Trying to Survive (Part 2)

by C. J. Crowley

  Suddenly, Walt grabbed me by the arm and started pulling me back to the house. “What are you doing!? Do you wanna get shot too!? Come on, we gotta get to cover so we can try and spot these guys and fire back!”

  Walt had to continue pulling me away because I kept turning back to watch as Jenny inched closer to Jessie. I wasn’t afraid. The shots were coming from the far right, so I knew the house was blocking us from their sights.

  Jenny reached out, grabbed onto his ankle and started dragging him behind the car. The grass was rather tall and helping to block the shooter’s view of Jessie, but every time a shot went off I could see the dirt kicking up from each bullet as they got closer and closer.

  I yanked my arm away from Walt. “We’re blocked by the house! We need to start shooting back now or they’re gonna hit Jessie again! Get up to the second floor and I’ll use the front of the house as cover.”

  When Walt didn’t move and I saw the panic strewn across his face, I knew it was only because he worried the state of my leg would get me killed. “GO!”

  The loud and lasting crack of a single rifle came from the distance and brought our eyes back to Jessie. This time, the dirt didn’t kick up and I watched as his leg went limp and fell to the side… When Jenny let go of him and just stared – I knew he was gone.

  Another shot rang out. Jenny was behind the car, but her head was just barely above the back end as she sat there, still staring at Jessie in disbelief. Her body jerked forward from the impact of the bullet, and a streak of blood shot out from the side of her head before she collapsed.

  Walt and I were frozen, both waiting to see if either one of them would start moving again. When Walt started yelling for me to take cover, I just blocked him out. I wanted to wait a few more seconds – I had to be sure.

  “They could be moving to another spot where they can get a shot at us! Come on, James, they’re dead and there’s nothing we can do except keep fighting back! We still have Melanie and Clara to protect!”

  I softly replied “Just get to one of the second floor windows and wait… I’m going to lean around the side of house and start shooting, even if it’s at nothing. You’ll have the best vantage point, so I’m the distraction. Hopefully it’ll make it so you can spot them.”

  As I took one final glance back at their bodies, I began to doubt my decision… But he gave me no choice… He was going to take them and he threatened to kill the rest of us. What else could I have done? What would Jessie, Brian or Jenny have done?

  I looked up and noticed that Melanie was standing in the window, but she wasn’t looking at us. Her eyes were fixed on their bodies and her hand was cupped over her face, just below her nose. She was still waiting to see if one of them might begin to move around.

  I knew I needed to hurry and get to cover, but seeing the consequences of my decision had sapped all of my strength. They could be changing positions, or even on their way to us… but all I could do was slowly drag my right leg over to the edge of the house.

  For the shooter to have been able to hit Jenny in such a way, meant he was deadly – not just some guy with a gun. I could only hope I’d be able to get his attention and allow Walt to make the shot… But then what? We don’t even know how many of them there really are…

  There were two windows converging at the corner of the house, giving me a narrow view of the area the shots seemed to be coming from. I could see close to a dozen houses, so I took the time to check every single one.

  When I still couldn’t see the shooter, I suspected it was because my view was mainly obstructed… You have to lean out…

  Even though I was fearful of their deadly accuracy, I inched toward the edge of the wall and got into a position that would allow to me lean out and not strain my leg. I took a knee so I would be a smaller target and stuck my head out, just enough to expose my right eye.

  I quickly scanned all the houses that were previously blocked from my sight, but still saw nothing. I drew in a deep breath of the thick, hot air around me until my lungs couldn’t take any more. As I slowly let it out, I brought my rifle up, randomly aimed at one of the windows about a hundred yards away and pulled back the trigger.

  I rapidly moved the cross hairs around the front of the homes, searching for even the slightest sign of movement – there was still nothing. I waited to hear Walt fire from upstairs, hoping he had a much better view of the area than I did, but there was only silence… Did they leave, or are we just not able to see them?

  A faint banging brought me back behind the wall to investigate. I soon realized it was Melanie banging on the window – I couldn’t see her, but I recognized the unmistakable sounds of a person’s hand hitting glass.

  Did one of them get up?

  I headed to the road so I could see the other side of the car. When I got far enough away from the house, I glanced up at the window. Melanie saw me and started rapidly nodding and pointing towards the car, so I picked up the pace.

  When I saw Jenny sitting up, I leaned my head back and looked to the sky… Thank you…

  She had a bloody hand up against the right side of her face, but she appeared to be fine – just in a lot of pain. I could see the blood running down the side of her neck but the amount was minimal… It must have just grazed her…

  Walt’s voice came from one of the upstairs windows. “What the fuck are you doing!? Get back to cover, James! You can’t help her if you’re dead!”

  Even though it was rather far away, Jenny must have heard him yelling at me. She put her hand up and motioned for me to stop and go back to the house. At that moment, I had an idea. “Walt, get down here, now!”

  I made my way over to the van and flung open the driver door. To my relief, the keys were still in the ignition. When Walt came running up, he finally questioned me. “What the hell happened!? Why did you do that, James?”

  “There’s no time to explain, Walt, just trust me. We need to get to Jenny.”

  He relaxed his face and nodded. “What’s the plan?”

  “You’ll have to be the one to go since I won’t be able to keep up… Pull the van out of the driveway and aim it toward her without moving from in front of the house. Then get out and just let it coast over to her so you can use it for cover… If you stay in the driver’s seat they’ll kill you.”

  Walt raised his brow. “That should work… Maybe you’ll even be able to spot this fucker if he starts shooting at the van.”

  “We gotta assume there’s more than one Walt – assume ten. The guy in that Town Car made it sound like they had a lot of people. He could have been full of shit, but...”

  “All the shots sounded exactly the same. And pretty far away.”

  “Doesn’t mean anything – they could all have the same rifles.”

  As Walt started to back the van out of the driveway, he stopped and said “I don’t know man, think about the chances of running into so many people so quickly in a situation like this… I’m starting to get the feeling there aren’t as many of them as you think – there can’t be. Look how long it took us to finally meet up with three other survivors.”

  “Hopefully, you’re right… Now, stay low and make sure to use the front tire to block your legs and feet. Just reach back through the window if you need to adjust the wheel a little. Whoever’s been shooting at them has really good aim. If you give him a shot – he will make it… So, try to steer it into the back of the other car. It’ll stop the van without doing any real damage and you won’t have to expose yourself.”

  Walt nervously nodded as he finished backing out of the driveway and I headed to the edge of the house. He pulled up a little and pointed the van slightly to the left so it would eventually veer into the wrecked cars. After a few seconds of sitting there with his foot on the brake, the door opened and he stepped out.

  I saw his chest puff up and then slowly sink back in as he took a deep breath and prepared himself mentally… You can do this, Walt…

  He leaned back inside, threw it in dr
ive and the van started to roll forward. Due to the ridiculous engine and Jessie’s “modifications”, the van picked up a lot more speed than either one of us could have ever predicted. After just a few seconds, Walt was having to run and constantly reach back to correct the wheel.

  Shit...

  When he got about halfway to Jenny, the sounds of gunshots filled the air. I could hear the bullets hitting the van and air coming from one of the tires as Walt yelled out “They’re going right through it!”

  When I leaned out from the edge of the house, I could clearly hear at least two different guns going off. I frantically scanned all the houses, but I still couldn’t see anything so I took the chance and went left across the yard toward the other house.

  I was looking to my right, hoping not to see the barrel flash that would end my life when I heard the resounding, metallic collision of the van hitting the stationary car. I could see that Walt had made it safely over to Jenny, so I went back to concentrating on what I was doing.

  When I finally made it to the next house, I took a second to look over at the van. It was leaning to the right from the tires being deflated and almost all the windows were shot out. They’d ceased firing, but I knew it was only because they were waiting for a clear shot.

  Jenny made her way over to the rear wheel for cover and Walt opened the door so he could put it in reverse and start to head back. Just as I’d feared, they were simply waiting and the gunshots started again. Walt purposely dropped to the ground and crawled by the front wheel.

  We were too far away to yell back and forth due to the noise level of the van, so Jenny turned and started motioning for me to provide cover fire.

  By the time I got to the other side of the house, my leg felt like it was going to give out any moment. It had surpassed the burning of pain and started going numb – causing me to be even slower and more off-balance.

  I put down the M4 I took back from the balding man and brought my rifle around. When I cautiously leaned out, my eye immediately bulged and I held my breath… There was a bright yellow house to the far left, and I could barely make out three figures in the first-floor windows. One was alone and the window to the right revealed the others.

  I brought the scope up to my eye and located the yellow house. There were two men standing at the window together with AK47’s, whereas the other man had a scoped rifle resting on the sill… He’s the one…

  They were all concentrating on the van, so I moved the crosshairs between his eyes and took a few seconds to calm my breathing… Once I fire and he knows where I am, it’ll be the start of a battle I’ll most likely lose – I can’t miss...

  It was somewhat of a long shot (for me anyway). If I were to guess, it would definitely be well over three-hundred yards.

  All I’d done since this started was shoot at shredders that were generally no more than twenty or thirty yards away. To ensure I’d kill him – I moved the cross hairs closer to the top of his head. I wanted to compensate for the (very good) possibility of the scope being slightly off due to the distance. For all I knew, it could hit several inches below where I was aiming.

  I pulled back the trigger and the kick temporarily took me off-target. When I found the window again it was empty. When I panned to the left, I could see the other two men running away to hide.

  I took my eye away from the scope and quickly checked all the other windows in the house – fearing I’d missed and he was about to lean out and fire back from a different location.

  Flashes coming from inside the house got my attention and I brought the scope back up to my eye. One of the men moved in front of the window again, but his back was turned and he was clearly firing at someone in the house.

  I took another deep breath… He was moving around, so I didn’t chance aiming for his head. I moved the crosshairs to the center of his chest and pulled the trigger.

  Once I regained sight of the window, I could see him on the floor in front of it – his gray shirt was already turning dark red. I watched for a few more seconds and when I didn’t see any more flashes coming from inside, I turned back to check on Walt and Jenny.

  To my amazement, they already had the van almost half-way back to the house, and the shot out tires were actually helping to slow it down. I could tell by the way Jenny was moving that her injury couldn’t be that severe.

  They were now within yelling distance, so I called out “I took down two of them! But something weird is goin on! I could see a firefight taking place inside the house!”

  When neither of them reacted, I realized it was because the van was too loud, so I just looked back through the scope to watch for more flashes… What the fuck is happening?.. When it finally clicked, my brow raised and my mouth dropped… Could it be Brian? Who else would it be? Maybe he escaped…

  All of a sudden, a white dishrag on the end of a rifle appeared at the window and stayed for what seemed like five seconds. My heart raced in anticipation…

  When I looked away from the scope to get a broader view of everything, I saw Brian come out from the right side of the house and start running in our direction – carrying one of their AK47’s. As he came closer, I was able to make out the light streaks of blood near his collar. It wasn’t long before I realized that his face was badly bruised and his right eye was completely swollen shut… But he’s alive…

  I hadn’t known Jessie for very long, but I was still deeply saddened by his death. If anything, I felt even worse for Brian and Jenny… It was probably like losing a brother… Nevertheless, it was a great feeling to know that Brian hadn’t paid with his life as well.

  Now, I just have to explain myself…

  Brian was still about thirty seconds from reaching us when Walt and Jenny walked up behind me. As I suspected, Jenny immediately began questioning me. “What happened, James?”

  She was straining all the muscles in her face to keep herself from crying. Her lips tightened, and I could just barely see her chin shaking as she held back the squall of emotions. As she looked at me, I searched for blame in her questioning and teary eyes.

  I was so caught up in her sadness, I almost didn’t notice what had happened to her. The top half of her right ear was completely gone. It had already stopped bleeding, but the side of her face and neck were still covered it in. She was clearly struggling to fight off the pain of that as well.

  Walt stepped closer to me. “James, what did he say that made you do that?”

  I dropped my head and looked to the ground. “They didn’t want our stuff… They were going to take you.” I raised my head and locked eyes with Jenny. “Melanie and Clara too… for… breeding.”

  Walt’s brow crinkled as he slipped into a state of utter confusion. Jenny said “What!?”

  “The guy was out of his fuckin mind. They were basically looking to kidnap women and use them to make children for a future army and new society.” I paused and began shaking my head. “The guy actually said it was your duty to humanity as females… and that they were going to kill the rest of us if we didn’t join them.”

  Jenny’s eyes thinned and darted back and forth as she registered what I said and searched for her next question.

  When I heard Brian run up, I turned around.

  His face was even worse than I thought. It looked like more than a few people took turns repeatedly punching him. He seemed to be otherwise unharmed, but he’d still need some downtime.

  Brian smiled through the pain and said “Fuckers really worked me over, but I managed to get away when one of” He suddenly stopped and started looking around. When he noticed Jenny’s ear, his smile disappeared and he said “Jessie?”

  I fully intended on being the one to tell him, but before I could speak, Jenny shook her head and replied “They wanted to take us hostage for breeding and force all of you to be soldiers – and they wouldn’t take no for an answer… We had to fight back.”

  I waited for his eyes to drift in my direction and said “I’m sorry, Brian.”

  B
rian’s shoulders slumped and his head dropped as he sighed. He brought his hand to his forehead and rubbed on it for a few seconds before he spoke. “… Motherfucker… Jessie…”

  He shook his head, squeezed his hands together and clenched his teeth. “We have to” He paused. “We have to keep going with this. A man spoke to me while they beat the shit outta me.”

  Brian leaned back against the wall to help rest his legs. “I was pretty disoriented, but he kept sayin all this weird shit about creating an army to fight demons… and, and our duty as humans to breed.” He heavily frowned. “I could hear a woman screaming, coming from the other room.”

  Jenny said “How many of them did you see?”

  I cut him off and said “The man who spoke to you sounds like the man who came here. He’s dead, along with two others. If you add the guys from the yellow house – that makes six dead.”

  Brian corrected me. “Eight. I had to kill one of them to escape, and another in front of that house before I went inside.”

  Jenny said “So there can’t be many left then, right?”

  Brian shook his head and pressed his lips together. “The room was really dark and I’m pretty sure only a few different men came and went. I did hear a lot going on beyond the walls of that room, but I really can’t say… The only reason I got away is because the guy who tied me to the chair fucked up the knot on my right wrist. I waited for him to turn around and then I strangled the piece of shit. After that, I climbed out the window and ran as fast as I could.”

  Walt remarked “They probably have a bunch of people held hostage. Men too.”

  If there really are women and young girls locked in rooms and people being tortured… We’ve already killed eight of them – why stop?

  “I’m with you, Brian. We should go kill all of them – make sure that shit comes to an end today… They wanted to take Clara for breeding… They could have other little girls locked in those rooms right now.”

  Jenny tightened her grip on her rifle and began to nod in agreement. “We can’t let this continue… That’s our duty as human beings.”