The Countdown (Inside The Story) ...

-- This is an excerpt, from my book REZ's EDGE that will be out in under 2 weeks. A countdown for my countdown. I hope you enjoy the below appetizer. The feast happens next week. Cheers, -- Brad Jensen --

I pop the door and grab the sixteen-gauge. “Let's go kick some donkey!”

I lead my troop of six foot-soldiers crunching along the gravel road and over the hill. We can see the glow of lights in the middle of the trailer house again. I stoop down and run a bit further through the gravel and then I veer off through the ditch and cut across the grass field toward the mobile home. There's a pile of junk about fifty yards from the side of the trailer. We run up behind it and belly down in the baked weeds.

“Ouch.” “Shit.” “Flipping' goat heads.” “Son of a bitch.” “Dammit.” “Mother.” “Fricken' stickers.”

We jostle around the junk pile until we've found relatively pain free perches. Darrel is breathing heavily.

“Alright, every body get ready and on my command take two or three shots and then we run back to the rig. Okay?”

“Okay.” “Yeah.” “Got it.” “Let me get my breath.”

“Wait. What's the command.”

“Shit, I don't know, Shakey. I'll just say something: shoot, fire, whatever.”

“He's got a point, Dakota. You should decide what you're gonna say,” Josh tells me.

“How about a count down, like when they send the rockets up.”

“What? You want me to count down from a hundred, Darrel?”

“No. Ten, five, or three. I don't care. Just decide.”

“Alright already. Are we gonna do this or not?” asks Steve.

“I'm ready already. Just friggin' say 'fire' and be done with it.” spouts Joe.