Frank screams as his truck races into the firestorm he created.
* * *
Ken is not a military man, but he is a quick learner with a good analytical mind. He quickly goes through the defense of the farmstead in his mind. John, with his 50 cal sniper rifle is in the attic. Larson, Janie and Linc are in the second floor fighting positions. Kim, Herc's wife Leesa, and Daneel's wife, have taken all the young ones down to the main house, and are there with Becca and Niki, the nurse. Britt is with Grace at the security monitors and com station in the farmhouse living room. Hairy and his crew are out at the rise to the left of the driveway crest. Herc and the MP are in the fighting position in the cornfield, to the right of the driveway. Daneel, Joe, the nurses husband, and Mark are on the front porch. Rusty and Blake are guarding the rear from the barn hayloft.
A grim smile comes across his face. Sixteen armed defenders, a command center and fallback position with medical help, 'These bastards are coming into a hell fire. They are going to die,' He thinks. 'But there will be losses on our side too. God, I know you can hear me, may your hand of protection be upon us.'
He can feel the sweat roll from his armpits as he stares intently across the dark landscape. For the third time since the power went out, he will need to use deadly force to protect his family. He grimly accepts the task. His thoughts are jarred as he hears three high powered rifle shots ring out behind him.
They have snuck up the valley from behind! Oh shit, they can get to the main house with only Rusty and Blake to stop them! Janie is already heading down the stairs and out the back door to help her sons guarding the rear. Mark shouts to Buck, the MP, to head that way. Confusion is already setting in.
Ken hears his son Grace, come over the com. "I didn't see anything on the cams from down the valley! There is nothing down there, everything I see is out on the road."
Mark breaks in on the com, “Hold tight everyone, Janie and Buck are heading that way. Grace, Rusty has a com, find out what is going on." Then Ken hears "Rusty, Rusty! What do you see! How many are there?"
Before Ken hears anything else he hears the rumble of bikes out on the road. The noise gets louder and he knows from experience that a sapper is heading in to try and blow their roadblock. Fire rings out from the second floor and attic as a bike clears the crest in the road. The driver is zigging and zagging. He manages to throw his satchel charge, but it falls short and to the left as the bike veers wildly off course and crashes through the cornfield. Ken has the presence to duck behind the sandbags before the explosion rocks the house. The last word he hears over the com is coyote, then his hearing is blasted out as the satchel charge explodes fifty feet away, mangling the left end of the barricade.
His ears ringing, Ken looks over the top of his sand bagged position. He sees muzzle flashes coming from the outer positions and from elsewhere in the cornfield. He realizes he has not even fired a shot. His readies his 30.06, but he sees nothing to shoot at, just muzzle flashes. Then another bike crests the rise but it quickly veers to the right and begins crashing through the cornfield. He fires a few rounds at where he thinks the bike may be. It's going to come in from the right, through the cornfield, blind to the defenders. 'Shit! This guy is going to deliver his charge!' he thinks.
His mind races as he searches for a shot, watching for the falling cornstalks. He manages a few more wild shots, but he knows they missed the target. He ducks down as he clumsily reloads his bolt-action rifle. Just as he is about to raise his head, he is hit by another concussion blast that knocks him back against the sidewall sand bags. He sees the right side of the porch and the house wall buckle and begin to sag as flames erupt and start to spread.
The muzzle flashes from the cornfield intensify, but he knows his wife and children are inside the burning house. He rises and stumbles through the front door. Grace and Britt are already up. Grace is unplugging the COM system and the slave control for the cam system. Britt, seeing her son already moving, begins to help him. His ears still ringing, Ken heads upstairs to where Larson is. He has been knocked unconscious from the blast, being stationed in the room closest to the explosion. Half the wall is gone, and the fire is creeping into the interior of the house. He scoops up his son's limp body and carries him downstairs, out the rear door of the house.
He stumbles past the pile of electronics that Britt and Grace have recovered and races towards the main house with Larson over his shoulder. Kim and Leesa pass him, heading towards the house to help with the wounded. Leesa stops and takes Larson from him. Ken races to catch up with Kim heading towards the flames that are quickly engulfing the old farmhouse.
* * *
As Frank's truck crests the rise on the old farm lane, he sees a big farmhouse, engulfed in flames, and he is elated! "Smoke them out! Burn them out! “He Shouts. He has his truck stop on the crest of the driveway to watch the carnage. He smiles, watching the big farmhouse burn. But then he starts to scan the area. Where are his men? The roadblock is still in place! There are people trying to put out the fire? Where are his people? He gets out of his truck and rushes toward the roadblock.
He screams. 'We have them men! Take these bastards down!" He hears gunshots behind him and off to the side of him as he charges the final barricade. "Let's go you bastards! Let’s take these sons-a-bitches down!" Frank sees victory, and charges, maybe the bravest thing he has ever done, and the most delusional.
Fire rages in the old farmhouse in front of him. He sees people, men, women, and children racing to escape the flames. He hears wild shooting all around him, in some instances he can hear what has to be hand to hand combat, as his men sneak in alongside the house and its pastures.
Frank slows and calmly walks towards the roadblock and the inferno that engulfs the farmhouse. He has destroyed their homestead. He has one last mission, kill Mark Mays and all that is his.
Suddenly a man comes out from of a hide spot in the tangle of wrecked cars that had been the roadblock. He has a pistol in his hand, aimed straight at Frank. Frank stops. The gunfire has died down. He does not see any of his people. He sees people trying to put out the raging fire and rescue those trapped in the inferno. He looks around, expecting his people to be swarming over what is left of this pitiful farmstead. But he is alone.
"Drop your weapon Frank, your men have been killed or fled, you are alone, drop your weapon," The shorthaired, gray bearded man says.
'Mark Mays, I will kill him! If it is the last thing I do, I will kill him!' Frank raises his hands and continues to walk towards the roadblock.
"Drop your weapons and stay where you are."
But Frank continues to walk forward, hands raised. "Marks Mays! I am Frank Wagerly! I hear you are a man I can trust." Frank continues to walk towards the roadblock and his sworn enemy.
"I wish to give myself up, Mark! Let me turn myself in honorably."
"Drop your weapons now! Stop where you are!"
Frank notices fresh blood on Marks right arm. He sees the blood is still flowing, staining Mark's shirt and pants. He can get closer, he knows, if he just keeps talking.
"You're hurt Mark, let me help you, I give myself up." Frank is only ten feet away now.
"Drop your weapons and stay where you are," Mark says, standing his ground, trying to keep a safe distance away. By now Frank knows his men have lost, and he sees rifle barrels aimed straight at him from the intact roadblock. He needs to close three more feet to kill the injured man before him, and exact his final revenge.
"I give up," he says, as he drops his firearms and continues towards his prey, closing to within five feet. Suddenly, Frank lunges at Mark with a large knife he pulls from behind his back. Mark jumps back more agilely than his age should allow, but he loses the grip on his pistol in his blood soaked hand; it skitters across the hard ground. Frank catches his balance, and swings backhand at Mark with his bowie knife. A half dozen rifles are aimed at Frank, but he is too close to Mark for anyone to fire.
Frank's backhand swing catches Mark's lo
wer left leg, causing an ugly gash. Mark, feeling the strength go from his left leg, turns on his right leg and rolls straight into Frank's thighs. The unexpected move drops Frank to the ground, and Mark quickly rolls over top of him. Frank raises the large knife high, attempting to bring it down for a killing blow into Mark's back and kidneys. But Mark brings his knee hard into Frank's crotch, causing Frank to writhe in pain and drop the knife.
Locked in mortal combat, Frank bites Mark's ear and begins to rip with all his strength. Mark's hands reach to Frank's face, to try to break the lock on his ear. His left hand feels soft flesh, and he digs in, pushing his finger into Frank's eyeball. Frank rips off Mark's ear with his teeth as his hands find the soft tissue of Mark's throat. Frank begins to squeeze Mark's larynx with all his might. Mark, already weak from loss of blood, desperately digs deeper into Frank's eye socket and tears the soft and slimy orb out of its socket. Shrieking in pain at the loss of his eye, Frank lets go of Mark's throat. Knowing it is his only chance, in a flash, Mark swings his right arm down and pulls the six-inch Buck knife strapped to his belt. Before his attacker can react, he plunges the razor sharp knife into Frank’s throat. Frank cannot recover from the gruesome loss of his eyeball and the gash to his carotid artery, his lifeblood drains out on the hard ground beneath him. He blinks in wonder, realizing his life on this earth is over. A combination of rage and fear flash across his face as he takes his last breath.
Mark lays still, overtop the body of the man he just killed. Daneel is the first to reach him. It is the most brutal fight he has ever seen. Even after three tours in the Middle East, he has never seen hand-to-hand combat so brutal. With all the blood, he thinks Mark may be dead. He checks his pulse. A slow but steady beat. He calls for help, and Niki, the nurse from Baltimore is next to him quicker than expected. She starts barking orders and people start moving. Daneel, knowing his responsibility is security, begins to put what few people he has left into secure positions. The farmhouse is an inferno, nothing can stop it from burning to the ground. He prays to Allah that all the children got out safely. Then he stumbles across a large fierce looking man, who hugs him deeply.
Chapter 17, Inferno
The Farmstead
September 18th
The ringing in Ken's ears is dying down, he is slowly becoming aware of other sounds. People are shouting, the gunfire in the cornfield is intense. He feels a twinge of guilt that he left his position to rescue his family, but as he looks at the spreading fire and watches the side of the house where Larson was start to collapse, he knows he made the right decision.
Grace is screaming and pointing back at the house. "John! John is still in there!" John, Mark Mays brother, who had been seriously injured in a previous battle, had insisted on being set up in a sniper position in the attic. From what Ken can figure out in the confusion, John is the only one left in the house.
Kim races past everyone, into the house. The path to the stairs is still clear but the flames are quickly spreading. Kim's husband races in after her. Ken can hear the firefight in the cornfield intensify and grow closer to the burning farmhouse. He sends Grace and Britt to the main house, carrying some of their salvaged COM equipment with them.
A minute passes, and it seems like an hour. He prays that Kim and Linc can bring John out alive. Ken sees the hallway burst into flames, there is no way they will make it.
Amazingly, through the flames he see the three of them turn the corner from the stairs and begin to make their way down the long hall to the back door. Their clothes are singed, their faces are covered in soot. John is between them as they make their way to the door. Ken's mind races to Shadrach, Meshack and Abednego from his bible stories, as they lived through the fiery furnace. Ten feet from the door, the wall next to them collapses. A structural wall. The floor above them falls down on them and they are pinned in the hallway as the fire engulfs them. He hears their screams above the roar of the fire and the ringing in his ears. Ken stands there, horrified, three more good people are taken.
"God! What are you doing! Those where good people! Why are you taking the good people from us?" He cries out loud. He drops to his knees and cries, wanting to erase from his memory what he just saw and heard.
He hears gunfire from the front of the house, more spread out, sporadic. Trying to suppress the sight he has just seen, and knowing the battle is not over, Ken heads towards the front of the old house. He has to skirt wide of the farmhouse, because of the intense heat. By the time he gets to the barricade, the gunfire has stopped. He watches the brutal showdown, the hand-to-hand combat, take place between Mark and the leader of the Wagerlys.
Chapter 18, Aftermath
The Farmstead
September 18th
The large and bloody man hugging Daneel releases his bear hug. "We did it! We took down that sick bastard and his band." States Hairy to the dumbfounded Daneel. "I am on your side my Arabic friend. We took out a half dozen of them rats that came in through the field. A few made it closer to the house, but some of your guys got them."
Three war weary men straggle up behind Hairy, one man on either side of a badly injured biker, struggling just to keep his head up. Daneel's experienced eye knows the injured man has several mortal body wounds. He hollers for first aid, out of habit, but doubts anyone will come. They only have one nurse, and she won’t make it to this one before he dies. In Afghanistan, this man would probably have lived, because he would be receiving top grade medic attention right now, and be on a helicopter to a full service hospital within the hour. Here, there is only one medic, an ER nurse. And there is no hospital, only a couple make shift clinics ten miles away; one at the school for the quarantined, and one that can barely handle minor injuries. There is nothing set up to sew a man's guts back together.
"Have your men set him on the road on the other side of the barricade. Let one of our people at the compound know he needs help. Then the three of you meet me back here."
Daneel takes up a guard position in the roadside ditch, about fifty yards up the road from where Mark Mays killed Frank Wagerly in a gruesome and bloody fight. Mark has been taken back to the main house. Young Larson, still wobbly from the bomb blast, is across the road from him, watching the fields to the left. The fire rages as the old farmhouse continues to burn to the ground, collapsing in on itself as the beams can no longer hold the weight they carry.
Glancing back, he sees Ken barking orders and keeping his people moving. He briefly sees his pregnant wife, as she helps carry the injured biker back towards the main house. He had refused to let his mind think of her for the past thirty minutes. Knowing she is alive takes a huge weight off his shoulders. She had been stationed at the main house, the safest place to be, but with all the mayhem, a battle as fierce as any he had been in before, he had worried for her and their child she carries inside her.
Buck, the E6 Army MP comes out of the cornfield about fifty yards ahead of him and hollers that all is clear, that he is coming in. Daneel waves him forward. Joseph, the nurse's husband steps out, and they walk up to the makeshift guard position.
"They got Mark moved back to the main house, behind the barricade. Let’s head back to the barricade and regroup. You two head their now, double time. Larson and I will fall back once you get there." Buck nods, and they hastily jog back to take up their familiar fighting positions. Larson and Daneel quickly follow them in, glad to retreat from the exposed roadside. Hairy and his two biker buddies are there too.
Daneel sends Hairy and his crew out to the fortified position in the cornfield, keeping them away from the main house and the barn for now. He makes sure they have food and water. While he is doing that, Herc, Mark's faithful employee, shows up after scouting the rear of the property, lugging a dead coyote.
"This what started it!" Herc says as he drops the dead coyote. "Rusty and Blake shot it as it was stalkin' a duck. That was the shots we heard from the back. Then those drug heads started rolling in. I bet they thought it was their buddy shootin' us up from th
e inside." He shakes his head. "Don’t matter none. Those guys would have rolled in here anyways. But five more minutes to get set up; that would have helped."
Daneel sets a security detail, two men doing a roving patrol to clear the battlefield, and a detail to man the barricade. Ken comes up from the main house. His face is grim, ashen. He pulls Daneel aside.
"We have taken casualties. Three dead, one dying, and Mark has lost a lot of blood, he is unconscious and critical. About a half dozen have other injuries, scrapes and burns, two have gunshot wounds and one from shrapnel. Everyone should be okay except Mark. He needs more help than Niki can provide."
"Who did we lose?" Daneel asks
Tears well up in Ken's eyes, "Kim, Linc and John. Kim and Linc went in to get John out of that inferno. I watched as they were heading back out towards the door." Sobbing he continues, "They were ten feet from the door! They almost made it!" Ken half shouts, half wails, "but the wall collapsed and the ceiling fell down on them. Daneel, I watched them die. I watch them burn under that pile of debris." As Ken relives what he saw, the tears pour down his face, and his body shakes.
Daneel knows what this man is experiencing, to see a fellow soldier die only steps away from safety, the emotional toll is devastating. He has cried before, and he knows he will cry again. He grasps Ken in a warm hug. He knows that the closeness, the bond, will help Ken calm down and refocus. Love conquers all, especially among strangers and soldiers.
Kim and Linc are gone, two refugees from the Flight 93 Memorial that Mark offered to help. They had stepped up and contributed greatly to the farmstead. The video and COM system was designed and built by Linc from what had been stored in the Faraday cage. Kim had stepped up to help whenever needed. Two good people gone, five hundred miles away from their home. They will be missed by those who took them in, in the short time they stayed at their new home, with their new family.
Righteous Bloodshed: Righteous Survival EMP Saga, Book 2 Page 11