Ozzie Zane woke up slowly. His bed was comfortable, and he wasn’t excited to leave it. He rolled over onto his side and slipped his hands around his wife’s waist before giving her a gentle kiss on her cheek. She breathed in deeply and giggled, whining playfully, “That tickles!”
Ozzie had a bushy red beard that he proceeded to rub against her long, slender neck. She started laughing. “Really?” she muttered, reaching back to slap his thigh through the warm covers.
“I don’t want to get up,” Ozzie said.
“Then don’t,” she replied. Clara Zane was thirty-eight years old with brown hair all the way down to her shoulders. Ozzie proceeded to push her hair out of the way and placed his forehead against her shoulder. He took in a deep breath and enjoyed the scent of her hair.
“I think that counts as an abuse of power,” Ozzie told her.
“And I think you need a vacation,” Clara replied.
Ozzie laughed out loud and slowly rolled onto his back. He sat up, careful not to pull the covers away from Clara. He slipped out of the bed and stretched, touching his fingertips against the low ceiling. At forty-three, Ozzie was in excellent shape, but he hadn’t been kind to his body over the years, as exemplified by the mixture of old scars and new bruises that covered his long, lean frame. He cracked his neck and pulled his shirt for the day from the little rack in the corner that served as his closet. Then he threw on his only pair of jeans and his wide-brimmed hat. He buckled up his gunbelt and slipped his laser pistol into the holster. Then he pinned the small tin star to his shirt.
“You’ll be home for lunch?” Clara asked, rolling over onto her back and dropping the covers to expose her large breasts barely covered by her overnight tank top.
Ozzie stared at her for a moment nodding vaguely then said, “Definitely.”
Clara smiled brightly. “I’ll make something nice then.”
Ozzie bent over and kissed her lips then made his way outside.
The sun was coming up over the mountains, but the town was already busy. Farmers had been in the fields for a while already, but now the merchants and artisans were making their way to their shops. Ozzie walked to the tall tower in the middle of the town. “Morning, Verla” he called out.
A squat, sturdy woman poked her head over the ledge and looked down the ladder at him. “Morning, Sheriff.”
“Quiet night?” Ozzie asked.
“Yes, sir,” she replied. “Got some visitors at the inn, but they’re behaving.”
“That’s the way we like it,” Ozzie replied. “Hang in there; shift is almost over. You have a good day, okay.”
Verla replied, “Thank you, Sheriff. You too.”
Ozzie continued down the street to the sheriff’s office. He unlocked the building with one of the many keys on his key ring. It was dark inside, but Ozzie knew his way around. He opened the blinds to let the little bit of early morning light in, then he walked across the street to the power plant. He unlocked the door with another key on his ring and entered the small building. He picked up a flashlight from the shelf beside the door. He took the next five minutes to inspect the machinery, check the fuel, and make sure no animals or people were hiding in the nooks and crannies. Then he pulled the lever to turn the power on. The machinery began to hum and click, and the lights came on overhead. Ozzie put the flashlight back on the shelf and locked up the building.
Ozzie returned to the sheriff’s office and turned the computer on at his desk. Then he poured some water from a jug into the coffee maker and turned it on. A little time passed and the sun came up slowly. Ozzie stood at the window drinking his coffee and looking at the wasteland outside of town. Clumps of green grass poked out of the ground at random intervals and a large grove in the distance added some color to the bleak scene, but for the most part the ground was rocky and gray and the distant mountains a blue haze, reminders of the Blight. Exposure to the Blight had become rare, but every inch of the world around them bore the scars of it, whether it was physical desolation or the result of the immense population loss around the world.
The door opened and an older man with a star pinned to his shirt walked in. He looked rugged with his scruffy, gray sideburns and unkempt hair, but he was stooped over and moved slowly. His name was Vernon, and he was the only deputy sheriff in the little settlement. He gave Ozzie a nod and sat down at the desk with a pained grunt.
“Coffee is fresh,” Ozzie told him, placing his half full mug on the desk. “I’m going to hit the checklist.”
“I heard we have visitors at the inn,” Vernon told him.
Ozzie crossed his arms over his big chest. “I heard. You meet them?”
“Two men,” Vernon answered. “Look like they came out of the wasteland. No Blight issues. In fact they look awfully healthy.”
“Outlaws?” Ozzie asked.
Vernon shrugged. “Just saying they aren’t sick or injured or starving but supposedly don’t have a camp or settlement nearby. Maybe they’re just that lucky.”
“Maybe,” Ozzie said without conviction.
He left Vernon to take care of the office. The sun was up by the time he reached the inn, the only two-story structure in town. Inside he found a handful of locals in the dining room. A young woman with short blonde hair flitted from table to table keeping the customers happy, particularly the men who all made sure to keep an eye on her long after she moved to the next table.
She said, “Good morning, sheriff.” Then she gave him a bright, charming smile.
“Good morning, Eliza,” he replied. “I hear we have guests.”
“Yes, sir,” she said. “They ordered breakfast in their room. Do you want me to tell them to go see you?”
Ozzie shook his head. “No, it’s fine. You feel good about them?”
Eliza shrugged. Ozzie thought he heard an actual gasp from some of the patrons as the gesture stretched her lightweight shirt over her chest. “Eh, indifferent. They’re clean and polite, especially to be wandering in from the wastes. Maybe a little arrogant. They seem harmless enough.”
“That’s good,” Ozzie said with a thoughtful nod. “Let me know if they stay another night though.”
“Yes, sir,” Eliza said. “You want anything?”
“Whatever is for breakfast, sure,” he replied, then he took a seat at one of the tables.
He studied the crowd and ate his meal, enjoying the peace. He didn’t realize he hadn’t seen Eliza for a while until he tried to take another sip of his coffee and found his mug empty. He glanced around the room for her. Because she was already on his mind, he immediately understood what was happening when he heard a scream upstairs.
Ozzie was on his feet before the other patrons looked up. He was climbing the stairs two at a time before they erupted into questions and confusion. He hit the second floor at full speed, only then realizing he didn’t know which room she was in. He would have to check them all. Except then she screamed again. He didn’t like how abruptly the sound cut off.
He closed in on the room and didn’t even test to see if it was unlocked. Instead he kicked the door in. Ozzie was a big man, and the locks were a courtesy to keep honest people out. The frame splintered and the door crumpled.
Inside the room, the world seemed to stand still. Ozzie saw two men he had never seen before. One was dressed only in a linen shirt and standing in the middle of the room. Ozzie actually saw the man’s surprise turn to shock as his gaze drifted from Ozzie’s face to his badge, then to fear as his eyes moved from Ozzie’s badge to his gun.
The second man was completely naked and lying on the floor on top of Eliza. She had been stripped from the waist down, and her shirt was stretched to hang loosely off her shoulder. She had been gagged, but it had slipped free and only partially covered her face now. Her face was flushed, and she looked dazed.
The man on the floor was reacting more slowly than the man on his feet. Ozzie drew his laser pistol. The man in front of him closed the gap and grabbed Ozzie’s wrist before he could get a shot off. Then he punched Ozzie in the face. Ozzie rolled with it and grabbed a handful of the man’s hair with his free hand, dragging him to the floor.
They landed hard and the man lost his grip. Ozzie ignored him for the moment and turned his attention to the naked man, who had risen to his feet and taken hold of a knife he’d stashed somewhere. Ozzie didn’t hesitate to shoot the naked man center mass. The bolt burned deep through him, and the naked man screamed in pain. Ozzie shot him four more times until he fell backward on one of the two beds. The other man was scrambling to his feet. Ozzie turned the gun on him, but he was diving through the demolished door by the time Ozzie pulled the trigger.
Ozzie stumbled to his feet. He stepped into the hall and took aim, but the pantless man had disappeared down the stairs. Ozzie holstered his laser and rushed to Eliza. He touched the red mark on her face gently and tilted her head slightly to look into her eyes. He didn’t think at a glance that she concussed, but she was staring into space dully with silent tears streaming down her face.
“It’s over,” Ozzie said gently. “I’ve got you, okay? We’re going to see a doctor.”
She sniffed a little and turned away from him without a word. He grabbed a blanket from the bed not occupied by a warm corpse and carefully wrapped it around her lower body. Then he picked her up and made his way downstairs. People were coming to investigate, but no one said a word as Ozzie passed with Eliza in his arms. He got her outside where he found Vernon coming to meet him.
Vernon grumbled, “Scamp got away. Tore out of here half naked and screaming for his life. What did he do?” But then he saw Eliza and froze in the middle of the unpaved street.
Ozzie asked, “Did he hurt anyone on the way out?”
“No,” Vernon told him. “Stole a truck though.”
That was disappointing. Ozzie had been hoping to catch up with him. He said, “I want to get Eliza checked out by a doctor. Would you run her over to New Haven?”
“Of course, Sheriff,” Vernon said immediately. “I’ll get the car.”
He shuffled back toward the office and Ozzie called out across the street, “Clara!”
The door to their small shack opened immediately. She had been aware something was going on, but she had stayed out of the way just like he would want her to. She stepped into the morning sun and came to him. She had changed into some jeans and a plaid shirt, probably intending to do a little outdoor work. “What’s going on?” she asked. “Is that Eliza?”
Ozzie said, “I need you to help Vernon take her to New Haven. He’ll drive if you keep an eye on her. I’ll send Verla to help carry her.”
“Of course, Sheriff,” Verla said, appearing behind him as if summoned by her name. She held his wide-brimmed hat out to him. “Found your hat upstairs.”
Clara took the hat for him and placed it on his head. Verla then stepped up with a small knife and proceeded to cut the gag from around Liza’s neck. “Lucky she managed to scream,” she said, smoothing the girl’s blonde hair affectionately. The red blotch on Eliza’s face was already turning into an ugly bruise.
“We’ll all be up tonight,” Ozzie said. “We won’t need you in the tower. Thank you for helping.”
“Let me take her,” Verla said. “You’re bleeding.”
Ozzie glanced down at his arm. He didn’t bother to wipe away the meager trickle of blood after Verla took Eliza from him. Clara stepped up and slipped her arms around him. “Are you getting me out of the way?” she asked.
“Yeah,” Ozzie answered plainly. “I suspect I have a lot of killing to do. I don’t want you watching, and I can’t do it if I’m worried about you.”
“I love you,” she said, squeezing him close.
“I love you,” he replied.
The hatchback with its makeshift police light on top crawled up beside them. Ozzie opened the back door. Clara crawled inside then Verla gently set Eliza’s feet on the ground, holding the blanket around her as she climbed into the car. Then Verla shut the door and sat in the front beside Vernon.
“I’ll get in touch when it’s safe,” Ozzie said through the open window. “Take care of them, Vernon.”
“You know I will,” he replied before hitting the gas and speeding across the bridge over the defensive moat and out of town.
Ozzie turned back toward the inn and found almost everyone who lived in the little settlement looking at him. Even some of the farm hands had wandered back into town to check on the commotion. “One of the two rapists got away,” he said, addressing the entire crowd. “If they are a pair of wandering miscreants, we will do what we can to track him down. But if they have a gang, and I suspect they do, we’re going to have trouble. If you’re evacuating, you better get moving. If you’re fighting, grab your weapons and meet me at the watchtower in one hour.”
***
A dozen men stayed. They had worked out their plan assuming the outlaws would come from the north just as the duo had. The backup plans for the other direction weren’t complicated. Mostly they involved shooting first and not missing.
Ozzie was taking his turn in the watchtower. The sun had long been down, and the power station was deactivated as usual. There was no light pollution as far as the eye could see. That made it easy for him to notice the campfires to the north. He grabbed the radio from its rack along the railing. “Tower to central,” he said.
“Central here,” a masculine voice said over the radio.
“Campfires to the north,” Ozzie warned. “Tell everyone to expect contact no later than dawn.”
“You got it, sheriff.”
Ozzie hung the radio on its rack and looked through the night vision binoculars toward the north. There wasn’t much to see. Ozzie sighed. He wondered if the men had been scouting their settlement. It had only taken hours for the escaped rapist to reach his people and get them camped within view of the settlement. He felt awful for Eliza, but he was glad for the rest of the settlers that they had gotten some kind of warning about what was going on. Even if the second man hadn’t gotten away, his friends would have come to investigate before long. Ozzie just hoped they were talkers. If they came in guns blazing, the settlement would lose people. They still might even if the plan worked.
Ozzie glanced behind him at the next watchman climbing through the hatch in the tower floor. “Doing alright?” The man asked.
“All good,” Ozzie replied. “I was just telling Jim there are fires to the north. They’re coming today. My guess would be as soon as they can see where they’re going.”
“I’ll be watching,” the man said, slinging a rifle off of his back and into his hands.
Ozzie descended the ladder back to the unpaved street. He looked around at the houses and shops, completely dark. The power was turned off just as it was every night, but the men had agreed to use as little light as possible before dawn. They didn’t need to give any roving bands a more precise location than their scout had already given them. Ozzie returned to the sheriff’s office and stretched out on a blanket in the corner. “Wake me up the second you even think something is going on,” he told Jim, the man managing the radio.
“Sure thing, Sheriff,” Jim replied. “Maybe nobody’s coming. They might have enough sense to cut their losses.”
Ozzie pulled his hat down over his eyes. “Maybe. I’m not counting on it.”
***
Ozzie didn’t need anyone to wake him up. He heard the quiet hum of the engines in the distance. He got up quickly and found Jim still manning the radio. A voice from outside was coming through the radio relaying the sight of what Ozzie was already hearing. “Get everyone ready,” Ozzie said. Jim grabbed the radio and did as he was told.
Ozzie took up a small electronic device from his desk. Normally it worked to pick up long distance communications, giving the settlement outside news and sometimes entertainment. Today it would serve as a detonator. He strolled outside into the blue pre-dawn light. The vehicles were visible in the near distance kicking up a cloud of dust behind them. Ozzie realized in that moment that their viable farmland in the midst of the Blight infested waste would be attractive for growing fuel, not just food. There would be no sincere parley, he decided. He doubted their visitors had any sincerity to offer anyway.
“That’s a lot of cars…” someone commented as Ozzie made his way to the roadblock at the edge of town. The moat had been there for years, but the men of the settlement had only blocked the bridge to the north after evacuating the women, children, and elderly the day before.
Ozzie climbed on top of the amorphous, ramshackle structure made of dirt, wood, and scrap metal. He watched the vehicles approach for a moment then turned to look down at a small group of men that had gathered behind him. Most of the remaining settlers had taken up predetermined positions out of sight. “Jim,” he said.
Jim came to him. “Yes, sheriff?”
Ozzie handed over the small, square device. “They might make the first move. I’ll need you to do the honors just in case. You up for it?”
“I’d love to,” Jim replied. “I got a good look at poor Liza yesterday.”
Ozzie nodded and said, “Good. If they attack me, or if you see me raise my hat in the air. Got it?”
“Got it,” Jim said. He returned to the group of men back at ground level and standing just short of the bridge. Ozzie remained on top of the heap blocking outsiders from the town bridge. The cars had arrived.
They all pulled to a stop short of the road block, five wide, several rows deep. A small man dressed in an old fashioned tuxedo clearly made before the depopulation of the world stepped into the slanted early morning sun. His hair was wild and his beard was unkempt. He looked Ozzie up and down slowly then said, “Who might you be?”
“Sheriff Ozzie Zane,” he answered, not shying away from the title.
The shaggy man in the tuxedo nodded, then he raised an old, battered conical device to his lips. It was an old-fashioned megaphone. “Greetings, denizens of this fine farming community,” he said. His voice was amplified enough to be heard on the other side of the little town. “I suspect you lay in wait in preparation for a skirmish. But on behalf of the X Nation, and Lord X, may he prosper beyond, I say it does not have to be this way. Only one among you is destined for harm, this Sheriff Zane, he who murdered a sovereign citizen of X Nation. Once we have delivered upon this violent brigand the necessary weight of justice, Lord X, may he prosper beyond, shall instill upon you a new law. A new protector. No one else shall come to harm.”
Ozzie reached up slowly and removed his hat to hold it against his chest. “And who will protect our women from you?” he asked calmly.
The shaggy man seemed confused. “Your women?” he asked. “You will have no women. As sovereign citizens carrying your weight in support of X Nation, you will not be burdened by such responsibilities. Lord X, may he prosper beyond, is in charge of all women among X Nation. But fear not. Those of you who please Lord X, may he prosper beyond, will have no end to delights of the flesh. Lord X, may he prosper beyond, is a generous lord, sharing all but the choicest of his conquest.”
Ozzie looked at the rows of rusted, dirty cars, all modified for combat with roll cages and armor plating. He shook his head sadly, sighed, then raised his hat into the air. Jim didn’t hesitate to press the button. They had spread the explosives in a good pattern. All five cars on the front row were absorbed in a massive fireball. The heat was unbearable and the sound was deafening. The shaggy man didn’t even have time to react before he was consumed by the explosion. Ozzie turned away from the scene and jumped from the roadblock to the bridge below. Gunfire rang out all around. Ballistic rounds and bolts of energy converged toward the fireball from hidden places behind and inside the town buildings. Ozzie ran to the barricade where Jim and his vanguard were waiting. They could hear screams of pain and rage as the men not caught in the initial explosion were taken out by gunfire.
“They’re surging!” someone shouted from a rooftop nearby.
“We’re up!” Ozzie shouted, drawing his laser pistol and resting his hands on top of the barricade for stability. Men wearing makeshift clothing and scraps of metal and leather to serve as armor began tumbling over the improvised wall. Engines roared on the other side as survivors began looking for another way in. Ozzie opened fire on a man at the top of the roadblock, sending him flying down the other side. Jim and the other men began shooting from behind their barricade.
Gunfire further away started up as men on the other side of the settlement began defending the only other bridge. They had only closed the gate across that bridge. It would be no trouble for men to cross and minimal trouble for them to open the gate for their vehicles. The men of the settlement though had a vantage point from the watchtower and the roofs where they could defend both bridges equally.
The radio on Jim’s belt crackled and someone said, “They’re crossing the moat to the east!”
Ozzie slapped the man closest to him on the shoulder and said, “Come with me.” Then he turned to Jim and said, “Hold his bridge.”
Ozzie rushed to the east past a few buildings. Gunshots bounced off the dirt beneath him and the buildings behind them, but quickly died out as the settlers turned their weapons on the exposed shooters. Ozzie could see the moat in front of him, so he slowed cautiously, holding his laser pistol at the ready with both hands. The man watching his back opened up with his rifle. Ozzie looked to his right and saw a man struggling to pull himself over the ledge of the moat. He squeezed off several shots and along with his backup sent the man tumbling back into the trench.
Now that he had some idea where they were trying to cross, he inched his way closer to the moat and kept his attention to the south where the man had fallen. Several men were ankle deep in the mud. They had been trying to boost each other up over the side but now they were scattering in confusion. A ten foot aisle only allowed so much scattering though. Ozzie opened fire alongside the man who had accompanied him, dropping half a dozen armored and armed outlaws before they could react.
“They’re retreating!” someone shouted from a rooftop nearby.
“Keep fighting!” Ozzie shouted. “Finish it now!”
He ran to the south where the vehicles had tried to enter the town after the roadblock had thwarted them, but long before he got to the other side of town he could see a handful of their attackers were getting away. He holstered his pistol and watched them disappear in a cloud of dust in the distance. “X Nation,” he muttered.
Men began to gather around him. “Who did we lose?” Ozzie asked.
Jim limped up to a position beside him, also watching the cloud of dust settling in the distance. “Most of us are shot up,” he said wearily, “but somehow I don’t think anyone was killed. You ever hear of this X Nation?”
Ozzie shook his head. “I’m getting a feeling this Lord X wasn’t with them, was he?”
“They all look the same so far,” Jim said. “Nothing to tell us who’s who. We’ll have plenty of time to get to know them while we get rid of these bodies.”
Ozzie nodded. “We did what we could for today. This was good work.” He turned to address the ever growing crowd and reiterated, “This was good work! Stay vigilant. And let’s start cleaning this trash up so we can bring our families back home.”