Hard Rain Falling (Walking in the Rain Book 3) (10 page)

“This happen a lot around here?”

Barlow started laughing then and shook his head.

“Nah, you’re just special I guess, picking today of all days to come rolling into town. We knew they were trying to infiltrate the area but that sure was a mess of trash out there. Had to be at least two hundred of the fuckers.”

“That was some nice shooting, too. Who else you got in the truck there? Your buddies kinda left you hanging out by yourself. Wait, you came in with Jenkins, right?”

I nodded and the other man seemed to brighten up considerably before he spoke next.

“So you were escorting the girls that got trapped over in Fayetteville, right? The cheerleaders?”

I frowned and the man must have read something in my eyes because he was quick to explain.

“One of those girls, Trisha Barlow, she’s my niece. My older brother’s daughter. Do you know if she is with them? I heard they were only sending a few for now, with information about the others.”

I explained that I didn’t know, but I could find out. Radioing Lori, I was able to find out that Patricia Barlow, age thirteen, was currently a guest of the Keller family. Lori sounded even more excited than the sergeant did at this bit of good news. She took this as a good sign for her own family.

The sergeant was pleased for sure, though. As the firing died down, no doubt speeded along by the APCs machine gunning the surviving gang members, the two of us helped the lightly injured soldier. He was their medic, and he needed our aid with his comrade. I lifted the head while Barlow took the feet to extract the badly injured man from the metal pipe. The private was still bleeding severely from a wound in his left side. Even with the bandages in place I thought I could see ribs showing through. Not good.

“Do you guys have a hospital set up?” I asked, huffing a little from the exertion… and the adrenalin crash, I suspected.

“Clinic over at the armory,” the medic replied, not even looking up from his work. “Murph’s stabilized, but we need to get him into surgery as soon as possible though.”

“On it,” I replied, and crawled along the ditch until I reached the point closest to the SUV. Taking a moment to catch my breath and replace the lens caps on the scope, I slung the rifle and threw my body up and over the edge of the depression and into a crouch. The sloped ditch was only about three and a half feet deep, but I wasn’t doing to waste time turtling myself out of the hole.

Running full tilt, I made the front passenger side door at a pace I knew might be my own personal best in the 40 meter dash. I kept expecting a bullet to crash into my body, so hitting the solid metal of the door instead was a sweet pain. I didn’t know what they armored this sucker up with, but other than a row of slight dimples in the paint, the SUV looked fine.

I thumped the side of the door, bruising my palm, and cried out, “Everybody watch out! I’m coming in!”

I wanted the girls to hunker down to reduce the risk of them catching a stray bullet, but nobody seemed to get the idea. Lori was just sitting there, staring at me across the width of the Suburban.

“What?” I asked.

“Holy shit! I can’t believe you made it.” She was watching me with wide eyes. Turning, I glanced back to see Amy cut her eyes my way, blow me a kiss, and go back to watching the fighting outside start to peter out.

Unlike Lori or Summer, my girl had seen fighting before, albeit on a much reduced scale. She’d watched our backs while Stan and I had dispatched the second group of raiders working out of Harrison, after all. She was still doing that, watching our backs.

“Lori, do you know how to get to the armory from here?”

“Yeah, it’s only a little over a mile. Did you see those freaking cannons? They blew the crap out of those apartments, and then started on the prison itself. I think the whole place is on fire now.”

“We got a couple of wounded out there in the ditch,” I said, looking back at the prison as I spoke. Though the truck blocked much of the view, I could see tall columns of smoke rising from that general area.

“One bad, one not so much,” I continued. “I think we can fit them and the last soldier, Tricia Barlow’s uncle, in the middle seats. Summer, can you and Amy move to the far back seats?”

“You got it,” was all the young girl said. She was looking a little spacy now, like she was going into shock from all the violence. I felt like shit for bringing them here. Again, I let my mouth override good sense. Just like at the school.

“Summer, this is over. We are getting out of here, okay? You with me?”

The girl nodded, her brown hair falling over her eyes from the movement. She usually had her hair up in a ponytail, but maybe she was out of the little elastic bands.

“Okay,” I pronounced with a sigh and picked up the radio mic. With the sound of the battle falling off now, I could hear the traffic much easier. I keyed the switch and spoke slowly and tried to be clear.

“Sergeant Jenkins, over,” I called. In all the confusion I’d forgotten his call sign. He’d get over it. Jenkins came back immediately, and he sounded more relaxed than when we spoke before. “Sergeant, 451 here. We have located two soldiers wounded, request permission to carry them to the armory clinic for treatment, over.”

“Copy, 451. Without exposing yourselves to fire, please do so at this time. We will be returning to base shortly. And, take Barlow with you, over.”

From listening to his earlier transmissions, I knew he was dumbing down his regular ‘Army talk’ for the civilians. I appreciated it. My father still routinely ending cell phone calls with the cryptic statement, ‘Roger, RTB’. I finally asked and found out it meant ‘returning to base.’ Or, in civilian terms, ‘I’m coming home from the grocery store.’

I didn’t bother asking how he knew Barlow was in the ditch with us. Jenkins was a pretty sharp cookie, after all.

CHAPTER TWELVE

Lori had not exaggerated when she said the armory was close. The two story red and white brick structure seemed to come into view almost before we managed to get the back set of doors shut. Murph, the severely wounded soldier, sat wedged in the middle between the medic and Sergeant Barlow. He was still bleeding from at least two bullet wounds, and Lori was blowing through the streets like she was trying out for NASCAR. Well, since it was road racing, probably more likely Formula One.

The gate guards watched us with unconcealed concern as Lori cam screaming up the side road and turned to approach the entrance from the front. I could see the barrels of at least two machine guns tracking our approach.

“Miss, slow down now. You’ve got these boys spooked, even if we didn’t just have a big attack already today. They don’t know this vehicle even though Sergeant Jenkins radioed ahead. So slow goes it.” He was speaking softly, as if soothing a wild horse. I knew the tone and had used it myself. Not far from the truth, seeing how rattled Lori was from the earlier fight.

“Just stop here,” he said once Lori got the SUV under control again and dropped down to a creeping approach. We were still about five hundred yards out and close enough to be seen with the right optics. I’d bet we had multiple scopes trained on us right about then.

When Lori braked, Barlow open the door carefully, maneuvering to avoid jostling the bleeding man now leaned over on the medic for support. Barlow stepped out, hands visible, did a complete turn for the watchers, and then stepped up on the driver’s side running board. He waved Lori ahead and held his fingers close together to indicate ‘go slow’.

The two guards who came out to check the Suburban still wanted to get everybody out for a check until they looked in the back seat.

“Is that Murphy?” one of the young men asked. He was a private and looked barely eighteen. I know, petty of me to note such a thing, but he looked so fresh faced and innocent.

“Yeah. Doc says he has a chance if we can get him in to surgery, right now.”

That got things moving. Lori followed the serpentine path laid out with concrete barriers, meant to slow down car bombers, no doubt, and then sped up and pulled around to the side of the building to a row of tents. These were the big green military tents you always saw in war movies. Or like on that old TV series, MASH.

Lori had trouble backing the big SUV up to the door but got reasonably close. I knew she was having trouble just from the curses she was muttering under her breath. Really, she did fine, but I suspected the stresses of the day were just starting to pile on her all at once. Now we were once again safe inside a security perimeter.

Once the Suburban stopped, everyone started bailing out like we were in a clown car. Seven people inside and still the big truck had not been that crowded. No one had to go sit on the cargo in the back, for instance. Two men with a stretcher came sprinting out of the first tent and loaded the once again unconscious Murphy up for the short trip to the operating room, or so the medic confided in the rest of us. Then he wandered off, no doubt to get further treatment for his own wound.

Barlow seemed to be at a loss for what to do since the rest of his squad was still out in the field. Murphy had been a part of his fire team and was actually tabbed as his spotter. Barlow explained the man had been hit running over to the ditch when the fighting first started. The other two men in his fire team remained with their squad leader, a staff sergeant tasked with slowing down the enemy advance from the west.

Clearly, he was worried about his men, but also curious. Lori and Summer told him what they knew of Trisha, more so Summer since they were in the same grade together. She was still showing signs of shock with her glassy stare and the occasional shiver even in the heat, but talking seemed to help. Barlow, no stranger to this condition, seemed to be trying to get her focused on the discussion at hand.

Finally, the man moved away from the girls and gave me a curious look. Following his eyes, I caught him as he glanced at the Pelican case stuck between the mid row seats.

“What you got in the case?”

I shrugged. “Haven’t had a chance to check it out yet. It came with the Suburban.”

That got a closer look at the vehicle. We were walking away from where the girls were clustered in a tight circle discussing the firefight in more detail. From what I could tell, the general consensus was to avoid ever doing that again.

“You know, when I’m not wearing this uniform, I wear another one. Deputy in the Pittsburg County Sheriff’s Department. Anything you want to tell me about this vehicle, sir? Since it has government plates and aftermarket high grade ballistic armor setup.”

I could see the wheels turning for Barlow as his law enforcement training came back to the foreground.

“This vehicle is not stolen in the sense you might believe, Sergeant Barlow. I cannot discuss the details though; not
will
not,
can
not. I can say that Sergeant Jenkins knows the story. If it makes you feel better, think of this as property seized from a criminal organization.”

“Look, I don’t mean to be a hard ass. Shit, that thing shouldn’t even be running with all the electronics under the hood. Just, those rigs are used by the FBI Hostage Rescue Team, okay? You literally cannot buy the thing. There must be some story behind you winding up with it.”

I wanted to tell Barlow, but I didn’t want to be the source for this story getting out. That the Homeland Security was starting to act aggressively against the Guard might not surprise Colonel Hotchkins or his boss, General Tomzerak—or even Captain Vanderpool or Lt. Germann for that matter—but for the rank and file troops, such a perceived betrayal might do more harm than good at the moment. Hell, I didn’t know and did not like being in a position to make the call.

“Look, you’ll find out soon enough, but better if the story comes down from your chain of command.”

“I thought you were a vanilla civilian? How do you know all these terms?”

“My dad was career military. Some of it rubbed off. The rest I’ve picked up here and there; although I’ve never seen anything like I did today.”

Not even at the school. Yes, the sense of being on the verge of being overwhelmed and of being outnumbered was getting familiar, but this fight had been on a whole new level. Machine guns and artillery? An armored charge to end things? That was way outside my comfort zone.

Barlow nodded, seeming to relax. He still wanted to know the story but some of what I said must have made sense. “Dude, that was some crazy shit. I wonder where the hell they got those M240Bs. That’s not something you can pick up looting at Cabela’s.”

“That’s what those machine guns were? Scary. Like I said, I’ve been in some fights, but lately everything has just freakin’ escalated.”

I thought about a missile—a ‘Javelin’ Lt. Germann called it—flashing inches away from Amy and I shuddered. Regret for not killing that last DHS goon filled me with a flash of anger, then shame. Who was I to make those kinds of decisions? Who lives and who dies? Barlow must have seen something in my face.

“You want to talk about it? I know that’s gotta be rough. Double hard since they were all dressed in civilian clothes. Nobody but a maniac wants to slaughter innocent civvies. Thing is, those gangs are just another army. They are disciplined and brutal to the core.

“Being with the Sheriff’s Office here, we’ve had a particular wary eye out for these gangs. They were a bit of a breakout risk even before Lights Out, but most of the capos of the various gangs were lifers and made their homes behind those walls. Some of them have been inside thirty years. I doubt they could function outside even if they did make parole.”

I shook my head. “It was like they didn’t care.”

Barlow gave an appraising look before he spoke next.

“I’ve heard they’ve been eating… well, like the ones trapped inside. You know… people. I imagine that must have some effect on them. About the way they think.”

“You think it makes them crazy?”

“I think it makes them so they don’t care. Starving then… well, you know… eating that meat. Can’t make for real stable thought processes.”

“How y’all set for food here? We are just passing through and don’t want to impose is all. Brought our own eats, I mean.”

“Town is okay. Stockyards had a good bit of corn and wheat stored up for the animals, and the same with some of the outlying farms. Gonna be a bitch to get crops in next year unless we can get the irrigation systems back up, but right now we are making it. Barely.”

“Any problems besides the gangs?”

“Well, some townsfolk have gotten a bit crazy, and we lost a bunch of folks to not having their meds. Water has been a problem, but we’ve got a couple of those water purifying systems since one of the units here was a support outfit. Company D, 700
th
Support. Other than that, we’ve had a lot of trouble with refugees passing through.

“We had population of 18,000 before Lights Out, and now it is around maybe half that. Refugees have been steaming this way out of Oklahoma City and we just can’t feed them. I hear down south it is way worse, what with the masses trying to get out of Dallas. Rumors are what I hear, but horrible stuff.”

I knew what horrible stuff he meant, and it wasn’t rumors. Those gangs weren’t the only ones indulging in a little bit of the ‘other, other white meat’.

I looked around the busy parking lot converted into temporary housing with tents and modular buildings. The armory here was small, much smaller than the one in Fayetteville where Captain Devayne worked from, but this Captain Bisley was making an effort to get the property in order and use the space he had. I also noticed the absence of houses for a good half mile in all directions around the enlarged base and figured that couldn’t be by accident. The neighborhood coming in had appeared fairly built up, so I hoped the Captain hadn’t resorted to strong arm tactics.

“I think my dad would approve of the set up here. Nice fields of fire,” I said, just making conversation.

Barlow laughed. “Those houses on the west side went up two weeks after Lights Out. Somebody tried to cook in the fireplace, I think, and didn’t know it was decorative or something stupid like that. Burned two blocks of houses before we could get a firebreak set. Captain just incorporated the area into his plans. The other side there was already being turned into a park by the city. We just finished plowing it up and put in the gardens.”

“Sorry. Just, well, I’ve seen some Guard units up north that weren’t doing what they should.”

Barlow’s brow furrowed. “Like what?”

“You know what; rape, murder, pillage, blasphemy… basically breaking all the Ten Commandments like it was on their to-do list.”

“Please say it wasn’t in Oklahoma.”

“No, further north than Tulsa, although I didn’t come that way. Worst I saw was outside Jefferson City. Colonel went all… what was that colonel in Apocalypse Now? Kurtz?”

“I think so. Been a long time since I’ve seen that movie.”

“Well, gonna be a long time before Hollywood makes any more. Mustang Lieutenant, Germann, was saying that albums are going to make a comeback if we ever get electricity back up. Too many CD players and iPods with all that delicate wiring melted down, you know.”

“Well, I can listen to almost anything,” Barlow said with a grunt. “But if it takes the fall of civilization to stop the spread of Kanye, then I can make some sacrifices in my listening pleasure.”

The girls found us laughing at the sergeant’s fake somber pronouncement. I looked at Lori and then Summer. It was time to take these girls home.