Then another bandit with a fire axe, followed by another with a machete came at me from inside a half-burnt building. The axe bandit swung overhand first and I stepped forward closing the distance between us, grabbed the axe with both hands, kneed his ribs, then headbutted his face. I spun us around and kicked the other bandit in the gut before he could take a swing at me, then I threw the bandit down hard. The machete man swung it wildly a few times, half-crazy with adrenaline as I dodged and parried each swing until I hit his face with the handle of the axe, hit his chest with a left back kick causing him to lose his balance as he stumbled backwards. Then I spun around and finished him with the axe into his ribs – he landed hard on his side with blood coming from the wound. The other bandit got on his feet and charged at me, I grabbed his throat, lifting him and slamming him hard on his back into the ground – I held him down until I pulled out my knife and stabbed him in the ribs before going for the throat.
“Hey! We got more bandits coming in from the east! Get up here now!” a teenaged boy with an M4A1 carbine yelled.
“Captain Harvard, this is Lieutenant Amos. We’ve cleared all entrenched mortar teams. Resistance minimal en route. Over,” Lieutenant Amos.
“Roger that, double-time your way back here – we need support. Over,” I replied.
We climbed up the ladder and there were both Pacific Army Rangers and Marines with Black Shadow teenaged recruits on the roof shooting at the bandits out in the field. The walls of the roof were about four feet high with sandbags. All of the soldiers were geared up in military vests that held their rifle magazines and pistol magazines with sidearms in holsters strapped to their thighs and most of the soldiers had Hard Head Veterans ATE Gen 2 helmets with night vision goggles, side flashlights and radio headsets – the Black Shadow mostly had military caps and T-shirts under their vests instead of long sleeve military shirts.
“Cody! Clark! I need more ammo!” a girl said, armor-piercing firing an M240 Bravo machine gun with an ELCAN scope on it.
“Got it! Don’t stop shooting, River!” Cody replied.
“You don’t have to tell me twice! Now hurry!”
“And get some AK ammo for these guys!” Clark added.
“I’ll help!” Private Morgan said, as he went with Cody.
River and the two boys, Clark and Cody, had baseball caps with the radio headsets over their hats – Clark and Cody wore green digital camouflage baseball caps with an American flag, while River wore a black baseball cap backwards with an image of the punisher skull with the Thin Blue Line American flag on it . . . I guess personalized gear is good for their morale.
We started shooting with the others at the bandits approaching – some were trying to throw pipe bombs over the fence but couldn’t get close enough. Private Morgan brought me some seventy-five round drum magazines for my AK rifle. That’s when, in the distance, we saw that the bandits were bringing in more vehicles. Some were school buses that had mounted machine guns and armored plates welded to the outer shell.
“Oh shit, they’re bringing in some heat,” Private Morgan said.
“Get the 50 up here,” an officer ordered.
They brought two M2A2 Browning machine guns. River and the officer started firing at them as soon as they were ready. River had Clark man the M240 Bravo. We laid down heavy fire on the buses, but they weren't going down so easily. We brought up a belt of 50 cal armor piercing rounds and were able to kill everyone inside the buses. That broke their back, and the Echo Charlie teams came up from the south to help finish off what was left of the bandits as they tried to make a run for it.
“Is that the last of them?” Cody asked.
“I think it has to be,” Clark answered.
“Echo Charlie 5-7, any sightings on the enemy? Over,” I asked.
“Negative, they’re done. Over,” Lieutenant Park said.
“We kicked their asses!” River said.
“Hell yeah! That’s what I’m talking about. You all were awesome!” a soldier said, to the Black Shadow recruits.
“Thanks Wade,” Cody said.
“Gold Command, this is Red X-Ray 1-5. What’s the situation on Camp Sledgehammer? Over,” I asked.
“Wait what? What did you say?” River asked, turning towards me.
“Red X-Ray 1-5, Camp Sledgehammer was under attack and we have received no word from them since – that was fifteen minutes ago. Your orders are to rearm, refuel, and head over there ASAP. Over,” Gold Command answered.
“Roger, we’re mostly ammoed up already. We’ll leave now. Over,” I replied.
My guys went down to the armory and restocked on full magazines, grenades, and full cans of ammo for the M2s while refueling the trucks and Humvees. We were ready in less than two minutes.
“Captain! Camp Sledgehammer is under attack, sir?” River asked me.
“That’s right. We’re headed over there now,” I answered.
“Permission to accompany you, sir!” River asked.
“Same with us, sir! Please, it’s important and I bet you could use all the help you can get right now, sir,” Clark added.
I looked at River and the two boys for about three seconds and pointed to a M2 on top of an armored Ford F250 and said to River, “Man the gun, don’t get killed.”
“Yes sir!” River said.
“You two with me,” I said, to Clark and Cody.
“Yes sir!”
With that, we got into the trucks and Humvees and high-tailed it to Camp Sledgehammer. I looked at my watch and saw that it was 0540 hours, won’t be long before the sun’s up. It didn’t take long for us to get there, but I knew immediately something was wrong. By the time we got there, there was not only no gunfire, but no noise at all. There were burning vehicles leaving trails of smoke, big crater holes, lots of dead bodies and zombies walking around everywhere making their particular guttural moaning sound. Most of the zombies were ones that you’d find out here in the badlands while others looked like the bandits – some were missing limbs and others were crawling because they had no legs. The front gates were downed by a gravel truck that was clearly used as a battering ram – it was peppered in bullet holes with dead bandits all around it – we didn’t see any of our guys or the kids. Some of the bandits were burnt all over their bodies. There were two more trucks that knocked through the layers of fences at different sides of the camp. As we got closer to the Camp, the zombies had heard our engines and had started running towards us.
“All teams, drop them,” I ordered.
We mowed down the zombies as they came at us and after a few minutes they were all dead, leaving a bloody mess. We parked outside and went inside the camp, vigilant and alert, searching for survivors while killing the zombies inside – there were only a few inside, but they came out unexpectedly.
“Nathan! Ashley! Carrie! Molly! Patch! Jess!” River called, rushing ahead.
“Kids?! Captain Noir!” Corporal Wade called out.
“Where are you?” Clark yelled.
“There’s no one here,” Private Morgan said, to no one in particular.
“Where the fuck are they?” River demanded, frustrated.
“River, calm down! We’ll find them,” Cody assured.
“Spread out! Search for signs of survivors,” I ordered.
We searched the camp, inside the buildings and cabins, but they were all empty.
Then from under the rubble, a bandit reached out and grabbed my foot. I instinctively pointed my rifle at him, but stopped to see his current condition. He was burnt all over, including half of his face and most of his body. It was a goddamn miracle that he was still alive. He had a hard time speaking but he took the trouble to try.
“Kkkkk . . . kill . . . kill me,” the bandit spoke weakly.
“Where are the kids that were here?” I asked.
“I-I . . . I don’t know. Gone . . . somewhere. Please, the pain . . . oh my God it—”
I shot him in the head before he could finish. Blood and bits of brain w
ith skull splattered on the ground from his exit wound, and some splashed out his entry wound. His eyes were still open as blood oozed out and soaked his burnt face. His blood made a sizzle sound as it got on his burnt clothes and burnt flesh making a rancid stench.
The supply station was almost bone-dry, along with the armory – looks like they left in a hurry. I noticed a line of footprints from the supply station and armory leading to the south side fence. The footprints were both adult and kid-sized. I followed the footprints to the fence and noticed that the layers of fences had all been cut. I looked around to see if there were any security cameras and I saw two camera mounts at a nearby cabin.
Then, a bandit burst out of a cabin with a knife and charged toward Clark. Clark saw him coming and grabbed him as he came running, using his momentum to propel him against the wall. Clark pulled out his knife and stabbed him under the chin – the bandit’s eyes were still open as blood poured from under his chin. Clark watched as he slowly fell to his knees before hitting the ground, bleeding to death. Cody walked over and put a bullet in his skull to prevent ‘the turn.’
Then another bandit stumbled out and tried to make a run for it – the bandit was male and looked like he was in his late teens. I aimed my gun at his legs, but the bandit was stopped by River, as she shoved him hard against the wall and punched him a few times in the ribs. Clark and Cody came over to help, but she held her hand out.
“I’ve got it!” River called.
The bandit struggled and tried to get free from River as he tried to punch her, but missed as River parried. They wrestled and struggled until the bandit got his arms around River from behind, but she pressed her hands down through his and ran out of his grip quickly. When he tried to punch her with his right, River hit him in the face with the palm of her right hand stunning him, then grabbing his arm for a shoulder throw. When he landed, she pulled his arm behind his back keeping him down with her knee and then pulled out her SIG-Sauer P320-M17 Bravo sidearm and stuck it right to the side of his temple.
“Where the fuck are the kids?!” River demanded.
“Fuck you!” the bandit shouted.
“Where are they?!”
“Fuck you!”
River put a bullet in his leg which got him screaming, then she asked again and he gave the same response which made her put one in his shoulder.
She stuck his face hard and warned, “I’m not screwing around and neither should you.”
“Corporal!” I called.
River looked up.
“He doesn’t know anything, he’s useless. Just kill him,” I ordered.
“What? Wait, wait, wait! I know where the kids are!” the bandit cried.
I walked over and asked, “Where?”
“I’ll tell you if you let me go,” the bandit said.
Corporal Wade chuckled, “Really?”
“You have to swear! I’ll tell you if you swear!”
I gave a blank stare for about five seconds and said, “Okay, I swear . . . now talk.”
“They went . . . they went southwest into the forest!” the bandit lied.
“Alright, let him go,” I said.
“What?!” Everyone exclaimed in disbelief.
“Let him go,” I repeated, firmly.
River stared at me for a few seconds before letting him go.
After almost ten seconds of him running away I said, “You can shoot him now.”
River turned to me for two seconds before shooting the bandit – even from here I can see the blood in the air. He fell down dead. Everyone gave me this confused look.
I explained, “I swore. She didn’t. Destroy the brain.”
River walked over and put two bullets in the bandit’s head making a bloody mess.
“You got something sir?” Corporal Wade asked me.
“I got tracks, a lot of them. Both kids and adults going through the fence,” I answered.
Everyone else gathered around.
“They got out?” River asked.
“On foot? Why didn’t they take the trucks?” Cody asked.
“Because the garages are by the front gates where all the bandits and zombies are. They didn’t have time to risk getting in the vehicles, so they had to escape by foot,” Corporal Wade answered.
“Check the security footage, let’s see who got out,” I stated.
We went to the main office where the security footage would be. There were five different monitors showing different angels of the camp. We played back the footage and saw everyone in the camp running around. It looked like Camp Terminator warned Camp Sledgehammer the bandits were coming, because it looked like everyone was getting ready for a fight. All the soldiers were gearing up, setting machine guns, and from the looks of it, setting up explosive landmines outside the camp. An officer was picking certain Black Shadow recruits to fight along beside the soldiers – Nathan and his friends were among them.
“There’s Captain Noir, he kept the kids close to fight alongside him,” Corporal Wade pointed out.
“And from the looks of it, they really gave the bandits Hell,” Clark added.
“Those landmines certainly evened the odds and . . . is that Nathan?” Cody asked.
River, Corporal Wade, and I leaned in to look and it was. Nathan was using an AA-12 with FRAG 12 rounds in a drum mag and some dragon’s breath incendiary rounds, because vehicles were exploding where he was aiming and some bandits that got close were being set on fire.
“Yep, that’s our boy Nate with Molly, Carrie, and the others,” Clark said.
“He blew up the vehicles and set the bandits on fire. Good boy!” River said with a smile.
“Hell fucking, yeah, atta-boy!” Corporal Wade nodded.
“And what happened next? Fast forward,” I ordered.
Cody advanced the recording.
“Alright, looks like all that gunfire attracted zombies, they attacked the bandits but it was a herd’s worth so they couldn’t fight that off and . . . yeah right there! Captain Noir led them through the fence and they headed south into the forest. Our friends held them off so that the others could escape which is why they left last,” Corporal Wade stated.
“They took that chance to escape, they may be alive,” Private Morgan said.
“They have to be alive. We gotta find them,” River said, before rushing to the door.
“Whoa! Whoa, whoa, easy there private. They’re alive, don’t worry. They’re with Captain Noir. Trust me, we’ll find them. I promise,” Corporal Wade assured.
“Alright . . . we have to find them. If anything happens to those kids—” River started.
“We’ll find them, River. They’re alive. It’ll take more than some shit-eating zombies and some paramilitary wannabe bandits to take those kids down – especially our friends. You send them to Hell and they’ll come back with Satan’s head on a pike,” Clark stated confidently.
“Damn straight,” Corporal Wade agreed.
If Nathan has learned anything from me, he’ll stay off the main roads, close to water and use stealth to handle threats. He knows how to use his head, but will his friends use their heads as well? I’ve got to find him before they get him killed.
Chapter 12
Nathan/Sonny
“You either fight for what you love or you lose it. Your choice.”
– Unknown
We all laid on the grass hill taking in the sun. Molly was resting her head over my heart and Carrie’s on my stomach. Ashley was lying with Sarah, Jess with Patch, Warren with Scarlet and Shaun. It was Friday, we finished early for the day, and when I went over to the grassy hill to rest and watch the sun set, everyone joined me watching the sun and the clouds slowly move above us. One of my favorite cloud formations was in the sky, cirrocumulus. The cloud pattern was just magnificent and it stretched all across the sky. As the sun sank lower, its reflection on the clouds now above it changed their colors to vivid reds, pinks and oranges, creating a gorgeous glow that is soaked up in the wisps and bil
lows of the clouds. We come here often and watch the sunset before gazing at the stars. As boring as cloudless sunsets are, in trade you get a perfect view of seeing the brilliant stars before curfew.
My friends mostly did the chatting while I laid there losing myself in the natural sky. There isn’t anything to match nature. I had an arm around Molly and my hand in Carrie’s. Carrie’s thumb was gently rubbing circles on my hand as mine on hers and I was gently stroking Molly’s arm – sometimes I gently stroked through Molly’s hair and gave her a gentle kiss on her head. I don’t know exactly why, but those moments when you feel someone’s love for you are special moments – my instincts told me to savor those moments, you may not get another one. Two years have passed, and within little over a month, we’ll get to see our friends and families for break. We were all fourteen or fifteen, our voices were changing, we were taller and stronger, our bodies were changing, hormones were racing, and sexual attraction and preoccupation were a constant – felt to me like nature was fucking with us.
Our training was mostly survival rigor and outdoor, like where to find shelter, what plants were okay and not, what animals we need to be aware of, how to start a fire, make-shift weapons, archery, target shooting, and critically, self-defense training. It also consisted of schoolwork and studying zombies, what sounds they make, what tracks they leave behind, how to tell if a corpse was eaten by a zombie or a wild animal – along with preparing us for Camp Sledgehammer. It felt longer than two years with Grim sneaking me outside the camp for his brand of training – things that the military weren’t teaching. Soon our time at Sledgehammer will be over and then we’ll be transferred to Camp Terminator . . . and then our real training will begin. It’s also the second anniversary since the last time I saw my real parents. I continued to wonder if they’re alive and hoped with every ounce in my being that they were safe.
The Dark Days Series | Book 2 | Sanctuary Page 23