The day after: An apocalyptic morning

by Jessy Cruise

  "All right," Christine said, hiccupping once and giving her sour stomach a few rubs. "Sorry about that, Mike. Maybe pregnant women weren't meant to be on special forces.

  "Hey," Mike said good-naturedly, "it's just extra camouflage, isn't it?"

  She chuckled, already feeling better. "I guess so. Let's lock and load and get ourselves into position."

  They locked and loaded and then spent a few minutes putting mud on their bodies and faces to help them blend into the background. Every hand that applied mud was shaky with adrenaline as they all tried not to think of what they were about to do. Soon they all looked like stragglers that had been out in the woods for weeks. They cleaned their hands with baby-wipes and then buried the trash just to make sure no sign of their presence was noted later.

  "Okay," Christine said, holding her M-16 out before her. "I'll take point. The rest of you remember to keep those rifles out of the mud. Remember, they're not meant to be dirty like this thing is."

  The hill they were planning to occupy was less than a half a mile in front of them. They walked carefully through the pine needles and mud, stepping over logs and between trees, their boots squelching a little with each step. When they got to the hill they climbed up the south face. The going was a little steep but they were assisted by the presence of numerous trees, both standing and fallen. They reached the summit a little more than fifteen minutes after they had first started marching. The return run would have to be even quicker.

  "Right here," Christine said, spotting a series of fallen trees. "Let's check out the view."

  They took up position and looked through a gap in the trees. Below them they could see the flat ground that lay along the edge of the mud; the most likely avenue of advance of their enemy.

  "This is perfect, Christine," Maggie told her, looking through the gap.

  "Yes," Christine said thoughtfully, looking at everything. "I think you're right. We can hit them from here and the trees will act as cover for return fire. If we egress that way," she pointed to the southwest; "the bulk of the hill will protect us. As long as Skip's there to pick us up, we'll be able to make it to the LZ before they get any troops on our flank."

  "So this is it then?" Mike asked.

  "This is it," she confirmed. "Everyone get a firing hole and let's start waiting."

  Skip and Jack picked up Paula and her squad and flew them out to their drop zone. Paula's squad consisted of Leanette, Hector, and Doris Campbell. Their drop zone was a mile south of Christine's, along the same path that had been predicted as the Auburnite's avenue of advance. Once they were down and safe Skip, keeping low, zigged and zagged his way between hills until he was close to where Christine's squad was positioned.

  "Hatchling one," Jack said into the radio, "this it mother bird. Are you there?"

  The response was immediate. "Hatchling one in position," answered Christine's voice. "No sign of the wolves yet."

  "Copy that," Jack told her. "Mother bird is going to nest 3. Repeat, mother bird is going to nest 3. We'll check in with you there."

  Nest 3 was the code word for a small clearing just on the other side of a row of hills. It was well off the path that the Auburnites would take even under the most wild conditions imaginable but still within line of sight of Christine's team and therefore in radio contact.

  Skip flew there, keeping terrifyingly low to the ground, and landed in a small clearing that was relatively free of mud. Once the skids were on the ground he shut down the engine, letting the rotor wind down to a halt.

  "Mother bird to hatchling one," Jack said. "Can you hear us?"

  "This is hatchling one," Christine's slightly scratchy, though readable voice replied. "We're here."

  "We're in nest 3," Jack told her. "Awaiting further. We can be out of the nest in two minutes."

  "Copy that," Christine said. "Still no wolves on the horizon. We'll advise when there are."

  Jack then checked in with hatchling 2, also known as Paula and her team, and confirmed a good radio contact with them as well. That done, Jack and Skip began the arduous task of waiting as well.

  Sergeant Stinson was one of the squad leaders of Colby's platoon and his squad of ten had been chosen to have the honor of taking point on this glorious morning. They were about thirty yards in front of the rest of the formation, walking slowly though not terribly carefully along through the soggy ground. About two hundred yards to their left, the wall of mud and trees rose up nearly a hundred feet into the air. To their right were a series of small and large hills that made up a natural ridge. They marched in a loose wedge formation, their weapons slung low on their bellies, their packs heavy upon their backs. Private Winston, who had been recruited from Grass Valley on the last major raid, was the front man. Stinson himself, like any sergeant, was lingering near the rear of the squad.

  "God damn, this shit sucks," complained corporal Feathers, a twenty-five year old from Meadow Vista. "How long until we get back to the interstate?"

  "Late tomorrow if we're lucky," Stinson told him, adjusting his pack a little on his back. "Now stop talking in the ranks."

  "I got the fuckin' ranks right here," Feathers said, taking his hand off his weapon long enough to grab his crotch. "I could be in some puss right now, instead, I'm walking through the fuckin woods."

  "Nobody's happy to be here," Stinson said, "but..."

  "You got that shit right," interjected Private James from in front of him.

  "But you gotta do what you gotta do," Stinson finished tiredly. "Orders are orders and all that shit. So keep walking and stop bitchin."

  They walked on, putting one foot in front of the other. Nobody, the point man and the point sergeant included, paid much attention to their surroundings. After all, what could possibly be out there?

  "I got 'em," Christine, looking through binoculars, reported, a touch of excitement in her voice. "Lead elements are coming over the ridge."

  "I got em too," reported Maggie, who was looking through the scope on her rifle.

  "In view," confirmed Maria, also looking through a telescopic scope.

  "Me too," said Mike.

  "Keep an eye out on the flanks," Christine directed as the first ten men came strolling over the hill. "Remember, if they've split up into two elements, we hold here with our heads down."

  The approaching targets were still more than half a mile away. Group by group of them followed the lead squad over the rise and down the trail until well over a hundred of them were visible. And still they kept coming. Heads would bob up and materialize into men carrying guns.

  "Jesus, look at them all," Maria said fearfully. It was one thing to hear about four hundred armed men coming at you and it was quite another to actually see them.

  "Keep chillin," Christine said, borrowing an expression from her brother. "Remember, we're not here to fight them, just to sting them a little at a time."

  As the lead elements came closer to gun range, Mike and Maria kept a close eye on the area to the northwest of their hill. It was very rugged over there but far from impassible. But again, as Skip had predicted, none of them chose to walk there. Every last man stayed in the two hundred yard corridor where the going was easiest.

  "I'm gonna report in," Christine said. "Keep an eye out to see if it looks like anyone is monitoring." She picked up her radio and keyed it. "Mother bird, this is hatchling one."

  "Go ahead, hatchling one," came Jack's voice.

  "Wolves are in view," she said. "They're heading for dinner. It looks like we're a go."

  There was a slight pause. "ETA?" Jack asked at last.

  "We'll feed them in about five minutes it looks like. We'll re-contact just prior to dinner."

  "Copy that, hatchling one, we're unfolding our wings right now. We'll be ready."

  She put her radio back down and gripped her rifle again. "Anything?" she asked her team.

  There were now well over three hundred Auburnites over the ridge. "As far as I can tell," Mike said, "nobody seemed to react
when you were talking on the radio."

  Maggie and Maria both echoed this sentiment.

  "Okay," Christine said, her pulse beating rapidly with adrenaline. "Apparently they're not listening to a scanner. It looks like we're in business then. We're gonna hit the point elements first this time. A nice easy one for the warm-up attack. Let's assign targets. Mike, you get the point man. Remember, go for a body shot, don't worry about trying to blow his brains out. A wounded man is as good as a dead one."

  "I'm on the point," Mike agreed.

  "Maggie," Christine said next, "you hit the man behind and to the right of the point. He's your man even if he changes position before firing time."

  "I got him," she said, already scoping in on him.

  "Maria, the man to the left and behind the point is yours. Same drill. You keep on the man, not the position."

  "Got him," Maria said, her voice more than a little shaky.

  "Let's let them get under two hundred yards," Christine said. "Nobody fires until I give the word."

  The next five minutes passed slowly, almost agonizingly so. Four hands shook on four weapons as four minds contemplated what they were about to do. Would this work? Would they all die? Could Skip really get them out of there in time? Nobody talked. The only sound was the ebb and flow of rapid, adrenaline accelerated respiration and the incessant patter of raindrops. The lead squad of the Auburnites came closer and closer, step-by-step, seeming almost to shuffle along. Finally, at long last, the front men passed into the two hundred yard range.

  "Everyone on target?" Christine asked softly, her M-16 in her hands. She was sighting out over the men behind the front three.

  "I'm on," said Mike, who was centering his crosshairs on the chest of the man in front.

  "I'm on," said Maggie, who had her own crosshairs perfectly aligned.

  "Me too," said Maria. "I don't think I could miss him from here."

  "Okay," Christine breathed, her finger tightening on the trigger. "Let's do it. On the count of three. One... two... three."

  Three fingers depressed three triggers. The noise of the gunshots sounded as one, a shocking blast in the stillness of the surroundings. Even before the bullets hit their targets, Christine was firing lengthy bursts down after them.

  For Stinson, it was like something out of a nightmare. Since he was not looking in the direction from which the shots had come and since sound travels slower than the bullets that were fired, his first indication that something was wrong came when his point man stopped in his tracks and fell forward. At nearly the same instant the two men immediately behind him both jerked in spasm. They too fell forward, landing facedown on the ground.

  "What the..." was all he had time for before two more men in the formation screamed and fell to the mud. One of them had a visible wound on his hip that was pouring blood down onto his pants. Things were suddenly whizzing through the air all around him, passing over his head, chipping wood off of the trees, plunking into the ground, and striking other men. Two more of them fell. Just as the sounds of the gunshots began to reach him, a hole in the back of Private James' head opened up as a bullet exited out of it. A fair amount of blood and brain Micker splattered on Stinson's face and neck. James dropped lifelessly, joining the rest of the dead and wounded on the ground.

  "We're under fire!" someone, he knew not who, screamed in a panic.

  Stinson then saw the flashes of an automatic weapon firing at them from the hill in front of and to the right of them. "Fuck!" he screamed, the fact that they were under attack finally clearing his circuits. He threw himself to the ground, desperately trying to bring his weapon up into a firing position. "Get down! Get down!" he yelled.

  Corporal Feathers wasn't fast enough. Instead of getting down, he was trying to shoulder his rifle to shoot back. A burst of fire struck him solidly in the stomach and he crashed face-first into the mud.

  "Return fire!" Stinson yelled at the remaining members of his squad. "On the hillside at two o'clock! Return fire!"

  But by the time the first man was able to aim up there and unleash a round, the firing had stopped, almost as fast as it had started.

  "Go, go, go!" Christine barked, crawling on her stomach to the downside of the hill. "Let's get the hell out of here!"

  Her troops didn't need any encouragement. They crawled along with her, their weapons on their back, just as the whizzing of bullets passing overhead reached them. It was only a few at first, but soon there were many. Chips of bark exploded upward as the logs they had been hiding behind were riddled. The sound of the shots reached them a moment later, again, only a few at first but quickly swelling up until it sounded like a shooting range in the midst of a tournament.

  "Mother bird," Christine yelled into the radio as she rolled over and began sliding down the hill on her butt, "this is hatchling one, the wolves have been fed and they're fucking-aye pissed off!"

  "Copy, hatchling," Jack's voice said. "We'll be at the nest when you get there!"

  The noise was deafening as the survivors of Stinson's squad and the two squads behind it all fired up into the hillside at the point where the flashes had been seen.

  "Point, this is Bracken," screamed Stinson's radio. "What the fuck is going on up there?"

  As a squad leader, he had one of the automatic weapons. He fired another burst up into the hillside and then fished the radio out of his belt. "We're under fire!" he yelled. "We got hit from the hillside in front of us!"

  "Who the hell is firing at you?" Bracken's voice asked.

  "How the fuck should I know?" Stinson yelled back. "My whole fucking squad is down from it though!"

  "How many enemy?" Bracken asked.

  "I don't know, four or five of them. It was a fucking ambush! They fucking ambushed us!"

  "Are they still firing?"

  "No!" he yelled.

  "Then cease fire!" Bracken ordered. "Don't waste your ammo. We need to flank them!"

  Stinson looked up and yelled at his remaining men. "Cease fire, cease fire!"

  It took a lot longer than it should have. He had to scream it several more times before the sound of the gunshots finally echoed away. "Jesus fucking Christ," Stinson said, trying to calm himself. What the hell had happened? Less than a minute ago they were walking along, grumbling and bitching without a care in the world, and now he had at least six of his men shot up.

  They ran. Once at the bottom of the hill they moved as fast as they humanly could over the muddy ground, their weapons slung over their backs, their breath dragging in and out of their lungs. From behind and to their right, the sound of gunshots seemed to reach a crescendo and then slowly, almost gradually, it tapered off. There were a few more isolated pops and then it was once again silent.

  Christine was in the lead. She ran across a small stretch of open ground and then rounded the base of another of the hills. On the backside of it, about a hundred yards away, was the most welcome sight she had ever seen: the idling helicopter. The doors had been thrown open and she could see Skip in the pilot's seat, behind the controls.

  "Safe your weapons," she panted to her squad, her words broken and out of breath. Nevertheless, they obeyed, all three of them activating their safeties.

  Christine dove in first, quickly scrambling to the far rear corner. She left streaks of mud and pine needles on the floor. Maggie followed her, scrambling to a position directly opposite. Mike and Maria, after one last check behind them, forced themselves in as well. Having to strain in the crowded confines, Mike shut the door, pulling on it until it latched.

  "Go!" Christine yelled to Skip.

  He took off as rapidly as his weight-load and his engine would allow, rising fifty feet off the ground and turning the nose to the southwest. He added forward speed and less than a minute after Christine's squad had climbed aboard, they were passing between the hills to the south and making their way out over the canyon.

  "Covington, take your platoon around to the north side of that hill and secure it," Bracken order
ed over his radio. He was behind a fallen log three hundred yards to the rear of the area where the fighting had taken place and was watching everything through a pair of binoculars.

  "On the way," Stu replied, his voice actually sounding excited, like he was having a good time.

  "Colby, you there?" he then asked the leader of the platoon that had been hit.

  "Right here, sir," Colby's rather shaky voice replied.

  "What are your casualties? Give me a report!"

  "My first squad is all shot up," he reported. "I have six dead and two wounded. The other three squads have moved forward to protective positions."

  "I understand," Bracken replied, feeling a little numb. Six dead? What had happened? Who had done this? "Hold in place," he told Colby. "I'm gonna move second platoon behind you and off to the left flank of that hill so we can get the fuckers who did this. Give them covering fire when they move in."

  "Ten-four," Colby said.

  It took nearly ten minutes to accomplish but it was a well-planned, well-executed attack on an enemy-held piece of high ground. Stu's platoon moved in from the right flank while second platoon moved in from the left flank. Colby's platoon fired up into the position to cover the initial advance. Soon Stu and two of his squads were standing atop the hill reporting back down to Bracken that it had been all for nothing.

  "They're gone, whoever they were," Stu told him over the radio. "I have nothing but some shell casings up here. Looks like 5.56 millimeter rounds. Thirty of them or so. There are also a few .30 caliber casings that look like they came from hunting rifles. They were hidden behind a bunch of fallen logs and probably fired from between them."

  "No bodies, no blood?" asked Bracken, still covered behind his own log.

  "Nope," Stu reported. "I have some fresh tracks heading down the hill to the southwest. I could try to follow them but I'm pretty sure I'll lose the trail at the bottom of the hill where it's not so muddy."