Stryker: A Post-Apocalyptic Tale by Bobby Andrews

even looking at them and stalked to the front door. As he
passed, Erin saw the muscles in his jaws clenching, and turned to her sister
and said, “Haley, can you get them moving to the truck? It’s 200 yards straight
out the main door.” Her sister, still stunned at the turn of events, nodded and
started the group toward the door. She stopped and embraced her grandpa, who
hugged her back, then said, “Get moving. We’ll talk later.”
    Erin walked to
where her grandfather stood peering down at what looked to be a photo. His jaw
muscles were also dancing on the side of his face. “What’s going on?” she asked
as she approached.
    “Stay away,”
Stryker ordered. He looked at Sarge and said, “We have to kill this guy
eventually. But we have to take him alive and find out where the other girls
are.” Sarge nodded his agreement. She took two steps toward them.
    “Stay the hell
away!” Sarge roared, eyes blazing. She took two steps back. “Get the women to
the truck and keep them safe until we get there.”
    “But…”
    “I said get the
hell away,” he yelled again. Her face blanched, she looked away for a moment,
and moved back to where the women were leaving the building. She took the M-4
off her shoulder and took the last position behind them, scouting the area as
she walked.
    “What’s the plan?”
Sarge asked.
    “I stay here on the
second floor with the LAWs, not the hilltop, take them out as they approach,
and you engage them from the rear when the women are safe back at the house.
Erin is not in the picture anymore. After seeing the photos up there, no way we
can put any women at risk. We take Brody alive and I get the information I need
about the other women. Then I take him out.”
    “There’s no way to
retreat from the building. There’s no cover.”
    “Then we stand and
kill them, or they kill us. Either way, I am not leaving one of these assholes
alive.”
    Sarge thought it
over for a moment and said. “It’ll take me twenty minutes to get back here.”
    “That’s fine.”
    The men walked back
to the pickup. Stryker grabbed two LAWs from the truck bed and some additional
magazines for his M-4. He started to walk back toward the building and felt a
pull at his shoulder. He turned and faced Erin, who said, “I want to stay here
with you.”
    “Not this time.”
    “Why?”
    “Because I said
so.”
    “That’s not an
explanation.”
    “I don’t need to
offer one. I’m really good at what I do, which is killing people. Are you
really good at what you do?”
    “Well, I just
applied for medical school. I got my degree in nursing.”
    “You want me in a
surgical theatre?”
    “Well, no.”
    “I don’t want you
assisting me either. So, let’s all just stick to what we do well. Right now,
you need to protect those women, and I need to kill the men who did this to
them. Your grandpa is going to help me do that because he is really good at it,
too. Then we are all going back to my ranch in Texas and figure out what to do
next.” She thought it over for a moment.
    “I would never
agree to this if Grandpa hadn’t yelled at me. He’s never done that.”
    “I don’t care why
you agreed to it, but I’m glad you did. Keep those women safe.”
    “You called them
‘girls’ before.”
    “Not anymore.” He
started to turn away and then turned back, “If we don’t make it out of here,
there’s a map in the pickup glove compartment that shows my house in Texas,
marked by a blue dot. The ranch has power and water. There are instruction
manuals for every system in the house in my desk. If you go there, you can live
in comfort and probably peace.” She stood on her tiptoes and pecked his cheek.
    “Thank you,” she
said, then turned and walked back to the pickup.
    Sarge got into the
driver’s seat, waved, and departed. Stryker walked back to the building with a still-smoldering
rage. He turned and watched the pickup move away. Erin was seated next to her
sister and they were talking.