by Lopez, Rob
April remained torn. From the other side of the lodge, a battle continued to rage, and she knew her love was in the middle of it.
*
Packy heard vehicles coming up the south road. He hoped it might be reinforcements from Camp Grier, but he knew he’d already collected most of the people from there willing to fight. As soon as he saw the lead vehicle, an AMC Gremlin, he knew it was the enemy.
No one else would drive such an ugly car.
With his two compadres, he took aim. His recently acquired shotgun was loaded with solid slugs, and he hit the lead car through the grille. The slug round pounded through the radiator and cracked the cylinder head, bringing the vehicle to a jarring halt. The windshield shattered as rounds plowed through it, and there was a scramble as the doors popped open and the occupants leaped out, ducking and flinching.
The two vehicles behind the Gremlin skidded to a halt and disgorged their guys, and soon a spirited firefight put bullets into the Gremlin from both ends.
Packy banged out another slug, then ducked down as the return fire got heavier.
“Gentlemen,” he said to his companions, “discretion is the better part of valor.”
“What?” said one.
“Run,” said Packy.
With a final volley over the barricade, they fled through the trees. Packy turned to fire another shot to deter pursuers, then turned away from his companions to run into the compound. As far as he could see, the situation had gone beyond chaotic. Isolated firefights broke out as stragglers made last stands or fired from the forest on the east side. Organized resistance had collapsed, but the enemy were having their own problems taking advantage of that as groups got split up and did their own thing. Packy sprinted behind the line of cabins and saw April’s head peering over a trench.
“Hey,” he shouted, getting her attention. “Have you seen Dee?”
April turned to him. “No, everyone’s gone,” she said fretfully.
Packy halted and bent over, breathing hard to recover from his sudden sprint. “Not everyone. Should you still be here?”
“I’m not going until I see Scott.”
“He can run faster than you. Hell, he can probably run faster than me. You need to go now or you’re not going to be able to. The situation out there’s crazy.”
“I agree,” said Chuck. “We should go now, at least for the children.”
Packy glanced at the children whom, in all honesty, he’d never taken much notice of before. They appeared more frightened by the indecision of the adults than by the gunfire. “Yeah, you need to split,” he said.
April looked ready to stubbornly resist until Sally and Harvey arrived, with wounded in tow. “We need to go,” said Sally firmly.
“Have you seen Scott?” asked April.
“Yes, and he told me to tell you not to wait. You’re pregnant and we need to climb up a mountain. You need to begin now or we’re all in grave danger, because we’re not going to leave you.”
“Take that trail and keep moving,” said Packy, pointing. “Don’t stop.”
“What about you?” said Sally.
“Call me crazy, but I think I’m in love,” replied Packy. “I’ll catch you later.”
Taking a deep breath, he ran out across the compound and by the lake, attracting fire from all directions. He had a hunch and he placed all his bets on it as he raced to one of the houses at the north end of the compound.
It was where Dee lived. He’d gazed at the house so often recently, he knew every detail of its exterior. What he’d never dared do was go inside, or even knock at the door.
He didn’t bother knocking now. Barging straight in, he pelted up the passageway, glancing in each room as he passed, then up the stairs. On the second floor he smashed open every door until he reached the bathroom. Kicking it open, he found Dee sitting, fully dressed, on the toilet, tears trickling down her cheeks. In one hand she held Jacob. In the other she held a kitchen knife. The hand that held it was shaking.
“Whoa, it’s okay,” said Packy. “I’m here to get you out.” He paused for a moment. “Again.”
Dee was beside herself with grief. “I can’t take it anymore,” she sobbed. “There’s nowhere to go.”
Packy gently removed the knife from her grip. He wasn’t sure whether she’d planned to use it to defend herself, or damage herself. Either way, she was in a fragile state. “There’s always somewhere to go,” he crooned. “Take my hand and we’ll walk. Right on out.”
“It’s always going to be the same.”
“No. No, it isn’t. Come with me.”
“Leave me alone.”
“Girl, this heart won’t let me.”
Packy tenderly pulled her up and led her downstairs. The back of the house was close to the forest. The way looked clear. “We’re going to go in the woods now and take a real nice walk. Just ignore all the sounds. I’ll be taking care of you. Before you know it, we’ll be out of here.”
“I don’t want them to get me again,” wept Dee.
Packy wiped a tear from her cheek. He was tempted to kiss her, but the baby stared at him. “Not going to happen,” he said to both of them. “Let’s go.”
They made it to the trees and began climbing the slope.
*
Rick got to the end of his last magazine, swung the M4 behind him and pulled out his Glock. His little group had held the enemy for as long as possible, but he was now retreating past the base of the knob where the lodge was still smoking. Taking position behind a tree, he waited until Scott and Leroy moved back past him, then got ready to do the same as they covered him.
His delaying action had forced the enemy ahead to be more cautious, so disengaging wasn’t a problem, but the machine gun had been set up in a new position and was now firing random short bursts down into the compound. He also knew, from the shooting to the south earlier, that the southern barricade had likely fallen, because it was relatively quiet there now.
Beyond the lodge, the tree cover was sparser until they reached the cabins. He hoped everyone who could make it to the forest on the far side had done so, because there was really nothing to stop the enemy if they made a concerted push. The mortar had ceased fire, but there was shouting in the woods ahead as someone tried to rally them to do just that.
Rick made to pull back when he caught sight of the shouting figure up the slope at the second defense line.
It was Fick.
He was too far away for Rick to get him with the pistol, so he dashed back to Scott’s position instead.
“It’s Connors,” he told Scott breathlessly as he passed him. “He’s leading this.”
“Oh great,” groaned Scott, lifting his rifle. He fired two more shots at fleeting figures, then his weapon clacked empty.
“Who’s Connors?” said Leroy.
“Bad news,” said Scott.
The two ran back past Rick’s position, then they switched roles again. Bullets cracked at them from the south, so they veered left, heading toward the lake. They were now just a hundred yards from the forest behind the cabins. If they could make it there, they had a good chance of getting away.
*
Hurrying down the trail and coated in sweat, Red and Josh encountered Sally’s group ascending. One look at the defeated faces and the wounded was enough to understand that things hadn’t gone well. Josh dropped down to Lizzy’s side.
“Where’s Dad?” he panted.
“He’s down there,” said Lizzy in a small voice.
“And Mom?”
Lizzy started to cry. April touched Josh’s shoulder.
“Josh, you need to sit down.”
“Why? What’s happened?”
“It’s your mom, honey. She’s … I think she’s been taken.”
Josh gaped at her. All he’d done was go out on a hunting trip this morning, and in that time everything had gone to hell. He took off down the trail.
“Josh!”
Red tipped April a salute. “Don’t wor
ry ma’am, I’ll look after him.”
Moving on past, he stopped at Clement. He glanced once into his dead eyes and learned all he needed to know about his brother. Shaking his head at the tragedy, he loped after Josh.
Being a mountain man, he knew how to pace himself while still eating up the distance. He soon caught up with Josh, running raggedly down the slope. He grabbed the boy’s arm.
“You ain’t going to do no good rushing into nothing,” he said.
Josh practically wilted in his grip, but his face was a mask of pain and rage.
“I know what you’re feeling, kid. You stick with ol’ Red, and we’ll get more than some buck today. I guarantee it. Stay behind me, but keep up.”
Farther down the trail, they encountered two more stragglers.
“Hey! Ned. Ralph. Where you going?” called Red.
“We’re getting out of here,” said Ned.
“What kind of yellow talk is that? You hear that sound? That’s gunfire. That means there’s still someone down there who needs our help, so you turn around and follow me.”
“Red, they’ve got machine guns, artillery and everything.”
“Yeah, and I got this,” said Red, patting his hunting rifle. “I don’t need nothing more. Now let’s go see what we can find.”
Leaving the trail, Red moved obliquely down the mountain until he reached the rocky outcrop they’d used when they first assaulted Round Knob.
The picture was a little different now. The lodge was a shattered ruin, and barely visible figures moved furtively around the valley. A machine gun chattered briefly before falling silent for lack of targets. It looked indeed like the battle was over.
Josh hissed suddenly, pointing. “There’s Dad!”
Three figures could be seen clearly approaching the lake, getting ready to cross the gravel road that ran through the compound.
34
Connors stood on the remains of the shattered log bunker, high up on the road at the rim of the valley. From here, he had a commanding view of the compound through his binoculars. On the ground beside him lay Taft, with the fifty-caliber sniper rifle.
Connors concentrated his view on the woods by the lodge, seeing as that was where most of the firing had emanated from earlier. He’d glimpsed a couple of stragglers elsewhere, but as far as he was concerned, they were just hicks. Today, he was only interested in one target.
“There,” he said, catching sight of movement near the lake. “Can you ID them?”
Through his high powered scope, Taft zoomed in. There was some foliage in the way, so he only saw the flitting of shadows at first, but then he saw a man break cover and cross a road, taking up an overwatch position behind a tree.
“Well, I’ll be,” muttered Taft. “I do believe that’s Scott.”
“Scott? Damn, I’d forgotten about him. Can you get him?”
“Oh yeah. That tree won’t protect him.”
Dialing in the range, and calculating windage, Taft placed the crosshairs right on the tree trunk. Steadying the rifle in preparation for the massive recoil, he squeezed the trigger.
With a boom the fifty-caliber round traveled in an arc at over two thousand feet per second, hit the tree and bored its way through, stripping its copper coating as it did so. Slowed down by the impact, the bullet, still intact, had just enough energy left to strike Scott in the abdomen.
*
“Scott!”
Rick saw him go down, crumpling and rolling. Turning from his position, he rose up to sprint across, and a flurry of bullet strikes churned the ground up around him.
Fick led a squad directly to him, barely fifty yards away, and their gun flashes were like flickering lightning.
Rick threw himself down, turned and scrambled into the lake, dropping below the surface. Water spouts and zipping tunnels disfigured the ripples. Slithering in the shallows and raising dust clouds, Rick moved, surfacing farther along. Lifting his eyes above the bank, he witnessed Scott clutching his belly, his back arched and his face contorted with the pain. Leroy lay close to the road, alive but pinned down by fire. Rick emptied the water from the barrel of his Glock, steadied it and fired a series of rapid rounds at the enemy to get their attention.
He got it. Several bursts of automatic fire sent him under again.
*
Josh got a clear view of the men shooting at his father. Aiming his little .22, he began popping out rounds. Next to him, Ned and Ralph had their scoped AR-15s, and their contribution was a little heavier. The enemy squad was forced back to where the tree cover was thicker.
Red, meanwhile, had spotted something else. Far on the other side of the valley, up by the western barricade, he spied a figure standing clear against the skyline. Zooming his scope, he identified what appeared to be an officer peering through binoculars.
“Looks like I’ll be getting myself a buck after all,” he murmured.
It was a long shot – much farther than he was used to in deer hunting – but he had confidence in his rifle. Aiming the crosshairs above and slightly to the right of the figure to account for the breeze, he sucked in his breath and gripped the rifle tight. When the crosshairs stopped moving, he squeezed the trigger. The stock rammed deep into his shoulder, and he lost sight of the target as the scope wavered, but when he reacquired it, the figure was gone.
*
Taft aimed his rifle in the hope that Rick would emerge into view. He could see Scott clearly now, and knew he wasn’t dead. All Taft needed was for Rick to run over to help his friend, and Taft would have his second target.
With his eye glued to the scope, he heard the sharp 'zip’ of a round close by, and the sound of a log shifting in a pile. He looked up just in time to see Connors falling back and collapsing to the ground.
“Officer down,” yelled Taft, leaving his rifle and scrambling over the wood pile to get to Connors. “Medic!”
*
Rick became aware he was getting covering fire from somewhere as the shooting from Fick’s squad abruptly ceased. Taking advantage of this, Rick climbed out of the water and dashed to Scott.
Scott’s hand covered a mass of blood. Rick pulled the hand away and grimaced.
“It’s bad, isn’t it?” hissed Scott.
Rick pulled his first aid pack out and placed a compress over the wound. “You’ll be fine,” he said.
“It’s a gut shot,” said Scott.
Both men knew what that meant. A gut wound was a slow killer.
“Take care of my family,” said Scott, gritting his teeth as Rick pressed on the dressing and taped it in place.
“I’m getting you out of here,” Rick told him. He turned to Leroy. “We’re moving out. Let’s go!”
Scott gasped for breath as the pain wave hit him again. “Just go,” he uttered. “Tell April she was the best thing that ever happened to me.”
“Leroy!”
Fire resumed from Fick’s position and Rick took cover behind the tree, rapid firing his pistol.
“Come on! Move!”
Leroy got up and sprinted across the road. “Oh God,” he said when he saw Scott.
“Help me get him up,” shouted Rick.
Scott screamed out as they lifted him. With bullets whizzing about them, Rick and Leroy ran across the open ground. Firing from both sides filled the air with cracks, and their feet pounded hard as they strained every sinew to cover the distance. When they reached the cabins, they leaped over empty trenches and forced themselves on, Scott’s cries drowning out all sound of gunfire. Plunging into the trees, they tackled the slope and collapsed as the going got too hard for them.
“Again,” gasped Rick, blinking sweat out of his eyes.
Heaving Scott up, they made it a few more yards, then Josh appeared.
“Dad!”
“Help us,” stuttered Rick, trying to keep moving.
Josh took some of the weight and they made it farther up the trail. The fire slackened behind them, and moments later Red and the others joined them.
Taking a limb each, they carried Scott up the mountain while Josh and Leroy guarded their rear.
It was like a funeral procession. Scott was quiet now, his body limp, and Rick seethed with fury at how helpless he felt.
Everything had gone wrong and it was his fault.
When they reached Sally and the others, he watched through a haze as April went crazy, throwing herself on Scott as they lay him down. Daniel was wide eyed, unable to comprehend how this seemingly invincible father figure could look so vulnerable and lifeless. Lizzy wept openly and hugged Josh hard. Sally pushed April off to examine the wound. Scott still had a pulse, but when she pulled back the dressing, she shook her head.
“Save him, damn it, save him,” screamed April.
Sally shot Rick a grave look, and Rick could take it no more.
He turned and walked away.
35
Crows circled above Round Knob, attracted by some strange sense that assured them there would be pickings down below. From their vantage point, the valley was a mere hollow in a sea of snow-capped peaks that surged like foamy waves in a vast green sea. Only the rising column of smoke from the burning lodge marked it as a significant place.
Among the trees and in some wild, overgrown pastures, lay the dead: crumpled into limp postures if they died instantly, stretched out if they tried to crawl before they bled out, or curled up if consumed with pain before they expired. Unlike the crows up above, the flies soon found them and settled on the corpses without delay.
Disconsolate figures moved around the compound as the Asheville militia secured and took control of the valley. Some searched for lost friends, tearfully examining every body, but all the dead looked alike, regardless of which side they fought on. Others explored the cabins in pursuit of food. Dragged hastily to the front, many hadn’t eaten for hours, and stress induced a hunger that drove a need for gratification. Yet more searched to satiate a desire for material plunder, taking tools and items for use in trade, and some simply stayed in the shadows to avoid being given tasks by the platoon leaders trying in vain to restore a sense of order among the scattered militia.