Warpaint (Apocalypsis #2)

And I had to admit, while I might have looked at it as an unnecessary extravagance two years ago, today I was blessing the forethought of his tribal leaders. “What about the tires?”

“Yep. Can’t pop ‘em.”

“Well, don’t go nuts, Fohi,” said Rob. “They can withstand some stuff, but not a bazooka or anything.”

The car jolted to a stop and Rob put it in park. It was backed up all the way to the garage door. He turned around and looked at us in the back seat. “Fohi, go open it.”

“Oh hell no. I ain’t gonna be the dumbass that gets out of the car first and gets shot. You go.”

“I’m the driver. You’re in the wayback. Go.”

“I’m the driver, my ass,” growled Fohi, jumping from the back, halfway to the front to grab Rob’s shoulder.

I didn’t know what Fohi had planned to do, but it was an utter failure. He ended up head first, upside down by Peter’s feet. Buster took advantage of the situation and lick-attacked his face.

“Oh, gah! Get this friggin dog off me! His breath smells like fish! Sick!”

Rob reached over and pushed Fohi down farther. “What’s a matter, Little Bee? Can’t get up? Rather make out with the dog?”

“Fuck you, Rob, you knob!”

Rob kept pushing Fohi’s struggling form, leaning back away from the mostly helplessly flailing arms that occasionally made contact with his face. “Let us know when you’re done french kissing Buster.”

Fohi gave himself a mighty shove and balanced his stomach on the back of my seat. He was knocking everyone around him, including the three other people in the way-back with him.

“Cut it out, Fohi!” yelled one of them.

“Fohi, what the hell is your problem?!”

“Fohi!” yelled Kowi, “Get the hell out of the truck and open the goddamn garage door!”

The car got totally silent, except for the sounds of Fohi’s struggles to right himself and his heavy breathing.

“Fine,” he said, when he was righted again. “But if I get shot, it’s on your shoulders. And for your information, I bleed more than a normal person. And I don’t deal with pain well either, so if I get shot and don’t die, I’m going to complain a lot.”

“I accept. Now get out.”

I should have offered to go with him, but at this point, it would have felt like defying Kowi in a way, and I didn’t want to be the one to do that.

Apparently neither did anyone else, because Fohi slipped out of the back alone. The tailgate was like a giant swinging door. He opened it enough to get his small body through and closed it quietly behind him. Rob moved quickly to lock it after him with the automatic button.

We watched in tense silence as Fohi snuck over to the garage door and tried to turn the handle on it. It didn’t budge. He hunched over and crept around to Kowi’s window.

Kowi rolled it down a few inches. “What?”

“It’s locked.”

Several people giggled.

Kowi sighed heavily. “Just go inside and unlock it, Fohi.”

Fohi got a panicked expression on his face and his voice came out a couple notches higher than normal as he whined. “But what if someone’s in there?”

“Then you’d better kick their asses,” said Kowi, before rolling up the window.

I leaned over and rolled the window down that was next to Peter. “Fohi!” I whisper yelled as he passed by.

He stopped and turned, mouthing, “What?” at me.

“Take this.” I reached into my bag and pulled out my handgun, passing it through the window. “Do not use any bullets unless you absolutely have to.”

He nodded his head. “Thanks, Bryn.”

I didn’t answer. I just rolled up the window.

“I hope you know what you’re doing,” said Rob. “Fohi is always an accident just waiting to happen. He’ll probably just shoot himself with the stupid thing.”

“Then he’ll put us all out of our misery,” said Trip, getting everyone to laugh.

We waited for a couple tense minutes. The car was getting hot, Kowi having told Rob not to run the air conditioning so we could save gas. We weren’t idling anymore either, but Rob kept the battery on, his hands resting on the key and the steering wheel. Raindrops were obscuring the view out of the front windshield.

Just when I thought we’d hear the sound of a garage door going up, the crack of a gun startled the bejesus out of me.

Rob abandoned his post as the driver, throwing his door open and running to the front of the house before any of us could absorb what was happening.

“Rob!” yelled Kowi, but it was too late. He was already inside.

“Shit!” yelled Trip, struggling to unfold himself from his cupholder seat and get into the one vacated by Rob. He turned the key sitting in the ignition and then pulled the door shut. His foot hit the accelerator, but the car was still in park, so the engine roared but didn’t take us anywhere. Everyone screamed at once.

“Wait!” yelled Kowi. “We have to get them out of there!”

Before any of us could weigh in on that idea, the garage door flew up. My head whipped around at the sound, and Buster started barking like crazy.

I was expecting to see a line of canners standing there with rocket launchers over their shoulders, but instead, all I saw were Rob and Fohi - Fohi with a distinctively sheepish look on his face.

“Sorry ‘bout that!” he said.

Rob just shook his head, walking backwards and waving us in. Trip took a deep breath and moved his foot to the brake, pressing it in while he downshifted into reverse.

The SUV slowly backed up, getting closer and closer to Fohi’s and Rob’s retreating forms. Once we were nearly all the way in, they jumped to the sides and banged on the windows.

“You’re all good,” said Rob. “Shut her down.”

Trip didn’t even have the engine off before we were all piling out of the car. I stood off to the side, waiting for Bodo to get out, watching the chaos around Fohi.

“What the hell, dude? What did you shoot? Was there somebody in there?”

“Uh … no. Not exactly,” he said, separating himself to come over and hand me my gun. “Thanks, Bryn. Appreciate it. Sorry about the bullet.”

I looked at him, confused. “Who’d you shoot?”

“Myself.”

I looked him over from head to toe. “Where? Did you miss?”

“Nope,” he said almost proudly. “Got myself right between the eyes.”

I was starting to wonder if he’d lost his marbles when Rob reappeared from inside the house, carrying a full length mirror frame with a giant bullet hole in it. The glass was gone, but the frame and some backing material remained.

“The dumbass shot his own reflection,” he deadpanned.

Everyone in the garage started laughing their butts off. Even Trip, who’s usually too cool for that kind of release.

“Hey! I saw a guy, so I shot him and asked questions later,” said Fohi, only making us laugh harder.

I looked at Kowi. “And you gave this guy a grenade?” Someone had decided that Fohi should join the distraction group and had given him one of the weapons.

“Yeah. You’ve got a point there.” He looked at Fohi and held his hand out. “Hand it over, Bee.”

“Don’t call me Bee, first of all. And why? I can handle it. I’m not going to throw it at a mirror, I promise.”

“Yeah, well, I don’t want to risk it.” Trip grabbed Fohi’s backpack off his shoulder, unzipping it and pulling the heavily wrapped explosive from inside. “Here,” he said, handing it to Kowi before shoving the backpack into Fohi’s chest.

“Aren’t you going to zip it back up at least?” asked Fohi, frowning at Trip.

Trip just shook his head and walked away.

“Okay, so who’s on Rob’s team?”

Bodo, Peter, Paci, and a few others raised their hands. Kowi walked over and handed the bundle to Bodo. “Put this in your bag. Use it when we tell you and not before, got it?”

“Yes. I got it.” He looked worriedly at the wrapped shirt and then reached down, rubbing the edge of his harmonica that I knew was in his pocket.

“She won’t get hurt,” I said quietly, walking up to help him get it in his bag. “Not by this thing, anyway.”

“I’m going to keep her away so she won’t get near dis stuff.”

“Where is she now?”

“I’m not sure. I will go out and see. I don’t want to call her down or it will cause too much attention to come to us.”

“Yeah, don’t do that. Just tell me if you need me to do anything, okay?”

“I will. You do da same. I got your back, Bryn.” He leaned down and kissed me on the forehead.

“I got yours too,” I said, reaching up to stroke his arm once. I didn’t want to make a scene, but I had to feel his skin one time before we started this thing. It was warm and muscled underneath. Its strength gave me a little hope that we’d get out alive somehow.

“So, what’s next?” asked Peter in a slightly trembling voice. He cleared his throat and smiled tremulously at me.

I gave him a big grin in return to try and lighten his mood a little. He looked like he was about to wet his pants.

“We go in groups of two to the canner house. Last ones out close the garage door, lock it, and leave through the back door of this house. Lock the front door and secure this place as best you can first.” Kowi stepped out of the garage for a second and returned. “Memorize the address of this place: 4247 Magnolia Drive.”

Fohi reached into his backpack and took out a pen, poising it above his hand.

“What the hell are you doing, Fohi?” asked Rob

“Writing it down,” he said innocently. “I don’t want to forget it.”

“Oh, that’s just friggin brilliant. Why don’t you just print out some fliers and hand them out to the canners as we arrive. Here you go, guys. This is where we’ll be staying in case you want to visit.”

Fohi slowly put the pen away without writing anything down, mumbling under his breath. “Asshole.”

Kowi rolled his eyes and took a moment before continuing. “Like I said … memorize the address. It’s 4247 Magnolia. If anything goes bad or when we finish, come back here and wait in the car in the garage. Do not leave until everyone is back. The keys will be in the magnetic case clipped under the tire well. Rob, put it there now.”

Rob did as he was told. We all watched him secure it in the tire well behind the passenger-side wheel. A loud clunk told us it was well-attached.

“So who’s going where?” I asked, moving closer to Kowi who’d opened up the map Celia had helped make, spreading it out on the hood of the car.

“We are somewhere over here,” he said, pointing to a spot off the edge of the map. “We need to walk due east, down to the end of this road, go one block north, and then go east again. That road will go all the way up and dead-end into the road that the canner place is on. I’m pretty sure it will be at the end of the street and a little to the left.” He pointed to the edge of the canner place that had the wall of bushes. “Here’s where we’ll be coming in.”

Everyone who could get close enough studied the map while he continued.

“Distraction team goes here, on the east side of the house by the front doors. The front gate is kept open - the lock is broken, or so Celia said. Bryn’s team goes over by the tree Celia used to escape on the north side. My team goes to the south side by this other little door.”

“If I’m on Bryn’s team, what am I supposed to do?” asked Winky.

“You guys will be observing the house from up that tree if possible. Peter and Bodo will distract the dogs with some barking, giving you time to get up inside it. If the dogs start barking at you once you’re up there, give someone on your team on the ground a hand signal to pass to us so we can send Peter back in.”