Everyone quietly disbanded to go about their business. The rest of the day, I silently prayed that the skies would open up and bring us rain that we might collect through the holes in the greenhouse roof. But as my prayers continued to go unanswered, I began to mentally prepare myself for the night mission to come.
CHAPTER 4
It was dark by seven o’clock that night, but we waited until almost two in the morning to leave. Will and I took a short nap, deciding to wait until later in the night for several reasons. First off, some cloud cover had developed later in the evening and we were hoping there might be some rain on the way. Unfortunately none was forthcoming.
We also felt that by waiting until early morning, the majority of defenders would be asleep and not expecting any action from our side.
Upon preparing for our departure, we decided we’d head out the back of the home through the gaping holes in the greenhouse and toward the west. Then we’d circled around behind our attackers and down to the stream. We hoped that most of these people would be grouped around the front, back, and east sides of the castle where the castle entrances were located.
As we silently crept out of the greenhouse, it reminded me of prison break movies I’d seen. We belly-crawled our way along the cold ground toward the woods. There was barely any snow cover left on the ground, largely just spotty patches of thin ice. The moon was out, although not full, but cloud cover dimmed its light and helped mask our escape. Every second on the ground, I prayed to feel the light cool of falling precipitation against my skin, but there was nothing.
I was relieved yet worried when we finally made it to the forest’s edge. Here we were provided with cover in which to hide, but it was also where we knew our enemy lay in wait.
Will led us quietly and expertly through the trees. I was thankful for the experience he brought in navigating the forest because it was damn hard to see and I had no idea where I was going. We stopped several times along our way, listening for signs of movement, but we managed not to run into any townspeople. And in about half an hour, we’d crept our way down the mountainside and to the stream unnoticed.
Once there, we spent nearly forty-five minutes filling our multitude of bottles and jugs, a process that was easier said than done. Getting their caps unscrewed and finagling them so that we could silently fill them in the shallow stream’s icy-cold water and in almost complete darkness was no easy task. And then we had to get the smaller water-filled containers reloaded into our packs, which added considerable weight. This made what had been a quick and comparatively easy journey down to the stream, a much more arduous uphill return trip.
Holding out in the castle had worn us down, and being loaded with gallons of water while trying to make the hike back up the slick and slippery mountainside in the frigid mountain air left me feeling as though I were running a marathon. I was breathing so heavily that I was almost on top of two townspeople before I even heard them talking.
Luckily, a hand on my shoulder from Will stopped me short before I stumbled over them. I couldn’t believe they hadn’t heard me, but they were bitching so loudly about the cold and having to sleep outside that our presence went unnoticed.
We carefully backed our way a few yards from their position and then crouched down behind a large rock to wait and to listen.
“I’m so goddamn sick of sitting out here in the fucking cold,” one of the men said.
“I just can’t wait until this whole thing is over,” said the other. “Either we take the goddamn place or we give up…I don’t really give a crap, but this waiting around shit needs to end. I just want to get back home where I can sit by the fire for about a week and warm the fuck up. This is horseshit.”
Their words gave me some glimmer of hope that we were breaking their will to fight and that the end might be closer than I thought. If we could just hold out a few more days, then maybe these people would just give up and head home. It was damn cold, and I guessed it must be tough for them to have to be out here for days on end without good shelter or sources of warmth.
“Richard never wanted to come up here in the first place, it was the Wardlaws who pushed everybody,” the first man said.
“Yeah, I thought the Wardlaws knew what they were talking about. They said it’d be easy to take this place. Now we’ve lost six good men killed and more wounded, and what do we have to show for it? Those fuckers up there could have enough supplies to hold out for weeks…maybe months. We have no idea what their situation is. I’m giving it few more days…at most…then I’m done.”
The words inspired me and filled me with renewed energy. “A few more days” and maybe these people would give up. If only we could get back to the castle and inform everyone else, I knew it would give them the glimmer of hope they needed to outlast these people who were sleeping outside in the cold and losing their will to fight by the hour.
The weight of the pack full of water bottles on my back was pressing into me uncomfortably and I shifted to relieve some of the pressure. In so doing, the pack slid slightly sideways and I had to instantly readjust my weight to keep it from thudding into the side of the rock behind which we were hiding. In the process, I snapped a twig upon which I’d unwittingly been kneeling.
“You hear that?” one of the men said.
“Yeah,” said the other.
“Meh,” said the other one. “I’m tired of jumping at shit. We’ve been nervous as shit since we’ve come out here, jumping at everything that moves. And what is it every time? Nothing…or a squirrel, or just something falling off a goddamn tree. I’m done. Those people ain’t coming out of there. Why would they? They’re not dumb shits like us wanting to sleep out in the fucking cold. They got a beautiful home to stay warm in and probably a shit-ton of food stockpiled.”
“Yeah,” agreed the other one. “Guess we’re the dumbasses. We should have come up here and taken this place for ourselves before they got hold of it. Never crossed my mind though. Too busy just tryin’ to survive the flu. If Richard’s so smart, why didn’t he think of it?”
“Maybe he did…just didn’t ever do it. Or maybe by the time he was ready to do it, these people were already here. How many you think are left up there? You think we’ve got any of them?”
“Well, Richard said Wardlaw killed one of them right when we first got up here – a young girl – but other than that, I don’t know. I’d think that for the number of rounds we’ve poured into that place, we should have killed at least a couple more, but who knows for sure. Richard says he thinks they’ve got about eight or ten people up there judging by the return fire we’ve taken, but they might have more, just not guns to arm them.”
I had been extremely sweaty from the hike back up the mountainside, but as we stood waiting, my body began to cool and the sweat felt like it was turning to ice. I began to shiver. My teeth wanted to chatter, but I wouldn’t let them, clamping my jaw shut. The clouds had cleared and it seemed even colder. Worse yet, I realized that the moonlight would make it harder to conceal ourselves and our hulking packs as we tried to make our way back across the lawn to the castle. I knew we needed to get going, but I didn’t want to move for fear of making more noise.
“What time is it?” I heard one man ask the other.
There was a pause, and then the other said, “Three fifty-seven.”
There was silence and the sound of someone loudly exhaling. “Just a few more minutes,” one said.
I wondered what they were waiting for. ‘A few more minutes’ until what? Maybe someone relieved them at 4 a.m. But that meant we’d have to be on the lookout for newcomers possibly stumbling across us during their arrival or these two discovering us upon their departure. But such a shift change could also provide us with a good opportunity to get the hell out of here since the arrival of others could lead to movement, talking, and general distraction that could give us the chance we needed to sneak away and get back to the castle unnoticed.
“What happens at four?” I hissed into Will’
s ear.
“We’ll find out,” he said back.
“Just be ready in case they’re being relieved,” I whispered to him.
We continued to sit in silence. The next three minutes seemed like ten. Finally, I heard one of the men say, “Looks like it’s time. Any minute now.”
The two men stood. There was a pause, and then I heard the words that would forever change our lives, “I hope this is the last fucking attack.”
“No shit,” said the other guy.
Suddenly gunfire erupted closer to the castle.
“Dump the packs!” I hissed to Will. We quickly threw off our backpacks full of water. “Let’s get these guys!”
We both pulled our handguns, and ran after the two men who were already on the move, heading toward the west side of the castle. We quickly caught up to them.
They never heard us coming.
With the sound of gunfire masking our footsteps, we kept running at them from behind, raised our weapons and fired several rounds each into the backs of the two men. They both fell to the ground and lay motionless. Will and I quickly grabbed their rifles and bolted straight for the castle which was about another 200 yards ahead of us. In the distance, I could see flashes of gunfire. There was a quick flash of light and then an explosion that issued from the west side of the house in the area of the library and that looked like a flash grenade – or real grenade. I couldn’t be sure which.
I put my .44 into my coat pocket as I fired a quick shot from the rifle I’d confiscated into the ground just to make sure that it was loaded and the safety was off since I couldn’t see in the darkness as I ran.
We made it to the edge of where the forest met the castle grounds less than a minute after the shooting started. As we exited the forest’s cover, I prayed that our own people didn’t shoot us as we ran out into the open clearing of the yard, but we really didn’t have much of a choice.
* * *
“Go ahead and get some sleep, honey,” Ray said, illuminating his watch in the darkness. It was almost three. John and Will had left on their water run about an hour earlier and things had remained calmly silent since then. He guessed that they should be at the stream and filling up their water jugs by now – half an hour to get there, half an hour or so to fill up, and forty-five minutes to an hour to get back. 4 a.m. had been their estimated time of arrival back to the castle. That was the plan at least.
“I’ll keep watch until five, and then you can take over for the last few hours until daybreak,” he told Pam. He wanted to be awake for John and Will’s return.
“You sure?” Pam said. “I’ll keep you company if you want.”
“Ah, I don’t think you’re going to miss much. I’ll wake you if I start getting tired, but I think it’s going to stay quiet…at least until morning.”
“Thanks babe,” Pam kissed him on the cheek. “At this point, I’ll take what I can get. I’m freaking exhausted.”
Ray tweaked her butt with a thumb and forefinger as she moved from beside him, “No problem sweetie. Just remember…you owe me one.”
“Don’t think I won’t look forward to repaying you when this thing is all said and done,” she grinned in the darkness of the massive library. She moved over to one of the sofas to lie down, wiggling to get comfortable and covering up with several blankets they’d brought from their bed. It was cold, but she warmed quickly beneath the blankets, pulling them up over her head.
She was asleep almost instantly.
Ray decided to roam quietly from office to library and back through the family room, making a sort of roving patrol around and through the rooms. It’s something he’d become accustomed to over the last several days. He would walk to the office, scan outside, wait a few minutes, then walk into the library and do the same thing, then cut back to the office through the family room, passing near the entrance to the greenhouse on the way. The movement helped keep him awake and occupied, and the change of environment as he passed into a new room every couple minutes not only helped him keep a better watch on the entire west side of the home, but it kept him from getting bored or becoming complacent from staying in any one place for too long.
He walked like this for nearly an hour.
Eventually, with his eyes adjusted to the darkness, Ray walked back into the library and over to the sofa where Pam slept peacefully. He stood, looking down at her outline. He listened to her breathing heavily in the stillness of the night. He wished he could lie down beside her; just crawl under the covers and sleep for the next 12 hours. Maybe after this was all done with. Then everyone could get some much deserved sleep. He and Will would get back to their hunting routine and he could talk to Pam about possibly starting a family.
The thought both worried and excited him at the same time. He was concerned about Pam giving birth with no hospital or trained medical professionals around to assist in the process. But Claire had spent time working in hospitals and knew a lot about healthcare-related stuff. Plus, Claire, Emily, Sharron, and Joanna were all moms – Sharron twice over – and they probably knew what to do. Pam was still young and strong. She’d be fine. Then he’d be a father, a proud father, just like his best friends Will and John. They’d start to grow their family here, and if everything worked out, maybe they’d have another one, and maybe even try for three. But first things first. He’d be happy with just one…one perfect one. Then he’d think about getting greedy with more.
Ray decided to kill some more time until it was Pam’s turn to take over by going through baby names. He’d start with the boys first since picking a boy’s name seemed easier…plus, he really wanted a boy, at least for the first child. Two boys and a girl would be perfect.
Ray Jr. There done.
But he wasn’t sure Pam would go for it. She’d told him before that while she loved him dearly, she’d never really been a fan of the name – a bad association somewhere in her past.
As he roamed between the library, office, and family room, he began running through other boys names. Richard was a distinguished sounding name, but then it always got shortened to Rich, Rick or Dick, and he didn’t like any of those. Plus, the asshole leading the townies attacking them was named Richard. Andrew was nice, but it always became Andy, which wasn’t bad, but wasn’t as dignified either. He liked Frederick, but it became Fred. Peter became Pete. Brian was good…nothing wrong with Brian. Similarly, Ryan. Charles was nice, but not Charlie. Drew, no. Frank, no. Aaron, eh, not bad. Zachery was alright. Thomas was good. William was nice, and became Will when shortened…or Bill, but he didn’t like Bill. Will would be nice though, like his good buddy who was out there risking his neck for the good of the family.
The thought made him feel guilty. He should be out there with them. But he was doing his job here. It was just as important.
Robert was nice, but Robert became Rob or Bob, which he didn’t really care for. Sam was okay, but he’d once had a cat named Sam, and he didn’t want to name his son after a cat.
Maybe it was time for girl names.
He started with the A’s. Abigail, Alice, Angela, Ava, Avery, Ana, Angelic, Abby, Allison, Ali. Then he went to the B’s. Betty, Bonnie, Bambie. “Huh,” he snorted aloud. Bambie. Sounded like an adult film actress. Definitely not a name he was going with for his daughter.
A noise tore him away from his thinking. He’d looked at his watch. He’d definitely been able to kill some time with his wandering and pondering. It was already just a minute before four o’clock. But what was that noise? It was like a dull thud against stone somewhere. But where?
He stood listening, waiting for almost another full minute, but there was nothing else. He’d heard similar noises before as the massive home’s wood floors creaked or the stone foundation settled, groaned, and thudded with the rising and falling temperatures.
Ray walked back over to where Pam slept peacefully. One of her blankets had fallen askew and he bent to gently straighten it. As he did so, he decided to let her slept the rest of the morning until da
ylight. He wasn’t as tired now. The continued walking had gotten his blood moving and he felt better. The thought of his future children – and the process of making them – also had him amped up. Plus, Pam needed the sleep.
As he rose from his task, he heard gunfire in the distance. At almost the same instant, a blinding explosion rocked the room, sending him reeling backward and down hard onto his ass.
He was dazed and temporarily blinded, but he could still hear…kind of. All he could see was a white haze from the flash that had erupted inside the room. Flash grenade, he guessed.
He reached out, groping blindly. Finding Pam’s arm, he pulled her down onto the floor beside him. He felt around for her rifle, finding it on a small table beside them. Then he kicked the sofa upon which Pam had been sleeping around in front of them, facing the front of the castle as cover.
Pam was instantly awake, and since she’d been sleeping during the explosion, could see. “What the hell’s going on?” she asked.
“Being attacked,” Ray said. “Not sure from where. That explosion blinded me,” he closed his eyes and rubbed them with the thumb and middle finger of a hand in an attempt to clear them. “Can you see where they’re coming in?”
Pam scanned the room, “Looks like the window to the left of the fireplace,” she said, grabbing her rifle from Ray and letting loose with several rounds. Ray did the same, firing blinding in the general direction of the window. “They’re pushing the blockade aside,” Pam said.
“Use the cocktail,” Ray yelled over Pam’s gunfire as he pulled the gasoline-filled wine bottle from a cloth bag he’d affixed to his belt and handed it to Pam. His vision was starting to clear now.
He blindly fired a few rounds in short bursts from his rifle to buy Pam a few seconds as she fumbled to pull a lighter from her pocket. Suddenly bullets ripped into the couch in front of them, which Ray had to admit, didn’t provide the best cover.
The Systemic Series - Box Set Page 44