Shadow patriots, p.3
Shadow Patriots, page 3
Winters reached over to the pamphlet that Paul had given him.
It had a picture of Uncle Sam pointing a finger. Your Country Needs You. Come to Your Local Patriot Center and Signup.
America was desperate for volunteers to win the war against China. It had started great but was going badly now.
The Patriot Centers had raised the maximum age from forty to sixty-five. They were looking to put the older volunteers behind the lines as support. A lot of his friends, still high on the Bloomington Bloodbath, were enlisting.
The government guaranteed top-notched training geared around enlistees their age. Did they mean no twenty-mile runs? Or limited chin-ups. Winters was sure he couldn't do more than five chin-ups. He couldn't run two miles, let alone twenty. He could walk twenty miles, though it would take all day to do it.
He wasn't sure if he was up for it, but his sense of duty was strong and pushing him into it. The one thing that did appeal to him was that he would be with his lifelong friends. This would be the best thing about it because they would have each other's backs. That was without question—a guarantee. He wouldn't be able to enlist without them. He would rely on them as much as they would rely on him.
He needed to make a decision soon because they were leaving for the Patriot Center in the morning. He didn't need to bring anything but his courage. They would supply everything.
He put the paper down and let out a sigh. It was a big commitment, but it would give him some purpose, which was sorely lacking in his life. As much as he liked a quiet life, too much free time to dwell on negative things was not good for his soul.
Chapter 9
Lucas County Iowa
Winters' mind was on automatic pilot as he jumped out the back of the crowded pickup truck. They had arrived in Victor, Iowa, at the Patriot Center with four pickup trucks loaded with thirty men. They were the same thirty that had participated in the Bloomington Bloodbath.
There was a palatable excitement in the air. It was overwhelming Winters' mind. He was sure he wasn't the only one experiencing it. He knew his friends enough to know that they were just as nervous as he was.
A brisk wind came swirling in, forcing him to grab ahold of his ballcap. He rolled his eyes at himself, thinking about how many tree branches had fallen in his backyard last night. The place would be full of them by the time he got back there if he ever did.
He had asked his neighbor Ed Sherman to keep an eye on the place but expected the bare minimum from the elderly man. As it was, he'd been the one watching over him and his wife as their son and grandson were useless and never around.
“You ready?” asked Paul.
“About as ready as anyone else,” said Winters.
“Yeah, I think we're all pretty nervous, but what an adventure. I'm glad you decided to come, Cole,” said Paul as he put his arm around Winters' shoulder. “I really needed you here.”
“Well, I did promise your wife I wouldn't let you out of my sight.”
“Did you now?”
“Yes, that was before you took her down south. Does she know you even signed up?”
“I wrote her a letter. She probably hasn't gotten it yet, but I tried.”
Winters smiled. “Good one.”
“C'mon.”
They walked inside the shuddered American Legion. A couple of armed guards were giving out clipboards with an application attached to them.
“You need to fill them out and be quick about it,” said a younger man in his early thirties. He wore his greasy brown hair shoulder length. For a diminutive man, he appeared to be quite a smug bastard. He stood behind the counter and gave the order without even looking at them. The nameplate on the counter said, Decker.
Winters wasn't sure if that was his first or last name. It just said, Decker.
“The owners of those pickups, leave the keys on the counter so we can move them across the street.”
Winters looked at the sign-up sheet. It asked for basic information. Name, address, social security number and birthdate. Asked for a brief medical history and any allergies. And then asked for a solemn pledge to do one's duty.
Winters started to write down his information. His pulse increased, knowing that this was probably the last application he would ever fill out.
“C'mon ladies, we ain't got all day,” said Decker. “These transports are on a tight schedule. As soon as you're done, hand it in, get outside and hop into the back of one of them. We've got a full load today, so it's gonna be a tight squeeze.”
Winters had stopped writing to look at Decker while he barked out his orders. He reminded him of an annoying Chihuahua a neighbor once had. Damn thing, never shut up and would nip at your heels as you walked by. It needed a swift kick every once in a while to keep him away. Winters never admitted to doing such a thing but had indulged in it from time to time.
One by one, his friends finished and stepped outside.
Before Winters knew it, he was the last one standing there. He wrote slowly because he had excellent penmanship. It was a habit drilled into him by his mother.
“You about done?” asked Decker leaning back in his swivel chair.
Winters finished and handed it to him without saying anything.
He couldn't leave any faster from the Chihuahua. He walked outside and eyed the three transports.
“Over here, Cole,” said Paul.
Winters climbed up and sat at the end of the open-air transport.
Theirs was the last of the three-truck convoy. It was an eighty-mile drive to Lucas County. They were going to a modified “train station.” It was nothing more than an old concrete platform that had been used by a small factory. They had used it to haul in material and to ship out machine parts.
Winters was familiar with it, having been there on business with his firm. The place had moved its operations to China ten years ago, and the building had long been torn down. There wasn't anything else in the area last time he'd seen it, and he was curious to see what it looked like now.
“You think they'll go easy on us to start out with?” asked Paul.
“If they don't, they might have to break out the cardiac arrest paddles,” said one.
“Hell, I'm carrying an extra thirty pounds in my gut. Be nice to get rid of it,” said another.
“Fat farm here we come,” said Paul. “Be a great reality show. Old fat men. See who washes out first.”
The bantering continued during the whole ride. It had lightened the tense mood everyone was in. Winters loved to listen to it but rarely participated. He wasn't as quick with a barb as some of his friends were.
They were getting close to their destination. Winters recognized the landscape and noticed nothing had changed. They would come to a steep hill soon, and then it was just up the road. Not even a quarter mile.
“We're almost there,” said Winters.
Paul looked around. “Yes indeed. Been a while since we've been here.”
“Yeah, more than ten years,” said Winters.
Paul shook his head in disbelief.
A few minutes later, the transport struggled to get up the steep hill. The driver downshifted for the climb. Winters turned his head to the side to get a look at a trio of oak trees he always admired whenever he came by. As soon as he did, a strong wind swept through and blew his ball cap off his head.
The hat fell on the pavement and was pushed further by the wind.
“Isn't that your lucky hat?” asked Paul.
“Sure as hell is,” said Winters as he climbed over the tailgate.
“No way,” said Paul.
“Save me a seat,” said Winters as he jumped off the truck.
He stumbled and fell into a roll on the sandy ground. He picked himself up and ran after his hat. After a couple of futile attempts, he stepped on it and took a moment to catch his breath before picking it up.
Winters put the hat back on, turned around to his friends, who were waving and laughing at him. The truck was too far up the hill to chase after it. All he could do was laugh at himself for jumping out of a moving truck, all for a silly hat.
He walked down the center of the road, which was bordered by barren Iowa cornfields. Not wanting to be thought of as a slacker, Winters picked up his pace and reached the top of the hill. He squinted his eyes and spotted his friends standing on the concrete platform.
Loud crackling sounds rang out. A chill raced up his spine as screams echoed in the air. Confused, he ran toward the tree line to his right. More popping echoed through the air.
It was gunfire.
Reaching the cover of the trees, he fell to the ground and focused on the source of the screams. His mouth dropped open as he realized it was his friends.
“Die ya old geezers,” shouted a skinny man with an AK-47.
“That’s enough, stop wasting your bullets, can’t you see they’re all dead,” yelled another whose nose appeared to have been broken more than once.
“Hey, did you hear that one big feller begging me not to kill him?” asked the skinny one.
Both men checked over the dead. “Bunch of idiots, thinking they could actually fight,” said Crooked nose.
“Well, they did die for their country, just not how they figured,” said the skinny one.
Both laughed.
They turned around when Bill, their boss, yelled at them. “Get those bodies out to the field and clean up that mess, pronto.”
Crooked nose gave a half-hearted salute. “Oh yes sir, pronto, right away, sir.” He turned to his friend. “Never see him do any of the dirty work.”
Two more men joined them and added to the jovial banter.
Frozen with fear and shock, Winters stared at his lifelong friends lying dead on the concrete platform. The scene started to sink in, making him sick to his stomach.
The three big transport trucks pulled out of the parking lot and headed back while the four men started to throw the dead bodies into the back of a pickup truck.
“Hey, I only count twenty-nine, shouldn’t there be thirty?” asked the skinny man.
“Are you sure?” asked another.
“Yeah, count ‘em up.”
“Two, six, ten, fifteen, twenty, twenty-two, twenty-nine. Damn! One’s missing alright.”
Winters stared at the four men as they darted their heads from side to side as if they were searching for something.
The skinny one yelled across the parking lot. “Bill, it looks like we’re missing one.”
The boss walked over and counted. “Get these bodies over to the field, then go check the surrounding woods. You two take the other pickup, see if our missing man isn’t walking home.”
The second pickup peeled out and took off south. The rest of the workers finished loading the lifeless bodies in the truck. They then drove into a field, where they dumped the corpses into a large pit. Minutes later, they left the field and made a beeline toward the woods. The truck pulled up within forty yards of where Winters hid. Two men carrying AK-47 rifles slid out of the vehicle and walked into the woods.
Winters shimmied backward before getting up to run. His legs turned to rubber and shook uncontrollably, making him stumble. Desperate to escape, he crawled on his hands and knees across the pine needled ground.
He tried to get up once more, but his legs failed him again. His panic-stricken breathing came in short rapid spurts. He dragged himself over to an old fallen tree and hid behind it.
Twigs snapped a short distance away, and faint voices grew louder as the two men closed in. They moved within yards of Winters, who scrunched himself tighter into a ball trying to disappear. He fought to control his breathing as the two men walked right past him.
Winters' eyes locked on them. He recognized the skinny one and Crooked nose. With their backs toward him, the two stopped and ceased talking. They stared into the empty woods looking for any signs of life.
Winters' chin trembled while sweat began to bead on his forehead. The woods were quiet except for a gentle breeze whispering through the pines and his pounding heart.
The skinny one fished out a cigarette out of his pocket and flicked open his lighter. After lighting the smoke, he puffed on it a couple of times, and they continued walking.
He waited for them to go over a hill before getting up and moving to the other side of the moss-covered log. He didn’t dare peek over the tree, so he sat and waited for time to pass.
His mind raced at the thought of getting caught and murdered like his friends. Shivers rifled through him, making breathing even more difficult.
A half an hour later, the truck engine roared to life. Wheels spun in the dirt as it pulled out of the woods. Winters let out his breath of relief when the sound of the engine faded. He sat on the cold ground struggling to figure out what had happened. His eyes welled up as he thought about his friends. All of his lifelong friends were gone. Paul, his best friend, lay dead in a field.
Why?
Winters wondered what to do. He knew better than to return to the Patriot Center. The men running the place had to be involved.
Hours passed by, and he didn’t move. Didn’t dare move a muscle. He was waiting for the sun to set, and it was just starting to. The heavily timbered woods grew darker, giving him a slight sense of relief as less and less of the sun’s rays penetrated between the trees.
Winters waited an hour after the sun went down before getting up and bolting out of the woods. He kept running until he ran out of breath. It didn’t take long before pains shot through his stomach. He stopped, bent over, inhaled the chilly air, and waited for the pain to subside.
Minutes passed before he could stand up straight. He stared into the darkness, barely able to make out anything in front of him, but was able to see the distant lights of the train station.
Like a warning, the sound of a bad muffler echoed in the night air. He jerked around as bright lights came around the bend.
Chapter 10
Winters dove to the side of the road and fell into the tall grass. He rolled a couple of times before the same pickup from earlier sped by him. He watched the tail lights of the truck growing smaller and smaller.
His thoughts wandered to his deceased friends and their murderers. An internal battle raged in his mind—should he risk his life and kill the bastards or tell the authorities. What if the authorities are involved? He kept running.
Ten minutes later, an overwhelming sense of guilt washed over him. He stopped walking and stood still. He tried to get rid of the guilt by making excuses that there was nothing he could do. He shook his head because that wasn't a good enough reason. The urge to do something wouldn’t leave him alone, so he finally gave in and decided the only way to alleviate his guilt was to avenge the deaths of his friends. With his mind made up, he walked back toward the train station while wondering how he would do it.
Winters headed to the burial pit with the plan of scavenging through the dead in hopes of finding a weapon.
As he got closer to the pit, the odor of rotting bodies floated through the air. Upon arriving at the edge, the unbearable stench caused him to vomit. He was thankful the darkness did not reveal the butchery.
He slid down into the pit and stopped after touching the first corpse. He pretended the dead were asleep as he dug into jackets and pants pockets. He yanked his hands back each time he touched someone’s flesh and whispered an apology for disturbing them. After a few minutes of scrounging, he found an eight-inch blackened steel knife.
It was better than nothing.
Cole Winters climbed out of the pit, said a quick prayer for the dead and goodbye to his friends.
Keeping to the safety of the woods, Winters headed toward the two buildings on the grounds. He didn’t remember seeing either one from the time he’d been here before.
Working up the nerve to get in closer, he scurried to the smaller building figuring it to be a shed of some sort. Chatter from inside the bigger building became obvious. It was a mixture of laughter and yelling. The men were drinking, and it sounded like the booze was doing its job.
Their drinking gave Winters an idea. It would take all the courage he could draw in, but if he added in the anger coursing through his veins, he might be able to pull it off. A couple more hours of them drinking would also give Winters a needed edge.
He sat on the ground and leaned back against the shed, thinking about his friends. This was not how things were supposed to go. They were all relying on each other to watch their backs, and now he had no one to watch his.
The poor bastards. To be cut down like that was so devious. He couldn’t even begin to think the why of it all. It was too much to think about.
He zeroed in his mind with the task at hand. He was about to find out what it was like to take a human life. After seeing his friends murdered, he wasn’t going to have a problem with it like he had thought he would. No, it would be different now. Now the question was going to become how much would he enjoy it?
Winters began shivering. He was thankful he had worn a jacket but wished it had a thicker lining. The temperature had dropped so much that his breath turned into a frozen mist. A bit groggy, he stretched his arm out and looked at his wristwatch. To his surprise, it read three in the morning. Before getting up, he listened to any sounds from the building.
Silence.
It was time.
He snuck across the parking lot to the entrance of the building.
He paused and eyed the door, giving himself a chance to back out. He found his adrenaline had given him an unusual strength to carry forth. His pulse quickened as he slipped inside the building and crept through the dark hallway.
He opened the first door he came to and tiptoed into a room that reminded him of a dorm room. Two occupied beds sat on either side. The men slept with their heads toward the entrance. A floor heater sat between the beds creating white noise as it blew warm air through the room. The only other sound came from the snoring man on the right. It was Crooked Nose.
