by James Ryke
Rick nodded. “They’ve lost a good amount of soldiers as well—I’m sure of it. They can’t afford to do many more of those frontal assaults.”
“How do you know that?” Isaac said.
“The Executor is a lot more conservative with his soldiers than he was before.”
The building suddenly shook with a distant explosion.
Rick cued his radio. “What was that?”
“Something exploded a few hundred yards south of Costco,” replied a voice.
Rick turned to his brother. “Isaac, find out what that is. Here take these binoculars.”
The Pastor grabbed the large binoculars and left the hospital at a sprint. Another explosion shook the building and then another. Before Isaac had reached the stairs, three more explosions shook dust from the roof—each time, the explosions were louder. Isaac shouldered his rifle as he exited into the open air.
Before he had taken three steps, someone from behind him tackled him. “Get down!”
Isaac rolled to his side, slightly dazed.
It was Hector. He grabbed Isaac by the arm and pulled him against the East Wall. Just then, another explosion erupted fifty yards to their east, hitting the Costco parking lot and triggering several hidden land mines.
“What’s going on?” Isaac yelled.
“I don’t know, jefe,” Hector said. “But the explosions keep getting closer, and I can’t see where they’re coming from. It won’t be long before those things are hitting us directly. Do you think they’re bombing us?”
“No,” Isaac yelled over the explosions. “I don’t think that’s possible. Whatever it is, they didn’t want to use it until after the Drones had been taken out. It seems that they’re zeroing it in.”
“What is it then?”
“Something that our Drones could threaten.”
“It’s got to be mortars,” Hector yelled over the noise. “Nothing else makes sense. They’re just figuring out the correct distance. This is bad, Jefe.”
“Rick,” Isaac yelled at his radio. “I think they’re hitting us
with mortars. We don’t have any way to stop them.”
No response.
“I don’t think you transmitted, jefe,” Hector said. “At least, you didn’t come through on my radio. Maybe your radio doesn’t work.”
Isaac looked at his radio; it was bright yellow—much different from the service radio that he had been using all day. His eyes were blurry, almost as if he was looking underwater. He struggled to focus. Where did I get this radio? This is the radio that I was going to use to communicate with Chass. This isn’t the radio I’ve been using all day. He shook his head. He now grabbed the correct one and repeated what he had said.
Rick responded over the radio. “Where’re they set up?”
“Standby,” Isaac replied over the radio. He then turned his attention back to Hector. “Come on. We’ve got to see where it’s coming from.” Isaac started to move in a low-crouch run towards the South Wall. The explosions seemed to intensify. He arrived in moments, Hector only a step behind.
“You stay close to the wall. I’ll try to spot them,” Isaac yelled.
Hector grabbed the Pastor’s hand, “Where you going, jefe? If you walk out into the middle of the roof, you’ll be out in the open. God might be protecting you, but don’t make it hard for him.”
“We can’t peek over the wall—that’s a good way to get hit by sniper fire.”
“Well,” Hector said as he pointed a large thumb at himself, “I’m coming with you.”
“There’s no point that both of us risk our lives—”
“With two sets of ojos, we can see twice as much,” Hector said. “And you didn’t think I would let you steal all of the glory, did you? Come on, you lead the way.”
Isaac nodded. They slowly stood and scanned the area, their eyes leapfrogging from building to building. Despite not having binoculars, Hector was the first to spot them. He pointed at a building that was far to the southeast. “There. I see it—a flash or something. I think I see people.”
Isaac stared at where Hector was pointing. He lifted the binoculars to his eyes and focused in. There were about two dozen people crowded around four, knee-high pipes. The area was heavily fortified with machinegun operators and roving foot patrols.
“I see them. They’ve got four mortar launchers—”
The next explosion hit a few feet away from Hector. His body was thrown backwards in the air. Isaac felt a shock ripple through his body. He crawled over to his friend, his imagination already spinning with grotesque possibilities of injuries. “Are you all right?”
“I don’t know,” Hector replied as he patted down his body. “It knocked the wind out of me, but I don’t feel anything. How about you?”
Isaac scanned the man’s body, unconvinced that a mortar could hit so close and yet leave the man unscathed. “Hold still. Let me see.” He searched the man from head to toe and found nothing but minor wounds. “I don’t believe it. That should’ve taken your head off.”
“You’re the one bleeding, jefe,” Hector said.
“What?”
The man sat up, “Your ear is gone.”
Isaac felt a rush of blood dripping down the side of his head.
Hector grimaced, “Ay caray.”
“What?” Isaac asked.
“You’ve got one hell of a slash across your face, excuse my language.”
As if a switch had suddenly been turned on, Isaac felt a pulse of pain from the side of his head. The blood was now flowing freely from the wound and was dripping onto the roof, mixing with the scattered dirt and debris below.
“We need to get you to the hospital.”
“No,” Isaac replied. “I’ll be fine. We need to take cover.” He
led the way back to the wall, where they proned out across the roof. He then scrambled for his radio, his fingers slippery from his own blood.
Isaac cued his radio. “The mortars are at least a mile or two southeast on top of a building—may be even further than that. They’ve got it pretty well guarded. They’ve just sighted us in—we need to get everyone to the Keep; that seems like the safest place.”
A mortar hit the northeast part of the Costco, right above the front door. The projectile punched right through, exploding as it hit the floor. A moment later, there was an enormous crash.
“What was that?” Hector asked.
Isaac thought for a second. “The draw bridge.” He turned back to his radio. “Rick, they took out the drawbridge. We need to fall back to the Keep.”
“Negative,” Rick responded. “Everyone remain where you are. If you’re on the roof, use the sandbags to fortify your position; if you’re in the building, take as much cover as you can. We need to make sure that they don’t attack while the mortars are falling.”
“I hope you’re praying,” Hector yelled.
“We both better be,” Isaac replied. His words seemed abnormally loud, as if he was shouting at someone on the other side of a football field. He looked up tentatively. The explosions had stopped.
“That’s the fastest I’ve seen a prayer answered, jefe. You got a direct line with heaven or something? Why don’t you pray that they go away, and the power comes back on?”
The Pastor lifted his head and looked around—smoke was wafting up from the northeast side of Costco. “Hector, are you all right?”
“Yeah. You?”
“I’m fine.”
“Medic to Roof Echo Entrance—minor injury,” someone said over the radio.
“Medic report to Roof Whiskey 5—we’ve got some shrapnel stuck in a leg.”
Isaac feared the medical requests would go on for several moments, but he was wrong. Only two people were injured—three counting himself. Isaac busied himself as he went from person to person along the wall, checking everyone for any additional injures—just in case someone had been hurt so severely that they could not spe
ak, but most everyone was clean. A medic finally caught up to the Pastor and forced him to sit while his head wound was bandaged. Isaac was so focused on the people around him, he did not notice when Rick, who was favoring his good leg, approached.
“Isaac,” Rick said. “What happened?”
He turned around, the blood from his wound still wet and oozing. “I was hit with some shrapnel. It doesn’t hurt that bad.”
“Are you all right?” Rick asked.
“Well enough.”
“Why did they stop firing?”
Isaac had not considered this. His mind was so eager to accept the fact that they did stop firing that he did not even consider why. “Maybe they ran out of shells?”
“They had only been shelling us for a minute or so,” Rick replied. “I can’t imagine they ran out of shells that quickly. Looks like they had just sighted us in when they stopped.”
Isaac’s right hand subconsciously drifted up to the cut along his head. “The shelling felt like a lifetime. I’m just glad it ended before it really began.”
Rick considered this for a moment and then shook his head. “Why would they pull any punches, especially since there was nothing we could’ve done to defend ourselves? Let me see those binos.”
Isaac lifted the leather strap of the binoculars off his head, careful not to bump the deep cut along his ear, and handed them to Rick.
“Where were the mortars?” Rick asked.
Isaac pointed, and Rick raised the binoculars to his eyes. It took him a few moments to find the right building, but when he did, his brain had a hard time believing what his eyes were seeing. There were dead Red Sleeves scattered all over the distant roof. Blood stained the area. It was distant, but Rick could tell that there were several severed limbs and heads, all of them scattered chaotically across the rooftop.
Perhaps a misfire with the mortar? Rick thought as he pulled the binoculars from his eyes. No, that’s much more devastating than what a misfire could do. Maybe one mortar started a chain reaction with the others. No, that can’t be right either. That’s a large roof, and it looks like the mortar teams were pretty spread out; if there was a chain reaction with even a dozen mortars, there’s no way it’d blow them all up. Those bodies are too far intact to be from an explosion.
Isaac took the binoculars from his brother and looked through them. “What happened?”
“I don’t know, but I guess it doesn’t matter. The important thing is that we’re not getting shelled anymore, and hopefully whatever took them out, also eliminated the mortar launchers. In any case, I think this changes the game.”
Isaac tried to hand Rick the binoculars, but he didn’t take them. “What do you mean?”
“I don’t know how many men the Executor has lost, but I’m sure he’s getting desperate. Pride is the only thing keeping him fighting now. This next wave, I’m guessing, will be his last—and he’ll send everything he’s got against us. There’s only going to be one group that survives this: either us or them.”
“We’ll repel them.”
Rick shook his head. “We’re running low on almost everything, even ammunition. The clay pigeons are just about out, and the catapults have been destroyed. And I’m pretty sure that most of the mines and pipe bombs we planted have been triggered. There’s not much between them and us right now.”
“Rick,” said a voice over the radio, “we’ve got movement on the north side.”
“Are they advancing?” Rick asked.
“No, but it looks like they’re setting up for something.”
“Same traffic on the south side,” added another voice.
“And on the east side,” said a third.
Rick turned to his brother, “This is it. I want you to stay up here with the Roofers. When they breach the walls, barricade the stairwell so the Red Sleeves can’t charge up the stairs. But, and this is extremely important, I need you to stay on the roof, and keep a low profile. The last thing I want is people trying to shoot down at the Red Sleeves as they charge in.”
“Why not?” Isaac asked. “It’d be very effective if we did.”
“I know, and that’s why,” Rick said. “It doesn’t make sense right now, but it will. The other thing that I’m going to ask you to do is on the east side—and only on the east side—I want you to concentrate your fire on the sappers, not the work crews that are trying to remove the roadblocks.”
“If we don’t put any pressure on the work crews, they’ll bust right through the vehicle barriers within minutes. And then all that’s stopping them from getting in is the front gate.”
“You’re forgetting about the dry moat—they won’t be able to bridge the gap very easily.”
“Yeah, that’s true, but I think the drawbridge is down. One of the mortars hit the mechanism that was holding it in place. We need to raise it before they exploit the weakness.”
“No,” Rick said, “we let them come in.”
Isaac furrowed his brow. “What are you doing?”
“I’m finishing this,” Rick replied as he began walking away back to the stairwell. “Stand fast and God willing—if there is a God—this won’t be the last time we see each other.”
“What are you planning on doing?
“Trust me on this little brother.”
***
Kate was expressionless as she talked. “We only lost one container from the mortars, fortunately. The others are still intact. It’s in the far corner—away from the Keep—so I didn’t bother to clean it up. In any case, I’m sure I would need a gas mask even if I tried. Do you think this will work?”
“It’s the only thing we’ve got left,” Rick replied. “Listen, I want you to watch the front door, and as soon as it’s breached, I want you to call everyone back to the Keep. We need a full retreat.”
“Why don’t we pull them back right now?”
“We’ve already talked about this,” Rick said. “It has to look real. I want there to be panic in their faces when they’re falling back; I want there to be chaotic screams as they retreat.”
Gunfire started erupting.
“Rick,” Isaac said over the radio, “they’re charging.”
Rick grabbed his radio. “Pigeon throwers—fire until you’re empty. Focus your fire on the north and south.”
“I hope you know what you’re doing,” whispered Kate.
“The most important thing, Kate, is that when you’re all in the Keep, I don’t want anyone firing their weapons. Some people are going to be tempted to climb to the top of the Keep and shoot from the roof, but that can’t be allowed. Take away the guns from everyone that steps into the Keep if you have to, but make sure no one fires. But, don’t try to stop the cries of panic or the screams for help—that’s going to be the catalyst for the whole plan. The Red Sleeves have to think they’ve won. Don’t release the trap until I tell you to—too early will sabotage the whole thing. You have to wait until you hear from me on the radio.”
Noise filled the air as the Roofers suddenly acquired visual and opened fire on the charging enemy. The rise in noise pushed adrenaline through both of their bodies.
“What will you do?”
Rick clenched his jaw. “I’m going to make sure that we kill the cancer, and not just put it in remission. It doesn’t matter who survives, as long as the Executor doesn’t.” Just as he was turning to go, she kissed him. Not just a small peck on the cheek, but a deep and meaningful kiss, riveted with passion. She was shorter than he was, much shorter, and she had to balance on her toes to maintain contact. Her arms reached up and found the back of his hair, pulling him deeper in to her. Slowly her hands drifted down his face, caressing the area just around his chin.
The kiss was so unexpected that Rick had no time to react. He stood there, like an awkward teenager, his hands hanging limply at his sides. Before he could figure out what was going on the kiss ended and she pulled away, blushing a deep red as she did.
He stared at her awkwardly, desperately searching his mind for something to say. He was never a dynamic speaker, but at the same time, he never struggled to find words for most situations. But this situation was so strange to him, it felt like she had just said something in a foreign language. He was about to say thank you but Kate gratefully interrupted the silence.
“That’s for luck. And my way of saying you were right.” With this, she disappeared into the Keep, her ponytail bouncing as she went.
It took Rick precisely three seconds before he felt like an idiot. What the hell was that, Rick? What are you, twelve? That was the most pathetic kiss you’ve been a part of. Rick swore again. Where did that come from? What is wrong with that woman? We’re in the middle of a battle. Still, despite himself, he could not help but smile as he thought of the brief contact. He brushed his hand over the part of his chin she had touched. Come on, Rick. Get moving. What is wrong with you? You’ve got work to do.
Kate climbed the four floors in the Keep. What the hell was that, Kate? Where did that come from? That was pathetic? That better not turn out to be my last kiss. That was more awkward than the time I wore white pants to school during my period. Still, despite herself, the more she thought about the contact with Rick’s full lips, the more she felt a strange happiness settle over her. Focus. I need to focus. She shook her head as she proned out onto the roof of the Keep, waiting for the front door to explode open, as Rick had predicted. As the seconds turned into minutes, it was the radio traffic, not the constant gunfire that frightened her the most.
“There are thousands of them!”
“We’re getting overrun on the North Wall.”
“We can’t hold them back on the South Wall.”
Kate noticed that Rick never spoke on the radio—it was almost like he was dead. He had spoken so much on the radio before that the absence of his voice seemed to be louder than all of the gunfire combined. Other people started noticing that his low, gravelly voice on the radio was missing.
“Rick, we need help on the south side—they’re against the building.”
“Rick, the Pigeon throwers are out of clays. Where do you want us to position ourselves?”