by A. J. Powers
Time slowed to a standstill as Clay waited. He started to wonder if the man had abandoned the plan and gone elsewhere. Though the gunfire had decreased significantly, the peaceful town of Liberty still sounded like a bad neighborhood in Baghdad. Clay was calculating his next move when he finally heard several gunshots close by. The men started shouting from inside the daycare followed by more gunshots. That’s my cue, Clay thought to himself. He spun around the corner and headed toward the building.
For the moment, the gunmen inside had diverted their attention to the man across the street. This afforded Clay the opportunity to move undetected. He managed to get himself pressed up against the wall of the childcare without notice. He slid along the wall toward the broken window and readied himself. Clay took a deep breath then pressed off the wall, whipping himself around. Taking aim through the window, Clay lined up his shot.
“He’s done,” one of the shooters yelled just before Clay squeezed the trigger.
The first man dropped immediately. Clay fired three more rounds as he transitioned to the next man. His aim was off, but the explosive reverberation that bounced around the room stunned the other man long enough for Clay to adjust.
Success.
The second man crumpled to the floor and Clay cleared the small lobby area of the daycare from outside the window. He ran around to the front of the building and stopped just to the side of the door. Clay looked over to where he thought he saw the man last and quietly yelled, “It’s clear!”
Unsurprisingly, there was no response.
Clay went inside alone and confirmed the two hostiles he shot were neutralized. As Clay reached the gym, which had been converted to something of an arts and crafts area, gruesome images of a massacre began to creep into his head. Clay reached out and turned the door handle; his gut told him everyone inside was dead. He pushed the door open and raised his rifle looking to the left and the right. There were no bodies; no blood. Instead, he found a vacant room that smelled of glue and paint. And as Clay searched the rest of the building, he found more of the same thing—none of the rooms showed any sign of life.
“Megan!” Clay shouted.
There was a faint, unintelligible cry in response.
Clay kept calling for Megan as he carefully tore through every room, slowly zeroing in on the sound. He found himself in the swimming pool maintenance room. Shelves stocked with blankets, towels, and toys lined both sides of the narrow room. Straight ahead Clay faced a shut door with a faded chemical warning sign.
“Megan?” Clay said again, this time a little quieter.
“Clay!” A muffled shout erupted from the other side. The door burst open and out came far too many people to fit in such a small room.
Megan ran over to her brother and embraced him. “What’s going on?” she asked, her cheeks and eyes both red and wet.
As some of the other adults helped the rest of the kids from the small room, Levi ushered Courtney and Erica over to Clay. They were all relieved to see him.
“I don’t know, Megs, but there are still more of them out there.”
Megan visibly shook and looked as if she was going to pass out. The adrenaline from the shooting coupled with thirty-plus bodies crammed into a small room wreaked havoc on her.
“Levi, take this,” Clay said as he handed him the Glock and a spare magazine. Noticing there wasn’t a dry shirt in the entire room, Clay realized Megan wasn’t the only one suffocating in that closet. “Stay in this room until you get the all clear. But if you hear someone coming, you get everyone back in that closet and lock the door, understood?”
“Yeah, okay,” Megan said as she wiped a combination of sweat, tears, and dirt off of her cheek.
“You take care of them, Levi,” Clay said.
“With my life,” he responded.
Other than Geoff, Dusty, or himself, Clay wouldn’t want anyone else there protecting his sister. There was no doubt that Levi would put himself between any one of the people in that room and a bullet. That was just the kind of man he was.
“I’ll be back in a bit; I need to go help the others.”
Clay promptly turned and left the room, heading to the front of the building. He carefully made his way east keeping an eye out for Vlad—or more accurately, Olesya. Along the way, he clashed with three other groups of hostiles. Clay’s participation in their downfall was minimal as the citizens of Liberty had now armed up and were effectively fighting off the invaders.
As Clay reached the end of the neighborhood, there was still no sign of Vlad or Olesya. The gunshots were gradually replaced with screams for help as citizens found their loved ones dead or dying. It was truly a horrific thing to witness—another nightmare to haunt Clay for the remainder of his days.
Standing at the end of the street, Clay just looked around searching for any clue of where his Russian friend might be. Movement caught his eye; someone walking nonchalantly toward Shelton’s house. It wasn’t the significant distance that made him impossible for Clay to identify; it was the ski mask covering his face.
Clay took off running toward the assailant.
Chapter 16
The tremors in Shelton’s hands turned the simple task of loading his Ruger Mini-14 magazines into a frustrating chore. He had handed out every other rifle that he owned to those who needed more effective means to fight off the attackers. Having also given out the extra boxes of ammo he kept in the safe, Shelton was forced to crack into one of the spam cans of .223 he kept in a coat closet.
He had nearly topped off the first magazine when he heard the front door open. Before he could insert the steel mag, the intruder’s VEPR-12 was aimed right at him. The intruder’s face was obscured by a black ski mask with a white, demonic-looking face painted on. Shelton raised his left hand slowly as he lowered the rifle to the floor with his right.
“All right,” Shelton said calmly, still kneeling on the living room floor, “let’s not get stupid here. There’s far more of us than there is of you. You’ll never make it out of here alive if you kill me.”
The man remained silent. His eyes squinted from the smile his mask obscured, his finger curled around the trigger. His orders were simple: deliver a message to Mayor Shelton. But as he stood there with his semi-automatic shotgun trained on the old man’s chest, he became consumed with retribution.
“Listen, son, just put the gun down and we can work this out,” Shelton said quietly. “Nobody else needs to die tonight.”
The man let out a sarcastic laugh. “It’s always the people who have no options left that say stupid crap like that.”
Shelton swallowed heavily as he looked up into the man’s eyes; there was no mercy, no empathy. And if he felt it was advantageous that Shelton not take another breath, there would be nothing to stop him from squeezing the trigger. “All right then, what do you want?” Shelton questioned.
The man briefly wrestled with the decision literally kneeling in front of him, follow his orders or enact vengeance. Finally, deciding to follow his orders, he lowered the gun slightly, but keeping it plenty ready to fire if Shelton decided to be a hero. “I’ve got a message to deliver.”
“A message?” Shelton repeated, nearly in shock. “Son, you don’t blast your way into a community, killing God knows how many people, just to bring a message,” he said, struggling to keep his anger in check.
“You don’t understand, old-timer…” the man said as he stepped closer, “the killing is part of the message,” he said with a sly grin.
Shelton was sick to his stomach. “Then what is the other part of this message?” he asked.
“Yeah, I’m rather interested to hear it myself,” Clay said as he stepped into the room with his rifle raised, the intruder’s body inside his optics.
In a gesture of good faith, the assailant eased his stance as he contemplated his next move. He quickly deduced he had none—at least none that had him leaving the house upright, anyway.
"Feel free to go ahead and drop that gun any time,�
�� Clay said.
The man complied with Clay’s request and placed the AK-style shotgun onto the floor. As soon as his hand left the grip, Shelton stood up and shoved the man down onto a couch across the room. Clay stepped into the living room, keeping his AR-15 on the assailant while Shelton picked up the VEPR-12.
“I really like this couch, so don’t make me ruin it by turning your head inside out,” Shelton said as he moved the muzzle of the twelve gauge to within an inch of the attacker’s face.
The man had a satisfied smirk on his face—he had gotten under Shelton’s skin. His smug grin morphed into mocking laughter. “You know, you’re really terrible at the whole ‘tough guy’ act, Barry.”
Without saying a word, Shelton reached down and pulled the ski mask off the man’s head. Shelton squinted his eyes as he tried to identify the familiar face in the dim light of the house. Then it hit him.
“What are you doing here?” Shelton roared with anger, a tinge of fear flashing across his face.
“Like I said…I’m here to deliver a message.”
Clay shifted his aim to the front door as numerous boots stomped up the porch steps; Shelton kept the shotgun on the attacker.
“Mayor Shelton!” one of the voices yelled as the group came in through the front door.
Recognizing the men, Clay immediately lowered his rifle.
“How bad is it?” Shelton asked, never breaking eye contact with the man in front of him.
“It’s really bad, sir.”
****
The piercing screams from the woman was almost too much for Clay to handle. The buckshot had made her thigh all but unrecognizable as part of a leg. Her face was a ghostly white and her eyes filled with despair. “Please! It hurts so much!” she cried in vain as Clay and another man lifted her onto a homemade stretcher—one of only three the town had. As a result, only the most severe injuries utilized the archaic means of transporting wounded.
“One…two...three,” the man said as he and Clay lifted the woman off the ground.
This action was met with a blood-curdling shriek.
The three-hundred-yard walk to the infirmary went at a snail’s pace. The woman had already been through enough—adding to her agony by bumping and jostling her around wasn’t going to do any good. There was no saving her, anyhow. Clay glanced down again at the destruction to her leg and recalled the last time he saw so much blood pouring out of a person. I’m so sorry, Clay thought to himself, not wanting to be the one to give her the grim news. Her cries ceased before they reached the infirmary, but as Clay and the man approached the door, countless others’ agony covered the silence.
Chaos was the only word to describe the activity inside the ill-equipped, makeshift hospital. The wounded cried out in pain as volunteers scrambled to meet the needs of each patient. The reassuring lies being spoken to loved ones—that everything was going to be okay—was a punch in the gut to Clay.
“What do we have?” an older woman asked as she came up to Clay. The woman, who went by the name of Jackie, was Doctor Sowell’s assistant. A quick glance down at the leg evoked a “Dear God,” out of the middle-aged woman. Jackie had been a nurse practitioner for eighteen years before the eruptions, but she had seen more devastating injuries in that night than she had her entire career up to this point. “Follow me,” she said as she turned and walked briskly to the other side of the room to try and find some space.
She stopped near the back wall and pointed to an empty spot on the ground. Clay and the other man gently set the stretcher down, and with the aid of Jackie and another volunteer, they slid the woman over onto several stacked blankets on the floor.
“I’ll make sure that Doctor Sowell sees her next,” the woman said as she walked back to triage another person who had just been carried through the door—someone she might be able to help.
Clay sighed deeply as he ran his fingers through his hair. Why did this happen, he asked himself. Though he didn’t say anything, it was obvious that Shelton knew the man in his house. Clay wanted to ask him about it, but there were more pressing matters to tend to. Shelton threw the man into one of the town’s two jail cells under heavy guard while they fought off the remaining attackers. The whole thing was disturbing, but the mystery behind the whos and whys of the attack were almost as unsettling as the attack itself. Almost.
A tall, slender black man walked up to Clay. Without saying a word, he knelt and checked the woman on the ground for a pulse. Still silent, the man grabbed a blanket on the ground next to the body and draped it over her. “She’s gone,” he said with a deep, weary voice.
Doctor Sowell was a great surgeon and an even better man. He had been a rising star at one of the top hospitals in Houston for many years before he got bogged down with the bureaucratic lunacy that consumed the healthcare system. Having made a decent amount of wealth in the first half of his career, he left that life behind and went into medical mission’s work both at home and abroad.
The man always seemed to be in good spirits, even during some of the harshest winter months the town had ever faced. He was an optimist through and through and had a way of making his positivity contagious. But as Clay looked at the blood-soaked clothing, the overwhelmed expression, and the slumped shoulders, it was easy to see that the doctor’s high spirits had been conquered.
“There’s nothing you guys could have done. There’s nothing I could have done,” he said while shaking his head.
Clay nodded; he’d suspected that prognosis before they even walked inside.
It had been more than two hours since the last shots had been fired, and since then, Clay had been transporting the wounded to the infirmary. Exhaustion exuded from both Clay and the other man, and the surgeon took notice.
“You guys are looking pretty drained. Please, go get some water and sit down for a few minutes before going back out,” he said, gesturing to a small break room through a doorway.
Clay slowly got to his feet and then both he and Doctor Sowell helped the other man up. Clay looked toward the door and noticed that the inflow of wounded had finally slowed. Clay couldn’t help but feel badly that his night was ending, but anyone with even a hint of medical experience would continue to work through the night.
Clay saw Lona working feverishly across the room—he had never seen her look so flustered. She tried to calm a toddler with a gash across his forehead. Clay’s fists began to shake and his knuckles turned white as he imagined the kind of monster that would take a shot at a young child trying to flee from danger.
Following the doctor’s orders, Clay found himself slouched over a collapsing table with a red, plastic cup of water in his hand. While the wall separating the tiny break area from the triage/exam/operating room blocked out the gruesome sights on the other side, it did little to muffle the sounds of agony that callously burrowed into Clay’s head. Even so, Clay’s body managed to relax just a little bit.
Although he ached all over, Clay felt compelled to find some way to help—and sitting at a table drinking water wasn’t accomplishing that. But, as he considered his next task, Clay’s desire to get back to Kelsey and the kids overcame his willingness to assist in the infirmary. He needed to ensure their safety from another wave of barbarians that everyone feared was coming soon.
Dusty was currently perched in the decorative clock tower with her .270 just off the town’s main entrance. The moonless night would make it virtually impossible to spot potential attackers, but if anyone could tag an enemy on a stormy night, Dusty could. And she would make them pay for it. If nothing else, her position offered her the ability to alert the town of a coming attack.
Clay tilted his head back as he threw back the last few ounces of water in his cup. He looked across the room and saw the man he had spent the evening with drifting in and out of consciousness. Clay hadn’t even caught his name. Helluva way to be introduced, he thought.
Resigned to the fact that there probably wasn’t much more he could do at the infirmary, Clay decided to
head back to the hotel for the night. Before he could get out of his chair, the dwindling commotion on the other side of the wall roared back to life, Megan’s voice rising above the rest of the noise.
Clay startled the other man when he jumped out of his chair and raced for the door. Megan was already briefing Doctor Sowell on the condition of the patient that Levi and Kohler carried across the room without a stretcher. Clay’s stomach sank when he realized who it was.
“Vlad!”
Clay’s vision blurred as he walked toward his longtime friend. The world around him started to move in slow motion, causing Clay to wonder—to hope—that this was all just a bad dream—a terrible nightmare he would eventually wake from and return to the slightly less horrific one he had been living for the past decade.
Megan looked over at Clay. Her grim face told him everything he needed to know—it was time to come say goodbye.
Clay staggered past the scurrying people and over to Vlad’s bed as Megan, Doctor Sowell, and Jackie prepped Vlad for surgery. He approached slowly, as if he was walking up the edge of a cliff, fearful that he might slip and fall into the abyss. He didn’t want to look his friend in the eyes as he departed this life for the next. I can’t do this anymore, Clay thought. I am so tired of saying goodbye.
It took all the energy Clay had to take those daunting final steps up to the bed. Though the amount of blood on the sheets and his clothes was inconceivable, Vlad did not seem to be in a lot of pain. He looked up at Clay, a look of hope flashed through his eyes at the sight of his friend.
“Clay, please,” he said through labored breath. “Olesya…” His eyes closed.
“I promise…” Clay said, his lip quivering. “We’ll take care of her.” Clay swiped his hand across his face as he fought back the tears.
“His vitals are dropping,” Doctor Sowell said. “We need to do this now.”
Clay took the hint and backed away to give the surgical team some space. He walked over to Lona and embraced her. She buried her face into his chest while she sobbed quietly. An evening that started out as close to heaven as possible had quickly plummeted into the depths of hell.