by James Tarr
“Fuck yeah!” Mark shouted, exultant.
George blinked. He was shocked that it had worked.
Then the Tab who had just finished removing the bodies of his dead comrades from around the fifty-caliber machine gun on the roof of the IMP, jumped behind the gun and opened up on the top floor of the police station.
The massive bullets slammed through the walls in a hail of metal. George made to dive out the open doorway but an impact flipped him sideways and as he spun around and hit the floor he saw Mark falling backward, the air between them filled with flying debris.
Ed had taken a knee just inside the door and was staring out at the Growler as they waited. Sarah was with Quentin in the back seat of the vehicle working on his wound. Her hands were bright red with blood.
Inside the apartment building they couldn’t hear the grenade launcher, but the ripping sound of Mark’s SAW was unmistakable. He got on the trigger and didn’t let up until he’d fired at least a hundred rounds.
George came over the radio. “Bird is down,” he said, coughing, his voice weak. “Go.”
“What’s your ETA?”
“Don’t wait for us,” George responded.
“Fuck that,” Ed said, but not over the radio. He stood up and pushed through the doorway. He started barking orders. “Renny, get in there,” he said, pointing at the front seat of the Growler. “Weasel, you get the fuck out of here. See if you can get Quentin up to the hospital on One Way, then scatter. Early, Jason, on me, we’re getting George and Mark. Nobody fucking gets left behind. Ditch your radios so they can’t track you.”
“See you when I see you,” Weasel said, then slammed the driver’s door. Renny jogged around the back of the Growler and tried to figure out how to fit himself and his big rifle inside the vehicle.
“You hang in there,” Early called out to Quentin, traded a look with Sarah, then shut the back door on them. The Growler took off with a start and headed north through the parking lot.
Ed had ditched his single-shot grenade launcher when he’d given the last of his rounds to George. He felt unburdened and fast on his feet as he ran behind the McDonald’s and through the rear door of the police precinct. “Mark! George!” he called out, but heard no response.
“Gotta be up,” Early said.
Ed nodded and they found the stairs in short order. It made sense that the two men would be on the top floor and as they reached that hallway Ed heard a cough. “Theodore, coming in,” he called out.
“Stay low,” somebody croaked.
They found the two men in an office that appeared to have been fed through a wood chipper. Mark was sitting on the floor, back propped against a wall, a pained look on his face. When Ed started toward him Mark waved him off and pointed to George.
George was on his back on the floor, staring up at the ceiling. His intestines had been blown sideways out of his body and stretched ropily across six feet of floor. But, somehow, he was still alive. Ed knelt down beside him. Behind them Jason’s eyes were wide, his face green. Early’s face was expressionless.
George’s eyes slid over to look at Ed. Then he rolled his eyes. “You never did listen,” he said, his voice little better than a croak.
“Who gives the orders here?” Ed said, trying to smile, but it died on his face.
George saw the effort. “Had a good run,” he croaked. “Been fighting…since day one. Did…my best.”
“You did,” Ed agreed, nodding.
“I’m sorry…I…,” George said, and then was gone, eyes forever fixed at something far ahead.
“Fuck,” Ed sobbed, tears dropping onto George’s body. He sucked the snot back into his nose and wiped his face, blinked his eyes to clear them. He turned to Mark. “You hit?”
Mark made a face. His one leg was covered in blood below the knee, but it was dried blood. And there didn’t seem to be any other blood on him, although the Hawaiian shirt didn’t make it easy to spot stains. “Well, yes and no. Fifty, right in the edge of my plate. Bent it like it was tinfoil, think I’ve got a couple broken ribs. Was trying to catch my breath. Pretty sure I can walk.” He looked to his SAW, the barrel still smoking. “SAW’s done for. Took a round in the feed tray.”
Ed nodded, and coughed to clear his grief-constricted throat. “Take George’s carbine, he loved that thing. And some mags.” He began going through George’s pockets and the pouches on this gear, looking for whatever they didn’t want the Tabs to have. He unstrapped the sling from George’s Springfield AR and slid it across the floor, following it with half a dozen magazines.
Early was well back from the frame and kept to the shadows as he peered out the window toward the vehicles on the bridge. While they were hiding behind their vehicles, there were still a lot of soldiers out there. He sunk back down. “Cap’n, we need to go. And…not that way.”
Ed looked at Early, and the window, and nodded. “We’ll head south,” he said after some deliberation.
“South side’s pretty open, ain’t it, Cap’n?”
“Crossing the road it is, but then we’ve got a lot of buildings for cover,” Ed told him. “Why?” He detected a note in Early’s voice.
“We’ve got us an eager beaver over there on a roof gun,” Early told them.
“Think you can take care of that while I get Mark down to the ground floor?” Ed asked him. “Then you can join us for our dash?”
Early edged his eye past the window frame again and studied the scene. What was that, two hundred yards or so? He looked down at the M1A National Match in his hands. “Give me just a minute,” he said.
Ed looked down at George’s still face one last time, then patted the man’s chest. “Let’s go. Jason, help me grab this fashion tragedy.”
The two men grabbed Mark’s shoulder straps and dragged him out of the room with much groaning, then lifted the man to his feet in the hallway beyond. Jason went back into the room for George’s short-barrel carbine and magazines. A tumult of emotions raged through his body as he knelt by the man who had spent the most time trying to teach him what he’d need to know to survive.
“Jason?”
“Yeah, coming.” He had to put the sling over Mark’s shoulder, the man couldn’t lift his arm high enough to do it himself.
Early heard them go. He’d shot an M1A out to six hundred yards in High Power competition, but the farthest he’d ever shot this rifle in combat was maybe two hundred and fifty yards, and that was at scrambling targets of opportunity. This would be a precision shot. He huffed. Well, then, it was a good thing he’d been shooting a rifle since he was six.
Being careful not to make a target of himself Early looked around the shredded room but didn’t see anything the proper height on which he could rest his rifle. There was always the window frame, but he was not about to go forward and stick the end of his rifle out the window—might as well stick an I’M WITH STUPID bumper sticker on your forehead if you were going to do something dumb like that.
He backed up out of the room, pressed his left palm against the metal door frame, thumb out into the opening, and shouldered the big rifle. He cradled the scarred walnut forend between his index finger and thumb. He flicked off the safety with his fingertip and fought to get the narrow front sight in crisp focus through the rear aperture. His eyes weren’t near what they used to be…but they’d have to do.
Early would have preferred to be shooting prone or off a bench, but standing supported, especially supported against something immovable like a metal door frame, wasn’t too bad. In this position it wasn’t his heartbeat that was the major issue. It was his breathing.
He centered his front sight on the distant man’s head, which was no wider than his front sight, took a deep breath, and let half of it out, willing himself to stillness. He took up the slack on the trigger and watched his sights. There, there was the heartbeat making his sights twitch. His heartbeat was causing the front sight to bob high right, then dip low left, high right, then low left, and after every beat it would
pause and re-center.
No need to rush. He took several more easy breaths, trying to slow his heart rate even further, then held his breath, pressed his finger against the trigger, adding about a pound of pressure, waited for the exact moment, and then pulled through the final pound of trigger weight in-between heartbeats.
The big rifle bucked in his hands, the empty case bouncing off the opposite side of the door frame, but his sight picture had been perfect, the trigger had broke clean—he knew it was a good hit even before he looked across the street and saw the speck of a man slumped face down behind the belt-fed.
Early didn't have time to admire his work, but even so he was truly delighted with the shot, and scampered down the stairs like a much younger man. He was surprised there was no return fire. Perhaps, because it was just a single shot, they weren’t sure from where it had been fired.
“We good to go?” Ed asked as Early reached them. Mark was standing on his own but the pain was causing him to make faces.
“For the moment,” Early said. “They’ll probably want to stick somebody else up on that gun but we’ve got a tiny bit of free time.”
“We’ll go across the road two-by-two,” Ed told them, “and then bounding overwatch on the far side between the buildings.” He nodded at Mark. “I’ve got him, you two go first.”
Jason and Early were crouched low running across the narrow grassy median when a few wild shots cracked above their heads from the cluster of Tab vehicles. Jason hunched lower and ran faster, but the gunshots caused something unexpected.
Right in front of them was a low wall enclosing a parking lot and right before they reached it the Tab who’d taken cover behind it since his nearby IMP had been destroyed stood up, leveling his rifle in their direction. Whether he’d been hiding there, scared, or looking to ambush someone would forever be the question, but as he fired a quick burst past Jason’s ear the teenager on the run shoved his carbine at the man and fired four shots. Two hit their mark and the man went down backwards, arms akimbo.
Jason was too busy to be scared at how close he’d come to dying. He and Early took cover behind the same low wall, their eyes toward the congregation of Tab vehicles. There was no more shooting, and no one came running or driving their way. After a pause of about a minute, Ed and Mark dashed across the road as fast as they could. The gamut of expressions dancing across Mark’s face made it clear how much pain he was in, but he kept up with Ed. As soon as they were across the road Jason and Early pulled back and the foursome took cover in the alley between two buildings.
“Why aren’t they coming after us?” Jason asked as they waited for Mark to catch his breath. He’d peered around the corner but saw no sign of pursuit.
“Maybe they’ve decided to sit out the rest of the war,” Early drawled.
“They’ve got a lot of wounded to deal with,” Ed said. He nodded at Jason and Early to head out.
They jogged down the alley and took up positions on the far side. Beyond it was a big parking lot, then a lot full of collapsed, heavily vandalized U-Haul trucks, then a series of low attached buildings. They made it to the buildings without incident. Early shoved open a splintered door and they entered a tan brick edifice that appeared to have been used for light industrial machining back in the day. They were peering out the grimy front windows when someone called out behind them.
“Golf ball.”
The four men spun around and saw a figure silhouetted in the back door, hands up and empty.
“Who the fuck are you?” Jason said.
“Outlier,” Seattle replied. “What’s left of it.” He had a long suppressed rifle slung across his chest. “Why are you heading this way?” He’d been working his way north and west.
“Because north is out,” Ed replied. “Lot of pissed off people. We need to cross over the freeway without any more drama and disappear.” He pointed out the dirty window. Across the street was an old office building dating from the 1930s, a cube of red brick. “Far side of that building, isn’t there railroad tracks, and a bridge over the freeway?”
“Yeah, but they’ve got drones up,” the man told them.
Ed didn’t think they had a lot of options. “They can’t be everywhere at once, and I don’t know how long they want to follow us. I’m thinking instead of wasting their time following a handful of guys they’ll keep their eyes on those tall buildings until they make sure that there aren’t more of us hiding in them. If we can get far enough away I want to head north and jump back in that Six Mile Relief sewer line, then the drone won't matter.”
Seattle shrugged. “Better than my plan.”
“What’s your plan?” Jason asked him.
“Try not to get shot.”
“That’s a good plan too,” Mark said, listing slightly. “Wish I’d thought of that.”
Weasel wanted to put as much distance as possible between them and the Tabs they’d so violently molested, as quickly as possible, so he considered jumping on the Lodge Freeway and taking it north. However, he had concerns. The first was he knew the freeway was an “approved travel corridor” through the city. While that meant it would be relatively clear of debris and abandoned vehicles, it also meant they’d have a much higher chance of encountering additional Tab forces in their own vehicles, which was the last thing he wanted. The second was that it angled too far to the west.
As he floored the Growler and it took off through the parking lot he tried to pull up the map of the city he had in his head after years of crawling around its ruins. The hospital was on One Way, Woodward Avenue, maybe ten miles north of where he was, and Woodward was just a quarter mile or so to his east, but he wasn't sure whether or not he wanted to take that street all the way up. It was wide open. He knew if there were any Tab forces in the area, or if there were any more surprise Kestrels in the air, that they’d be a juicy target roaring up Woodward.
Before he’d cleared the parking lot he decided to head north on the service drive to the next major north-south street, and take that up until it hit either the city limits or it ran into Woodward. “How’s he doing?” he shouted over his shoulder.
“I gave him a shot for pain but he’s still bleeding badly,” Sarah told him. “I’m afraid that if I don’t do something, go in there and try to stop the bleeding, that he’s going to die before we can get him to the hospital. How long will it take us to get there?”
Weasel barked with a bitter laugh. “Theoretically? Theoretically only ten or fifteen minutes, but who the fuck knows, we've got the whole city after us. I thought RoadRunner took out all the Kestrels, so I'm afraid of what we’re going to run into around the next corner, you know?”
Diesel engine of the Growler roaring loudly, Weasel swerved around potholes and random piles of rubble in the street. Sarah was still atop Quentin trying to tend to his wounds and was being tossed around the back seat.
“Can you drive any smoother?” she yelled at him as Weasel veered widely around a twelve-foot motor boat upside down in the middle of the street.
He turned his head to stare at the boat as it went by then shook his head. “This fucking city, man,” he mumbled. “Yeah, I’ll try,” he called back to her. Out the windshield maybe a quarter mile up there was an intersection with dark traffic lights hanging inert above it. He wasn’t positive but he thought he’d be able to turn right on that street and take it north almost as far as he needed to go. And it was a much more minor road than Woodward, so maybe they’d avoid detection.
“Tabs!” Renny suddenly shouted, pointing across Weasel’s chest.
Weasel looked out his side window and saw another Growler pacing them on the opposite service drive. “He’s driving the wrong way,” Weasel said. “He’s gonna get a ticket.”
He stomped the accelerator harder, hoping that he could somehow outrun the other Growler. Everyone in the vehicle had eyes on the vehicle across the freeway, which is why they didn’t see another Growler race up behind them. They didn’t hear its roaring engine until it was
nearly on top of them, and then it rammed them in an attempt to make them crash.
“Shit!” Weasel shouted as the wheel twisted in his hands, but he kept control of the vehicle. “Shoot those fuckers!” he shouted, looking at Renny, but Renny was at a loss. He wouldn’t be able to bring his big rifle into play unless he opened his door. It stretched from the floor to the roof.
“Give me your subgun,” Renny said, reaching out for it.
“It’s on a sling,” Weasel told him.
“Sarah,” Renny said, fumbling with the MP5, trying to figure out how to unhook the complicated sling, “keep them busy.” The Growler shuttered under another impact and went briefly up on two wheels. Renny bounced away from Weasel against his door.
“Shit,” she swore, but stopped trying to tend to Quentin and grabbed her suppressed SBR with blood-slick hands. The Growler was right behind them, racing up to ram them once again. Sarah flipped her selector to auto and did a full mag dump into the windshield of the pursuing Growler. The Growler was armored, but her accurate fire so unnerved the driver that he swung the wheel to the side in a blind panic, barely able to see out of the spider-webbed armored glass in front of him.
In his panic the soldier was able to do accidentally what he’d been trying to do on purpose—the front bumper of his vehicle clipped the rear of the vehicle in front of him. The back wheels of Weasel’s Growler lost their grip. The Growler swung into a long sideways slide, the tires shrieking. Just as it seemed the Growler was going to come to a stop the tires hooked on the edge of a pothole and the vehicle flipped, almost in slow motion, landing heavily on its roof.
For all of its faults, and all the complaints the soldiers voiced about it, the Growler was a robust vehicle and the roof did not collapse. It was, however, deformed and all of the windows cracked. The pursuing vehicle skidded to a stop, then the driver threw it in reverse and backed up fifty feet. He opened the door and got out because he couldn’t see anything through his bullet-pocked windshield. He grabbed his rifle, shouldered it, and emptied a magazine on full auto into the side and undercarriage of the flipped Growler.