“Where’s our radio?” Lauren asked Lee.
“I left it outside—I think the batteries are dead,” he replied.
“That’s perfect,” Lauren retorted in disgust, keeping her rifle ready. As she continued scanning to the left past the driveway, two men came into view on the edge of the woods, both moving low and slow toward the family’s ATVs which were parked out front. The men were carrying high-capacity rifles of some sort and she didn’t recognize them. If the three men that lay dead were members of their group, she couldn’t tell. The approaching men paid them no mind.
“Contact front,” Lauren said under her breath.
Lee turned to her. “How many?”
“Two,” she whispered.
The two men began to closely check out the ATVs as Lauren watched. One of the men pointed to the house and the other nodded. He broke away from his companion and began walking toward the house with his rifle ready. Lauren closed her eyes and took a deep breath. She opened her eyes and lined the up the crosshairs of her scope with the man’s torso. Just as she clicked off the safety and prepared to fire, she heard a suppressed shot. The man’s head exploded and he went down, falling just in front of the porch. Lauren quickly lined up her sights on the second man, who had begun firing wildly into the woods, at where he thought the shot that killed his friend had come from. Lauren pulled the trigger twice, hitting the man center-mass and sending him screaming to the ground. She followed with a single shot to his head, ending him. Her body began to shake. Killing the man reminded her of the first time she had ever pulled the trigger on someone—a moment in her life that she would never forget. She had killed that man for a reason. She kept telling herself that this one was no different. Lauren tried hard to gather herself.
Turn it into something else.
“Multiple contacts—rear!” Lee shouted as he began firing his AK-47 wildly out the back door. “They’re coming out of the woods!”
“How many?” Lauren asked, as she began to regain her composure. Looking over her shoulder at him, she could hear bullets smacking the cabin in between Lee’s shots.
“Ten or twenty,” Lee bellowed as he continued to fire his rifle. “I can’t tell—it’s too many!”
Lauren reluctantly pulled back from her position in the doorway and closed the door, locking the deadbolt. She didn’t want to leave the front of the cabin unguarded, but didn’t know what else to do. She crawled to John’s bedroom and slowly peered through the window, immediately noticing what had gotten Lee so rattled. A large group of armed men, along with several women were standing near the shed, some of them attempting to gain access to it with hatchets, a crowbar, and other tools. Others were standing near them and firing occasionally at the house, using the shed as cover. Lauren reached up and unlocked the window, sliding it upward as fast as she could without being seen. She then lifted her rifle up and pressed the muzzle against the screen. Bringing the targets into view, she noticed that every time Lee would shoot, his shots were either too low or too high, many of them smacking the ground in front of the men, merely covering them with dirt.
“Lee, you need to calm down and aim your shots!” Lauren exclaimed out the door of the bedroom.
“I’m trying!” Lee yelled back from the kitchen.
Lauren adjusted the magnification of her scope and lined up her crosshairs on a man’s head who was shooting at them from behind the cover of the shed. She fired and his head snapped back as he switched off, the ejected brass from her rifle making an audible “clink” as it hit the floor beside her. A man beside him dropped to his knees and began pulling the dead man’s gear off. Lauren drew down on him and fired two rounds into his neck. His body leaned sideways and fell to the ground. After seeing their comrades do down, three other men began yelling loudly and started running toward the cabin.
“Go over there and kill that bitch!” another one of them said as he pointed to the cabin.
One of the men headed to the cabin had a crossbow and the other two only had baseball bats. The man with the crossbow fired a bolt at the cabin, which imbedded itself in the door that Lee was hiding behind. Lauren shot the man holding the crossbow just as he made it across the bridge, his body falling down into the ravine. She then put two rounds into the man with the baseball bat that was closing in fast on the cabin, and after he went down she fired two more shots, ending the life of the third. Her heart was racing now as the adrenaline inside her began to boil over.
When Lee noticed that their attackers had taken some damage, his composure returned and he began aiming his shots again, taking down several of the armed men near the shed. Seeing the fallen members of their group, most of the remaining men and women began retreating back into the woods. They had either dropped their weapons or didn’t have weapons to begin with—but it didn’t matter. He and Lauren both let them run away. The firefight seemingly over, Lee noticed one man left, who had crawled beneath the shed. Lauren noticed as well from the other room.
“You got him?” she asked Lee. “The one under the shed?”
“Yep,” Lee said confidently.
“Ok. I’m moving to the front,” Lauren said. She dropped the magazine from her rifle and replaced it with a fresh one, then crawled to the front door. Opening it, she saw John and Christian, who had found cover in the front yard. John was kneeling behind a tree and Christian was on his knees behind one of the ATVs. Both were unhurt and were scanning the area for additional threats. Lee’s rifle went off from behind her. She turned to him and he held up his hand.
“He’s down,” Lee said proudly. “The rear is clear.”
“Good job, buddy,” Lauren responded.
John turned to see Lauren peering out the front door when he heard the door creak open. He lifted his thumb into the air and Lauren responded with the same, signifying that everything was ok. Christian snapped his fingers and John turned suddenly to him, seeing him point to the gate. John nodded. Christian turned to Lauren and gave her an exigent but concerned look, but didn’t say anything. He didn’t have to. It was obvious to Lauren that he had somewhere to go, but didn’t want to leave her defenseless.
“Go,” Lauren said to Christian in a voice just loud enough for him to hear. “We’re good here.” As she finished, the sound of multiple engines became audible from the road. She knew then, that Christian had heard the engines before she had.
Christian nodded and began quickly walking up the driveway, staying fairly low to the ground. John followed him. This time, with his shotgun at the ready and the AK-47 slung over his shoulder. He began loading the Mossberg with slugs, figuring they’d be more effective at disabling moving vehicles. Their walking soon became running as they leapfrogged from cover toward the gate. As several hostile ATVs came into view, John began to unload his shotgun in their direction, attempting to take out the vehicles. Hitting the ATVs first, the riders were forced to jump off and the trucks behind them came to a sudden stop. Not all of the riders had guns, but those that did began firing wildly at John and Christian. Christian returned fire in full-auto, sending thirty rounds in their direction in no time, hitting a few and stifling the others’ shots. He reloaded quickly, dropping the empty magazine to the ground and sending the bolt home after inserting a fresh one. He switched to semi-auto and began taking aimed shots as John finished off the ATVs before reloading with buckshot.
“They came from the woods behind our house,” Bryan Taylor’s voice said over the radio.
Fred pressed the PTT from the passenger seat of Peter’s truck, which was speeding south down Trout Run Road. “From one of the abandoned houses?”
“Negative,” Bryan said. “From the old logger road at the edge of our property. I saw a bunch of them running through the woods on foot.”
Fred shook his head and cursed under his breath. “Keep those girls safe, Bryan. My sons are on the way from the barricade to help you guys out.”
“10-4,” Bryan said. “We’re in the cellar.”
“Chad, Mark, what�
��s your ETA?” Fred inquired to his sons.
“Two minutes,” Chad’s voice said over the radio.
Grace sat in between Peter and Fred, her rifle against her chest. She was shaking. “‘Two minutes’ sounds like a lifetime,” she said.
Peter stopped his truck in the middle of the road beside St. James Church. He pointed to the vehicles that sat in the road about a hundred yards in front of them, all of which were surrounded by bodies. All of which weren’t moving.
“Slowly,” Fred said. “Very slowly, Pete.”
Peter nodded. Fred knocked on the window to get Norman and Michelle’s attention, who were seated in the back of the truck. Norman was already standing up, his AK-47 resting on the roof of the truck. Michelle had her Glock at the ready. As they pulled forward, two figures emerged from the woods on the left side of the road. At first, they had their guns aimed at Peter’s truck, but disengaged soon after.
Norman tapped on the roof. “Don’t shoot—it’s John and Christian,” he said.
“Who’s Christian?” Peter asked. As they began waving to him, he pulled forward to them and stopped the truck.
“Our new neighbor,” Fred said, “and from the looks of it, someone we could definitely benefit from having around.”
“Come here often?” Peter said to John and Christian, his head hanging out the window.
“Is the area secured?” Fred asked urgently, stopping Peter’s goofiness in its tracks. There was no time for jokes today.
“All hostiles have been neutralized,” Christian said grimly, slinging his rifle over his shoulder and pointing to the smoke that rose from the woods nearby. “We were heading over there now to check that out.”
“Where’s Lauren?” Michelle asked urgently, looking at Norman, “—and Lee?”
“Back at the cabin,” John said. “We had a bunch of takers attack the house. They’re all dead. Lauren and Lee are fine.” He spit on the ground. “Any idea what’s burning?”
“The Schmidt’s house,” Fred said angrily. “Get in the truck.”
John and Christian hopped into the back of Peter’s truck and continued down the road. Peter pulled the truck into the Schmidt’s driveway and the house, which was now fully engulfed in flames, came into view. Fred jumped out and began calling for Megan and Kim on the radio. He then ran over to the woods where his wife and daughter emerged and ran to him. They embraced as the Schmidt family slowly stepped out of the woods. Whitney and Scott both looked devastated. Their hands covered their mouths while they watched their home burn completely out of control with no way to stop it. Their teenage children, Brooke and Brandon, were hysterical. Grace walked over to them and put her arms around them, trying her best to calm them down. Michelle joined Whitney and Scott and began offering whatever comforts she could, although she knew it wouldn’t do much good. Norman stood beside Scott, placing his hand on his shoulder.
After everyone else had gotten out of the truck, Peter stepped out with a radio in his hand. “Guys, I’m sorry, but I have to go. I told Amy what’s going on and she wants me to come back,” Peter said in a rare serious tone.
“Get out of here, Pete. Give us a yell on the radio if you need anything. Thanks for the ride,” Norman said as Peter waved to everyone and soon sped off down Trout Run Road.
A few moments of silence followed as the Schmidt’s once beautiful, split-level home began to collapse in places where the fire had consumed it fully.
“Why would anyone do something like this?” Whitney said in a choked-up voice, tears covering her cheeks. “Why would you just set fire to someone’s house?”
“Maybe to scare us off,” Michelle guessed.
“Well, it makes no sense,” Whitney uttered. “Not one damn bit of sense.”
“They got what they deserved, babe. We’re alive and well, and we can always rebuild,” Scott said, trying to muster something positive out of it.
Fred, Kim, and Megan walked over to the group. After a pause, Norman got Fred’s attention.
“They attacked at dawn from two different directions,” Norman said, trying to keep his voice down.
“I know. Goes to show that you should never underestimate your enemies,” Fred said.
Christian walked up to the group with John. He broke away and went to stand beside Grace, who was still consoling the children. She smiled at him and he winked at her.
Scott turned around and noticed Christian, but didn’t recognize him. All he saw was the black uniform, body armor, and suppressed M4. Seeing how close he was standing to Grace, he motioned to her and said, “Friend of yours?”
She nodded and introduced Christian to the Schmidts and to the others who had yet to meet him.
Seeing all the distraught faces and helpless looks, Kim had become uncomfortable with the situation. “Let’s get you guys out of here,” she spoke up. “We can clean this up tomorrow after the fire has died down.” She stepped in front of Whitney and embraced her. “We have plenty of room. For the time being, you all can stay with us.”
The Schmidts were overcome with what Kim had offered them and thanked her, deciding to take her up on her offer, after discussing it amongst themselves for a bit. It came as a surprise to them, especially knowing that they were not Fred’s favorite people. Regardless, the events of the day had them emotionally exhausted. There wasn’t any point in watching their home, and everything they had held dear, go up in flames any longer.
Lauren held her rifle at low-ready as she hopped on one foot from the front of the cabin to the rear. She took a quick look at the ATVs that sat in the driveway and was glad to see that they hadn’t been damaged. The cabin had taken a few hits, both on the front and rear. The logs prevented the bullets from penetrating, but had nonetheless been damaged. There were bodies scattered all over the property. Lee was outside in the driveway, investigating the ones that had been the first to go down.
“Takers?” Lauren inquired.
“Yeah,” Lee uttered. “No one special that I can see—and no bikers.”
“I’m going to go check out the shed,” Lauren said.
Lee acknowledged her and she made her way to the rear of the property. Lauren moved slowly over the wooden bridge that crossed Trout Run and out to the shed. When she got to the front door, she noticed that the group had actually managed to break into it, and the door was just sitting there cracked open. She began to feel like she had a few days ago, when the feeling of curiosity had overwhelmed her. She stepped forward and lifted her rifle to her cheek, and then forced the door open with her right hand.
“Don’t shoot us,” a voice in the darkness said. “We don’t want any trouble.”
Lauren was startled. She had heard that voice before, but couldn’t place it. She stepped back and took cover behind the shed wall. She kneeled down instinctively with her rifle’s barrel aimed into the darkness. In an authoritative voice, Lauren said, “Come out of there slowly, with your hands where I can see them, and I won’t shoot you.”
Two figures began to emerge from the darkness. The first figure that came into view was a little girl. Lauren immediately noticed her shoes—they were dimly flashing with each step. At that point, even before the woman came into view, she knew exactly who they were. Lauren backed away slowly. She lifted the rifle up and aimed it at the woman—immediately noticing that she had a revolver in her right hand.
“Drop the gun!” Lauren exclaimed. She continued putting distance in between herself and them.
The woman smiled. “I can’t do that,” she said.
“Lady, I’m telling you right now, I will shoot you if you don’t put down that gun!” Lauren warned.
“I’m not afraid of death,” the woman said with an emotionless stare. She patted her daughter’s shoulder. “Neither is she. We deal with the prospect of death every day—therefore, we don’t fear it. We embrace it.”
“You don’t have to die today,” Lauren said slowly. “We can live in peace with each other. It doesn’t have to be this way.”
>
“You’re wrong,” the woman began, “this is how it is. This is our reality. This is how we survive.”
“By taking things from others?” Lauren indignantly asked. “By killing other people? There are a million other ways to survive that don’t involve taking someone else’s things from them or killing them.”
The woman smiled deviously. “Are we so different? You say these things, but look what you’ve done,” she said as she pointed around the shed to the corpses. “You murdered these men without any regard for who they were, or why they were here.”
“We didn’t murder anyone,” Lauren asserted firmly. “You attacked us. We defended ourselves. Self-defense is not murder.”
“Our opinions differ because we are truly different,” the woman said with a devious grin. “Look at all that you have—look at all these things. You have food, shelter, water, everything you need. We have none of this. Just with what you have stored in this building here, could keep us alive for months. Why is it that you have these things and we do not? Who made you people the lords of the land?”
“We didn’t take this land using eminent domain,” Lauren explained. “The people who live here bought the property from previous owners. The only reason we have what we have is because we planned ahead and now, we utilize what the land provides—same as you do. We don’t lay claim to anything that doesn’t already belong to us.”
The woman’s emotions began to escalate as her cheeks filled with color. The little girl looked up at her mother often, but didn’t say a word. It was almost as if she had been programmed not to.
“And how did the original owners of the land acquire it? How did the original settlers of this country get their lands and other things they needed? That’s right—they took it. They took it by force,” the woman argued.
“You and your people made a choice to live this way. We made a choice to live our way. We work hard to have what we have—and we don’t go out and kill people to get what we want. That’s the only difference between you and me.” Lauren paused. “Aside from that, we’re just two people trying to survive.”
What's Left of My World: A Story of a Family's Survival Page 31