By Dog Alone: A Kelton Jager Adventure Book 2

by Charles Wendt

  His windshield shattered into combining spider webs as the bullets tore into the car. He slouched down to look ahead through the little sliver of space just below the top of his steering wheel that still allowed his line of vision to clear the dashboard. He heard the metallic knocks as the engine block stopped another fusillade of bullets. Barker made a small adjustment with the wheel to align the bullet ridden cruiser with the glowing headlamps of the large Chevy. The old sergeant then floored it for all the car had left.

  The crash was spectacular. The deploying airbag kept him from seeing the hood crumple to half the height of the windshield, and slamming the maroon sport utility vehicle backward with enough force to cause airbag deployment in the sedan. Flying fragments of glass and plastic sprayed across the perpetrators, losing their balance as they recoiled from the debris and tumbled to the ground.

  Sergeant Barker was a veteran patrol officer, having enjoyed his youth in multiple high speed pursuits. He’d experienced several accidents over the years, all but one involving being hit by someone else. It wasn’t reflexes closing his eyes and wrapping his arms tightly about his face; it was experience. Nonetheless, he took a bruising down his right cheek and along both forearms. As soon as the momentum stopped he blindly and simultaneously groped for the seatbelt release and the door handle.

  The door shifted as he pulled the handle, but resisted opening. With eyes still closed and the feel of the bag around his face, he put his shoulder into it and pushed with his legs. It gave way and he tumbled into the grass and gravel on the side of the perimeter road away from the houses as someone ripped off a magazine. He wiped at his eyes with his left hand before opening them, and groped about with his right hand for the butt of his gun.

  His gun wasn’t there, his fingers finding the open mouth and flapping unbuttoned retaining strap of his holster. He forced his eyes open, and with an additional wipe of his rain wet hand and a few blinks he could see a sprinkling of sheet metal stars form in the white side of the backdoor as the bullets shot clean through the cruiser just above his prone body.

  “Another ones coming!” someone shouted.

  Barker didn’t panic. Murphy was coming to back him up. His gun was on the ground next to him or just inside his car. He looked, and quickly found it next to the peddles.

  “Finish off this one, before he gets here!” ordered another voice.

  He raised up over the crumpled hood of his car, knowing the large steel block of the engine was the only thing to afford any protection. Twenty feet away, a man stood holding a carbine sideways and clumsily trying to insert a replacement magazine. Sergeant Barker covered the man’s chest with the glowing green dot of the front sight blade, and quickly pressed the trigger. As the gun rose in recoil, he let his finger come forward just until the striker reset. The man was reeling in a downward twisting motion when struck by the second .40 caliber bullet.

  But it was close range, there were many more of them, and they all had killed before. Before he could transition the pistol to the next target, flashes to his front left predicated the burning tearing sensation up and down the side of his body. As he was swinging his gun over that direction, his leg just seemed to melt away. He grunted in frustration as he watched his sights twist downward as he fell, never quite covering the target so he could pull the trigger a third time.

  Diego heard Jhon declare, “Good shooting, Bobby. You’re one of us now.”

  The dogcatcher just stood and stared at the smoking carbine he was holding, “I just did it because he was going to shoot me.”

  “I know you guys are having a moment,” Andres interrupted bobbing back and forth while the long blond haired girl wiggled in his arms, “but there’s more blue lights turning in down there.”

  “How’s Miyer?” asked Diego.

  Camilo stood up from where he was kneeling and shook his head, “He’s gone, Boss.”

  “Sorry. I didn’t really get to know him,” apologized Diego.

  Camilo shook his head, “He was kind of an asshole.”

  Andres reminded everyone again, “Cop, Boss!”

  “Just keep hold of the girl,” instructed Diego. “The rest of you three form a line here with me and put a fresh magazine in. Let me know when you’re ready.”

  “Good”, “Yeah”, and “Okay” came back in a trio of voices in just a few seconds.

  “Just wait and relax,” instructed Diego. He turned back at Andres and the girl who was wide-eyed with a strip of silver duct tape over her mouth. They had thought they’d cable tie her hands once they got her in the car, but the cop had arrived soon enough to spoil their plans.

  It was still dark and rainy, and their black clothes and the forest backdrop made them hard to see at a distance; even with high beams. However, the first cop’s flashing blue lights attracted another, sure as birds flocked together. At fifty yards or so and closing fast, when the next police car had fully cleared the corner of the school building to be coming head-on down the perimeter road, he gave the order.

  “Light him up!”

  Patrolman Murphy didn’t stand a chance. The headlights and the blue flashing lights on top made a nice over under aim point. The range, for a carbine, was short. There were four weapons firing, sending rounds at the driver as fast as the criminals could pull their triggers without being bothered with reloading. The patrol car veered off to their right, crashing into a tree on the north side of Perimeter Road.

  “Jhon, go make sure. The rest of you, fresh magazines again.”

  Diego heard the metallic clatter as spent magazines hit the pavement, and the metallic clank of bolts being released forward to load rounds into the chambers. They were ready to go as before.

  He could see Jhon reach the stricken car’s facing passenger side, raise his carbine, and fire a pointblank volley of three shots. Then the man turned to look about, froze momentarily, and began running full speed back to them.

  “Another cop coming,” he yelled, “only this one isn’t flashing his blue lights. Arg…”

  Jhon’s tumbled backward as his foot came down on one of the hundred odd spent shell casings laying on the asphalt. He hit the wet road surface hard, banging his hip and getting a knock to the side of his head.

  Diego approached to stand over him, “Then why didn’t you shoot him, too?”

  Jhon writhed in pain on the ground, clutching at his pelvis, and replied with a grunt, “Because I need to reload. My bolt is locked back.”

  Diego shrugged and nodded his head. The carbine being empty when he fell may have saved a couple of them from getting shot since Jhon’s finger was on the trigger.

  Camilo interjected, “What we going to do for a car, Man? They all shot to shit.”

  Diego considered. He was generally good under pressure, but this plan was way off track. He wished he had a pack of peanut M&M’s to help him think, but the hotel vending machine had been poorly stocked. The Chevy’s entire front end was crumpled, the quarter panel pushed back to grind against the front tires.

  “Is the Camry drivable?”

  Camilo shook his head, “No. Miyer parked it too close behind.” He turned on the flashlight at the end of the carbine scanning it over the car, “See all that radiator fluid? You won’t get to the stoplight before it quits. What about one of them cars?”

  Diego turned, and Andres muscled the girl out of the way to look at the black and red vehicles by the house. They’d never get in the little Cooper. But the Mercedes was a four door and a good possibility if they could find the keys. If they had time to find the keys. Looking across the hockey field to the south west he could see other flashing lights, red ones, closing in. More blue ones couldn’t be far behind. With all the gunfire, the emergency call center phone circuits would be jammed.

  “Okay, Bobby. Get in there, and find the keys. Use your law enforcement voice on the other girls hiding in there,” Diego encouraged, nodding his head.

  McFife walked toward the door, not taking his eyes off Diego. As he approach
ed the back door still ajar, a shot from their right rang out.

  “Ow, fuck,” cried out Camilo. He didn’t drop his carbine, but his left hand grasped at his right bicep. The torn fabric of the sleeve was evident, and black streaks of blood leaked between the tightly pressed fingers. As they were all staring at him, a second shot came knocking him over. Blood leaked from his mouth as he lay unmoving on the road.

  Jhon sat up from where he lay, and reloaded. He pointed the carbine toward the main school building, and started a slow, but sustained, volley of shots. He didn’t know where the shooter was, as the black of buildings and landscaping bushes were indistinguishable. He kept both eyes open and scanning for the next muzzle flash as he systematically shot from right to left.

  Diego was about to demand Jhon stop, when he saw a brief flash coming from the lower right of the main school building.

  “There! Did you see it?” he said turning toward Jhon. Jhon was laying still on his back, an outstretched arm still grasping his carbine.

  “Forget the car,” he declared. “Into the woods. You too, Bobby.”

  “What about her?” asked Andres. She continued to squirm, but Andres’ muscular arms gripped her tightly.

  “Bring her,” Diego declared. “We might as well get something out of this fiasco. Aren’t you glad we took the skinniest one?”

  He paused briefly and flicked his metal lighter, tossing it in the Chevy’s open window. The foam seat cushion readily began to burn, filling the air with black smoke. It wouldn’t destroy enough evidence to matter, but it felt good.

  In a few lumbering strides behind the cover of the wrecked and now burning vehicles, the three men and the kidnapped girl headed into the woods and fields of the Westburg Hunt’s premiere fixture.

  CHAPTER—25

  Abriella sat with Azrael at the base of the narrow stairwell leading to the main locker-room, now serving as a concrete foxhole of sorts for Kelton. Her would be lover and his dog had put on eye and ear protection on the drive over, but she’d been forced to cover her ears with her hands. As she cowered in the corner where rain water pooled on the landing, bullets struck the brick side of the building far above and she’d closed eyes against the small orange chips. He’d only fired three times, slow and deliberate, and the pounding of incoming rounds ceased. Abriella could then hear the cries of mass hysteria inside the dorms.

  She’d appreciate later that having a more powerful weapon, like an M4 carbine versus a pistol, was nullified if you couldn’t see where to shoot. The bad guys had been standing in the middle of an open road, illuminated by the back porch lights and the police cruiser’s flashers. Her friend shot from the darkness around the base of a small hedge screening the unsightly stairwell, the majority of his body protected by compacted earth and concrete.

  She felt in a trance as he looked down at her and yelled, “Are you okay?”

  Abriella knew he’d said it fast and loud, but so many other sensations assaulted her senses, it got lost in all the stimuli she was struggling to process. The best she could manage was a blink and a nod.

  “Stay here!”

  Again she blinked and nodded, his voice sounding in slow motion and underwater.

  He ran up the stairwell crouching with bent knees, his gun extended out before him and Azrael at his heels. Instinctively she staggered after him, not wanting to be abandoned from a protector in time of danger. The shooting may have paused, but wailing firetruck sirens and the roar of flames from the three car pileup in back of her friends’ house overwhelmed her. Kelton darted to the near police cruiser, hood crumpled from colliding with a pine tree, and peered in the shattered side window. Then he approached the fire ahead along the wood line, Azrael at his side.

  Abriella dashed after, reduced to a primal automation trying to keep up with the herd. Looking into the police car only because Kelton had done so, she saw a mangled corpse whose bloody and collapsed face wasn’t recognizable. Even the driver’s side window was spider webbed from bullets, dripping with gore. The close imminent horror froze her where she stood, until the fear of being left alone overcame it and she resumed chasing him with eyes wide and hands covering her mouth.

  Ahead he knelt by a prone figure and holstered his gun. Azrael lay down next to him. She ran up behind them both, the horror of the still body keeping her from coming closer, churning her legs in a tiny circle to satisfy her flight reflex. She felt herself becoming feint and scraped together the presence of mind to squat. Nausea gripped her, and Abriella crawled toward the woods and vomited.

  Kelton rolled the policeman onto his back and cleared the sergeant’s airway, the burning Chevy illuminating the subdued stripes on the fatigue uniform. The man still breathed and had a pulse, but was unconscious. He knew it would be best not to move him, but they were too close to the cruiser and the spreading flames. Kelton grasped the man’s collar with crossed hands, using his wrists to support underneath the head and keep the neck as stable as he could. He went backward two dozen strides along the side of the road, Azrael following.

  Seeing Abriella as he passed he called out to her, “Abriella, to me!”

  She shook her head to clear it followed by a gulp of a breath before staggering his way.

  “Lay down next to him,” he instructed and she did so, looking pale in the firelight. Her clothes were soaked. He took off his pack, and retrieved his poncho to cover both her and the wounded policeman. Then he put the pack under her feet to elevate them, treating her for shock. Next he took his tactical flashlight and used its lanyard to tie it to a small branch overhead. It wasn’t aimed perfectly, and the branch sagged under the weight of the light, but on the low setting it would keep them from being run over in the rainy darkness and help him work. Azrael curled up near Abriella and plopped down.

  A rising ball of flame behind the Chevy flashed the scene in a burst of light, showing the three bodies on the road and the hundreds of shiny brass shell casings before subsiding in the rainy night sky. Kelton needed to staunch the bleeding of the wounded officer, wounds that probably went completely through him given the weapon used and the close range. He considered tearing into his K-9 first aid kit, but then dismissed it. Certainly there was useful equipment there, but given the relative smaller size of the patient it was designed for, was bound to be inadequate. And he might need it later for Azrael since this wasn’t over. Kelton pushed away the moral analysis of an “in-need first responder” vs. a “maybe need K-9” and looked at the cruiser. There was a good chance a first aid kit was inside if he could get to it before flames engulfed everything.

  “Bleib!” he called at Azrael so the dog wouldn’t follow.

  Then he sprinted for it, staying just off the road in the gravel and mud so as not to roll and slip on the shell casings. Sirens screamed behind him and he knew help was beginning to arrive on scene. The mist protected him somewhat from the heat at first, but soon he felt his face scorching. Kelton dropped to his hands and knees to crawl forward, and then hesitated. The firetruck and ambulance were coming down the perimeter road. He fell back to the casualty and Abriella.

  The firetruck slowed, but passed them by, the water cannon mounted over the driver dousing the burning vehicles with some six hundred gallons of water. An ambulance was right behind, and Kelton flagged them down waving his hands over his head.

  “Officer down, multiple gunshot wounds! The scene is secure,” claimed Kelton. He wished he’d gotten some direct pressure on the wounds, but there hadn’t been time. At least things were looking good from the “golden hour” perspective. The driver paused a second to size up the covered figures, and then pulled forward using the vehicle to intervene them from the smoldering cars. Moments later a pair of medics were cutting away the officer’s shirt, putting down plastic to seal sucking chest wounds and starting intravenous fluids.

  “Kelton!” cried out Abriella.

  He turned toward her, some color having returned to her cheeks.

  “Check my friends,” she pleaded.


  He nodded and ran toward the house, Azrael following faithfully at his heels. Firemen with tools approached the vehicles to pry open hoods and give glowing orange components inside a good dousing. Lights from the firetruck made it easy to avoid any tripping hazards and he readily made it to the back door of the house which teetered on strained hinges.

  “Vicky! Elizabeth! Kate! Anyone in here?” he shouted as loudly as he could, loudly enough for the electronic ear muffs to cut out his voice so hearing himself was muffled.

  “Here!” cried Vicky from upstairs.

  A moment later, Vicky and Elizabeth trotted down the stairs.

  “Where’s Abriella?” asked Vicky.

  “Here!” she said coming in the door behind Kelton. She had his backpack, light, and poncho. The light fabric of her shirt was soaked and clung to her curves. Her right side was stained with blood, but he knew it wasn’t hers.

  “What happened?” asked Kelton of Abriella’s friends.

  Vicky took the lead, “We did pizza last night, and I couldn’t stop drinking soda while we were chatting away. Didn’t have enough water after riding, I guess. Anyway, couldn’t sleep and was up to powder all night. The bathroom overlooks the back here and I saw the two cars pull up. Six men with rifles got out. I called Abriella while screaming at Elizabeth to call 911. They came right to the back door and kicked it in. So we hid.”

  Kelton asked, “Is anyone hurt? Lots of bullets were flying around.”

  Elizabeth called out, “Kate? Holly?”

  Kate came to the top of the stairs, “Anyone seen Holly? They came into our room and I hid under the bed. But Holly’s not up here. And I thought she stayed in the room last night for a change.”

  The three girls downstairs turned and looked about, calling the girl’s name.