Brushfire Plague Page 18

  She punched him in the shoulder. “Oh, c’mon. I didn’t say it’s been that many. I just said you were the first to say no.”

  “Well, if it makes you feel better, I didn’t really say no.”

  Her eyes turned coy, she cocked her head, and her voice lilted, flirting again, “Really?”

  “I just didn’t say yes,” and he turned and walked back into the kitchen to grab the coffee pot.

  He deliberately rocked his hips on his way out, imitating her departure from last night. She burst out laughing.

  She was sitting at the table when he came back in, steaming coffee pot in hand. Lighter footsteps were heard on the stairs, and Jake soon bounced into the dining room.

  “What’s everyone laughing about?” he asked.

  “Your father is just one funny guy,” Julianne responded.

  “Funny looking, you mean?”

  Cooper pointed the pot at his son, “Watch it, young man.” Jake grinned widely, while Cooper snarled at him, playfully.

  Cooper poured Julianne and himself a cup of coffee and sat down to eat. They ate and had amiable conversation. It was painfully obvious now how Julianne avoided talking about her work or the plague. On other topics, however, she was an able conversationalist. Cooper enjoyed talking with her. She was witty, humorous, and intelligent. She’s awfully pleasant to look at, too. Jake watched the banter warily. Cooper noted his growing foul mood. I better be careful, he’s taking this the wrong way. He slowly fell silent. Julianne picked up the cue and did likewise.

  When they had finished the meal, Cooper sent Jake upstairs to shower. He departed reluctantly, afraid of what might happen while he was gone. Cooper swatted him on the rear to get him moving.

  Julianne started to clear the dishes and Cooper pitched in.

  “Can I ask you something?”

  “Sure.”

  “I’m sorry, but last night I overheard you talking in your sleep.”

  It was barely perceptible, but her motions hiccupped as he finished the sentence, “Really? I hope I wasn’t talking about you in some inappropriate manner.” Her joke fell flat. He heard the discomfort in her voice.

  He wanted to keep her comfortable, loose. “Despite my fervent hopes when I first woke up, no, it wasn’t that.” He laughed. She joined in, but it sounded forced. “You said some curious things.”

  “Like what?” She turned to face him. He paused, dirty dishes in hand.

  “You said ‘you were wrong’ and ‘it’s cost too much.’”

  She dropped her eyes quickly to the floor. “I’m sorry you heard that.”

  “What were you talking about?”

  She cradled a spoon in her hands, stroking it, and delaying her response. After a few moments passed, she set the spoon onto the table, “I made a mistake. A big one,” she stopped. He waited for her to continue. She knotted her fingers together, clenching and unclenching. “I had an affair. A married man. He told me it wouldn’t hurt anyone. He told me his wife would never know. But, she did find out and it wrecked their home. I never wanted that.” She looked back up at him with glistening eyes.

  He offered a curt, biting, smile in return. Her deep eyes were suddenly shallow. “I don’t know what you’re hiding. But, I’m disappointed you aren’t telling me the truth.”

  Her eyebrows knotted up, becoming indignant, “I don’t know…”

  He interrupted her, an angry edge to his voice, “I don’t like being lied to. You’ve barely told me what you do for a living. Someone like you wouldn’t lay down such a painful secret so easily. It just doesn’t add…”

  His words were cut short by a cavalcade of gunfire in the distance; from up the street. He started at the sound, dropping a plate that shattered when it hit the ground.

  Chapter 17

  “Get Jake into the basement. Keep him there until I get back. He knows where his .22 is.”

  Cooper ran to the front door. He clambered into the bulletproof vest, slung a bandoleer of magazines across his chest, and grabbed his rifle. His pistol was already on his hip, as it was now anytime he was awake. He gave a look back at Julianne. She stood motionless in the kitchen where he’d left her.

  “Please!” he shouted, desperate. She turned towards him, nodded, and ran towards the stairs.

  Cooper bolted out the front door and slammed it behind on his way out. He began sprinting up the street, toward the sound of constant gunfire. Fifty yards ahead of him, he could see Dranko running towards it, as well. He shouted to him to wait.

  Dranko turned and waited as Cooper ran at a breakneck speed towards him. Cooper stopped when he’d reached him, sucking air deep into his lungs. A quick dash didn’t used to wind me.

  As he came alongside, they moved as a pair in a fast jog toward the growing battle. “Let’s work as a fire team. Shoot and scoot,” Cooper said as they ran. Dranko carried his M16. A chest rig, full of magazines, was on over his body armor.

  The roar of a motorcycle engine racing towards them cut short the banter. Cooper took cover behind a thick oak tree and Dranko darted across the street to hunker down behind a Toyota Prius and create a crossfire ambush. Piss poor cover, that plastic car will be.

  Cooper switched off the safety and chambered a round into the FAL. A split second later the motorcycle came into view. It was something straight out of Mad Max. The high whine of the motor told him it was an imported bike. There were two men on the bike. The driver wore black boots, cut-up denim jeans, and an open leather vest with no shirt underneath. His ears were festooned with numerous piercings and his nose bore a large metal ring. A bright red Mohawk adorned his otherwise shiny bald head. A large bore pistol was holstered to his hip, but both hands clung to the handlebars. The passenger was clad in black leather from head to toe, including a black full head mask that looked like it came from cheap horror movie. He brandished two pistols, an auto in the left and a revolver in the right. The outrageous dress told him they were dealing with amateurs. Nothing more than costumes meant to frighten those they attacked.

  He almost felt bad as he sighted his rifle onto on the rear passenger. Easy pickings. This might work against some defenseless people, but you guys chose the wrong neighborhood. The man’s chest quickly filled his sights, racing closer. At about twenty-five yards, Cooper squeezed the trigger. The deep ‘boom’ of his rifle was followed quickly by the sharp ‘pop-pop-pop’ of a three-round burst from Dranko’s M16.

  The strong recoil of the hard-hitting .308 cartridge punched Cooper in the shoulder. He remained focused on his target. The leather clad man’s chest exploded as he was lifted off the back of the bike. The pistols dropped from his hands as he grasped at his chest. For a split second, he hung in mid-air as the motorcycle thundered onward without him. His body slammed into the ground. He remained frozen in this awkward sitting position for a long moment. Then, his torso fell lazily to one side.

  The driver fared no better. Dranko’s three round burst hit home, crisscrossing the man’s chest in making the upward stroke of half of an “X.” He slid off the motorbike, which raced onward for ten yards or so, without a rider. Then it crashed, flipping end over end, spurting gravel and then dirt, before coming to rest in Mrs. Patterson’s rose garden. The driver attempted to crawl away, spraying a fine shower of blood with each tortured breath. He had landed just a few feet away from where Cooper was crouched behind the tree and was futilely trying to get away.

  Cooper took a few steps until he stood over the crippled driver. The Mohawk-haired biker who was so fearsome a few moments ago now begged for his mother in a voice that belonged to a child, gurgling blood as he did so.

  “You don’t deserve the mercy of a bullet, but you’ll get it.” Cooper pointed the barrel at the man’s head and fired. His head exploded in a mass of bone, blood, and skin, dirtying Cooper’s boot. Scowling, he wiped it clean on the man’s pant leg.

  Dranko was at his side. Cooper re-focused on the still raging firefight further up their street. Sporadic fusillades were punctuated b
y long seconds of silence. The gunfire told them both sides had settled in behind cover and were at a rough stalemate. Best we could hope for, with untrained guards on the line.

  They resumed their fast, but steady run towards the battle.

  “Damn stalemate,” panted Dranko.

  “Yeah, isn’t it great?”

  “Whatd’ya mean?”

  “We get to be the SWAT team and break the bastards down!”

  Dranko shook his head in wonderment at his friend’s cavalier attitude. Cooper responded with a reproachful smirk at his friend’s negativity.

  When they came into view of the gunfight, they both instinctively took cover behind a Toyota Tundra pickup parked in someone’s driveway. At the top of the street, they could see Mark and Leroy Johnson to their left, crouched behind a battered old pickup truck that made up one-half of their hasty barricade. Miguel Aguilar was lying on the ground, shooting at their enemies from underneath a Buick sedan. His eldest son who was in his twenties, Antonio, lay in the street, sprawled out, riddled with several bullet wounds. Damn it, not his son! He pushed any thought of Jake from his mind.

  A fury of gunfire erupted from the white house that lay opposite their barricaded position. The attackers must have retreated to it after the first shots were fired. A man lay face down in the yard, two red circles in the back of the white t-shirt he wore. Cooper saw a pistol-grip shotgun lying next to him.

  Mark and Leroy ducked further behind the pickup and Miguel hastily scrabbled back, away from the front of the Buick. Both Mark and Leroy were armed with shotguns, while Miguel was shooting a bolt-action hunting rifle. Taking note, Cooper yelled to Dranko, “Cover me!”

  Without hesitation, he began laying down deliberate fire intended to keep their opponents’ heads down; rather than trying to hit them. Dranko smiled to himself as he fired short, three-round bursts at the house. The sound was distinctive. The enemy would know they were facing at least one machine gun now. Mark, Leroy, and Miguel all glanced back at Dranko as soon as he began firing. Panicked fear quickly transformed into bravado and rapid hand waving and hooting once they saw Dranko’s face behind the M16.

  Cooper ran forward and to his far right. He landed with a humph behind a cement stoop, scraping a knee raw. Now, he had the angle he wanted. He took cover and used the stoop as a rifle rest. He caught Dranko’s eye with rapid hand movements and signaled to him to stop firing with rapid brushes of his hand across his throat.

  After several seconds of silence, activity resumed in the house. Cooper saw a flutter of a curtain and the glint of a rifle barrel. Cooper carefully sighted his rifle on where he thought the man was hiding behind the window. He fired two shots in rapid succession, pulling the trigger twice as fast as he could. The bullets made two neat holes in the side of the house. Cooper was rewarded by seeing the rifle barrel swing violently to the right and away from the window. He knew he’d hit the man on the other side.

  “Welcome to the .308 boys, turning cover into concealment for fifty years,” he muttered to himself, a mischievous grin on his face. “Wood and drywall ain’t no match for it!”

  A sharp report from a large caliber handgun in a window on the second floor drew Cooper’s attention. Mark fired back at the window with his 12 gauge. He was a split-second too late. The shooter had already sought cover behind the wall. Cooper guessed he had crouched behind the left side of the window, as most right hand shooters would naturally do. He fired three shots in a neat triangle pattern against the wall just to the left of the window and then waited. Seconds ticked past, but they seemed like hours.

  Cooper flinched as a shotgun blast shredded the last remaining window in the Buick. A billow of smoke drifting outward from behind a green Subaru revealed another foe in the driveway that led to the house the others had taken refuge in.

  The second story window came to life as the shooter fired again. Leroy screamed in pain, dropped his shotgun, and grabbed his right shoulder. Mark pulled him closer to the pickup and began applying direct pressure to the wound.

  Must be left-handed. This time, Cooper repeated the triangle pattern on the right side of the window. He was rewarded by the strained cry of a man who has just realized he’s been shot. The man’s cry of pain quickly shifted to a plaintive whine, “God! Help me please! I promise I’ll do good!”

  Cooper turned toward the shot gunner behind the Subaru. Someone beat me to it. He saw upturned black boots to the right of the front tire. Euphoric, Leroy jumped up, pumping his one good arm up and down.

  “Yeah, we got them bastards!”

  Cooper was shouting, “No” as movement from the house drew his eye. He saw a barrel emerge from a window and he frantically swung his own rifle towards it.

  Too late. In slow motion, he watched a shiny stainless steel pistol barrel aim at Leroy. He could see the hammer draw back as the trigger was pulled. The revolver spat flame and thunder. He didn’t have to look to know the worst. A second later, with his rifle on target, he fired two shots quickly and watched the man’s body thrown backward into the room, disappearing from view.

  Reluctantly, he looked back towards the barricade. Leroy lay splayed out on the ground, arms and legs outstretched at awkward angles. A neat bullet hole was in the middle of his chest. His eyes stared blankly at the sky filled with gathering clouds.

  Miguel ran from his cover to Antonio’s side, yelling “Noooo!” in a gut-wrenching wail.

  Two dead. That is all that he could think about as they cleaned up the mess of this attack. With, the gunfire gone, neighbors cautiously emerged from their homes and filed into the street. Miguel knelt at his dead son’s head, clutching it in his arms and crying out for God’s mercy. Miguel’s wife, Isabella, had died a few days ago from the illness. His daughter, Irina, had joined her father in mourning.

  Leroy had no immediate family and a cloister of people simply gathered around him, standing and looking down at him in bizarre curiosity. Cooper realized this was the first violent death most people in the neighborhood had ever seen.

  Mark called out, “Eleanor, can you get a sheet or blanket to cover him with?” The demure elderly woman, who lived next to Leroy, sauntered off.

  A shrill, crotchety voice made Cooper turn around, “Anyone like what they see? Dead men lying in our streets? If not, then thank the men, and their families, who have fallen. ‘Fore if they hadn’t been on their posts, we’d have many more dead to mourn. Or worse.” Lily Stott stood, waving her black cane as she spoke. Her face was flushed and damp from coming all the way up the block in short order.

  “And let us thank the men who told us we should set up these barricades in the first place,” she continued. She pointed her cane directly at Cooper in closing. Heads turned towards him and a few hands set to clapping.

  Cooper waved it off, “We have lost friends today. There is no place for applause. Ms. Stott is right; all thanks are due to the men who protected us today. Please join their family in mourning and offer your help to them.”

  A line quickly formed around the Aguilars to offer support and pay their respects. Eleanor returned, and Cooper helped cover Leroy’s body with a brown blanket.

  Dranko and Mark came jogging up to Cooper’s side. He hadn’t noticed that they’d left.

  “We’ve policed the attackers’ bodies. All dead,” Dranko reported. Cooper caught Mark’s expression and determined that they hadn’t all been dead when they’d found them. “They looked like freelancers out for fun. I didn’t see any coordinated gang markings on their tattoos or their clothing.”

  “That’s good. It would have been worse if they’d been experienced,” Cooper commented.

  Dranko continued, “We have eight pistols we can hand out and one pistol-gripped twelve gauge. We’re also the proud owners of one slightly damaged, but usable, motorbike and a van in good shape.”

  “OK, here’s what I want. Tomorrow, offer Miguel any of what we’ve found today. It’s the least respect we can show. Whatever is left, we put in the armory fo
r duty use. The bike may be useful transport. Add the van to strengthen our weakest barrier. Gather the bodies and pitch them onto the other side of the barricade here. Finally, spread the word that we’ll meet tonight at five, here. Everyone, except those on duty.”

  Mark looked at Cooper with an eyebrow cocked, “What are we going to do with the bodies of these vermin?”

  “Heads on pikes, brother,” Dranko intoned with a devilish grin.

  “Almost. That’s too nineteenth century,” Cooper said smirking in Dranko’s direction. “We’ll burn them instead and leave the bones. But the principle remains; nothing says ‘stay out’ like the remains of those who tried to cross you.”

  Cooper left Mark and Dranko to finish returning things to normal at the barricade and ensuring it was staffed by fresh faces. He jogged at a quick clip back to his home. His determined look warded off the questions of those headed to the north barricade.

  When he arrived at his home, the front door was slightly ajar. His heart leapt into his throat. Forcing calm, he took a deep breath, shouldered his rifle and brought the pistol into his hands. He knew a round from the FAL would likely go through every wall in the house, if he had to fire it. He couldn’t risk that with Jake likely inside.

  Without warning, he pushed the door wide open with the toe of his boot and swept the room from right to left with the pistol barrel. His house looked like it did when he’d left with no sign of disturbance. Keeping the gun at the ready, he moved quickly from room to room on the first level. Finally, he came to the basement door.

  He called down through the closed door, “Jake, you down there?”

  “Yes.”

  “What’s the password?”

  “Rutabaga,” his son called up.

  Cooper relaxed, holstered the pistol and opened the door. ‘Rutabaga’ was the all clear sign. If the response had been ‘chili’ it would have meant there was trouble.

  Before he could take a step down, Jake came bounding up the steps, his rifle in his hands.