Yes, they outnumbered us three to one, but we had surprise, superior positioning, and a little bit of experience on our side. These raiders, on the other hand, reacted like the ones we hit outside Fred, and tried to stand and return fire in those critical first seconds instead of hitting the ground and scrambling for cover. Apparently, I wasn’t the only one who was basing my fighting style on civilian competition standards. Or else, these men simply thought they were bullet-proof. Whatever the reason, it was still mostly a turkey shoot.
I say mostly, because despite our best efforts, two of the men with what we thought were AR-15 clones survived those first critical seconds and managed to return fire, and their weapons turned out to be fully automatic.
Mike, Sally and I were using stock ARs with Red Dot sights, while Pat was not. Instead, he carried a heavy barreled AR modified for fully automatic and with one of our Beta-C one hundred round magazines. As I told Nikki repeatedly, we weren’t to the full-scale anarchy in the streets stage yet, what she called Mad Max, but every day we drew a little closer, and that prompted us to bring out more of our less-than-legal force multipliers.
From my left, I heard a shooter get off a short burst but I never saw him or where his bullets went before Mike took him down. I unknowingly shot the other automatic rifle wielder as my first target, center punching him twice in the chest, before moving on to hit the man next to him with a shot to the upper chest and a flier that non-the-less took out a chunk from his throat. As I shifted to my third target, focusing on one of the raiders armed with a bolt-action rifle, I happened to glance over to see the first man I’d shot was staggering but failed to go down. As I double-tapped my third target and saw him falling, I registered the first man still trying to bring his rifle to shoulder.
He worked hard at getting the rifle to bear, and I had a bad feeling as I frantically raced to swing the barrel of my AR back to the target. Rushing the shot, I walked my rounds up his side and by the time my bullet smashed into the side of his head, the dead man still managed to empty half of a magazine into the area chosen as our line. I heard a yelp of pain to my right, but I had to focus back on the fight in front of me. Then Pat opened up again with his improvised squad automatic weapon, burning through the second Beta-C magazine and firing short, quick bursts into each of the men still moving.
I continued to shoot into the targets in front of me, emptying one thirty round magazine, dumping it, and slamming home a fresh one. I popped the ping-pong paddle, and never lowered my weapon as I swept the field in search of fresh targets. I saw a target down near Mike’s position, mouth open in a scream and clutching at a bloody wound on the front of his thigh. As if he could read my mind, Mike barked, “Prisoner! Don’t shoot him. Bryan, check on Sally.”
Shit. I recalled hearing the cry of pain just a few seconds ago, but it hadn’t registered at first. Ignoring the Red Dot, I canted the AR slightly sideways and pumped three more rounds into the dead man’s already perforated head, nearly decapitating the corpse in the process. It didn’t help Sally, but it did make me feel better as I eased back off the sodden tree limbs that had been supporting my weight and safed my rifle before crawling over to where I could see Sally rolling around in pain. Either her radio had taken a bullet or she’d turned it off after being shot, but she wasn’t transmitting any more.
“Sally,” I said sharply, catching her attention, and I realized she wasn’t panicking. Just having trouble applying a bandage to the wound in her upper chest with only one usable hand. Her left arm hung to her side, limp but thankfully, I could tell she was able to still move her fingers.
I had little to no practical experience in treating wounds, but I’d taken some basic first aid courses about a hundred years ago, and Pat had been hammering a refresher through my head. First, I stopped to assess the injury. Despite the amount of blood present, I was relieved to see no spurting bleeders at the entry site, located high up on the left side of the chest. Gushing blood would have indicated a severed artery. That would have been bad, and I doubted even Pat would be able to do much in time to prevent her bleeding out.
“Broken collarbone,” she grunted through gritted teeth, still struggling with the edge of the adhesive. Dropping my rifle on its sling, I knelt and plucked the bloody bandage from her hand, then ripped the top of her blouse a bit more before slapping the wide bandage over the entry hole. I wasn’t gentle about it, and Sally let out a pained squeal, but I needed to make sure the bandage sealed. Sally gave me a baleful glare, but I tried to ignore it as I snaked my arm around behind her back.
“That’s…that’s not how you unfasten my bra strap,” Sally growled out between huffing breaths, and I could help but chuckle at her sense of humor at the worst of times.
“No, I’m checking for the exit wound,” I replied drily. “Can you sit up a bit?”
Without waiting for her answer, I slid my arm further, cradling her as I applied even pressure, which I know must have caused her more pain as I eased her into a sitting position. In comparison to the wound in front, about the size of a dime, this tear in her skin looked to be the size of a half dollar, and I could see significantly more blood here. No air bubbles, though, so at least the wound appeared to have missed the upper lobe of her lung.
I was reaching for my own bandages when Pat slid in on the other side of Sally, and I felt a sigh of relief at his presence.
“Keep pressure there, Bryan,” Pat instructed, quickly examining the progress as he gently eased Sally over on her side for easier access. He ran his gloved fingers over the ridge of the shoulder blade, then down to gently palpate the flesh above the wounded woman’s collarbone.
“Missed the scapula, but the clavicle is fractured,” Pat concluded out loud, and then he gestured for me to apply the adhesive to the bandage across her back.
“Sally, you got lucky with the placement of that bullet,” Pat explained, peering down carefully at his patient. “Mike’s calling up Wade, and they’ll get a buggy here for you shortly.”
“Yeah, I’m feeling mighty lucky about now,” Sally growled out, her voice hoarse.
“Well, you are, and when you get to feeling better, I’ll explain just how lucky,” Pat continued, ignoring her surly mood. She’d just been shot, so everybody was going to give her plenty of slack. “For now, let me give you something to take the edge off that pain, then we’ll get you fixed up.”
“Did we stop them?” Sally asked, her eyes clearing as she looked up to regard the two of us. Her teammates.
“Oh, yeah. Eleven down hard, and a prisoner to question. We did good. You did good.”
“Not bad for a washed-up waitress, huh?”
Pat shook his head at the self-deprecating comment. “You took a bullet and stayed in the fight. Shit, woman, as tough as you are, if you’d have stayed in the Air Force, you would’ve made Chief Master Sergeant before you retired.”
Sally forced a grin as Pat leaned close to deliver an injection.
“Couldn’t. Got pregnant with Billy. Wouldn’t have been right, dragging him all over the world.”
“Well, you did good, troop. Now, relax and let that shot take effect. Moving you out of here without jostling you isn’t going to be easy, but we’ll do the best we can.”
Pat sat with Sally, holding her good hand in his until whatever it was in the syringe took hold, and Sally went nighty-night. He then placed her hand across her chest and began stripping off her gear as best he could without disturbing her drugged slumber. I reached out to help, but Pat stopped me with a wave.
“I got this, and I’ll stay with her until Wade gets here with the buggy. Damned shame that bullet hit where it did. Just another three or four inches and she would’ve been covered by her Kelvar.”
“Think it would have stopped the round? And why did you tell her she was lucky, then?”
“Maybe that armor would have stopped it,” Pat shrugged then gave me a steady gaze. “Shit, Bryan, you always tell ‘em they were lucky. Never hint otherwise. I thought I
already explained that.”
I shook my head.
“Nope, first time hearing, but it makes sense.”
“Good, I got another job for you, if you’ll do it.”
I could tell this part was making him feel a little uncomfortable, so I jumped right in volunteering.
“Sure, Pat, what you need?”
“I hate like heck to ask, but I saw what you did at the Sheriff’s house. That was some cold-blooded shit. You sure your head is still on straight?”
Ah, I saw the light of understanding dawn over our conversation with that question.
“You want me to question the prisoner? Before the Sheriff gets here. The new one, I mean.” I replied, ignoring the full implications of the question.
I had tortured the old Sheriff, for values of torture, and never lost a night’s sleep over it. Doing it again didn’t seem to present any issues for me. The prisoner would be facing execution anyway under martial law for what he’d done, and we needed the information.
Pat’s eyes caught mine, and I saw the implacable look in those normally mild brown orbs.
“You do what you need to do. Find out what he knows. Who else they’ve hit and if there’s anybody else left in their group. You know what we need. And Sheriff Bastrop sends his regards, but he won’t be here until the morning. Wade already got word. There’s trouble all over the county, it seems.”
Sounds about right, I thought. Except the trouble was all over not just our county, but our whole country. Probably the world. I thought about the changing weather patterns, the earthquakes and the long-dormant volcanoes going off. Oh, and a so-far limited nuclear war between Russia and the tattered remnants of China. Yep, definitely the world.
“Got it.”
“What about our prisoner?”
I wanted to say, “What prisoner?” but Pat deserved better. “Depends on what he has to say. He won’t be raiding our neighbors, or shooting at our people. Not ever again.”
For some reason, the growing dusk seemed to grow a little darker, a bit cooler, as I spoke. Pat gave a little shiver, at least, and I forced my body into action as I stood and stalked over to where the cuffed and gagged prisoner lay. Mike had used a strip of torn cloth to patch up his leg wound, but the work was sloppy and the man still dripped a steady stream of blood.
I sighed for effect, looking down and glaring at the man at my feet before saying the words.
“How much do you want to live?”
CHAPTER FIVE
The prisoner proved very willing to share all of his secrets, and the only thing I had to do was hold out a tablet of Oxycodone to seal the deal. Of course, I did this after spending a few minutes standing on the poorly bandaged bullet hole in the man’s left thigh before asking my questions. He squealed into his gag like a pig stuck under a gate, but the noise didn’t travel far in the darkening woods.
I set the tone of our conversation by transporting the prisoner by the expediency of gripping his shirt collar and dragging him fifty steps away from where he’d fallen. I ignored his muffled protests and complaints, then placed my boot over the blood-sodden strip of cloth and let him feel my weight until he passed out.
When he came to, he found me standing a few feet away, slowly divesting myself of the knives I carried. I’d already removed the pistols, both the Springfield on my hip and the Sig from the chest rig, and I’d laid them out on a convenient tree stump that served as a rough table. I’d been doing some research reading, and keeping any weapons close at hand where a prisoner might grab them seemed a poor plan. I also situated my cellphone at the edge of the stump nearest us, making sure the microphone at the base was pointed our way as I started the ‘record’ function.
“Why did you try to hit our compound?”
“What are you talking about? We were just looking for a place to spend…”
This time, I just kicked the man’s leg, and after his scream subsided, I asked the question again. No emotion in my voice, and my tone flat and dead.
“We…we heard there was a vacant place over here, a big house where we could move in. That’s all we were trying to do, honest!”
Something about the wounded man’s tone convinced me he might be telling the truth. Well, that sucked for them, but you didn’t approach a stranger’s house with guns in hand these days without running the risk of getting dead real quick.
“What’s your name?”
The question seemed to catch the would-be raider off guard.
“Kyle,” he finally said, his eyes as big as saucers as he regarded me cautiously now that I wasn’t standing on top of his bleeding leg.
“Well, Kyle, tell me about your crew. Where were you coming from, that you need to change locations?”
Kyle didn’t warm up to the subject, hemming and hawing about security for his people, so I changed my tactics a bit. I asked him questions where I could already guess the answers, getting him accustomed to answering my questions without having to think too hard.
He confirmed they had more than those who were lying dead in this clearing, anyway. He also told me that two of the trucks parked back at the logging road belonged to members of the gang, while the third one had been ‘salvaged’ from another group. I was getting the feeling we would find those former owners dead in a ditch somewhere.
After this admission, I changed my approach again, sensing that my swift changes of topic were making it hard for Kyle to keep mentally shifting his gears. Either he wasn’t that sharp to begin with, or the blood loss was having an effect.
“Is your boss one of the guys laying over there?”
Kyle hesitated, then nodded slightly.
“What was his name? If he’s dead, won’t hurt anything giving me his name,” I said, trying to make my voice reasonable.
“Bobby. Bobby Stinson.”
I nodded slightly before continuing.
“How long you think you’ve got?”
“What, what are you talking about?”
I looked down significantly, where his leg was now completely drenched in blood from hip to ankle.
“I’ve seen a lot of men bleed to death,” I lied, “and pretty soon you’re going to go into shock. You need a doctor, and I don’t see any standing around waiting to rush you into the operating room.”
“But that other one, the big one, was going to go get a buggy for the wounded,” Kyle whined, his eyes burning into me.
“Oh, that’s for our wounded,” I replied, honestly this time, before lying again. “One of our people got a bit of ricochet into her arm. No big deal, but we take care of our own. Like I said, you need a doctor. I didn’t say you were going to get one.”
“But…”
“I’m just going to sit here and watch you bleed out. Maybe hurt you some more. That’ll make it go quicker for you, anyway.”
I said it with such utter conviction that Kyle’s already wavering resistance began to crumble before my eyes.
“But, you can’t do that! It ain’t right!”
Kyle wasn’t taking this well, and I decided to up the ante.
“Kyle, you’re living the outlaw life,” I said disdainfully, “and you gotta expect to reap what you sow. Did you get a doctor for the people you hurt, the ones you raided before you came here? As for right and wrong, well, your little troop of Boy Scouts just walked into a buzz saw. What makes you think we are a bunch of weak-willed citizens? You think we’re like the rest of them out there?”
“Shit, you’re another gang, got here first, didn’t you?” Kyle’s sudden realization caused his bladder to fail, and the acrid stink on piss suddenly assaulted my nostrils.
“Where’d your crew work out of before, Kyle? I saw you had a couple of rifles equipped with giggle switches. You buy them from us, or take them off somebody else?”
I was taking a bit of a chance with my bluff, trying to play the role I’d created to get inside Kyle’s head. Admittedly, he didn’t strike me as a Mensa member, but something I said triggered a reaction
I wasn’t expecting.
“Oh. Shit. You guys, you part of that militia group out of Baytown, ain’t you? I heard you boys moved north before the storm.” Kyle sighed, like he was too tired to go any further, but eventually, he started talking again.
“Crap, I wish we knowed that before. Look, we worked for Leo. Leo Tanukis. He ran product out of massage parlors down in South Houston. We probably did do business together. That damned Eugene said this place was empty. He said Landshire had them popped before he got himself taken out.”
I laughed. I couldn’t help it. Man, things just go in circles and circles, I thought with dark humor.
“Kyle, who is Eugene?” I asked, more relaxed now. “Is he also out there in that field?”
“Yeah, Eugene Sherwood. He’s the one wearing the denim overalls. Looks like a hillbilly,” Kyle explained, the whine back in his voice again, like a four-year old who got his hand slapped for touching a hot stove. “Man, we didn’t know there was anybody here.”
I looked away, pretending to think. “Look, this was a bad misunderstanding. Our sentries reported a hostile force moving in at dusk, and well, our boss, he’s wound pretty tight. Did like six tours in the Army, killing people all over the world. So you know how he was going to react.” I paused, building the moment.
“I take it your crew was trying to lay low, relocate, right?”
“Right, that’s exactly it. We didn’t mean no disrespect,” Kyle whined again, clearly hoping this was turning into a negotiation rather than an interrogation. But I hadn’t been exaggerating, much, earlier. He was bleeding out, slowly, and already his flesh was taking on an unhealthy gray pallor one usually associated with death. Or maybe it was all that meth. In the failing light, he started looking more like a ghost by the minute.
“Alright, I can respect that. Here’s the deal. Padraig, that’s the bossman of our militia company, he believes in never leaving a threat alive. But…”I held up a finger, “if we bring you in, get you to our doctor and patch you up, you’ve got to prove out. You’ve got more people somewhere, and you’ve got a cook, too, don’t you? We’ve got resources, more than you could imagine, but we could use some talent, too.”
Tertiary Effects Series | Book 3 | Bite of Frost Page 5