Brushfire Plague Read online

  “First, we form a volunteer group of people willing to provide security to the neighborhood. Second, we put up checkpoints at the four road entrances to our neighborhood. Third, we have patrols that work the inside of our neighborhood. Finally, everyone here adopt a simple rule: if you hear conflict and you are armed, you move toward the fight to help our side win.”

  As Cooper stopped talking, the expected commotion of numerous individual conversations broke out. Cooper let it proceed for almost a minute until the crescendo started to fall.

  “Let’s do one question at a time. That way, everyone can hear each other.”

  Gus Valesta, a lawyer who lived around the corner from Cooper, spoke first, “Cooper, I want to thank you for thinking of everyone’s safety at a time like this. But, is all this really necessary? We haven’t had any problems in our neighborhood besides those high schoolers who were goofing off.”

  Cooper breathed deeply to contain himself. “Gus, those high-schoolers had guns. If I hadn’t been armed and had Dranko at my side, I don’t know what would have happened. So, I do think we’ve already had a problem in our neighborhood.”

  “But, you’re describing a lot of work when most of us are just trying to keep everyone healthy and cared for in our homes right now,” added Michelle Jamison, a homemaker whose husband was absent from the meeting.

  “I agree. It’s a lot of work. But, I believe if we all agree to this plan then we’ll have enough volunteers who are willing and able to take this on.”

  Gus, a good friend of Calvin’s, spoke up again, “My other question is whether checkpoints are really necessary. I mean, having to check in and out with our neighbors every time we go somewhere. I don’t want our neighborhood to feel like Russia!”

  Cooper shot a hard glance at Calvin who offered a tepid, close-lipped, smile in response. “I want to show everyone something,” Cooper said as he grabbed a handful of photos from a folder he had left at his feet. “These are off of my home computer, so the quality is not great. But these are of a family that was gunned down in their car less than a half mile from where we stand tonight.” He passed out the pictures that he had gone back and shot earlier of the gruesomely murdered family and allowed them to circulate in the crowd. The gasps of shock grew louder as they were handed from person to person. “These people were not robbed or raped. They were just killed. Killed for no reason except that someone else saw a chance to do it,” he paused for effect. “So, they did it.”

  Cooper waited until Gus held one of the pictures in his hand before continuing, “Trust me, I don’t want my neighborhood to feel like Russia. But, this isn’t Russia. These would be checkpoints and patrols made up of our neighbors and friends. We are deciding this democratically. It’s very different. And, at its worst it is better to be inconvenienced or feel uncomfortable than it is to not feel anything anymore, like the family in those pictures.”

  Heads began to nod as the crowd came around. Inside, he smiled. He knew he had them.

  Then, a familiar voice rang out from the back of the group, “The real question is whether this plan will do any good at all.” Dranko stepped into the circle that had formed in front of him when he began speaking. He was looking straight at Cooper, emotionless. Cooper glared back at him as he continued, “I agree with Cooper that things are unsafe now. But, it’s worse than that. To be blunt, there isn’t a way to keep ourselves safe here in the city. There are more bad guys out there. I’ve been on my ham radio since this all started and riots and waves of crime are overrunning cities across America. It’s simply not safe in any city.” The crowd rippled with the dull roar of fear as people exclaimed in nervous reaction to his words.

  A terrified voice called out, “What do we do, then?”

  “My advice is if you have somewhere else to go in the country or to a small town, go. That’s what I’m doing first thing in the morning.”

  “What if we don’t have anywhere else to go?”

  “Then bunker down as best you can and may God help you,” Dranko replied coldly.

  The murmurs rose again as the group was thrown into confusion. Cooper’s face flushed red and the muscles around his neck tightened, as strong as a vice.

  “Dranko is wrong. He is only hearing the worst news out of the other cities. In every natural disaster, some groups and neighborhoods stick together and they come out alright. It happened in Haiti, in Chile, even in Manila! We can do that right here too!”

  “Cooper, your pictures showed the work of one, maybe two, psychos who didn’t think twice before pulling the trigger. What will happen in this city when the gangs decide they want to take advantage of the situation? Not to mention the newly formed gangs of common criminals who now see a new opportunity? In a week’s time, those pictures will be multiplied by hundreds or possibly, thousands.”

  Cooper felt the sting of betrayal in his back, “You’re wrong, Dranko. We can protect ourselves. United We Stand. Don’t you remember that? You want us to pull up stakes and run. These are our homes. We can’t abandon them now.” Cooper choked on the last sentence as emotion welled up from deep inside.

  “Brother, she’s dead. You’re not abandoning her by leaving.”

  Cooper took a step forward, ready to charge at him. But, he controlled himself. The two men stood facing one another, fifteen yards apart. But now, a world separated them. Cooper felt the momentum drain from the crowd as it devolved into whispers, some shouts, and most simply standing in confused silence.

  Calvin stepped forward, ever the diplomat, “As President of the Neighborhood Association I move that we adjourn for the evening. Many useful comments and ideas have been presented tonight, but I do not see any consensus for action to move forward at this time.”

  Cooper stood in silence, looking hard at Dranko, as the seconds ticked by. Finally, he just shook his head and turned to go back inside. Calvin tried to put his hand on Cooper’s shoulder, but Cooper stopped his arm in mid-air with a glare. He looked upward, but the sky had returned to a depressing gray. He went into his home, dejected, Jake following him. His heart was pounding, his fists were clenched, and he wanted to punch the walls.

  Jake spoke up, “Dad, can I tell you something?”

  “Sure. Shoot.”

  “You were right and they were all wrong. I never knew Uncle Dranko was such a scaredy cat!”

  Cooper burst out laughing.

  Cooper had meant what he’d said about the need for safety in their neighborhood. That night, they slept on a worn mattress and blankets in the basement. That decision saved their lives.

  Chapter 13

  Cooper’s eyes popped open like they did at boot camp when the Drill Instructor shouted at them to wake up. This time though, it was the quiet creak of a loose floorboard on the first floor that awakened him. His right hand immediately went to his pistol at his side and he moved silently into a crouching position. His left hand instinctively felt for Jake’s peaceful, slumbering body next to his in the down sleeping bag. Jake’s chest rose and fell in steady rhythm.

  Cooper looked intently up at the doorway that led from the basement into their home. Just beyond the doorway, he heard hushed voices in frantic whispering. Amateurs. Professional thieves wouldn’t be talking inside the home. He distinctly heard two voices, male, but could not make out what they were saying. After a brief discussion, the footsteps moved in opposite directions and away from the doorway.

  Cooper clasped one hand over Jake’s mouth and used the other to jostle him awake. Jake awoke with terrified eyes and immediately attempted to make a noise. Cooper clamped down harder to prevent him from making any noise at all, and ordered him to silence with a single finger to his mouth and intense, squinted eyes. Jake relaxed and Cooper released the hold on his mouth.

  Cooper put his mouth next to his son’s ear and whispered, “Stay calm. We have intruders in our house above. At least two.”

  Fear clouded Jake’s eyes and they turned into narrow slits. “Don’t worry son, I will deal with t
hem.”

  Jake nodded, then whispered with an unsteady voice, “Wh…What are you going to do?”

  Jake was unnerved by what he saw in his father’s eyes and the icy tone in his voice, “They will leave or I will kill them.” Cooper moved a few feet away and grabbed the .22 rifle that they had put next to where they’d slept.

  He thrust the rifle into his son’s hands. For the first, but not the last time, he inwardly cursed the way this plague was forcing his son to lose his childhood. He knew his son was losing it in large, hacked out, slices instead of the slow erosion of innocence lost.

  “I need you to take this. If anyone comes down these stairs that isn’t me, aim this at the center of their chest. Keep squeezing the trigger until the gun is empty,” he racked the bolt to chamber a round. “This magazine holds twenty-five rounds. You can protect yourself. Kill the first man who comes down. Anyone behind him will run. Got it?”

  Jake gripped the rifle tightly, the way he used to crush his teddy bear when he had been scared by a bad dream. Cooper was surprised by the steady gaze on Jake’s face. Eleven-year-olds shouldn’t have such a hard stare. Cooper was torn between feelings of pride and remorse seeing it on his own son.

  “Don’t worry. I remember how to shoot,” Jake whispered with exaggerated confidence; referring to the two or three times that Cooper had taken him target shooting.

  Cooper gave him a squeeze on his shoulder, grabbed the shotgun from where it leaned against the concrete foundation wall, and turned to head upstairs to deal with the danger that waited above.

  In normal times, he would have stayed put and simply defended the basement if they had decided to come down here. Now, however, he knew they could not afford to lose anything that they had upstairs that the burglars had come to steal. Going to the store for replacements was no longer an option. Worse, his gun safe was in the guest bedroom closet and he was certain they would find that, as well.

  He began the silent ascent on the stairway, taking time to avoid any sound coming from the old, creaky, steps. He was like an old man, bent over and taking each step in due time. He had the shotgun firmly in grasp, while his pistol was holstered with a round in the chamber. Cooper steadied his breath to keep his reflexes alert and adrenaline flowing, while still keeping himself under control. This discipline had saved his life during firefights in Iraq.

  Finally, he reached the top stair and slowly turned the doorknob. Once he had enough room to squeeze through, he stepped onto the main level of their home, did a scan in all directions and closed the door behind him. He listened intently and heard footsteps from upstairs, moving rapidly from room to room. He smelled a sour whiff of fear-laced sweat and he wrinkled his nose. He took a step to his left to begin circling the staircase that rose to the second floor. The house was darkened; the only light was from the streetlamp cascading through the windows on the south side of the house. He now wished that he had set up his shotgun to accommodate a tactical flashlight. Dranko had urged him several times to do so, but he’d never gotten around to it. Hopefully, my strong night vision will be good enough.

  He continued creeping down the hallway, stopping to listen for several seconds between steps. He heard one of the thieves upstairs rummaging opening and closing drawers. What worried Cooper was that he couldn’t tell if the second person was upstairs or not based upon what he was hearing. However, he heard nothing on the main level other than the faint sound of his own breath, measured and steady.

  Jake’s room was now on his right and he peered in. From what he could see, everything looked to still be in its place. With the barrel of the shotgun, he pushed the door open further and it emitted what sounded like a thunderous creak from its hinges. Cooper stopped immediately and cocked his head to point his ears upward. The noise from upstairs continued unabated. The burglars were apparently intent on their search and not paying attention to security. He scanned the room from side to side and saw nothing out of the ordinary.

  He turned back towards the staircase and started moving a little faster, taking only a second to pause between steps instead of several. A few paces later, he approached the office, also on the right. He heard it a split second before it happened.

  A loud, animal-like grunt preceded a heavy-set man crashing into him from the office. Cooper smashed into the opposite wall, breaking one of the picture frames that hung in the hallway. The glass splintered and a shard tore into his shoulder. As glass pierced flesh, he felt the burning pain shoot across his body. His head was pushed into the wall with a thud and he was stunned. He smelled the foul breath of his attacker, the rank smell of whiskey mixed with Frito Lay corn chips. The other man ripped furiously on the shotgun, trying to wrench it from Cooper’s hands.

  Cooper held on. He gritted his teeth and shook his head to rid himself of the loud ringing he now heard. With his left hand, he clamped down with a vice-like grip on the shotgun. With his right, he delivered a hard, straight punch to his attacker’s face. He felt bone and cartilage crunching and realized that he had delivered a direct blow to his nose. The man fell backwards, releasing his grip on the gun. He fell to his knees and gathered himself to leap at Cooper once more.

  Cooper pivoted the shotgun, pointed it directly at the middle of his body. Time slowed and Cooper saw everything happening frame by frame. He saw the man’s face clearly, blood covering his shattered nose and flowing down to cover his lips and teeth. Bloody spittle sprayed as he breathed heavily. Some of his dark hair had escaped the black knit cap that lay crooked on his head. He was young, probably just a teenager. In the dim light, Cooper couldn’t tell the color of his eyes, but they were wide open in terror. Cooper had stared down the barrel of a shotgun once before and he knew when you were on the receiving end, it looked as large as a howitzer. The boy began raising his hands in the universal sign of surrender. Cooper began to lower the shotgun just a hair and readied himself to call out to the intruder’s partner upstairs to give himself up, as well.

  Then, to his shock, someone else tackled Cooper from behind. The blow vaulted Cooper forward. The shotgun was pushed against his trigger finger and exploded. The boy in front of Cooper was shredded with a point blank blast of 00 Buckshot. This close, Cooper was sprayed in blood and bits of ruined flesh. The boy pitched forward, his knees scraping the wooden floor. The other attacker landed on the back of Cooper’s legs and hip. Cooper knew enough to slide one leg to a bent position as he went down. This allowed him some leverage to swing his body over and to the left, lifting his opponent off of him and slamming into the right side of the hallway. Cooper was surprised how easy it was to swing this guy off him, he was so light. Now, on his back, Cooper got a good view of his second attacker as he ricocheted into the wall and bounced off.

  He saw another teenager. This one was skinny, almost frail. He had blonde hair, which hung in ragged clumps, covering his eyes. He had not taken the blow well and had collapsed in a heap onto the floor. Cooper couldn’t see his face. The lower half had impacted on his dead friend, but his torso had slammed into the wall hard. He lay on the floor, gasping and moaning from pain and fear.

  Without thinking, Cooper racked the slide of the shotgun, with the distinctive cha-chuk sound, and braced it against his shoulder. He aimed it straight at the new attacker over his body from where he lay.

  “I wouldn’t do that if I were you!” a voice shouted at him from the landing of the stairwell.

  Cooper turned his head slightly to the right and was staring straight into the face of the teenagers’ leader from the other day. Dark long hair reached his shoulders; he had deep-set, intense eyes. Now it hit him. The other two guys are Rick and Smartie. Dumbasses decided to come back. Cooper was also staring down the barrel of a .45 pistol, 1911-style, the gaping bore looming large. He kept his breath steady and lowered the shotgun.

  “That’s a good boy. Rick,” he said motioning to the blonde that Cooper had just catapulted into the wall, “grab his gun.”

  Rick rose unsteadily onto his feet. He cra
dled his head with both hands and was slowly regaining his bearings.

  “Hurry up, will you? We don’t have all night. Can’t you handle a little toss into a wall, you fucking pansy?”

  Rick looked back at the leader, stung by the rebuke. He kicked Cooper in the leg for good measure and then leaned over to retrieve the shotgun. Cooper had landed at an angle, so his pistol was digging into his hip, but it was concealed from their view.

  The long-haired man spoke again, “I’m going to make you a deal. You tell me the combination to your gun safe upstairs and we’ll let you live. No muss, no fuss.”

  Cooper paused, buying time, before speaking. “How do I know you won’t just kill me after I give you the combination?”

  The other man laughed, “Well, you don’t.” He cackled at his own joke and Rick joined in, but nervously. “But, I’ll make you another deal. You give me the combination, and I won’t go through your whole house looking for that little boy of yours. If I can get your guns, then tonight’s work will be well worth it. Even with losing Smartie, who was the dumbest bastard I’ve ever known. God rest his soul,” he leered sarcastically. “This way, you have two deals with me and even a snake slick punk like me will keep at least half of my word. Isn’t that right, Rick?”

  Rick nodded rapidly, “That’s right Woody!” Rick was visibly nervous, standing next to Smartie’s corpse. Probably first time he’s ever smelled the blood and mess of a dead man. Cooper could see the shotgun shaking in his hands.

  Cooper waited, breathing steadily.

  Woody grew impatient and took a half-step towards Cooper and pointed the pistol at him, “Well, what’s it gonna be, old man? You gonna give us the combination to your safe or not?”

  Cooper grunted, “Sure. I’ll do it. But, I have to go up there with you. I don’t remember the numbers without actually working the dial. Muscle memory, you know.”

  Woody thought for a moment, weighing the truth of his words, “OK, OK. You can get up, but do it real slow.”