Роберт Уилсон - Days Since... - Thomas - Day 758

They smiled—no one appeared to second guess Thomas’s order as they fled.

A final volley of gunfire hit the camp. Thomas and Krenshaw threw themselves to the ground, taking cover behind the concrete retaining wall. A ping of metal. The sharp crack of concrete followed by a distinct cry from a short distance away. Then nothing. An impossible silence seemed to hit the camp in that instant. The adrenaline pushed at Thomas to do something, but he denied the suggestion, patience being a virtue at the moment. Hidden behind the wall at the foot of the hill, he waited, hoping for some indication that it was over. Mere silence could never be trusted.

“Come out, Butcher! Your men are dead!” Thomas heard the voice announce from behind him. “We’ll take you alive, if you’d like. Or dead.”

Who the hell? Thomas’s eyes went wide, irate with whoever would take command, take what was his to determine. He turned to Krenshaw. “Get around to the front, now!” They both lifted their backs from the wall—Krenshaw peeled off to his left, but Thomas bolted for the stairs.

With each drop of his boot, his anger grew. Thomas had seen the Butcher’s temperament, he didn’t feel that alive should be an option. In the little time he had spent in the camp, nothing existed that could build a case for redemption. The Butcher could not be rehabilitated. There were no men to rehabilitate here. Only the women and children could be saved. If they could be saved. Maybe they too were beyond help, but that determination would not be made today, not with a bullet like it would be with the men. The women would take time.

The moment the top step felt the crunch of his boot, his vision was pinpoint—the edges of the world a fading black. He brushed past a slumped body bent over a rail—only a foot caught between the balusters prevented it from flipping. He hardly acknowledged its existence as he approached the railing overlooking the carnage. Ten of his men, five rifles toward the bathrooms, the remainder guarded the rear, hitting the wood line with their rail-mounted lights. None of the dead among them mattered. The Butcher was cornered. Nowhere to go.

“He dies!” Thomas shouted, leaning forward between the columns of the gazebo. “There is no other way. Captain Able assigned me to this trial, so it’s my decision.”

James moved toward him, separating himself from the others, taking the stairs to the top of the hill. “This joker doesn’t deserve our mercy,” he said. “Look at this man here.” He threw his rifle’s light across the body still hanging from the tree. “There was no trial for him. There wasn’t anything. He just strung hi—”

James’s body jerked as if stung from behind. Although the gunshot had to have come first, Thomas hadn’t heard it. It was only the violent jolt that caught his attention. James collapsed. To his knees first, then further down with one palm in the mulch as his other hand grasped for his chest. The rifle lay beside him, illuminating James’s face—it read of pain and knowing death.

The men reacted swiftly, cutting their lights and taking cover within the trees.

“Find him!” Thomas shouted.

A team of four stole for the bathrooms, and Thomas went for James, but another shot ripped half of one of the columns from the gazebo and forced Thomas to the decking. Hang in there, damn it. This isn’t the end for you. He watched as James lay in the mulch, taking painful breaths from only yards away. Thomas tried to get to James, but with each careful lurch forward another shot would send him back to the floor. All he could do was listen as each breath became shorter than the last. It took everything within him not to run for James.

“Find where it’s coming from, damn it!”

“Bathrooms are clear!”

From up the drive, Thomas saw a light—not a beam from a flashlight or from fire that had spread, but slightly dull and fixed. He tried to discern exactly from what or where it came, but it shut off seconds later. What the hell was th— The trucks! Thomas came to a knee, then to his feet. There was no shot to curl him back onto the floor.

“He’s at the trucks!” Thomas shouted before sprinting to James, taking to his side, but he wasn’t there. He had already passed. His brown eyes lost within the stars above. “I’ll be back for you,” Thomas whispered. He spun for that light in the distance, clutching his rifle in a death grip.

At some point through the chaos, the Butcher had made his move. Thomas knew the man’s pride wouldn’t have allowed him to leave his goods—what he probably viewed as his right. The women were gone. He would have to have something in his hands when he returned home. But why now? Why not lay low? It made no sense, but of course pride made people do foolish things. To go down in a blaze of glory was what made some men heroes.

The U-Haul’s engine kicked on, and the rattle of gunfire responded. The truck barreled down the drive, accelerating while the engine groaned from the pedal being kicked through the floorboard. Flashes of gunfire from the wood line were met with a furious response from the cab of the truck—that booming, mechanical trill of an AK-47.

Thomas lined up with the last bend in the road. The windshield would be straight on, ensuring he would have a few shots at his target. With little time to think, he banged the rifle into the nook of his shoulder and laid himself directly in its path, the angle projecting a clear shot where the truck would be. The headlights! He snatched the night vision scope from the rail. It would have to be raw sight alignment. He began to take the slack out of the trigger as the truck approached. The sights aligned, front into rear. He exhaled, pushing everything he had from his lungs. Here it comes! Make it count. No more failures. Hold… Hold…

He could hear the cargo in the back of the truck banging as it negotiated the bend in the drive, turning straight toward Thomas as he lay in wait. Here it is! Clear shots and he took them. Quick presses, aggressive pulls of the trigger toward the back. Fragments of glass dissipated into the air as the windshield splintered in response to the rounds piercing it, penetrating the cab.

There was no more turning of the wheel—it held, barreling straight for Thomas—the operator now seemingly inanimate as the truck no longer responded to any change in direction of the street. Thomas rolled from his position and the truck stumbled, rocking with its weighted suspension over the unevenness of the ground. A loud bang followed by the snapping of a tree—its branches bracing for its anticipated fall to earth.

Thomas rose to his feet, the rifle guiding him to the vehicle. The truck smoked heavily from its front end. A loud buzzing noise. The impact jarred the electronics, leaving the lights on from inside the cab.

From the rear of the truck, through the side mirror he could see spatters of blood. The muzzle of the AK rested against the door frame, protruding from inside. Thomas approached, snatched the rifle and pulled hard, throwing it to the ground. A quick glance inside. The Butcher lay on the cushioned seat, his suit ravaged and bloody.

“The world has always had places like this—” the Butcher coughed. “Needs places like this. People need to act out their darkest secrets.”

“You’re sick!” Thomas popped the door open and jerked him from the vehicle. He fell limply against the dirt. The Butcher put his hands up to show he wasn’t armed. Thomas pulled his sidearm and aimed squarely at his face. No turning back! This is who you are now!

“Hold on! Just…” The Butcher ran one of his hands through his hair. “I’m ready for—”

A blanket of clouds had been pulled across the sky—the sun noticeably absent in the east. Colors that normally accompany the twilight hours gave up today, leaving only gray—a somber mix of two extremes. Black and White. New life and death. Celebration and mourning. Indeed gray as Thomas stood motionless in a fog of sleep depravity and quiet reflection. And as others took to warming themselves in the glow of a fire, he chose to stay with James.