Don't Call Me Ishmael Read online

  I made it to where the Chevrolet hissed from something cracked under its hood. No one remained in nor near it, so I turned back toward the barricade as people began firing. Happily, the chief had seen me point toward the car, and had reoriented our men. If he hadn’t, they would have caught our guys out of cover. As it was, our guys were ready for them and returned fire. Unfortunately, any bullets that went over the bad guys came damn close to me, and one slapped into a tree next to me. I remembered an adage from somewhere, something to the effect of “Friendly fire, isn’t.” I threw myself to the ground as several others buzzed past.

  The battle became a standoff. Our guys couldn’t see the bad guys in the cover of the trees and shrubs; the bad guys couldn’t hit our guys who were behind the cars, and I couldn’t do anything without getting shot by our guys.

  I needed to get closer to the bad guys. Without thinking about how stupid it was, I jumped up onto the hood of the Chevy and waved my arms over my head. I immediately dove off the side as Tom saw the motion and took a shot at me. I heard the chief yelling something about identifying your targets, and tentatively climbed back onto the hood of the car again.

  This time, no one shot at me, and I mimed not shooting at the people in front of me. Of course, one of the bad guys saw the chief looking over their heads, turned, and saw me. Our eyes locked, and he fired. As my pistol was in my holster, I did the only thing I could—I dove back into the brush. Of course, this time I ended up in some brambles and scratched up my face and arms.

  It took a couple of moments for me to gather myself—and to pull off a couple of thorn branches—and then I was in motion again. The shrubs and grass were a little higher on the left, so I crawled in that direction on my hands and knees. I had seen where the bad guys were when I was on the hood of the car; assuming they hadn’t moved much, I had a good idea of where they would be.

  The bad guys were still firing at my group, which helped me locate them, and made it harder for them to hear me moving. While I could still hear rounds going past from my group, they now seemed to be going over a little higher. Within 30 seconds, I had worked myself into position. I could see three of the bad guys, and I thought I knew where the fourth one was.

  I took a breath and let it out slowly as I aimed at the closest target. He was on one knee, and almost perfectly in profile. I fired, taking him above the ear, then shot a second man as he turned toward the sound of my pistol. The third person got a shot off that hit the ground next to me, but then I hit him twice in the chest, and he collapsed into the grass. He may not have been dead—yet—but he was well on his way.

  The fourth man was the farthest from me, and rather than advance toward him, when he probably knew I was coming, I tried to scoot back and go back toward the car to get around him.

  Apparently, he had the same idea, and we met at the car. His gun was already up and aimed at me when I saw him. My reflexes were faster, though, and I got my gun up. We fired at the same time, and I saw him collapse as the bullet hit him in the chest. His round caught me in the leg, and I looked down to see blood—a lot of blood.

  I staggered to the edge of the woods with my hands up, hoping that none of my group decided to shoot me. I reached the cut grass of the road’s shoulder as my peripheral vision began to collapse in on me, leaving me with only a small tunnel to see through. I found the chief as I fell to my knees.

  “Got ‘em,” I said.

  Then the lights went out in this Fallen World.

  * * * * *

  Chapter Seventeen

  Death smelled like shit. Literally.

  I coughed, trying to catch my breath; the odor made me gag.

  “Sorry,” George said from the side.

  “Dear God!” I replied. “What the hell was that?”

  “Sorry,” George said again. Something on the floor seemed to have caught his attention, and his eyes refused to meet mine. A flush crept up his neck. “That one really wasn’t pleasant, even for me. In my defense, they served shrimp for lunch, and I have a bit of an allergy to shellfish.”

  “That was a fart?!”

  “Well, yeah. Hey, on the good side, at least you’re here to smell it.”

  “I’m not sure I wouldn’t rather be dead,” I replied, looking around. If I didn’t know any better, I would have said I was in a hospital. Everything was white or shiny, and smelled vaguely antiseptic. “Where exactly is ‘here?’”

  “You’re in the hospital at Bayou La Batre,” George replied. “The chief brought you here from the firefight. Apparently, you got hit pretty badly, and it was closer to come here.”

  “We also have a hospital,” a doctor said, coming into the room, “which they don’t on Dauphin Island. It was a darn good thing he did, too; you would have died without a hospital operating room. The bullet that hit you nicked your femoral artery. The chief slapped a tourniquet on you and rushed you here, but it was touch and go. You died once on the operating table, but apparently you’re too tough—”

  “Or too mean,” George interrupted.

  “Or too mean to die,” the doctor agreed with a nod. “You’re also a lot heavier than you look. Bringing you in here was a chore.”

  “How long?” I asked.

  “You’ve been here a week,” George said. “We got here three days ago.”

  I looked at the doctor. “Thank you for saving my life, and I don’t want to seem ungrateful…but I don’t know how I’m going to pay you.”

  “Well, you’re in luck then. The chief of police from Dauphin Island worked out your payment already. Seems you did him a service…where you were injured, I believe?”

  “Yeah. I broke up a barricade for him.”

  “Killed a few of the local criminals, too, I hear.”

  “Well, they attacked us, and it was either them or us, and I really wanted it to be them. The police chief was on my side; I’m pretty sure I was on the side of right.”

  The doctor chuckled. “I’m not chastising you—we’re happy to have re-established ties with Dauphin Island, so you won’t hear me complaining; they catch more fish than we do. Also, the world could do with a few less people looking to take advantage of the misfortunes of others.”

  “How much longer do I need to stay here, Doc?”

  “A couple more days, then you can be on your way,” he said. “That said, you’re going to need to take it easy for a while—no barricade busting or shoot-em-ups for the near future, okay?”

  “Got it,” I said with a wink. “Next time, I’ll just tell them no fighting. Doctor’s orders.”

  He nodded once. “Make sure you do. We don’t have enough supplies left to use them all on you. If the chief hadn’t vouched for you, we probably wouldn’t have made the effort.” He nodded again then walked out the door.

  “That was fairly ominous,” George said.

  “Yeah, I guess next time I’ll have to find a new hospital to die in.”

  “Could you wait until you get the kids and me to Pensacola, first?”

  I cocked my head and pursed my lips as if contemplating.

  “Hey, uh…” George said. “You are still going to take us the rest of the way, aren’t you?”

  I smiled. “Yeah, I will. I didn’t stay here last time, and I’m not going to do it this time, either.” I shrugged. “I’ve never broken a promise…that I know about, anyway. Besides, this place doesn’t seem to have any info on who I am, so there’s no reason to stay.”

  * * *

  We ended up staying in Bayou La Batre another week as our truck was on Dauphin Island, and none of us really wanted to walk all the way out there. The chief had said he’d be back in a few weeks to check on us, but another opportunity came up—the job of security guard on a convoy headed to Dauphin Island.

  As it turned out, the only functioning refinery in the area happened to be just outside the city of Bayou La Batre, but within the area claimed by us citizens, and they traded fuel with Dauphin Island and several other small communities for fresh fish to h
elp feed their inhabitants. The doctor had a brother who worked at the refinery, and he’d put in a good word for me, which got me hired. I signed on for a round trip and was allowed to drive my own vehicle back on the return leg to help bring back the fish.

  George walked with me to the refinery—it was about three miles from the hospital, but he wasn’t much for companionship.

  “I’m going to come back,” I finally said as the facility came into view, and I realized why he was tagging along.

  “You are?”

  “Yes, I am. It’s only about ten miles. We’ll be there and back in a couple of hours.”

  After that, he was more open and jovial, and we walked the rest of the way talking about where we grew up. Well, he talked, since I couldn’t remember where I grew up, but once I confirmed that I was coming back, he had plenty to say and filled the remaining time all on his own.

  “Woah,” I said as we got our first view inside the gates of the refinery. Two fuel trucks waited just inside, along with two police cars and a couple of trucks that had been modified for combat. Both of them had heavy machine guns mounted in the back and looked like they could put a hurting on anyone who thought to bother us.

  I started feeling pretty good about the mission, as I hadn’t seen anything that could match that level of firepower. If we came upon someone who could, I didn’t want to be anywhere close to the fuel trucks.

  Which was, of course, exactly where they put me. Somebody had the bright idea to weld platforms on top of the fuel trucks that we could man like turrets. He said he’d seen it in a movie a long time ago. I didn’t have any idea what he was talking about, and wasn’t particularly thrilled with the plan.

  My job was to man the rear turret on the second fuel truck, and they gave me a rifle and a couple boxes of ammo to do it with. I’d rather have had one of the machine guns, but I figured I’d make do. I also got a piece of rope to tie myself in with. Nothing but the finest for the Defenders of Fuel.

  In the end, it didn’t matter; we made it there without anyone molesting us. I didn’t even see any cars, aside from the ones Bayou La Batre and Dauphin Island were using in their barricades. The Dauphin Island checkpoint—apparently, when the “good guys” build a barricade, it becomes a “checkpoint,” instead of a barricade—had been heavily fortified while I’d been in the hospital. In addition to a number of wrecked autos they’d towed to make a drive-through maze, they’d also emplaced nail strips to puncture the tires of anyone trying to run the checkpoint, as well as several defensible positions with two machineguns and a number of other weapons. I saw a box that looked suspiciously like what a rocket launcher might come in, but I didn’t have time to ask.

  When the convoy came onto the island, they let me off, and I grabbed my truck. Someone—or many someones—had unloaded all of the goods we had in the back of the truck. My temper started to rise, but I decided to wait until I saw the police chief. If he didn’t have it…we were going to have words. Or worse.

  I hoped he had put our stuff aside, as I doubted that I wanted to fight the chief and then have to try to get off the island…especially via the ferry.

  It wasn’t hard to find the fuel trucks—one was down the road filling up the marina’s tanks, and the other was just a little farther at the first gas station as you came onto the main part of the island. A large line of cars waited at the station; apparently, this was the first tanker they’d had in a while.

  The island was out of gas…I looked at my fuel gauge and sure enough, it was nearly empty. Someone had siphoned my tank while I was in Bayou La Batre. I drove down to where the fuel truck was filling up the service station’s tanks and pulled into the front of the line. Immediately, everyone behind me decided to honk their horns, and some of the braver ones got out of their vehicles to approach me.

  “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” The first one to reach me asked.

  I held up my index finger, stopping him, and made a signal for him—and the other five drivers now approaching—to follow me, and I walked over to where the truck driver was filling the store’s tank. Happily, it was the truck I had ridden in on the way to Dauphin Island, and I had been introduced to the driver before we left.

  “Hi, Fred,” I said. Unlike mine, his name really was Fred.

  “Hi, Fred,” he replied. Unfortunately, George had still been there when we’d been introduced. “What’s up?”

  “These gentlemen are unhappy that I cut them in line,” I said. “I guess they’ve been here a while and object to me getting gas ahead of them.”

  “Damn right,” one of the men said.

  “The thing is,” I replied, “someone siphoned all the gas from my tank while I was in Bayou La Batre, getting fixed up after I nearly gave my life for them, and without gas I won’t be able to help haul the fish you folks need back to Bayou La Batre.”

  “Is that so?” Fred asked.

  “He can wait his turn,” the man who’d spoken earlier said in a near-yell, even though we were all within ten feet of him.

  Fred nodded to the man. “Which car is yours?”

  “The red one, fourth in line.”

  “Uh huh,” Fred said. He walked over to the truck and unclipped another hose from it, then he stretched it toward the man’s car. It only reached about halfway. Unlike the hoses Fred had going into the service station’s tank, this one had a handle on it like at the station’s pumps. He pointed the handle at the man’s car, then reached into his pocket and pulled out a cigarette lighter. With a smile, he thumbed a flame from the lighter.

  “Would you like to get back in your car and shut the fuck up, or would you like me to hit your car with a flamethrower?” Fred asked in a loud voice.

  “Don’t be a jackass,” the man said. “You wouldn’t do that near all this gas.”

  “Jackass?” Fred asked, his eyebrows rising. “I’m a jackass?”

  He snapped the lighter shut, then pulled the trigger on the handle and doused the car with about three seconds of fuel. As it was a convertible and the day was hot; most of the fuel went into its open interior.

  Fred turned back to the group of men around me and flipped the lighter back on again. “How many of y’all would like to watch his car burn?” he asked, holding it close to the nozzle of the fuel line.

  The men went from belligerent to very nervous. The man whose car was now covered in fuel looked like he was going to say something, but one of the others said, “John, shut the hell up,” before he could.

  “I got into the gas business because I’m a bit of a pyromaniac,” Fred said. “Why don’t y’all get into your cars, before I decide to indulge myself?”

  The men dispersed, with most of them going back to their cars. Two of them dragged John into the store, with him swearing the entire way. I just smiled at him in my own, endearing way, and gave him the finger. By that point, I didn’t figure we were ever going to be friends, and as mad as he was, I was sure to hear him coming.

  “Thanks,” I said as Fred stowed the hose.

  “My pleasure.”

  “What do you have in that line?” I asked.

  “Regular. We use this truck as a mobile fueling stop. This hose is rigged to refuel cars.”

  “Can I pull my truck up and get gas from it?”

  Fred shrugged. “Sure. Might make those folks happy to have you out of the line. ‘Cept for the one whose car is doused in fuel. He’s probably going to be mighty pissed for a while. Might want to watch out for him.”

  “Probably so,” I replied with a smile. “Would you have done it?” I asked after I brought the truck over and started pumping.

  “Done what?” Fred asked.

  “Burned that guy’s car up.”

  Fred looked wistfully at the red car. “I sure would have. Then I would have gone into the store to see if they had any marshmallows.” He turned to me, and the gleeful look in his eyes sent a shiver down my back. “I wasn’t kidding about being a pyro.”

  Sometimes it doesn�
��t pay to challenge people in this Fallen World.

  * * * * *

  Chapter Eighteen

  “I was going to ask you to stay on,” the chief said the next morning when I got back from taking the fish back to Bayou La Batre. He’d been waiting for me at the checkpoint onto the island and had taken me out of earshot from the rest of his people at the barricade. “You have a skill set that is going to be needed more and more often in the coming years, I’m afraid.” He sighed. “Unfortunately, then you had to go and douche John Wasserman’s car in gas. That’s going to cause serious issues for me.”

  “Well, technically, I wasn’t the one who gave his car the fuel bath; that was done by Fred, the tanker driver.”

  “Fred works for Bayou La Batre, however, and he is outside my sphere of influence. Also, we want to maintain good relations with them; we like having fuel to run our boats, and right now, that means dealing with them.”

  I nodded; that all seemed pretty true.

  “I am, however,” the chief continued, “told that you were the instigator of the whole ruckus.”

  I shrugged. “I would say that he instigated it if you’re looking for a second opinion. I was minding my own business when he and a bunch of loud mouths approached me.”

  The chief frowned at me. “We both know you could have handled it better.”

  I shrugged again. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I didn’t kill him, which was the first thing that popped into my mind to do. In fact, you can ask anyone there—I never laid a finger on him.”

  “I know that you didn’t; I’ve already interviewed a number of people who were there, which is the only reason we’re having this conversation. Aside from John Wasserman, who says you punched him and knocked him down—”

  “That’s a lie,” I interjected.

  The chief held up a finger. “Aside from John Wasserman, the rest of the witnesses all agree on the fact that you never touched him, and that he approached you.”