The front of each man that I killed was relatively undisturbed, with little pin-prick bullet holes dotting the surface area at various points. When Larry was rolled over, we could see that the whole back of his shirt and most of his jeans were soaked through with dark red blood. The surfaces of both articles of clothing were torn and perforated. Billy squatted down and pinched the tail of Larry’s shirt between two fingers and lifted. Some forty percent of his back had been reduced to a mutilated crater, as though an explosive had been set off just under his spine. The whole area looked like nothing more than raw, ground up hamburger with bits of spine and ribs exposed. Smaller racket-ball sized craters surrounded the main focal point of damage.
“God damn,” said Billy, letting go of the shirt.
“I thought you said they were just .22 rounds?” I asked him. “I’ve never heard of a .22 round doing that to anything.” I felt queasy from what I had seen.
“Evidently, I was wrong.” He sat there on his haunches for several seconds simply shaking his head. Finally, he said, “I’ve never seen anyone shot by a 5.56 round before…or maybe it has more to do with him being shot by an M4 on full auto or something. I don’t know. I’m going to have to rethink this whole carbine versus shotgun thing.”
I must admit I was a little taken aback by Billy’s attitude to the whole situation. Having learned that his assumptions were incorrect, he became curious and inquisitive. He levered the body back up on its side so he could get another look at the entry wounds, set the body back down, and attempted to lift and separate the leg of his jeans to get a look at the damage done to the rear thigh.
I looked away. My initial viewing of the mass crater in the man’s back had been a shock to my system; I felt the same sensation in my stomach that you undergo when you suddenly feel the bottom drop out from under you (similar to a roller coaster ride). Subsequent looks just made me feel sick. This was the first time I had examined anyone up close after shooting them with the M4; the first time at Whiskey Pete’s had been in near total dark. I walked to the truck and leaned against the bed with my forearms draped over the top of the tailgate, breathing deeply. My attention was drawn back to Billy only a few moments later.
“Hey, shit, this one shot himself in the ass. He literally shot himself a new asshole, Jake.”
“You seem to be enjoying yourself, considering we just killed these men.”
He stopped probing around Larry and looked up at me. He then stood and walked over to me. His face was serious then, all joking gone.
“These dubious motherfuckers were set up to ambush us, Jake. They were going to kill you and me both for our trucks and whatever we had in them.”
I didn’t have any response for this, so he kept speaking.
“I can see your point of view; I’m not a total bastard. It’s just that I don’t really care. If you spend your time in this new world agonizing over everyone you have to kill when they force you to kill them, you’re just not going to last that long. For those people you meet that are worth preserving, you hold onto them and give all to keep them safe. And,” he turned and pointed at the dead, “for such as those, they’re worth less than your contempt. They’re not evil. They’re not big game or good sport. They’re an obstacle. They’re another challenge that the world throws at you; something you have to best. They aren’t worth any more consideration than that.”
He walked back over to Larry while I stood there trying to absorb what he had just told me. He picked up the pistol (another semi-automatic) and read the side. “Taurus,” he scoffed. “Fuuuuuck you,” he said and left it on the ground.
It turned out that Billy had a plan for the taper punch and drip pans. In modern cars, all entry points into the gas tank have anti-rollover valves to prevent fuel from pouring out everywhere in the event of a vehicle roll. These valves also have the unfortunate side effect of blocking siphon hoses. You can get around this by using a really thin, stiff tube cut at an angle; you have to twist it into the tank just so, and you can typically get past the valve.
Billy had neither the tube nor the patience for that, so he fell back to plan B; a method he said he read about in a book. Basically, we were going to get gas through the cunning means of punching holes in gas tanks and catching the spill in drip pans. We had a couple of pans, so as one filled up, we could swap in the empty and let it fill up while pouring the first pan into one of the gas cans.
Neither of us were excited about hanging around the area in which we had just engaged in a firefight, so we drove south towards the 215 and then swung out due East in search of cars with gas tanks we could access easily. We didn’t have to go very far to find likely vehicles, but we pushed out a few miles anyway just to put some distance between ourselves and Pep Boys. The closer we got to the 215 and the 15, the worse the pile up became and we eventually had to call off the advance. We got out of the trucks with tools and equipment in hand and made our way over to a red Toyota.
I handed my rifle over to Billy. “Here, take that. Keep an eye out.”
“You sure?” he asked as he reached out to take it. “It sucks to get a face full of gas if you’re not careful.”
I smiled and gave him a pointed look. “You see yourself getting under a Toyota any time soon, big guy?”
“Yeah, okay. I’ll keep an eye out.”
I could hardly fit under the car myself. I could see the tank, and I could even reach out and touch it, but I simply could not get far enough under to drive a hole with the punch. “Well… shucks,” I muttered and got back up.
“Okay,” Billy said. “Next one, then.”
“Nope.” I was walking back to the truck.
“Hey, where’re you going?”
“If we limit this to only the cars we can easily crawl under, we’ll be out here all week,” I called back as I rummaged around in the back of the crew cab. I finally found the jack and lever and brought it back over to the Toyota. After I had the car up on three wheels, I swung around to lie on my back.
“God damn it, we should have grabbed some jack stands. This isn’t safe, Jake.”
I looked over at the jack and struck it with the meat of my hand; two solid shots. “Seems okay. We’re probably not going to be written up by osha.”
“Wiseass…”
“Oh, yeah!” I said, sliding under. “There’s all kinds of room under here now!” I lined up the pan beneath the tank, set the punch directly over it, and gave it a whack with the mallet. The punch dimpled the tank and partially broke through, at which point fuel started dribbling out and ran all over my hands. “Gaaah, damn it,” I grunted and gave it another quick hit. Having punched through fully, I yanked it out, producing a dribble of a stream that pulsed at regular intervals.
“Huh,” I said.
“What’s up?” Billy asked from somewhere off to the right by my legs.
“Well, I could have sworn there was more in this tank from the sound it made when I started tapping it, but the gas is just dribbling out.”
“Oh, right. I’m an idiot. Hang on…”
I heard the sound of his boots rattling away as he ran back to the truck. A short time later, he ran back. I heard a metallic slam followed by a wrenching squeal. A few seconds later, the fuel stream started running fast and even into the pan.
“What did you do?” I asked.
“There was no way for air to get into the tank to replace the fuel coming out. We were fighting suction. I just busted open the gas cap and stuck a crowbar in there to wedge the valve open to let the air in. How’s it going?”