Conflicted Home (The Survivalist Book 9)

by A. American

  But there were also cries of anguish. I tried to regain my senses and started to look at everyone. I ran my hands over Mel and the girls. Little Bit had some scratches, Mel was fine. Lee Ann had a gash in the top of her head, but I couldn’t see bone, so I told her to hold pressure on it and moved on. Thad was doing the same as I was. He was checking Mary when I looked over to see blood on his hand.

  But a cry of pain got my attention and I looked to the source to see Danny holding his left wrist. The hand was a bloody mess. Blood ran freely from it and I quickly moved to him and ripped the med kit from my vest.

  “Hang on, Buddy!” I tore open an Israeli bandage and tried to sort out just what was going on with his hand. Determining most of the damage was to the lower three fingers, I wrapped the bandage around them and secured it.

  The park was full of screams, wails and shouts. People were running around looking for loved ones, friends. When they’d discover them, dead or mutilated, they would add their voice to the chorus of anguish. It was hard to distinguish any one sound from the cacophony filling the air.

  I saw black smoke suddenly pour out of the Stryker as it lurched forward. It began to build up speed as it raced through the park. I found Sarge, shouting into his radio. I hadn’t noticed the traffic and cocked my head to the side to hear it.

  “…ing now and will be moving pretty quick. I got nothing to try and stop them.” Dalton said.

  “Mike’s on the way to you. Try and keep them in sight.” Sarge replied.

  “Grab that little bastard Micha!” I shouted into the radio.

  “I already have him,” Dalton replied. “He ain’t going anywhere.”

  “Bring his ass to me when you can.” I said. Then I looked around the park. There were so many hurt it was hard to find a starting point. But seeing Doc working on a woman, I ran over to him to help as best I could.

  The park was a surreal scene. Smoke filled the air, mixed with the smell of blood, dirt and torn vegetation. Leaves from the trees in the park blanketed the ground, covering body parts that were scattered across the lawn. Tables that the traders used were turned over or smashed. In a couple places, they were burning. The truck that I’d pulled Mel and the girls from under was a ragging inferno. All the food and supplies in the back of it, now gone.

  But that small loss paled in comparison to the loss of life. It would take some time to tally the dead and wounded as the death toll would surely climb in the days to come. I could see a woman being carried away, missing her left leg from mid-thigh. A woman carried a small blond toe-headed boy, his body limp in her arms. His bright blond hair matted with blood.

  We applied a tourniquet to the woman Doc was helping. A severed artery in her right arm spurted bright red blood with every beat of her heart. Her right side was riddled with shrapnel as well. As soon as we stopped the arterial bleed, Doc grabbed two people and told them to take her to the clinic. We moved on to see if we could help others.

  As we moved through the park helping those we could, we found an elderly man lying on his stomach. His lower back had a hole big enough to put a can of soup in; he was still conscious. Doc spoke to the man, he was alert and calm.

  “Are you in pain?” The man shook his head affirmatively. Doc patted his shoulder, “Ok. We’ll get you moved to the clinic soon.”

  “Alright,” the old gentleman replied with a nod.

  Doc pulled a Sharpie from his pocket and leaned over, writing the word BLACK on the man’s forehead. As we moved through the survivors, that became the routine. Doc would evaluate the patient quickly and we would mark their forehead with a color. Red for immediate, meaning they needed immediate care and were a priority. Yellow for delayed. These cases could wait and were next in line. Green for minimal; these were usually the walking wounded. And black for expectant. Those people were too injured to help and were expected to die. If all others were helped and there were time and material, they would be seen last. If they were still alive.

  We stopped by a couple, the man cradling his wife in his lap. She had head wounds that looked worse than they were. Her face was covered in blood, her hair matted as well. Doc looked her over and removed a couple of sponges from his kit and wiped her forehead and face to give him room to write, DELAYED.

  The man seized Doc’s hand, asking, “What does yellow mean?”

  “It’s alright,” I replied. “It means her injuries aren’t that bad. She’s going to be okay.”

  The man pulled Doc over to him, “Is that what it really means? You are going to help her, aren’t you?”

  Doc patted his shoulder, “Yes we are. She’ll be fine. Might have a nasty scar, but that’s it.”

  The man looked down at his wife, tears in his eyes. “See, baby. I told you it wasn’t that bad. You’re going to be fine.”

  The worst part was the children. We found many of them dead. Others, we were forced to mark with BLACK. Their little bodies simply could not deal with the trauma caused by modern military-grade high explosives. I saw Thad carrying the body of a teenage girl. She was obviously dead. He gently placed her in a row of other bodies in the shade of the trees. He was covered in blood, but didn’t seem to notice. After laying her down, he immediately went to look for another. And, so it went for more than an hour.

  The walking wounded made their way to the clinic. Those not mobile were aided by their friends, family or neighbors. The more severely wounded were carried on makeshift stretchers until proper ones arrived from the clinic. Once the wounded were removed from the park, we were able to survey the damage. Twenty-three people lay dead throughout the park.

  In the distance, I heard a loud boom, followed by an explosion. I hoped Mike had found whoever did this. I hoped they would be brought back alive.

  Dalton knelt on the side of Micha’s face as he bound his hands. He’d placed a stout oak limb into the crook of his elbows, behind his back, and bound his hands together in front of him. It was a very uncomfortable restraint. Having secured his prisoner, Dalton stood up and looked to where the small Jeep-like vehicle was sitting, its crew still lobbing rounds. Micha sat up and started to say something. Dalton looked down at him, drew his Glock and gripped it by the barrel. He grabbed Micha by the hair and pushed his head to the side. Using the Glock like a mallet, he struck hard, once behind the ear. Micha collapsed to the ground, unconscious.

  With that taken care of, Dalton stepped into the small cinder block home where he’d caught Micha nearby. Going through the house, he came to a bedroom that faced the small field the mortar team was working from. The window was broken out, so he wouldn’t need to open it. He stepped back into the closet of the room to obscure himself and raised his carbine. It would be a fairly long shot, in excess of three hundred meters. He was glad that today he had the AR with the ACOG. While the AK could shoot that far, this was much better suited.

  Resting the rifle against the doorframe of the closet, he steadied it and used the hashmark on the vertical reticle for three hundred meters and squeezed the trigger. The rifle thundered in the closet, it was a miss. The mortar crew instinctively ducked when the round cracked as it passed them. The intensity of the crack gives a good indication of the proximity of the passing bullet, and this one was damn close.

  They all ducked behind the Jeep and looked for the source of the shot. But not knowing where it came from, they had no idea they were still in Dalton’s line of sight. The second round did not miss as one of the men crumpled to the ground. The remaining men moved to the far side of the Jeep and pulled their stricken comrade with them. They began firing wildly at any place they thought the shooter could be. But they still did not have a line on Dalton.

  He took his time, waiting for one of them to poke his head out. Dalton could clearly see the mortar set up behind the truck. It was large and had a single axle to allow it to be towed. To fire, it had to be disconnected f
rom the truck and allowed to pivot back. The mortar was then lifted from its cradle and the base and bipod planted firmly in the ground.

  Dalton kept an eye on the men. His radio crackled, “You still in the same place?” Mike asked.

  “Roger that.”

  As he spoke, a second light duty Jeep came racing up and slid to a stop. The three men in this truck began shouting and gesturing to the others, who remained behind their cover. Bingo, Dalton muttered to himself as he settled the optic on the man in the passenger seat and squeezed the trigger. The man was mid-sentence, leaning half out of the vehicle when the bullet struck him and he fell out, landing facedown with one foot still in the truck. The others began to fire wildly again.

  Dalton heard the Stryker before he saw it. It came racing up the street he was on. Leaving his cover, he went back out through the house to show them where their target was. Micha was awake now, struggling to get to his feet. As Dalton passed him, he delivered a butt-stroke with the carbine to the top of his head, sending him sprawling to the ground again. He wondered, for an instant, if poor Micha was going to have any brain damage from the repeated blows. He shrugged, soon it wouldn’t matter anyway.

  Dalton jogged out to the street. He couldn’t see anyone topside, but the turret did turn towards him quickly as he came out. But the top hatch popped open and Ted’s head came out. Dalton shouted to him, pointing to where the now two trucks were sitting. Ted popped out of a hatch and gave him a thumbs-up before disappearing back inside. The Stryker jerked as it gained speed down the road, the turret rotating to have the gun in position as soon as the targets came into view.

  The big fighting vehicle stopped abruptly once it passed the house Dalton had used for cover. It rocked back and forth, but the gun stayed level. Almost immediately, the gun fired with a deafening blast. A spent shell ejected from the rear of the gun, landing on the road with a loud clang as the huge piece of smoking brass rolled towards the gutter. At nearly the same instant, the mortar truck exploded, sending pieces of it and bodies cartwheeling into the air. The mortar, that weighed more than five-hundred-pounds, also cartwheeled through the air. The second truck that had pulled up was also knocked onto its side and caught fire.

  Dalton started running towards the scene as the Stryker also began to move. Ted popped out of the hatch and manned the fifty-cal, pulling its charging handle back twice to get the weapon into battery. A couple of the men who had survived the Stryker’s main gun staggered to their feet in obvious shock. One was holding his head as he stumbled about. Another of the men began firing at the approaching Stryker, a futile attempt, but the last great act of defiance. Ted opened up with the Browning and cut him down as dirt and sand shot up in geysers.

  Dalton made it to the overturned truck as a man was trying to crawl out. He grabbed him by the collar and pulled him out. He was bleeding and his face was burned. Throwing him to the ground, he searched the man, stripping a pistol from him and tossing it aside. Mike quickly joined in the search and the two checked both the living and the dead.

  There were only two men left alive by the time they finished the search. The one Dalton pulled from the overturned truck had succumbed to his wounds, and the others were all dead. Some lay in the sun naked, or nearly so, their clothes having been blasted from their bodies by the force of the explosion. The two prisoners were both wounded, one more so than the other. The two were herded to the back of the armored vehicle where Ted tended to their wounds.

  Neither of the men spoke, though the one did moan in pain. The man that survived relatively unscathed sat staring at the ground.

  “They’re Cubans,” Dalton announced as he searched their pockets.

  “Yeah, they look like it,” Ted answered as he wrapped the head of the more severely wounded of the two.

  “You guys got these two? I got another one I need to go get.” Mike nodded, keeping his eye on the man sitting on the ground.

  Dalton walked back to the yard of the house and found Micha awake again. He cowed at Dalton’s approach, certain another bash to the head was coming. Dalton grabbed his arm and pulled him to his feet. “What’s going on?” Micha mumbled.

  “Let’s go over here with your friends,” Dalton replied as he dragged the bewildered Micha along.

  “What friends?”

  Dalton shoved him out in front of him, announcing, “Walk. Your buddies from south of the border are waiting for you.”

  Micha tried to turn and say something, but Dalton shoved him with the carbine. Micha didn’t want another blow to the head so he kept quiet and walked. When they got to the Stryker, Dalton told Micha to sit. He looked at the Cuban sitting on the ground. The guy made eye contact with him before quickly looking away. Micha looked at the burning trucks and the bodies scattered about. Then he looked at the wounded soldier Ted was still doctoring.

  Dalton was leaned against the Stryker and nudged Micha with his foot, “You speak Spanish?”

  He nodded, “Yeah. I took it in high school like everyone else.”

  “Mmm,” Dalton grunted.

  “What’s going on?” Micha asked.

  Mike stepped up in front of the seated man and squared off with him. “You know damn well what’s going on. Don’t pretend you don’t.”

  Micha looked at the ground, “I don’t.”

  Dalton reached into his cargo pocket and took out a small green radio and dropped it into his lap. “That refresh your memory?”

  Mike looked at Dalton and asked, “He had that on him?”

  “Yeah. I followed him and heard him talking on it. That’s how I knew it was coming. He posted up a short distance from the park and gave a fire correction before beating feet to meet up with these guys. As soon as he did that, I followed him until I saw the mortar team; then I jumped his ass.”

  Mike looked down at Micha and asked, “Still wondering what’s going on?”

  “Morgan said he didn’t trust your ass. Guess he was right,” Dalton said.

  “We need to call in transportation for these guys. This one won’t be able to walk that far,” Ted said.

  Chapter 8

  Danny was nearly inconsolable. Once we took stock of our people, the ugly truth was revealed. Bobbie had perished in the fire. It haunted me to know that she was the one I’d seen on fire. Out of shame, I didn’t say I’d seen her though. Not that there was anything I could have done to save her. At that point, even had we managed to extinguish the fire, the short time she would have lived would have been agonizing. As horrible as it was to say, it was for the best.

  Jess had a broken arm. Doc had it in a Sam Splint and was urging her to go to the clinic. But she was refusing to leave our group. Aric had shrapnel wounds in his right leg. None of the wounds was life threatening at the moment, but Doc was worried about infection.

  Doc stood up, having just cleaned some cuts on Little Bit’s face. The man looked tired. He surveyed the group that had moved to the pool behind the band shell. “Good thing we got those antibiotics on the trip.”

  I was sitting beside Mel with Little Bit in my lap. I looked up and nodded. “Are we going to have enough?”

  He shook his head. “Probably not. I thought I was stocking up. This will wipe It all out.”

  Mel wiped sweat-matted hair from Little Bit’s forehead and replied, “At least we have it.” She’d been crying. She and Bobbie had known one another their entire lives. Bobbie’s loss would affect Mel for years. I gripped her hand and smiled at her. She tried to smile back, but it wasn’t in her.

  Sarge walked up with Kay. He’d taken her to the clinic to have her wounds treated. She was on crutches. A piece of shrapnel had hit her foot. Jess got to her feet and went to assist the older woman, but Kay shooed her away.

  “I’m fine, Jess. There are plenty more hurt a lot worse than I am,” Kay said.

  “I tri
ed to get her to stay at the truck,” Sarge said. “But she wouldn’t hear of it.”

  Kay held her hand out and Sarge steadied her as she took a seat. “Like I said, I’m fine.”

  “Is anything broken?” Doc asked.

  Kay shook her head. “No, just a laceration.”

  “Where are the prisoners?” I asked Sarge.

  “On their way back to the ranch. The boys will keep them comfortable till we get there.”

  “Good,” I replied. I wanted a word with Micha. “Has anyone seen Shane or Shawn?”

  Sarge stabbed a thumb over his shoulder. “They’re at the clinic. Had to kill that ole boy you sent ‘em after. He worked ‘em over pretty good from what they said, until Shane shot his ass.”

  I looked at Aric. He was lying on the ground with his head in Fred’s lap. “Looks like you were right, buddy.”

  “I only wish I’d seen him sooner. We may have been able to prevent this,” he replied.

  “We did the best we could, man.”

  Mel squeezed my hand, saying, “I want to go home.”

  “That’s a good idea,” Sarge said.

  I helped Mel and Little Bit back to the armory where all the trucks were. As we walked, I saw Thad coming from the clinic. I hadn’t seen him since watching him carrying the dead. His clothes were covered with blood. He looked like someone in a zombie movie. We stopped and waited for him and Mary.

  “How you doing?” I asked, looking him up and down.

  “I’m fine,” he replied. “Not a scratch on me.”

  I looked at Mary, “How about you? You alright?”