“You go for headshots, or you shoot ‘em center mass, so you’d be less likely to miss?” His slow drawling voice was like molasses creeping from a jar.
“Uh, yeah, center mass.”
“Mmmmm.”
“How many rounds you got for that thing?” Ed asked from his spot.
“Uh, I’m not sure. Let me check.” Nervously he rummaged through his small pack. He pulled items out and set them on the floor around his feet—it was too dark to see into the canvas pack.
“With, um, with what’s in the gun, thirty-eight,” he said finally. He heard Ed sigh.
“Well, that’s better than thirty-seven, I guess.” Ed scratched his forearm, then jerked his head at Early. “Earl? Give us a minute,” he said to the blonde kid. He and Early stepped through the back door and stood in the cool night air. Early looked up at the sky, picking out the constellations. Both men carried their rifles, having grabbed them reflexively, but held them down along their sides, doing what they could to conceal their shape from aerial surveillance.
“Earl?”
Earl dropped his gaze and shook his head. “If that kid’s nineteen, Cap’n, I’m Winston fucking Churchill,” he said softly. “If he was over eighteen he should have been drafted.”
Ed nodded. “What about his dad not letting him off the farm until now?”
Early chuckled. “Now that I believe. My mother would call that boy apple-cheeked, looks like he should be in choir practice after pulling straw out of his hair, working up his nerve to kiss a pretty girl. But… walking around with a rifle in his hand for a week or two, that’s not nothing. Decade in a government lockup if they don’t decide to shoot you outright. Mostly I hate looking at his face, it reminds me of how old I am. And how long we’ve been at war. I doubt that kid remembers a time when this country wasn’t at war, which is just sad.” He sighed. “Still, you never can tell. Intelligence is getting pretty slick these days, whenever they remember this patch of heaven ain’t quite pacified.”
“Nothing’s ever simple, is it?”
Early smiled, his white teeth glossy pearls in the starlight. “Let’s take him back, give him a Shake Up Wake Up, see if his story changes.”
“Better be careful, Earl, the kid’s a confessed killer.” His wry smile was almost hidden in the night.
“Sheeeeit,” Early drawled, following him back into the stuffy house.
“Here’s what’s gonna happen.”
The two men stood shoulder to shoulder in the middle of the living room. Ed was jabbing his finger as he talked.
“We’re going right out the front door and heading straight west, pretty much. I’ll be on point, and Early’ll bring up the rear. I want you in the middle. We’ll go single file. I want at least a thirty-foot space between us, you hear me? I know you’re going to want to hurry, and crowd me, but watch your interval. Thirty feet. Mark a spot when I pass and count how many steps it takes you to reach it. Any less than ten and you’re too close. If you can spit and hit me, you’re too close.”
Jason was nodding at all the instructions, heart in his throat. His hands were sweaty on the rifle, and he had to keep wiping them on his jeans.
“If you see me stop, you stop. If I crouch down, you crouch down. If I start shooting, I want you right on my ass immediately. That way neither of us will pop you accidentally. Move slowly. Slowly and quietly, no sudden movements, move no faster than I am, and that’s not going to be fast. Freeze if you see trouble, then slowly get down.”
“As we’re walking along, you watch your muzzle. I don’t know how competent you are with that thing, but if Early sees you sweeping me—pointing your gun at me, accidentally or otherwise—he’s just as likely to put a bullet in your head as abandon you before we get there. We’ve got enough bastards trying to kill us without getting shot by our own people by accident. You understand?”
Jason swallowed, nodded, and tried to be subtle checking that his rifle was pointed in a safe direction.
“No talking. None. As in zero. I’ll use basic hand signals until you get up to speed. Now, what do you do if the shit hits the fan?”
Jason cleared his throat. “Get on your ass as fast as I can.”
“Right.”
“There’s been a dusk-to-dawn curfew in effect since before the war started, so just leaving now, with us, could get you arrested if you got caught. Or shot.” Ed was giving him every excuse to change his mind but the kid wasn’t biting.
“Where are we going?”
Ed hit him with an unreadable stare. “To meet up with the rest of the squad.”
“No, I mean, how far are we going?”
“When we get there I’ll tell you. Saddle up, grab your pack. Early,” he said, and jerked his head again. They moved into a corner, and Jason watched as the skinny leader unfolded a paper map. The two men had a brief hurried conversation, which left Early looking like he’d eaten something distasteful. “In case both me and the SatLink get it,” he heard Ed say. Then the two men were at his side again. Early grabbed the backpack straps around the young man’s shoulders and tightened them.
“You gotta run, you don’t want this floppin’ around,” he murmured. “Backpack should be on your back, on your shoulders, not your ass.” He glanced down at the lever action in Jason’s nervous hands. “Haven’t seen one of those in forever, but took my first deer with one just like it. Keep your finger off the trigger less you’re pullin’ it. And keep that hammer down. You’ll have plenty of time to cock it when you’re eatin’ dirt.” He looked over. “Ready, Cap’n.” His own rifle made the lever action look tiny.
Ed moved to the front door and peered out the small window left and right. “You stay out of trouble, Colleen.”
“I try.”
“You sure you can spare all this water?” They’d filled all their canteens. Jason only had one, the other men carried two or three each.
“I’ve got rainwater traps all over this block,” they heard her voice from the kitchen. “If I couldn’t spare it I wouldn’t be giving it away.”
“Fair enough.”
“You make sure those biscuits get to your boys, Ed. I know Early, he’s liable to eat ‘em between here and the next block.”
“Why Coll!” Early tried to sound offended but they could all hear the smile in his voice.
Ed quietly swung the wood door open and cracked the storm door. He checked left and right again, up and down the dark, quiet street, then quickly jogged across the lawn and street to the fenceline.
Early put a hand on Jason’s shoulder as he tried to follow. “Jes wait,” the big man whispered in his ear. They watched Ed stand perfectly still, rifle at the ready, looking and listening. The chain link fence at his left shoulder stretched away before and behind him. He stood in waist-high grass, a four-foot-wide belt of it between the fence and the curb running up the street. The fence was topped with a vee of barbed wire, rusty but still unbroken, and was choked with weeds and grape vines growing rampant and unchecked in the summer heat. In his earth-colored clothes and gear he nearly disappeared against the mottled backdrop.
Facing north he scanned the empty street, a line of small homes to his right. Halfway up the block an electrical power line had fallen across the pavement. It was quiet, no sparking, but you never could tell for sure. He looked left, through the fence, then back over his shoulder. The night was silent and still but for the conversation of a few birds.
From the doorway they watched Ed slowly advance up the street, swishing through the tall grass, just a shadow. Jason saw him pause, and then the slender man just disappeared. Where the hell had he gone? There was nothing for him to hide behind, no bushes or trees. Jason gripped his rifle tighter.