The second Reaver team had been defeated too. But now the commune’s secret was out. They had automatic weapons. It would be part of the Reaver’s calculations for their next move.
It turned out the Reavers didn’t need much calculation. They all charged.
50.
THE TRUTH was, the Reavers were only testing their defenses. The real attack would come from somewhere else. It was how the Reavers worked. It was how they always operated. They looked for weak chinks in their armour. Donald and the council had worked hard to ensure there were none.
A syncopated drum beat rhythm from the Reaver clan. It was the only sound they could hear over the loud revving engines. The Reaver clan began to move as one, forming into four different groups, each one about the same size. They formed a giant circle. Four members hidden amongst them would pick up balls.
Then the four groups broke away like a giant flock of birds. Each group headed toward one wall each. They need only destroy one wall, and the game would be over.
“Incoming!”
It was the most dangerous part of the campaign. The soldiers shifted position to face the approaching army. Locked, loaded and ready to roll. Their goal was to identify the one Reaver with the ball tucked under his arm. With the dust being kicked up by their bikes, it was not an easy challenge.
51.
“AMMUNITION!”
It was the starting call Jamie had been waiting for. He and his newly assigned assistant Lucy hefted the boxes up onto the winching system. Then they used the ropes, passing it through their hands to winch the boxes to the upper levels.
Without someone to take their weight and pull them up, they’d have to climb six flights of stairs to get to the top. There, they picked up the boxes and put them on a second cart. Jamie pulled the cart while Lucy handed the boxes of ammunition as they passed the men. They both cried out, “Ammunition!”
They began adding jokey lines like, “Get ‘em while they’re cold!” and “Sale on! All ammunition must go!” But they soon stopped. They were only amusing themselves. No one paid them any attention. It was also hard work lugging the cart everywhere. They needed to save their breath as much as they could. Within five minutes, pulling the cart behind him, Jamie was sweating rivulets. Looking back, Lucy didn’t seem to find it hard at all. She handed out the boxes with the same easy smile she had at the beginning. Although the cart was getting lighter, the strain on Jamie’s muscles only seemed to get worse.
“Let me take over for a while,” Lucy said after Jamie came to a stop, hands on his knees.
“No,” Jamie said.
The last thing he wanted was to look weak. Especially while they were fighting.
“It’s okay,” Lucy said. “You’ve done the hardest part. You hand out the shells for a while.”
Jamie still didn’t want to relent. But the skin on the soles of his feet and palms of his hands urged him to do so. They were smothered with blisters. It hurt to walk. He flinched with each footstep. The soles of his feet felt wet. His blisters were popping, spilling their unholy load. He continued on, handing out the boxes to those who needed them.
Lucy was stronger than Jamie thought, pulling the cart with her tiny frame. She didn’t seem to use her weight to lean forward and get the cart rolling the way he’d had to. Jamie thought the men were sniggering at him for letting a girl do the hard work. But they weren’t really.
They were focused on the Reavers below, taking stock and aiming with each shot they released. They ducked and peered through small holes in the wall at the Reavers. The chances of the Reavers getting a shot through those holes at that angle was virtually zero. Especially with the way they were firing. Wildly.
Still, sometimes they got lucky. A man called Paul took a bullet in the arm, spinning him around. The man and woman on either side pulled him down and lay him gently to the ground. They shouted: “Medic!”
A trained nurse ran over, crouched low. He dropped to his knees and took out his First Aid kit. He looked at the wound.
“The bullet’s still inside,” he said. “He’s going to need surgery.”
The man’s comrades carried him across the top of the wall and deposited him in the box attached to the winch. They worked together to lower him to the ground.
Another soldier took aim with her bow and released an arrow. It took a Reaver through the neck. He fell from his bike in a heap.
“Help!” the Reaver shouted, reaching for the bikes that rushed past. “Help!”
Another arrow through his neck put an end to his suffering. Jamie gulped. Maybe his father was right. Maybe he wasn’t ready to see this yet. Much less deal it out.
Jamie looked up at the Reaver leader. He sat in a large armchair watching the proceedings take place. He didn’t seem all that worried about losing a good number of his men. Then he did something strange. He raised his arm.
What did that mean?
52.
IT MEANT a 200lb man riding a huge Harley clad head to foot in thick armor barrelling directly at a wall as fast as he could. He burst through the thick cloud of dust, out of nowhere.
The soldiers on the wall were taken by surprise. They quickly took aim at the conspicuous figure. Sparks as the bullets glanced off his armor. It couldn’t have been easy to hold on with all those miniature projectiles bouncing off him. He kept his link-chain gloves on the accelerator, never slowing even for a moment.
“The wheels!” Donald bellowed. “Take out the wheels!”
The order was shouted down the line. By the time it reached the men, the bike was already halfway to the wall. The men aimed for the wheels but they had a protective shell around them too. It wasn’t perfect. A loud bang as the front wheel was taken out. The bike ground metal but did not stop. A spark wheel flashed and burned like a cheap firework. And still, the bike powered on.
Fifty yards to the wall now. The bullets, unrelenting in their assault, dinged and dented the Reaver’s armor. But he still kept on coming. He reached back for something. The ball. He lit the fuse and held it to his chest. The bullets continued to rain down, bouncing off his helmet, knocking his head back and forth, body jiving like he had ants in his pants.
Ten yards to the wall. The armoured man didn’t throw the ball. He held it, clutched tight to his chest. The front wheel finally gave out, spilling the big man off in slow motion. The armour was too heavy for him to walk now—if he ever could—so he crawled toward the wall. Buckets of water fell, splattering over the man. He shielded the bomb with his body.
A curious silence filled the void. The man in the armor began to laugh, a deep throaty unpleasant thing from a horror movie. Unpleasant for the community members, in any case. The Reavers took heart in it and cheered. A sound that chilled even the hardiest to the bone.
And then the bomb exploded.
53.
IT DIDN’T look like the kind of thing that could happen in their quiet corner of the world. Not here. Not in Mountain’s Peak.
Donald had only ever seen something like this in his nightmares. The community getting ripped apart, pulled open from the outside, its innards harvested by the giant Reaver clan they had faced and lost to. The Reavers were already revving their engines, unseen behind the huge billowing cloud of dust birthed by the fallen wall on the eastern side.
Smaller rocks were still raining down, covering the commune like a chef sprinkling cinnamon atop a fresh cake. The soldiers on the north and south-facing walls were slowly getting to their feet, having been knocked down by the explosion. Some had their hands interlocked on the top of their heads, others on their hips. Donald couldn’t see their faces but he knew what they were feeling.
Shock. Shock and immense fear. He could almost choke on it it was so thick.
Where were Donny and Jamie? If anything happened to them, he would. . . What? Don’t think about them, he told himself. Grieve for them if and when the time arose. Not now. Not when the rest of the commune needed him to give strong leadership.
Thanks t
o Stephen, they had a plan in place for just about every situation. In fact, multiple plans, depending on the variables. There was no way to know what was going to happen in real life, so it was best to prepare like everything was a possibility which, of course, it was. Donald had been wise enough to take heed of Stephen’s ideas.
As the dust settled, he could see the misshapen wall, gouged out in a large V shape. The blocks lay scattered, the remnants of a child’s tantrum.
“How do you want to handle this?” Stephen said, appearing at his shoulder.
There were two options on the table so far as Donald could see. Either stand and fight, with the potential to lose even more of the community or lay down arms and surrender. Let the Reavers enter and take whatever they wanted. The latter put Donald’s teeth on edge. It wasn’t what he wanted to do but sometimes you had to do what was necessary, not what you wanted. They only had so much food to go around. His men would be punished, beaten, some killed for doing what any sane man would do and try to protect his family and home. As for the women. . .
The women.
Donald’s look hardened.
“We fight,” he said. “We can’t give up because the Reavers knocked on our door.”
Stephen nodded.
“You’re aware of the possible consequences?” he said. “The deaths that decision might incur.”
“And what of those if we do nothing?” Donald said.
Stephen nodded again and left to issue the relevant orders. What kind of man had Stephen been in the old world? Nothing common, something unusual was what he would have put his money on. To be sure, he was a doctor and no doubt a head honcho in one of the nation’s top hospitals. He was observant, dedicated, and smart. The kind of man the others ought to have flocked around and followed. And yet, they had chosen him.
Everyone could keep their pasts. It meant nothing to him. He was interested only in their future. But they would have to fight if they wished to keep the one they had built here.
He hoped they would forgive him with time. The Reavers could attack them, could beat them but they did not have to yield. Not without a fight.
54.
DONNY COUGHED and waved a hand in front of his face to dispel the thick dust. The men and women around him were liberally doused with dirt, looking like ghosts from another dimension. With the number of men and women who must have fallen with the wall, some of them might have been.
The Reavers would not wait, he knew. They would push their advantage. It was the smart thing to do. They were incapable of any kind of stealthy attack. The community had to be ready to force the Reavers back, to stand their ground. This was merely a setback, that’s all. Donny was pleased to see those around him already getting to their feet and gathering their things.
“What are we going to do now?” Francis, one of Donny’s closest friends, said.
“We’ll fight,” Donny said.
“Give it a rest,” Francis said. “They blew a hole in the wall. What defenses do we have to hold them back with now?”
Donny picked up his rifle, cocked it, and held it in his muscular arms. Is that clear enough?
The horn blew. A low, deep, throaty ground-rumbling blast. Donny waited for the tune that might follow after but it never came. He grinned.
“We stand and fight,” Donny said.
“You and your father are both crazy,” Francis said. “We should lay down our arms and let them take what they want.”
“And what if they wanted to take Gerry?” Donny said. “You’ll lay her down too? Maybe you could even hold her hand while they took turns at her.”
A steely look came over Francis’s face. Iron hard. Fire. He gritted his teeth. It was a cheap trick but an effective one.
“Get some men together,” Donny said. “We’re going on a mission.”
“What mission?” Francis said.
“We’re going to kill the Reaver leader,” Donny said.
“Are you insane?” Francis said. “We’ll never get within a hundred yards of him with his army heading here.”
“We will if we come at him from behind,” Donny said. “Cut off the head and the snake doesn’t know whether it’s coming or going.”
55.
WITH A single port of entry for the Reavers to come through—the hole they had blown into the self-contained world—the locals knew where the Reavers would consolidate. And soon. The question was, could they get organized in time?
There was another danger, less obvious than the gaping hole. While their attention was on the main entry point, the Reavers might attempt to creep around and plant another bomb at one of the other undefended walls.
Donald tasked Stephen with keeping a small watch on each of the walls. If the Reavers were successful, the community would have to defend themselves on two fronts instead of one.
The soldiers were already well-placed on either side of their new doorway. The dust settled like a great curtain, revealing dozens of Reavers, headlights shining, bore down on them, picking out the worst elements of the collapsed wall.
The discarded blocks had new cement: the crushed pulverized bodies of the fallen. Homeless limbs stuck out from under the rubble. Pools of blood and meaty chunks. Blood pulsed from missing limbs. Screams. Crying. Wailing. A horrific scene where only a few hours earlier these same people had been singing and dancing, celebrating marriage and a time of renewal and revival.
The tables still bore the remnants of that celebration. Hell, half the people were still wearing their Sunday best. These people were his friends, his brothers, and sisters. And now here they were, crushed beneath his failure.
Donald shook his head and turned away from the sight. His despair swelled like a maelstrom, threatening to suck him under. The anguish and desperation would crush him if he let it. He boxed it up and stored it in a thick unbreakable safe for later. Not now, he told himself. Not now.
His eye caught on a small band of men and women, heading in the opposite direction to everyone else. Away from the hole in the wall. Deserters? No. At their head was Donny. His Donny. Alive and well. Donald was surprised by how unamazed he was. Donald stepped from his mind and considered what he would do in such a situation as this. It wasn’t hard for him to guess Donny’s intentions. Something direct. And foolhardy.
“Kevin,” Donald said to his number one now Stephen was manning the other walls. “My son, Donny there. Have him come to me.”
“Yes sir,” Kevin said, taking off at a jog down the steep steps.
By the time he got to the bottom, he had intercepted Donny and his team of merry men. Donny looked up at his father high in the ramparts. He turned to look in the direction he wanted to head in—to continue with his own self-imposed mission—then nodded and followed Kevin up the steps.
Donald only really had one job, one thing he had to do above all others, and that was to pass the torch to the next generation. Ensure they had more than he had when he began this community. He’d certainly been on course to do that before this Reaver attack. He’d even begun sending out scouts to map the area and find other communities with which they might trade. He’d need to put those plans to bed. At least for now. Survival was key before expansion.
“Father,” Donny said.
“I need you to take the children away from here, to the emergency compound.” Donald rested his hands on his son’s shoulders and looked him in the eye. “Do you understand?”
“I’m not a babysitter,” Donny said, pulling back. “I’m a man. Let me fight with the others.”
“If the Reavers win, they will use those I care about most against me,” Donald said. “I’ll be forced to choose between my sons and the people here. I can’t let that happen.”
“I can swing around the Reavers,” Donny said. “Catch the leader while they’re focused on the attack here.”
“It’s a fine plan,” Donald said. “But it’s too risky. Don’t you think they’ll defend their rear?”
“Maybe,” Donny said. “Maybe not. I c
an do this.”
“I don’t doubt your courage,” Donald said with warmth in his eyes. “That’s why I need you to do as I say and protect the children. While there’s still time.”
Donny looked away. He wanted to look like he was disgusted, that he was ashamed of his father, but he couldn’t do it. It was too far from the truth. His fear and desperation rose inside him like a wave.
“You make sure not to do anything stupid,” Donny said. “We need you.”
Donald embraced his eldest son. And I need you.
“Keep your eye on Jamie,” Donald said. “He tends to wander off. He has a great deal of his mother in him.”
Their mother was a subject rarely shared. She’d been a good woman. Too good. Heaven wanted her back and sent hell’s demons to take her. She’d fought and died to protect her children. She gave her life in taking the Rages, ending in a stalemate. Donald had returned home to find his wife butchered, a gaggle of undead forming a bloody breadcrumb trail to their bedroom. It’d never been easy for Donald to recall those moments.
“You never talk about her,” Donny said.
“The next time we meet, I’ll tell you about her,” Donald said. “I promise.”
Donny hugged his giant of a father, gripping his shirt tight. When he pulled back, he pretended not to see the tears in his father’s eyes. There were some things sons were not meant to see. His father turned and surveyed the impending action. He picked up a large bow and arrow and ran to join the rest of the community on either side of the gaping hole.
After the Fall- The Complete series Box Set Page 11