Silence settled.
So many of them had seen war overseas, they’d witnessed atrocities against children enough that it shouldn’t have fazed them, but one glance at his men and he knew it had. “If any of you have doubts. Now’s the time to share.”
No one said a word as they walked away, leaving two small bodies near the water’s edge.
EIGHTEEN Colby
Merced County
The auto repair and wreckers’ yard was a maze of towering metal.
Huge piles of cars, trucks, and RVs, each one stacked up on top of another, dwarfed the office building nearby. Conducting reconnaissance from afar, he noticed a mass of small trees surrounded the property to the north, west, and east. There was no movement in the yard. No sign that anyone was there. Had Callie gotten it wrong?
He was across a tilled field to the south, perched on an abandoned farmhouse roof, peering through binoculars. Colby lowered them and slid down the roof, and dropped to the ground. The horse was tied to a tree, hidden from the view of anyone who might make their way up the extra-long driveway.
Colby collected the duffel bag, unzipped it, and loaded the AR-15. He removed his jacket and slipped into a ballistic vest. He would be sporting two loaded .40 S&W handguns in a double shoulder holster and carrying the rifle. He loaded up with additional magazines and swept the rifle behind his back.
Ready to head out, he patted the horse. “I’ll be back.”
Trudging across the field, he thought about what Callie had said. “Her name was Alicia. You were traveling together.”
He wanted so badly to remember who Alicia was but it was like a murky dream. Like seeing a face but forgetting the name. This time it was the other way around. His memory was there at the tip of his tongue, frustrating him.
When he made it to the outskirts of the wreckers’ yard he took out a pair of wire cutters he’d taken from the house and clipped the chain-link fence so he could slip inside.
It was quiet. Not a sound could be heard. No conversation. No music. No movement.
Like a grocery store, the junkyard had aisles, but these were full of vehicles. The ground was rough. Mud, stone, a few shrubs. He made his way down an aisle, glancing sideways at the various models and makes. All of it, a piece of history, discarded like society would soon be.
As he came around to the next aisle that would take him down to the main office, two huge Rottweilers lifted their heads in his direction.
Colby froze.
From where he was, he couldn’t see if they were attached to the chains snaking away. A second to register he wasn’t meant to be there, and they bounced up, and that’s when he saw nothing was restraining them. They burst forward, all teeth and gums. Colby turned and fled.
There was no way he could outrun them.
No way he could reach the chain-link fence.
Colby slipped the rifle behind him and darted sideways, climbing up the side of a skyscraper of metal. It groaned and shifted beneath his feet. He had visions of it collapsing, crushing, and burying him. The lead dog launched itself in the air, determined to grab one of his legs, but it missed by inches. He slipped into the rear seat of a Camaro, out of breath, his heart roaring like a truck engine.
As his body lay against leather, he was hit with another flash of images.
Kane. That dog again. It was deeply ingrained in his mind. He was no ordinary pet. In his mind, he saw Kane chewing on someone’s leg. He heard cries. He heard himself giving the command to release. Then a dog wagging its tail.
“Fire. Brimstone,” a voice bellowed, calling out to the dogs from the far end of the property. A whistle followed. “Hey boys. What have you two got? Better not be another skunk. Hey!” Another whistle. “I will beat the living daylights out of you if you don’t get back here now. Don’t make me come down there.” The two dogs barked a few more times, then whined and hurried back. Colby remained still. He was high enough that if someone did come down they would have to climb up to see him.
Shit, he thought. This was going to be harder than he thought.
He waited a few minutes before carefully climbing out the other side and continuing to scale the outside to the top. The vehicles were piled five high, some overlapping each other. The only order on the property came from the aisles. The rest was a mess of steel and glass. The smell of oil, grease, and rust permeated everything, and the gunk got on his hands and clothes as he crept along the top. He tried to be as quiet as possible while making his way to the end that brought him close to the office.
He might have been able to pull the wool over the owner’s eyes but not the dogs’. They could smell him. The two began barking again. One of them put his front paws up on a bumper, clawing at it.
“What the hell is going on out there!”
Matthew, the same guy Colby had seen at the house, came out of the office. He was clothed in dirty blue overalls and holding a wrench in his hand. Colby was pointing his rifle down at him as he staggered out, bellowing at the dogs. He looked at the one and followed its gaze. His head lifted until they locked eyes. “Get the dogs on a leash now,” Colby shouted. “And don’t even think of darting back inside. I’ve
