Dawn of Destruction

by Ronald Williams

  Just then, automatic gunfire opened up from one of the buildings across the street and began to pepper the house and the wall surrounding it. A few bullets screamed past the gate and struck the front door.

  Josie dove for cover across the side, as more bullets shattered through the front windows and missed her by mere inches.

  “Take cover!” Jon called out over the gunfire.

  Ben rolled off the couch and then beneath it for protection. A half second later, three bullets ripped apart the top of the couch where he had just been.

  The gunfire continued for a few more seconds and then came to an abrupt stop, followed by dead silence.

  Jon’s house and the fortified wall perimeter were built out of durable concrete and the outside doors out of heavy duty steel, which had stopped most of the incoming bullets, but the remainder of them had made short work of the acrylic glass windows, shattering through them like normal glass and shredding up the inside of the house.

  Josie peered around, and she could see several bullet holes had punched through the inside walls and several pieces of furniture were now torn up with the stuffing bleeding out.

  “Anybody hit?!” Roy called out from upstairs.

  “No!” Josie and Jon responded in unison.

  Josie saw Ben’s head peeking from under the mattress.

  “You hit, Ben?”

  “No, no, I don’t think so,” he said.

  “Are you sure?!”

  “Hey, I was shot three times previously, so I think I’d know if I was, don’t you?!”

  “Okay, okay!” Josie was already bolting up the stairs.

  When she arrived to the top floor, Jon was taking cover behind the front of the house and Roy at the back. As with the downstairs, the acrylic glass windows had been destRoyed and there were a few bullet holes present in the walls.

  “We can’t stay here!” Josie exclaimed. “That was just the pRoye! The next push will be too much for us to handle!”

  “You don’t know that!” Jon snapped. “As long as we stay away from the windows we’re safe from behind the walls.”

  “For the time being! Listen, Roy and I were attacked before at our homestead. We were pRoyed there too. If you think this is as bad as things are gonna get you’re dead wrong!”

  “So what do you suggest we do, surrender?!”

  “I’m not saying we surrender…I’m saying we hightail it the hell outta here!”

  “And go where?!”

  “I don’t know! Just away from here!”

  “You’re mad!”

  “No, Jon, she’s right!” Roy intervened from his position at the end of the house. “We simply don’t have the manpower to resist a small army like this. There’s forty of them at least and maybe more!”

  “We leave this house, and we’re exposed out in the open!” Jon was constantly turning his head between them and the blown out window to keep an eye out for more signs of the enemy. “The walls in this house are built out of fortified concrete. They give us our best chance of survival and you both know it.”

  “The moment your precious walls are breached, we’re done for,” Roy was trying to keep himself calm and not shout. “That will be the end of it. Listen, I have an idea. You’re not gonna like it, but I think it’s our best shot.”

  Jon checked through the windows again and then rolled his eyes. “Go on.”

  “Outside of Carleton Alex and I parked the Land Rover,” Roy began. “We can pile into your Suburban with some supplies and hightail it down the road that way. Once we reach the Land Rover we can take both vehicles, split up to throw them off, and then meet up somewhere later.”

  “That’s a good way to die, brother,” Jon shook his head. “We stay here and fight.”

  “We stay here, and we will die,” Roy responded. “But if we bug out, there’s a chance. A small chance, but a chance. And I don’t know about you, but I like chances.”

  “We will not leave behind this house and everything in it!” anger was burning up inside of Jon and his face had flushed red. “I’m in charge, as I said before! We’re staying and that’s that!”

  “We can throw everything we can into your Suburban, and I got more gear in the Land Rover,” Roy argued back, keeping his cool. “And I don’t think they have any vehicles, I haven’t seen any. Have you?”

  Jon said nothing.

  “That means we have the opportunity to quickly escape,” Roy continued. “Listen, Jon, this is your place and you’ve put a lot of work into it. I get it. But all they gotta do is pin us down through the windows and attack from all sides at once. Once they climb over the walls or breach the gate, we’re done for. I’m begging you, your Suburban is our best bet. We can throw supplies and gear in it and board it up for defense. But we have to do this right now, because the next attack could come at any second.”

  Jon looked out the window again. He could see a couple of enemy militia members peeking with binoculars through the windows of the buildings across the street. A few more were lying prone behind some brush on the front lawns. Down the street, at least three more bolted across the road.

  Roy was right: the next attack would be imminent, and it would be absolutely merciless. The real assault had not yet begun.

  There was no more time to argue or contemplate on what to do. It was either bug in or bug out. And that was a decision he had to make now.

  “I’ll board up the Suburban. Roy, you load as much food, water, and ammo as you possibly can. Josie, keep a look out from up here. Anything that shoots at us you shoot back at it. We’re outta here in ten.”

  Chapter 30

  In the garage, Jon hurriedly nailed flat pieces of wooden boards followed by diamond treaded heavy duty aluminum sheets to the outside of his 1980s Chevrolet Suburban, covering up the doors, sections of the windows, and the front engine. The work was crude due to the rush they were in, but it would have to do.

  To the outside of each aluminum sheet he next affixed a layer of ballistic nylon, the kind that was featured on some bulletproof vests. Jon hoped that with the wooden boards, aluminum sheets, and ballistic nylon all stacked over one another, it would be able to stop incoming bullets. Maybe not rifle bullets, but pistol bullets at least.

  Meanwhile, while Jon was going about trying to bulletproof the car, Roy was hurriedly throwing things into the back. Backpacks, a few guns, ammo boxes, water bottles, food packets, first aid bags, and whatever else he could pick up around the house. He wasn’t worried about orderliness or organization. He only had one mission: to throw as much stuff into the back of the Suburban as he could fit.

  Everything was just happening so fast, Josie thought as she watched for hostiles in the upper level of the home. One moment, she and Ben had been trapped in a building with no chance of escape. The next moment, they had miraculously run into Roy and Jon. The next, they were frantically trying to save Ben on the kitchen table. The next, she had an opportunity to finally relax next to Roy. And yet the next after that, after having only a couple of hours to sleep and relax with Roy, they were already embarking on another scavenging mission into the town filled with hostiles. And now they were surrounded…and preparing to leave everything behind in a matter of moments.

  Josie’s brain could hardly keep up. Her life had never moved at this fast of a pace before. Only around a week ago, she was nestled safely and securely with Roy and Alex at their peaceful homestead in the tranquility of the Idaho countryside. And now her previous existence had been forcefully taken away and she was in the middle of a dangerous war zone struggling to keep herself and her family alive.

  Would life ever return to normal like it had been before? Was this her new reality, the new normal?

  It was only now that Josie asked herself those questions. Their homestead was destRoyed, their possessions lost, and all she had left was Roy and Alex, only with nowhere left to go. She had no idea where they would be going when they bugged out imminently, only that they would most certainly never see Jon’s house a
gain just as they would never again see their homestead.

  Just then, out of the corner of her eye Josie caught a quick flash that darted across the street to Jon’s wall. She snapped herself out of the train of thought she was in and raised her AK-47, peering through the red dot sight.

  To get a better view, she raised herself from a crouching position and rested on foot against the window sill. This position left her more exposed, but it also gave her a much better viewpoint on the road before her.

  Her eyes darted between Jon’s wall and the houses across the street for any more signs of movement from the hostile forces. Sure enough, she soon spotted some movement through the front right window in the house directly across from Jon’s. Then, she counted five more masked people with guns darting across the street farther up the road. They weren’t out of rifle range, but she didn’t know if she could make an accurate shot so Josie held her fire. It was obvious what they were doing: a flanking maneuver as preparation for the next assault.

  If one thing was clear at this moment to Josie, it was that the enemy forces were done sitting around and watching. They were preparing to launch the next attack, and this one would be merciless.

  * * *

  “All loaded up,” Roy grunted as he tossed another gear bag and a Ham radio into the back of the Suburban, which was already filled to the brink with supplies.

  Jon slammed the last nail home to finish bulletproofing the car as best he could. The doors and front engine of the Suburban were now covered with the layers of wooden boards, aluminum sheets, and ballistic nylon, and he had aluminum slabs shielding the upper half of the tires as well.

  He then loaded up a Taurus Judge .410 bore revolver, and shoved it in a holster secured in between the Suburban’s front seat and the center console for easy access by the driver. The Judge was loaded with a total of five rounds of .410 self-defense buckshot loads, each equivalent to three 9mm FMJ rounds going off at once. Not exactly something that any carjacker would want to feel in their face at point blank range.

  “Jon,” Roy said as his comrade stowed the Judge away in the front seat. “Thank you. I know you’re giving up everything here — ”

  “No time for that kind of talk now,” Jon responded without an ounce of emotion in his voice. “Now come on, we gotta get that kid on a stretcher and into the back of the Suburban.”

  * * *

  Josie kept her eye trained through the red dot of her AK-47, watching out for any signs whatsoever of more hostiles. Since she had seen the last five dash across the street up ahead, she hadn’t spotted any more movement.

  Just then, she caught a quick flash of something that briefly peeked over the top of the front wall. She aimed her red dot over to where the flash had just been and stayed still.

  The flash appeared again, and this time, Josie could see that it was a gloved hand trying to get a grip over the wall. She rested her finger over the trigger.

  Finally, the hand caught a hold of an edge and held on, followed by another hand that also got a firm grip over the wall.

  With both hands holding onto the wall, the head, neck, and upper torso of a male militia member soon followed. This guy didn’t have a mask, but he had a rifle slung over his back and a fully loaded tactical vest strapped on.

  Josie didn’t even give any thought or debate to whether she would shoot or not. The combat situations she had been in the past few days had taught her that she couldn’t afford to take any more chances or make any more hesitations.

  With her red dot placed directly over the man’s neck, she took a breath, prayed that the AK was sighted in correctly, and pulled the trigger once.

  BANG!

  The bullet ripped through the side of the man’s neck, ripping entire chunks of flesh away as a thick crimson mist of blood was caught in the wind and carried away. The man’s head fell unnaturally to one side, still held to his shoulders only by a few loose strands of muscle that the bullet hadn’t taken away.

  Likely already dead, he lost his grip over the wall and fell back to the ground behind the wall with an audible THUD.

  * * *

  BANG!

  The report of Josie’s shot echoed throughout the entire house and seemed to shake the very foundations of the steel building as Roy, Jon, and Alex loaded a half unconscious Ben onto a stretcher.

  “What’s happening?!” Roy called out. “Information, Josie!”

  “They’re trying to climb over the walls!” Josie called back.

  “Move, move!” Jon insisted as he lifted up his half of Ben’s stretcher. “We’re running out of time!”

  Suddenly, more gunshots sounded off from outside the walls of the house, striking the concrete walls and a couple whizzing through the windows!

  “Now, now!” Jon was already struggling to carry Ben’s stretcher away while Roy was fumbling around to pick up his end.

  At the upper level of the house, Josie was forced to hit the floor again as more bullets struck the concrete walls or whirled through the window where she had just been. She could feel the heat wave of each individual round as it passed over her, as if each were a missile or rocket being blasted off into outer space.

  Rather than try and shoot back, she crawled over to the staircase, a few more bullets passing over her head and back, and upon reaching the top she threw herself down and rolled all the way to the bottom with a thud.

  “Dammit!” Josie swore when she realized she had left her AK-47 in the room above.

  Rather than go back and retrieve it, she instead pulled herself to her feet and dashed for the garage. Roy and Jon were in the process of loading Ben on the stretcher into the back amongst all the supplies.

  “The attack is on!” Josie screeched as she assisted them in loading Ben. “They’re trying to scale the walls!”

  Once Ben had been loaded into the back, Jon took the driver’s seat of the Suburban and fired up the engine. It roared to life like a pride of lions roaring in unison. Josie held on tightly to Alex in the back seat, and looked behind her at Ben laying amongst all the gear in the space in the back.

  “Jo…Jo…” he was trying to say.

  Josie leaned in closer.

  “Yes?” she asked.

  “I…I never told you…” he was trying to say.

  “Never told me what?” Josie asked.

  “We’re all set!” said Jon in the front seat, revving up the engine even more as he pressed and depressed his foot repeatedly over the gas pedal.

  Ben shook his head.

  “Some other time,” he said. “If we make it…”

  Josie could tell he was in bad shape. Simply placing him on a stretcher and then moving him into the back of the Suburban had caused a great deal of stress on his body, and he was now feeling a lot of pain.

  “Ben,” she said. “If at any point you start bleeding again or think you’re going to pass out, you tell us, okay? I want you to tell us.”

  “Okay…”

  Roy was at the garage door and his hand was wrapped around the rope that connected the door to the rails along the wall. All he would have to do is yank it upward to open the door and grant freedom to the Suburban so the bug out could begin.

  Roy looked at Jon, who gave the signal with a quick nod.

  “We’re in for it now,” Jon remarked, and then looked around the garage and the provisions that he had had stockpiled but was now being forced to abandon. “I sure am going to miss this old place.”

  Roy then proceeded to open the door to the garage by pulling upward with the rope and then lifting up the door himself once it had gotten high enough. He then made a quick beeline over for the gate while Jon shifted the Suburban into drive and pulled forward to follow him.

  Roy had his AR-15 at the ready as he made it to the gate and took cover behind the wall.

  “Open the gate, buddy,” Jon murmured under his breath.

  “What’s going on, Josie?” Ben asked from the back.

  “We’re leaving now, Ben,” Josie answere
d, holding Alex tight.

  Roy carefully opened up the gate with one hand while keeping his AR-15 upright and ready with the other. He finally got the gate to unlock and then kicked it open with his foot.

  Now assuming a proper two handed firing grip with his AR, he backed up to the Suburban.

  Just then, two militia men swerved around the walls by the opened up gate. Roy immediately popped off several rounds and the men dove for cover back where they were, the rounds striking the pavement of the road before them.

  “Get inside!” Jon called out.

  Roy fired four more shots as insurance as Alex covered her ears from the gunfire.

  “Get inside!” Jon repeated. “Now!”

  Roy swung open the passenger door to the Suburban, stepped inside, and then slammed it shut.

  “GO!” he shouted, and Jon gunned the engine.

  The Suburban roared louder than it ever had in a long time and it took off down the driveway and out the gate to the paved road.

  Jon immediately swung the big SUV hard to the left, turning the steering wheel with his hands as fast as he could. A few shots opened up and struck the Suburban, but the bullets either ricocheted off or were absorbed by Jon’s armor that he had installed.

  “Hold fire!” they could hear the voices from outside, and the gunfire soon came to a stop.

  One man appeared in front of the Suburban and held out his hands, indicating for them to stop. Jon only floored the gas pedal as flat as it could go.

  The man tried to run out of the way but he was too late. Struck directly by the front edge of the Suburban, he went flying and crashing into the side of a building, where he crumpled to the ground like a bag of broken bones and lay still.

  Jon let off the gas a little as he made another hard swing to the left to take off down the road that would lead them out of Carleton.

  “Hang on!” Jon said. “We’re not out of this yet!”

  Sure enough, all along the road in front of them militia members were materializing out of the trees, brush, and buildings. It was only now that Jon, Roy, and Josie realized that there was far more than the initial forty they thought there had been.