299 Days: The Restoration

Chapter 304 “Every New Year’s Day from Here On Out”

Ryan put Wes’ rifle over his shoulder as he walked through the woods so he could give it to Wes when they found him. He couldn’t wait to give it to him.

“Take point, dude,” Pow said to Ryan, who was much better at moving through the woods with people trying to kill him since he’d done it before as a Marine. The rest of the Team was pretty good at urban stuff, but not this. It was new to them, and it showed.

They moved slowly. The streams of light looked like the Star Wars light sabers when they went into the brewery for the first time. The trees and bushes threw off ghoulish and frightening shadows, like a scene from a movie.

They occasionally heard bushes move or twigs snap. Twice they saw glimpses of moving shapes that looked like people. There were definitely people in the woods, and they were trying to kill the Team.

This was the most afraid they’d ever been, except for Ryan. This was as frightening for him as a couple of times in Afghanistan.

Ryan stopped suddenly. He gave the signal, a clenched fist, to stop. Ryan stared ahead, trying to see, but the weapons’ lights had destroyed his night vision. There was definitely something up ahead, something strangely bright.

Finally, Ryan turned around and whispered, “Lights up ahead.” He peered at them some more. “Stationary lights.”

Ryan signaled that he’d go ahead and look some more and that the rest of the Team should sit tight. He quietly moved ahead, but only got about twenty-five yards until he turned and motioned for the Team to come up to him. “Looks like an outbuilding or something,” Ryan whispered.

“The rest area,” Bobby said. He had been in this park before, a couple of years ago and remembered a rest area on the trail.

“Yeah,” Ryan whispered, “That’s what it looks like it could be.”

“Let’s go check it out,” Pow whispered. They started toward it with Ryan still on point and a few yards ahead of them.

They got about fifty yards when Ryan suddenly gasped. “Oh God!” he said loudly. “No!”

The Team rushed up to him. Then they saw it.

Wes was hanging from the light post at the rest area, dangling and swaying in the wind. He was hanging from a rope like a criminal, like Frankie, the meth head, they hung at Pierce Point. Wes’ body was absolutely still. His life had been taken out of him; it was just his body swaying on that rope. It was strangely silent, the rustling wind being the only sound.

They heard some bushes moving very close by and quickly clicked their safeties off. A person suddenly flew out of the bushes and started running away. Pow was scanning the area by looking through his Aim point red-dot sight. He saw the movement and put the red dot on the shape of the person running away.

“Boom! Boom!” Pow put a quick double-tap into the person running away. The others swung around and got some rounds off in the general direction of the movements.

Pow ran toward the person he’d shot, with Scotty and Bobby following him. Ryan headed straight for Wes.

When he got up to him, Ryan looked up and could see that Wes had been beaten. His face looked purple in the sodium lights of the rest area. He was just hanging there, limp, vacant. With a smile on his face. A smile.

Ryan grabbed a garbage can from the rest area to use to climb up to Wes. Once he got up to him, he unsuccessfully tried to find a pulse. Wes was still warm. Ryan tried again, but could not find a pulse in him. He must have been hanged just a little while ago. Wes was dead. Ryan held him.

“I should have braced you, man,” Ryan cried. “I should have braced you.” Ryan remembered how Wes was just standing in the back of the truck; Ryan could have done something. Ryan realized how easy it would have been to hold onto Wes, but Ryan was busy ducking the machine gun tracers. Ryan looked at Wes and remembered all they’d done together. He remembered the first time he met Wes, his rich North Carolina drawl, his overpowering love for Kelli, their plans for a baby. Ryan could see all things in life Wes would never experience — a baby, training wheels on a bike with his child, high school graduation, his child getting married, and then growing old with Kelli. Ryan was overcome with the feeling that just a few minutes ago, Wes was alive and had his whole life ahead of him. Now he was a beaten corpse swinging on a rope. His life had been taken. Taken. Stolen.

Ryan heard people coming. He turned around and pointed his rifle at the movement. It was Pow, dragging someone who was kicking and gasping but not screaming. Pow had amazing upper body strength and was dragging the person like he was a ragdoll.

Pow had a look on his face that Ryan had never seen. It was rage. Supreme rage. Calm rage, at this point, but it was going to explode any minute. The look on Pow’s face was even more terrifying in the yellowish sodium light of the rest area.

Pow looked at the person he was dragging, who was a typical looking high school boy in civilian clothes. Pow said softly, “Look what I found. A piece of shit.” Pow’s voice was terrifyingly calm. Even the Team was afraid of what he would do next.

He threw the teenage boy onto the pavement of the rest area. The kid was bleeding from the upper left shoulder. It looked like a bullet had exited out through his throat, which explained why he wasn’t screaming.

Ryan pointed over to Wes’ body. “They hung him. Fucking animals.”

Ryan took out his pistol, jammed it in the teenager’s mouth, which was covered in blood from the exit wound in the throat. He pointed at Wes’ body and whispered, “You do this?”

Before the kid could respond, Scotty came up and said, “Don’t shoot him, man. He’s a prisoner. We need to take him back.”

The kid was in too much pain to answer, and seemed only semi-conscious. Pow got down on the ground and searched him. He pulled something out of the kid’s jacket pocket and started shaking his head.

“This better not be what I think it is,” Pow said to the kid and then revealed a small video camera. Pow replayed the recording which showed a group beating, and then hanging, Wes.

“You’re an independent filmmaker, huh?” Pow asked the kid, in that same terrifyingly calm voice, like they were in a casual conversation. “You think it’s cool to film this kind of shit?” Pow asked with his voice rising. “So you can put it on fucking You Tube?”

“No, Pow,” Scotty said. “We gotta get this prisoner out of here. Now.”

Pow put the camera in his pocket. He couldn’t stand to witness the footage, but the others in the unit needed to see this to see what kind of people they were up against. He was going to bring it back to base.

Pow continued to search the kid who was starting to come to and become more lucid. He pulled out a Zero Tolerance folding knife out of the kid’s pocket. It was Wes’.

“Oh, a knife collector?” Pow asked, in his casual and conversational tone. “You stole my friend’s knife, dude. Now that wasn’t very nice.”

Scotty stood up and grabbed the unopened knife from a surprised Pow.

“Click!” The Zero Tolerance knife made its distinctive opening sound. Scotty displayed the blade to the kid to show him the knife he had stolen and then he smiled a ghoulish smile no one had ever seen from him. He had lost control of himself.

In an instant, calm and decent Scotty started thrusting and slashing with the knife, which caused a slight popping noise as it broke the skin. It was like a muffled pop of bubble wrap.

Scotty slashed every square inch of the kid. His torso, his arms, his legs. Scotty was cutting the kid to ribbons. Blood was flying everywhere. The rest of the Team stood by and watched, stunned by Scotty’s savagery and the quarts of blood spurting everywhere. They couldn’t believe that Scotty had gone from his usual calm self to a butcher in such short order. It was seeing Wes’ Zero Tolerance — the knife that was the Team “membership card” — in the hands of that kid that put Scotty over the edge.

A few seconds into the slaughter, the kid tried to scream, but he couldn’t because of the damage to his throat. The only sound he could make was a soft and raspy wail, coupled with the gurgle from the blood in his throat. It was the horrific sound of a wounded animal dying.

After the burst of slashing, Scotty momentarily regained control of himself. He stepped back and looked at the bloody mess who was a crumpled heap on the ground. The blood was purple in the sodium light, and it was everywhere. Scotty stepped back, looked at his handiwork, and picked the kid up with his left hand. With his free hand, Scotty slashed the kid’s throat for good measure. Blood gushed everywhere.

He threw the motionless kid back on the cement. “You took his knife,” Scotty screamed. “You shouldn’t have taken his knife.” Scotty just stared at the bloody shell of a former human being on the cement of the rest area. Without a move or a sound, he towered over the body, blankly staring down at what he’d just done.

Everyone was in shock. Bobby wanted in on the destruction of the fucker who had killed his friend.

“Let’s hang this little bitch so his buddies can see,” he said.

It was a fine idea. They took the rope off Wes’ neck and gently put him on the ground. Ryan made sure to position his body so Wes could see what was happening in his honor.

They hoisted the mutilated and blood-soaked teenager up and put the noose around his neck. When they let go, the pressure of the noose caused most of the kid’s remaining blood to squirt out everywhere.

“Fucking animals!” Scotty screamed. There was shrillness to his voice that no one had ever heard from him. Scotty wished he could kill the kid over and over again. He could kill him ten times over and it wouldn’t feel like enough revenge.

Pow had filmed everything on the video camera. “Part two of the story,” Pow said on camera as the teenager was hanging. “Part one was killing our brother, Wes. This is how the story ended, you Lima fucks. We ended it.”

They all looked at Wes, who looked so peaceful. That smile. Why was he smiling?

They took turns carrying Wes out of the woods. It took forever. One guy took point, two swept every direction, and the fourth carried Wes. It took a half hour to get back to the road which was only a few hundred yards. They were beyond exhausted, physically and emotionally.

They all felt like they’d lost a brother. They would never be the same. A part of them was gone. They could all feel it: a part of them was gone, taken by these animals. Why? What good had it done to that teenage kid to hang Wes? To put it up on the internet? Why? Was it worth getting shot, stabbed, and hung? Why were people doing all this?

In between wondering why all this useless killing had happened, the Team was concentrating on getting out of the woods alive. Their weapons’ lights were painting a huge “shoot me” target for a hundred yards around them. There were plenty of Limas in those woods. The Team fully expected to have to shoot their way out of the woods, and maybe lose another brother or two.

Finally, Ryan, who was on point, saw the road. He had never been so glad to see a road. The Team waited for a while and caught their breath.

“I’ll go back to Bravo and get the truck down here,” Ryan said. He needed to get Wes out of there so those animals wouldn’t try to hurt him again. It made no sense, but it was what was driving Ryan: get out of here.

Ryan walked down the road for… who knows how long. He used his weapon light to see and to be seen by the Bravo sentries.

“Halt!” Ryan heard a soldier say. He was hoping it wasn’t a Lima, but he knew that was highly unlikely.

“I’m Ryan McDonald of the 17th Irregulars,” Ryan said.

“Who’s your commander?” the sentry asked.

“A guy named Grant, but you wouldn’t know him,” Ryan said. “Your commander is a Captain Edwards or Edmonds or some shit.” Ryan was spent. He had no time for military courtesies. “Hey, quit fucking around and get the truck down here. We got a KIA and need to get the body out.”

The soldier ran off to tell someone what had happened. In a minute, Ryan heard the truck approaching. The headlights lit up the area. Ryan looked at his kit and arms. Both were covered in blood.

“That fucking kid messed up my kit,” Ryan said out loud even though no one was around. “Now I need to get it dry cleaned. I don’t have time for that shit.”

Ryan started crying at the absurdity of what he’d just said. At the absurdity of killing a teenager. At the absurdity that Wes, a bad-ass gun fighter, died in basically an accident, falling out of a truck and getting hauled away. The absurdity that Ryan was actually talking about dry cleaning a tactical vest. Everything was so absurd. This war, this Collapse, this life.

The truck came up to Ryan and he pointed down the road toward the rest of the Team. “Go get them and bring them back here,” he said to the driver.

“Hop in,” the driver said.

The truck returned with the Team. They had silently and solemnly put Wes in the back of the truck. The Bravo Company soldiers saluted Wes. The Team appreciated the respect.

They slowly drove the truck back to the brewery. It was the longest, quietest ride in their lives. Everyone was silently reflecting and thinking about Wes, what he’d meant to them, what all they’d done together. His southern drawl, which was so unique up in Washington State, would be irreplaceable to the group. His father, who insisted that he become a Ranger, would be proud. Wes died a hero’s death, fighting bad guys and protecting the innocent.

And Kellie. Poor Kellie and their baby. He or she would never meet his or her father.

“Every New Year’s Day from here on out,” Ryan yelled all of a sudden to the guys in the cab, “one of us is going to spend it with Kellie and tell Wes’ child what a great man he was. Is that a promise?”

No one had to even answer.