The Dark Days Series | Book 2 | Sanctuary

by Cole, Christopher

  “Lay down some suppressive fire!” Captain Alvin yelled.

  Molly and Ashley ran over to the east side of the roof with two soldiers and started shooting at the bandits making their way to us. They killed several as the enemy was firing back. One bullet grazed the helmet of one of the soldiers – he grunted and cursed angrily before shooting back. Lieutenant Billings and the other soldiers with scoped .308 rifles were picking the enemy off one by one without missing. Sergeant Davidson was chewing them up with his machine gun – some of them ran into his line of fire as they charged toward the camp. Shaun was getting the hang of his light heavy machine gun. Then the bandits started shooting at the floodlights getting rid of the lights.

  “They’re shooting the floodlights!” Warren yelled, while reloading.

  “I’m losing sight of the enemy!” Carrie added.

  “Set up the mortar! Illumination rounds!” Captain Noir ordered.

  The soldiers set the mortar up quickly and fired some illumination rounds that shined some light in the fields. I shot at three bandits by the boulders, even from here I can see the blood spray in the air. Then the bandits tripped on the incendiary traps and caught on fire. The fire provided little light, but better than nothing. The Black Shadows couldn’t use the vehicles to get out because they were all in the garage near the north, or front gates, so they had to cut through the multiple layers of fence to escape to the south.

  “Oh shit! We got more vehicles with technical!” Lieutenant Billings yelled.

  We looked in the distance and saw more vehicles with mounted guns and a few more vehicles with more bandits were coming.

  “We need more explosive and illumination mortars!” a soldier shouted, as another soldier was adjusting the mortar before shooting a mortar.

  “Way! With me!” Captain Noir ordered.

  I ran back down into the armory with Captain Noir.

  “Help me get these mortars to the roof!” Captain Noir ordered while grabbing a M320 grenade launcher.

  Then I saw in a locker an AA-12 shotgun with some FRAG-12 high explosive ammo and some incendiary Dragon’s Breath ammo.

  “Wait, what about that?” I pointed.

  Captain looked and his eyes widened, “How did I miss that? Whatever, take this and fucking kill those assholes!”

  Captain Noir unlocked the locker and handed it to me along with the ammo in a big bag. I was stunned that he gave it to me.

  “Whoa, whoa, captain. Are you sure I can handle this?” I asked.

  “It’s got a built-in spring system in the buttstock to reduce recoil. If a man can shoot this one-handed, a nine-year-old can shoot it! Which means a fourteen-year-old can handle it. Now get up there and fucking shoot those bastards!” Captain Noir ordered.

  “Yes, sir!”

  I climbed back up with my AR-15 behind my back with my AA-12 ready and a bag full of ammo. It had a door breaching muzzle brake and was in a cool green digital camouflage color. The explosive ammo along with the incendiary and the 00 Buckshot were all in twenty round drum magazines. Captain Noir came up with the mortars, dropped them off for the mortar team and stood right next to me with his grenade launcher as the vehicles were getting closer.

  “Hold your fire, wait until they’re close,” Captain Noir said.

  We waited until they got closer, some stayed on the road while others tried their luck through the fields providing cover for the other bandits.

  “Now!” Captain Noir ordered, taking the first shot.

  Captain Noir’s grenade hit the first vehicle on the road, it made a small explosion at the engine before catching fire and blowing up. I fired several rounds at a truck in the field until it exploded and then I fired at another and got the same results. The mortar team fired their high explosive mortars at the vehicles and got three direct hits – two trucks and one group of bandits behind cover. This continued until ten vehicles were destroyed. Then the bandits to the west started throwing a bunch of pipe bombs to our guys on the left building. The bombs set off big, effective explosions – they must have thrown mortars or something as effective. Both Black Shadow and soldiers were sent flying from the explosions – some just got the wind knocked out of them while others didn’t get back up.

  “Davidson! Davidson!” Captain Alvin called.

  Davidson didn’t respond immediately but we could see him slowly getting up. He was still in one piece, but he was disoriented from the blast and was trying to get his senses back.

  “They’ve breached the west side!” Jess yelled, while reloading.

  I loaded a drum mag full incendiary ammo and went over to the west side and there were three bandits shooting at some soldiers – they killed three and one was badly wounded. I fired two shots at each bandit and they caught on fire – because they were panicking, they didn’t stop, drop, and roll, so the fire finished them. There were more bandits running after the last handful of Black Shadows trying to escape.

  “Way! Johns! Riley! With me, let’s go!” Captain Noir called, heading for the ladder.

  Carrie, Scarlet, and I followed Captain Noir as we went after the bandits. We ran into some and the girls were the first to kill them, then the Captain shot a few others. Some took cover behind some cabins or buildings, but since we knew this camp better than them it was easy to flank them and kill from their blind spots. I shot two bandits and they fell dead with their torsos and faces burning which left an unwelcoming smell. However, when I shot at another bandit, he caught on fire and ran into a cabin and it didn’t take long for that cabin to catch on fire. Captain Noir went inside a building to deal with two bandits that were dug in behind some cover.

  I was able to reload a drum magazine with buckshot. A group of five bandits were taking cover and shooting at our guys trying to get out – I unloaded the whole drum mag and killed them all. When I was about to get my rifle, two bandits came from around the corner and tried to shoot me with a shotgun, but missed my head as I ducked – the wooden post I was standing next to exploded. Carrie put four bullets in one’s chest and three in the face of one while Scarlet put three in the chest and one in the head of the other bandit.

  “Nate! You good?!” Carrie asked me.

  “You okay brother?!” Scarlet asked.

  I checked myself quickly before answering a little surprised, “Yeah, I’m good!”

  Carrie marched to me and gently grabbed the side of my head and turned it both ways to check my head, before checking the rest of my body to make sure I wasn’t shot and okay. Captain Noir came out of the building with fresh blood on his arm and waved at the remaining Black Shadow recruits and soldiers giving them the okay sign to escape. After they escaped, we heard the caws and wails of zombies, it sounded like a lot of them – the herd of zombies is here! We saw through the fences as the herd was charging toward Camp Sledgehammer and the bandits in the fields.

  “Oh fuck, here comes the herd,” Scarlet said.

  “Damn you, Command. You’re running late with that air support,” Captain Noir growled.

  “We gotta get outta here. Let’s get back to the others, fill up on ammo, grab our survival packs and get the fuck outta of Dodge,” Carrie said.

  “Took the words right out of my mouth kid,” Captain Noir said.

  The herd started attacking the bandits first before trying to get inside the Camp. Then we heard the sounds of a helicopter. I moved one of my headphones out of the way to hear better.

  “Wait! Can you hear that?” I asked.

  Carrie moved her headphones aside, so she could hear as well, “Is that a helicopter?”

  “Yeah, I hear it, too,” Scarlet added.

  We looked over and saw one in the distance from the northeast with the mountain behind it. It was a Blackhawk Gunship helicopter with rockets and minigun pods. When it got closer, it fired rockets at both the herd and the bandits – the rockets delivered magnificent hard-hitting fiery explosions that sent both bandits and zombies flying. Then the Blackhawk started shredding the zombies wit
h the miniguns. We didn’t stand around squandering our opportunity to get out.

  “About damn time,” Captain Noir said.

  “Captain Noir! We still need to get out of here!” I said.

  “You’re damn right! Captain Alvin, all the Black Shadows have escaped but the zombies are coming! We need to move now!”

  “All teams, this is Captain Alvin, head for the armory to refill on ammo and fall back to the South exit! This place has fallen, it’s time for us to bail!” Captain Alvin said on the radio.

  As we ran toward the armory, we heard gunshots behind a cabin and when we got there, we saw Sergeant Davidson gunning down two bandits with his black FN FNX-45 Tactical sidearm. He was alive and okay, but had some dirt and dust all over his face and arms from that pipe bomb earlier. Two bandits were trying to kill Captain Alvin with machetes. Captain Alvin dodged one swing and punched the bandit so hard; you’d swear he broke his jaw. He grabbed the other bandit’s machete arm and head before slamming his face against the wall – he finished him off by snapping his neck and then put a bullet in both their heads. Everyone ran for the armory to restock on ammo and grab our survival packs. Captain Noir grabbed more than one carry-on base radio. Since we’ll be running into zombies out there, we loaded up on better weapons to kill zombies like axes and swords. So, we stock up on the ones we used for training.

  “Nate! Here!” Molly tossed me a Cold Steel Chisa Katana Sword.

  Cold Steel made swords as well knives – that included Japanese swords. Katana swords were usually swords that had a blade length of somewhere between twenty-eight to thirty inches. Wakizashi swords usually had about a twenty-inch blade, so basically a short sword or machete version of the full-length Katana. Cold Steel made Chisa Katana swords that were basically in between the Katana and Wakizashi swords with a blade length of twenty-four and a half inches, so it was a good size sword for us kids and teens. The Chisa Katana Molly tossed me had red cord wrap with black ray skin while hers was in blue cord wrap with white ray skin. Ashley and Carrie had Chisa Katanas, too, but Ashley’s was in the traditional black cord wrap with the red ray skin while Carrie’s was in the white cord wrap with the black ray skin. Patch, Jess, and Scarlet took up Cold Steel Swords as well, while Sarah and Shaun took Wakizashi swords and the two handed twenty-six-inch length Estwing Camper’s Axes. Warren and some of the other teen Black Shadow recruits took up Cold Steel Hunting Swords – the other teens armed themselves with either fire axes or aluminum baseball bats with pyramid-shaped spikes welded to the bat turning it into a mace-like weapon. Even the officers armed themselves with Mountain Men Knives Frontier Bowie knives and tomahawks. Captain Noir reloaded on his M4 magazines, grabbed a Mossberg 590A1 with a pistol grip, a Black Aces Tactical Quad Rail, a red dot sight, and a fifty-five round shotgun bandolier with mostly buckshot with some slugs – he also took a Mountain Men Knives Frontier Bowie knife and a Cold Steel Katana, a full length one instead of a Chisa. Captain Alvin took a bowie knife and a tomahawk.

  As everyone was grabbing up on whatever was left that they could carry, something caught both Ashley’s and my eye. Two scoped, lever-action hunting rifles, a Marlin 1895SBL with a Nikon Inline XR Riflescope 3-9x40 stainless steel scope and a Marlin Model 336W with the scope attached and a brown leather buttstock cartridge holder – with six Winchester hollow point bullets. The Marlin 336W was chambered in .30-30 and the 1895SBL was in the big 45-70, and both had a leather sixty round bandolier to go with their rifles. Ashley turned to me and we both grinned. I took the Marlin 1895SBL and Ashley took the Marlin 336W. My friends and the other teen Black Shadows grabbed our Mountain Men Scout Compound bows and quivers of arrows – Patch grabbed and carried mine while Sarah grabbed and carried Ashley’s as we escaped. As we ran out of the armory, and toward the south-side fence, we could hear the screams of the bandits as they were either being eaten alive or they lost a limb from the rockets of the helicopter Gunship.

  The fight was over . . . for now. Our fight against whatever evil is out there was always gonna reach us. Zombies, bandits, hunger, dehydration and motherfucking nature herself is trying to kill us. Without a camp or a fortified shelter with supplies, we’ll have to take our chances out in the woods and fight as guerrillas. I thought of Grim . . . I guess, this is what those clandestine survival lessons prepared me for.

  Chapter 13

  Nathan/Sonny

  We put some distance between us and the fallen camp with the undead and walked until morning. We stayed off the main roads and highways, walking instead on backroads like S Old Sage Rd, not too far from the highway, and taking line of sight map shortcuts through the trees. There were railroad tracks going south towards Dunsmuir, but for some reason, they looped back to the north before again heading south following the Sacramento River. We didn’t have time to get a full night’s sleep, so we just kept walking.

  Something wasn’t right because Captain Noir tried several times to reach others that had escaped, but only a few responded – they were each lost, getting separated while running from the zombies. So now, like us, they’re scattered everywhere while trying to find other Camp survivors and trying to get to Dunsmuir. Captain Noir and Captain Alvin tried their best to help the lost navigate without them using the highway.

  We stopped to rest by some trees next to the road while the captains talked to the stragglers about where to meet in Dunsmuir – it was just past mid-morning. My friends, two captains, two lieutenants, a few more soldiers, and the remaining Black Shadow teens made us twenty-three. The backroad turned into a two-lane road and had nothing but trees and bushes on either side. The day was actually kinda nice, no clouds, all sun for us. My friends sat close.

  “How you guys holding up?” I asked.

  “Tired, hungry, and a little pissed that bandits came and fucked everything up,” Carrie answered.

  “At least, we’re alive,” Molly said.

  “For now.”

  “We’re gonna stay alive. We’ll get out of this . . . we always do,” Ashley said.

  “If the zombies hadn’t showed up, we’d still have the camp,” Scarlet said.

  “Shoulda coulda woulda. Nothing we can do about it now,” Jess replied.

  “The parents are gonna flip when they hear about all this,” Warren said, rubbing his head.

  “Yeah, there may even be riots,” Shaun added.

  “No, there won’t. Unless everyone’s dead they’re not gonna do anything,” Patch said.

  “You sure about that? I mean, yeah, things have calmed down, but some people are itching to fight the army to get their kids back,” Sarah said.

  “They’re smart enough to know that fighting each other won’t solve anything. Besides, they don’t have the guns or weapons to fight, let alone win. They don’t have the numbers or weapons to match the Pacific Army.”

  “That didn’t stop the colonists against the British and they won.”

  “The colonists had military leaders like Washington, Wayne, Putnam, and Green, the numbers to make an army, the willpower to want freedom, not to mention the timely assistance of the French to help us win. We’re a city instead of a bunch of colonies with no French allies or any allies for that matter which means, we’re on our own, and we have zombies and homicidal bandits trying to kill us,” Patch pointed out.

  “What’s your point?” Sarah questioned.

  “My point is even if the parent’s riot, they’ll gain nothing. Starting a revolt against the Pacific Army is just going to destroy the only safe place we have left,” Patch explained.

  Jess got up and almost ran to a Black Shadow teen, “Whoa! Whoa! Stop!”

  We all turned to her as she grabbed the teen’s arm.

  “What? I’m just getting some berries up this tree,” he said.

  “This is a Yew tree,” Jess said, firmly.

  His expression didn’t change.

  “You don’t know what a Yew tree is, do you?”

  He shook his head.

  “Okay, everyone
listen up! This tree here is a Yew tree. Almost every part of this tree, the leaves, the bark, every part of it is deadly poisonous with a very lethal alkaloid called taxane. I’m dead serious. Do not touch the tree, especially the berries. You eat the berries, you’ll die. It’ll stop your heart dead in its tracks,” Jess explained.

  “Shit . . . they’re that dangerous?” the Black Shadow teen asked looking up.

  “Yeah, and they’re not really called berries. They’re aerials that surround the seed. The red aerials around the seed are safe to eat, but the seeds are deadly poisonous. If you pop the seeds out, you can eat the aerials, but I wouldn’t risk getting all that taxane on my hands climbing up.”

  “Alright, thanks for the warning. Zombies aren’t the only danger we need to worry about around here.”

  Then I spotted in the distance a group of zombies walking towards us on the road. They weren't moving very fast.

  “Speaking of zombies, we got company,” I pointed.

  Everyone looked and saw the zombies coming.

  “Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Lieutenant Billings growled, while getting his rifle ready.

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa, lieutenant. Relax, we got this,” I said, putting my rifles down.

  My friends did the same. They placed their guns and their backpacks on the ground to get their melee weapons ready.

  “Guns are too loud. They’ll attract more, so let us handle this,” Ashley said, drawing her Chisa Katana out and stretching.

  “Trust us captain. We’re professionals,” Patch said, his Filipino bolo sword.

  “Yeah, we’re trained for this,” a Black Shadow teen boy said.

  “Remember our training, don’t get bunched up,” I said, drawing out my Chisa Katana.

  “Yeah, now let’s get on with it. Come on you fucking shit-eating son of bitches!” a fifteen-year-old female Black Shadow teen roared.

  That pissed the zombies off, because they growled and quickened their pace toward us. I was the first to attack, I swung my sword at a zombie’s neck and separated his head off. It was actually a lot easier than I thought it would be. This blade cuts through like butter!