Castroville: Countdown to Armageddon: Book 7 by Darrell Maloney Page B

well get it over with.
     
         Robbie wasn’t sure where he’d heard it, exactly. From a movie somewhere, probably. Maybe an old western. He watched a lot of them when he was a boy, mostly to escape the realities of a miserable life. He’d longed to be like Roy Rogers, and ride into town and play the hero.
         Not necessarily because he felt a need to right wrongs and protect others. But because the hero always got the girl.
         He packed an extra AR in the long bag in case the first one jammed or became damaged. His leg pockets were stuffed with extra magazines. .556 rounds on the left side, 9 mm rounds on the right.
         The pouches on his tactical vest held more .556 mags. He expected to use the rifles much more than the hand guns.
         In the bottom of the bag were a pair of Bushnell binoculars, three boxes of ammunition in case he had a chance to reload his empty magazines, six hand grenades and four red smoke canisters.
         The grenades had come from a junkie who was trying to trade them for drugs.
         Robbie didn’t have any drugs. He didn’t need them. His mind was messed up enough as it was. But he claimed to know a guy who knew a guy who could get them.
         “How much do you want for them?” he asked.
         “An eight ball for the grenades,” the man said. “And another eight ball for the smoke.”
         “Can you come back in two hours?”
         “Sure. Don’t be late, man. I need the shit bad.”
         The man was twitching almost uncontrollably. Robbie probably could have taken him, but was nursing a twisted ankle he’d suffered when dropping into the giraffe enclosure the day before.
         And he happened to be unarmed that day when the two met, having just left the zoo long enough to steal a blanket from an abandoned house he knew well. The junkie was a mountain of a man or Robbie would have tried anyway.
         No, Robbie wouldn’t jump him. The man was a serious tweaker, in the midst of withdrawals. He’d be back, just as he said he would. And when he returned, Robbie would have a surprise for him.
         As the man had walked away that day, Robbie’s curiosity had gotten the best of him.
         “Hey,” Robbie called out.
         The man had turned around.
         “Yeah?”
         “Where’d you get them? The grenades and smoke canisters?”
         “The National Guard armory. The place was wide open and deserted. Shit all over the place, as much as I could carry.”
         Robbie knew that day that the tweaker would be back. And he’d probably be early. He wouldn’t want to wait a minute longer than necessary to get his fix.
         Robbie was armed up and back in less than an hour. The man came walking down the street just ten minutes later.
         Robbie watched him from behind the cover of an abandoned car. He wasn’t surprised to see a sense of joy in the junkie’s step. He was almost dancing. It was the walk of a kid on Christmas morning, of a dog with a bone. It was the dance of a strung out junkie, knowing that he’d soon have the dope his body hungered for.
         Or so he thought.
         Robbie had leveled his rifle that afternoon and taken aim wondering what the junkie’s last thoughts would be.
         It didn’t really matter much.
         He was just curious.
         As Robbie squeezed the trigger and the man’s head exploded, Robbie smiled. Killing had become something he rather enjoyed.
         He’d gone over to the body and picked up the backpack which lay beside it. He’d opened it up and rummaged through it, hoping to find other things he might be able to use besides the explosives. There wasn’t much. A couple of glass meth pipes, half a bottle of water and some hypodermic needles, all uncapped and probably used several times. A full pack of Marlboro Blacks and another pack with two cigarettes left. Half a bag of cotton balls and a couple of