Chosen One Protective Services

“You’re sure about it?” Cyrus asked, feeling his heart sink.

“Becky June was sure about it,” Beth said, folding her arms.

“Well shit,” Cyrus said, lowering the binoculars.

“Don’t swear in front of your sister,” Dad said, half-heartedly, as he snatched the binoculars from Cyrus and stared at the westernmost patch of sidewalk that wound its way around Hostetler Baptist church.

The sidewalk wasn’t the problem.

No, the problem was that it was right next to the very large, and well-lit windows of the church. And that through those windows, Cyrus knew that his Dad was seeing the same thing he was: the entire congregation turned out in a time of literal darkness.

Well, mostly-darkness. They’d brought enough lanterns to light up the entire church, and the block around it.

“Can you use your machine to look at it from here?” Catalina asked.

“No. It’s too far.”

“I thought this was an artillery sight? That’s barely three hundred meters.”

“It’s a prototype,” Cyrus said, whining a bit and hating himself for it. “Once I got better parts and funding, I was gonna figure out the range issue.”

“We’re going to need more batteries, anyway,” Dad said, panning the binoculars around. “Fortunately there’s no shortage of trucks out here. Won’t even have to pop them out. Just open the hoods and run the leads.”

“I think they’d notice us setting it up, though,” Beth piped up through the open window hatch, from her position in the bed of the truck. “Um, how close do we have to be?”

“About two hundred feet, give or take,” Cyrus said, staring blearily between the parking lot and the open patch. “Becky June didn’t say where EXACTLY she disappeared from, on this stretch?”

“No,” Beth frowned. “She just said that Janice went around the side of the church. Then she heard talking, and when she turned the corner, Janice was gone.”

“Why didn’t she go to the police?” Catalina asked.

“It’s dumb, but her momma had grounded her. She’d snuck out to play with Janice. She didn’t want a whippin’.”

“Guess she was more worried about that whippin’ then she was about Janice,” Cy said absently, grabbing the binoculars back from Dad and scanning around.

“Yeah, Becky’s kind of a bit… uh, bitter young lady,” Beth hastily amended, as Dad turned to look at her.

“Good save, kid,” was all the elder Colfax said, as he ruffled his daughter’s hair. She squeaked in protest and ducked back below the window hatch. “Anyway, we’ll need a distraction. I’ve got an idea but it’s a bad one. Any of you kids got something better?”

“I am not a child,” Catalina snapped. Then she sighed. “I don’t know. Maybe a fire? There are enough empty buildings around.”

Almost as if on cue, thunder rumbled through the sky. Cyrus grimaced, half-expected rain to come sluicing down, but nothing happened. Still, he couldn’t deny the pressure he felt in the air, the pressure that had been creeping up all night. “A fire might not be bad idea,” he said, grudgingly. “The fire department’s probably out south, tending to Bunktown. And there’s enough folks at the church, they could put it out pretty quick. And there’s rain coming; it’ll make sure it doesn’t spread so far.”

“We’re gonna go to jail if we do that!” Beth’s face turned pale.

“If you want out, we’re in town now,” Cyrus told her. “This is actually the safest place you could be, so long as you steered clear of the Bridgers. We could drop you off with some of your friends, pretty easily right now.”

Beth frowned, but her eyes flicked back and forth in the full moonlight. He could tell she was thinking it over. “No,” she said. “I want to find Rusty and Janice and Carmina. They need to come home.”

“Anyone got any better ideas than arson?” Cyrus asked.

“Probably the least of the bad ideas,” Dad said. “All right. I’ll go siphon some gas into the spare can. You two figure out which eyesore we’re going to light up.”

“What about me?” Beth asked.

“Guard the truck,” Cyrus said. “Come get us if there’s trouble. NO, don’t start,” he said, as she put her jaw up in the way Colfax women learned at a very young age. “The truck is important. Without that prototype, none of this works and everyone’s fucked.

She giggled at the swear. Steve Colfax sighed, shook his head and headed out into the night after collecting the gas can and the empty hose next to it.

Cyrus regretted his life choices the second he opened his door and slid out of the truck. His legs almost caved and sent him to the ground, but he grabbed on to the swinging door, and held on, until he could struggle upright. When did I get so heavy? He wondered absently, as he avoided a nasty fall.

Then Catalina was there, giving him her shoulder again, and by the time they reached the sidewalk, he was able to walk on his own.

“I’ve only been to town a time or two,” Catalina whispered to him, as he led the way past the small, boarded up houses on the outskirts, and toward the glass storefronts of what the residents called a downtown. “And it’s been a while,” she continued. “Things were getting ugly over the last few months, after the rain came. The people here, you could feel them getting angrier every time they saw us.”

“Some of it’s the missing kids, some of it’s the local pusher,” Cyrus whispered back, as he considered building after building, trying to remember what was still inhabited.

“ I don’t know where’s a good place to burn. I never even considered anything like this before,” Catalina said as she peered through the window of a dusty furniture store, with stacks and stacks of chairs next to a faded ‘going out of business,’ sign.

“I have a few ideas,” Cyrus said, feeling in his pocket for his lighter. He hadn’t smoked since the war, but he always carried one. You never knew when a little flame would come in handy. “The trick is starting something that’s messy enough to be noticeable, in a spot that would be bad if they let it sit for too long, but not bad enough to hurt anyone, or spread before it rains.”

“How long until it rains?” Catalina asked, as lightning flashed against the moonlit clouds, and thunder pealed again.

“It’s Texas. It’ll come at the worst possible time for the most people,” Cyrus said.

And after six or seven minutes, Cyrus figured he’d found a pretty good spot.

Derby’s malt shop had lasted a good while into the drought, before the refrigeration got too expensive. It was a pretty snazzy little ice cream parlor, that had finally had to close its doors last year, to the general sorrow of everyone who lived nearby. Cyrus had spent many visits during his childhood sucking down cherry ices and soft-serve twist cones here, playing under the branches of the old tree in the little walled off courtyard to the side of it.

Now that old tree was going to be a necessary sacrifice.

Structurally it was perfect. The courtyard would contain the fire and focus the smoke upward, make it look worse than it was. Morally it was pretty good. Cyrus knew that old man Derby had retired out to California last year, and the place was still insured up until he found a buyer. And safety-wise, the risk was pretty low. There was a stone wall with an alley behind it around two sides of the tree, open courtyard to the street for the third side, and the malt shop to the west. The malt shop might get a little scorched, but it’d take a while to catch, and a while longer to spread. As long as the townsfolk didn’t sit around with their thumbs up their asses, it’d be fine.

Cyrus gauged his distance to the church, knocked on the doors to either side of the malt shop, just to make sure he wouldn’t smoke anyone out. Nobody answered. One was across an alley, the other was an empty shoe store that hadn’t been open for five years. “We’re good,” he whispered to Catalina. “Come on, let’s get back.”

Miracle of miracles, Beth had stayed put. More miracle of miracles, Dad had been useful, with a full gas can and an explanation of how he’d popped four hoods on four relatively close trucks.

Though as Cyrus took the binoculars and surveyed the trucks his father pointed out, he had to allot that it was possible he’d just never seen this side of his Dad before. That, or maybe…

He’d known a lot of guys in the army who were absolute fuck-ups when they were bored and had nothing much to do, and completely the sort of people you wanted at your back when shit got real. There were plenty of folks he could point to who were great in a crisis, and bad at everything else. Was Dad one of these? He’d pulled off the tomato gambit, too, and… well, not exactly SAVED the farm, but given them enough of a profit to keep going a few more years.

“All right,” Dad said. “So where are we burning?”

“Derby’s.”

“Mm. Well I’m glad I won’t have to look him in the face after this all comes out. A lot of good memories of that place. He always laid in an extra scoop on your birthday months, remember that?”

“I’d rather not. I feel guilty about this as is,” Cyrus heaved a sigh. “Feels selfish, but we gotta get Rusty back.” Or be able to say that we tried our damnedest, if it’s too late already. He chased that thought away, with one last look through the binoculars.

Peering through the church window, he saw Benjy Custer up on the pulpit, hands gesturing as he spoke to the congregation. Figures. Yeah, we got to get this distraction going. Or else they’ll make us some real strange fruit hanging from those trees out there.

“The prototype,” Catalina asked, making him startle in surprise and put the binoculars away. “Are we going to set up the prototype the same way as last time?”

“Yes,” he said. “Just with four power leads is all.”

“I’ll handle that with Beth.”

“Me?” she squeaked.

“Yes. Mister Colfax, will you set the fire? That way Cyrus can drive when things go badly.”

When things went badly. Not if. Cyrus smiled. Yeah, there was no way this wouldn’t get messy. But still…

“You might need me setting up the prototype. And I’ll have to look through it after things get going anyway—”

“No you won’t. It looks like an oil smear in the air, that’s what you said, yes? I should be able to see that just fine. And I can mark the map just as well as you can.”

“Yeah, so Beth stays with the car…” he cut himself off.

But not before Catalina stated the obvious. “And she is too small to reach the pedals and see through the window at the same time. No, it has to be either you or Mister Colfax driving, and Mister Colfax—”

“Steve,” Dad broke in.

“—Steve must set the fire, because he is less tired than any of us and has a better chance of escaping if someone sees him.”

Cyrus frowned. “There’s a process. To turning it on. There’s switches, and buttons, and…”

“Well, you’ve got until Steve gets the fire going to tell me.” Catalina rummaged in her purse, and pulled out a small notebook and a pencil. “Be concise, please.”

“Dad?” Cyrus asked. “Are you sure this is how it should go…”

He trailed off. The truck door was open and Dad was already hauling the gas can toward the Malt Shop.

“I guess this is how we’re doing it,” he muttered, feeling unsure of how to handle this situation. “All right. So after you turn the power switch on…”

Five minutes later, Beth pointed. “Look! He did it!”

Sure enough, a billowing plume of smoke was rising against the moonlight.

“Perfect,” Cy said, and put his binoculars up again, staring toward the church. He wanted to be ready to go the moment they noticed.

Minutes crawled by. They didn’t notice.

Cyrus looked back to the plume. It was sky high now, illuminated by flashes of lightning. He looked back through the binoculars. Father Blanton was embracing his parishioners one armed, holding out the collection plate with the other. Benjy Custer was following behind sweeping the coins they were collecting into a small bag.

A minute later, red light was visible over the rooftops of downtown. And the folks in the church were in the middle of a hymn, judging by the joyous noise they were hearing.

Cyrus almost banged his head on the roof and Catalina squeaked, when Dad knocked on the door. “So it’s not working,” Dad said.

“No plan survives first contact with the enemy,” Cyrus griped.

“That’s pretty snappy,” Dad said. “Who said that?”

“I honestly don’t remember. Now what do we do? Honestly, they’re oblivious enough I’m tempted to walk up and take a look while they’re busy telling each other how holy they are.”

“Bad idea. I think I’ll do what I thought of originally. Catalina, Beth, please get out of the truck and gather up the device bits. I’m going to go with my original plan.”

“Didn’t you say that was a horrible idea?” Cyrus asked.

“I did. But letting half the town burn down is worse. Anyway, when you hear the commotion, Cyrus, I’ll need you to drive around and pick me up on Main Street.”

“Why?”

“Because I’m going to go throw rocks through the police station window and call them names until they chase me.”

Cyrus blinked his eye. By the time it was open again, Dad was already racing off into the night.

*****

There was no time to argue. There was no time to do anything but roll with his father’s impulsive choices, which was more or less what Cyrus had been doing for a majority of his life so far, now that he thought about it. Catalina and Beth rushed out of the truck and got the map and the prototype parts out and away. They’d be waiting for the church crowd to get clear, so they could wire it up and get the shot. All they’d need would be a few minutes.

Cyrus started the truck well after they were gone, not wanting to draw attention from the church. His caution was wasted. They were doing hymns now, their voices audible even from his location.

He hesitated for a long moment…

…and gunshots echoed from the north. They were shooting at Dad! Surely that would draw their attention… no. No it didn’t. Not a bit.

The hymns didn’t break stride. Even at this distance, he could hear a few of the voices that had been whooping and hollering at the burning transformer station praising Jesus.

Fuck it.

This was a Texas style problem. And Cyrus had Texas style solutions.

Another gunshot from the north, and he hated to hear it but knew he had to get the idiots’ attention or it was all for nothing. Cyrus reached back behind himself and drew out the rifle. Then he put two bullets high up in the highest of the stained glass windows.

THAT stopped ‘em singing, and got’em outside, yelling. Cyrus dropped the rifle on the seat and took off, gunning the engine and circling wide around, listening to shots cracking out to the North, cursing himself for an idiot as he circled around two blocks, and into the billowing smoke of the now freely-burning fire. He held his breath, but oh, the flames were orange and high, surging up out of the courtyard like a fire in a metal barrel, and oh, this was going to go bad, and whoa, there was Dad, breaking out of the smoke and sweating, with a police car, lights wailing, chasing right after him.

Cyrus steered toward the car, judging his angle as best he could, flicking the lights on at the last minute. This was going to suck if it went wrong…

…it didn’t, and he breathed a sigh of relief as the driver panicked and jerked the wheel, and wrapped the police car around a lamppost.

Cyrus jammed on the brakes, and the old Chevy squealed as he spun it, sending clouds of smoke skewing to the sides like the devil’s own breath. He waved at his father, knowing better than to open his mouth, and Dad ran toward the car—

Gunshots rattled like firecrackers going off, fast and booming and deadly.

Cyrus’ eye widened.

Then the door was open and Dad was in the truck, and Cyrus stared in shock. First at the police cruiser, at the half-open door with deputy Amos Able slumped over it, his pistol falling from nerveless fingers as his blood pattered to the ground.

And next, at two figures striding out of the fog. At the man in the lead, who had big-ass revolvers in each hand, some kind of rounded pointy cap on his head and a scarf around his face. For a crazy second, he thought that the Shadow himself had stepped up out of a radio drama from old times, and come to save them.

Then he blinked. The second figure was Special Agent Rodney fucking Burrows.

“Mister Colfax!” the figure in the lead bellowed. “I’m the agent in charge of this operation—” the rest was lost to coughing, as the figure doubled over at the edge of the smoke, and coughed so hard his hat fell off.

“We need to go!” Steve Colfax shouted.

Cyrus nodded at his Dad, cranked the window down, and shouted out at the two agents. “Great! Keep the town off our backs! We need to go deal with… the uh, the communist scientists! Just keep anyone from killing us, okay? Back in no time!”

Cyrus put his foot on the gas before they could respond. By now he could see the church crowd coming through the alleys, pointing at the fire and yelling. That would buy him some time. He could circle around and pick up Catalina and Beth in the chaos.

Overhead, thunder pealed, and lightning flashed. The storm was almost here.

*****

George staggered out of the smoke and got his breath back, just as the taillights of the truck receded into the night. He stared after them, mouth agape, and infuriated beyond belief. This is my ticket to the big leagues, and this civilian is trying to cut me out of my glory?

“You shot him!” Rodney was useless, as usual, pawing at the corpse to try and geat a heartbeat from a dead man. “He’s dead!” The agent stared in horror at the ventilated corpse of the police officer who had so obstinately refused to cooperate with them in any way, and had been foolish enough to try to run down one of George’s star witnesses.

“Yes Yellow Hat,” George said, reloading his revolvers and glancing back through the smoke. “That happens when I shoot at people enough times.” He’d had a devil of a time hitting him though, he owed Cyrus Colfax for getting that guy crashed. Once he wasn’t moving, he was an easy target. “Hey, there’s another police car left at the station, isn’t there? I saw one more set of keys on the board.”

“What? Uh, I guess so, but…” Rodney looked over, his face a mask of sorrow. “It’s too late for this—”

“Great! Stay here and take charge of the firefighting effort. Rally the people, and follow me when ready! I’ll use the car’s radio to tell you where I end up. Bring every able-bodied shootist, we’ll need numbers to stop the commies!”

“I… what? You’re insane!”

George was already running back into the smoke, back to the police station. He couldn’t waste time, not if he was going to follow the Colfax men to the core of the communist plot! “Just use your gun if you have to assert authority!” he bellowed, as he tucked the scarf back around his mouth. “This is Texas! They only really respect bullets, here!”

*****

“I don’t have my gun with me! THIS ENTIRE NIGHT WOULD NOT HAVE HAPPENED IF I HAD MY GUN WITH ME…” Rodney bellowed. “WE WOULD NOT HAVE MURDERED A DEPUTY AND A SHERIFF IF I HAD MY GUN WITH ME! I WOULD HAVE SHOT YOU DEAD THE SECOND YOU BEAT THAT PASTOR WITH THE CLAW HAMMER…”

Behind him, someone gasped.

Rodney turned around, hands slick and red with blood, and stared at the dozen or so people who definitely hadn’t been there a moment ago. Men and women, some holding pistols, a few with rifles, and one larger fellow with a shotgun aimed squarely at his face.

Rodney Burrows put his hands up and cried his eyes out. He figured it couldn’t make the situation any worse. He was right about that, at least.

He also figured that there was no way the situation COULD get worse.

Yeah, no, he was wrong about that.