Storm Horizon

by Brian Switzer

  Will chuckled, but it was it without mirth. "Well, does anybody want to take him up on his offer?" He didn't look around because he knew there were no takers.

  Jiri ran a hand over his face. "What if the dingalings in the other tunnel give themselves up?”

  That gave Will a start. He hurried from his spot behind the column over to the Judge, huddled in a ball behind a limestone boulder that cropped out from the tunnel wall.

  "How about that, Jody? Will any of your people fall for his bullshit?"

  The Judge gaped at him from behind a pair turtle shell glasses. "No; no, I don't think so. Maybe a few months ago? But we've learned a lot since then."

  Will nodded and stood. "You stay back here no matter what. They're not coming in, so you don't need to worry. We’re going to kill them all." He raised his voice. "As for the rest of you- we put too much work into this place to let anybody take it away from us. Get behind something solid and get a bead on one of those guys. Don’t shoot until they fire. But once they do- unleash hell. I’ll bet they don't know the firepower they're about to go up against, so let's surprise the shit out of them.

  "If you've never been through this kind of thing- it will be loud and scary. Bullets will be flying around and things are going to blow up. Keep your head about you and stay down. Don't fire blind- when you see a target, line it up and kill it. Listen for my voice, and Danny's and Jiri's. Do what we tell you to do. You'll make it through this if- "

  The intruder with the megaphone interrupted him. "Don't be foolish. You still have five seconds to choose not to die. Four. Three. Two. One."

  A single shot rang out, then the air exploded with the sound of gunfire.

  Nineteen

  * * *

  Coy waited until the last Suburban in the column turned the corner at the bottom of the hill before he stood. He grabbed his rifle and was about to start down the hill when he remembered the travois and the pork. He turned and glowered at the meat. His eyes squinted shut and his fingers drummed a beat on his chest. He was torn between getting down as fast as possible and taking the time to safeguard his kill from scavengers. Annie sat on her back haunches and watched him while he decided what to do.

  "I guess it doesn't matter how much ham and bacon we have if those guys blow the shit out of the place and kill everybody, does it, girl?" She gave his hand a lick of agreement and he began to pick his way down.

  It was steep and covered with a thin layer of dirt and loose rocks. The footing was treacherous at the best of times; an inch of wet, slippery snow made it worse. It forced him to move slow and choose his steps with care.

  Annie injured his pride and raced to the bottom. The wind blew her ears back and she wagged her tail with joy as she ran; she paced back and forth as she waited for him to join her.

  He was almost there when an amplified voice rose from the quarry. He strained his ears, but the voice was too faint and distorted to make out the words.

  He hurried the last twenty yards, jumped over a fallen log, and joined Annie at the bottom. Once there, he checked his magazine again, noting for the third time it was full. A double check made sure the safety was engaged. He rested the weapon against his leg and patted the pouches on his vest. He counted four magazines, including the partially empty one he had used on the hogs.

  Content he was squared away, he broke into a fast jog that took him across the road and into the meadow that ran between the road the bluff. As he ran through the grass, the amplified voice sounded from below. He was close enough now to make out the man’s words; he talked about counting down from five. Coy shifted into a sprint.

  Twenty yards from the bluff’s edge limestone blocks as big as a car sat end-to-end, a guardrail left over from the mining days. Coy stopped at the barrier, told Annie to stay, then climbed over the blocks. Three long rows of pine trees planted close together decades ago grew between the blocks and the rim. He weaved through the trees and finally came upon a row of smaller easy chair-sized chunks of limestone lining the edge.

  He dropped to his knees and elbows and inched, hunched over and hopefully out of sight, over to the stone slabs.

  Peering over the three-foot-high blocks, he saw where he was in relation to the Suburbans on the quarry floor. They sat in a line off to his right. He inched that direction, his attention fixated on the scene below. Pine cones crackled behind him; his heart pounded and his mouth went dry in an instant. He spun around and tried to get his rifle up in front of him but before he did, a burst of yellow exploded and Annie landed in his lap. She licked his face with happiness.

  "Dammit Annie, I told you to stay," he whispered, trying to sound angry. The dog tucked her tail and ducked her head but never lost her doggie-smile.

  Coy turned and had started moving again just as World War III broke out below.

  Twenty

  * * *

  Will pressed himself against the back side of the column. Becky huddled next to him, her hand enclosed inside his. Outside, the guns roared and a steady barrage of bullets rained through the tunnel. The intruders seemed to fire for effect rather than with intent. Shots ricocheted off the tunnel walls and the wide columns, chipping off chunks of limestone but doing no damage to the team. Their clothing and supplies were shot to shit- cans of food and bottles of water exploded, tables laden with gear crashed to the ground, dishes shattered and pots and pans clattered to the floor as the crates that held them toppled. The harsh smoke-and-peat odor of whiskey radiated through the shaft when bullets hit Will’s case of Johnnie Walker.

  Because of where the intruders parked their suburbans, the blizzard of shells came flying in at various angles but all from the north. The south wall was getting blown to hell; the tunnel wall to the north was unmolested except for the occasional ricochet. This had a good side and a bad side. The north wall was by far the safest place to be in the tunnel. But the team members hiding in its safety didn’t have an angle to shoot back.

  Will leaned out from behind his column regularly to pop off a few shots and monitor his group. Everyone stayed safely hunkered down; especially the Judge, who had curled into a ball to make himself a small as possible behind his limestone slab. The sound of people yelling filled the air, especially when the shooting started, and once Will heard a woman scream, though he couldn’t tell whether from fear or pain.

  His mind raced as he tried to put together a plan to rally his troops and fight back. Ideas sprung to mind at a gallop, and he rejected them just as fast. He wished hard for Terrence to make an appearance with his Humvee. It was that, or wait for the intruder’s trigger fingers to tire and ammunition to run low.

  Becky squeezed his hand and he squeezed back. She shifted back and forth and gazed back up at him with hopeful eyes; he shrugged and shook his head.

  Then two things happened. Loud booms made by a big rifle sounded from above them at a slow but steady rate. And Danny, who shared Will and Becky’s column, tired of hunching down on the other side of it and took his feet with a furious roar.

  Twenty-One

  * * *

  When the shooting started, Coy popped back up to his knees behind the limestone slab and scanned the quarry bottom. He scooted to his left so that the black trucks were in front of and below him.

  He forced himself to be patient and observe. Save for an occasional potshot from inside the tunnel, all the gunfire came from the intruders. They stood straight, not kneeling or ducking behind the protective cover of their SUVs. They fired like a bunch of kids playing with their Daddy's .22 rifles- shooting for impact and noise, rather than to hit something. They didn’t hold their weapons to their shoulders, acquire a target, aim, and fire. Instead, they held them in front of their bodies and sprayed ammo until they emptied their magazines. It reminded Coy of the movie Black Hawk Down when the Somalis stuck their weapons around corners and over the tops of cars and fired without even seeing their targets.

  The invaders split their firepower in two directions. Half the shooters fired on Coy's tunnel, the
other half on the tunnel where the Originals lived. Instead of parking two Suburbans in front of each tunnel, as he would have done, they split the difference and parked all four in the space between the tunnels. Because of that, none of them fired straight at their target areas, they shot at an angle, instead.

  Coy had never seen an Uzi fired before, and he spent a few moments admiring the two below. Blunt-nosed and ugly, they made an unpleasant noise when fired. It was a flat, rapid, and gravelly chug-chug-chug-chug. They fired rounds at an incredible rate and their magazines appeared to hold more ammo than the mags in the rifles. They were more dangerous than the other weapons the intruders carried.

  He shouldered his rifle, adjusted the scope, and gauged the distance to the nearest Uzi-wielding intruder at 450 yards. "That's no step for a stepper," he said in a quiet voice. That was a tricky distance for him when he used the Woodmaster’s sights. With the scope, it was almost unfair.

  He clicked the safety to the off position and took a deep breath. The intruders wore vests, so he centered his crosshairs on the bridge of his target's nose. He exhaled, and when his lungs were empty, squeezed the trigger. The 5.56 mm round obliterated the man's face.

  Coy dropped behind the slab. The gunfire slacked off but didn't stop below. He imagined the shooters looking around and trying to figure out where the shot came from. The lull lasted less than thirty seconds before the rate of fire picked up again. Coy rose to his knees and selected his next target.

  Twenty-Two

  * * *

  Will watched Danny spin from behind the other side of the pillar. He roared, the sound primal and full of fury, and raised his rifle to his waist. Screaming and laughing like a crazy man, he emptied his magazine firing at the last two Suburbans in the row.

  "Come on, you fucking pussies!" he raged.

  Will thought Danny meant the invaders until he moved well away from their line of fire and turned to face his teammates.

  "Do you hear that rifle fire up there? That's Coy, doing everything he can to help us. And what are we doing? We're huddling and hiding and crying like a bunch of bitches.” He pointed at the tunnel entrance. “They can't shoot for shit. Now pick up your weapons and get to work, or when this thing is over I'm going to beat the shit out every one of you." He had swapped out magazines while he ranted. He stormed over to where Justin hid behind a stack of pallets. Danny glared down at the smaller man.

  Bullets slammed into the opposite wall, bits of limestone whizzed around, and a thickening cloud of dust reduced visibility by the minute. Justin gaped at Danny, then his mouth curved into a smile and he pulled himself to his feet. They ducked low and scrambled behind a pillar on the other side of the tunnel. They took turns leaning out from behind their limestone cover, searching for targets, and firing with calm deliberation.

  Will looked at Becky; she gazed back at him with a pensive expression. He gave her a wink. "You stay down, no matter what," he told her. Without waiting for an answer he gave her hand a squeeze, pulled his rifle to his shoulder, leaned out from behind the pillar, and looked for an intruder.

  Twenty-Three

  * * *

  Coy pulled the trigger twice in succession, hitting a skinny redhead with terrible acne scars that his facial hair was too sparse to hide, and a miss on an Asian-looking man who ducked down just as Coy fired his shot.

  His side was finally shooting back, which made a drastic change in the target environment. The intruders scaled-back their gunfire and quit shooting like a bunch of terrorists trying out guns in a gravel pit. They crouched down behind the suburbans, only venturing up to fire off a quick volley of shots and ducking back down again. The return fire from his tunnel came much more often than from the Original’s, but both teams were returning fire and the bad guys seemed surprised.

  Coy had a better trajectory from his perch atop the bluff than his teammates in the tunnel. As he tracked his gun back and forth along the Suburbans, he could see the heads of several of the intruders. The problem was, they moved too much and too often to allow Coy a clean shot. So he waited, patiently sweeping the rifle from left to right and back again.

  An intruder leaned out too far from the safety of his Suburban and took a bullet to the leg from inside the tunnel. He fell to the ground, screaming and clutching his leg, and Coy lined him up in his crosshairs. Two of the injured man's team members pulled him back to safety. One of them stayed by his side and administered first aid. He leaned over the injured leg to apply a compress to the wound. Through the scope his back was as big as a barn door.

  Coy fired. The target stiffened and collapsed on his patient’s legs. Some of the men below gestured at one another and pointed up in Coy's general vicinity.

  He dropped behind the slabs, intent on moving fifteen or twenty yards to his left. He had just started scooting in that direction when a noise like thunder came from down below, followed by the sound of men screaming.

  Twenty-Four

  * * *

  Terrence parked his Humvee in one of the empty shafts between Will's tunnel and the Original’s. He kept it far enough back that passers-by couldn’t see it in the murky darkness. If they couldn't see the Humvee they wouldn't come in and pester him. He slept stretched out on his back across the fold-down rear seat with his hands laced behind his head and his legs hanging out the open rear door from the knees down.

  His eyes snapped open at the sound of an unknown voice on a loudspeaker. He didn't move. He learned long ago jumping into a situation without an understanding of what was happening usually led to a negative outcome. Better to be still, acquire information, assess, and then strike.

  He heard the ultimatum- two minutes to exit the tunnel with your hands empty and in the air, no longer your property, will be allowed to leave but must leave empty-handed, automatic weapons and RPG's. He didn’t know how the Original’s would react to those words, but he felt confident Will and his people were gearing up for battle.

  The man with loudspeaker began his countdown. So, there would be a fight. The next question was, did Terrence have a dog in that fight? That was a no-brainer. He had become close friends with Will and some of his team over the past weeks. In a fight, he wanted to be on the same side as Will’s team.

  Okay, we’re in this, he thought. Let's find out what the other side looks like. He exited the Humvee and walked around behind it, clicked on a lantern, and checked his weapons. His handgun of choice was a Smith & Wesson nine millimeter, and he carried one on him at all times. He double checked his magazine and counted three more seventeen-round mags in his pack. His rifle of choice at the moment was a TAR 21 Bullpup. It was an ugly little thing manufactured in Israel by Tavor. The company placed the gun’s receiver, bolt group, and magazine behind its pistol-grip, giving it an unbalanced and jumbled look. The 21 fired 5.56x45mm NATO rounds from a thirty-round capacity box. He set its selector on semi-automatic and took two extra magazines from the Humvee.

  After holstered the pistol he slung the Bullpup over his shoulder, patted his chest to ensure he had on body armor, and inched along the wall toward the tunnel entrance. He'd only made a couple of feet when the voice on the loudspeaker finished its two-minute countdown. After a moment of silence, the deadly sound of more than a dozen automatic weapons filled the air.

  Twenty-Five

  * * *

  An intruder's head popped up over the hood of a Suburban. Will aimed, but just before he pulled the trigger the man disappeared. He fired a few shots in that direction anyway and looked for a new target.

  His team returned fire at a respectable rate for a bunch of people who had never been in combat. They kept the intruders pinned down behind their black SUVs better than he could have expected.

  He had two new problems. One, they were low on ammunition. In the last five minutes, three team members warned they were on their last magazine, and he only had one mag left in his vest himself.

  His bigger concern was with a wounded team member. Several minutes ago, on the other side of th
e shaft, David yelled out in surprise and pain. David’s wife followed with a heart-wrenching scream and Justin called out, "He's hit!"

  Jiri joined David’s wife, Kathy, and Justin at his side; Will caught glimpses of the professor tending to the wounded man’s leg. Will couldn't risk crossing the tunnel to check on him without exposing himself to a torrent of gunfire from outside. He considered running deep into the tunnel, beyond the range of the shooters, crossing to the other side, and running back to take stock of the situation. But then an odd thing happened.

  The invaders were still shooting, and their rate of fire had increased- but they quit shooting into the tunnel. Will wanted to get close enough to the entrance to see why, but in doing so he would expose himself and risked getting shot.

  That was going through his mind when the quarry bottom exploded.

  Twenty-Six

  * * *

  Terrence kept his back to the tunnel wall and moved toward the entrance one small step at a time. Ten feet from the murky section of tunnel where sunlight from outside faded and darkness took over, he laid down and inched ahead on his stomach.