Millman shouted up and down the line. “Be smart people. We have this. We have the numbers, we have protection.”
And we have Coru, Mattea, the Hansen twins and Tony Antonelli, Wren added silently, taking strength there was help out there.
Now focused, the camp came alive as their training kicked in. They dropped down, scrambling on all fours to get back to their stations and weapons, while others headed behind the campers and trailers as Gayle had, to pull the children through the windows to get them back to the safe zone.
There was no one to take Deklin back. Tammy was dead, Gayle was gone, rescuing children, leaving Wren and Deklin alone. Wren couldn’t abandon her station to run him to the safe zone. If she left, there would be a gap the Lords could breach. There was no way he could go alone.
“Lie down, tuck under the tree, Deklin.” She handed him Coru’s taser. “If anyone tries to hurt you, you touch them with this, okay?”
He batted it away and wailed, “I don’t like that!”
“Don’t be afraid Deklin. This will save your life.”
He refused, shaking his head. “No, no, no, no!”
“Get under the tree, please, Deklin. Stay there ‘til I say you can come out, okay?”
Deklin did as she said, squeezing his eyes closed, covering his ears against the sound of bullets, his body quaking. A bullet would have to get through three feet of wood to get to him. It was the best she could do.
Like Millman, Wren sighted her rifle and scanned the moving grass before her and waited. There. A Lord was pulling himself along by his elbows, staying low, checking from time to time. They were likely all doing this, which sent a fright up her spine. Like locusts, they were advancing through the tall grass, creeping, crawling, eating up everything they touched.
But this is the one you can see. This is the one you can stop.
She narrowed her eyes and waited. Yes, he popped his head up again. She drilled him in the middle of his forehead. Like Tammy, he made no sound. Shaking, she scanned the grasses again, waited again, needing to make every bullet count, but it was so damned hard, literally hit and miss. The sun danced before her, blinding her in some places, then allowing her clarity in others.
The Lords had chosen the best time to attack. The sun was blinding, the grass the perfect cover.
Mario slammed into place beside her, breathless from darting across the open space to the felled tree, a weapon in his hands, his eyes big. Thomas slammed into place on her other side, also out of breath. Mario gasped, “Mom sent us up to help you.”
Wren nodded. “Hold your fire until you actually see a target. The best help you can be is a spotter. I know they’re in there, but I can’t see a damned thing.”
The boys’ gazes raked the open field before them. The tall grasses danced in the wind, golden waves denying there were killers hidden among them; the sunlight sparkled. Wren’s eyes hurt. “There.” Mario said, “Someone’s cutting the barbed wire. To your left.”
Wren swung her rifle to where Mario was pointing.
He crouched down beside her, gazed along with her. “See? You can see him move just by watching the wire disappear.”
Wren murmured, “Good eye, Mario,” and sighted to where Mario had spotted the grasses change in motion. He was right. She saw another section of wire drop out of sight, learned the pattern of this man’s actions, followed it and fired. They all watched, waited.
No more wire was cut.
The boy’s high-fived behind her. “Don’t celebrate yet,” she murmured again, the butt of her rifle tucked up to her cheek as she tracked another pattern of grass movement. She fired again. There was a brief cry and the grass moved no more.
Yes, the grasses moved in waves, but the very pattern of movement was what was giving away the Road Lords positions. Not the perfect cover after all.
“You know what to do now, boys. These guys thought we’d be easy. Let’s make liars out of them.”
The boys trained their weapons toward the Lords, and chose their shots well. Mario’s cut slugs did the job, leaving more than one Lord writhing in the dirt.
Despite Millman’s terse instructions, the Outlanders continued to take a beating—they were firing blind, they were taking hits, they were dying. They were outgunned by a mile. Assault weapons against shotguns and rifles — not a fair exchange. The Lords stood, sprayed a wall of bullets and advanced, and it still wasn’t clear how many there were. Thomas popped up, aimed and caught the assault rifle wielding Lord in the chest, silencing the deadly weapon. Caught out running forward, three more Lords were hit with Outlander cut slugs. Still, Wren heard screaming and sobbing as more Outlanders fell and their loved ones reacted. The Outlanders were falling apart.
Millman called into the walkie talkie, “Where the hell are you?”
Mattea answered breathlessly, “Almost in position.”
In a matter of only minutes, maybe three or four, the Lords had breached the first barrier, cutting the barbed wire with wire cutters, all in a day’s work for the Road Lords. Closer now, the Outlanders still at their post could see the enemy and from their protected positions, could pick them off, one by one, the sun no longer an issue this close in. But a second wave of Lords ate up the yards between them, taking advantage of the blinded Outlanders.
Mattea’s voice came over the walkie talkie. “Drop! Drop! Drop!”
Millman shouted up and down the line. “Drop! Drop! Drop!”
The Outlander’s camp was instantly silent.
This time was different; this time the Lords were attacked from behind. Coru and Mattea’s team had advanced across the open field, and were taking out the Lords, who rounded, returned fire, but now the tables were turned—this time it was the Road Lords who were blinded by the setting sun. Now the Lords were dying.
The rear assault was magnificent to witness, Coru, Mattea, The Hansens, and Tony Antonelli all advancing, firing, hit after hit against the now blinded Road Lords.
This had to be all the Lords, not just forty, but all. Fifty-plus deadly men against one hundred and eighty men and women — farmers, accountants, electricians, music teachers, dance instructors, painters. Most of the weapons in the Outlanders’ arsenal were already out of ammo because of their panicked reaction at the start, which took their ammo down by half and gained nothing.
Now no one crouched, no one hid. They seized any weapon available and stood their ground.
The Lords were on their feet, running from Coru’s rear assault, a screaming wall of killers, running toward the depleted Outlanders, leaping over their hasty pine barrier, shooting at close range, taking down women, children, old men, young men. Some Lords fell, shot in the back by Coru’s team, but that quickly stopped when the rear team engaged, hand to hand now with the Lords still in the field.
Inside their barrier, the Outlanders fell back, many frightened by the sight of blood-thirsty, fearless men bearing down on them, while others moved toward them, challenging the Lords, willing to give their lives for their family.
It was down to hand-to-hand combat inside the Outlander’s safe zone now, heartless Road Lords against people, old and young, men and women, fighting for their lives. Knives were bared. With no ammo left, Wren screamed at Deklin to stay put, for Mario and Thomas to run, to save the children. She could see Coru and Mattea, each man battling a Lord. She needed them alive. She needed them to fight by her side.
The sounds all around fell away, and all she saw, all she was aware of was Coru and Mattea and their fight to the death. This would not happen. Standing erect, she set an arrow, and let it fly, killing Coru’s opponent, then whipped out another arrow, and took down Mattea’s, then another Lord, racing toward Coru from behind. He was down before Coru even knew he was in danger.
She moved on to Tony, only winging his opponent. Tony finished him with a backhanded slice across the throat as if he were swatting an annoying fly. The expression on his face was unrecognizable.
The Hansen twins were good—deadly good�
��running toward her, bent on reaching the battle inside their safe zone.
The field cleared, Tony, Mattea and Coru were running toward her too.
The sound of combat slammed back into her brain and she was again aware of her own surroundings. She watched in horror as a Lord brought down his blade, slicing young Mario across the chest, opening a long crimson slash across the boy’s body.
A scream of anguish that grew into an unearthly roar filled the air as Gayle Antonelli came from nowhere with a butcher knife and buried it to its hilt into the Lord’s stomach. “No one hurts my boy!” Gayle screamed, her face an expression of rage no human would want to face. The man fell to his knees before her, the knife slipping from his body. She raised the knife and struck again and again, her eyes wild.
Tony vaulted the pine, reached out to his wife and grabbed her arm, holding the knife away from himself. “Gayle! Gayle. It’s over. He’s dead.”
She snarled at her husband, not seeing him, not recognizing the man.
“Gayle. Mario needs your help.”
She stopped snarling, blinked and seem to come back from some other place.
Satisfied, Tony said, “Help Mario. I’ll be back.” He turned, slammed up against a Lord and sliced his throat open with one swing of his arm. A wave of blood sprayed across Tony’s face. He turned and moved onto another Lord, his gory features calm, focused, intense.
Wren ripped her gaze away from Tony, dropped to Gayle who picked up her seventeen- year-old son as if he were still a boy and carried him through the bloody melee all around her to the Antonelli trailer. Wren registered young Thomas was struggling against an older, heavier Lord.
The man was slower than his companions, but he was faster than Thomas. He beat the boy across the head with his gun, then once Thomas was on the ground, raised it up to shoot him.
Before she could react, Deklin streaked across the dirt, Coru’s taser in his outstretched hand. “Not my friend! Not my friend!’ he cried, and pressed the taser into the Lord’s neck.
The big man’s body stiffened, his back arched, then he began to vibrate, his eyes rolling up into his head. Then he fell and moved no more.
Wren looked at Coru’s taser with shocked eyes. This thing didn’t just stop. This thing killed.
She grabbed Deklin’s arm and said, “Help me get Thomas to a safe place.”
With his shirt sleeve, Deklin swiped snot from his face, tears from his eyes and nodded, shoving the taser into his back pocket and lifting his friend to his feet, jammed his shoulder under Thomas’s armpit and dragged him behind the first row of trailers.
Wren ran after him, pulled the taser from his pocket and darted to where Doug lay unconscious under a Lord. The Lord had a knife in his hand and had ideas Wren did not agree with. She pressed the taser hard into his ribs. Same reaction as the man Deklin had stopped. Dead, he fell forward on top of Doug. She kicked him away and dragged Doug toward the campers.
Ann-Marie and Therese appeared at her side and took Doug from her and gracelessly pulled him into the Antonelli’s trailer, his body thumping against the unforgiving metals steps.
Armed with this new and extremely effective tool, Wren looked for more Lords she could stop and let the taser do its magic. All around her were still bodies, dead or dying, and people in deadly conflict.
Outlanders fought the larger, fiercer nothing to lose Lords and lost.
Lords fought skinny but motivated, everything to lose Outlanders and lost.
She ended many of these conflicts with her taser, and everywhere she went with her great equalizer, it seemed she saw Coru. He was everywhere at once, finishing struggles, ending Road Lord’s lives.
Mattea was quicksilver, wielding his thin blade like a maestro.
Millman was a terror, taking down Lords like he ate them for lunch.
The Hansen twins worked in tandem, and were successful until they were outnumbered.
Coru settled that score and they all moved on.
Dean, their self-taught horse shoe master found an iron bar an effective weapon and demonstrated his new-found skills repeatedly to excellent results.
The tide had turned. It was over except for the clean-up.
In the end the Outlanders were the victors, but at a terrible price.
In the end, all the Lords were dead. How many, the Outlanders didn’t know. There was no interest in finding and counting the Road Lords’ bodies to satisfy that question. The Lords were left where they lay, only their weapons and ammo collected.
After burying their dead, the Bear Lake Outlanders, that brave, hopeful troupe, two hundred and thirty-one strong less than twenty-four hours ago, was now numbered at one hundred and ninety-eight. Thirty-four deaths, seven of them children, caught inside campers by indiscriminate bullet sprays. No one was untouched.
Among the dead was Wendy Stark, the girl who’d dared to escape, to warn them of the Lord’s trap. She’d deliberately stepped between a Lord’s bullet and Adam Braden, electrician Phil Braden’s six-year-old son.
Young Rachel Bryant, who’d bravely ridden before the watchful eyes of the Road Lords to bring intel to each truck, each camper, was killed.
The sight of her pretty french braid, now soaked in blood and her pitifully thin, young body, broke Wren as they laid the girl to rest with the others. Rachel deserved more. She deserved a French braid every day, she deserved to giggle with Ann-Marie and Therese, she deserved to be a girl, to grow up.
Old families were lost; new families were formed.
After saying a few words over the mass shallow grave in which the dead were placed, at dusk, the exhausted Bear Lake Outlanders pulled away from the Prince George killing fields and onto the highway leading south, not wanting another night to pass in that sorrowful place.
35
THE GATHERING
They followed the highway south, meeting no opposition. Their size and numbers, the bullet scars in their campers and vehicles, that thirty-yard stare some wore served to warn away those who might consider challenging them.
They picked up dozens of survivors as they moved through towns and villages, some with vehicles of their own, many on horseback, all with a harrowing story of survival to tell and a hope for a better life in Freeland.
Quesnel. Williams Lake. 100 Mile House.
They stayed three days in 100 Mile House, setting up camp beside Exeter Lake, their flight from Prince George slowing, their need to rest, repair and regroup overcoming their need for distance. The bullet holes in the campers and trailers were covered over, inside and out, with “the farmer’s friend”, duct tape. Weaponry and ammo was assessed, repaired and redistributed to those most capable. New members were vetted, placed where they could best serve the good of the group.
The injured were helped from their beds, brought out into the sunshine, wrapped in blankets and pillows for the best comfort and allowed to be still, to heal, to let tension and fear fade away. Many simply stared ahead, their eyes dull.
And they meant for the children to run and play — expend some energy and some of the emotions they were keeping locked inside their small, shell-shocked hearts and minds. Nobody ran, nobody played.
Mattea went hunting early the second morning, and came back with a good-sized deer, a young buck. The children gathered round, curious. As he worked skinning the beast, Mattea grinned at the children. “This won’t be an ordinary roast; no need to hide our smoke here. We have no enemies here.”
They stared back at him with big eyes.
The adults, the injured, the walking wounded turned their gazes away, settled on another sight, keeping their emotions to themselves. They were not so easily swayed.
Mattea tasked the children with finding kindling in the surrounding meadow. They hurried away to find the wood, wanting to help the russet-skinned man with the wide smiling face and long black hair.
Mattea and Millman dug the roasting pit, the children tossed everything burnable they could find into it. It was fun! They ran for more, c
rowed with glee at their finds, at their skills at pitching wood into the pit. They partnered up, dragged back bigger pieces, grunting with their efforts, rolling them into the pit.
Mattea smiled with approval, raised his eyebrow at passersby, nodding at other adults, catching their eye, nudging their attention to the industrious youngsters. A few smiled back, some stopped to watch, murmuring a few words to one another. Some moved on, others stayed.
Mattea asked, “Anyone here know how to butcher a deer? I’m new at this stuff and sure could use a hand.”
When Wren bit her lip and rolled her eyes, he drilled her with a “be still” expression she didn’t dare ignore.
A couple of men stepped forward, claiming some knowledge.
Mattea asked, “Anyone here got a really sharp knife to do the job right?”
People asked around, more members came out to see what was up. A few sharp knives were produced.
Mattea slapped his forehead. “Geez — didn’t even think. We need a long table of some sort to work on. Can’t do this in the dust.”
“And wash up first. Gotta keep things clean,” Gayle reminded him from her chair, where she sat, doped up with muscle relaxing medication and nursing her injured back. She had no memory of carrying her son into her trailer, barely any of stitching up his wound, but the back injury — that she knew very well. She was grateful to be sitting still.
“We could set up a few tables in a row, cover it with a plastic tarp, and cut it up that way.” Wren suggested, getting with Mattea’s program.
“Sounds good,” one man said, a new member, picked-up outside of Williams Lake.
The tables were assembled, the men washed up in the Antonelli’s trailer, and set out to cut up the deer into roastable pieces. Curious, more people drifted over to see what was happening.
“You know what my dad used to do…” Mattea heard one woman tell her husband.
“What I wouldn’t give for a fire-baked potato,” another said.
“I have sacks of potatoes. Should be enough for everyone. I don’t have much, but potatoes, I got. The only thing I seem to be able to grow.”
Lost Sentinel: Post-Apocalyptic Time Travel Adventure (Earth Survives Series Book 1) Page 42