by N. C. Reed
It wasn’t new, but it was in immaculate condition. The grips were an exotic wood of some kind that Roland had never seen. The blade wasn’t shiny but a dull gray color, and Roland could tell without looking at it that the blade was strong. He looked closer at the hilt and could see very faint marks along the edges of the wood grips. Many faint marks. He looked at Tom.
“Yes,” Tom said evenly. “That’s what they are,” he nodded, taking the blade back and securing it in its sheath. “I wasn’t always a farmer, Roland. Surprised? Disappointed?”
“Neither,” Roland almost smiled. “I’m just glad you’re here.” The old man smiled at that.
“I think I’ll be on the roof,” the farmer told him, standing. “I assume you want to let them announce themselves?”
“That’s the plan.”
“Very well, then. Call me if you need me.”
“Thank you, Tom. For everything.” Roland extended his hand.
“I wouldn’t miss it for anything,” the older man smiled wider, his hand shake firm. With that he moved off. Roland shook his head in wonder, and moved along to the next thing.
-
It was time for the bus to go. Roland was surprised when Glenda showed up with her husband Rich instead of Gerry Fisk.
“Thought we’d take a drive,” Rich smiled. “Maybe have a picnic.”
“Rich, I...”
“Roland, whatever happens, we’ll be together,” Glenda smiled, cradling the rifle she’d learned to use not long ago. “Now, you have plenty to do and Gerry’s worth more here that I would be anyway. You go on dear, and leave us to this.”
“Godspeed, you two,” Roland smiled sadly.
“God be with you, son,” Rich replied, shaking hands. With that the older couple boarded the bus, making sure the ‘workers’ were all seated, and then they were gone.
-
BD watched as the bus pulled away. It was too dark to see how many people were aboard, but he could see at least one person moving around, and the silhouettes of several others. He nodded to himself. They’d deal with the bus later.
He had fifty-three men in his group. He had planned to have more, but there were other problems in his ‘kingdom’ requiring attention, so these would have to do. He’d divided his force into five teams of ten, appointing his best men as team leaders.
“We’ll stick to the plan,” he ordered those five, gathered around him with Manny. “Team’s one and five will hit from the front. Team three will hit the east side and four, the west. Team Two will be in reserve. You have fifteen minutes to get into position without being seen. Go.”
All five moved away, gathering their men and heading for their positions. Manny watched them go, frowning.
“Something wrong, Manny?” BD asked.
“I… I’m just not sure we should be doin’ this, Boss, that’s all,” Manny shrugged.
“And why is that?” BD’s tone was calm, but Manny wasn’t fooled. He didn’t like being questioned.
“These people aren’t going nowhere,” Manny shrugged. “With the other problems we been having, just seems like we’d be better off takin’ care of that, then hittin’ this place. That’s all.” BD considered that for a moment, then nodded.
“I can see where you would think that, and it’s not a bad plan. The thing is, this group,” he pointed to the school, “is becoming a rallying point. As long as they’re here, they’re a point to rally around, to look to for inspiration if not outright assistance. They have to go before others start to rebel. That’s why we’re here this morning, instead of taking on the other problems.”
“We’ll see to them soon enough,” he promised.
“Okay, Boss,” Manny nodded. “Thanks for explaining. Helps me to understand how you think. How you want things done.”
BD merely nodded, pleased with Manny. As his second, BD had told Manny that he would have to start thinking ahead. He was learning how.
“Five minutes, Boss,” BD’s radio man whispered.
“Good.”
-
“They’re moving into position,” Vaughan whispered, watching the various enemy ‘units’ moving in the pre-dawn darkness through a night vision monocular.
“Roger that,” Roland replied. “Let me know when they start to move forward.”
“Roger,” Vaughan acknowledged. “Looks like twenty-five, maybe thirty out front, and at least ten moving to each flank. No sign of heavy weapons, either.”
“Best news so far,” Roland sighed. “Keep us posted.”
“You got it,” Vaughan promised. Roland looked at the assembled people around him.
“Everyone to your posts,” he ordered calmly. “They’re coming. James, you and Susan cover the west, right?” The teen nodded, and he and Susan headed that way.
“Mack, take Gerry and Jim, cover the east.” The trooper nodded, motioned for the men to follow, and left.
“Jesse, you and I will take the front. We’ve got the SAW, so take it. If nothing else, it’ll give’em a good shock.”
“All righty then!” Jesse grinned, rubbing his hands together.
“Try not to sound so happy,” Roland sighed.
“Happy? I’m not happy,” Jesse looked hurt. “I’m just. . .prepared. That’s all.”
“Great. Go and prepare.”
With his friend moving to get the SAW, he turned to find Maria behind him.
“What do you want me to do?” she asked simply.
“Stay with the others,” Roland told her. “I think the kitchen should be the safest place, but if you decide something else, I’ll go with it. You and the girls are basically our reserve,” he grimaced. “Take good positions with cover and don’t leave them unless you have to. Remember your training.”
“Please be careful,” Maria said softly. Before he could answer she stood on tip toes and kissed him gently, then turned and hurried away before he could say anything.
Heading to the front, Roland felt anger at the entire, useless situation. So many already dead, so many more yet to perish in a world that had come apart at the seams, and here they were, about to be attacked by fifty or more perfectly healthy men who could have, should have, been helping to rebuild what had been lost.
How many of his own people would die today because of one man’s insane need to garner personal power, no matter what it cost?
Try as he might, he couldn’t force the anger aside. By the time he reached his post, he was almost overwhelmed with fury.
-
“Ralph, are you ready?” Roland asked softly over the radio.
“Sure am, Mister Roland,” came the cheery reply.
“We’ve got enemy troops moving against our flanks, about where mines 11-15, and 1-5 are located.”
“Ready to fire on your command, sir,” Ralph tried to sound like a soldier.
“James will call for them on the right, Mack on the left, okay?”
“Roger,” Ralph replied, and Roland could almost hear the teenager grin.
“Vaughan?”
“They’re on their way, boss,” Vaughan’s whispered reply came back at once. “The flankers are in position, looks like. The front. . .okay, they’re moving again. It’s showtime.”
“Everyone on your toes,” Roland ordered. “It’ll start anytime, now. Keep your cool, and we’ll win.”
The silence following Roland’s last orders seemed to stretch on forever. All around the school, people who had never known the harsh realities of combat gripped weapons they had only recently learned to use, a gamut of emotion gripping them as tightly as they held to those same weapons.
Fear. Not only of what was to come, but of failure. Fear of death. Fear of captivity. Pain, suffering, despair. Some had already experienced the tender mercies of the men now creeping forward in the dark to do them harm, and were terrified of returning to it.
Strangely, the fear, the despair, the dread of such a thing happening again strengthened weakening hearts, stiffened spines, and allowed the school
defenders to find their courage.
The soldiers among them also gave them courage. The cold eyed looks the veterans among them sported reminded the civilians that not all hard men, or women, were evil. No, indeed, some were good, were honorable, and would stand against the evil of the world, no matter the odds.
And so the defenders tightened their hold on their weapons, offered fervent prayers for strength, courage, and mercy, and waited.
-
James was the one to start things off.
“NOW RALPH!” he called, and Ralph instantly hit the switch for the western mines.
Five ANFO bombs, each weighing between three and five pounds and wrapped in steel shrapnel, exploded right in the faces of the western attackers. Three of the ten men on the west simply ceased to exist, caught full on by the homemade land mines. Two more were mortally wounded, and two others were injured less severely. Just like that, the western attackers had lost seventy percent of their strength.
“Fire frontals now, Ralph!” Vaughan called at once. With the element of surprise gone, it was use ’em or lose ’em. Ralph fumbled slightly, but managed to get one of the two switches flicked before the front force could react.
In front, the assault force BD had sent against the school had pulled up short at the explosions on their flank, shocked at the bright flash and loud report. They couldn’t hear the screams of their comrades over the ringing in their ears, but the smarter among them knew what had happened.
Ralph had placed ten mines in front of the building. Five of them detonated, shredding five men who were still standing exposed, gawking at the previous explosions. Five more were injured slightly, but not severely. The rest managed to find the presence of mind to hit the ground flat just as Ralph managed to detonate the other five. As a result, only two more were killed, and one injured.
“Ralph!” Mack called a second later, and Ralph hit his final switch. The eastern flanking force fared better, with warning time. One man lost and another injured left them strong enough to continue their mission.
Ralph had one more surprise, and Roland was quick to use it.
“Lights! NVG’s off!”
The area around the school was suddenly bathed in harsh white light.
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
The lights came as a rude surprise to the attackers. They had counted on the cover of darkness to hide them until they were ready to attack. Bathed now in harsh, bright light they froze in place for just a vital second.
“Open fire!” Roland ordered.
Jesse immediately fired the SAW, rounds stitching over the yard, raking the prone figures without mercy. Some were almost certainly dead already from the blasts, but Jesse was a cautious man who believed in being sure of things when they were important.
People trying to kill him, or his friends, he judged important.
Others were also shooting, but other than the soldiers, and Tom Mackey, mostly they were just shooting wildly, their training largely forgotten in the ensuing panic. Aiming only in the general sense of the word, they simply shot at anything that moved. It wasn’t the best way to repel an attack, but Roland had allowed for this, and was satisfied simply with the volume of fire. It was a waste of ammunition, true, but he counted on the heavy fire to have a disheartening effect on their attackers.
It did.
“We’re being wiped out!” one of the squad leaders screamed into his radio.
-
BD sat perfectly still, stunned into stillness by the sudden turn of events. He had not seen this coming. In hindsight, his inner mind noted, he should have. This group was led by the same guys that had killed so many of his men, using Claymores, booby traps, and plain, old-fashioned aimed fire.
“Boss?!” Manny was shaking his arm, drawing him out of his shock.
“Move the reserve up front,” BD ordered, “Tell him to send three men around to reinforce the west side, and take the rest toward the front.”
The radio man nodded, and started giving the orders.
“Tell the East to keep up their attack, to try and take some pressure off the front,” he added, thinking furiously. He had lost a lot of men, which meant a loss of face. He had to get that back, and fast, or someone would probably decide that a change of leadership was in order.
“Manny, get down there and take command of the frontal assault,” he ordered his lieutenant, “Get them under some cover, and start laying suppression fire against the front. Never mind if they hit anything or not, just keep their attention, and their heads down. I’m going East and lead that team inside the school.”
“Okay, Boss!” Manny nodded, and set off. BD headed in the other direction, motioning for his radio man to follow.
-
“They had a reserve squad, moving to the front now,” Vaughan reported from his position. He had yet to fire, Roland having ordered him not to call attention to himself.
Tom Mackey had no such orders, and was keeping up a steady rate of fire from his position twenty feet away. Lying prone on the roof, a few feet from the edge, Mackey was a hard target to hit.
He changed positions after every third shot, too.
Below, Jesse continued to fire well-controlled bursts over the lit up front yard. His fire was pretty accurate, but it had been a long time since he’d used a SAW, and his aim wasn’t all it could have been. Nevertheless, his fire was doing what it was supposed to do. The attackers along the front were pinned down.
On the western side of the school, James and Susan were in position, and trading shots with the remaining enemy on that side. James knew that he had taken two down hard right after the blast, but wasn’t sure how many were left. He’d lost count in the smoke and confusion.
He and Susan had discussed this, however, and held fast in their positions. Both had good cover and concealment, and their muzzle flashes weren’t easy to spot with the lights blinding their opponents.
But the lights wouldn’t last long. Ralph had done his best but so many lights would drain the battery reserve quickly.
Still, he would use the advantage while he had it. Despite how well things had gone so far, they were still in a bad situation. One that could go quickly from bad, to worse.
-
Tom Mackey was changing magazines when movement caught his eye. Behind the enemy to his front he could see two figures moving around the flank. He threw his rifle up and fired three quick shots before the two were concealed by shadows and brush.
Not knowing if he had managed to score a hit or not, he turned his attention back to the men in front of him. Whoever it was, he’d at least scared them, he decided.
-
BD heard the impact behind him, the sound of a large caliber bullet hitting meat and muscle. He dropped low, turning. His radio man, known only by the nickname Gadget, was down, a hole in the side of his chest BD could put his fist inside of. Cursing at the loss of his best technician, BD grabbed the radio Gadget had carried only to find a similar sized hole in it, the side covered with what could only be Gadget’s blood. Tossing the radio aside in rage, BD continued to make his way toward his flanking team.
-
Maria, Terri, and Deena huddled in the kitchen behind the steel prep tables, peering beneath them, over the pots and pans stored on the shelves below. This was the best place to be, they decided, since it placed a lot of steel between them and the door.
“That’s a lot of shooting,” Deena said softly, eyes wide.
“Sure is,” Terri nodded.
“Quiet,” Maria shushed them.
-
Manny somehow managed to make his way down to the front without getting shot. He didn’t know how, exactly, and didn’t question it.
“Why are you just layin’ here?!” he demanded, looking at the men around him. “Find some damn cover, and start shootin’ back, morons! You just lay here, they gonna get you one by one!”
“They already got a bunch of us!” someone yelled out.
“More for the rest of us!” Manny
encouraged. “You want the women, the food, the guns, you got to work for it! Now return fire!”
The little pep talk worked. Slowly but steadily, the remaining men of the frontal assault, bolstered by the reserve, began to fight back. Manny didn’t know if it was doing damage, but they were making a lot of noise, like the boss had wanted.
-
“They’re working to get around us,” Mack said softly as he dropped the magazine from his M-4 and replaced it, “We can’t let ’em flank us, or they’ll get inside. Jim, get around the other side, and make sure we aren’t flanked. Me and Gerry’ll hold ’em here. Gets too hot, sing out. We may have to get some help.” Edwards nodded, and slipped out of the room, moving low to his new position.
“Lot o’ bad guys,” Gerry commented.
“More targets,” Mack corrected with a growl. “Let’s get some.”
-
James frowned. Something didn’t add up.
“What is it?” Susan asked, noticing the look.
“There’s too many,” he said quietly.
“What? You mean we can’t win?”
“No, not that,” James shook his head, “I mean there’s too many left here. Ralph’s blast got at
least four, maybe five, down hard. Since then we’ve took four more between us. That should leave no more than two.”
“And?” Susan asked, twisting around to get a new magazine from her web gear.
“There’s at least five people shooting at us,” he told her. “Five separate muzzle flashes. They’ve been reinforced.”
“Maybe they had more men than we thought?” Susan offered, slamming the magazine home and hitting the bolt release.
“No, Vaughan was where he could see good. 'Ten men', he said. They’ve added at least three since the bomb blast. We gotta be careful,” he looked concerned. “They’re trying to shift more people toward you and me. Like they know where we’re weak.” He looked over at Susan.
“I don’t have to tell you what happens, they get past us.”
“No,” Susan growled, shifting her gaze back outside, “You don’t.”
-
Roland was actually not doing much shooting himself, working as he was to keep up with what was happening on the outside. It was an unusual situation for him, one he’d never actually been in before.