Black Autumn: A Post Apocalyptic Saga

by Jeff Kirkham

  She looked down and noticed his face. More a boy than a man, he couldn’t have been older than eighteen. She had seen him raise his rifle, then he had paused. He could have easily shot her, but he hadn’t.

  His eyes were closed, his face in repose. She struggled to find the enemy in the boy before her. The sorrow of the day rose in her chest, and finally, a sob broke free. She croaked loudly and covered her mouth with her hand and began to weep deeply, uncontrollably.

  Through the tears, she thought she saw his chest rise slightly. Emily wiped her eyes and studied him, the med student taking over.

  Yes, he was still breathing. She grabbed his throat and felt for a pulse. His heart beat, surprisingly strong.

  Emily scrambled for her med kit at the back of her battle belt and tore open a package of hemostatic dressing, working furiously to staunch the bleeding. She ran through his injuries as she carefully applied dressings: shoulder, stomach and chest, carefully rolling him to check the exit wounds in back.

  The shoulder round had passed clear through, doing little damage. The chest shot might have missed his lungs, passing in and out of the left side at an angle. The stomach wound… it would be impossible to tell without surgery. Most people initially survived a shot to their gut, but few survived without a full surgical center. No matter. She would do everything she could.

  He had paused. She felt certain. He had paused.

  • • •

  This time, five hundred men came at Jeff all at once. They swarmed like bees in and out of the homes alongside Vista View Boulevard, keeping pace with the clattering armored construction vehicles.

  Jeff had no suicide bombers with gasoline this time. He couldn’t see a way out of this fight alive. His men could never beat the invaders fighting inside the homes. Maybe the odds had been carved back to seven to one after the morning’s killing, but he hadn’t trained his men for close quarters battle. They would inevitably be overrun, especially considering the armor.

  As the Latinos fought their way forward, the pace of fire picked up, reaching a constant roar.

  Just one thing left to do, Jeff thought. Fight to the death.

  He leaned out, lying on the asphalt alongside the barricade and began firing, picking targets as they exposed themselves.

  A thunderous boom shook the battlefield, followed by another. One of the front-end loaders turned hard to the left and rumbled across a lawn, crashing into the front of a home, the driver presumably shredded by Winslow and his fifty-caliber Barrett.

  The gangbanger army began throwing one Molotov cocktail after another into the homes occupied by Jeff’s men. While the flames forced his men to retreat, they also had the unforeseen effect of blocking the attackers. With several homes on each side of the road fully ablaze, the Latinos couldn’t use the homes for cover. They were forced to advance in the open, directly down the middle of the boulevard, back into a fatal funnel. The infernal heat of the burning homes narrowed their advance even further, forcing the gangbangers away from the front yards and the cover of the houses. The Latino advance ground to a halt as they pushed up the middle of the boulevard, with only one remaining front-end loader as cover.

  Jeff stretched out to make a shot on a red bandana-wearing gangbanger hiding behind an abandoned truck. An incoming round punched Jeff through the arm, sliding under his body armor and spalling into his stomach cavity. He gasped, steadied himself, and made the shot, nearly removing the gangbanger’s head.

  Jeff inched back behind the barricade as a flurry of fire erupted from a house on his left. Half a dozen Latino men ran up behind a corner with handguns and shotguns peppering his barricade with rounds. With the hole in his side, Jeff didn’t think he could get up and run. He would have to fight from the asphalt.

  Jeff hammered at the group with his big rifle, pulverizing the corner of the house where the enemy stacked. Two bodies slumped to the ground. Another round smashed into Jeff’s head, knocking him senseless and removing most of his ear.

  As Jeff faded steadily toward unconsciousness, he heard the sound he had been dreading: the roar of a belt-fed machine gun opening up from Vista View Boulevard.

  The gangbangers had finally figured out how to run the belt-fed, Jeff thought as he faded into unconsciousness.

  • • •

  Jason came to with a screeching headache. He had no idea how much time had passed. It felt like someone had switched off his internal computer—no dreams, no thoughts, and no sense of time.

  Little by little, his current disposition returned to him. He had been in a gunfight. He was still alive. His rifle lay in front of him on the ground. He had a scorcher of a headache.

  As reality came back, he heard shooting behind him and pulled himself together. When he sat up, his head roared in protest. He looked around and saw he was alone. Jesse lay dead and, as Jason stood, he could see Victor spread-eagled on the ground, his face smashed. The bodies of dozens of Polynesian warriors sprawled around the dry, grassy hillside.

  Jason and his two dead friends had levied a horrible price on the Pacific Islanders. But the Islanders had won, and he could hear the battle continuing at the edge of the condo neighborhood behind him. The rest of the QRF must have engaged the Polynesians after Jason’s team fell.

  Jason scooped up his AR-15 and looked into the breach. He saw two pieces of brass, stacked on top of each other in the classic, “type-three,” double-feed malfunction. Jason pawed at his battle belt and pulled out his Leatherman, whipping out the needle nose pliers. Within a minute, he had the weapon cleared. He removed the half-used mag, replaced it with a full one and looked around, taking stock of his situation.

  He had been left for dead by the Polynesian advance. He saw the giant who had smashed his head lying dead twenty yards past Jason’s foxhole; he had probably bled out from the bullets Jason had put into his eighteen-inch chest. Up against the houses, he saw a few Poly fighters duck into a backyard. Jason had been left behind them. In the parlance of tactics, he had their “back door.”

  Time for payback, motherfuckers, Jason fumed through the grinding pain of his concussion.

  He crouched and steadied. One careful shot at a time, he put a round through the heads of each of the three enemies in the backyard of the condo, missing slightly with one round and hitting the man in the throat. All three were dead before they could find the source of the rifle fire.

  The thought of his two dead friends rose with his fury, exacerbating by his migraine. Jason maneuvered laterally behind a row of condos, finding small groups of Tongan fighters and killing them without hesitation. Now that he had already “died” in battle, Jason fought like a machine, without fear and methodical to the point of soullessness.

  He lost track of his kills after fifteen men. Then he went to work on the inside of the condos. His hearing had been utterly compromised after shooting all but two of his mags, but he could tell which of the condos held enemy from the sound of their shooting, firing undoubtedly at the rest of his QRF.

  Jason paused his killing spree, becoming concerned that he had moved down range from his own QRF and the firestorm they were unleashing.

  He keyed his radio and spoke. “Alec. This is Jason. I’m down range. I want to start fucking these guys up inside the condos. Shift fire up. I’m going into the first condo on the far west. Do you copy?”

  “Holy fuck.” Alec radioed back. “You’re still alive? Okay. Hold where you are. We’re shifting fire.” Alec clicked off, presumably jumping on his team radio. Jason heard a pause in the incoming rifle fire as the QRF shifted their fire up and over the condo he was about to enter. The enemy would still be pinned inside.

  “Jason. This is Alec. Fire shifted over the condo on the far west. Proceed.”

  Jason quietly crossed the little backyard, going around a winter-dead garden and slipping through the open sliding glass door. He could hear several Tongans shooting and shouting from the front room of the house. Jason stepped carefully through a small kitchen and came up behind
four shirtless men, darting to and fro in the living room. All of their attention was focused on the bay window facing the street.

  Like a first-person shooter video game, Jason executed the four men, blowing the contents of their heads onto the glass of the window. As the last of the four fell, Jason stomped on the huge man’s back and emptied his mag into his head and shoulders.

  “House clear. Moving to the next target. Please advise.”

  Alec radioed back as Jason slung his AR-15, drew his Glock and checked the breech. “Target two condos over to the east of you. We’ll shift fire in thirty seconds.”

  “Copy that.”

  Jason went out the way he’d come in and crossed two backyards. He radioed again. “Alec. This is Jason. Moving on the condo.”

  He again slipped into the back of the house and murdered three more men at close range, this time with his handgun.

  After repeating the process in two more condos, Jason ran out of ammunition.

  “We’ll mop up the rest. Find cover and stand by,” Alec radioed.

  Jason crouched behind a small rock wall, ran through all his mags, consolidating remaining rounds into one final Glock magazine. Once complete, he stared down at his handgun and waited.

  A sob built up in his chest, a harvest of grief, terror, anger and horror at killing more men than he could count. His eyes swam with tears as he struggled to hold them back. An unstoppable moan choked his throat, and he heard a noise come out of his mouth unlike anything he had ever heard before.

  A giant, pregnant tear rolled down his cheek, and he mashed it into his face, confused and angry with his lack of self-control. He swiped his wet face again with the back of his shooting glove for good measure and ground his emotions out, reminding himself that the battle still raged.

  16

  [Collapse Plus Fifteen - Monday, Oct. 4th]

  Shortwave Radio 7150kHz 1:00am CST

  “…I HEARD FROM CAMP LAJEUNE again today. Some Jar Head Drinkin’ Bros checked in to say they’re hanging in there strong and sending out good vibrations to all the Drinkin’ Bros and their families. One of the Marines in LaJeune wanted me to reach out to his sister in Tallahassee. Barbie Martise. If you get the message, Barbie, your brother would like to know if you’re okay. Call me on 30 megahertz, VHF. Just a reminder to the boys cooped up in Camp LaJeune: ‘it’s not gay if you’re underway.’ Since you’re actually part of the Navy, I’m sure you already knew that…

  “Got a call from Drinkin’ Bro Zach outside of Salt Lake City, Utah. His group of survival types just repulsed a huge attack from looters — hundreds dead. Zach says the looters welded up bulldozers and used them as tanks. I guess that’s what passes for military high tech now, welded up bulldozers.

  “It’s official, folks: I’m running out of MREs. My trailer runneth dry. I still have plenty of booze, so I guess I can survive on that. If you’re in the Montrose area of Colorado, hit me up on 30 megahertz. I’m looking for a place to bring this party in for a landing. I could use a good, solid survival compound full of hot women. That’s my Christmas wish…”

  Ross Homestead

  Oakwood, Utah

  Jeff’s eyes opened. Alena and Doctor Hodges hovered over him.

  His eyes closed in a long blink.

  The doctor whined, “I’m not that kind of doctor. I do liposuction, for Christ’s sake. This kind of trauma is not fixable without a surgical center and a specialist. This man is going to die.”

  Alena yammered back at the doctor in that peeved voice of hers. Everything came through slow and foggy for Jeff, like watching TV from under a sheet.

  Jeff blinked again, longer this time. He cracked his eyes as he felt someone jostle him. Alena was messing awkwardly with his gun belt, working Jeff’s handgun out of his holster. She got it out, and pointed it straight down at Jeff’s chest, holding the gun like it was a wet cat.

  Jeff closed his eyes and time did a backflip. When he opened his eyes again, it was still Alena and the doctor standing over him.

  Jeff could see Alena at the fuzzy edge of his vision, pointing his Glock at the doctor’s head.

  “You’ve got a choice, Doctor. Either get your hands to work in this man’s gut, or the next surgeon who comes in is going to be cleaning your brains off the wall. What’s it going to be?”

  Jeff chuckled, then passed out.

  • • •

  Jason and Burke Ross drove Bishop Decker and President Beckstead down Vista View Boulevard in a pair of Homestead OHVs. The wealthy neighborhood above the third barricade resembled Beirut, a burned-out war zone.

  Homestead men were using Bobcat skid steers to remove bodies and haul the blackened, shot-up enemy armor away from the boulevard. Men dragged the machines to the bluff and pushed them off, tumbling ass over teakettle until they came to a skiwampus heap at the bottom. They looked like giant, dried-out insects flipped over on their backs.

  At last count, more than four-hundred-fifty of the Latino gang had died, most of them working men forced to fight. Almost all of the hundred Tongans had died in the battle. Another hundred wounded Latinos clung to life in a makeshift infirmary jammed between the homes below barricade one. With Jeff in a coma, the Homestead doctors did as they pleased.

  The Oakwood men dragged dead Latinos to a pit at the base of the bluff near the corpses of the burned-out front-end loaders.

  The battle had forever settled the debate over force of arms for the Homestead. Everyone now agreed; in this new world, God doled out survival in a fickle deal of the cards. Vigilance, combined with dumb luck, decided the daily breath of them all. Never again would the people of the Homestead feel entitled to the next sunrise.

  Every Homestead resident capable of carrying a weapon would now spend all day every day armed to Jeff’s standard. Gone were the days of only “gun people” carrying firearms. With hundreds of firearms littering the battlefield, every man, woman and reasonably-aged child would be armed.

  Rifle. Handgun. Six rifle magazines and three handgun magazines. All men on guard duty will wear Level Three armor, capable of stopping a rifle round and a PASGT Kevlar helmet.

  Jason and Burke had taken a moment earlier that morning to plan this excursion with the neighborhood’s Mormon leaders. Father and son drove the OHVs up to a row of bodies, every one of them in multi-cam uniform. Thirty-one Homestead fighters had died in the battle. Jason and Burke said nothing for a full minute as the bishop and stake president regarded the dead in silence.

  Jason spoke first. “Sometimes standing by the wayside, taking no action, does no harm. Other times, people die.”

  Bishop Decker turned his hands face up. “I would do things differently if I could. We just needed time to understand how things had changed.” Nobody from his ward had fought to defend their neighborhood. The bishop hadn’t even known about the battle until the sky filled with black smoke.

  President Beckstead spoke. “These men died to protect our families. This will never happen again without our help.” Bishop Decker nodded in agreement and shame.

  Jason and Burke had nothing else to say. The four men stood in silence for another five minutes, then climbed back in the OHV and returned to their homes.

  • • •

  “How’s it hanging, buddy?” Evan stood over Jeff’s bed in the infirmary. “You getting a little R&R?”

  Jeff’s eyes fluttered. He felt lucky to see the world again. “How was your vacation?”

  “We had a great time out at the Tooele Army Depot. Yep, they arrested us and put us in the stockade for a bit. I guess that’s what they do when you’re snooping around the ammo bunkers looking to steal from the Army. Then they let us out ’cause they ran out of chow. We literally ate our way out of jail.”

  Jeff laughed. “We missed you here yesterday.”

  “You didn’t miss us. Who do you think came galloping up those guys’ tailpipe with armored vehicles and belt-fed machine guns? Back door action, baby. Your favorite kind.”

  “Explain.
” Jeff wanted to know what had happened more than he wanted to joke.

  “When they let us out of jail, we raided the military museum. Dude, we found some old British armor—you know, those Ferrets from the first Desert War, and those puppies run on unleaded gas. So we stole a couple of them, stole a bunch of belt-feds from the museum, and then we went back and stole a shit-ton of ammo from the ammo bunkers. We were like the Dirty Dozen, bro.”

  “So the gangbangers didn’t get our belt-fed?”

  “They sure as hell were trying to get it running when we pulled up. But, you know, we started punching holes in folks and they started running every which way. Then we rolled up the road with our armor, racking, stacking and packing ’em like gangbanger cordwood. We saved your ass.”

  “I had everything under control,” Jeff smiled.

  “I noticed that. That’s probably why you were taking a little nappy-nap in the middle of the street when I came up, right?”

  Jeff laughed, sending lightning bolts of pain through his abdomen.

  Nurse Alena walked into the room and shooed Evan out. “No more testosterone comedy hour. Go… How’re you feeling this morning, Mr. Kirkham?” She turned to Jeff.

  “Like I got shot.”

  “That’s because you got shot. Three times. And you undoubtedly have some more surgeries in your future. It’s going to take some work to clean up the mess in your upper G.I. tract.”

  “How’s Leif doing?” Jeff could see his son, now sitting up on his gurney watching something on an iPad.

  “He’s bouncing back fast. You’re one lucky man.”

  Jeff looked at her, noticing something off in her tone. “How’s Robert?”

  Alena busied herself checking Jeff’s PICC line. “My husband… actually, he died in the battle.” She looked away, struggling.