by Kirk Withrow
“So full frontal assault it is,” said John in an upbeat tone that belied the trepidation roiling inside.
“Blitzkrieg,” said Reams as he nodded his head in agreement. His face remained an emotionless mask.
Ethan considered the big man’s word, nodding his head in both understanding and agreement as well. Launching a lightning fast offensive, and taking down as many revs as possible with the suppressed weapons as they advanced quickly on the house would likely give them the best chance of getting through the revs while still catching those inside off-guard.
“Blitzkrieg,” said Ethan.
As it was approaching 3:00 P.M., the three men decided that starting the offensive at 5:00 P.M. might afford them the best chance of taking those in the house by surprise. They went over the plan several times considering as many possible problems and deviations as they could come up with. They ate, drank, and checked their weapons and gear several times as they waited for 5:00 to arrive. At 4:45, they packed up and readied themselves—both physically and mentally—for what they were about to do. Turning to them, Ethan said, “You guys don’t have to do this, you know. I’ll be honest, it looks bad. I won’t think any less of either of you for sitting this one out. I know you guys are searching for Ava…”
Before he could finish, both John and Reams stopped him. Without hesitation, John said, “We’re coming with you. We’ve both thought about this and talked it over. Now it’s getting close to 5:00, we should get going.”
With a grateful smile and a nod from Ethan, the three men scaled the wall surrounding Hermitage Estates. Once on the ground inside, things were just as expected. They saw no revs anywhere as they approached the house on the far side of the neighborhood but none of them were so foolhardy to think they weren’t lurking in the shadows. Approaching the rear of the burnt-out house, they stacked up along the wall. At this distance, the sound of the horde blossomed into a continuous, foreboding drone that sounded like a badly tuned two-cycle engine in the middle of a plague of locusts.
Peering cautiously around the corner of the house, Ethan surveyed the scene, and was satisfied that it remained unchanged from his earlier observations. If the revs or the occupants of the other house were aware of their presence, they did not broadcast the fact. Ethan hoped he would see additional details about who was in the house from this close range but, unfortunately, that was not the case.
Huddled behind the house, the three men went over the plan one last time. “John, you head around the left of the house; Reams, you take the right side, and I’ll follow you. John, wait until you hear shots from our side before you open up. We should try to take out at least five to ten revs each as quickly as possible so as to clear a corridor while still keeping the element of surprise. Suppressed weapons only initially. Reams has been kind enough to let me use the Five-Seven, and you both have the rifles. John, pick your targets from the corridor of fire in front of you, along your path to the side of the other house. We’ll do the same on our side except I’ll work the middle in order to keep eyes on the house for signs that anyone inside has taken notice of our actions. Reams, you’ll move first, within thirty seconds of the first shot. Take up position along the side of the other house out of the line of fire of any of the windows. Don’t engage anyone in the house unless you absolutely have to, focus on keeping the revs off of you. John and I will cover your movement. John, five to ten seconds later, you’ll move and do the same as Reams, with me covering your advance. Depending on the situation inside the house, I’ll join one of you on the side or just take it up the middle to the front of the house. I’m hoping for the middle.”
Both men stared in amazement as they listened to Ethan blaze through the plan like a head coach running through the plays for the big game. Given his cool and collected demeanor, they couldn’t help but wonder how many times he had given this same kind of briefing before. It was clear that he was in his element, a fact that left John and Reams feeling reassured they were in good hands heading into battle.
“Strict silence up until we actually breech the house, then no names, and only the bare minimum chatter. We don’t want to let them know who or how many we are if we can help it. Once I’m in position, I’ll signal the breech, and the two of you will come in through the back of the house. The signal for the breech will be, ‘Give up now assholes!’ ”
Suppressing a chuckle, Reams said, “Very original, Ethan.”
Ethan continued as if he hadn’t heard him. “The back is the only area we haven’t been able to recon, so be careful as you approach the rear of the structure as we don’t know exactly what we’ll find. Once inside, watch your corners and cover each other as you clear the rooms in the back of the house. Pay attention to everything—furniture, closet doors, doorways leading to other rooms—anywhere those assholes could be hiding. We don’t want any surprises. I will come in through the front so check your fire. I’ll stay low, and unless these guys have changed clothes, there shouldn’t be any issue telling them apart from me. We’ll both clear right, so once I make it to the back and you guys to the front, the first floor should be clear. Questions?”
John looked up at Ethan who stood there like General Patton after addressing the United States Third army, and said, “No plan survives contact with the enemy, right? Let’s go.”
The three-man assault team moved around the house to their respective positions. Almost immediately John heard the volley of suppressed shots coming from the other side of the house. With careful, deliberate shot placement, John began sending lead of his own downrange. The three men operated as if they were a seasoned fire squad with at least thirty revs falling victim to death’s final embrace in less than twenty seconds. Acquire target, breath, squeeze, acquire target, breath, squeeze. To John, the staccato popping sounds of the three suppressed weapons sounded vaguely like popcorn in the microwave.
Out of the corner of his eye, John saw Reams dash out of cover and dart across the street to the side of the other house. As he steeled his own nerves, John was once again amazed at the big man’s speed. John took a deep breath and, after a ten count, he rushed across the street to his side of the house as planned. Though he was thankful he made it without any trouble, he was also unnerved by how easy this was so far.
Ethan charged the front of the house laying down his own covering fire from the Five-Seven’s thirty round extended magazine. Lungs straining and muscles protesting, he crashed hard into the wall next to the front door as he released the spent magazine from the pistol before slamming in a fresh one. He, too, was a little alarmed at seeing no signs of the bikers inside the house. “Give up now assholes!” shouted Ethan, loud enough to be sure the two men behind the house could hear him.
John and Reams met at the rear of the house as they rounded their respective corners. Glancing up onto the back porch they saw no movement. There were, however, two dead bikers lying on the deck’s wood flooring. One was nearly decapitated, his head listing severely to the side, barely hanging on by skin and paraspinal muscles. The other had his pants down around his ankles and multiple stab wounds to the chest. Both looked like they had been dead for at least a day. The two men cautiously made their way onto the porch, flattening themselves against the wall to each side of the back door just as they heard Ethan’s signal coming from the front of the house.
Wasting no time, John nodded to Reams, who turned and kicked the flimsy door in with no more effort than if he was simply taking a step. John burst into the house clearing his side of the room as Reams spilled in behind him doing the same on the opposite side. The empty room was quiet save for the sound of the two men’s ragged breath that swirled and eddied in their lungs, desperately trying to keep up with the demands of their bodies.
“Clear! Move right,” uttered John in a low voice. He and Reams pressed against the wall on each side of the door leading to the adjacent room. After a silent three count, John pushed the swinging door open, allowing Reams to pie the corner as he entered the room. John followe
d right on his heels but immediately stopped short. Both men stood motionless, transfixed by the grisly scene that lay before them. While no apparent threat could be seen, it was clear that the horrific room had previously held nothing but threats.
The coppery scent of blood from countless individuals mixed with the sour odor of sweat and myriad other indescribable, visceral smells resulted in an intensely unpleasant pungence that, even without the visual evidence, told of the malice the room had witnessed. John averted his gaze slightly as if that might somehow also offer his nose reprieve from the menacing odor. Of all the horrible things that came into the world on the wings of the plague, to John the smells always seemed to be the worst. Considering this previously, he surmised that it was likely due to humans having been constantly bombarded with intense, graphic visual stimuli on television, movies, and even the news leading to desensitization combined with the fact that olfactory stimuli are processed through the limbic system leading to a deep-seated, primitive, emotional component to one’s experience of a particular smell.
Despite his ardent attempts to deal with the overwhelmingly noxious room, John buckled forward, gagging. I bet people wouldn’t be so interested in graphic video games and movies if the smell of the action accompanied the images. Slowly and with considerable effort, John recovered enough to stand upright next to Reams, who still looked more horrorstruck than if he had just walked in on his parents while they were having it off.
“My God,” croaked Reams still aghast with incomprehension. There appeared to be at least three bodies in the room though it was difficult to know for certain. Such was the brutality of the massacre that occurred within the four walls of the room. Every conceivable surface was caked in blood and tissue giving it the appearance of the killing room floor in a slaughterhouse. Several large red lumps lay scattered randomly throughout the room, as if someone had stepped on a landmine or an IED. John’s eyes settled on the most disturbing aspect of the room—a partially clothed and apparently dead female slumped next to a heavy table. One hand was tethered to one of the table’s stout wooden legs while the other hand was missing all together. Her entire body was red and crusted with dried blood. It was impossible to tell her age as her face was so severely bruised and swollen that it appeared nearly featureless. Despite this John thought she was at least in her twenties or thirties. He felt a tinge of guilt at his relief that it was not a younger girl—that it was not Ava.
The men’s shocked silence was shattered by an ear-splitting shriek emanating from somewhere in the corner behind Reams. Still completely overwhelmed by the carnage in the room, both men were slow to react to the new stimuli. John turned in time to see an equally blood-soaked figure lunge toward Reams, who remained oblivious as he gawked at the carnage smeared across the entire room. The person moved with feral, lightning fast speed so John knew it was not a rev. One arm was outstretched, but he could not discern the blood-camouflaged object clutched in the sanguineous hand. Instantly, the high-pitched screak of the attacker was joined by an equally blood-curdling outcry as Reams spun, jolted back to reality by the pain radiating from his left arm that was impaled by a blade buried to the hilt in his meaty triceps muscle.
John, too, sprang into motion as the reality of what was happening finally caught up with him. Before his synapses even had a chance to fire, however, a green blur tore through the door and collided full speed with the red attacker. The force of the collision sent both figures rolling across the room in a red and green tangle that ended with the green figure in a dominant top position, completely immobilizing the still-shrieking assailant. As the tumult abated, John’s brain began to compile the details emerging from the settling dust.
Caught off guard by the gruesome scene, both he and Reams failed to notice the fairly camouflaged figure lurking in the corner of the room. This red figure was a woman so gore-encrusted that she blended almost seamlessly with the sanguine décor of the room. While she did not appear to be infected, it was impossible to be certain as nary an inch of her body appeared to have escaped the horrors of the room. Despite her physical appearance, John did not think the small-framed woman looked like the type to run with a gang of bikers.
The green figure that now easily restrained the bloody woman was Ethan, who had likely been finishing his sweep of the opposite side of the house when the woman unleashed her frenzied battle cry. During the ensuing fray, Ethan’s prosthesis was dislodged. Remembering his initial reaction upon seeing Ethan’s facial defect, John knew this certainly added to the woman’s anxiety. Reams stood facing the spot where the woman was hiding moments before, the handle of the knife still protruding from the back of his upper arm. There was relatively little blood coming from the knife wound, and while John found this encouraging, he still worried the impaled blade could be tamponading bleeding from a serious vascular injury.
Though Ethan had no trouble restraining the small woman, she continued to struggle fiercely – undeterred by his repeated attempts to talk her down. John recognized the wild-eyed thousand-yard-stare that reflected the horrors she must have witnessed and endured. PTSD—she’s in shock. Moving to help Ethan, John also tried unsuccessfully to reach her with gentle, soothing words. Realizing that all she could see was simply two more men attacking her, John and Ethan elected to restrain her feet and hands with lengths of paracord for their protection as well as her own. They secured her hands behind her back, but they were careful to minimize the pain of her bonds. As there wasn’t a clean surface in the room, they eased her onto the couch after flipping the cushions over to create a relatively unsoiled surface.
Alone on the couch, the red woman’s struggles slowly subsided as she gazed with intense resignation at her two captors who moved to care for the big man she had stabbed. She snarled inwardly in disgust at not having killed at least one of these ‘monsters.’
Ethan quickly removed a tourniquet from his vest and applied it to Reams’ arm, proximal to the knife wound. With the tourniquet tight, John held his breath as he removed the knife with slow steady pressure. Very little bleeding ensued, and he hoped this was not due solely to the effect of the tourniquet. John doubted this was the case as a significant arterial injury was still likely to bleed some, tourniquet or not. Slowly he loosened the tourniquet, keeping a watchful eye for a significant increase in hemorrhaging. A moderate amount of blood pooled and dripped from the laceration, but as it was non-pulsatile, it was unlikely to be arterial bleeding. Breathing a deep sigh of relief, John cleaned the wound the best he could with the limited medical supplies available. He packed it with strips of sterile gauze and applied a clean dressing over it. To his credit, Reams barely made a sound through the ordeal, though John suspected this was as much due to shock as anything else.
Although less than ten minutes passed since they first entered the room, John could see a definite difference in the big man. Despite the two people being polar opposites in every other conceivable way, Reams and the red woman both shared the same far off, vacant look in their eyes. John caught sight of the woman staring intently at him as he worked. With Ethan off completing a secondary sweep of the house, and Reams still somewhat out of it, John felt unnerved and a little vulnerable under the woman’s scrutinizing stare. While her size was far from intimidating, the wild, menacing gleam dancing rabidly in her eyes promised to do horrible things to him if given the chance.
“That should do it. You okay, buddy?” said John as he clapped his friend on his good shoulder.
“So much blood. I should have looked closer; I should have seen her…” replied Reams in a choked voice that was little more than a whisper. He looked straight ahead, staring at something John could not see.
Just as John was about to speak, a different sound filled the void. A coarse and equally raspy voice that sounded as though it arose from a throat that had been gargling razor blades uttered a single, pained word.
“Sorry.”
Both John and Reams turned toward the sound and were surprised to see a comple
tely different person sitting on the couch. Though outwardly the woman on the couch appeared unchanged, this red woman’s eyes were softer and glistened, as tears slowly collected in the corners like dewdrops on leaves in the early morning sun. Looking directly at Reams, she conveyed no malice, but rather seemed as timid as a fawn and as delicate as a spring flower.
Entranced, John watched as Reams stood and walked purposefully over to the couch where the bound woman sat. Much to his surprise, her amicable demeanor did not shirk away from the behemoth approaching her. Reams knelt down several feet from the captive woman, and said, “It’s okay. It’s not your fault. You don’t know us, and you didn’t know our intentions. The man that tackled you was involved in a fight with the men that brought you here a few days ago. Do you remember that? He told us about you, and we agreed to come with him to rescue you. We don’t mean you any harm. If you can understand and accept that, I’ll cut your bonds.”
Timidly, the woman nodded her understanding as a single, subtle sob broke within her. “Please don’t make me regret this,” said Reams as he drew his knife and cut the paracord.