THE TRASHMAN (28 page)

“Over the next few days, more of their buddies drifted in. Within a week there were over two hundred so-called survivalists; so many that they set up tents all over the Resort grounds. Our town deputy, Harry—Harry Phelps, God rest his soul—at our townspeople’s urging, went to talk to them, to find out why they were all there.

“They shot him dead at the main entrance to the Resort. After they murdered him, the Bradfords sent their men door to door to make everyone gather in front of the recreation center. They didn’t ask. They forced us at gunpoint. A few men resisted and they were killed.

“Kenneth, he’s the oldest of the two Bradfords, stood on the porch with a megaphone and told us the town belonged to him and his men, and that if we wanted to stay alive we’d take orders from him and his brother. Then he told us that we would be sorted. People useful to them would be allowed to stay and the rest had to leave that day.”

“I take it you all passed muster,” I said.

“Yes. I’m a nurse. The other two women are schoolteachers. Their husbands are skilled craftsmen. My husband, Phil, is a dentist.”

I nodded in the dark. “Let’s cut to the chase. I get it that you all don’t agree with the Bradfords’ methods. How many others feel the same way?”

“You’re looking at the entire bunch, Ralph,” said the man I now knew as Phil. “The rest of them, Bradford’s men, and the town people alike are thick as fleas, loving the good life no matter how it comes.”

“Two more questions and you’re on your way. How’d you all survive the plague?”

“Before the plague, there were nearly a thousand people in and around the village. After the plague swept through, there were sixty-three survivors, only twelve of them originally from the town. For one reason or another, the Bradfords have killed all but us. It doesn’t take much of a reason. If one of the Bradfords thinks you looked at them funny, they’ll order their men to shoot you.

“The reason the town’s filling up is that the Bradfords mandated all white people his scouts found were to be brought in and assessed. The ones that passed their judgment were allowed to stay and those who didn’t were killed. People of color and the mentally or physically challenged, defectives they called them, were to be killed when found.”

“Jesus,” I said.

“Jesus hasn’t been around lately,” Evelyn said.

“No he hasn’t,” I agreed, vaguely remembering someone else had used that same response. “Last question. Who are the girls… the young girls working at the Resort?”

“Those girls? They’re house slaves and sex slaves for the Bradfords and their main buddies.”

“I take it the Bradfords aren’t trained military?”

“No, the military guys they brought with them died of the plague. Now he has pretend soldiers, but they have the weapons and they’re all sadistic perverts, just like the Bradfords… Can we go now, Ralph?”

I stood. “Thank you, Evelyn. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I take it you have no set destination.”

Phil said, “No. We thought we’d put a lot of distance from here and find a cabin.”

“I have to tell you I don’t think you’re prepared to go it on your own. Give me another few minutes and I’ll write directions to a couple places. One is at a trail where you can get supplies. It’s a three-day hike from here. You’ll find food and other supplies I stashed.

“The other place to go is a different sort of sanctuary, a place I think you’ll feel comfortable. If you do decide to take my advice, tell William and Carl I said hello and I’ll see them as soon as my mission’s accomplished.”

“What mission is that, Ralph?” Phil asked.

“I’m going to kill every beast living in the village. The slave girls and the children I’ll do my best to spare.”

There was silence for a moment and then Evelyn said, “I guess we left just in time. Goodbye, Ralph. Keep in mind the women are just as complicit in the crimes as the men. They’ve turned into vicious animals. To all of them, survival of the fittest is their motto.”

I watched the group until they faded into the night. Walking back to my camp, I heard thunder rumble in the distance. A storm was coming.

*****

All through the next day, dark heavy clouds rolled in, roared with thunder, flashed lightning, sprinkled a bit, and then rolled away, leaving a clear space of sky for the next threat.

At 11:00 that evening, the threat was over and the bottom let loose in a spectacular display of light, noise, and torrential rain. My kind of weather, the kind that lets a person walk within a hundred feet of a guardhouse without notice, and stroll into town. I spent two hours placing my explosives, and in all that time the rain beat down. The thunder and lightning moved on with the storm front, but I felt if the trailing downpour continued, I might have to swim out of the village.

Back at my tent, I stripped my wet clothing before going in. I didn’t actually dress, more like shivered and shook my way into dry clothing. I fell asleep with my teeth still chattering.

Because the sun was hidden behind clouds, I almost overslept. My late night activities played their part in my tardiness. I poked my head through the tent flap and looked at the sky. I really couldn’t call it a sky. All I had above me this morning was a solid, thick mass of grey cloud cover. It was near 6:30 and I had a lot to do before noon.

First thing was to eat before the clouds let loose again. I warmed two cans of beef stew. Knowing it might be a long time until I had the opportunity to eat again, I topped the stew off with a handful of peanuts and three energy bars.

My wet clothing from the night before was on the ground in front of the tent. There being no way to deal with them, I put the soggy items into a plastic grocery bag and buried them for retrieval at a later time. My sleeping bag went into its waterproof sack. I struck the tent, shaking it to remove the water clinging to the sides, and rolled it tight enough for a plastic bag of its own before putting it into my back pack.

My pack was a lot lighter now that the explosives were placed. I shrugged into it and settled the straps. The case for the Enfield rifle had a fat comfortable handle. I grabbed it and set out. I wanted to be on the ridge-side above the resort by 11:00.

Moving through the forest, keeping to the ridge tops to circle the village to the opposite side, the streets of the village occasionally popped into view. Subdued by the ominous clouds and the threat of more rain, I saw only a few people out and about.

The slippery wet leaves and soggy ground made for a rough hike on the slopes, and it was after eleven when I arrived at my destination and picked a good point from which to operate.

I cleared debris from a reasonably level spot that gave me a panoramic view of the entire village below. I’d decided to do my shooting from a kneeling position. The Enfield was an extremely accurate long-range weapon but it wasn’t semi-automatic and required working the bolt for each shot. Another drawback was the ten-round box mag had to be reloaded using preloaded five-round chargers.

I spread a tarp, uncased the Enfield, and removed the telescope’s lens covers. From a pouch on my pack, I retrieved the ten loaded stripper clips William had provided with the rifle and placed them where I could reach them without fumbling. I doubted I’d be in position long enough to fire fifty rounds from the Sniper rifle, but you never know.

Laying the Enfield aside, I placed five twenty-round magazines for my assault rifle onto the tarp near the loads for Enfield.

I couldn’t help but check my watch pretty often. The digits moved to noon and nothing happened. Ten seconds later I saw a flash and then a huge explosion as ten tankers full of fuel spread a tremendous fireball, sending out a shockwave and flames that leveled and set aflame nearby houses and buildings.

To initiate my attack, I’d chosen a grouping of tankers near the center of town that weren’t close to a great number of structures. This target was bait for my trap. Within a minute, people came from their houses to see what had happened. A large group from the Village Recreation Center ran toward the scene of the explosion.

I waited. The group arrived on the road near where the tankers used to exist. Most had holstered pistols, only a few carried rifles. They were gesticulating and scurrying around and it was easy to see they were agitated.

More people arrived at the scene. Within ten minutes, there were at least fifty adults, men and women, gathered in the area, most in groups, but some standing alone or in twos and threes.

I moved the select lever of the assault rifle to automatic and aimed at the largest of the groups, the first to arrive. Hosing them with twenty fast rounds, I saw people falling, but didn’t waste time viewing the result of my action. I slammed home a fresh magazine and let loose on another group that was frozen in place.

By the time I reloaded a third mag, the people realized they were being shot at and began reacting, some falling to the ground, others fleeing as fast as their legs could carry them. I raked a crowd of eight running together, dropped the rifle, and shouldered the Enfield.

I took ten seconds to breathe and slow the adrenaline rush coursing through me, and then selected a target, a woman just getting to her feet. I fixed the cross hairs on her chest and squeezed the trigger. Through the scope, I saw the round hit her in the neck. The distance and the downward angle meant I had to aim lower. I worked the action to seat a round and shot a man running almost in a line toward me.

People were now scrambling in all directions seeking shelter. I continued picking off targets until there was no one in sight to shoot, except some wounded whom I ignored. I laid the Enfield on the tarp beside me. I still had five loaded stripper clips beside me. Counting the ten rounds I started with, I’d fired the sniper rifle at least thirty-five times. I knew I’d missed my target five or six times, but that meant that nearly thirty of them were down, either dead or wounded. With the initial shooting with the automatic, I’d dropped at least twenty others.

Even from the distance, I could hear the cries and screams of the wounded. Some were mobile, lurching along on their feet or crawling on all fours. One, a red-haired obese woman was using only her hands and arms to slowly move forward, sliding along on her belly, legs dead weight behind her, smearing the blood leaking from her wounds.

By force of will, I kept myself from puking. I knew the wounded were in horrible pain. William had stressed that winning was not only combat, but psychological as well. The screams and suffering of the injured was a tool to demoralize the enemy.

Thankfully, only a few more minutes stood between those thoughts and a distraction. I’d set the timers for the rest of my explosives for 12:30. A couple of riflemen began shooting from shielded positions. They had no idea where I was and were firing simply because they could.

Boom! Boom! The rest of their fuel went up I flames.

Boom! Down came the power pole bringing electric to the Village.

Boom! Another explosion sent parts of the pumping station that supplied water to the village, flying in all directions.

More detonations. A huge fireball expanded from the front of the Recreation Center spreading a cloud of building debris to fall into the courtyard and street. Three food trucks went up, cans, packaging and huge chunks of sheet metal  flying high to rain back down onto the roofs of structures still standing.

Smoke from the explosions and burning buildings began to fill the valley, obscuring my view of large portions of the village. I stood and began packing my weapons. My work for the day was done. I made the long trek back to my base.

*****

The next morning, I woke early and packed my supplies yet again. I liked this particular camp because it was hard to access. It was on a tiny shelf of rock. The uphill side was a vertical cliff that bulged outward, concealing the shelf from above. The downhill side was a short, sixty-degree stony slope clear of trees, falling a little less than a hundred feet before it gentled, and the forest began again.

I moved along the ridge until I had a view of the front porch of the Recreation Center. The two explosive charges I’d set on porch rafters near the entrance had opened a gap in the front of the building thirty feet wide and twenty feet deep, taking the roof with it. Two men were sitting on the porch having a conversation. There weren’t many people out where I could see them. A man was standing near where the food trucks had been, aimlessly kicking cans and other debris. Another man was riding a bicycle on the main road through the village.

I went downhill, closing the distance and used the Enfield to shoot the two men on the porch and then put a round in the chest of the man kicking cans. The man on the bike turned around and was peddling like wild dogs were chasing him, putting on speed, swerving this way and that to make him a hard target. He was. My first shot missed, but my second hit his ass, causing him to lose his balance and crash to the pavement tangled in his bike. He set to howling, begging me not to kill him. I waited a few minutes. He tried standing, but couldn’t. I watched him crawl sixty feet to a house and start pounding on a door. It opened and arms reached out to drag him inside.

The bodies from yesterday were still lying where they fell. Worse, the ones too badly wounded to move were still outside, too. Occasionally, one or another would gather the strength to hoarsely call for aid. None was forthcoming. The red-haired obese woman had managed to drag her body a hundred yards before dying.

I went farther along the ridge to where I could see the barricade and guard shack by the junction at the north end of town. One of the guards was outside the shack, rifle in hand staring off in the direction of the town. He’d probably heard my rifle shots.

The other guard was inside the shack sitting in a chair. I could barely see the top of his head. From my position, it was nearly five hundred yards to the shack. I aimed the Enfield where I thought his mid-back would be and squeezed off a round. The bullet went through the wood siding of the shack, and the man came out of his seat, danced around inside the small confines, and then dropped from sight.