James Tarr - Dogsoldiers

Before they’d left the house that morning he’d pulled up a fresh overhead photo of the area, but saw nothing that warranted alarm. No roadblocks, no patrolling Army units or armor, no columns of smoke large enough to attract military attention. Still, the battery on the drone jammer was fully charged, although it only reached fifty meters or so. It worked great on the small surveillance and infiltrator drones, bird and bug size, but didn’t do a thing against anything big the military had circling at altitude.

They all heard the sound of a motor, and Ed raised his glasses to see a motorcycle with one helmeted rider appear to the west. The rider—it appeared to be a man—was doing about forty miles an hour, which was about as fast as was prudent given the poor condition of the road and the likelihood of encountering lane-choking debris or abandoned cars in the middle of the road.

“Rice burner,” Mark said derisively, going off nothing but the sound of the exhaust. He was a Harley man himself.

Ed spotted someone walking on the sidewalk a few hundred yards to the east, and some sort of activity in front of a partially collapsed building not quite half a mile to the west. He couldn’t make it out, but it didn’t look dangerous. Some sort of fight between several of the city’s al fresco denizens. Or maybe it was a midday open air orgy. He’d seen stranger things. What concerned him were the figures in the parking lot of the gas station directly south of them.

Ed waved Mark up, and pointed. Then he handed the big man the binos. Mark studied the group carefully.

“What do you think, cross here, or go around?”

Mark handed the Meoptas back to his squad leader. He shrugged. “They’re just doing a bit of private enterprise. Most neighborhoods we go through, we’ve got eyes on us even if we don’t see them. And it’s not like the locals don’t know there’s a war on, but the ones left are professionals at not getting involved. Weren’t there, didn’t see shit, even if they get splashed with blood…. I know you don’t like crowds, but cross here and we’re just more potential customers to any eyes in the sky.”

Ed grunted and raised the binoculars again. His heart rate was up just studying the city through the lenses of his binos. Technically they were in just as much danger where they were now as they would be once they crossed into the city proper. He knew it was more psychological than anything else. South of the border was enemy territory.

“The city… it’s never the same,” Ed mused.

“What do you mean?”

“Every time we pop out of it and come back, it’s a little bit different.”

“Worse?”

“No, different,” Ed said quietly, still staring through the binos. He snorted. “I don’t think it can get any worse. It turns out one can simply walk into Mordor.”

“Oh, it can always get worse,” George, just in earshot, felt obliged to add.

Ed sighed, then motioned at George and Early. “You two first. Rifles down along your sides and walk, all casual like, don’t run. Talk to our entrepreneurs over there, and if nothing feels off, give a wave. We’ll stage up at that house past them,” he pointed.

They were all sweaty with anticipation, but crossing into the city, as was often the case, was anti-climactic. No shouts, no shooting, and best of all no Growlers, IMPs, or Kestrels.

George and Early strolled across the street, rifles held vertically at their sides, and struck up a conversation with the group in the parking lot of the gas station. Four men and two women, all thin and in dirty clothing, standing around a 55-gallon drum cut in half lengthwise. Both halves had been turned on their sides and were supported by metal frames that looked crudely handmade. Ed watched through the binos. The men eyed the rifles of the newcomers but that was about it. Ed knew there was a good chance every man there was carrying a concealed handgun. Or a knife. Or, more likely, both. After about a minute of conversation Early turned and gave them a wave.

Ed crossed last, with Jason. He felt horribly exposed and, perpetually tired as his legs were, wanted to sprint across the cracked pavement. Instead he forced himself to make slow, steady strides, carbine pressed against his side. George and Early were still standing in the parking lot, the rest of the squad having gone past them for the cover of the nearby houses.

“How many more you got in those woods over there, it’s like a clown car,” the man tending the barbecue said to Ed with a smile. “How about you, you hungry?” He gestured at the meat on the grill. Jason’s mouth watered at the smell. “I’d be willing to bet you gentlemen have something worthwhile to trade.”

“Fella’s a born salesman, won’t take no for an answer,” Early said out of the corner of his mouth.

“Or if you’re interested in satisfying another kind of hunger…” the man said, gesturing at the two women beside him. Ed looked at them. The two women were war skinny and had the haunted eyes of people who’d seen too much. One of them smiled at him, the smile not reaching her eyes, and lifted her shirt. Jason’s eyes bulged at the sight of her naked breasts. “The boy here seems like he might be interested.”

“Appreciate the offer, but we’ve got places to be,” Ed said. He had to grab Jason by the shoulder and pull him along, to the accompaniment of laughter.

“You didn’t want any?” Jason said to him as they walked across the lot. “The meat I mean. That smelled really good.” Although the sight of the woman’s small breasts were burned into his brain.

“You see any cows around here?” Ed asked him. “Or chickens?”

Jason blinked and looked around reflexively before realizing it was a rhetorical question. “Ummm…”

“The city’s filled with all sorts of small game, squirrels, rabbits, rats, pigeons, pheasants, turkey, geese, even deer, but none of the locals know how to hunt for shit. What they do know is how to breed dogs, and that’s what was on that grill, since you didn’t notice. Puppy. Puppies. ” He turned his head, his eyes boring into Jason’s. His voice became steel. “We do not eat dog.”

A quick stroll across the parking lot and then they were in a neighborhood thick with one story brick-and-siding houses built in the 1950s. Most of the houses had wrought iron bars over the doors and windows for security, back when random street crime was the biggest worry of the residents.

Almost all of the back yards were enclosed with either low chain link or tall wooden fences, often leaning drunkenly. The houses were set close to the street, which meant the front yards were small and very open, with few trees. Some of them were even mown, or at least trimmed. The squad moved as fast as it could, split into two columns on opposite sides of the street, feeling exposed. Two blocks south and east they moved into a community of smaller homes, in much poorer condition. Here the lawns were untended, and there were more trees, but still Ed led the squad south quickly, trying to put distance between them and the city limits just in case someone had spotted them crossing.

At first, Jason had found it odd. The men of the squad would be walking together, sometimes for hours, and never say a word. Only communicate with hand signals. When there was talking, it was whispering and murmuring, the men’s heads nearly pressed together. But he’d very quickly gotten used to it. More than used to it, he understood it. Absent the white noise of vehicular traffic, the city around them, apart from the sounds of nature, was shockingly quiet. A human voice at normal conversational volume carried on the air a surprising distance, as did any loud sounds—an engine, shouting, gunshots.

A mile south they crossed over “Lucky” without incident. They left the shelter of houses and entered a large, quarter-mile-square section of undeveloped land that was nothing but waving grass and thick tangles of trees and brush.