Hatfield stood and crept closer. He quietly addressed the homesteaders. “Hold your fire, guys. But don’t step back. Stay right where you are. Guns up unless I tell you otherwise.”
“Got it,” somebody answered.
“Where’s their mother?” Hatfield demanded. “What have you done to her?”
His son screamed a frenzied answer, “They’re holding her, Dad! They tied her up—”
A thug's hand muffled Justin’s voice. “Shut up!” he yelled.
With hands lifted in surrender, Hatfield slowly approached the fence. “Let the kids go!” he yelled. “If you need a hostage, take me instead!”
The thugs greeted his offer with a round of belly laughs. “Two hostages for one? You think we can’t count?”
“Take all of us if you need to! Whatever you need! Just leave the kids out of it!”
They gave no verbal reply. Instead, Hatfield saw the one holding Tami give a slow and exaggerated shake of his head.
Hatfield took slow steps closer, careful to keep his hands up, his body still. A number of questions raced through his mind in double time. What have they done to Jess? What do they really want? Are the homesteaders returning from the hospital?
Each of those questions bombarded him as he stayed in motion, edging closer at a snail’s pace and hoping they wouldn’t notice it and object. They didn’t at first, so he tried again and again. Soon he was within a few feet of the porch. Not that he was sure what he’d do once there.
Struggling to keep the kids under control, the thugs seemed amused by their efforts to wrangle free. And this amusement distracted them a little. Hatfield wondered if he could use this.
“Keep still, you little shits!” one of them yelled, his amusement fading.
Now only a yard or so away, Hatfield started to lower his hands in slow motion, hoping his body’s position would escape their notice. So far, so good. But he didn’t push his luck, keeping his hands at waist-level. From there, he could reach into his holster and pull his pistol free. It was clear how many shots he could take or how many he would need. But he was close enough to fire from point-blank range, putting his kids in no danger. All he needed now was more distraction.
He figured it would be good to engage them, get them talking. “You guys can’t win this, you know.”
Laughter from the thugs. “Looks a little different from our point of view, dude.”
“Two guys. Going against all of us. Whatever damage you do, you won’t live to enjoy it.”
“We’re not here to do damage. We’re here to take the place!”
Hatfield answered, “And what would you do with it?”
“What?”
“You heard me. You have no idea how to run things here. What would you do if your diesel generators went down or your draining system couldn’t survive the rain?”
“You know what, dude? You’re right. We don’t know what we’d do with this place—but you know who does?”
Stumped, Hatfield said nothing.
“Those three you kicked out.” The thugs turned to each other, nodding and smiling.
“Yeah, man. They know everything about this place. The plans. How to use the equipment. How to protect it. Everything.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“You don’t have to.”
“I think you’re bluffing because you got no other choice. It’s two guys against an army, and you have to bluff your way out of it.”
One of them shook his head. “Whatever. Believe what you want—”
“Two guys?” the other one yelled, voice choked by a giggle. “Is that what you think? We got two more inside—”
“Shh!” the other one shouted. “Dude, don’t let him know what’s happening inside.”
A brief argument followed between them. Hatfield used the moment to drop his gaze. With his hands now at his waist, he gestured toward the ground. He wanted them as low as possible, safely away from any gunfire.
Justin and Tami noticed the gesture, but they didn’t seem to understand it. When a moment of quiet came, he tried to clarify things for him in code. “Guys, don’t you realize that you will go down in history as a couple of cowards.”
Neither face of his kids registered recognition. He tried again. “Did you hear me, guys? You will go down”—pointing to the ground on the appropriate words—"in history as a couple of cowards.” He checked the quivering faces of both kids. “Do you guys understand that?” He asked the thugs—but aiming his words at Justin and Tami.
They both nodded, starting to drop their position slowly.
A thug spat, “Dude, we understand perfectly well—” His eyes bulged when noticing what was happening. “Wait a minute!”
But it was too late. Hatfield fired at the first thug, keeping his aim high and getting just enough of his forehead to send his head back violently and his body to the porch’s floor.
The second shot was sloppier, coming just before the target could swing his gun around, but it nipped his shoulder and sent him down. His kids sprang forward and free, giving their dad two clear shots to finish the job. These were perfect, landing on the chest and chin.
He waved the guys in with one hand, hugging Justin and Tami with the other, then telling them, “I need you two to get into the Hummer, lock the door, duck nice and low, and stay there no matter what. Okay?”
They nodded their shaky heads, then sprinted away just as the homesteaders were on their way to the compound. The guys crouched into position outside the door, rifles trained.
“What’s the next move, Mr.—”
Hearing footsteps, Hatfield lifted a hand, then put a finger onto his lips, calling for quiet.
“Who was that?” somebody inside asked, his voice soft and clearly aimed for somebody else inside. “I heard gunshots out there.”
The other answered, “I hope it wasn’t our guys!”
After taking a glance at the Hummer, he saw nothing—a good sign because it meant Justin and Tami’s heads were out of view. Nice and low, just like he told them.
Racing in the door without knowing the positions of those remaining would be suicide, so Hatfield waited, took a few breaths, and poked his head as far inside as he could without inviting gunfire. With his hand raised behind him—telling the homesteaders to stand down—he swept the area with his eyes, seeing no one. But on a second sweep, he noticed something in the reflection of a well-polished vase on the shelf. The tops of two heads poked out from behind a reclining chair. Not knowing he’d spotted them, they took their time ducking back down.
That told him exactly where to fire when he entered. He only had to make sure he got his shots off before the two inside did. He turned to the homesteaders, mouthed the words behind the recliner. Each of them nodded.
He brought his gaze back to the interior of the house, then held up a single finger. Then two. After seeing no movement, he raised three fingers, then sprang over the threshold, firing three shots behind the chair.
A hail of bullets rang out, filling the living room with chaos. A deep groan followed by a thump behind the chair told Hatfield he had hit one. Several seconds of uneasy silence passed.
Hatfield held his position behind a turned-over table. Two homesteaders stayed behind him. The other two crouched behind a sofa, rifles poking through the cushions. Movement behind the recliner urged him into motion, so he leaped up, fired away, hoping to catch the surviving gunman’s head.
But the thug had lifted the recliner’s rear with him as he fired away, shielding him from any bullets. He then scrambled back from the chair, running into a dark hallway.
Hatfield and the homesteaders gave chase, but the thug had the cover of darkness, and every shot fired may as well have been made with blindfolds. They reached the hallway and saw nothing. No sign of where he could be.
A bustle came from a side room, feet wildly scuttling about. Then came an adolescent giggle. That puzzled Hatfield, but the homesteaders backpedaled away when they realized where he wa
s. “Get back!” they shouted in sloppy unison.
“Why?” he asked.
It took only a second or two to see the reason for alarm. A hand grenade was tossed from the room, landing just in front of them. They managed to brush it away in time for it to land elsewhere before an ear-shattering explosion.
Seconds later, the thug raced out of the room, firing away wildly from a hip-high shotgun, his face blazing with kamikaze glee. With five guns against him, he went down, screeching to the sky, chest, face, and belly exploding in a sea of red.
But his wasn’t the only screaming voice. A homesteader had taken shots to the shoulder, and Hatfield had a bullet graze his hand’s palm—nothing lethal, but enough to push a geyser of blood to the carpet. With no other options, he pressed his hand against his pants, hoping to stop the flow of blood.
The shooter was dead, but the groans kept coming—from both Hatfield and the homesteader.
“Any word on when they’re getting back from the hospital?” another homesteader asked.
Through gritted teeth, Hatfield answered, “They’re probably waiting on me. We got no phone, so there’s no way to clear up the miscommunication.” He then climbed to unsteady feet and hobbled toward the den, guessing that was the place he could find his wife. He kicked down the door, and there she was—bound and gagged, two other women—also under restraint—beside her.
He tried to tug them free but got nowhere. He searched the room for something to cut the ropes, found nothing, so he settled for a knife on his keychain. He freed the ladies, then smothered his wife with a hug. “Are the kids okay?” she asked. “Where are they?”
“They’re fine, out in the Hummer.”
“I’m going to check on them!” she said, sprinting out of the room.
“Make sure you take one of the guys with you!” he called. “It may not be safe yet!”
Exhausted, he turned to the other ladies, their faces unfamiliar. Hand-pressed against his leg and catching his breath, he said, “I know this is a hell of a time for introductions, but, ladies, I’m Trevor Hatfield.”
The women’s faces seemed to be floating back to earth after a trip through hell. They both managed smiles. “I’m Julia. This is Amy. We live here on the homestead.”
“Nice to meet you.”
The ladies nodded, then looked past him. He turned and saw why. His son and daughter greeted him with horrified faces; they hung on to a group hug with their mom as they moved toward their dad.
“Dad, you promise we’ll never have to have a day like that again?” Tami asked.
“I wish I could, Tami,” he said, roping all three into a hug. “I wish I could. I’ll do the best I can to make sure we don’t,” he said. “How’s that?”
She lifted her lips into a half-smile.
He went on. “If we ever do have a day like that, though, you promise you’ll be as strong and brave as you were this time?”
That time she could only nod. It was as if she didn’t have enough left for words.
17
Nathan and the guys waited, guns ready. The guys in camouflage began by marching inside exactly as the three strangers at the barn predicted they would. They knew the formation, the rhythm they’d be locked—even the order they’d be coming in.
So when the gunfire began, Nathan could barely stop himself from laughing.
The spray of ammo caught them off-guard, rocking their bodies into wild motions and haunted screams. Nathan watched in the back, safely away from the storm of bullets, his face on fire with amusement. Nothing brought him joy like witnessing the suffering of his enemy. And each body that hit the hallway floor lit up his face like a pinball. The rain of bullets brought down three guys right away. Closer to the rear, a few others caught a wound but backed away in time to avoid serious injury. The gang had instructions to aim for the fat guy in the back—the white-bearded one. That wasn’t easy. The troops were lined up in such a way to shield him. He was, after all—according to the strangers—the leader.
In the rattle of gunfire, it wasn’t easy to count how many had fallen, but it was at least five and many others getting grazed.
The homesteaders tried to recover from the storm of bullets by finding shelter as well, ducking behind equipment and squatting low. But it was too late. Too many had fallen already, and more combat only promised more casualties.
The white-bearded guy barked out orders, his voice frantic and breathless. They grabbed some of the equipment and pulled away in retreat. But the storm wasn’t over yet. The shots kept coming, taking down two or three more guys from behind.
One by one, their bodies dropped lifeless, slapping the hard floor as howls echoed through the hallway. They were howls of victory.
When the homesteaders reached the door and scrambled free, Nathan laughed again, knowing the onslaught wasn’t over. It was now on to phase two.
Phase two was a sprint to the second floor where they could see the frightened losers scurry away and fire more shots. From that angle, there were no barriers. The only challenge came from the distance. Some of the men were good shots. Some of them weren’t.
A few more bullets connected, mostly glancing blows. But the good news was that the fat, bearded one was one of them. They giggled as his flab-ridden belly shook and he struggled to stay on his feet, running away from battle like a sissy. Nathan loved every second of it.
Hatfield stayed huddled with his family and the captured women, their collective breath racing in anticipation of more combat. Three homesteaders remained at the den room’s doorway, ready for anything.
“What do we do now?” Jess asked.
“We wait for Cecil and the others to get back.”
“If they get back,” a homesteader added. He dropped his eyes in shame seconds later as if the thought frightened him.
Frantic footsteps approached the compound, bringing everybody’s eyes to alertness. Hatfield sprang to this feet, scooping up his pistol.
But he’d forgotten about the wound on his hand, and the gun slipped from his grasp and clanged to the floor, leaving his hand stinging. “No, no, no!” he yelled as the footsteps drew nearer. Taking the gun in his left hand, he joined the homesteaders in the doorway.
A breathless voice in the hallway called out, “Hold your fire, guys. It’s us.”
Around the corner and into the hallway, Cecil hobbled closer, blood dripping from his ribcage. Roughly fifteen more homesteaders followed him, many nursing wounds of their own, a few carrying equipment.
Jess gasped. “My God, what happened!”
The captain started to speak, voice strained now, out of energy. He clutched at the wound and collapsed to the floor amid horrified screams.
“They got us good,” a homesteader said. “Too good.”
Noticing the bag garnered from the hospital, Jess ran down the hallway, face twisted by multiple emotions. She knelt next to Cecil first, then pulled the bag closer to her. “What did you guys get?”
“Don’t know the names of everything, ma’am, but if it looked like medicine, we grabbed it.”
“Good,” she said, picking up pill bottles and reading the labels. She also pulled out bandages and other stuff from the bag. “Yeah, this stuff should be helpful.”
“When you get done with the serious stuff,” her husband said, “I got a little scrape that needs tending to.” He lifted his hand, showing his palm.
“That looks pretty serious to me,” she answered. “You sure it doesn’t hurt?”
“It hurts like the devil. But this doesn’t seem like the time for crying.”
Jess bit her lip and gave him a soft smile. Then she looked down, saw something fading in the captain’s eyes. “You still hanging on there, big guy?”
He chuckled weakly. “Doing the best I can.”
She reached into the bag and found two white rubber gloves. After slipping her hands into them, she pulled out a bottle and held it up to the light to read the label. “This is gonna sting a little, Captain.”
“I’m ready, ma’am.”
A cough down the hallway caught her attention. She reached into the bag and pulled out another bottle. After checking it, she tossed it to the homesteader, who coughed. “Anybody still coughing, give this a try. If that doesn’t help, see me. I’ll see what I can do.”
She poured from the bottle, dousing Cecil’s wound. The leader sucked air through his clenched teeth, swallowing a scream. “That’s your idea of stinging a little?”
“Sorry.”
“No, no, don’t worry about me. I’m fine.”
“Need any help, Mom?” Tami asked.
“Yeah, honey. You and your brother go into that dorm room and do everything you can to clean things up. Make sure there’s no dust around.” She looked around at other wounds. “The rest of you injured guys, go ahead and wait for me in there.”
“Yes, ma’am,” one of them said on his way out of the hallway.
Hatfield asked, “You want me to help get Cecil in there, too?”
“No, I suppose this is just as good a place as any for him. If we’d waited any longer, he might not have—” She stopped herself before finishing her sentence. Then she added, “He might not have done so well.”
Cecil said, “Mrs. Hatfield, you can be as blunt as you need to be. If you want to say I would have had my hefty behind carried off to the great beyond, you have my full permission to say just that.”
A smile leaked out from beneath her stone-hard face.
Minutes later, Hatfield waited outside the makeshift hospital room, peeking through the door’s crack to get a glimpse of what was happening. His hand continued to throb, but as he’d said himself, this wasn’t the time for crying. He stared at the wound, noticed the blood was hard and dark. Jess had told him to wash it out as thoroughly as he could, but it wasn’t easy. It would only start to bleed seconds after any kind of contact.
How We Survive: EMP Survival in a Powerless World Page 10