by Byron Tucker
A couple more shots rang out. “That's her shooting right now. She's trying to drive them back, but I don't think it's working. Where's Jimmy?”
“Inside the shop.”
Ryan chambered a shell and loaded in one more. “Good. I think they're going to be coming around to the back and attacking from there.”
As if on cue, an unseen pod of snowmobiles roared off into the woods to the left. Ryan stood up and pointed to the shop building. “You stay here and guard the front, I'm going to watch for them in the back.”
A wave of panic surged through Sam's body, desperately wishing not to have to defend his life again so soon. He didn't have much time to dwell on it however, and a bullet winged the snow next to where he crouched. Holding out his gun in front of him, he stepped backwards onto the ladder, going down until his head was level with the top of the berm. He fired off a couple of shots, the recoil making his hand snap back painfully. Before he had a chance to bring it in to rest his shooting hand, several men swarmed the gap in the berm, shooting in a haphazard fashion. Sam brought his gun down and fired off additional shots in pure desperation.
The only thing that saved him was how additional men were trying to squeeze through the gap on top of their fallen comrades, making it difficult for them to shoot back at him. With the force of pure will, he kept squeezing the trigger, punching bullets into each of the men as they came into view. The staccato bangs ravaged his eardrums, the recoil of each shot transmitting waves of pain up his arm.
He kept shooting until the magazine was empty, the barrel smoking. Thankfully, there were no more men trying to come through the gap. Tossing the gun aside, Sam scurried down the ladder and looked out across the pile of bodies to the outside, seeing nothing but an empty, quiet blackness beyond.
Just as he breathed out a sigh of relief that all of this might be over, a cannon-like BOOM! came from within the house. His mind flooded with raw panic, and Sam sprinted over to the front door, wasting precious seconds fishing for his keys in his coat pocket. Just as he found them, two more booms shook the door in front of him, one about two seconds after the other. Sam jammed a key into the lock and when he burst into the house, he flinched at the sight of three bloodied men collapsed in a heap in front of the cellar door.
Before he had a chance to further analyze the situation, more shots rang out behind the open back door. A solitary man stumbled through the entrance, holding his side. Sam realized he didn't have his gun with him, and then recalled Ryan telling him about the Glock he kept under the couch. As the wounded intruder raised his gun to shoot, Sam lunged and dove towards the couch, reaching underneath it in a single, body-tumbling move. Knowing he didn't need to take the safety off or cock it, he swung the gun around, firing at the man.
Pain blossomed in Sam's thigh as he shot again, and again, finally dropping the man to the floor. Another intruder appeared. He shot him directly in the forehead, felling him instantly.
Horrified at the blood spreading over his pants leg, he heard a colossal explosion out back. A fusillade of shots followed, along with a second house-shaking explosion. Sam knew he needed to be out there, helping the others before additional raiders stormed the house.
He staggered to his feet as a wave of pain coupled with extreme dizziness overcame him. He took a single step and fell onto his face, a wave of blackness stealing away his consciousness.
* * *
The shotgun empty, Ryan tossed it aside and switched over to his Glock. He risked being shot himself, but he stood up and shot at the group of men pouring out of the shop. Behind him, Jimmy stood positioned against the corner of the house, attempting to shoot any raiders who were making a run for the house. He had no idea how he'd gotten there without being shot. To his horror, a couple of them slipped into the house, but gunshots quickly followed. Could it be Sam?
Realizing that he really didn't have any other choice, Ryan pulled out one of his grenades, yanked out the pin and lobbed it at the cluster of men exiting the shop building, storming toward the house. Just after it went off, he lobbed another one even closer to the shop, where yet more men were coming out of it, guns blazing. The exploding grenade felled the entire group of men in a single go.
A couple of seconds later, a cluster of men came running out of the darkness in front of the shop building, and Ryan pumped the trigger as quickly as he could, dropping them like flies. The sound of Nora shooting the AR-15 thumped his eardrums, indicating that she'd finally made it back to where the action was. Just as his gun emptied out of ammunition, Nora stumbled into view, panning her rifle around in quick, nervous arcs.
Spotting him on top of the berm, she shouted, “Did anyone go into the house?”
“Yes, a few. I think they've been shot.”
Ryan took a second to crawl over to within sight of Jimmy. Calling out to him, he said, “Stand down. I'm coming into the house.”
Before he had a chance to get down off the berm, Jimmy ran directly into the house, shouting, “Mom, Eliza, are you okay?”
Ryan rushed inside, and spotted the pile of three bodies in the kitchen. He scrambled to inspect the rest of the house to make sure it was clear, and as he swooped into the living room, he spotted Sam's prone body in the front of the coffee table in front of two fallen intruders. His heart hammering in his chest, he dropped to the floor next to him, patting the side of his brother's face. “Sam, are you okay?”
To his immense relief, Sam mumbled, “I've been shot. Is everyone else okay?”
“Yes, I think so. Where are you shot?”
“M...my leg.”
Ryan flipped Sam over onto his back, seeing the large pool of blood that had formed under him. In the interest of saving time, he threw his coat off and peeled off his sweater and shirts. Separating one of the shirts out, he tied it around Sam's thigh to staunch the bleeding. He lifted Sam's feet and slid the coffee table under them, to keep his legs elevated. “Stay put while I check on the others.”
Sam looked at him and asked, “Is it over? Have we been able to stop them?”
Ryan patted his brother's chest. “God, I sure hope so.”
Jimmy's Journal Entry, November 20th, 2019
Before I begin, I need to say that I'm extremely grateful to be alive and unhurt, after what happened two days ago, as well as the rest of my family. Dad did get shot, in the leg, but both Nora and Ryan think he'll be up and walking in no time. And thank God for Mom and Eliza, as they had a really close call too.
Here's what happened: We were woken up around five AM by Nora, who told us that a raid was coming and we had to get ready to defend ourselves. Mom and Eliza went down to the cellar, and Dad made her guard the cellar door with the big shotgun, although it was locked from both sides. Nora came and got me and gave me a gun to shoot with, and told me to guard the area between the shop and the house, keeping a low profile in the shadows. Then like a couple minutes after that, that's when the action started up, with shooting and a bunch of guys on snowmobiles charging the house. That's when I got really scared, as I could tell there were tons of raiders making a run for it, even with the three of us shooting at them. I honestly thought they were zombies, just like in the movies, the way they were coming and coming, even as they were being mowed down. Then it stopped for a bit, and that's when Dad came running around, with his ear bleeding. He wanted me to hide out in the shop, which I thought was a bad idea, but he didn't give me a chance to argue. He told me to hide out between the two doors along the inside wall, and a bit later, the shooting started up again.
That's when a bunch of them started shooting their way in the far shop door, and I knew I was going to have to shoot my gun before I got shot myself. I held it up with both hands just like Nora showed me and shot each of the men as soon as I saw them appear over the top of the trigger sight. It was like as if I was a robot, knocking down targets as they came into view. I got like four or five of them, and just when they stopped coming in that door, more of them blasted their way into the front door, and
they started shooting at me from behind. They must have been bad shots, as I was able to run and get out the far door before I got hit, and then I had to shoot a couple more raiders as they ran towards me. But I got them both, one bullet per man. I was super-scared of course, so I ran closer to the house, and that's when I saw those men crawling over the berm so they could get into the house. The side-by-side was right there, so I just hid out there, as I'd been totally exposed.
I knew I should have gone after them, but I was shaking so bad that I'd not be able to shoot straight anyhow. A few seconds later, I heard a bunch of gunshots go off inside the house, followed by three huge shotgun blasts, which was the gun that Mom had. That's when I knew I had to step up and do what I had to do to save them, and that was to take down every single one of those bastards or die trying. I got out in the space between the corner of the berm and the back door, and when more men started crawling over, I shot as many of them as I could. I ran out of bullets, and while I was reloading, a couple more guys must have slipped into the house, as I heard more gunshots from inside the house, which was Dad shooting and getting shot in the leg. Oh yeah, in the middle of this, Ryan was lobbing grenades over to where a whole bunch of them were coming from the direction of the shop, taking them out before they had a chance to get to where I was. If he hadn't done that, I'd been shot dead for sure, and so would the rest of my family in the house.
Then, just like that, it was over. Ryan told me to stand down, and that's when I ran inside the house to see if Mom and Eliza were okay, and thank God they were, although Mom was really shook up. I'm amazed she was able to get the three of them like that, I can't imagine how scared she must have been. But then again, I could say that about myself too, I'd never been that scared in my whole life, not even a fraction. Dad says the same thing too, that it was like another person inside him doing the shooting, bang, bang, bang, dropping them like flies. When it comes to survival, I guess we're capable of pretty much anything – I mean, just look at my mom, who'd never fired a gun in her life, and yet she took out three of them.
As for the body count, it was way up there. It took seven hours for Nora go around the entire property, taking out the wounded and other guys trying to escape. Fifty-seven in all. As it turned out, a lot of these guys were really thin. It looked like some of them hadn't eaten in weeks. Nora says that's why they were so desperate, coming at us like zombies. The really deep snow made it hard for them too, especially once Nora shot the snowplow driver about a hundred yards out. She says that we were extremely lucky, though, and those grenades that Ryan had probably made the difference of us holding them off or us being overrun and killed. Nora also says that if they hadn't found our place when they did, they'd have started eating each other, if they hadn't already, although I find that hard to believe. I know I'd starve to death before I could ever eat another person, that's for sure.
So yeah, all of us are just super lucky to have survived this. I don't think any of us, not even Nora, thought it'd be this bad, but like she says, this is probably the last of the raiders. At least the ones in this area anyhow. She says that as people get hungrier and weaker, they'll be that much less capable of mounting attacks, especially against a group of well-armed individuals like us.
Us surviving is a good thing, of course, but Mom is really taking it hard. I mean, she's having like a serious mental breakdown. She's been in bed for the past day and a half, refusing to eat, crying all the time, saying stuff like she can't stay here anymore, all that kind of stuff. None of us can console her, no matter how hard we try. Dad is kinda in shock too, and he has to let his leg heal, so that's not making it any easier. And since Eliza's been so stressed out, her asthma has gotten really bad, and she's having to do the machine several times a day, plus puffing on the rescue inhalers way too much. While she has lot of that Advair, she's running low on the rescue inhalers, and she's running really low on the nebulizer ampules, which will be terrible if we're not able to get more in time. Ryan's says there's a fellow in Rhinelander who he's trying to get in touch with on the radio, as he's a hardcore prepper like Uncle Ryan, but he's not likely to have what Eliza needs. I'm really getting worried about her, as is everyone else.
Damn, things really can't suck any worse than they do already. We're stuck up here in the middle of nowhere, with a volcanic winter that's going to go on for YEARS, we barely survived a massive raid, my mom's totally lost it, Nora's being a real bitch about the food (oh yeah, she caught me nipping those energy bars, man, she sure was nasty to me, ugh) and Eliza's going to die if we can't get the meds she needs.
In fact, I think I'll talk to Uncle Ryan tonight about us maybe fleeing south, where they're setting up all those resettlement communities. I'm sure they'll have meds for Eliza, and maybe we'll be able to get food as well, which will leave that much more for Uncle Ryan and Nora to live on. I'll just have to see what he thinks about that anyhow. I'll mention what he says in the next entry. Bye until next time.
Chapter 21
Grateful that the wind was spinning those windmills again, providing much-needed power to the house and shop, Ryan tossed more wood in the big wood burner and took a seat at his radio desk, flipping the power switch on the large unit. Although he knew it was a long shot, considering it'd been years since he'd last talked with Henry Adams on this thing, he felt it was worth the try.
A former roommate back in his college days, his old friend Henry had inherited a large fortune in his senior year when his parents had died in a small plane crash. He promptly dropped out of college and bought a coffee plantation in Costa Rica, and had lived there ever since, marrying a local girl a few years later, although they never had any children. Ryan supposed Henry was in a good spot down there, considering the freezing temperatures likely wouldn't reach that far south, which meant he'd be able to grow his own food on his ranch.
The idea had come to him when Jimmy spoke to him a few nights previously about the need for his family to move on. He brought up the idea of going to Florida, and Ryan shot that idea down immediately, doing his best to convince his nephew that going to an overcrowded resettlement camp would likely doom the family. The family needed to be in a place where they could actually start over and live a productive life, not be herded into some death camp, dependent on an ill-equipped government for their very survival. Thankfully, he seemed to grasp that, although Jimmy continued to stress how difficult things were for his family in the aftermath of the raid.
That was when Ryan thought of Henry Adams and his four hundred acre (or was it hectares?) ranch in Costa Rica. He didn't share it with Jimmy, as he didn't want to get anyone's hopes up but ,that night, he turned to channel 31 on the radio and tried to make contact with his old friend, using his call sign, “Javaboy.” He had adopted that name due to his love of coffee, which was presumably why he had bought the ranch in the first place. Ryan got no answer that night, nor the second, or third.
But he was going to keep trying, even if it took a month. They had to do something, as this just wasn't a sustainable situation for the six of them. The meds that were needed for Eliza, Irene's mental state, Jimmy resisting the food rationing every way he could – it all meant that things just couldn't keep going as they were. Another month, perhaps. But them staying a year, or longer, that was asking for the impossible. And the food will be gone in less than a year, and then we'll all starve. But if they left within the next month or two, he and Nora would have up to three years of food left, hopefully getting them across the yawning chasm of the volcanic winter.
Ryan adjusted the squelch knob and a loud squeal came from the speaker, Ryan picked up the handset and held down the button. “Javaboy, Javaboy. This is C-Man from the UP, looking for contact. Repeat, this is C-Man from the UP, looking for Javaboy.”
He released the handle, head cocked to the speaker. Nothing but a faint hiss with a sprinkle of static. After waiting thirty seconds or so, he raised the communicator to his lips, pressing the button. “Javaboy, this is C-Man, are you out
there? C-Man from the UP, looking for Javaboy.”
He was greeted with dead air. Taking in a deep sigh, he prepared to try again. “Javaboy, Javaboy, got your ears on? This is C-Man, C-Man from the UP.”
After trying for a half hour or so, he gave up, clicking the set off. He would just have to keep trying, each night for however long it took. Then again, even if he did get in touch with him and he just happened to say, “Sure, send the family right on down!” there was the slight problem of getting the Durants from the northern edge of a frozen, destroyed country down to Costa Rica, three thousand miles away. He realized they'd probably have to travel by sea from the US, as the break-away state of Texas sure as hell wasn't letting anybody in, and even if they did, entering and traveling through Mexico just wasn't going to be happening.
He shook his head, regretting how he was getting tied up in knots about this. While there was no denying the likelihood of his brother's family having to leave at some point, lest they all starve, the options of the possible places they could flee to were pretty dammed slim. Death camps in Florida or a million-to-one shot of making it to Costa Rica. Take your pick. He flipped the lights off and went into the motorhome. Ryan shed his clothes prior to entering the bedroom, hoping not to wake Nora, who tended to an early bedtime.
However, when he slipped under the covers, she was very much awake, her arms snaking around his body as he snuggled closer to her body. He felt her hard nipples pressing into his chest as she whispered, “C-Man, C-Man, my sexy C-Man.”
He let out a soft moan, hugging her tighter, and getting more excited by the second. If there was one thing that was keeping him sane in this crazy world of death, it was making love to the girl he loved. He really did love Nora, almost as much as life itself. She was life.