“James,” Russell said, stopping him.
“Yes,” James said.
“Allow me to clear something up here.” He paused in mid-thought, then continued. “We took your people in. We fed you, gave you lodging, and offered vital training and tactics without asking anything in return. Now, when the shit hits the fan, you guys are just going to up and leave us during our time of need? Is that correct?”
James didn't know what to say. “I'm sorry if you feel that way, Russell. But I assure you, that's not the case.”
Russell maintained his harsh, unblinking stare. An uncomfortable silence came over them when suddenly Russell's cheekbones shifted upwards in a large, gleaming smile, followed by laughter. James smiled awkwardly, failing to see the humor of the situation.
“I'm just messing with you, James,” he said. He then bawled with laughter, waving James off while trying to catch his breath.
“Very funny,” James said, turning to the door.
“Oh man,” Russell said. “The look on your face was priceless!” His laughter continued as James nodded and exited the cabin.
Things had gotten even more frantic outside. James kept his senses alert to everything going on around him. He had no clue what Russell's true sentiments were, but he knew they had little time to flee Camp Liberty. He watched in frustration as the front gates closed before his eyes. Inside the cabin, everyone was packed and ready to go. The college students were confused, since they’d been left out of the loop. James entered the cabin in haste.
“OK, is everyone ready?” he asked.
Mark, Janice, Christina, and Paula were standing by their bunks in anticipation. They were dressed for a hike; packs over their shoulders and armed, with the exception of Paula. James hurried to the window and looked out. There was activity going on everywhere. Russell's men were hurrying, shouting to each other, moving equipment and barricades into place—their efficiency was on heightened display.
In a short amount of time, they had managed to construct a number of defensive embankments and makeshift guard tower platforms on all four sides of the camp.
“Where are you guys going?” Jacklyn called out. She was sitting on the bunk where Jeff was resting. There was no sign of Shane or Sally.
Mark turned to James. “Did we get the green light?” he asked.
James answered. “For what it's worth, Russell said it was fine. But we can't waste any more time. I don't trust anyone here any longer.”
Janice looked to Jacklyn. “We're leaving.”
“And you guys should too,” Mark added. “It's getting too hot here.”
“We can't leave,” Jacklyn said.
“Why not?” Janice asked.
“Of course you can. Come with us,” Christina added.
“It just wouldn't be right. I have to wait until Jeff gets better,” Jacklyn said.
James stepped in. “They killed a man last night and took three young boys prisoner.”
Jacklyn was too stunned to respond.
“That's right,” James continued, “I was there. I saw everything. The prisoners are being held in the next cabin over. Everyone around here is spooked because they think there's going to be an attack on this camp to rescue the boys. If you're smart, you and your friends will leave before it's too late.”
Jacklyn studied them for a moment before her mouth dropped into a scowl. “You’re no heroes, you only care about yourselves. Why should I listen to anything from you? My friends are out there right now trying to protect this camp, and you’re just going to abandon us now?”
Mark stared back in astonishment, then spun around to face James. “All right, that’s that, wouldn’t you say?”
James raised his hand, signaling Mark to cool it. “Jacklyn, we never claimed to be heroes. Being a hero will only get you killed around here. But I am telling you the truth.”
Jacklyn ignored him and just continued to pat a wet cloth on Jeff's swollen face.
James's group waved goodbye and exited the cabin with all their belongings. The gate was a mere fifty feet away. As they walked huddled together, Russell's men zoomed past them from the left and right. James glanced toward Cabin C and saw two armed guards standing outside. He felt a deep urge to free the boys when suddenly, the front gates opened.
Startled and elated upon seeing their chance, James turned to his group. “Now's the time.” His pace quickened as the others followed.
Christina took Paula by the hand as her rifle swung from the sling around her shoulder. Mark and Janice walked close together, trying not to make eye contact with Russell’s men. Mark suddenly remembered Leo and regretted not saying goodbye to the one friend he had made at Camp Liberty.
“Almost there,” James said. He could smell the brisk air of freedom outside the gate. It was too early to celebrate, but it looked like their plan had worked. He shuddered as one of Russell’s men ran into the camp from outside. They hadn’t opened the gates for James’s group, but instead so that the scout could enter.
“Close the gate!” the scout shouted, and the two guards immediately ran toward them and began heaving them closed as Billy, acting as scout, ran in.
James's group stopped as they watched the gates swiftly close before them.
“What the hell?” Mark said. James was speechless. They looked at each other in bewilderment.
Billy leaned against a nearby wall and tried to catch his breath. He had apparently seen something distressing outside the camp.
“They're coming,” he said to Quinn, acting as guard. “Get Russell, get Kyle, I don't give a shit, get them all. A large group, twenty or so. They're only a few miles away from the camp. But they're headed in this direction.”
James told his group to stay calm and tried to assure them he would take care of it.
“Excuse me,” he said, approaching the guard, “Quinn, is it?” Quinn gripped his rifle, towering over James, not saying a word. “My group and I are moving on. Rest assured, I've talked this over with Russell and everything is fine.”
Quinn said nothing. Billy paced by the side, ranting about a pending attack on their camp.
James continued. “So if you can just open the gates, we'll be on our way.”
Quinn cleared his throat and stared ahead, unwavering. It seemed as if he never even blinked. “I’ll have to hear it from Russell first,” he said.
James's crew grew more anxious by the minute. There was shouting everywhere. James stammered and took a few steps back. Quinn wasn't going to make things easy for them.
“We wish to leave, now open those gates or we'll do it ourselves,” James said with as much authority as he could muster. Quinn remained unmoved when suddenly Russell's voice called out from afar.
“Seal the gates!”
James swung around in an instant to see Russell running toward them with Kyle and Eli behind him. “No one is to leave or enter this camp until further notice!”
“What the hell are you talking about?” James asked angrily. “We had an agreement, remember?”
“Sorry, James. Bad timing, that's all. They're coming. The whole damn town. The camp is under immediate lockdown.”
“Open those gates!” James shouted.
“We have to reinforce them immediately. The gates stay closed,” Russell said.
James took a step back and pointed his rifle directly at Russell's chest. “No more stalling. You let us out of here right here, right now.”
Russell's men swarmed around James in a circle with their rifles raised, shouting. “Drop it now!” Kyle demanded.
Russell calmly put his hands in the air. “Now, James. Let's not do anything rash. Think about your friends.”
Initially taken by surprise, Christina, Mark, and Janice were suddenly jolted back to reality and immediately circled Russell's men, aiming their weapons.
“You stay back,” Christina shouted to Paula, trying to keep her out of harm's way. Paula backed out of the crowd and tried to fight back tears. The shouting subsided, and everyone took a mo
ment to assess the tense situation.
Again, Russell stressed calmness. “Let's all take a moment to breathe here. We've got much larger things to worry about.”
“All I want is for you to unlock that gate and let us out. If you're a man of your word, you'll do that for us,” James said, pushing the barrel of his rifle further into Russell's chest.
“In the event of an attack, protocol dictates a complete lockdown,” Russell said. “I can't risk the lives of my men because your group wants to hightail it out of here. Trust me, you'll be safer here.”
“You lying son-of-a-bitch,” James said.
“Just think,” Russell replied, “it can easily go another way.”
For James, everything went still. He slowly lowered his rifle and called to his group to do the same. A brief calm came over everyone as Russell's men followed suit.
“Well, that wasn't so hard, was it?” Russell asked.
Suddenly a fiery ball from outside exploded atop the front gate. Another explosion soon followed. Several of Russell's men hit the ground for cover. The abrupt eruption startled everyone. James shouted to his group to run away from the gate as Russell called for his men to take positions. Christina screamed for Paula, pulling her daughter along with her as they ran for cover. The attack was on in full force.
Attack on Camp Liberty
It wasn't clear how many were outside the walls, but Billy had claimed to see over twenty masked men running through the forest in hot pursuit of Camp Liberty. Though expected, the assault still managed to take them by surprise. Molotov cocktails flew through the air in a hail of fury, crashing into the walls protecting the camp. Some bottles managed to make it over, further inciting panic among Russell's crew and James's. They watched helplessly as the firebombs erupted upon hitting the ground, covering two of Russell's men in flames.
They rolled on the ground in agony after one particularly lethal cocktail consumed them. The sound of aggressively random gunfire could be heard coming from outside and from all directions. The outsiders fired indiscriminately into the air and at the walls, solely to confuse those inside. A small group wearing their own makeshift militia gear and ski masks immediately stormed the front gate as another team worked together to ram the gate open with a large, wooden ram. Others provided cover and fired on Russell's men in their towers, hitting the camp with everything they had.
Kyle and Eli pulled Russell away from the hot zone at the front when they suddenly realized that the camp was surrounded on all sides. Russell's men, hunkered in positions at towers on each end, were shooting at the outsiders below. Kyle led Russell to a small, fortified shelter of thick pine stumps, covered in sandbags.
“How did they find us?” Russell shouted as they hit the ground. More sporadic gunfire rang out, adding to the chaos.
“I don't know,” Kyle said frantically.
“Were you followed from last night?” Russell asked.
No one answered. More shots and explosions rained onto the camp. They could feel the heat of the Molotov cocktails and smelled the gunpowder in the air from an ensuing firefight. Kyle pushed a fresh twenty-round magazine into the slot on his rifle, then locked and loaded his weapon. Eli pulled the charging handle back on his rifle and set it to semi-automatic. Though they were kneeling, Russell turned to Eli and pushed him against the wall, grabbing his collar.
“Were...you...followed?” he asked.
“What? From last night?” Eli asked in a stunned manner. “How the hell would I know? I just drove the fucking truck.”
Russell pushed Eli away, releasing him. He ran his fingers through his long, dirty hair and sighed in frustration. “They found us somehow. Real nice can of worms you two opened. You got the whole damn town out here.” Russell paused for a moment, then looked up. “Here's what we're going to do; we regroup. We retake the offensive and hit those bastards back.”
“They're trying to breach the front gate,” Kyle said.
They could hear more screaming from outside, followed by the thud of one of Russell's men falling to the ground from one of the towers. The torturous agony of the two men engulfed in flames from the cocktails had stopped.
“We're going to defend this camp to the death, you hear me?” Russell said. He raised his AK-47 and signaled to the men to move out. They emerged from the cramped bunker ready to lead the camp to victory.
A growing crack emerged from inside the thick layers of plywood that made up the front gates. Russell moved as fast as he could to the nearest embankment but felt his lungs failing as another coughing fit started. He collapsed on the ground as Eli and Kyle moved on ahead. Kyle checked the positions of the men. There was a man in each one of the four towers. The body of another lay at the bottom of a ladder resting against the post. Another man had taken his position. Kyle looked back and saw that there was no one guarding Cabin C. Feeling the sting of betrayal, he watched as James and his group took cover in their cabin. Kyle and Eli had yet to notice Russell struggling in the mulch a few feet behind them. They were still in shock at the two charred corpses of their own men nearby.
Molotov cocktails continued to fly and spread flames along the camp walls. Kyle looked to the other side of the camp and called to the men who had taken defensive positions on the ground near him.
“Defend the gate at all costs! Move up!” he shouted. Ten or so of them moved swiftly to positions closer to the gate. Shots continued from outside the wall. Another of Russell's men fell from the front tower and hit the ground, breaking his neck immediately.
“I want someone on the tower!” Kyle shouted, pointing up.
Billy, covered in mulch and dirt, jumped up from his prone position on the ground near the gate and ran to the tower with stealth and urgency. He was a good shot, and Kyle knew it. The fire continued to spread on the walls on all sides, but just as fast as it did, many patches were burning out.
“Keep firing!” Kyle yelled to the men in the front towers.
Gunshots rang out from each tower. Kyle was frustrated by the limitation of their positions on the ground when he noticed another man fall from the rear tower. “Son of a bitch,” Kyle he said.
Russell regained his composure and crawled toward Kyle and Eli. “Take the rear! Take five men with you,” he told Eli. “Kyle and I will watch the front.”
Eli shouted for five men to help defend the rear of the camp, where a firefight was erupting between the invaders and the tower guards. As his group arrived at the south side of the camp, they noticed ropes being tossed over from outside. The enemy was trying to get in. Eli commanded his men, Shane and Danny among them, to take their positions behind a series of sandbag barriers. “Be ready,” he shouted. “They're trying to climb over!”
From his defensive position in the guard tower, Billy aimed his high-tech Sauer S 202 rifle at the ground below. There he could see them; ten or so townspeople, poorly concealed in mismatched camouflage and wearing black ski masks. Several of their dead already lay on the ground. The rest were hidden behind trees, taking potshots at Billy. They had effectively pinned him down, but he was determined to get the upper hand.
Billy signaled to Quinn in the next tower over, alerting him to the enemy’s vulnerable positions. From there, Quinn took his shots. Their heads exploded like melons against the trees they had attempted to use for cover. In a short time, Quinn’s and Billy’s teamwork had taken out six. Billy looked out from behind the sandbags and nearly got shot in the face. Meanwhile, the enemy was making progress on the front gate. Just when Billy thought things couldn't get any more frustrating, he saw ropes being tossed up from below, over the walls. “Are you kidding me?” he said from behind his rifle.
Kyle and Russell remained hidden behind a pile of sandbags, ready for anything. Russell tried to regain control of the defense operation. Kyle urged him to rest for a minute. Russell refused.
“They’re gonna look like Swiss cheese when I'm through with them!”
“Remember the goal at hand. Not here, but in Washing
ton,” Kyle said.
“How many have we lost?” Russell asked.
More gunfire rang out, like a rain of fireworks. Quinn and Billy fired rapidly from the towers as the enemy ascended the walls without fear.
“I'm not sure of an exact number,” Kyle said. “Six?”
Russell stared ahead, stone-faced and cold. He got up, not saying a word, and swiftly walked off toward his cabin, leaving Kyle behind.
“Russell!” Kyle shouted. “Where the hell are you going?” Russell kept moving without a response. Kyle looked back at the front gate. The enemy continued to ram it, again and again. A resounding rumble thundered throughout the camp. They were almost in. Kyle lay flat on his stomach and looked out from his defensive position. He steadied his aim and took a deep breath. He was ready.
Inside the cabin, James’s group were unnerved. Jacklyn jumped up from Jeff's bed, taken completely by surprise. She watched in confusion as Christina led Paula to their bunk and demanded that she take cover under the bed. Paula began to cry as her mother tried to calm her in a shaky voice. James knelt by the window with his rifle drawn, trying to make sense of the chaotic and frenzied scene outside.
He watched as Russell's men dispersed to their tactical positions while trying to dodge Molotov cocktails. Mark and Janice crouched down beside their bed, holding each other.
“Everyone stay down,” James said, focusing his attention outside the window.
“What's happening out there?” Jacklyn asked, leaving Jeff’s side and walking over to them.
Mark snapped at her. “Your friends just tried to kill us for trying to leave, that’s what’s happening.”
“The camp is under attack,” Janice added.
“Everyone keep it together and be ready to defend yourselves,” James said. The gunfire from outside continued, as did the incendiary explosions all around. James watched as one guard fell from the tower, and was replaced by another. He watched as Russell's men convened at the front gate, where outside forces were determined to barge in.
Jacklyn covered her mouth in shock, then clasped her hands against her thighs. “I've got to find Sally.” She began to run toward the front door when Christina grabbed her arm and pulled her back.
End Days Super Boxset Page 205