Chapter 1
A dozen Chicom guards lay dead all over the grounds of the Roseburg Airport. Most of them were perforated with bullet holes, their faces slack, their eyes turned up to the overcast sky. The detention facility’s tyrant, the sadist several prisoners identified as Na Huang, was among the deceased, but he was different than the other guards, for his body was without its head. Even though the asphalt was slick with the blood of these invaders, Na Huang had experienced the most violent ending of them all, one perfectly befitting of his character. His head was found nearby, the face twisted, the hair filthy, the skin sufficiently soiled from being kicked around the airport runway by hundreds of prisoners leaving the liberated facility.
Glancing around the grisly scene, Longwei Zhou felt a dark satisfaction creep over him. He didn’t want to take delight over a massacre of this scale—because no one should have to lose their life like this—but seeing the war zone littered with dead men he considered his mortal enemies left him feeling elated nevertheless. The sensation passed as quickly as it had come. In its place, a darker, more upsetting emotion unfurled within him, a wicked, nagging feeling that left him with a pit in the bottom of his stomach.
Standing inside the airport grounds, smoke from the burn stacks wafting through the air and freed people leaving en masse, he couldn’t help but stare at the two bloody pikes. Felicity’s parents heads had been staked there. He felt a rise in his stomach, like nausea, or a bit of stomach acid turning to bile. He turned away, unable to look at them. Instead, he took in the other sights. The human waste, the vomit, the corpses—most of them guards, but a few of them dead prisoners. There was no exuberance in war. No satisfaction to be taken from so much death. This was indeed a victory, but in the larger scope of things, this battle was but a grain of sand on the mile-long beach that was the Chicom/SAA/American conflict.
“C’mon, let’s go check out the back of the building, see what we can find,” Quan Li said. He was talking to Longwei, but Longwei felt the disconnect between him and the scene around him. Quan snapped his fingers in his face, shaking him from the unexpected trance. “Hey, earth to Longwei.”
“Sorry,” he said, fighting to shake the emotions loose.
In the back of his mind, he couldn’t stop seeing that look on Felicity’s face. First it was the heart crushing revelation that her parents had been killed, but then it was the maniacal rage that consumed her, a rage that took her to places a young woman should never go in the pursuit of retaliation. Seeing the dark, twisted expression that consumed her when she beheaded Na Huang was a look that would forever haunt him. She was just twenty-two, still innocent before all this. But not anymore. A terrible sadness stretched out inside of him, one he didn’t understand, one he found to be profoundly upsetting.
Quan was still looking at him, brow furrowed and perplexed. “What?”
“I was just thinking of Felicity.”
“Whatever it is you’re feeling, use it but don’t get used by it,” Quan said, eyes on the burning Department of Transportation building. The building Felicity blew up. Quan waved the team over, several of them coming at a soldier’s trot. To all of them, Quan said, “We need to see what we can scrounge up before the entire place burns down.”
Longwei nodded absentmindedly, still floundering in his emotions. Once this was his team, but now Quan was calling the shots. Had he lost control of his people entirely? Part of him didn’t care. Whatever the case, the team headed into the back of the burning building, hoping to gather up some contraband before departing.
Lienna was suddenly at Longwei’s side. Like him, she was squinting against the smoke-filled air, and using the crook of her arm to cover her mouth and nose. Behind the building, where the fire had yet to reach, the air wasn’t as bad. Quan tried the locked metal door. It didn’t budge, so he pulled out his pistol and shot it. He tried again, but it still refused to open.
“Here, try this,” Longwei said. He handed Quan a shotgun he’d just picked up.
Quan racked a load, stood back, fired on the lock, then handed the shotgun back to Longwei and kicked in the door. Together they moved inside, guns ready, making sure there weren’t armed holdouts as they cleared the rooms thus far spared from the spreading fire. Inside, the air was slightly smoky, as well as hot and stuffy. They had but a few minutes. Longwei felt his lungs constricting, and he was overcome by a small bout of coughing, one that did little to clear the grit in his lungs.
“There’s got to be a weapons room somewhere around here,” Quan said.
Farther in back, Longwei heard Lienna call out.
“Found it!” she said.
Lienna was a thirty-year old woman Longwei recruited in the early days of the Resistance. She was fierce, loyal and smart. Plus she could fire a gun with a fair amount of proficiency and she wasn’t afraid of a fist fight. Longwei was first to find her. A rare smile crossed his face. They were in the weapons room that looked freshly stocked. Quan was next in. A smile touched his mouth as well. Longwei had never seen the man smile before. It made him uncomfortable. Without ceremony, he and Quan started pulling down handguns, rifles and shotguns. Others were quick to join, their delight apparent. Lienna and her male counterpart, Fai, gathered up stacks of ammo, handing them out to the others like candy in October.
“We’ve got sat phones,” Gang said. Gang was an older man, a former vet, and a hell of a good shot. He was smiling as well. Gang’s younger, bigger brother, Chang, found them. He stared at the cache of weapons and ammo and said, “Sweet Jesus, what did we do to deserve this?”
“Flushed a couple of turds down the cosmic toilet,” Fai joked with little enthusiasm. “Stop staring and give us a hand.”
Quan turned and looked at Longwei. Longwei was only now realizing he hadn’t moved.
“What’s wrong with you?” Quan asked.
“I don’t know,” Longwei said, still shaken. “I mean, this was no big deal, but…”
“What?”
“What Felicity did—”
“That again?” Quan asked, stopping what he was doing. Fai looked at him, but Chang was busy gathering up ammo with Lienna. Quan stepped forward, his head close to Longwei’s head, right in his personal space. Privately, he said, “You have to push that crap out of your mind, or at least compartmentalize it. You can fall apart when we win this war. But not a minute earlier.”
“Can we?” Longwei asked, not as quiet as Quan had been. “Can we win the war? Because these are but a few men. There are hundreds more Chicoms out there, maybe thousands.”
Now they all looked at him. He felt the weight of their curiosity, their concern, their judgement. Longwei had assembled this crew on the idea that they could win. That they would win. Yet there he stood after another victory, acting like the bottom fell out of his mood, his convictions, his very being. He wanted to talk about what he was feeling, but how would he describe it? Would they even understand? Whatever tortured emotions Felicity carried as a result of this war now infected him, like a cancer of the mind, her horrors clawing at his constitution.
“Of course we can win,” Quan hissed. “In this life or the next.”
“We either get rid of them while we’re alive, or we get rid of them by being dead,” Steve Daily said, the last to join them. This was Longwei’s white guy. The only American born patriot in the group. He’d just entered the building, not bothering to cover his face. “I found two more of those commie rats trying to scurry out the back door.”
“And?” Lienna asked.
“Two shots, two confirmed kills. Plus I picked up two more guns and three full mags.” Looking at Longwei, Steve said, “What’s your problem, sourpuss?”
“I don’t know,” he said truthfully. “Nothing.”
“Whatever it is, figure it out,” Steve said flippantly, “we’ve got a lot more killin’ to do before the day is done.”
“By the day,” Longwei said, “I’m assuming you mean your life.”
“Exactly,” Steve replied, eyes on the stockpile of weapons. “I want a shotgun and a Glock, if y’all have one.”
When they were loaded up, when the fire threatened and the smoke became too thick to deal with, they hauled the rest of the loot out of the building and divvied it up. A few of the Roseburg locals saw them and headed over. Quan didn’t seem to mind. They had more weapons than they could manage, so Longwei and Quan handed out a few of the guns and some ammo boxes to a few of the Roseburg survivors, men who looked like they knew their way around the weapons.
“What’s your name?” Longwei asked one of the locals, a guy who helped him sort out the ammo, matching the right caliber to the right weapons.
“Zeke Jeffers,” the man said.
Longwei shook his hand, graced him with a courteous smile. He was polite, but attentive, and he wasn’t greedy. But there was something in Zeke’s eyes that Longwei recognized. Fortitude, perhaps. Maybe even endurance. The thirty-something man had been worked over pretty good, had a little blood buildup in his right eye, and carried himself gingerly on his left leg. It looked like a new injury, not permanent, by the way he favored it.
“Are you okay?” Longwei asked, nodding at his leg.
“Yeah, just had one of those maggots kick the side of my knee a few days back. It’s on the mend, like everything else. How are you doing?”
“Good, I guess,” Longwei said.
“That girl who cut off Na Huang’s head,” Zeke asked, “she was with you?”
“She was,” Longwei said.
“I’m not sure if I should be scared of her, attracted to her, or in awe of her,” Zeke said, stuffing a few shotgun shells in his pockets while taking a box of ammo for the Chicom rifle he picked up.
“I’m none of those things,” Longwei said. Zeke looked at him funny. “All I feel is sadness for her. She came here with the intention of freeing her parents, not seeing their heads mounted on stakes.”
The blood seemed to rise in Zeke’s cheeks; he nodded, struggling to find the words. “Good point,” he finally said.
“If we need you,” Longwei asked the man, sternly holding his eye, “are you around?”
Zeke nodded, then said, “I’ll find something to write my address on, and if you ever need me, I’ll have a militia ready.”
“Yeah?” Longwei asked, encouraged.
“Yeah. Not pansies either. These’ll be guys who can handle their own. Guys who aren’t afraid to run into hell to keep this from happening again.”
“You waited too long,” Longwei said.
“Like frogs in a pot of water,” Zeke agreed. He ran his hand through a thinning head of whitish blonde hair. “It was all nice and warm until we realized the water was at full boil. By then, we were in cages.”
“This is what the communist Chinese do,” Longwei said. “They oppress you inch by inch until you’re trapped and unable to get free. Then all that’s left are drastic measures and servitude.”
“You guys definitely got the crap end of the stick,” Zeke said.
“So if my team comes back, and I’m sure we will,” Longwei said, “you said we can count on you and some guys to be ready for war?”
“I’ll make sure of it,” Zeke said, shaking Longwei’s hand once more. “I’ll get you my address and directions before I go. Better yet, why don’t you guys stop by for dinner. I’ve got half a cow ready for the grill and a root cellar stocked with potatoes and cheap beer.”
“I wouldn’t want to impose,” Longwei said, the idea sounding too good to be true.
“It’s no problem at all,” Zeke said. “I also have a few spare beds if you and some of your guys want to crash for the night. It’s the least I can do for what you guys did here.”
Longwei wasn’t one to accept the generosity of others, let alone that of complete strangers, but there was something about Zeke that put him at ease. And the idea of a steak and a beer grabbed him and wouldn’t let go. He was prepared to graciously decline the offer, but then he thought of going home and seeing Felicity’s face and decided otherwise. He politely accepted on behalf of him and the three other guys heading home with him.
“Are you sure you’re okay with that?” Longwei said.
“Hell yeah, I am,” Zeke said, animated. “Otherwise I’m just going to be there alone, and I don’t really want to be alone.”
Longwei turned and asked his guys about staying. All three of them nodded, their eyes widened by the idea of a celebration involving food and spirits.
In one of the Jeeps, after seeing Quan and most of his team off, Longwei, his three guys and Zeke headed up the hill into a nearby neighborhood that was once nice, but had since fallen into disrepair.
“This is really your place?” Barde asked Zeke as they pulled up to the very large home. Longwei’s best guy was wide-eyed and in awe.
“Confiscated it early on,” Zeke said, walking them inside. It smelled a little musty, with an underlying odor of herbs and old carpet. “The owners either left or this was some kind of vacation home. Either way, it was pretty much cleaned out when I got here. It’s mine now. That’s how it works, you know. You just see something you want, or need, and you take it. Kind of like how you just killed those guys to get us all out.”
Barde was the first man to join the Resistance with Longwei. Seeing how much Longwei hated President Hu and the Communist Party, Barde recruited both Jin and Ning, his closest friends, guys who fled Hong Kong for America in the early ‘20s. No one hated the Chicoms as badly as Jin and Ning, which was why joining the SoCal chapter of the Resistance was such an easy decision for them.
“So you live here alone?” Longwei asked.
“It was me, my wife and kid,” Zeke said, a little softer, solemn. “They killed Nancy, and my kid…I haven’t seen him since this started. I’m pretty sure he’s dead.”
“How old was he?” Jin asked.
“Twelve.”
“I was twelve when the Chicoms shot my mother,” Jin said. “Shotgun, right to the face.”
“How long ago was that?” Zeke asked, his face paled by the disclosure.
“Eight years ago,” Jin replied. “He could have shot her in the stomach, or the back, but he made her face him and then he shot her that way.”
Ning looked down. Jin didn’t talk about this often. Instead, he used the hate he felt as fuel. They all did. Longwei wondered if Zeke had enough animosity in him to join the Resistance one day. Lord knew they’d need as many men as they could get their hands on when they made their final stand.
“I’m going to start a fire in the pit out back,” Zeke said, breaking the uncomfortable silence. “C’mon guys, I’ll show you the root cellar. You can each grab a potato and a beer.”
* * *
The meat was great, the beer cool, but not stale, and the company fine. Night fell quickly, leaving them stuffed and lightly buzzed. Longwei was grateful for the alcohol. It took the edge off, which was exactly what he needed. He wouldn’t admit it to anyone, but the war was getting to him, as was all the killing. At first, he was anxious for vengeance, but lately it was starting to remind him of the oppression he fought so hard to escape from when he left Shanghai. He forced a smile, not expecting the clipped laugh that escaped him.
“What?” Zeke asked, surprised.
“I was thinking of how Felicity threw dynamite inside the Department of Transportation building like it was nothing. She didn’t even have to think about it.”
He fell silent, the backs of his eyes prickling. For a second, he was sure he was losing it. He was the first person to understand you don’t have emotions in war. Yet there they were. From the rickety lawn chair he was sitting on, he looked up into the night sky, hoped his eyes would dry out. He couldn’t lose it in front of his guys, let alone Zeke.
The moment quickly passed. He lowered his head, looked at his men: Barde, Jin and Ning. They were all proficient fighters, all seasoned Resistance, each of them willing and able to put their lives on the line for the chance to kill these commie rats.
“How many men do you think you can gather?” Longwei finally asked Zeke.
Zeke looked across the campfire at Longwei, considering his question. Longwei held his gaze until the man drained the rest of his beer, polished the rim of the bottle with his shirt, then sat up.
“Half a dozen maybe,” Zeke said, “but like I said, these will be hardened men, guys who aren’t afraid to kill in cold blood.”
“If they don’t have families,” Ning said, “that would be important.”
“They don’t,” Zeke said. “What are you guys thinking?”
“I don’t know,” Longwei said, scratching his head behind his ear. “Same thing I’m always thinking.”
“Which is?” Zeke pressed, stoking the fire and brushing off a mosquito.
“Body count,” Barde said, a bit tipsy. “The more we kill, the better we feel, so kill your commies with every meal.”
A few of the guys laughed, but Zeke’s eyes focused on Barde and his head started a very slow, very affirmative nod. “I like your thinking,” the Roseburg native said.
As the fire began to die out, no one had anything of consequence left to say. It was clear they were in dire need of some shut-eye. Longwei and the guys thanked Zeke for the meal, the company and the beds, and then they turned in for the night.
When Longwei finally fell asleep, he did so dreaming of Felicity. In his dreams, she wouldn’t stop screaming.
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