With the Clan’s hard-earned reputation and the number of people she had at the ready, no one would be stupid enough to attack Clanholme with only a handful of people. There had to be more coming. Cassy picked up her rifle and was about to bring it up into a good shoulder weld, but stopped. Something Michael had said about his Recon days—which weren’t nearly as far back as he pretended, but everyone else went along with his charade—something about sniping people from a window… People look at, not inside, a window for snipers. That was it. She grinned and wished Michael were there so she could thank him. She’d have to do that later.
Cassy took three steps back from the window and only then raised the rifle to her shoulder, planted her cheek on the stock, and peered through the scope. She imagined that she saw movement all over those little white hills. Opponents may have been moving, but she couldn’t be certain. So, as in Michael’s story, she froze in place still peering through the scope, waiting, not moving despite the little jump her heart gave every time a new barrage of fire was exchanged outside.
Whatever was happening, it was moving much slower than events had when Peter showed up with his White Stag “army.” Or maybe it was she who was different. She’d been through a lot since then and didn’t find herself all shaky on the inside like she had before all that happened, and—
There! That was definitely someone’s head peering over one of those Jungle mounds, but it was hard to see because the head was splotchy white like the snow around it. Winter camouflage… Where would some random starving bandits get winter mil-gear? Irrelevant. Cassy shook her head and peered through the scope again. Now she saw the head more clearly, and others too, though they seemed to shift and whirr into the background when she looked directly at them. Hm. Have to get some of—Bang!—those herself. She noted that the eye-blurring white camouflage effect was now ruined by a broad spray of crimson, standing in stark relief against the snow. One down.
Cassy’s radio chirped, and Ethan’s voice came through. The voice rushed through the I.D. procedure and then said, “Cameras show about twenty that I could count, mostly north. All November Foxtrot, be advised, they are low crawling toward your positions. Stay frosty, they’ll be set to banzai in one mike. September Foxtrots, I show six or maybe seven tangos advancing up the back side. They’ll crest at the same time November gets hit. Be advised, they are wearing white camouflage and will be hard to spot. Bravo One out.”
The radio went silent, and Cassy wished the southern foxholes well as she turned her attention back to the north window. The two Clanners in those southern foxholes, or four if everyone stuck to the defense plan, would be on their own. They had clear firing lanes all around, and the Clan had set wire traps, razor and barbed wire, and punji-stick pits all along the back face of that hill. Attackers would be funneled to where both foxholes had intersecting lanes of fire, as Michael called it. Lanes of fire. Fire lanes. That’ll get you a ticket. Cassy grinned as the thought sped through her mind.
She pulled the trigger and her rifle kicked, but there was no satisfying spray of blood this time. Hitting a moving target was hard at the best of times, during training, much less in these conditions against camouflaged troops in a real firefight. She let it go, breathed calmly, and swept the rifle seeking a new target.
* * *
Nestor lay on the dirt floor of the shed by the pond. He had been returning a screwdriver when he heard the first shots, so he just dropped to the floor and stayed put. He was a nice guy and sure didn’t deserve to get shot for these people, good as they had been to him. Standoffish maybe, but he was the outsider so he didn’t blame them for that. They’d come around eventually, just like the people in Scranton had done, and unlike Scranton, these people didn’t seem the sort to turn suddenly violent on one of their own.
So yeah, as long as he didn’t get shot before then, the Clan would accept him, and why not? Plus, they were hard people. Good, but hard. They’d been through at least as much trauma as Nestor himself during these past few months, but unlike Scranton, they’d kept a good heart. He liked that. Maybe he could learn.
The Other would have a field day in a place like this, but Nestor was pretty sure he had been left behind in Scranton—if he was even real. Nestor hadn’t thought so, but everyone else there had… He shook his head to clear unpleasant dream memories that were rising up. Memories of terror and chaos as they hunted Nestor, poor Nestor, who hadn’t done anything wrong and why did they keep saying those things about him and he could never hurt anyone—
A brief, strobe-like vision imposed itself over everything, and his rising panic was driven out by the shock. It was just like his dreams. The other dreams, the ones that came true. Why couldn’t people see that he was an oracle? He only saw terrible events, without being a part of them himself.
And here, again—the vision, red and bloody. A pause, and then again. Again. Faster and faster, bright lights, a strobe lighting up his brain. Gore and blood and crying and begging. And terror, overwhelming terror, but not from him. From who, then? The pain grew as the edges of his vision faded. Soon, he knew, he would pass out from the pain. The Other cometh… oh God… he crawled toward the door, but knew he would never make it. But where was this? It wasn’t familiar. Some sort of shed. What was happening to him? What…?
All went black.
When he woke, he found himself sprawled on a dirt floor in some dirty shed. It wasn’t any place he remembered in Scranton. His ears picked up a noise, and he grinned. Not noise—a symphony orchestra of life and death, and he was the audience. Gunfire, screaming. An explosion, maybe from a grenade. The music came from outside, then. It was a song he could play note for note. He was good at it.
Reaching for the door, the Other barely cracked it open, just enough to look outside. Ahead lay a string of homes, but outside of the nearest one, a man wearing snow cammies straddled another man in normal clothes lying on the ground. Cammie Man had a wicked knife and was using both hands to try to plunge it into the chest of the man beneath him. A life and death struggle—his own private movie. Fuckers never brought popcorn for the audience when they played this movie. Never.
The Other looked around, until he found what he sought. A weapon, a hand scythe with a polish on the blade that announced it would be sharp. He picked it up and then peered back outside. The Other spat, and cursed under his breath—Cammie Man was walking away, leaving behind the man he’d stabbed to lay twitching in the dirt. Motherfucker, first show in who knew how long, and he’d missed seeing it.
Anger rose—the bastard hadn’t even made sure his victim was dead. A rank amateur. But the Other was no amateur. He tucked the scythe into his belt and then rushed out the cracked-open door and skid to a halt on his knees next to the stabbed man, who looked up at him with fear.
Did the Other know this pincushion? “Hey mister! Are you all right? How bad is it?” He made sure to widen his eyes because that’s what frightened people always seemed to do. It worked, and the man’s features morphed from fear into relief. The Other, master thespian!
“Nestor, drag me into that shed. You’re gonna have to bandage this and keep pressure on it. I ain’t no good for fighting, now.”
The Other stopped the frown before it hit his face. Nestor? Why the hell did actors always seem to call him that? Sounding like they knew him? Goddamn diva actors. He was the director of this movie, and this was the part where the background track hit its crescendo. Well, that made it time to roll credits on this jerk.
“Yeah, man, that looks bad. Let me help you, before your shelf-life expires.” The Other ignored the confused look on the disrespectful little shit’s face and brought one leg up and over the man’s body so that he ended up kneeling, straddling him just like Cammie Man had.
“Nestor? What are you doing, man? Get off my chest, it hurts!”
The man took a deep breath from the pain that spiked through his bloody shoulder as the Other settled on top of him, but he wasn’t about to let “Nestor-Man” ad-lib his fina
l lines by screaming. The Other’s hands slithered up to the man’s neck and wrapped lovingly around it. His pulse quickened as the grip tightened, and he licked his suddenly-dry lips. One, two, three—this would be nothing but a quick “paint-by-numbers” kind of performance because with the symphony playing all around them, he sensed that it would be best to make this a quick scene.
The Other’s thumbs pressed into the actor’s throat just below the Adam’s apple. He hated those movies where they just squeezed for ten minutes. It was a sloppy performance, done that way. A real pro used two thumbs on the trachea—it was faster and much more certain.
Right on cue, the other man began playing his role to perfection. They always did. Face turned red, eyes bulged, hands clawed weakly at the Other’s own hands. He wanted to shout with glee—See, fucker? With the right motivation even you can do this shit right!
As the last light left the man’s eyes, the Other shuddered with ecstasy. A brilliant performance. The orchestra was still playing, however, so the Other rose to his feet, pulled out the scythe from behind his waistband, and moved to the wall of the building, intent on edging around to follow Cammie Man’s tracks. That sloppy bastard was gonna make up for his limp-wristed attempt at doing what the Other had done easily with bare hands in almost no time at all. It was all the time the scene deserved, though he had helped the amateur grow into his role brilliantly at the end. And still the orchestra played.
He slid along the wall. Crouching low, he passed beneath a slit-shaped window in the house wall. The barrel of a rifle stuck out from the window, ratta-tat-tat. An M4, one of the Other’s very favorite instruments. But whoever was shooting it was doing it wrong. You just couldn’t pull the trigger that fast and still aim, and firing it without aiming was like bashing on drums with your fists. Loud, and fucking annoying. The Other reached up with his left hand to grab the rifle’s barrel by the heat shield, and with his right hand he swung the scythe tip-first into the narrow window opening. There was a satisfying thunk of metal piercing bone and meat, and the Other pulled the rifle out through the window. He left to follow Cammie Man then and didn’t bother to free the embedded scythe. Ha. Sucked to be that guy.
The Other came to the corner of the building and took a quick peek. Two men fired at one another from some twenty feet apart, both on their bellies in the dirt. Cammie Man was one of them, while the other wore more civilian-type clothes. He noted that the other man had a crew cut, military style, and fired the weapon one slow shot at a time. Methodical. A true actor, then—someone else who could hear the same music he did. If the Other didn’t hurry, the guy would soon destroy Cammie Man, who fired seemingly at random in the general direction of crew-cut boy. The Other wanted to steal this scene for himself. He aimed the rifle, pulled the trigger—but nothing happened, and Cammie Man and Crew Cut continued their performances uninterrupted.
That wasn’t fair. The Other had gone through all the trouble of getting that rifle, even losing his wicked-cool scythe in the process. And it was out of ammo? Guess what, fuckers—the M4 was the kind of instrument with two dangerous ends. Not as good as an AK in this method, but it would do for now.
The Other bolted out from behind cover, his rifle raised above his head, sprinting toward Cammie Man, who couldn’t see him. With his back to the Other to face Crew Cut, Cammie Man saw what was about to happen and stopped firing. A shame, really, because he had played it so well, but the Other was safer without bullets coming in his direction by accident.
The Other reached his target in under two seconds and, using the momentum built up from sprinting, slammed the butt of his rifle into the exposed upper right side of Cammie Man’s head. He then kicked the guy’s rifle, striking it on the lower receiver and sending the whole AK-47 flying. Without missing a beat, he continued bashing his rifle butt into the man’s head. After about the third strike, Cammie Man stopped twitching and blood oozed from his nose, ears, and mouth. A superb performance! And the orchestra played on…
The Other tossed his M4 and reached down to pick up the AK rifle, checked its ammo—still half a magazine and one in the chamber—then turned to face Crew Cut, who was grinning at him. Now there was a man who understood the symphony going on all around them. A fellow director, not some B-list wannabe. He smiled at the other man.
Crew Cut stood and faced him, and lowered his rifle’s barrel. “A-one job, newbie. I think the Complex is cleared out. Let’s head north and reinforce against the Jungle.” Whatever that meant. Crew Cut turned to leave, and the Other was content to follow. Hey, the guy clearly knew where the party was. Things were looking up.
Over his shoulder, Crew Cut said, “Thanks, Nestor. You really surprised me back there. I owe you some of the good cider tonight.”
Fucking Nestor again! Who was this asshole, Nestor? One thing was clear: if the Other ever found Nestor-face, he’d make sure his dance card would be full with playing mean. Nestor was a stupid name anyway. But for now, Crew Cut was the one he was pissed at. They never got his goddamn name right. Never even asked it.
Bang! The Other almost casually squeezed off a round, striking Crew Cut dead center in the back. It was hilarious how the man’s arms went flailing like limp noodles as he fell, skidding to a stop on his face! Epic. What was it the kids these days called that? A “Kodak moment” sounded right. That’s what this was. Get the camera, honey, this one’s on the money. He did a little jiggly dance step.
Then the Other’s view flickered. What the hell? He didn’t know where he went when he blacked out, but it always happened after a kill or two. What a pisser. He was gonna miss out on seeing this guy release himself when he died. Jeez, all that work, what’s the point?
Here it came again… he hated this…
The normally red-shaded world flickered in and out, alternating with black-and-white views, then images superimposed over everything around him. Images that looked the same, but they had garish, disgusting shades of… something that wasn’t red. Different. Colors? Yeah, that was the word. Goddamn colors. Then a field of blackness formed over everything in view, and it rushed toward him. He always tried to turn away, to run, but every time, it hit him at the speed of light and felt like a ton of bricks in a burlap sack smacking him in the face.
As his head exploded in a cacophony of lights and colors, pain and sound, the darkness struck him and he knew no more…
Light. And pain, oh the pain! His head throbbed worse than any hangover had. He looked around as he sat up. The noise of the battle was still all around, but less intense than it had been. That was good—it meant these people had fought off whatever bandits had attacked them. To one side lay the bloody corpse of a man wearing snow-pattern camouflage, and to the other side, closer, lay the body of a Clan soldier. One of their recently added Marines. A hole in his back still smoked from where a large-caliber round had struck him. Then Nestor realized he held an AK-47 in his hand. When had he picked that up?
A bolt of fear slashed through him then, every nerve from his toes to the top of his scalp tingling with adrenaline—the barrel of his own rifle was still smoking. Had he shot the Marine in the back? No way. No! No, not again. The Other couldn’t possibly have found him way out here, so far from Scranton! Whoever that shadowy entity was, his coming always spelled disaster, and—
The Marine stirred, and let out a low, tense moan. It sounded like he was saying Nestor’s name. As terrified and confused as he was, Nestor couldn’t let the man die in the dirt like that, not when the Clan had been so good to him. He staggered toward the man then sank again to his knees. Mueller, that was the guy’s name. The Clan soldiers, or Marines, always went by their last names like it was a badge of pride or something. And maybe it was, if it was true what people said about Marines.
“Mueller, I’m so sorry—”
Mueller coughed once and then held up his hand for silence. “Shut your pie hole, Nestor. You scared off that sniper, and I’d sure as shit be bagged up if it weren’t for you. Can’t believe my MoTaV stopped
an AK like that, but I still won’t be in this fight.”
Nestor stared dumbly at Mueller. “Notaff?” was all he could stammer. Could it really be that Mueller didn’t think Nestor had shot him? Everywhere he went, people blamed him for the nasty things that happen in this world, so this would be a first. These people were fair.
“MoTaV. Modular tactical… Never mind. Body armor. Help me get to the Hospital.” That was the designated rally point for combat wounded, which was really Cassy’s lower floor the rest of the time.
Nestor struggled under Mueller’s weight, especially with the armor thing on. It had to weigh a ton. How did that guy wear it? Did his sidekick Sturm wear one of these bulky things? He wrapped Mueller’s left arm around his shoulder, and put his own right arm around Mueller’s waist, and together they hobbled toward the “Hospital.”
* * *
Ahead of them, and now only slightly below, lay the Complex. Most of the attackers were hard to see, but appeared to be clustering for an assault that would lead them directly around and under the guard tower. Jaz hollered, “If they go through the tower they’ll get hit hard by the guards up there, but none of the Complex people will be able to hit them until they’ve passed the tower.”
“They will be nearly on top of the homestead by then,” Choony replied, then grunted as he struggled to keep the horses moving at full speed toward the shooting.
In the back of her mind, Jaz mused how similar the horses and Choony were—both useful in battle for reasons other than the shooting, and both hating every minute of it. And both headed toward the fighting anyway, not away from it. Choony was brave, in his weird way. She didn’t completely get it, but she respected it. Anyway, she’d shoot for both of them.
Dark New World (Book 4): EMP Backdraft Page 16