Slightly out of breath, Hector began to give out orders. “Kyle gets the lead car. That looks like it’s probably Cyrus’s location. Robert, you get the next car after that. The rest of us will spread out along the remaining cars. There are nine cars total. If there are about ten people per car, then there’s close to ninety men in there. Make your bullets count.”
A man with a rifle and large scope stepped forward and said, “I’m ready.”
Hector grabbed the man’s shoulder and said, “He’s standing by the fire. If he’s been staring into the firelight, he’ll be fire blind and won’t see you. Take him out, and stay low to the ground. If they start coming out, shoot to kill and we’ll come running. If it stays quiet, cover me. I’m going to place the dynamite.”
The man disappeared into the darkness, moving toward the campfire. It was only a few minutes later that they heard a distant crack. The night guard’s body slumped over by the fire and the sleeper cars remained quiet.
“You’re up, Hector,” whispered Bull.
Hector slipped ahead to get the dynamite place, while the other men got into position. By the time all the men were about fifty yards away, Hector had the dynamite placed under the railcars. He ran back to them with the detonation cord in hand. He placed it on the ground and walked the line of men, having each one double check his weapon and placement of extra ammunition. He told each man to stay flat on the ground until ten seconds after the explosion, just in case of flying debris, then to stay spread out and low, to avoid crossing into someone’s line of fire.
Hector connected the detonator and whispered to himself, “Fire in the hole.”
The dynamite’s blast shook the railcars. Cyrus’s men stumbled down the steps, dazed and confused. They were unorganized and undisciplined, and most ran quickly into the line of fire and to their deaths. Within a few minutes, the shooting stopped. A few men held out. They were shouting obscenities and threatening to kill everyone outside. Hector stayed low and crawled to a broken window of a car that still had some of Cyrus’s men inside. Gripping a grenade, he pulled the pin and tossed the grenade into the car. The fragmentation grenade obliterated the remaining men. Bullets and shrapnel perforated all of the cars, except the lead. It was the car that they had expected Cyrus to be in, and Kyle was watching it intently, waiting for any movement, but he saw no one. Robert came over to Kyle’s position.
Robert tried to give Kyle his rifle. “Here, shoot it up if you don’t want to use your pistol.”
Kyle put his hand up, refusing the weapon. His eyes remained on the lead railcar.
“Something’s not right. I see a flickering candle burning inside. Nobody came out and nobody has moved inside. I’m going in.”
“I wouldn’t do that, Kyle,” said Robert.
“I need to see his face when I kill him.”
Kyle brought his pistol up to a ready position and braced it with his other hand, where he held the flashlight that Bull had given him. He moved slowly forward and stepped into the lead car. He held the pistol directly in front of him, and he pushed each compartment open with his foot, shining the small light into each empty room. In the last sleeping compartment, there was a large candle burning in the center of a small table. Someone had closed all the windows. No one had escaped. The car was empty. Cyrus was not there. Kyle took the candle, lit the bedding on fire, and walked out of the railcar. Within minutes, the car was ablaze. He jumped to the ground and saw the men he was with, standing in a semicircle watching his return. He felt like a defeated man.
“Empty?” asked Bull.
“Completely empty,” said Kyle solemnly, “but that’s where he was, I just know it.”
“He can’t bother anybody now. He’s a broken man, wherever he is,” said Hector.
“Not good enough,” answered Kyle.
Chapter Fifteen
Robert and Kyle left the rail yard. Bull, Hector, and the others decided to stay and patrol for any stragglers from Cyrus’s gang, as well as stack the remaining bodies to burn later. The two men walked directly back to Kyle’s apartment. Kyle was mute, lost in his thoughts. They were obsessive thoughts about Cyrus, his gang, and where he might be. Robert tried to stay alert for both of them, but fatigue began overcoming the adrenaline rush of the night’s events. They arrived at the apartment building at daybreak. The rain had stopped hours ago. There was a cool morning breeze and not a cloud in the sky. The eastern horizon began to glow with sunlight, waking the songbirds at the park across the street from Kyle’s apartment building.
The stench inside the lobby remained oppressive. Robert ripped the drapes from a large window in the building’s lobby. He placed the drapes beside the body in the stairwell. They rolled the corpse onto the fabric, and then pulled the dead body outside.
“We should bury this. It’s putrid,” said Kyle, looking toward the park.
“I’ve got to rest,” said Robert, as he sat on the concrete sidewalk. He then went flat on his back, and closed his eyes.
Kyle stepped back off the sidewalk and sat on the hood of a car with broken windows. “Hey, do you think what we did was right?” asked Kyle.
Robert opened his eyes and turned his head to look up at Kyle. “What do you mean? Not burying that body?”
Kyle was looking at the ground and slowly shaking his head. “No. What we just came back from. We helped kill a lot of people.”
Robert jumped to his feet. “What? Those weren’t girl scouts back there. You saw what that pack of wolves was capable of.”
“I’m just sick of all this shit.” Kyle looked up from the street, and then looked around, surveying the desolation. “What happened to everyone? They’re all animals. Disgusting animals.”
Robert took a step back and threw his hands in the air. “I’m sick of this shit, too.” He put his hands on his hips, tilted his head back, closed his eyes, and took a deep breath. He lowered his head again, looking directly at Kyle, and slowly exhaled. “There’s not a damn thing we can do about it. Let’s get your wife and get the hell out of here.”
This time the hallway was not so dark on Kyle’s floor. The morning light had begun to fill the sky and the hallway, too. Kyle knocked on this door.
“Alexis… Alexis, it’s me… open the door.”
Within seconds, Kyle heard his wife running toward the door. Alexis swung the door open wildly and stared at Kyle. The morning light illuminated a man quite different from the man that left her several months ago. She could see him clearly now. He was dirty, had longer hair and a beard. His beard camouflaged his thin smile. He was happy to see her, but his body was fighting back with hunger and fatigue. She stepped forward, hugged him, and wrapped her arms tightly around his body. He bent over far enough that his bearded face touched her cheek. He wrapped his arms around her and picked her up. She whispered into his ear, “Don’t leave me again.”
All three of them went into the apartment and locked the door behind them. Inside, Robert found the couch and Kyle sat on a chair with his wife on his lap.
“Kyle, I’m starving,” said Robert.
“Honey, we need to eat, and then we need to sleep. We have been awake for… uh,” said Kyle, pausing as he rubbed his bearded face and briefly tried to remember when the last time was that he had slept. “I don’t know how long.” He leaned his head back, thinking of food, and closed his eyes. “What do you have to eat?”
“I was awake all night, too.” Alexis playfully hit her husband on the shoulder, and then jumped up off her husband’s lap. “I’ll get some food ready.” She walked halfway to the kitchen, but abruptly turned around. “Oh, I forgot about the water. Can you go get the buckets from the roof?”