Jared stretched his jaw in an effort to relieve tension. He had been in more gunfights during the last three months than he had been in fistfights throughout his entire life before the solar flare. This was an astonishing revelation to Jared as he followed John, who seemed as relaxed as anyone would have been on a Sunday afternoon walk after church. Jared didn’t judge John tonight after what John had demanded Dwight do with the food and supplies they wouldn’t be able to take with them.
The more he thought about it, Jared realized he had never seen John take advantage of a single soul since they met. He’d seen John kill people, but never under circumstances Jared could call to question. Quite simply put, Jared felt John was a good man in a bad situation, trying to make the best of it for himself and his friends. The two men continued across Dwight’s property until they reached the stone wall.
John was fairly sure the marauders would not take the hardest route in and would enter through the main gate since it afforded the easiest place to climb over. John and Jared chose to wait until the men arrived. After that, they planned to follow the intruders to the house to observe their tactics before engaging them. They did not wait long before they heard the band of men approaching.
John previously decided he and Jared would not employ their night-vision goggles since they needed to remain nimble, and there was just enough moonlight to make the evening workable. In the pale moonlight, Jared was unable to make out what the men were doing until he and John reached the old rough stone wall off to the right of the ornate iron gate. Once the intruders were close enough, Jared saw twelve men laboring under the weight of a large section of telephone pole.
The intruders wrapped a large length of double-braided rope around the pole, leaving loops on both sides so two men on opposite sides of the pole could carry the behemoth between them. There were five handles on each side of the pole, leaving two men free to pull security. John laid a staying hand on Jared’s thigh, making sure Jared didn’t move or do anything to make a sound. Twelve on two were pretty bad odds, in John’s opinion.
John’s mind immediately recognized what the men’s intentions were and raced to formulate a plan to prevent them from using their battering ram to gain access to Dwight’s house. John watched as the men struggled to heave the substantial pole over the gate, which they were finally able to do after much cursing and grunting. The twelve men followed their battering ram over, picked it up, and began their slow march up the driveway towards the house. John saw the two security men break away from the group, each heading in opposite directions. One went to the right while the second man split off to the left.
John leaned into Jared’s ear. “They’re going to use that thing to knock down the front door,” he whispered. “The two other guys will probably try to keep our boys from using the rifle ports. Probably shoot from the bushes—they both have scoped rifles, so that’s my guess.”
Jared nodded his head even though all this hadn’t caused him to formulate a well-thought-out plan of action like he was sure John had. “What do you want to do?”
“We can move up there where we can get good shots on the guys at the front door. I’m thinking we wait till the party gets started so the racket they make masks our movement. I’m going to take out the two guys who split off.” John drew a wicked-looking knife from a scabbard on his belt and smiled, holding it so Jared could see its black blade and gleaming edge. “Nice and quiet so the ten dudes on the ram don’t get involved until it’s too late.”
Jared felt his heart race and his stomach flutter with nerves at the thought of stabbing another human. Maybe he should hold off on his opinion of John. Maybe the guy was a lunatic after all. “Holy shit, you’re gonna stab them?” he asked in astonishment.
John grimaced and shook his head. “No, I’m gonna slit their fucking throats.”
John’s grimace turned to an evil grin as he watched Jared’s white teeth appear as his jaw fell slack. John had killed people during combat in a number of ways and remembered the more unorthodox the manner in which an operator killed an enemy combatant, the higher up the pecking order an operator would be viewed within the Special Missions Unit. In squadrons full of alpha males, there wasn’t much room to shine, so when one of John’s mates killed a man with a hatchet, that person immediately ascended to godly status.
John had killed exactly two men by way of the blade during his time in the unit. The last one was a couple of years ago, but that wasn’t what he was thinking about now. What occupied John’s mind now was if all went well—for him, not the two other guys—he’d double his knife kill number in a single fight. No one he knew or heard of had four kills with a knife. He would have been a living legend back at Fort Bragg with four knife kills to his name. He guessed all that didn’t really matter any longer, and sadly he would be killing Americans tonight. He pushed the thought from his mind before its disturbing tentacles wrapped his brain in their icy clutches and clouded his judgment.
Once the men passed and the sound of their exertions grew faint, John tapped Jared, letting him know it was time to move. John and Jared slowly got to their feet and crept toward the fading sounds made by the laboring men ahead. They stayed off the driveway, moving through the yard with the intention of positioning themselves as directly in line with Dwight’s front doors as possible. John and Jared stopped approximately eighty yards from the front doors and dropped to prone positions as they watched the ten intruders struggle up the three steps that led to the house’s front doors under the great weight of the utility pole.
Once the ten intruders were in position, there was the crack of a rifle from Jared’s left, which caused him to flinch. The immediate clang of the bullet colliding with the shutters told Jared he was not the target, but it also signified that Operation Marauders was officially underway.
Again, John leaned into Jared’s ear. “I’m going now,” he hissed, his eyes wide and focused. “Don’t shoot anyone till I get back—unless it looks like they’re getting through those doors, then lay into ’em.”
In a flash, John was up and gone, leaving Jared feeling alone and vulnerable as the first several thuds resounded from the intruders, who’d begun their attempt at breaching Dwight’s front door. John moved silently through the dead or dying landscaping of Dwight’s formerly over-the-top yard, trying to catch a glimpse of the shooter’s muzzle flash. He heard the rifle bark twice more before he spotted the man lying alongside a hedge. This is perfect, John thought; he would approach the shooter using the hedge to conceal his advance.
The intruders at the front door were on their seventh blow when John stepped over the prone figure, grabbing the stunned man by the underside of his jaw and forcing his head up and back, exposing his throat. John drove the knife into the right side of the man’s neck and pushed forward mightily on the knife’s handle. The razor-sharp knife entered the man’s neck, cutting through his spine. When John pushed the knife forward, it carved through what was left, which included the carotid artery and the man’s windpipe. John’s knife was so sharp and his thrust outward was so violent that the knife passed seemingly without resistance out the front of the stricken man’s neck and into the moonlight, where it flashed wickedly for a split second.
As quickly as John had grabbed and cut the man, he dropped him, not caring to be covered in the geyser of blood now pumping from his neck into the dirt alongside the hedge. John’s attack came so categorically fast and violent, the man wasn’t given an opportunity to cry out and sound any alarms for the remaining intruders.
John did not hang around to make sure the man was finished. Instead, moving like a cat, he smoothly transitioned toward the second shooter. John heard the man take several shots but wasn’t in a position to start homing in on the shooter’s exact location. No shots were coming from the house, which signaled to John that Dwight and Barry could not determine who was outside the door and were honoring his request to be overly disciplined if they had to shoot. He only hoped the marauders hadn’t hit Barry or D
wight during their suppressive-fire exercise. John took solace in the fact that he had just reduced the suppressive fire threat by fifty percent. As John moved past where he’d left Jared, he could see the steel shutters over the double front doors were beginning to shake with each blast from the heavy battering ram.
John hoped the fortress could withstand the onslaught being placed on it by the battering ram for just a few moments longer so he could finish off the last guy and get back to Jared. Once John passed Jared, he slowed his movement and used more caution, not wanting the last guy with a scoped rifle to get the jump on him. John paused as the second shooter fired another round into one of the rifle ports. John searched the yard and spotted the last shooter on one knee next to a tree. There were no bushes John could use to creep up on the guy, so he continued moving until he was directly behind him and not more than twenty yards out.
John was about to step forward when he froze. The shooter took a shot, then nervously glanced over his shoulder and to his left and right, not wanting to be snuck up on. John remained unseen, but this higher level of tactical skill caused him to view the man as far more dangerous than his careless dead comrade. The shooter took another shot and then redirected his scope to the area where John recently silenced the shooter’s partner only minutes before. The shooter was looking for his friend, and in all the chaos of shooting and breaching, he must have realized his partner was no longer firing.
The shooter was disciplined, in John’s opinion. He kept as good a watch over his rear and flanks as one man could by himself. He was also aware that his partner might be MIA but was also staying on task with what his job was during this operation. John took a deep breath and decided he had to change his plan. Getting caught halfway to the shooter was going to result with John standing out in the open in a gunfight with no cover or concealment.
John got to a knee, sheathed the blade, and pulled the suppressed rifle to his shoulder. He watched the breaching team as they pulled the utility pole turned battering ram back and then heaved it forward with a loud clack against Dwight’s shuttered front doors. The rifle was fitted with a suppressor, which did not make the weapon silent like an MP-5 spitting subsonic ammunition would sound, so John needed to time his shot. He held the rifle’s sights on a man’s head at Dwight’s front door and, as the battering ram slammed into the shuttered front doors, he continued waiting as the marauders drew the battering ram back and swung it forward. As the makeshift battering ram contacted the front of Dwight’s home, John’s right index finger contacted the trigger, pulling smoothly to the rear.
The snap of John’s shot was concealed by the crash of the battering ram as his weapon spat forth its deadly projectile. As the marauding sniper pitched headlong into the dirt, the men struggling with the battering ram never turned around. No one had heard anything that would cause alarm. The group of marauders were becoming quite excited, as part of the steel frame that housed the shutters broke free. John nearly ran back to Jared’s side, sliding to the prone position next to his friend with his face slicked in sweat despite the cool night air. Jared gave John a quizzical look, which John returned with a game on look of his own.
Using hand signals, John directed Jared to pound the men on the right side of the ram while he did the same to the boys on the left side. When the shooting started, the men closest to Jared and John caught the first few rounds while the men at the front of the battering ram had no idea their comrades were being mowed down like weeds. Before any one of them could put together what was happening, they were all down.
“You lose, motherfuckers,” John hollered. “Barry, Dwight, stay put till we clear all these guys; make sure no one’s a threat.”
“Okay,” came Barry’s worried voice from behind the shuttered windows on the right.
John got to his feet and moved towards the pile of bodies lying across Dwight’s welcome mat. Jared followed closely, rifle trained forward in case anyone somehow survived the onslaught of bullets he and John had just served up. When they reached the bloody heap of humanity, it was evident there were no survivors. Jared stood back as John waded into the mess and retrieved every weapon the men carried. He and Jared carried the cache of weapons to the side door and banged on it.
“Open up, buttercup,” John yelled almost cheerily now that the evening’s grueling task was completed.
A second later, he and Jared were rewarded as the door opened, revealing two ashen-faced men. Barry and Dwight had watched the entire event, and although Barry saw the two bikers gunned down and Dwight had done some shooting himself, neither man ever witnessed such a display of one-sided violent savagery.
“Jesus,” Dwight croaked. “You guys butchered—like, a dozen people out there. It wasn’t even a fair fight.”
John shoved his way past the two men and dropped the weapons on the floor, as did Jared. John turned and was halfway back out the door when he stopped and squared up on Dwight and Barry.
“These boys thought you were in here by yourself,” he quipped, staring directly at Dwight. “And they brought twelve dudes. You think that’s a fair fight?” John growled, shooting Dwight a sidelong look. “I thought that’s what you wanted.”
Dwight’s mouth moved, but no words escaped his lips.
“In a fair fight, it’s a fucking coin toss as to who wins, fellas, and I’ve never been a big gambler. I’d much rather shoot a naked guy in the back than stand face-to-face with the bastard and duke it out. That’s how one of us—the good guys—gets hurt or killed,” John snapped.
Without further words, John turned and walked back out into the yard. Jared looked at Dwight and Barry, pursed his lips, then followed John into the night. They went out to the last sniper John shot and grabbed his rifle. It turned out to be a .22-caliber Ruger, four ten-round magazines, and over five hundred rounds of ammunition.
“Score,” John said in a hushed tone. “I’m taking this bad boy back to the house. Great for hunting small game, and he’s got a ton of ammo to boot.” John slung the Ruger over a shoulder and stuffed all the ammunition into his cargo pockets before setting off towards the first and most unfortunate soul he’d killed that evening.
When they reached the first man John had killed that evening, Jared fought the urge to gasp. Mother Nature had a never-ending number of beautiful things for a man to lay his eyes on, and death was not one of them. The man no longer hemorrhaged blood, but the aftermath was about the most gruesome thing Jared had seen to date. Even John took a moment to observe the gruesome scene. Suddenly the smell struck both men, and they staggered back.
“Ah, for crying out loud, he shit himself,” John exclaimed once he was at a safe distance.
Jared pulled his shirt above his nose in an act of self-preservation. John darted in and grabbed the man’s rifle but didn’t bother with any further searching of the man’s pockets or gear. The man had been carrying a .22-caliber Marlin model 795 repeater. The rifle was adorned with a Leupold VS Freedom 3X9 scope. John hefted the rifle, then tossed it to Jared, who caught the rifle awkwardly.
“Now you got a squirrel gun. We can pop critters together when we get back.” John relayed gleefully.
Once Jared was sure the rifle wasn’t covered in blood or bodily fluids, he slung it over his shoulder.
As John and Jared walked back to the house, John smiled at Jared. “Never was much of a control guy, kinda thought it all went against the Constitution, but now I am one hundred percent for gun control. I wanna control all the guns. Too many assholes out here doing the wrong thing with ’em. Unfortunately, gun control laws seem to only weaken those who actually follow the laws.”
Chapter 18
Once they were safely back inside the house, John and Jared cannibalized the only two AR-15 platforms they could find, and retrieved the internal parts. When they were done, both men set about altering the shape of the barrels and stocks of the remaining rifles. The task was harder than Jared expected, but, in the end, Dwight brought a large hammer from his garage, and the tw
o beat the weapons into a useless pile of high-grade steel and aluminum. When they finished, they unceremoniously tossed all of the broken parts out the side door and locked themselves inside again.
Using a dirty sleeve, Jared wiped his sweat-covered face before turning to Dwight. “You got any whiskey?”
John immediately perked up after he wiped sweat from his face.
“I have whiskey,” Dwight replied.
“Good man.” John chortled. “Where is it, and where are some glasses? You gotta have glasses up in this pad.”
Dwight scurried away and was gone for nearly five minutes while the other three sat in relative silence. Jared could tell Barry wanted to talk about what happened here tonight, but Jared really didn’t feel like rehashing events until he had a relaxer on board. When Dwight returned, he was carrying four glasses and an unopened bottle of Michter’s twenty-five-year-old single-barrel limited-release straight bourbon.
Wordlessly the men moved to a large oak dining room table and saddled up two on each side. Dwight dropped the glasses in front of John, who pushed them out to each man. Next, Dwight removed the top to the bottle and reverently poured two fingers for each man. Jared took the glass and swirled the brown liquid, thinking of his time with Bart that seemed like so long ago, yet in reality was only a couple of months ago.
Jared had enjoyed many evenings with Bart, the older gruff bastard who had taken him in when he would have almost certainly died on the streets directly after the event. Bart had given him a weapon and taught him how to use it. He’d also introduced Jared to whiskey. Jared’s lips curled into a small smile as he traveled back in time to those nights in the gun store, drinking whiskey and listening to Bart preach in a cantankerous but informative way about what was coming and how to survive it.
The Jared Chronicles | Book 2 | Tears of Chaos Page 13