Last Stand: Surviving America's Collapse

by William H. Weber

  “What do you think he’s doing this far from Knoxville?” Tim asked.

  “I think he’s come to even the score. We defeated him at Willow Creek, decimated his army and fried half his face off. Wouldn’t you want revenge?”

  The others didn’t seem convinced. They wanted to believe Cain’s appearance was nothing more than a coincidence rather than another horrifying attack.

  “I don’t see how he could have found us,” Tim started to say before he stopped himself.

  The sudden look of guilt on Emma’s face was unmistakable. However Cain had found out, it had begun when she first spilled the beans.

  “Look,” John said. “We don’t know whether that’s even Cain or why he’s here. If he’s somehow found out about the cabin, our only choice is to finish this once and for all. Blood is going to be spilled. Each of you needs to take a moment and make sure you’ll be capable of performing your duty. If not, let me know now.” No one said anything. He then reached out to Emma. “Stop beating yourself up, honey. What’s done is done. At this point, I need all of you sharp. Guilt at this stage will only cloud your judgment and dampen your reaction times. We were lucky today. Our security procedures were tested, which gives us time to make improvements.” John turned to Gregory. “Great job alerting us to a possible threat, but staying in the area unarmed isn’t good. Coming to get you at the fallen tree exposed us all to danger. Next time, sound the alarm and retreat at once back to the cabin. This is our castle keep.” Then John turned to Tim. “It was brave of you to head toward the threat, but you went in armed with nothing more than a pistol. If that had been Cain and his men, he would have cut you down for sure.”

  Tim shook his head. “Got it.”

  “We also need to hand-drill more gun ports so we have three-hundred-and-sixty-degree coverage in case the cabin is surrounded.”

  Gregory stood up and buried his fist into the palm of his hand. “If we had a tank we could blow them all away.”

  The room exploded with laughter, offering them a much-needed release of tension.

  “A tank would be nice,” Brandon added.

  Diane sipped at a cup of lukewarm coffee. “If we’re making wishes, why not call in some Apache gunships?”

  When they got the nervous laughter out of their system, John spoke. “We can’t let these terrorists or the threat they pose keep us hiding in the cabin out of fear. Each of us has a job to do, but we need to be vigilant and sound the alarm at the first sign of danger.”

  •••

  For the next two hours, John and Tim used the hand drill to make additional gun ports in the northern, eastern and western walls of the cabin. They’d already made the holes in the southern wall overlooking the path yesterday and stacked sandbags around the opening.

  Armed with a pistol and an AR, Gregory, Brandon, Emma and Natalie went down to the road to rebuild the camouflage protecting the turnoff that had been destroyed when the large crowd showed up. They added bushes and spread more forest debris to help hide the entrance to the cabin.

  Meanwhile, Diane and Kay continued working in the garden and greenhouse, planting the vegetables and perennials.

  When the last of the holes were drilled, Tim turned to John.

  “I want to thank you for letting us stay here,” he said. “I know we didn’t know each other all that well as neighbors on Willow Creek, so you would have been justified in turfing us out. But you didn’t and I wanted to let you know I appreciate that.”

  John gave him a half nod. He wasn’t sure why exactly being thanked made him so uncomfortable. Maybe it had something to do with one of those unspoken rules he always lived by. You did what needed to be done, no thanks required. Tim wasn’t cut from the same cloth, although John appreciated he was trying his best to make the present situation work as smoothly as possible.

  “Space is tight, I won’t lie,” John said. “But having your family around has been a blessing in disguise, you might say. More hands to help around the property, and to defend it.”

  Tim placed the hand drill on the table. “You don’t think Cain’s here by chance, do you?”

  John didn’t mince words. “Not for a second.”

  Chapter 43

  Just then the kids came charging into the cabin, frantic and out of breath. They were all squawking at once.

  “One at a time,” John said, alarmed.

  Gregory worked to calm his breathing. “We were making our way back from the road when we saw five pickup trucks drive by. There were armed men in the back.”

  “How many?”

  “Hard to say,” Emma cut in. “At least twenty.”

  “Did they see you?”

  Brandon and Gregory both shook their heads. “No, they just drove by, but it seemed like they were looking for something.”

  “They’re searching for the turnoff,” John said. He touched Gregory’s shoulder. “Get Kay and your mother and tell them to come in right away.”

  Gregory ran off.

  “The rest of you kids keep filling up those sandbags and pack them as tight as you can. Tim, take one of the ARs and keep an eye on that road. Blow your whistle if you see anyone approaching.”

  Kay and Diane entered just then and John filled them in on what was happening. “I’ll need help from both of you with setting up these last firing positions.”

  Over the next few tense minutes, John pulled the kitchen table into the middle of the main room and stacked as much ammo as he could fit. From there, he placed four magazines filled with 5.56 green-tip rounds by the southern loophole for the AR. He then placed boxes of .30-06 ammo for deer rifles by the eastern and western loopholes and three other AR mags at the northern one. The shotgun loaded with double-ought buck and slugs would be kept in reserve in case anyone tried to breach the cabin door.

  When they were done, everyone was on sandbag duty, except for Tim and Brandon who kept lookout.

  They only managed to fill and move half the sandbags before everyone heard two short blasts from Tim’s whistle.

  •••

  In a matter of seconds, they had all retreated to the cabin. This would be their Alamo. John just hoped the end result would turn out differently for them than it had for Davy Crockett.

  The sound of the shotgun tripwire going off was the first sign that someone coming up the trail had tried to move off into the forest. Then came another blast and the screams of men in pain. More than one and John grabbed a notepad and etched two lines to mark down how many enemies were out of action.

  John and Gregory took the southern loophole overlooking the gravel path. Kay and Diane took the eastern in case the attackers tried flanking the cabin. At the western loophole were Brandon and Emma while Tim and Natalie covered the south. They’d only managed to fill enough sandbags for three of the four positions. That meant the southern loophole was relatively unprotected, except for the cabin’s sixteen-inch log walls.

  A voice shouted out at them from just beyond view. “I know you’re in there, John.”

  Hearing it erased all the doubts in John’s mind. It was Cain and he’d returned to settle the score.

  “Your friend Bill Kelsaw was very helpful in divulging your location once we provided the proper incentives.”

  Cain thought he was being cute, but John couldn’t help but imagine poor Bill tied up, being slowly tortured to reveal what he knew. The image, even if it wasn’t real, made him all the more determined.

  “I don’t have a beef with anyone other than you, John,” Cain shouted. “Come out and give yourself up and I’ll let your family live. You’ve got my word on that.” He paused and spat on the ground. “You also have three minutes to decide.”

  John turned to find everyone in the cabin looking at him, each with a different expression. Acute fear on his children’s faces. Confusion and curiosity on Tim’s face as he wondered whether John would comply. For a moment John wondered the same thing himself. What if Cain was telling the truth? Was a gun battle worth risking the live
s of his family? What if he could trade his life for theirs? Let Cain settle the score and be done with it.

  Then John spotted the stubborn scowl on Diane’s face he’d seen so many times throughout their marriage.

  “The rat’s lying through his teeth,” she growled. “And you know it.”

  She was right. He did.

  “Cain’s lied, manipulated and tried to terrorize us from the first second we met him.”

  “Don’t do it, Dad,” Gregory said tearfully.

  “If I don’t go out there, they’ll attack us for sure,” John said. “Some of you might get hurt or killed.”

  Tim came over and put a hand on John’s shoulder. “Let the bastards try.”

  Chapter 44

  The three minutes came and went. Finally Cain called out from somewhere beyond view. “So what’s your answer, John?”

  “Show yourself and find out, you coward,” John shouted through the loophole.

  Through the narrow opening in the cabin wall, he spotted men scurrying up the path.

  John slowed his breathing, took careful aim and squeezed the trigger. The cabin exploded with deafening sound as John fired at the approaching men. Shooting a man in real life wasn’t like in those fancy Hollywood movies. They didn’t fly ten feet back. A man hit by a high-caliber bullet usually fell where he stood. Nothing dramatic, nothing fancy. That was what happened to the first two John hit. They dropped to the ground and stopped moving. More came up behind them, firing wildly as they made their way forward.

  Rounds struck the cabin wall, the larger ones passing through and rattling a row of pans hanging in the kitchen.

  John emptied his magazine, released it, popped in another and continued firing. A handful of Cain’s men were circling around to John’s right.

  “You got a few coming your way,” he called to Diane who was covering the eastern section with a deer rifle. She fired and then worked the bolt before firing again. Bullets slammed through the cabin, thudding into the sandbags.

  There were still men firing at them from the tree line. It appeared as though the booby-traps they’d set had taken out a few of Cain’s thugs, but others pushed on and settled at the forest’s edge. They were preparing to open up with AK-47s when John peppered their position. Dirt and leaves kicked in the air as rounds landed all about them. One of the men was struck through the eye and slumped forward. The other pushed himself back and out of view.

  Out came another empty magazine. Behind him, Gregory was crouched low to the ground, pulling 5.56 rounds out of the box and feeding them into the empty polymer mags. This was the benefit of having four positions manned by two people each. If one was hit, there was an immediate replacement and in the meantime, the backup could keep a supply of fresh mags coming.

  Course, they couldn’t go on shooting indefinitely. At some point they would run out, which was why John was trying to conserve as much as he could.

  “How many on your end Diane?” John called out.

  “I hit three, but two others were moving too fast. Tim should see them any second.”

  “Got ’em,” Tim replied as he opened fire.

  He burned through a mag in a matter of seconds.

  “Make every shot count, Tim,” John shouted over the barrage. “We could be here all night.”

  Then John caught a terrifying sight. Two of Cain’s men were in the open, lighting Molotov cocktails and preparing to throw them at the cabin. If they succeeded, it would quickly be the end of everyone inside. The place would go up like a tinder box.

  John peered through his ACOG Scope and laid off three quick rounds. Except he wasn’t aiming for the men, he was aiming for the Molotov cocktail. A second later, the sound of shattering glass was followed by the two men screaming as the bottle exploded and doused them in flames.

  More shots continued to ring out from each of the loopholes as Cain’s men tried to surround the cabin, searching for a weak point in their defenses.

  John was in the process of loading a fresh mag when the sound of bullets slamming through the southern wall made him turn. Tim slumped forward. Without enough sandbags, a round had passed through the cabin wall and hit him.

  Kay screamed and moved to grab hold of her husband.

  “Take my rifle,” Diane told her. “And keep firing.”

  Diane had the most medical knowledge of anyone there and it only made sense for her to be the one to assess Tim’s wounds.

  For her part, Natalie took hold of her father’s AR and continued to return fire.

  Grabbing Tim by the shirt, Diane pulled him flat on his back and out of harm’s way. She then rifled through his clothes, searching for the entry wound. “Where’re you hit?”

  Tim shook his head. “I don’t know.” Soldiers with adrenaline pumping through their veins during combat often didn’t know where they’d been shot.

  After searching for a few seconds, Diane found the wounds. Tim had been shot twice. Once in the right arm and once in the abdomen. There were also bits of wood sticking out of his flesh that must have splintered off from the rounds punching through the cabin wall. While Diane used QuikClot and dressed the wound, the others continued fighting back.

  “How many are down?” John ordered. “I need each of you to report back.”

  “Five over here,” Brandon called out from the western wall.

  “Three,” Kay replied in a quivering voice.

  “Three for me too,” Tim said quietly.

  That made eleven and John had taken out seven more which brought the total to eighteen. Predictably John hadn’t seen Cain show his face once during the attack. He was probably waiting to swoop in when all the heavy lifting was done so he could execute John himself.

  “Emma, take over for Kay, will you.” Kay wasn’t doing them any good, trying to soldier on while her husband lay wounded nearby.

  “Okay, Dad.”

  The attacks from outside began to die down. Then John spotted two men running along the tree line to his left. But they weren’t heading toward him. They appeared to be running away. John took careful aim and dropped them both.

  Those two made twenty and with Cain twenty-one. He was confident that most of the attackers were now either dead or gravely wounded. All except for Cain.

  “I’m going outside,” John said to protests from those around him.

  The safe play would have been to stay inside, but allowing Cain to get away would only push the danger further down the line. Plus, not only did Cain know where they were, but he now had a good idea of their defenses. The next time around he’d be better prepared and surely do far more damage.

  John rose, stuffed fresh mags into his chest rig, seated his S&W into his drop-leg holster and grabbed his AR.

  “When I count to three, you open that front door,” he told Kay. “Gregory, get that AR in the front loophole and cover me.”

  When everyone was ready, John counted to three, his AR in the low ready position. The door swung open and he moved out swiftly, scanning from left to right and moving with purpose to the tree line. That was when he saw the figure down the path by the four trucks that were parked in a line. Right away the man’s mangled face told him it was Cain. Cain was alone now and trying to make his escape.

  John went after him, hopping over the fallen log just as Cain jumped in the cab of the rear vehicle and backed away at full speed. Chunks of gravel sprayed as he whipped backwards onto the road, tires screeching as they touched asphalt.

  John raised his AR to spray the truck, but it sped away. Making a split-second decision, he jumpedbehind the wheel of a ’77 Dodge Ram and prepared to give chase.

  Chapter 45

  Cain’s pickup was just ahead of him now, weaving around the occasional stalled car that blocked the road. The obstacles gave John time to close the distance between them. He came up quickly from behind, trying to decide the best way to get him off the road. A pistol appeared out the driver’s side window and opened fire. Most of the shots went wide. Cain was firing
blindly, trying to scare John off, but it would take more than that.

  Pulling out on the left, John tried to move alongside him, but Cain swerved and cut him off. John fell back, staying on the back right bumper of Cain’s truck. He then pulled to the left and dug the nose of his pickup into Cain’s rear fender. It was a classic police move when trying to end a chase. When it worked well, the leading car was sent into a sharp hundred-and-eighty-degree turn. But this time, the bumpers of both trucks locked together. Cain quickly lost control and so too did John. Both trucks fishtailed violently, smashing through a farmer’s fence and onto rough terrain where the vehicles flipped.

  The centrifugal force tossed John out of the pickup and into soft ground where he rolled before finally coming to a stop.

  The trucks continued to flip three more times.

  Steam vapor rose up from the engines as John staggered to his feet. A deep gash on his head sent a thick stream of blood streaming down the right side of his face. His legs felt wobbly. His hands were shaking as though he’d just been in a fistfight with a man twice his size.

  John was still wearing his Condor Tactical Vest, but his AR was nowhere in sight.

  A foot kicked open the passenger door of the pickup Cain was driving. That was when the man with two faces came sliding out. The woman’s description had been right on. The skull tattoo on one side of his face was largely intact while the other side was burnt and torn open in places. He now looked on the outside like the monster he was on the inside. A Desert Eagle .50 cal pistol was wedged into the front waistband of his pants.

  John searched around again for his rifle before remembering the S&W in his Serpa drop-leg holster.

  The two men stood looking at once another, their fingers inching toward their pistols.

  “Guess it’s gonna come down to who can draw faster,” Cain said. “Guess that makes you the sheriff, don’t it?”

  “Looks that way,” John said, weakening every minute from the concussion he’d suffered.

  “Or we just forget all this and let bygones be bygones.”