hesitated, nodded, took the gun.

I unsnapped the AR. Also took the handheld radio. Turned it on and dialed in 118.1, the tower. Sometimes it’s a good idea to talk to your enemy. Not usually. Bangley had taught me that—the value of reticence. Also the value of overwhelming firepower. I reached back under one of the lambs and pried out the stuff sack that held the grenades, nodded at Pops, and we moved around the south corner of the building. I followed him. He hugged the wall so that we were still out of sight of the tower. Before we cleared the next corner and crossed the open ramp where small planes had once tied down, and came into full view of whoever was up there, we pulled up. It was about fifty yards to the next building, a single story brick, the offices of the FBO, a hangar adjacent and behind. We could see the back of it: a row of dark windows still mostly intact, and a metal door toward the rear.

Hig that old lady up there sounded just like my grandma.

And?

We’re gonna clean her clock and whoever else. No questions asked. He looked at me.

I nodded.

Those cocksuckers invited you out here under false pretenses. Did you see all those goddamn wrecks? How many planes you think they did like that?

A lot. Scores. It’s the biggest runway on the way to L.A. between Denver and Phoenix.

He leaned against the bricks.

Why? he said.

Why do they do it?

I mean not for the fuel. Half those wrecks burned. Not for the damn meat . Unless you like charcoal.

There’d be survivors. Some maybe not badly injured. And sometimes they didn’t burn. Not all the way, sometimes not at all. There’d be supplies, food, weapons. Lambs. Bahhh .

Okay so what did they do with the pissed off survivors?

Silence. He stepped around the corner and the shot cracked. Blew brick dust into my face. I thought he was cooked. He fell back. I grabbed at him blindly, hugged him to me.

Fuck . Losing my edge, Hig. Thanks.

He was fine. He was breathing hard. I wiped my eyes.

That’s what they do, Hig. Pick em off one by one. Come out of the wreck injured, dazed not even sure what hit em and bang. Or use em for whatever they use em for. Okay now I’m really pissed.

He unbuttoned his patched flannel shirt, scanned the ground behind us and picked up a two foot piece of rusty rebar. Hung the shirt on it.

Stick this out past the edge when I say. Up here like this. We get into that next building we’re made. Do NOT move from here until I tell you. He slid the bolt back, checked for a chambered bullet, crouched. Three two one, go!

I shoved out the shirt, the shot cracked, zinged, he was gone. He was sprinting toward that back door running like a halfback, feinting and zagging and two more shots exploded up pavement behind and ahead of him. He made it to the sight shadow of the building, to the spot where he could no longer be seen from above, and walked the rest of the way to the door. Turned, gave me a thumbs up before he tugged it open and disappeared inside. Fucking Pops. Hope I can run like that when I’m—what?—my age. I could never run like that. Damn. I pulled back the shirt. There was a neat hole halfway down, repeated in three folds. Gut shot. Ouch. I waited. One minute, two, began to count like I did for Bangley. At two hundred I wondered what was going on. At two twenty three: one shot. It rang over the airport like a bell. A single toll. Echoed and died. It was Pops’s .308. I knew the sound. Half a minute later the door in the back of the FBO scraped open and Pops waved me over. I ran. He held up his hand patted the air like Take your time, relax .

What the fuck? What happened?

A fool, that’s what. Those windows up in the tower are thick bulletproof. Been like that since 9/11. But they have to shoot out somewhere. They have gunports. Like an old fort. I knew once I was inside, I’d have all the time I needed to set up the shot.

I stared at him.

You nailed the shooter through a gunport? Like through his scope?

Shook his head. Nah. Turns out they have two ports—a higher one, maybe chest level, for the long shot, one for the angle directly down to cover the base of the tower. He was looking out the upper one and I shot through the lower. You wanna blow the door, go up and pay a visit?

Damn, Pops.

He had shot whoever it was right up their skirts. Through like a four inch hole.

Oh yeah. We walked across. The door at the base of the tower was heavy metal painted green. He unzipped a greasy belt pack took out two sticks of dynamite taped them together with duct tape.

Been saving these. Seems like a good time.

He taped them to the heavy metal door on the hinge side, close to the ground, lit them and jogged back. We ducked inside the Jet Center for good measure. It blew. Small bits of pavement rained against the windows. Reminded me of passing a truck on a gravel road. We jogged back. The door hung cattywampus off the top hinge, swung a sad metronome in drifting smoke. Pops stood in the doorway like a hesitant messenger.

Give me your gun, he said. You mind?

I handed it to him, he gave me his.

This’ll be a little better for what we’re doing.

Reflex: he tugged back the charging handle, checked that a shell was chambered, and went into commando mode. Not as if he hadn’t before. Couldn’t wait for him to meet Bangley. That’s what I was thinking, even amused imagining the introductions as Pops covered the first flight of stairs and went up gun to his shoulder sighting up the stairwell both eyes open. The treads were concrete laid over steel and they beat a dull tong tong as we ran up. There were five levels. At each one he told me to stay in the well and cover it and he went through the door. He cleared each floor swiftly and we moved up. Leaned into my ear breathing in rasps.

You’re gonna love the decorations in this place.

I could imagine. The top door, the door to the control room was locked. Of course. He shot the lock out, pushed through. The smell. A barrier. I gagged and spit. Cats everywhere. Freaked by the shooting, running over the radar keyboards, the comm panels, arched bristled and hissing against the dead black flatscreens. Calicoes and blacks, blue eyed Siamese.

The air reeked of cat piss and swam with light from the tinted windows, infused with green like an aquarium. On the west side, the side we had come from, where I knew the shooter would be slumped on his side beneath the cantilevered windows, was a man choking and crying. He was holding his guts which were spilled onto the floor. Blood seeped from his back, pooled in reservoir and ran across the floor in a sinuous ribbon like a creek.

He was an old man, older than Pops. His beard was white, his grizzled hair uncut, matted now and soaked in blood from the painted steel floor. The one who had first called, the one I had heard years before, must’ve been. He wore suspenders. His cap had been thrown into the middle of the open room. It was printed with yellow lettering, Peoria Jet Center “Service in the Heartland.” Over the nausea, a wave of goosebumps. Fucker. The heartland had come west looking for a safe haven from the flu and hit this bastard’s cable. Probably. His rifle lay a few feet from the cap. An AR-10 with a long barrel. Cats drawled in the loud panicked mews of a vet’s waiting room. The old man gagged, gurgled, sobbed. One of the bolder cats was already lapping at the crimson creek.

Samuel! Cold shriek. Sammy my Sammy my Sammy!