James Tarr - Dogsoldiers

The street signs, as was so often the case, even in the suburbs, had been ripped down. The north-south surface street they planned to turn onto had been nicknamed long ago The President. Whenever possible nicknames and euphemisms were used for street and site names, leftover when the dogsoldiers were using radios, thinking it was probably safe since they were encrypted. That had turned out not to be the case, but the habit remained.

The Pres had a narrow median running down its center, with two lanes on either side. The grass on the median was tall enough to partially block their view of the far lanes as Quentin nosed the SUV into the intersection. George stayed focused on the cars and bowling alley while everyone else looked about.

“There’s a car moving up north!” Bobby said excitedly. “Way up there, almost half a mile away.”

Ed squinted. Damn, the kid’s eyes were good. All he could make out was a tiny blue blob. “Keep going,” he told Quentin, who’d kept the SUV rolling. As Quentin turned south onto The Pres Ed lifted binoculars to his eyes and peered out the back of the Ford. What he saw was a small, battered blue car, with two or three people inside. Coming their way, but slowly. Too far away to tell who they were or if they had weapons.

“Early, you and Mark keep an eye on them,” he said as they began accelerating, southbound once again. “You tell me if they’re getting closer.”

“You got it Cap’n.”

George twisted back straight in his seat and peered forward once more over the hood of the Ford. Small houses lined this stretch of The Pres, tiny, one story ranches close to the road that had suffered quite a lot of damage, but it was hard to tell whether it was from vandalism or combat. A pickup truck was upside down on the median. As they passed they could see the grass growing through the rents in the rusty body; it had been there a while.

Half a mile up was the next in a quick succession of major intersections. Once past the first, where the traffic lights appeared to be down on the pavement, The Pres curved right and then crossed the widest thoroughfare they’d find until they hit the Interstate; a boulevard, ten lanes total, plus a wide median.

“Heads up everybody, this is where it gets hairy,” Ed called out.

“Watch for choppers!” George threw over his shoulder. Once they hit the first intersection they’d have no overhead cover, absolutely none, for almost half a mile.

The tiny houses to either side vanished. A park appeared on the right, swingsets and slides rusty with disuse. Batting cages, then a baseball diamond popped up on their left. Two boys in their early teens stood where home plate would have been. Both were painfully skinny, wearing clothes that hung on them like sheets. One held a bat, the other a ball, but finding the energy to play seemed beyond them. They turned and watched the SUV roll by with eyes sunken deep into their skulls but made no move to hide or run away. They’d seen carloads of rifle-toting men before.

Quentin took his foot off the accelerator and steered around the crunched hulk of the traffic light on the concrete in the middle of the intersection. On the ground they looked a lot bigger than when they hung above the passing cars. The whole squad leaned as Quentin took the sharp curve to the right. The small blue car was way back there, apparently stopped on the road.

A hundred feet up the wide boulevard nicknamed One Way loomed. The intersection was vast and empty. Once they were out in the middle of it they’d have a much better view both north and south, but they’d also be visible to any aircraft in the area. They weren’t in a restricted area yet, but any moving vehicle close to the city limits always garnered attention and unless the pilot was blind he’d see their weapons. The secret to survival was to drive as fast as possible where you could and get the hell out of sight.

Jason caught glimpses of gas stations, a car wash, and a drug store, all abandoned, then they were rolling through the huge intersection as fast as Quentin could get the Ford to move. One Way was four lanes on either side of a wide boulevard spotted with small trees and topped by grass three feet tall. The men stared out the windows intently, peering over their rifles, sweating even as the cool morning air poured through the car.

There was a bump bump from the undercarriage and then they were through, shooting by a gas station on their left and a tire store on their right, both long abandoned and wantonly vandalized.

“I saw something flying way the hell north of us,” Weasel said. “It was just a dot, too far away to tell what it was. I doubt he saw us.”

“It’s the one you don’t see you’ve got to worry about,” George muttered.

Not quite half a mile to the northwest loomed the big square bulk of a hospital. A handful of dedicated doctors and nurses still worked there, doing what they could under horrific conditions. Hardly any water, even fewer medical supplies, and more than half the time without power. Ed didn’t know how they did it. The Red Cross had been providing limited amounts of food and medicine, not to mention intermittent foreign aid from the few allies who had proven to be true friends, and a few new “allies” who were hoping for a piece of the pie when the war finally wore down, but those humanitarian shipments had dried up inexplicably six months before. Rumor was the Army had cut them off to drive people away from the city. The patients they helped paid with whatever coin they had, whether that was food, clean water, scavenged wiring, electrical components, sometimes even good old-fashioned sex.

Since he’d assumed command of the squad Ed had had to leave over a dozen wounded men at the hospital, knowing that if they survived their wounds the Army would probably take them prisoner. The men were always stripped of their gear and uniforms but the soldiers stationed in the emergency room usually could tell the difference between battle-hardened veterans and random victims of violence. It killed Ed to do it, but he refused to let a wounded man suffer, perhaps die, just because there was a chance he might be captured. Some had died anyway, others had never fully recovered from their wounds, either physically or emotionally, disappearing and leaving the fighting to those who were still whole or, if not whole, still motivated. The Army had its own medical facility downtown, but only soldiers and the rare captured guerilla ever benefited from its services.

The Pres took another sharp curve to the left and they were pointed south again. The hospital tower quickly dropped from view behind them. The street grew a little friendlier; trees lined both sides and hung over the curb lanes, providing some concealment from flyovers.

On the left a chain link fence ran unbroken for half a mile. On the other side of it was a cemetery hidden behind a row of trees and leaning seed-topped grass that hadn’t been mown in years. To the right, concealed behind fences, hedges, and mature trees, were the backyards of a small secluded neighborhood, mostly two-story colonial homes. On the straightaway Quentin got the Ford up to forty miles an hour before he had to brake. Another intersection was coming up quickly.

Although they’d yet to meet up with any trouble, Ed had had enough of traveling on major surface streets. Even though it was faster it was always a bad idea. At the intersection Quentin took a right turn, accelerated, braked, and turned south once again onto a residential side street.

The houses were small, one and two stories, most with small covered porches. Almost all of them were clad in aluminum or vinyl siding which had weathered the years well. Mature, fifty- to sixty-foot silver and red maples lined the narrow street, meeting far overhead, throwing most of the street into deep shadow.