Brushfire Plague Page 25

  “There’s news,” he said dryly.

  Cooper was still groggy from the deep sleep, “Yeah?”

  “The military has arrived. A company of National Guardsmen has set up operations downtown,” Dranko said, the slide smacking forward with a loud metallic snap.

  “A company? That’s barely enough to police a few city blocks, never mind the entire city,” Cooper said skeptically.

  Dranko shrugged his shoulders and re-holstered his sidearm, “Hell, I must be getting sloppy. I took it as a good sign, until I bumped into Pessimistic Patty over here.”

  Cooper laughed and clapped him on the shoulder, “Alright, you got me there. No, you’re right. It is good news. I’m just not sure it’s good enough for Jake.”

  Dranko’s eyebrows came together and his lips straightened, “Right, brother. How is he?”

  “So far? As bad as this thing gets,” Cooper’s fingers kneaded his temples.

  Dranko put his hand on Cooper’s shoulder, “I’m sorry, brother. I wish I could do more right now, but that’s all I got.”

  Cooper’s looked into his friend’s sympathetic eyes and nodded, “That’s enough. Thank you,” he said as he put his own hand on Dranko’s shoulder.

  Cooper wrinkled his nose at the pungent smell of meat cooking, “What’s that?”

  Dranko jerked his thumb towards Cooper’s back patio, “That, brother, is that woman doing her best Betty Crocker meets Davey Crockett impersonation. As soon as the electricity went down, she’s been out back cooking and smoking all of the meat you had on hand.”

  Cooper looked incredulous, “Smoking? I don’t own a smoker!”

  “Don’t I know it. She’s barbequing on one Weber and jerry-rigged another to do some smoking,” he folded his arms as if to verify his words.

  Cooper shook his head in disbelief. He took one step toward the back patio, but stopped in his tracks when three sharp knocks resounded from his front door. I wonder who that is.

  He motioned for Dranko to look out the side window that overlooked the door. His visible surprise was confirmed when he blurted out, “It’s the mailman!”

  ******

  Cooper stood in disbelief for a moment, but then stepped forward and jerked the door open. Before him stood his regular US Postal Worker, Mr. Joe Vang. Joe’s hair was jet black and hung loose, framing a square head. His light blue shirt, darker blue pants, and jacket were complemented by the dull brown leather mailbag over his shoulder. The man wore a wide smile.

  “Good afternoon,” he said.

  “Is that really you, Joe? I can’t believe it,” Cooper said, his mouth agape.

  “I’m getting a lot of that today. Yes, I’m here. The U.S. Postal Service apologizes for the delays in service over the last week, we’ve…”

  “Oh, spare me the speech. It’s damn good to see you, Joe. Come on in,” Cooper beckoned him.

  Joe shook his head, “Sorry, I can’t do that. If I accepted all my invitations, I wouldn’t finish half of my route. I’m already well behind schedule.”

  “At least tell us what’s happening. What news do you have?”

  Joe’s cheerful demeanor vanished, “It’s mostly bad. Our slogan about ‘rain, sleet, and hail’ and the rest of it didn’t include a plague burning across America the way a lottery winner goes through cash. In the last week, we’ve only had one truck in, from Washington State. Nothing in from California or through Idaho. In fact, we sent out a truck down south and it came back. It couldn’t cross the border. Near Medford, some of our guys were keeping everything out from California and weren’t allowing anyone to leave Oregon, either.”

  “Who’s ‘some of our guys’?” Dranko asked.

  “Our side of the border. Oregonians. Militia-types.”

  The three sat in silence as Dranko and Cooper digested the news.

  Joe broke the quiet, “That’s a temporary situation. The National Guard has arrived in Portland and we hear more troops are on the way.”

  “It looks like you all have had a rough go of things around here? I saw your welcome mat coming in,” Cooper remembered that Joe had a very rough childhood. He had been an active gang member in his youth. So, the wry grin that spread across his face wasn’t a surprise.

  Cooper shrugged, “Yeah, we’ve had a few scrapes. Is it like that most places or are we just special around here?”

  “It’s hit or miss. I’ve been into some areas today that made my skin crawl and others were just like before. And some, I avoided altogether. This thing has been so bad, so fast, that no one knew how to react. So, you get too many kinds of crazy in too many places. Luckily for me, this uniform is something everyone, and I mean everyone, has been happy to see.”

  “I guess we’ve just been unlucky,” Dranko lamented.

  Joe shook his head, “Trust me, there are many places worse off. It looks like you guys got organized and kept the worst stuff from happening,” he paused for a moment, considering.

  “Something else on your mind?” Cooper queried.

  “If you need additional help, my cousin is involved in the Vietnamese Protection Society,” he looked at him with squinted, evaluating eyes.

  “The what?”

  “The VPS. I won’t mince words with you guys. It’s a gang pure and simple. I’m not proud of what my cousin does. But, I know they’re helping a lot of people keep things safe, right now.”

  Dranko scoffed, “For a price, I’m sure.”

  Joe straightened his back and stared right at Dranko, “Look, don’t get high and mighty with me. Sure, they charge a price, and a hefty one at that. But, they have lots of guys who know their way around guns and how to deal with ugly situations. That’s in high demand right now.”

  “How do we contact him?”

  Dranko’s head whirled around to gape at Cooper, “What? Are you serious?”

  Cooper dismissed him with a wave of his hand and a wrinkle in the corner of his mouth, “Don’t get hysterical. We might have a need. I want to be prepared.”

  Joe scribbled a phone number and address onto the back of an envelope and handed it to Cooper, “You know what the great irony is, don’t you?”

  “What’s that?”

  “There are only three groups organized and functioning right now: the churches, organized crime, and some street punks.”

  “What’s ironic about that?” Dranko asked.

  “All three of those have been called gangs at one time or another. Yet, the biggest gang of them all—the US Government—is barely functioning with a few scattered mailmen and national Guardsmen. It’d be funny if it didn’t want to make you cry,” he chuckled hollowly. He turned, began walking away, and called over his shoulder, “I’ll see you guys tomorrow. Hopefully!”

  “Stay safe, Joe,” Cooper called after him.

  ******

  As soon as the door shut behind him, Cooper turned to Dranko, “Can you be kitted up and ready to go in five?”

  Dranko clapped his hands together, “Sure, where we going?”

  Cooper began donning his bulletproof vest, “We have two people to see before the five o’clock meeting here.”

  “Who’s that?” Dranko asked, reassembling his pistol without letting his gaze drop from Cooper.

  “Joe’s cousin and whoever is in charge of the National Guard downtown.”

  At the mention of Joe’s cousin, Dranko wrinkled his nose, but he didn’t say a word.

  Cooper quickly finished assembling his gear. He crossed the kitchen, grabbed a Kaiser roll, and went out back. There he found Angela covered in grease and sweat from the barbeque and the smoker, both belching heat and smoke.

  “Thank you,” he said as he grabbed two sausage links, stuffing them into the roll.

  She saluted him patronizingly, using a large spatula, “You’re welcome. Someone had to keep things going while Rip Van Winkle was sleeping.” Her smile gave a healthy glint to her eyes.

  “Oops! Being a hard-ass just cost you your overtime pay!”

 
; “We’ll see about that. You forget. Not only am I a union nurse, I also carry a gun these days. You might say I’m protected seven ways to Sunday,” a confident smile spreading across her face.

  Cooper’s face grimaced in mock pain, “Ouch, you got me there!” His face turned serious once more, “I’m going out with Dranko to see a few people—including the military group downtown. I will be back by five, when Calvin and some others will be coming for a meeting. Can you hold things down while I’m out?”

  She nodded as her face turned grave, “Be careful, alright?”

  He raised the Kaiser roll in response, took a big bite out of it, nodded, and then retreated back through the house. The sausage tasted wonderful. He figured it was a combination of how hungry he was and the quality of the meat. Crunching the sesame seeds from the roll certainly helped. The sausage bit back with just the right amount of spice and tang. Hot oil dripped down his chin as he ate. He wiped it away, luxuriously, with his left hand.

  Chapter 26

  Dranko had convinced him that they should visit the National Guard first, reasoning that knowing the extent of coming security would be helpful in any conversation with Vang’s cousin. The pickup was headed west on Division Street, toward downtown. They soon passed the car with the dead family inside, the bodies were still there, unmoved, and beginning to bloat.

  More damage and violence had happened since their last trip through. Cooper had his rifle with him on this trip and he gripped it, at the ready. Dranko was driving again, his fully automatic M-16 close at hand on the bench seat.

  A gas station at Division and 39th was burned to the ground. A building to the immediate west of it had caught fire, as well. It was halfway burned to the ground. Cooper mused at what had stopped the fire. The fire department? Neighbors? A dramatic shift in the wind?

  As they drove, it looked like every third or fourth business had been looted. Some made sense: the hardware store, a corner grocery store, a bar. But, when they passed a pet store which had been burned down with most of the animals still inside, Cooper could only shake his head in wonder. Later, an art store’s windows had been smashed and the contents of the store trashed, but one large pane remained intact. In blood-red spray paint, someone had written, “Devilish Art Played Its Part!” A large cross of black paint lay directly beneath this graffiti. Dranko and Cooper exchanged confused looks at that.

  Cooper shrugged, “I guess you could say this plague is of Biblical proportions?”

  “But, it’s hard to see how a store selling paint-by-number kits and paint brushes caused this.”

  “True,” Cooper said as they drove onward.

  At 32nd Avenue, they encountered a roadblock. It looked similar to theirs. An old pickup and an even older station wagon were parked nose to nose to block the road. Three people, two men and a woman, were in position behind the vehicles. One man trained a bolt-action hunting rifle on them, the other a shotgun, and the woman held a pistol aloft.

  “Hold it up. No fast moves,” she shouted to them when they were about thirty yards away.

  Dranko slowly raised his hand from the steering wheel and leaned his head out of the driver’s side window, “We are from up near Tabor and heading downtown. How can we get through?”

  She pointed north with her pistol, “You can go up to Hawthorne. No roadblocks there that I know of. You can squeeze through here and take a right, but don’t try anything stupid.” They both saw the gap she was referring to, as the vehicles formed a V to block anyone coming further up Division, it did allow enough space for a pickup to pass north up 32nd. He considered their strategy. On the one hand, it allowed a car to pass dangerously close to their barricade. On the other, it could prevent a confrontation by having a safety valve of allowing people to continue moving without having to turn around.

  “Pretty clever, eh?” Dranko said, echoing his thoughts.

  “It has its pros and cons,” Cooper caught the glint of light on a scope and now saw two rifles trained on them from a windows across the street, as they rounded the barricade. He nodded appreciatively in their direction so that Dranko spotted them as well.

  “I stand corrected, mostly pros. These guys know what they are doing,” Cooper said as it became clear that anyone trying anything untoward as they drove past the barricade would have two high-powered, scoped, rifles to contend with. At the range of less than fifty yards, even a minimally trained shooter would be able to hit whatever he was shooting at.

  Cooper leaned over so he could shout out of Dranko’s window, “Nicely done. We’re up on 58th and Lincoln if you need anything.” The woman, who was clearly in charge, held a nickel-plated revolver in her left hand. Her ears were festooned with piercings, and her nose had two. Her black hair was shaved to a coarse stubble. She wore a denim jacket with the sleeves cut off. Her arms were alive with vibrant-colored tattoos of various animals and symbols. The unbuttoned jacket revealed a faded black t-shirt announcing a long-ago Joan Jett concert. Her black leather pants and motorcycle boots completed the garb of hard-knocks. Dranko appraised her as well as they passed. Something on his face must have given away his thoughts.

  “Yeah, some of us carry guns too, my boys!” she called after them, laughing at her own humor. “We might call on you yet. Name’s Lucy if you need anything from us.”

  Cooper gave her a broad smile, admiring her aplomb, “Mine’s Cooper. Likewise and good luck.”

  “You too,” she shouted as Dranko completed the right hand turn and drove up 32nd. That short drive was without event and all looked normal, save for the noticeable absence of anyone on the street and a few windows that had been boarded up by their occupants. I wish people knew that a two-by-four won’t stop most bullets.

  Dranko took the left onto Hawthorne and they immediately began passing wrecked cars, some burned, and a series of looted storefronts. They both wrinkled their noses as they smelled before they saw dead bodies in various places.

  A bevy of motorcycles parked out front of a still functioning bar immediately caught their attention. A score of leather-clad bikers were scattered in front of it, some sitting and some standing, but all drinking.

  “Take it slow, but be ready. Let’s see what they do,” Cooper whispered to Dranko, as if they could hear him.

  A few bikers stood up and others turned toward the pickup truck as they approached. Cooper’s grip grew tighter on his rifle. He counted it fortunate that the bar was on the right-hand side, giving him a good line of sight.

  Suddenly, like ants on a threatened hill, the bikers swung into frenzied action. Tables were lifted onto their sides, hands went for guns, and one biker stepped into the street and yelled at them to stop.

  “Gun it!” Cooper shouted as he trained his rifle on the biker spokesman.

  A loud report thundered inside the truck’s cab and the lead biker’s chest exploded as he was knocked backward from taking the .308 round from only twenty yards away. Cooper marveled that he could hear the spent shell casing making a loud metallic ring as it bounced off the rifle’s ejection port and landed inside the truck.

  Cooper quickly moved to lay down shots intended to keep their opponents’ heads down, as opposed to aimed fire. His finger squeezed as fast as he could as he stitched fire from one end of the clustered bikers to the other. Dranko swerved the truck to their left, putting as much distance between them as possible. Cooper had only fired a few more rounds before they started receiving return fire from the bikers.

  The loud crack of pistol fire shouted back at them. Half of their windshield spider-cracked as a round hit just in front of Cooper. He felt a round impact the passenger-side door and pass into the cab. Thankfully, he felt no burning sensation of being hit. Dranko didn’t cry out, as the round passed harmlessly through. Near simultaneous ting—ting-tings told him the pickup’s bed was being pockmarked by shells.

  Cooper emptied the FAL’s magazine in this random-fire mode, hitting at least two bikers. When the last round had been shot, the bolt locked back open
, telling him the weapon was empty. He dropped the rifle between his legs and grabbed the M-16. A shotgun blast destroyed the passenger-side mirror, and Cooper winced as shards of metal and glass impacted the right side of his face and head.

  He cursed loudly as he switched the selector to full-auto and brought the M-16 to bear. He yanked the trigger back, firing controlled bursts, in rapid succession. He prayed the buzz of automatic fire would force the bikers to seek further cover. Having been on the receiving end a few times, he knew first-hand the terror that automatic weapons fire could instill even on those trained to withstand it. The sheer volume of bullets flying nearby instinctively made anyone believe the next one was guaranteed to hit them. He hoped its effect on untrained civilians would be even greater.

  It worked. The volume of fire lessened dramatically as bikers scrambled for cover behind the tables or back into the building, desperately trying to avoid the buzzing rounds, the splintering wood, and the cratered pavement as the M16’s rounds struck home. Adding to the effect, one of his rounds struck a biker in the leg and he tumbled over, shrieking in a frenzy of pain.

  Dranko’s hand jabbed him in the side, holding a fresh magazine, just as the M16 ran dry. Damn, he knows his stuff. Cooper hit the magazine ejector button, keeping his eyes on the bikers. The truck was now past them, as Dranko expertly drove around a burned out car using only one hand. Cooper’s eyes flew wide open as he spotted a biker, hovering just inside the bar’s doorway, covered in shadow. Enough light made its way inside that Cooper could see he held a scoped rifle and he was carefully sizing up his target on the moving truck; gauging speed and trajectory.

  Cooper slammed home the fresh magazine and shouted at Dranko, “Evade!” Cooper racked the bolt to chamber a round as Dranko jerked the wheel hard, and to the right.

  The biker’s rifle spat red-orange flame and the round passed just behind Cooper, shattering the rear window. He felt the sting of more glass burying itself in the back of his head and his shoulders. The bullet continued on its angle, passing just in front of Dranko’s face and smashing through the driver’s side window.