“Like what?” Dwight asked.
“Like I will be outside tonight, and I don’t want to get shot, so you’ll do exactly what I ask. Also, after we’re finished and we leave, you leave this place open so anyone who comes in has access to whatever we can’t carry out of here.”
Dwight, Barry and Jared all frowned in unison.
“That’s nonnegotiable,” John warned. “I don’t have a problem killing every single man who comes up and tries to take by force what is not his. The problem is we’ll be killing fathers and husbands tonight. There are probably women and children waiting back wherever they lay their heads, and when these men don’t come home tonight, the womenfolk will search for their men. The least we can do is give them a fighting chance with a few supplies.”
Jared had witnessed firsthand how John unapologetically murdered the two men back in San Jose, bolstering Jared’s familiarity with John’s ability to do bad things to bad people. Now the man was showing an incredible level of humility towards the family and friends of people he planned on killing in a few hours. If Jared thought the world had been a strange place before, it was staggering how much weirder it was becoming with each passing day.
Chapter 17
After the sun gave up on conquering the night, Jared stared out into the blackness surrounding Dwight’s home. John had warned against staring directly through a port for fear of someone catching an unlucky round in the face, so Jared sat off to one side, scanning the darkened yard.
Jared and Barry had agreed to stay and participate as long as their mission lasted one evening and everyone left the following morning. At first, John assigned Jared, Barry and Dwight positions inside the fortress that afforded them good fields of fire. John informed the group that he would be operating outside in the night while the other three held positions inside Dwight’s home. Jared spoke up, asking to be assigned outside the home along with John. He didn’t know why he asked since it would have been much safer inside Dwight’s house, but he asked anyway, and surprisingly, John agreed.
While John reworked their plan of action for the evening, Jared kicked himself internally after asking to go outside for the evening’s festivities. He hated this new need to prove himself to men he couldn’t have cared less about before the solar flare. Now it was like he’d somehow transformed into some kind of frat boy who constantly sought to prove his moxie to a big brother. Secretly, Jared loathed all of the fighting, but he was also filled with self-confidence and pride after he was in a fight and the dust settled. Deep down, Jared knew going out into the night wouldn’t hurt his relationship with John either. His self-identity was changing from what it had been three months ago. Now, things like going outside the safety of Dwight’s home to face dangerous and desperate human beings was just another way of ushering the metamorphosis along.
Before John and Jared slipped out a side door, John turned back to address Barry and Dwight. “No shooting at figures out there. You are only allowed to shoot at someone who is actively trying to enter the house.” John knew there might come a time he fired at the house during the battle because a hostile happened to be standing next to the structure. The last thing he wanted was for Barry or Dwight to start shooting at muzzle flashes.
John checked his magazines, making sure he was topped off, and jerked his chin at Jared to do the same. Once both men were ready, they slipped out the door and headed into the darkness. Jared felt a jolt of adrenaline coursing into his bloodstream as the door clicked shut behind him. Jared reviewed in his mind the gunfights he had participated in since the power went out. The day he’d found Essie was unique in that he hadn’t acted out of anything other than anger and rage. The night two men broke into Bart’s shop, Jared had been a spectator, never firing a shot. Then there was the incident at Calvin’s place, and as far as Jared was concerned, that had amounted to nothing short of a turkey shoot. Jared guessed his first gunfight would probably be the most similar to what was about to happen tonight. He’d be hunting other men with the sole intent of killing them.
Jared stretched his jaw in an effort to relieve tension. He had been in more gunfights during the last three months than he had been in fistfights throughout his entire life before the solar flare. This was an astonishing revelation to Jared as he followed John, who seemed as relaxed as anyone would have been on a Sunday afternoon walk after church. Jared didn’t judge John tonight after what John had demanded Dwight do with the food and supplies they wouldn’t be able to take with them.
The more he thought about it, Jared realized he had never seen John take advantage of a single soul since they met. He’d seen John kill people, but never under circumstances Jared could call to question. Quite simply put, Jared felt John was a good man in a bad situation, trying to make the best of it for himself and his friends. The two men continued across Dwight’s property until they reached the stone wall.
John was fairly sure the marauders would not take the hardest route in and would enter through the main gate since it afforded the easiest place to climb over. John and Jared chose to wait until the men arrived. After that, they planned to follow the intruders to the house to observe their tactics before engaging them. They did not wait long before they heard the band of men approaching.
John previously decided he and Jared would not employ their night-vision goggles since they needed
