by Woods, Shane
I tore into my beef jerky as quietly as I could, but I was too late to hide it. Or maybe too careless. Or maybe women have a sixth sense or a dog’s sinuses. I don’t know. But there she was. Her head snapped in my direction and Jennifer’s bright blue eyes focused in right on my hands.
“Hey!” she prodded. “What, uh, what do ya got over there?”
“Nothing,” I said, and immediately locked into a stare down with her, her grin forming, pushing up her full cheeks as it went.
“Doesn’t look like nothing.” She pushed further, “Looks like something to me.”
“Might be beef jerky,” I admitted.
“Is it the kind that gets shared?” she questioned, her eyes gleaming and her face not showing any subtlety.
“Damn you, woman,” I relented, pulling one of the two pieces out of the vacuum pack and passing it to her.
“Hey buddy!” Dave called over to join.
“Ask her, I’m tapped out,” I shot as I pulled my piece from the pack and held the empty wrapper up.
They started going back and forth over it, ending with Jennifer tearing off a third of her piece and giving it to him.
I watched as the available light faded over our land.
In the limits of my line of sight, which shrunk as the light grew dimmer, I could make out the far wall. Guard towers were fuller than usual, and nearly everywhere you looked you could find a patch of darkly-dressed men and women following rigid paths through the neighborhood.
Where we’d dismantled entire homes and filled in foundations, less people patrolled as less people were needed, and groups could see one another more readily.
As I watched, something caught my eye off in the distance, nearly due south. Just a single point of light shown, then dimmed. I called it into my radio but our furthest team in that direction was still within the outer wall and much closer to the ground. Nobody saw anything.
“Want me to go check, Mr. Pfeiffer? Over,” came the voice of one of the boys on river duty.
“Nah, stay put. If it’s anything, they’ve got to come closer anyway. Keep your eyes on the water. Over.”
“Uh, solid copy. Over,” came the reply.
The late evening wore on into night as we sat at post making small talk among ourselves.
The only other noise around was the occasional radio chatter, and the low murmur of conversation similar to ours from the other end of the rooftop where Rich, Henry, and Cody sat and watched in much the same fashion as we did. I could also hear the occasional nerve-fed laughter from just below our position, where Ash and Harrison waited. Our gunner team on the 240 machine gun.
At one point, I’d noticed our newest family, Erik and his wife, enlisting help from a nearby patrol with carrying various sheets of plywood and road signs to the front of the building and surmised they must be blocking in and shielding the animals. Not having room on the boats, or time, the majority of what we’d brought from his pseudo-farm had been left here in the emptied first-floor apartments.
I glanced over and saw Dave ever-vigilant, his grey-green eyes doing their level best to pierce the nighttime and see any signs of anything, but as the moon faded in and out of the clouds, our view was very limited.
Jennifer, on the other hand, was slumped forward, nearly leaning against the nearby solar panel and half asleep. I didn’t blame her. This duty was boring.
Was. Boy, I had no idea how much I was about to miss the ‘boring’. Boring is nice. Boring is peaceful. Boring is, well, boring was.
“Command, front gate, over,” came Frank’s voice over the radio.
“Go for command,” I issued.
“We’re hearing incoming. Over,” he informed.
“Say again?” I countered. “Hearing incoming? We’re not getting anything here. Over.”
“Sounds like vehicles, sir. Over,” he said.
ELEVEN
“Sit tight,” I advised before keying to all radios in range, “I’d like to remind you all now, there is no reason to fight stupid. The inner compound is our fallback. Retreat if needed until you are within the inner walls. We make our stand here.”
I was starting to hear it, too. Though not quite what I expected. I was fully prepared for the rumble of trucks, or even outright gunfire. I was, however, only half-expecting it to be this first night, and even less prepared for the steady whumpwhumpwhump rotor blades in the distance.
I nudged my wife and watched her head spring up and start looking around wildly as if she were a startled rabbit before pausing to cant her head just slightly.
“What the hell?” she asked.
I didn’t say a word but instead merely pressed my finger to my lips as Dave eyeballed me. I turned and looked over the rooftop to see all eyes focused in my direction, looking at me expectantly as if I had the answer they sought. Sorry guys. I’m just as lost as all of you, I just do a better job of hiding it.
The noise grew louder and louder and a shape began to emerge when the moon peeked from around a cloud. Just a glint, at first. Then the shadow of a small helicopter just over the treetops and moving swift and steadily in our direction emerged from the overcast night gloom.
As if it were uncloaked and sitting on our doorstep the entire time, the aircraft grew with the moonlight, an airborne lupine entity in any other world, I was sure.
“A helicopter?” I asked of nobody, astounded. “A fucking helicopter. Well. I don’t know what to do about this one.”
Before I could process any more thought, the mechanical avian was upon us. Pops of gunfire littered the compound as the chopper swept by overhead, pitching to climb just before the building I occupied.
“CEASE FIRE!” I bellowed into the radio. “Save your fucking ammo, he’s moving too fast for you to hit anyway!”
No courtesy of an ‘over’ on that call, oops!
I didn’t have time. The bird disappeared overhead as our tarpaulin roof blocked it from view, then the Earth broke.
At least, that’s damn sure how it felt as the world-tearing vibration of automatic gunfire from above stitched its way through our makeshift rain barrier. It perforated neat little holes in a line as the helicopter opened up. A few rounds found some of the supporting cable my wife had so painstakingly strung and the tarps overhead let loose with a series of pings and pangs followed by a heavy tearing sound as the wind caught it, once, twice, then lifted an entire triangular section away at once to expose us to our tormentor.
The shiny bubble of a Little Bird cockpit gleamed brightly in the waxing moonlight as a burst of light once again issued forth from next to the bubble. An M134 minigun spewed another volley of rounds into the opening as we all dove for concealment under the still-intact sections of rooftop.
“SHIT!” I screeched as rounds peppered the rooftop just behind our departure and the engine noise from the aircraft flexed in intensity and it repositioned itself for another volley.
The noise was otherworldly in intensity as another buzz saw of ammunition strafed the length of the rooftop and I watched Dave twist in response and dump an entire AK47 magazine skyward, serving a platter of return lead and copper back through the quickly fading blue and grey coverings.
I watched as the others at the opposite end also returned fire to the chopper and did their best to make a retreat into and down the stairwell.
The helicopter sent another heavy load of 7.62 caliber minigun fire in that direction. The rounds chewed a line through the concrete, the tables and chairs, everything in their way as they slammed into the return-sprung metal door upon finding their intended mark.
We remaining three on the rooftop started pumping rounds into the aircraft’s belly as it started to juke and jerk, trying to throw off any bead we’d drawn before it nosed-up and scooted back through the air and just out of view.
A moment later, another burst issued forth from the mechanical dragon above as it sprayed the rooftop with death. Several rounds found the tank of an active propane heater near the stairwell, crumpling the
canister and setting it ablaze to erupt into a minor explosion, further disabling all hope of reaching the stairs safely as the outer structure collapsed in on itself, leaving us with no escape.
As the orange and red infused plume of black smoke rose, the liquid black chopper lifted and spun again, moving into another direction. I stayed in place, perfectly motionless and watched as it hovered in this spot for another moment, then switched again. I could clearly see the pilot from my position, and it didn’t take much watching him to realize he was searching for us.
I sat still, perfectly still and watched some more as the pulsing waves of rotor wash tugged and pulled at my clothing. I did not dare even scan the rooftop for my wife or my friend as the bird lifted and neatly spun once more, and paused a bit to scan that end before appearing to nearly slide sideways off the rooftop space as the pilot yanked the stick to the right and departed.
Then, the rotor wash disappeared, and the deafening roar of an angry AH-6 began to fade. At least, I’d hoped as much. I couldn’t hear shit but my own heart pounding and the Liberty Bell itself ringing between my ears.
I looked around, getting a visual on Dave and Jennifer; both were huddled tightly into the corner of the roof maybe 5 yards from me, so I scrambled over to them.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
“What?” Jennifer shouted in response.
Their bells were ringing too, apparently, so I pointed directly at both of them, mouthed ‘okay’, and gave a thumbs up. Both of them nodded in the affirmative and began to move out of cover.
All three of us ducked and shrunk back into place as another ripsaw of helicopter gunfire split the night, and an explosion of small arms echoed in return. I rushed to the gap I had previously occupied and watched the trail of gun smoke fading behind the mechanical devil as it made a dead-straight passage right back out of our area of operations, presumably expending what ammo it had left on our people as it returned to whatever nest bore such a nightmare.
I caught sight of movement as I turned, and saw Jennifer bolting across the rooftop toward the largest of the several fires scattered around, grabbing any kind of fluid she could along the way. Dave followed and scooped up his own armload of water bottles and half-empty beer cans and they began hurriedly throwing liquid at the blaze, doing so little to quench it.
“LEAVE IT!” I shouted, my hearing returning and hoping theirs was as well.
It must have been, as they both stopped and backed away from the fire and turned to face me.
“We need OFF this rooftop, guys!” I shouted as I neared the place where the stairwell entrance had once stood proud, now a pile of collapsed rubble and destroyed door. The entire passage had collapsed and lay below, effectively barricading our way down. And…was that blood? Caked with dust and small fragments, it appeared as though there was bright red blood adorning the back wall below us.
“Status, who’s hit? Over!” I barked into my radio.
“Two on the ground, ah, Thompkins and Vasquez! Over!” came Harrison’s voice through the radio.
“Was that Thompkins? Or Thomas? We had a Thomas, he’s MIA!” graced another voice. “Over!”
“Main building!” I nearly yelled. “Who’s hit? Over.”
“Henry took three rounds,” Rich’s voice grumbled into the radio, “I was grazed and might have took some shrapnel. Over.”
“Is…Henry…alive…Over,” I snarled in response, looking down at the new organic paint job in the shattered stairwell.
“He is. Shoulder and arm got hit but he should be okay. Over!” Rich breathed, it sounded like they were still running.
“We need to get off this roof.” I turned to Jennifer and Dave, then looked around.
Before I could put together anything even resembling a plan, the nighttime air exploded once again, this time literally.
The crack of an earth-quaking blast split the night like a piece of firewood, and the source was no mystery as a flash of orange light enveloped our surroundings, though only briefly.
I half ran, half stumbled to the nearest gap in the rooftop façade in time to watch the orange of a blast in the distance fade into a fire, a few blocks past our outer gate.
“What just blew up? Over,” I queried over the comms.
“The whole fuckin’ road just exploded!” Frank shouted through my earpiece. “Looks like a tank caught up in the middle of it! Over.”
“That’d be the AnFo,” Rich informed, panting even heavier now, definitely running. “Oh, over.”
Pops of gunfire began chattering in the distance, automatic and semi-auto mixed and growing in intensity.
“The AnFo?” I called back to Rich, then, “Frank! Is it the Bradley? Over!”
“A big tan refrigerator with a bunch of guns and antennae?” Frank questioned, his voice crackling as the comms tried to compensate and amplify it through the gunfire, “Over.”
“That’s probably it,” I suggested. “Hit that fucker with the latex paint, come from the blind side and start shooting or smashing anything that looks like a sensor or antenna, and plug the exhaust up! Do fucking NOT let them run that machine! Blind and cripple! Blind and cripple, Frank! Over!”
“Solid copy! Over!” Frank crackled again as a corresponding burst of gunfire rang through both his radio and the distant air.
“Latex paint?” Dave said, nearly offhand.
“Yeah, blind them. No windows, no vision blocks, no sight,” I informed.
I looked around the rooftop, now scattered with busted chairs and tables that were likely beyond repair. Various small fires leapt and crouched before springing forth again to emit light and acrid smoke as bits and pieces burned all around us. The concrete had been chewed all around as if somebody took a week’s worth of methamphetamine and went to town with a sledgehammer. What an absolute mess.
“Guys, grab those cables!” I motioned to the steel line that once held the overhead tarps in place.
They both wordlessly complied as Dave took a knife from his belt and began cutting back the remaining scraps of tarpaulin free of the cable and pulled it away from its anchors with Jennifer’s help.
As they worked, I planned and searched. I knew on this side of the building the command center was just below our feet. That was where we wanted to be, and that’s where I was going to take us.
I grabbed the edge of the nearest solar panel and began pulling, trying my damndest to wrench it free from its mounts as the material creaked and dug deep into my palms, but gave no purchase.
“Here we go big guy!” Dave called as he took my lead and looped a length of cable around the top of the panel and doled out line to the rest of us.
We began a heavy grunting, cursing, straining match of tug-of-war as gunfire continued near the main outer gate, perforated by one, two, then three smaller explosions as excited chatter broke the radio waves.
A few more good pulls from the three of us in concert and the mounts busted free of the concrete, sending small flows of powdered building material to the roof surface as the panel gave way and fell with a clatter, nearly costing us our footing among the rest of the dust and debris around.
“Over the edge, let’s go!” I ordered as we ran to the now-open gap.
We stopped there. Our jaws hanging agape as we surveyed the edges of our kingdom from this vantage.
Despite the night, despite the utter lack of all but the moonlight and some nearby burning barrels and tiki torches, we could see a fierce battle raging at the southern gate. Even several blocks away, various points of muzzle flash could be seen as pops and chatter reached us every time a bullet was given a job. Larger flashes of light could be seen here and there as improvised explosives were flung in answer to grenades, and Molotovs flew to start their own cheer section of screams.
Further back, behind the front row seating, I saw it. The Brad. As Frank described, a refrigerator on tracks, bristling with sensors and weapons. It appeared to be held fast by the trap trench that was dug out under the roadway, its
tracks bound up and unable to achieve a climb angle even if they wanted to. I watched in awe as another salvo of bottled fire struck its surface and sprang forth into a petroleum-fueled bonfire of steel and rubber.
“Jesus,” Jennifer uttered from next to my stand.
“So much for their tank,” I said, feeling my neck grow warm as my palms began to sweat at the realization. Even at this range, I couldn’t see a single hatch open. However many people that armored box contained, they hadn’t left. The battery power reserve would only last the occupants so long, and it was doing no good for them at any rate as the flames engulfed the nightmare machine.
What once was known as an Infantry Fighting Vehicle was now an oven. I dared not imagine the horror as another round of glass bottles hit, their flaming cloth neckties fueling their contents. The inhabitants of that Bradley were being slow roasted. Cooked alive. I personally hoped they would wise up and use the topside hatch above the troop hold. That move may lead to them being shot on sight, but I think any end may be preferable to the option of being a living holiday ham.
I felt my stomach start to turn as I tore my eyes from that scene to peer over the edge. We were right above a ninth floor balcony, and this made my stomach twist in another direction now. I hated heights. Put a gun to my head instead, and I’d be so much more comfortable. A couple of steps up a ladder was usually my limit, even climbing into my own home at the beginning of all of this had been plenty for me.
“You first!” I instructed to my wife as she wordlessly straddled the riser and prepared herself.
I grabbed one arm, trying to help, and she pulled free.
“It’s okay,” she assured me, “I’ve got it.”
I watched, helplessly, as she lowered herself to her belly, hanging precariously over the edge as another blast shook the night like thunder. Then, she dropped. My heart skipped a beat, two beats, even, as I watched the love of my life unceremoniously disappear over the edge of the rooftop.