Down the Road: The Fall of Austin (22 page)

The chase was very easy for Talltree, who was
initiated in the art of tracking by his father and grandfather in
the Massena, New York area near the Mohawk Nation. The Talltrees
had a tradition of tracking that stretched back even before the
“white man” began his subversive conquest of his homeland. His
family had even aligned themselves with French and Dutch settlers
in an effort to garner favors. But the tradition of tracking was
the same. Diluted through the ages, but the same.

Daniel Talltree had played many games that
nourished his tracking skills. One of those games took place when
he would play with his cousins. They would run into the woods to
hide. They would have a twenty-minute lead before Talltree was sent
out to find them. Accompanied by his father and grandfather,
Talltree quickly picked up on the basics of tracking: footprints,
crushed grass, broken bushes, body moisture like spit, sweat or
urine. It was always fun.

Then he transitioned to animals: following
trails, checking for eaten berries and nuts, blood trails, feces
and urine. He eventually became a skilled hunter on Mohawk
land.

Ultimately, he was utilized by local law
enforcement to track escaped prisoners and fugitives suspected of
hiding in local forests. Food, cigarette butts, beer, urine and
torn clothes were clear markers. So many things provided clues, and
his eyes were virtual eagle eyes on land when searching, his ears
like a deer.

Despite protests from his family, he lent his
services to the U.S. Army at the ripe age of eighteen, just three
years ago.

Today’s travel was a piece of cake. The trail
was easy to follow, and in no time at all the team was crossing the
Congress bridge, blasting Virals as sunlight cut across the morning
sky.

The trail led down Riverside and before long,
they found a house with a large amount of bodies strewn around
it.

Sgt. Nickson made a broad assumption and gave
a command. “They’re in there, guys. We got them. Garrison,
Rodriguez, get the back door. Talltree and I—”

“Wait,” Talltree said, seeing the real trail
spreading down Riverside to IH-35. “They’re not there.”

“It’s worth a look, redman,” Sgt. Nickson
said with impudence.

Talltree scowled.

The team advanced and Talltree reluctantly
followed, looking at the true trail while considering other
options.

Sgt. Nickson stood by the front door with
Talltree. When he received confirmation that Rodriguez and Garrison
were ready on the other side of the house, Sgt. Nickson knocked on
the door.

“United States Army. Open up.”

“We’re fine, sir,” came the reply. “You’ve
already been by here.”

“See?” Nickson sneered at Talltree. He turned
back to the door. “We need to speak to you about those men. Open
up.”

“We don’t want any trouble, sir.”

“I said
open up
.”

The door clicked open and Sgt. Nickson dashed
inside like lightning, training the sights of his HK416 on each
inhabitant in rapid succession. The inhabitants—a husband, wife,
and teenaged daughter—took frightened, defensive steps backwards,
knees noticeably trembling. The father, a pathetic-looking bald man
with an out-of-shape gut, clutched the edge of an endtable with
whitening knuckles. He appeared to be trying to say something, but
his lips were just quivering and no sounds came out.

“I have two men at your back door,” Nickson
said. “I need
you
—” indicating the daughter, “to go let them
in.”

“Ever heard the word
please
?” the
young lady sneered. Teachers at Travis High school nearby were
already familiar with her insolence. Sgt. Nickson was not, and the
comment did not endear her to him.

“Andi, please,” the mother said, pinching the
daughter.

“Ow,” the girl said. “You’re such a bitch.”
She shrugged herself away and walked into the kitchen, headed for
the back door.

Sgt. Nickson lowered his gaze. The girl,
(called Andi by her parents, he made note,) had long, slender legs
that rose to meet a hard bottom, emphasized by the way her jeans
clung to every curve. The definition on her stomach displayed
proudly through her tank top. Unlike her sloth-looking parents, she
was in very healthy shape. There didn’t seem to be an ounce of fat
on her. She probably ran track or something.

They just don’t make ‘em like this
anymore
, Nickson mused.

The father easily interpreted the smirk he
saw. “You always gawk at underage girls like that?”

Nickson turned to him. “Shut your mouth, old
man. Does it look like I’m playing games here?”

“Then don’t you look at my daughter like that
again.” He made a mental note of the position of his revolver in
the back waistband of his jeans, hidden from the soldiers.

The young girl opened the back door. When she
did, the noise of gunfire intensified to the point of
deafening.

The massive Rodriguez was leveling Virals in
the backyard with his SAW. It was as if the SAW was an extension of
his own hand, spitting out rounds like a hot metal death dealer,
ripping undead bodies to pieces right where they stood.

He let off the trigger and turned around to
see the now-open door. He signaled to Garrison, then said to the
girl, “Well, hello sunshine.” He and Garrison entered the home,
closing and locking the door behind them.

“Lead the way, toots,” Garrison said.

“Follow me,” the girl groaned, as if the mere
fact that she had to execute this simple chore in the midst of the
darkest days the world would ever know was a complete waste of her
time. Despite the impudence, both men eyed her as they
followed.

Things in the living room were growing
tense.

“Listen to me, old man. We’re making the
rules right now, and—”

“This is
my
home, asshole!” the father
shouted. “You don’t tell me what to do in my own home! Get
out!”

“Jared, please,” his wife said, voice
breaking, “just listen and do as he says.”

“No, Sarah. This is my house and my family,
and they
will
show respect for us.”

The daughter, suddenly realizing the gravity
of the situation, shook out of her stubborn state of being. She
looked over to see Garrison was still eyeing her posterior. His
beady eyes scared her, and his gray-haired goatee reminded her of
the devil. She had to glance down at his feet to make sure he
didn’t also have hooves. She turned back to her father and pleaded,
“Dad, please stop it.”

“Andi, stay quiet.”

When he turned he had exposed his back to
Garrison, and Garrison saw the revolver in the waistband of his
jeans.

“He’s got a gun!”

The soldiers lifted their weapons at the
father.

The father immediately pushed his wife into
the nearby hallway and dashed behind her, pulling his gun out and
firing three unaimed shots. The daughter screamed and dashed into
the kitchen.

The soldiers took cover and returned fire,
popping holes into the wall that was serving as cover for the
husband and wife. Puffs of insulation fluttered around like
snow.

Behind the wall, three more shots were fired
and the revolver clicked empty. However, the final bullet punched
through Rodriguez’s nose, bringing the massive man to his knees
before his head slammed face first on the tile floor, cracking what
was left of his nose and spilling a tremendous amount of blood. It
pooled around him like water refilling a dry basin after a dam
burst.

Sgt. Nickson and Spc. Garrison stood quiet as
they listened for any sign that the father was reloading.

“Rodriguez?” Garrison whispered, briefly
casting his eyes down at his unmoving partner. “Rodriguez?
Rodriguez?” Then: “
Jose
? Oh, man.”

“He’s gone, soldier,” Nickson gritted. “Keep
your head in the fucking game.”

Talltree sat quietly behind the Lay-Z-Boy,
fuming at the atrocity unfolding in his presence. The anger was
somehow already familiar, internal, embedded in his conscience. It
was as if he was at an event in the distant past, witnessing
something that most certainly happened to his ancestors during the
early days of the conquest of the new world by its European
invaders. Was this how his ancestors responded? With fear?
Inaction is still action, is still a choice made
. He closed
his eyes and prayed for wisdom. Despite taking a moment to
concentrate, the choice was clear. Numbers were against him. He
needed to wait for his moment.

All three soldiers heard a kind of muffled
choking sound. Then after a few seconds, silence.

Nickson and Garrison advanced to the hallway.
Nickson looked in.

Both the father and mother had been peppered
with bullets. None had been head shots, but all would have been
serious enough on their own to provide instant death.

Sgt. Nickson decided to make certain that the
enemy combatants—the picture of the standard American family—would
not rise again by blasting their heads with two short bursts from
his HK416. Empty casings clinked across the floor. Some danced into
the pools of blood, splashing merrily like hot demons in a warm
pond of red life force.

No one talks to me like that,
Nickson
thought.
I’m a goddamn American soldier.

The new rules of the world dictated that no
one would ever talk to him like that and not be punished for it.
For so long he had had to restrain himself against rulebreakers,
resisting the very training his father had indoctrinated into him.
It was his father that had taught him that a rule breaker must be
punished. Before he was Sgt. Nickson, he was just Roger Nickson,
and when he broke Raul Nickson’s rules, he was punished by a belt
across his rear. He had talked back to his father just as this
father had talked back to him.

He had to regulate.

His father taught him to be a regulator, a
punisher of those that did not follow the rules.
His
rules.
From the playgrounds in elementary school to the locker rooms in
high school, everyone followed his rules. He won more fights than
he lost, but gained respect from each and every one. It’s the way
the world had to be. There were things you
did
do and there
were things you did
not
do. Talking back was one thing you
never
did, at least not to him.

It was the simplest explanation for why he
had to silence the old man. The way the old man talked to him had
been a quick road to regulation. Nickson had no problem with what
he did. In a world with no rules—of rule changes—some rules very
definitely needed to be established and enforced. Anarchy was not
an option.

After the shots were fired and the empty
casings finished clinking across the tile, whimpering could be
heard.

“Garrison, get the girl,” Nickson said.

“Yes, Sergeant.”

Nickson gazed at the body of the beast that
had been Specialist Jose Amos Rodriguez. The hole out the back of
his head was large enough that Nickson could see inside it. It was
a sight not many people ever had a chance to witness. It reminded
him personally of cooked cauliflower. He stuck a finger in the hole
to feel the texture.

Spc. Garrison entered the kitchen. The
whimpering was clearly coming from there.

He found the girl crouched in the corner,
clutching a steak knife near her chest, breathing hard. She glared
at him with red, watery eyes. Loose strands from her ponytail clung
to her cheeks. “Come on out, sweetheart,” Garrison said, lowering
his HK416.

Yeah, come on out. I’ll hold you. Just press
those fit tits of yours right up against me. I’ll put both my hands
on your tight bottom and snuggle you closer. You need a hero—and
I’ll be that for you.

“Everything’s going to be okay. We all know
you’re not in any way responsible for what your parents did.”

He crept towards her, his accompanying smile
blatantly insincere.

Andi was like a cornered and wounded animal:
scared and desperate. The man was much bigger than her. His eyes
were that of a liar, and it was appropriate he sported a goatee
just like the Prince of Lies. His lying eyes told her what his
words were not. It was the same eyes and the same words two boys
had used before at a high school party when she was a freshman.
Naïve enough to believe them, she was put in quite a tight spot.
But she defended herself in that situation. Those men were cowards.
And so was this man. But this man was stronger, filled with more
evil, darker lies, and more sinister motives. She knew what the
bottom line was: she was in serious danger.

“Come on out, sweetheart,” he said.

And she did, pouncing like a lion.

For any untrained person, the attack could
have been effective. But it was the standard knife attack a
panicked civilian would use, and Garrison had trained for it
countless times.

Her attack was met by a block with his rifle,
followed by a counterattack from the butt of the rifle, striking
the girl across the jaw. She crumpled to the floor.

Garrison leaned over her and kneeled down. He
poked her on the cheek to shift her head away. It didn’t shift
back. He placed his finger under her nostrils. After a moment he
could feel subtle puffs of air.

She wasn’t dead. Only unconscious.

His eyelids narrowed.

He let his gun dangle from his shoulder as he
took hold of both her wrists and dragged her back into the living
room. He let go of her there, not bothering to catch her head. She
groaned.

“She resist?” Sgt. Nickson asked.

“Obnoxious brat,” Garrison replied.

Nickson scowled down at her. He said,
“Teenagers nowadays show no respect.”

“No fucking discipline at all, Sergeant,”
Garrison agreed.

The two men looked at each other for a
second, then refocused on the girl.