Pilliars in the Fall (11 page)

He flicked the little drone in the nose with his finger and shrugged. "I'd say were not alone out here."

"Well we knew that," Danielle huffed moodily.

"Yeah but now they know that we know," Clint explained. "I don’t know what a couple guys think they're doing camping out here like this but I don’t like playing hide and go seek with anyone, especially if they’ve got some gear besides the second hand stuff we saw. There’s the drone, plus I saw some five five six brass on the ground... I'm glad they took off."

He said it more to me than to the others, and I couldn’t agree more.

"Oh come on, they're probably just meth heads, you know, guarding their lab or something," Blake said it as if it was nothing.

"Then we should have gotten out of there that much sooner. And we should maybe rethink where we're headed," I told him.

"Rethink where we're headed?" Blake challenged me. "This is your deal man, and we've already come this far... shit, what just turn around now because you scarred up a couple of rabbits and their pet?"

I understood his frustration, maybe not his anger, but the frustration at the idea of calling this off.

"We're doing this for a good reason, might as well keep on going,” Clint spoke up in a rare expression of words. “I know we shouldn’t have gone straight through that field and stuck to the trees instead. I thought we'd be safe enough out here. It might just be an unlucky coincidence that we tripped over those guys."

What I didn’t add was a big
IF
. As in,
IF
the drone guys were just some wannabe weirdos out here. And
IF
they weren’t the ones who shot us up on the drive back to my place a few days ago. And
IF
they were the only ones like them out here. That was a lot of unknowns and I didn't like the idea of there being a bunch of people or even a bunch of different groups of people, all out in the woods doing god knows what, while we were just trying to pass on through.

The look on Clint's face told me he knew exactly what it was that I was thinking. Blake and Danielle were new to this, even though they were not complete novices having spent some time in battle hardened war zones. Danielle seemed like she was nervous and didn’t like having to be thinking about these things while not on foreign soil. And Blake, well I didn’t have a clue as to what he was really thinking anymore. I only knew what he was saying was not what I was wanting to hear.

"Ah what's the big deal? It was just a couple dumbasses with a toy. The Hajis hid from us with all our modern gear, we just have to turn the tables and so the same thing," Blake ventured. "If they can do it, we can too."

"Not quite the same thing dude. If these guys even had motion detectors, we'd never know what hit us out here. It’s a different landscape, a different fight," I told him.

"Does anyone remember how we’re not trying to get into a fight?" Danielle reminded us, but I had seemingly pissed Blake off... again.

"What's that supposed to mean? Look who elected you to lead us here anyway? I've been to war, you think those towel heads are better than us at fighting?" his anger and diatribe was as out of place as it was unjustified, but I wasn’t one to just get yelled at either.

"Yes, you went to a war zone," I metered my words carefully, trying to contain my rising anger in turn. "And you stayed in the camp the whole time. We've been living in a war zone since you left. You're the one that told me how your group had five thousand soldiers at that camp and only maybe a thousand of them ever left the wire, and you weren’t one of ‘em."

"We've been living with no wire for years now. You want to talk war zone, you go look at the houses of friends we used to sleep over at that are now burnt down. Or the ones with blood stains. Or the real fun ones are where the bodies of people we used to know are still in the houses and all anyone did was lock the front door on their way out after robbing, raping and murdering them all. Been to a war zone? Well welcome home to hell! You want to survive this then you'd better get on our level pretty fucking fast," my words were coming a little faster than my brain could stop them.

"And hey if you want the lead then take it! You're the best one for it anyway. We both know he is unbeatable in the deep woods," I nodded at Clint who was passively listening as he looked around us all, seemingly uninterested in our pissing match, "but you're the war zone expert. You know as well as I do that there is no leader here, but if you think someone needs to be in charge then you would think that person would want to listen to the guys that know the situation we’re in."

God I was tired. Tired of fighting with everyone and... Blake's fist caught me in the jaw and I went down to one knee, consciously stifling the automatic reflexes to defend myself. Spitting the copper taste of blood out of my mouth I cracked my neck and looked up at him, now completely disinterested in fighting with him or anyone else.

"You done?" he asked harshly and reached his hand down to help pull me to my feet again. It was the first time he had ever hit me. I didn’t like it.

"Oh yeah, I'm done."

I didn’t really blame him for the cheap shot, although I did think it was pretty stupid of him. I knew he had developed some delusion of being a throwback cowboy who didn’t put up with anything and it was okay to pop someone in the mouth. To me, it was a joke of a facade, knowing that it was a veiled cover, adopted to make up for whatever else it was that he wanted to be, but naturally wasn’t.

I knew that and still I had pushed him. Having a best friend was hard, but maybe my guilty conscience was looking for a little punishment too and apparently he was the perfect one to dish it out for me.

Chapter 13

“People coming up that might need shooting," Danielle joked fatalistically and nudged me awake with her foot. After another hour and a half of walking, mostly heavily lost in thought, I had laid down to grab a quick cat nap and recharge my energy, and my nerves, while we took a lunch break.

"What? Who? And where?" I asked her and then opened my eyes.

"That way," she pointed. "The guys are already on their way to check it out; about a hundred yards from here."

"How'd you find them?"

"Went looking for potty spot and saw their movement on the next hill over."

"And you didn’t just shoot em?" I smirked, playing into her new found embrace of pessimism.

"Funny. No, I could see them but they’re too far out for me anyway,” she looked down at the little M1 Carbine in her hands.

I rubbed the sleep from my eyes, grabbed my gear, and followed Danielle in the direction she had pointed. A minute later we found Clint snuggled up to the scope on his SMLE and Blake lying prone and looking over the top of his FAL through binoculars. As I joined them, the two looked over at me slinging up in my AK74, Clint with an almost proud expression, and Blake with a quizzical, dismissive one.

“Will that even do anything from this far back?” Blake asked in a hushed voice, ignoring our most recent altercation and returning to the previous debate of assuming that the little AK with a reputation of inaccuracy could not hang with the big guns.

I ignored him for the moment and just continued to get settled into a good position I could shoot from if it was needed. Seeing this, Clint answered for me.

“I’ve seen him and that gun do stuff I didn’t think was possible. If he shoots, it’s for a reason,” he defended me, also giving a nod my way in a small apology for wondering if I was up for the job back at the trailer shooting.

Blake still stared at me unconvinced so I added my own style of answer to his questions that I was frankly getting tired of.

“What? You don’t think an ice pick to the brain will rearrange somebody’s day?”

Looking out over the field I caught just the tail end of a small group headed slightly parallel and thankfully away from our own line of travel.

Clint lifted his head away from the scope and rose up to retrieve his pad of paper and map. "Group of seven. Camo, long guns, only three had packs. Short range patrol maybe," he quickly summarized.

Looking over his shoulder I saw him take a compass bearing on their direction, then draw a line on the map. The line pointed in the general vicinity of a place I knew all too well. There was only one road and on it lived my friends the Parvishs. The road also connected to the church we were headed towards, although it was about a mile from their house.

Clint looked up at me and I let out my breath, again not having a better answer than to just keep doing what we were doing, no matter how badly the deck continually stacked up against us.

"Okay, you guys stay on this line. I'm going to bird dog them just to be nosey and see where they're headed and what they're up to out here," I announced to the others.

"Say what?" Blake whispered back even though the group was clearly out of earshot.

"Looks to me like we’re all going to the same place anyway, but just to be sure I want to get a handle on who we’re out here with," I told him.

Clint looked slightly unsure at first
and then nodded his agreement.

"Stay in radio contact and meet up... here in an hour," I checked my watch and pointed to a flat patch of ground just outside the church area.

"I'll come with you," Blake volunteered.

"I got this one. One guy can stay out of sight easier and if they see me, it's only me and not all of us. Shouldn’t be an issue though," I concluded and finished the granola bar I had been munching on.

I didn’t want a repeat of Blake's slip up with the four kids from the other day and maybe more over, I just wanted a little time to myself.

Fifty minutes later I had peeled off from the group's path which had veered away from the church and met back up with the others. I had only loosely followed the group, giving myself plenty of distance and basically paralleling their movements since we were all headed in the same direction anyway.

After linking back up with Clint, Blake and Danielle, we hunkered down just within earshot of the church, listening to the distant hum coming from a big power generator.

“I think we found out where our buddies in camo were headed,” Clint said from under his parka hood.

"I'm telling you there's no way. They hooked off to the west and this group was already here," I defended myself.

We had stopped on a small rise just out of a thin tree line and were watching the activity at the church. For thirty minutes now we watched the arrival of the church goers. Of special note were the figures that the patrons merrily greeted who were standing outside the entrance to the church's main doors. Clint slowly lowered the binoculars from his eyes and made another note on his pad of paper.

It was Sunday today, or so I was told, and it looked like the church was still attempting to hold late services. That was normal enough, even admirable. The unusual part was how they were doing it with armed guards present. It seemed like all the people were free to come and go at will, as long as they used the front door, so it was hard to know what exactly to make of the scene.

We had counted five “guards” in all, but those were just the ones we could see. It was pretty easy to guess at who was who. There were families, some dressed in their normal formal church attire and others dressed down a bit in work clothes or bundled up against the cold weather, then there were the guys in camouflage with long guns slung on their backs.

"Well then the alternative is that there is a good sized group that we keep running into separate parts of," Danielle summarized.

I put my little monocular up to my eye, looking for one more thing before I was ready to make my recommendation on us just getting the heck out of there.

“Everyone is leaving their guns at the door,” I pointed out.

The few people who did walk up to the church that were openly carrying a firearm were intently watched by the official guys with guns until they got up to the entrance. Then, at least from our vantage point, each one seemingly voluntarily turned their gun over for safe keeping before entering the glass front lobby door.

“Probably just local guys running security, looks legit enough,” Blake thought out loud.

“Good, then you can go test it and see how friendly they are,” I supplied helpfully.

“Why are we here again?” Danielle’s question wasn’t off base, but it was close enough to complaining that it irritated me and I could feel a small headache coming on.

“I’ve got friends here that have a lot to offer and I’d like to get set up with them at least on some radio channels so we can help each other out,” I reminded her unnecessarily.

“Friends that you haven’t heard from in months and nobody else has heard from in weeks. And armed guards fit into your plan too?” she pushed again.

“Obviously they don’t or else we wouldn’t be here lying on the freezing ass ground, scoping them out with high powered rifles,” I said, relieving a bit of my irritation.

“You still want to go in?” Clint asked, getting us back on track.

“I don’t know. Henry and his boys are pretty dang squared away. If there was a problem, they would’ve rallied the troops. And also, they are definitely the type of people we want to be around during all this,” I reasoned against my own pessimistic view.

“Okay, so let’s go say hello,” Clint directed. “I say just two go in at first. Two is non-threatening and easy to explain. Four of us armed up is a show of force. Whether the guards are legit or not, you want to look as non-threatening as possible. The other two can cover you from here.

“You know, the husband wife tandem usually looks pretty non-threatening. Blake can behave himself long enough in a church I think,” I offered hopefully.

“Oh no you don’t,
you
are going in. You’re the one that knows the people here,” Clint said, although I could tell he was trying hard to contain a smile.

It was
true; I knew a lot of the church members. The problem was I was only on good standings with about a quarter of them and I sure as hell didn’t want to run into my ex-girlfriend or her parents.

“How about the old man and nice young girl approach?" I made one more pitch, which at "old man," Clint’s lone middle finger came up in my direction.

“Okay,” I sighed in defeat, “Danielle, it’s you and me. We’ll back track a little to come up from the other side over there,” I pointed. “Go nice and easy, guns slung, wave and smile… and if anyone asks, you’re my deaf and mute sister. Got it?”

“Yeah thanks,” she muttered unhappily.

“Radio check?” I spoke into my push to talk microphone that was still connected to the little hand held radio in my pocket. I had the line running inside of my jacket to be as concealed as possible but Blake and Clint would be able to hear everything I wanted them to hear, and as before with Blake and the Road Warrior Kids, they could relay information and direct us as needed.

“Copy,” they each replied in turn.

“Alright… shit. Let’s go,” I said, finally unable to stall any longer.

We eased back off the little hillside and worked our way around the other side so as to appear as though we were walking in from a different direction and not point right back to Blake and Clint’s hiding spot. We had been on our feet for hours but after laying still in the cold, it felt nice to get our legs warmed up and moving again.

By the time we got around to the side and walked up through the open meadow, I had a big suspicion that our efforts to conceal where we had come from were unnecessary. No one even looked once, let alone twice at us, until we got up to the concrete pad at the main entrance of the church.

“Good morning folks,” a nice older guy acting as a door greeter offered us a cut sheet of paper that was serving as their itinerary and bulletin for the day.
 He was dressed in a suit under a heavy coat and his gray hair contrasted with his rosy checks and nose. I didn’t recognize him, but I hadn’t exactly been much of a regular here lately.

“Once you check your firearms in, feel free to go on inside and get warmed up. We’re running a few minutes late today but there should be something warm to drink before services get started,” he told us.

“Oh we’ll probably just keep these with us if it’s all the same, I'll definitely take you up on a cup of coffee though,” I said, making sure to sound happy and carefree and actually feeling encouraged about the prospect of caffeine.

But boy did that simple statement get the attention of the two camo clad guys with rifles now in their hands that were standing just off to the side of the entrance. One was not quite middle aged, good sized if not quite as big as I was, and had a nice looking M1A. The other was young, maybe out of high school, and couldn’t have been taller than five foot four or weigh more than a hundred and forty pounds. He had a long neck, a closely buzzed hair cut under his black knit watch cap, and one of those gangle tooth things that you had trouble not staring at. He was also holding a shiny Mini-14 to compliment his canvas web gear and there was a short tomahawk on his belt where a pistol normally would have been.

“It’s not all the same… sir,” the older one walked a little closer to where we were standing.

They had both swiveled to squarely face us and were doing their best to look official and threatening, but they had a small problem, I wasn’t easily impressed or intimidated.

“Hmm, yeah well, good for
it
then. Have a nice day guys,” I yawned and continued to walk casually towards the door with Danielle thankfully right in step with me.

“Sir please stop right there!” the older of the two directed at me a little louder this time. “There are no un-authorized firearms allowed inside the church.”

“Un-authorized?” I repeated, still trying to hide the ridicule in my voice. Danielle cleared her throat noisily to let me know I wasn’t doing a very good job.  

“If you two want to go in, you
will
leave your guns outside,” The younger and smaller guard said. Where it came a little more naturally to the older one, I could tell the kid was having to try hard to look and sound menacing.

“Under
whose authority?” I asked the older one, ignoring the little guy who was now glaring at me.

“The Captain of the Lightfoot Brigade Militia, and the elders of this Church,” he answered in a straight forward manor, as if that information should impress me.

“Well we aren’t under his command, but I like the idea that you guys can’t carry your guns inside... your safety is on backwards.” I told the kid who quizzically looked down at his Mini-14, momentarily distracting him and giving me enough time to get through the front door.

“Stop right there!” the older one commanded, bringing a few extra heads swiveling around inside the lobby to see what the commotion was.

“Oh for the love of…” I started to say and then noticed that the guy had slapped his M1A up to his shoulder and had it trained on my chest.