by Steven Bird
Ed jumped out of the truck and gave Tyrone a hug. “So Evan and Jason made it back?” he said with a smile on his face. He turned to Nate. “Nate, they made it!”
“Sorry to interrupt the reunion, guys,” said Pastor Wallace, “but there is a lot going on right now that you need to be aware of. You see that smoke off in the distance?” He pointed toward the east and Wolf Creek Bridge. “That’s a militia ambush of a UN convoy that’s been rolling through each of the towns along its way, causing trouble for anyone associated with a militia.” Then he turned and pointed to the southwest. “Do you see that smoke over there? Two military helicopters flew over the ridge into the area of your homesteads, and the smoke has been rising up over the hills ever since.”
“Oh, my God!” exclaimed Nate. “Peggy? Mom? Luke? Is everyone okay? What happened?”
“We aren’t sure, but Evan, Jason, and Daryl are at the bridge with the militia. Everyone else from your parts bugged out to an old mine back in the hills behind the old Muncie place. Do you know where that is?”
“Not the mine,” Ed replied. “But we know where the Muncie place is.”
“I really don’t know what to tell you, boys. We have no idea the extent of what’s happened up that way. We’ve not received any reports from the militia or the homesteads.”
Nate looked at Ed and said, “We’ve got to get up there. We’ve got to help them.”
Ed looked at Pastor Wallace. “Do you have transportation we can borrow? These kind folks are friends of Henry and Meredith here,” he said, pointing to the occupants of the truck. “They brought us all this way and risked a lot, but we can’t ask them to go directly into harm’s way like that.”
“Take the ATV in the back shed. There should be enough gas in it to make it up there and back,” Pastor Wallace replied.
“Henry, you and Meredith stay here with Pastor Wallace and the church. They are good people. You can trust them. Nate and I have to go see what happened at home. We’ll come back for you.”
He then turned around upon hearing the sound of the ATV with Tyrone aboard. “Hop on, Ed,” he said. “Nate, you stay here and help guard the church. I’ll make sure your family is okay, no matter what it takes.”
“Now, Tyrone, we need you here,” said Pastor Wallace.
“Look,” Tyrone said with a serious voice. “I turned my back and ran when friends of mine were in trouble once before. I’ll never do that again. I owe these people my life. Now, Nate, you know you aren’t in any condition to go up there with Ed. Where’s your leg? I’m going, period.”
Henry spoke up and said, “I’m quite handy with a gun, Pastor. I’ll help fill in for Tyrone, as well.”
Ed climbed onto the back of the ATV with Tyrone, carrying the AK-74 he had acquired earlier in their journey, and Tyrone had strapped his bolt action .30-06 chambered Winchester Model 70 onto the front rack with bungee-style tie-down straps. The two men pulled away as fast as the ATV would go, leaving the others standing and watching.
“Okay, let’s get everyone inside,” Pastor Wallace said. “I think you should all come in and ride this thing out. It’s not safe for you to be driving off anytime soon.”
Chapter Thirty-Six: No Challenge Too Great
As Tyrone and Ed arrived at the Homefront, they were horrified to see that all that was left was smoldering ruins and one remaining brick wall. It had been completely destroyed, along with everything Evan and Molly had worked so hard to acquire, which had helped nearly everyone in their homesteading community during the onset of the collapse. The two men didn’t utter a word. As Tyrone hit the throttle, Ed pointed the way to the Thomas farm.
As they neared the Thomas farm, they could see the smoke in the distance, and to their horror, they once again arrived to see that Mildred’s beautiful old farmhouse had also been burned to the ground. “We’ve got to get to the mine,” Ed said. “If that’s where they all went, we need to make sure they are okay. We can’t just ride right up to the mine though. We need to check it out from a distance. Otherwise, we may clue someone in on their whereabouts.”
“Just tell me where to go,” Tyrone replied.
“That way,” Ed said as he pointed up ahead, and off they went.
Stopping just shy of a mile from the old Muncie place, which had been slated to become the new Vandergriff home, Ed and Tyrone hid the ATV in the brush, readied their rifles, and set out to make the rest of the journey on foot.
“If the mine is behind the Muncie place, we need to get on the opposing hillside so we can get a good vantage point to see if there are any threats in the nearby area. Then we can—” Ed was interrupted by the crack of several gunshots coming from the direction of the Muncie place.
“Damn it!” he said. “Let’s get going.”
As they neared the Muncie place, Ed said, “How good are you with that thing?”
“The rifle? I’ve never really had the chance to shoot it, but Pastor Wallace showed me how.”
“Here, trade me,” he said, handing him the AK-74. “Here is how this thing works. You cycle the action with the charging handle here to pick up a round from the magazine after you reload, or if it becomes jammed to clear it. This big lever on the side is the safety. Up is safe, the middle is fully automatic, all the way down is one shot for one trigger pull.”
“Fully automatic like a machine gun?” Tyrone asked.
“Yes, exactly. I’ll take your Winchester up on that opposing hill. I’m a pretty good shot at long range. I used to have my own rifle range in my backyard up in Ohio. Anyway, you creep around toward the Muncie house, but don’t give yourself away. I’ll get up on that hill, and when I see the threat, I’ll start to pick them off from a distance. The AK is easy to use. Point, aim, spray, and pray. What I want you to do is be the last line of defense for the people in the mine if they try to escape, or if someone attempts to enter the mine. Once I start firing, you should get a good idea where the threats are when they return my fire. If they are carrying those things,” he said, pointing at the AK-74. “I’ll be at an advantage at that distance, which should help even the odds.”
“Sounds good. Good luck, man,” Tyrone said, shaking Ed’s hand before turning to slip off into the woods toward the Muncie place.
Once Ed got himself positioned on the opposing hill, he scanned the area with the 3-9x scope on the Winchester. Starting out at 3x, the lowest magnification setting, gave Ed the widest field of view, enabling him to scan the area quickly. On his second pass across the other hill, he saw several muzzle flashes, followed by the crack of the shot ringing out across the valley. Zooming in on the target with the scope on 9x magnification, Ed recognized the flashes as coming from the same type of Russian troops that had taken them hostage during the roadside ambush of the tractor. “Bastards,” he whispered to himself as he continued to scan the area.
Seeing muzzle flashes coming from within the cave, Ed felt some relief, knowing that at least someone from the homesteads was still alive to be putting up a fight. He just had no idea who. For now, that simply didn’t matter. His new mission was to eliminate the foreign threat, to liberate his friends who might still be alive.
Taking a slow and steady aim at one of the soldiers from the prone position, concealing himself behind the blades of tall grass that grew on the hillside, Ed thought to himself. This must be like... three hundred to four hundred yards. I should have never used distance markers and a laser range finder on my range back home. Now I’m spoiled. Oh, well, here goes, he said to himself as he adjusted his hold for the distance and prevailing wind, took a deep breath, and then gently squeezed the trigger, sending the 180-grain, soft-point hunting round flying across the valley and directly into the back of his intended target. Seeing the man drop from the kneeling firing position to the ground, Ed thought, That’s one.
Ed adjusted his aim to the next soldier in view, who was frantically informing his fellow soldiers of Ed’s shot. Ed could see six men total, one of whom he had already taken out of the fight. P
lacing his cross hairs on the frantic soldier pointing in his general direction on the hill, he held his breath and let another round fly, ripping through the man’s stomach, dropping him to the ground where he writhed around in pain for a few seconds before the movement stopped. A little low, he thought.
The other soldiers then began to scatter, and turned to focus their fire on Ed’s position. As rounds began to land in Ed’s general area, he realized they must have seen the muzzle flash of his last shot. Thank goodness they have AKs, he thought, referring to their lack of long-range prowess.
He took his aim and fired another shot, taking another one of the soldiers out of the fight. That’s three.
As he adjusted his aim for the fourth man, he felt a series of stings impact his right leg. “Damn it!” he shouted in pain, rolling over on his good side to assess the situation. “Crap! Oh, God, that hurts,” he said as he watched the blood run from his leg. Removing his belt, he made a tourniquet to stop the bleeding until he was clear of the threat and could take the time to deal with his injuries.
Finding it more difficult to hold his aim with the searing pain in his leg, Ed hovered his cross hairs on the next target, who was now much better concealed, and let a round fly. As he felt the recoil from his rifle, another sharp pain erupted as a bullet ripped through his left arm, causing him to drop the rifle.
Clutching his arm with his hand, Ed moaned in pain and lifted his hand to see a sizeable chunk of his bicep missing. “Oh, dear God,” he said aloud. As bullets kept impacting the ground around him, he knew that he must push through the pain and finish the fight. It was his only way out at that point. He was in no condition to retreat from the hillside, and they had a fix on his position.
Letting go of his arm, allowing the profuse bleeding to continue, Ed picked up his rifle and attempted to cycle another round into the chamber, only to realize it was empty. Damn it! he thought. I forgot these things only hold three in the mag and one in the pipe.
With his only good arm, Ed fumbled around in his pocket for the extra cartridges he had gotten from Tyrone; once he retrieved them, he began to load them, one by one, through the open action of the rifle. It was a slow and painstaking process with only one hand and the distraction of severe pain throughout his body.
Picking up his rifle and propping it up on his dead arm, Ed cycled a round into the chamber, took aim, and fired another shot. Looking through the scope, he could see that the shot hit the soldier he was aiming for, leaving one visible threat. As he cracked a smile, a bullet smashed through his collarbone, sending a shockwave of unimaginable pain through his body. With the rifle still propped up on his dead arm, he struggled to reposition it, as he knew one more threat remained. He attempted to aim the rifle, but his body began to shake; he started to go numb and had trouble simply holding the rifle in place. As his vision began to blur, he saw a series of muzzle flashes through the scope as Tyrone appeared, firing wildly from the hip with full-automatic fire, killing the last of the soldiers. Ed cracked a smile as his vision faded to black, and the world around him went silent.
Chapter Thirty-Seven: Restoring Hope
As Evan looked around at the beautiful day, listening to the birds chirping and feeling the gentle breeze, he could hardly believe it had been three months since the attack at the Wolf Creek Bridge and since Ed’s untimely death. So much had happened over the past several years. They had experienced more than their share of both heartache and happiness.
Over the past three months, they had buried a dear friend, had Nate returned to them, and welcomed the addition of Henry and Meredith to their group. Having just completed work on their cabin on the Homefront, which would serve as their home for the foreseeable future, Evan was happy that, as the news kept pouring in over the radio, it seemed the country was finally going to be turning its course back to where it needed to be. He hoped they were entering a period where new beginnings could begin to take root and his children could once again have a future they could look forward to.
As he reflected on it all, he was snapped back to reality as Pastor Wallace said, “Do you have a ring?”
Nate said, “Yes. Yes, we do.” He motioned for little Zack, who held the wedding ring. The ring had been given to Nate’s mother many years before by his father. “Thank you, son,” he said with a smile as he took the ring from young Zack and placed it on Peggy’s finger.
Tears welled up in Evan’s eyes as he was caught up in the moment, only to be reminded by Daryl’s clearing of his throat that he had a job to do as well. “Oh, of course. Sorry,” Evan said as he fished the ring out of his pocket and handed it to Daryl.
Daryl then placed the ring on Linda’s finger, and after they had each said their vows, Pastor Wallace said, “I now pronounce you Mr. and Mrs. Nathan Hoskins, and Mr. and Mrs. Daryl Moses; you may both kiss your brides.”
~The End~
A Note from the Author
What a ride this has been. This completes my fifth book, the fourth in this series, and all I can say is it has been quite a ride. From the beginning of The Last Layover, as I typed it on my Android smartphone, to now, I have truly fallen in love with the characters. To be honest, I find myself wanting to go live on the Homefront and have each of those outstanding individuals as my neighbors.
I would have never made it to book four in this series, however, if my favorite people in the real world, you, my readers, didn’t read the books and urge me on to keep the story alive. I thank each and every one of you from the bottom of my heart. I’ve learned a lot during this journey, and I hope you stick with me as my writing career progresses, both within this series and beyond.
To follow me further, please visit me at the following places:
Facebook: www.facebook.com/homefrontbooks (writing)
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Twitter: @stevencbird
Blog: www.stevencbird.com
Website: www.homefrontbooks.com
Amazon Author Page: http://www.amazon.com/Steven-Bird/e/B00LRYYBDU/
Email: [email protected]
Respectfully yours,
Steven C. Bird