Despite these challenges, Alex was optimistic about the approach. Conditions favored a covert arrival. He didn’t detect any high-rise structures in the vicinity of the North Beacon Street Bridge, which restricted militia observation to ground-level efforts. The Liberty Boys should have a presence at the bridge, but given the weather conditions, he suspected it would be confined to vehicles. Street visibility was limited to two hundred feet at best, even less through water-blurred car windows. By the time Alex’s group appeared, it would be too late to stop them, and if the Liberty Boys tried, they’d be cut to pieces with brutal precision by the marines. It was time to get moving.
Alex scuttled through the narrow space between houses and sprinted across the muddy backyard to a gray wooden shack nestled against a paint-chipped white picket fence lining the back of the property. The kids had sheltered on the leeward side of the utility shed, between an overgrown forsythia bush and the fence. He pushed his way through the branches, startling both of them.
“Jesus, Dad!” Ryan said, lowering the pistol.
Ryan and Chloe sat shoulder to shoulder on the ground, with their backs against the shed. A steady flow of water poured off the roof onto their legs.
“Time to go,” said Alex, extending his hand to pull Ryan off the ground. “The street looks empty. There’s a chain-link fence on the other side, then the turnpike. We’ll cross at a dead sprint. Do not stop for any reason. If you spot another human being, call out the relative direction using the clock method. Add a rough distance and description. Keep moving. We can’t get pinned down on the turnpike. There’s no cover. Understand the clock method? Assume twelve o’clock is directly facing the river or across the highway. Check?”
“Check,” said Ryan.
“Check?” said Chloe.
“I got her,” said Ryan, pulling Chloe to her feet.
The screen door at the top of the back porch flew open, slamming against the warped siding. A man rushed down the uneven concrete steps connected to the house, pointing a double-barreled shotgun at them. Alex skidded to a halt, immediately reaching back with an open hand to signal the rest of them to stop. He locked eyes with Ryan and quickly shook his head, returning his gaze to the man holding the shotgun. He prayed that Ryan got the message. There was no way they could outdraw this guy. Someone died if either of them tried. He doubted the shotgun was loaded with anything less than #1 buckshot, which would obliterate anything in the gun’s direct path. At a distance of twenty feet, the man could very easily kill two of them with one blast. He raised his hands and faced the gunman, relieved to see Ryan and Chloe do the same.
“On your knees!” the man yelled.
“We’re just passing through. Headed north to Maine,” said Alex, trying to stall.
Dropping to his knees represented a severe reduction in mobility and options. The man would order them to lay prone next, eliminating any chance of escape or reasonable discourse. They’d cease to be human beings on the ground.
“This is my son and his girlfriend. I came down here to bring them home. They were in college when this mess started,” said Alex.
He studied the man’s reaction. His deep scowl relaxed while he examined the kids and took a few hesitant steps forward.
“How do you explain the hardware?” he said, pointing the shotgun at Alex’s gun.
“I had no idea what I’d be up against in the city. Better to be prepared, right? Do you have family?”
The man nodded imperceptibly, studying the kids again. The shotgun started to lower, but stopped. “I’m sorry. I can’t take the risk. On your knees! Mary! Run down to the overpass and grab one of the guys with a rifle!”
A woman dressed in khaki shorts and a yellow tank top appeared in the open doorway. “Holy shit!”
“Don’t gawk; just get down to the overpass! Tell them to get up here right away!” said the man, turning his head to address the woman.
The shotgun’s point of aim naturally followed the man’s head and drifted to Alex’s left. He didn’t want to kill this man, but time and circumstance presented no other option. Alex dropped to one knee, cradling the rifle in a single movement, but the gunman recovered swiftly, realizing his mistake. A sharp report beat the thunderous blast of the shotgun, which grazed Alex’s left shoulder, knocking him to the mud. Screams erupted from the house.
He spun on the ground, bringing the rifle to bear on the man, but the fight was over. The guy lay curled up on his side, clutching his left elbow and groaning. Ryan stood next to Chloe, frozen in a modified Weaver stance, oblivious to the downpour. The pistol trembled in his hands.
“He’s down. Grab the shotgun!” yelled Alex, testing his left arm for stability.
His upper shoulder stung intensely, but he couldn’t afford to look at the wound. They didn’t have time to stop and treat it, so there was no point. Finding that the arm easily supported his weight, he stood and grabbed Chloe, who hadn’t stopped staring at Ryan.
“He didn’t have a choice, Chloe. Let’s go,” he said, pulling her toward the street.
Pushing through the dense bushes, he heard a door slam shut.
“Find Ryan and get over the fence.”
“Where are you going?” she said, shaking her head and grabbing his left sleeve.
“I’ll be right behind you. Go!” he said, pulling his arm away.
Alex scanned the street as soon as he emerged, cursing when he finally spotted the yellow tank top in the middle of the street.
She must be an Olympic sprinter.
The woman had a six car-length head start in the direction of the Brooks Street underpass, which may as well have been six miles. Even without the backpack, he had little chance of catching her. Brooks Street was six hundred feet away according to his GPS plotter, and she showed no signs of slowing.
Alex stepped into the road and considered his options. All of them sucked. He raised his rifle and stared at her magnified image through the ACOG sight. At one hundred feet, her entire body came into focus. Her arms pumped furiously as she tried to open the distance. He placed the tip of the illuminated red arrow on her upper back and applied pressure to the trigger.
What am I doing?
He lowered the rifle a few inches and squeezed his eyes shut in frustration.
Protecting family.
If she reached the underpass, they faced the possibility of a coordinated, concerted militia effort to kill them at the bridge. He hadn’t asked for any of this shit. He should have been able to drive his car to pick up the kids without anyone stopping him or trying to kill him, but that hadn’t been the case, and that wasn’t his problem. Why should he be the one to pay the price for something that had nothing to do with him? They thought he was with the marines and decided to gun him down? Fuck them. The Liberty Boys decided to shake down the citizens and turn them into informants.
Not my problem.
He reacquired the target and started to squeeze the trigger.
“Damn it!” he screamed, unable to shoot.
The woman jumped out of the street, continuing her run on the sidewalk, mostly obscured from sight. Alex turned to find Ryan and Chloe standing in the middle of the street, staring blankly at the fleeing woman.
“Dump the backpacks! We go straight for the bridge!”
Chapter 18
EVENT +57:55
Westbound Lanes, Massachusetts Turnpike
Boston, Massachusetts
The first Liberty Boys appeared exactly where he predicted. A raised concrete section interrupted the turnpike’s featureless metal guardrail, marking the underpass. At an approximate distance of three hundred feet, he’d barely spotted the break using his 4X ACOG sight. The men materialized at the eastern edge of the anomalous concrete segment. He hoped the men that spilled onto the rain-swept highway carried the same type of unmagnified EOTech or Aimpoint sights he’d seen fitted on the militia ARs at Warren Towers.
“Run side by side and don’t stop. Find a place to hide. Looks like plenty of conc
ealment. Go!” said Alex, slapping Ryan on the back.
He sighted in on the group, trying to settle on the target with the best chance of detecting the kids. The strategy was pointless, since they all faced his direction, apparently aware that Alex’s group planned to cross further down the turnpike. He could have delayed this if he had shot the woman. At that range, he could have put a bullet through one of her lower legs.
I will never hesitate again, he thought as he scanned for any signs that the Liberty Boys had seen them.
The kids crossed unnoticed, but by the time they traversed the highway, the militia group had covered enough ground that Alex could see their outlines without magnified optics. He should have followed his own orders and continued without stopping, but the figures appeared in his ACOG just as they reached the turnpike divider. He panicked and ordered the kids to take cover along the concrete barrier, overestimating the militia group’s detection range. He knew he’d screwed up as soon as they stopped. Now he faced a higher probability of discovery. It was time to switch from passive to active avoidance measures.
He braced the rifle’s vertical fore grip against the top of the cement barrier and centered the red arrow on the furthest target. The suppressed rifle kicked, dropping the figure to both knees as Alex snapped two hasty shots at the next man in line. While the men scrambled for the safety of the guardrail embankment, Alex hopped the divider and sprinted across the slick pavement. He reached the guardrail as his first target face-planted into the pavement.
Gunfire erupted to his left, but he didn’t hear the telltale snap and hiss of incoming bullets. A discordant volley of gunshots immediately responded from the other side of the turnpike, followed by an intense, unremitting fusillade of semiautomatic and automatic gunfire. He expected the foliage and tree trunks around him to explode with deadly projectiles, but the wall of steel never materialized.
They’re shooting each other! he realized.
Alex spotted the kids crouched behind a thick stand of trees at the edge of a chain-link fence. Ryan had his pistol drawn, peering around the trees at the dense brush to the east. A one-story red brick building peeked through the healthy shrubs along the fence. He slid down the ridge, scraping his backside on rocks or glass. Like his shoulder, he didn’t care to check. They didn’t have time for first aid. If it didn’t involve running or shooting, it could wait until they were on the other side of the Charles River. A pungent, brackish stench hit his nose, reminding him of the muck ahead.
“What happened up there, Dad?”
“They’re shooting at each other, but we need to keep moving. Must have been a shitload of them hiding out in the underpass. Follow the fence line right. Call out any targets. I’ll cover the rear until we break out of this,” huffed Alex.
He knew going right would bring them closer to the bridge, but it also put them on the wrong side of this building when the Liberty Boys figured out they had already crossed the turnpike. The volume of gunfire coming from each side suggested a squad-on-squad level engagement. They needed to avoid direct contact with elements of either group for as long as possible.
The shooting stopped by the time they reached the corner of the fence, which meant they were running out of time. He had to reach the bridge before the militia. Once on the bridge, the marines could provide heavy suppressive fire, enabling them to cross. The trick was getting his crew to the foot of the bridge. He’d estimated the distances using maps and GPS. They had to cover two to three hundred feet of open ground, slogging through thick mud, with a rifle and a pistol for defense. The only thing they had going for them at this point was the rain.
“Keep moving! When we get past the building, you make a straight line for the bridge. I’ll peel left and give you a buffer,” said Alex.
He took the lead and broke out of the tree line, running along the fence toward the parking lot next to the building. His boots sank well above the ankle, but emerged without the telltale sucking sounds that signaled painfully slow progress ahead. The rain hadn’t penetrated far enough to make this a complete disaster. A quick look inside the fence told him that it had once been a municipal pool. Mangled lawn chairs and plastic tables lay in a heap along the far fence. The pool must have been covered with a tarp, because he couldn’t tell where the pool started or stopped under the blanket of dark brown silt.
A red brick outbuilding stood between the embankment and parking lot, shielding them from view as they approached the street. Beyond the empty parking lot, Alex saw the outline of a wide traffic island containing several denuded, blackened trees. He led them through a gate into the parking lot and hugged the side of the building, approaching the street quickly but cautiously. There was no point making a run for the bridge if the Liberty Boys had set up a firing squad for them. He risked a peek around the corner and caught a glimpse of the street signals flanking the mouth of the bridge. A concrete Jersey barrier blocked the inbound bridge lane, but the barrier on the outbound lane was not in sight. He wondered if militia units had pushed the outbound barriers out of the way on all of the bridges last night. Something big was going down.
Tearing his eyes off their escape route, Alex scanned west along North Beacon Street for any signs of immediate trouble. He didn’t see any vehicles, which made sense given the potential difficulty of the mud. The militia’s quick reaction force for the North Beacon Street Bridge had most likely been positioned inside the underpass. He noted a concrete handicap ramp extending from the front of the municipal pool building to the sidewalk. A small staircase with thick metal railings sat in front of the ramp. The brick structure directly faced the bridge, making it a logical place for one of the militia observation posts. He’d have to deal with that first.
“Straight to the bridge. Don’t wait for me,” he said, stepping onto the sidewalk.
Alex ran through the heavy mud toward the front entrance, glancing back to make sure Ryan and Chloe had started their run. He saw Ryan yank Chloe into the open by her arm, holding her in place as she clawed the air for the perceived safety of the brick corner. Returning his attention to the concrete steps, he squeezed against the wall and aimed down the canted iron sights as he approached. A quick look behind showed Chloe and Ryan making progress toward the bridge. They had reached the traffic island, gaining more ground than he expected and prematurely exposing themselves to possible observers in the pool building.
He heaved his aching body over the railings and landed on the top steps, firing his rifle before he had steadied. The first rounds out of the barrel struck the front of the thick wooden desk, startling the gunman seated behind it. The shooter recoiled and knocked a scope-equipped, bipod-fitted assault rifle off the desk into the tight space between the right edge of the desk and the wall. Alex adjusted his aim and fired two bullets center mass, knocking the man out of sight behind the desk. He let his HK416 dangle from the one-point sling and grabbed the scoped rifle from the muddy floor.
The weapon’s heft indicated he had picked up a .308 caliber AR. When it emerged, the large, box-style magazine confirmed it. Shit. He’d probably picked up the one AR-style rifle within a mile that wasn’t compatible with the ammunition he carried. He couldn’t complain. Twenty rounds in the hands of a second shooter could make a big difference.
He leaped down the stairs, leveling the .308 rifle at the closed door at the top of the handicapped ramp. Nothing. He turned his back on the building, hoping the man had been alone, and slogged through the mud until his peripheral vision detected movement—in both directions. A pickup truck raced out of the Brooks Street underpass, followed by an SUV. The vague shape of vehicles emerged from the east, still mostly obscured by the rain. He’d forgotten about the other underpass. A bullet snapped past him, fired from an unknown location. He sprinted forward, not bothering to search for the hidden shooter. His first priority was to close the distance to the bridge. Another projectile cracked overhead, joined by the sound of revving engines, putting a hold on those plans.
Alex turned to
face the pickup truck and kneeled in the mud, switching to his HK416. With the .308 propped upright against his chest, he steadied his firing platform and found the right side of the pickup’s windshield through his rifle’s scope. He fired three bullets, confirming that the windshield spider-webbed, before firing on the trailing SUV. A tight pattern of four rounds shattered the second vehicle’s windshield in place.
Hurtling toward the intersection at forty miles per hour, the SUV slammed into the near stationary pickup, launching the SUV’s front seat passengers through the opaque windshield into the bed of the truck. Bodies tumbled into the intersection, catapulted by the collision. Alex grasped the rifle and ran for the first Jersey barrier, bullets smacking into the mud behind him. A throng of Liberty Boys had emerged from the bushes beyond the wrecked vehicles, firing on the run. He needed to reach the reinforced concrete barrier before the shooting frenzy tapered and they transitioned to more deliberate and inherently accurate tactics.
***
A thunderous metallic crunch forced Ryan to steal a glance at the intersection. A dark blue late-model SUV careened sideways, its hood bent upward from rear-ending an oversized four-door pickup truck. The SUV’s front windshield was missing, along with the driver and front passenger, who he assumed had joined the tangle of bodies next to the pickup. Three tightly spaced holes and a bright red stain in the driver’s side of the pickup’s windshield explained why the pickup stopped in the middle of the intersection. Thirty feet away, his father lowered his suppressed rifle and ran toward the bridge, looking over his shoulder at several men running toward the intersection from the turnpike.
Ryan tugged Chloe’s hand to force her along. Progress across the exposed intersection had been stop and go since the shooting started. She had dropped to the mud several times during their trek across the exposed intersection, the crack and hiss of near misses short-circuiting her legs. He just needed to get her behind the Jersey barrier and out of immediate danger. Ryan slid his right arm under her left arm and shoved her forward, pushing against her back. Bullets ricocheted off the barrier in front of them as they edged toward the temporary reprieve of the one-foot-thick, steel-reinforced concrete barricade.
Event Horizon (The Perseid Collapse Post Apocalyptic Series) Page 11