by James Tarr
They traded another look. Mark was in too much pain from his ribs, too tired, and too out of breath to swear. He swung back around and fired rapidly at one of the kneeling soldiers forty yards away. He scored a hit and the man fell to the ground. Early was up, pounding rounds through his M1A. The two runners made it to the long grass of the playground and dove out of sight.
Suddenly there were whipping cracks above their head, but they sounded wrong. Mark and Early ducked back down, and looked behind them, at the school. “Move!” Seattle shouted from one of the second-floor windows, his voice echoing across the parking lot. He shouldered his scoped DMR and fired again at the soldiers, swinging his muzzle back and forth.
Thankful for the covering fire, Mark and Early got up and ran in a crouch to the back of the school, diving through the open doorway there as Seattle burned through the last of his magazine and dropped back from the window. He’d hit one, maybe two of the Tabs, which meant there were several more out there, close, and who knew how many in the block beyond.
Weasel roared up, then at the last minute stomped on the brakes. The Growler wanted to skid sideways but he fought the wheel. They were almost stopped when the grille crunched against the corner of a building, the vehicle blocking the mouth of an alley. Renny bailed out of his door into the alley, and Weasel jumped out his door onto the sidewalk. As the pursuing Tabs raced up he ran forward and took cover in the doorway of a commercial building.
Not much more than his eye and his MP5 were exposed as he fired bursts at the lead Growler, which was armored. It slid to a stop on the far side of the street as the second Growler stopped a hundred feet further back. The soldiers hanging out of their windows fired at him and Weasel jerked out of sight. Bullets smacked against the cement all around him.
He’d been all out of grenades…but Quentin had had one left. Weasel pulled the pin, let the lever fly, counted to two, then heaved it around the corner at the armored Growler, which was still sitting there in front of an ancient church. He had no idea what they thought they were doing just sitting there. The men hanging out of the other Growler fired at him and Weasel grunted, then folded back out of sight.
The driver of the armored Growler saw the grenade coming but couldn’t put it into reverse fast enough. The grenade exploded four feet in front of the vehicle, blowing off one of the front wheels. The men inside it shoved open their doors and jumped out, firing madly at Weasel, who was pinned in the front entranceway of the building.
Renny finally got Sarah’s suppressed carbine off of her and fired at the soldiers over the hood of the Growler. They were barely fifty feet away and completely exposed. He dropped two of them, and the rest ran inside the church, which with its arched doorways, impossibly whole stained-glass windows (apparently there was something to be said for living in the Blue Zone), and ornate brickwork looked like it had been constructed for King Arthur’s court.
Out of sight inside the darkened church the men fired at Renny and Weasel. Weasel looked behind him, then kicked at a door and forced it open. He staggered inside the building.
Ed stumbled through the door and fell to the floor, scattering years of debris. Jason grabbed him and dragged him inside a few feet, into cover, then stepped over him to fire a few shots. Return fire thudded into the walls behind them.
Wheezing and hacking as he lay on the floor, Ed felt like he was dying. In all his years of fighting, he’d never seen anything like it. Tabs came at you in vehicles, behind armor, and only got out on foot to search buildings. But these soldiers today, they only had a few Growlers, and everyone else seemed to be on foot. He’d rarely seen so many Tabs on foot, and no matter how many they’d killed they kept coming. And coming. It had been a fighting retreat that had lasted…forever. Shoot and move, shoot and move, covering fire, short rushes between cover, zig-zagging through the neighborhoods, in-between houses, running through waist-high grass and over piles of bricks and wood that used to be homes, unable to breathe, legs leaden with exhaustion, eyes burning from sweat…
Ed rolled over onto his hands and knees and threw up for the third time, but there was nothing left in his stomach. Sweat was pouring off of him like he’d left a faucet on somewhere inside his armor.
Jason fired twice more and then there was a loud crash. Ed looked over to see Mark on the floor next to him, his face red and shiny. He looked like Ed felt. “I can’t…I can’t…” Mark gasped. His chest bucked as he fought for air like a fish out of water.
Ed staggered to his feet and joined Jason in the doorway, using the exterior bricks for cover. The street they’d been running down had ended here, in a T-intersection. The street stretching away from them was two lanes in each direction, low commercial buildings lining each side of the road past the cement sidewalks. There was a Growler less two hundred yards down, and Tabs on both sides of the street ahead of it, advancing in quick rushes, using the building doorways for cover. Ed saw at least ten soldiers on foot, plus however many were in the Growler.
He braced against the door frame and fired two shots at a distant running soldier, then his bolt locked back on an empty magazine. He moved back behind cover reflexively. With a grunt he dropped the magazine and reached down to his chest for a fresh one—and saw it was the last one left. He shoved it into place, hit the bolt release on his Geissele, then backed into the building and dumped his pack on the floor, then knelt next to it. He had several loaded thirty-round magazines—four, five? he couldn’t remember—in the top of his pack. And if he needed them that meant he’d already gone through ten magazines since entering Nakatomi that morning. Had it been just that morning? It felt like weeks ago. He grabbed the magazines and stuffed them into the pouches on his chest, then thought to look around. To his surprise he discovered he was in the lobby of a McDonald’s restaurant. He realized he could smell the grease from the French fries. Maybe it had soaked into the walls.
“I’m whipped,” Mark wheezed. Running hadn’t done his fractured ribs any good, and he pulled his blood-soaked shorts up his left thigh. There was a bullet wound in his leg. The bullet had gone in the back and out the front, on the outside of his leg. Both entry and exit wounds were bleeding steadily but there was no spurting, which meant it hadn’t hit an artery. And he was able to walk on it, which meant it hadn’t hit his femur.
Ed nodded. He could barely walk in a straight line, much less run any further. He was pretty sure he’d broken his foot about a quarter mile back jumping onto a pile of broken bricks. “Making a…stand here,” he panted. “You need to bandage that up.”
Jason fired again as counterpoint. The side of his head was covered in blood from a near miss that had embedded chunks of brick in his scalp.
“How…many…mags you got?” Mark panted. “Last one’s in…my gun.”
Ed slid a magazine over to him. He coughed, and spit a wad of vomitous phlegm on the floor. “Jason, how many mags you got left?”
The boy pulled back behind the wall and checked the pouches on his chest. “One…one and a half. Plus…five, no, six in my pack.” Rifles cracked down the street and they could hear bullets hitting the bricks outside.
Ed gestured as he got back to his feet. “Give Mark two. We’re taking a stand.” He gestured at the restaurant around them. “This is the Alamo.”
“You get that fucking reference, kid?” Mark growled.
Jason gulped, and nodded. He shrugged his pack off and set it on the floor.
“You’ve got two good legs,” Ed told Jason. “You grab what you need out of it but leave your pack, pretty sure you can outrun the Tabs, get out of here, live to fight another day.”
Jason blinked and frowned. “And leave you?”
“We’re not running anywhere.”
Jason was visibly angry at the suggestion. “Fuck that,” he nearly shouted. He stared at Ed. “And fuck you, for making it. Sir.”
“That’s the spirit,” Mark said. “You stay there, keep an eye, I’ll grab the mags,” he said, crawling across the floor. Jason
edged out, fired a shot, then ducked back.
“Make your shots count, because we’re not getting any more ammo,” Ed said. He kept low and moved to the far side of the restaurant, every step agony. It felt like someone was shoving a red-hot knife into the top of his foot. He peered out the window frames which hadn’t held glass in nearly a decade. He blinked his burning eyes and focused on the street signs at the nearby corner, then referenced his mental map of the city. Holy shit, no wonder they were exhausted, the Tabs had chased them for three miles. Three miles of short sprints, wearing armor and a pack, shooting and moving and trying not to die. He was somewhat shocked he hadn’t had a heart attack. Ed ducked back down and a quick volley of incoming fire chewed into the walls around him.
Ed pointed. “Check the back door,” he told Mark. “See if it’s even there.”
Mark finished stuffing magazines into his chest pouches and got to his feet with a grunt. He swayed, almost blacking out, then headed behind the counter into the kitchen. Ed stared at the counter and would have snorted if he’d had the energy. It was lined with the self-serve computerized ordering kiosks that had replaced every human cashier in every fast-food restaurant when the government raised the minimum wage to $20 an hour, costing tens of thousands of people their jobs. Anyone who was economically literate foresaw that happening, but then again economically literate people knew socialism was only good for spreading misery and death. Although, he supposed, they could be economically literate and just plain evil.
“Stick those mags on your body,” Ed told Jason, and nodded at his pack which was sitting beside him with its top open. “And drink some water, we’re all dehydrated.”
“They’re getting closer…” the boy warned. He couldn’t believe how calm Ed was.
“They close enough to throw grenades? No? Good. Then drink some water.” He grabbed a bottle of Gatorade out of his pack, courtesy of Uncle Charlie, and downed half of it in one swallow. Then he threw it to Jason. “Here.”
“There’s a door. Won’t hold for long, but it’s there,” Mark said, limping back into the lobby.
Ed tossed him an unopened bottle of Gatorade. “Drink that and properly pack and wrap that wound before you bleed out. I’ll take the eye,” he told Jason, limping up to take his place. He edged his eye out past the metal window frame and bricks, then pulled back. “‘Bout a hundred yards out,” he announced calmly. “Both sides of the street. I count…nine? At least, maybe more coming up behind those businesses in the alleys.” He squatted down before peeking out again from a different spot, jerked his rifle to his shoulder, and fired a shot at a soldier sprinting for cover about eighty yards out, but missed. He pulled back before he ate an incoming bullet. “Find some cover to shoot from, see if you can start tagging them. If they had any forty-millimeters we’d already be eating them, so it looks like this is just rifle on rifle. Tabs never could shoot for shit, but remember we don’t have ammo to waste. Find targets of opportunity.”
Mark moved to the far side of the dining area, so one grenade wouldn’t kill them all, and dug a bandage out of his pack. “They never should have gotten rid of those apple turnovers,” he said wistfully, staring back at the kitchen as he wrapped his crimson thigh.
Ed looked back and forth between the dark McDonald’s kitchen and Mark. “That’s what you’re thinking about?”
“Best dessert in the history of fast food,” Mark said. “And don’t get me started on their French fries. When they stopped frying them in beef fat America became a darker place.” He looked at Jason. “Kid, you just don’t know.”
Ed wiped a sleeve across his sweaty forehead. “Just how fat were you before the war?”
Weasel almost shot Renny as he rounded a corner and saw him standing just inside the back door of the building. He opened his mouth but the older man shushed him with a hand wave and pointed outside. Immediately outside the door was the alley which ran along the back of the building. Weasel edged close and looked out at an angle. The building across the alley had its cinderblock wall painted black. It ended maybe twenty feet to the left. Weasel still didn’t see anything…but then he heard something. Past the corner, out of sight.
He raised his MP5 and stepped back from the door. Renny had Sarah’s suppressed SBR in his hands and he moved back silently, raising the weapon. The two men were ten feet back, hugging the walls, when the two Tab soldiers they’d heard whispering decided to make their move.
The soldiers took the corner with a crunch of boots and rushed down the alley to the glass back door. As they put their hands on the handles Weasel and Renny shot them through the glass.
Weasel gestured and Renny followed him deeper into the building. “How many more are out there?” Weasel said, grunting more than talking.
“At least four.” Renny saw the blood running down Weasel’s side, soaking his pantleg. “You got hit?”
Weasel didn’t answer and instead pointed at Renny’s abdomen, which was bloody. “You got hit?”
Renny shrugged, and Weasel shook his head. “Well, we’re in sorry fucking shape,” he said, but he was smiling. “But I can’t think of any place I’d rather be.” Renny snorted. “You want to see if we can get some more of these assholes, then get the fuck out of here before we bleed out?”
“That’s why I’m here.”
“Out-fucking-standing.”
Ed fired twice and saw chunks of concrete fly right next to the soldier’s head. The Tab ducked back behind the building. “Dammit!” he swore.
The enemy soldiers had worked their way steadily closer. The man he’d just missed was maybe forty yards away. The Tabs had lost three men working their way up the street, but Ed had caught glimpses of at least five more soldiers out there, not including whoever was in the Growler, if anyone was, which was tucked in-between two buildings maybe a hundred yards out.
“Jason!” Ed called out. When the boy looked over Ed pointed at the far side of the restaurant. None of them had checked that side recently.
Jason crouched and ran to the far side of the dining area and popped his head up. He didn’t see anyone. Just to be sure, he made for the kitchen, to check the back door.
He’d just entered the kitchen when he heard a sound, off to the side. Jason shouldered his rifle and moved forward, frowning. Where he’d thought he’d heard something, the kitchen was empty. But then he caught movement out of the corner of his eye and looked over and out the drive-thru window. There were two soldiers creeping along the building. He lunged forward and fired a volley of shots. The two men went down, one instantly dead, the other kicking wildly, blood spraying from his neck in crimson jets. Jason forced himself away from the carnage and went to check the back door. With all of the shooting he was nearly deaf, they all were, and someone could have forced it open without them noticing. But it was still secure.
There was shooting, a lot of shooting, very close by, but none of it was at them. Early moved slowly up the alley behind the building, rifle up, and paused before the corner. It wasn’t the shooting he was most interested in, it was the low rumble of the idling Growler. From the sound, it had to be right around the corner. Then he heard talking, and static. Someone was using a radio.
He pulled his long rifle back, tucked it against his body, and slowly peeked his head around the cinderblock wall of the building. Early took in the sights for two seconds, then pulled his head back just as slowly.
Making a decision, he bent down and leaned his rifle against the building, then pulled the suppressed .22 pistol from the shoulder holster across his chest. He looked over his shoulder and signaled Seattle to cover him. Seattle nodded.
Early counted down with his fingers, 3, 2, 1, and then went around the corner smooth and low, pistol up in a two-handed grip. The Growler was parked between one-story commercial buildings, nose out. The driver’s door was open, and the man behind the wheel had a radio microphone in his hand.
Early moved to the rear of the idling vehicle, then rushed forward. The soldier heard h
is boots on the gravel and turned. Early shot him in the eye four times before the man had time to react, then transitioned over to the soldier in the passenger seat and emptied the rest of the magazine into his surprised face.
The suppressed gunshots were impossible to hear over the Growler’s rumbling exhaust echoing off the buildings and the near constant gunfire beyond. Early was hidden from view on three sides by the building, vehicle, and the open door. Crouched low, he looked out at the street but didn’t see anything. The shooting, the intensity of which seemed to ebb and flow, was further down the street near the end of the block. There was a distant explosion, then a flurry of gunfire, which ended suddenly. He backed up and went around the rear of the vehicle to the passenger side, staying low. Then he peeked over the tall hood, up the street.
Early ducked back down, turned, and gestured to Seattle. The man scurried to his side and Early pointed up the street. One look was all it took. Seattle raised his suppressed DMR and laid it across the hood of the Growler. The running engine provided a slight vibration which would have been unwanted if he’d had to do any real precision shooting, but the three soldiers he saw, crouching down behind cover, their backs to him, were just seventy-five yards away or less.
Early had loose .22 rounds in a pocket with which he could reload his pistol magazine, but didn’t have the time. He stuffed it back in the holster as he ran back around the corner, grabbed his M1A, and continued down the alley, hoping to flank the Tabs. He had a pretty good idea who they were shooting at. He’d moved thirty feet when he heard the first hissing crack of Seattle’s rifle.
Weasel fired several aimed shots on semi-auto at the Tab who’d circled around the far side of the building somehow without getting spotted. The soldier was in the doorway of a small burned-out restaurant, across a parking lot. The Tab responded by firing another burst, and Weasel ducked as shards of glass pelted him. “Fuck this guy!” he spat, shaking glass out of his hair.