by Hunt, Jack
The home was owned by a man named Mike Benson, a hard-working mechanic who didn’t put up with a lot of bullshit. Unbeknownst to anyone, he’d already been preparing to gather together a large group of locals who were willing to fight back against the town’s intruders. His entire home had been turned into a command center. They were monitoring the frequency the militia were broadcasting on using a radio taken from a soldier they’d killed. Armed men were on the roof scoping out incoming threats and potential situations.
Seated in the living room, Danny chewed on an apple with his feet up on the coffee table. Erika stood by the window, nervously looking out and gnawing on her nails while Nate listened to Mike chatting with other civilians on a ham radio just inside his garage.
He wore a baseball cap on back to front, a dark blue plaid shirt, light-colored blue jeans and steel-toe work boots. He had a cigarette in hand and would puff on it and tap his fingers against the table as he talked.
“Yeah, we took out four of them.”
He paused in his conversation.
“No, they’re here.”
Another pause.
“I appreciate that, man. As soon as you can get here.”
The conversation ended and Mike leaned back in his chair and blew smoke out before casting a glance towards Nate. “You guys have some real balls,” he said. “I like that.” He got up and made his way in. “Not many people around here are willing to stand up to these assholes.” He sat down across from Nate and glanced at Erika. “But these bastards need to know they can’t come into this town and kill and order us around like we’re scum.”
“I appreciate your help. The guy you were chatting with on the radio. Is he like you?”
“Yeah.” He nodded. “He’s running an operation just north of here on Aspen Court. We figure if we can take back small sections of the town, we stand a chance of running them out. As long as they don’t know what’s happening, they will be none the wiser.”
“You’re not worried about anyone betraying you?” Nate asked.
Mike laughed. “I would be lying to say no, but there is no point me worrying about what I can’t control.”
Nate nodded.
“No. Those who know are on board. We can’t go on like this. It’s gonna be a slow process but eventually they will get the message and leave.”
Nate got up and stretched his legs out. “I wish that was true.”
Mike frowned. “It’s working so far.”
“So far,” Nate replied. “Once they catch wind of those eight, you can be damn sure they won’t sit by idly and do nothing. There will be repercussions. More people are going to die unless we do something about it. And then those you think have got your back might turn. Believe me. It could happen.”
Erika looked over with an expression of concern. Danny stopped chewing.
“So what do you suggest?” Mike asked.
Nate looked in the kitchen and then walked into the corridor and glanced up the stairs. “How many are with you?”
“Twelve here, another nine with a buddy of mine, and fourteen more three streets over.”
“You mind if I use the ham radio?”
He motioned with a hand gesture. “Go ahead.”
While they were staying with Andy, he’d taken them through a crash course on survival in the first few weeks. Tyler found the whole thing amusing but they didn’t. They got to experience just a smidgen of what Tyler had to go through growing up. However, if they were going to stay in Andy’s home, he didn’t want to be watching their back, wiping their ass, as he called it. So he’d taken them through gun training, using a ham radio, basic CPR, finding and purifying water, starting a fire without a lighter, navigating with a compass and map, building a wilderness shelter, acquiring food, and basic medical skills. Nate couldn’t remember half of it but then he’d never been a good student. But the ham radio, that stuck. He knew the frequency that Camp Olney was broadcasting out of as Tyler had told him after visiting the hospital. Slipping into the chair, he turned it on and went through the process Andy had taught him. The sound of static dominated. Nate brought the microphone up to his lips and pressed the button.
“Alpha Whiskey Seven Zulu, this is Uniform Tango Four X-ray, this is Uniform Tango Four X-ray, this is Uniform Tango Four X-ray, over.”
There was no response. He tried again. Again nothing.
“Try later,” Mike said.
Nate ignored him and tried again. Five times he went through the process and was just about to give up when a young kid’s voice came over the speaker. “Uniform Tango Four X-ray from Alpha Whiskey Seven Zulu, thanks for your call, over.”
Nate smiled. Hope rose inside him even as his shoulder burned. The conversation was brief but when it was done, he sat there with a broad smile on his face.
“So?” Mike asked.
“Help is coming. Or for the militia, hell is coming.”
He got up and walked back into the living room. “Camp Olney is preparing to attack.”
“Who?” Mike asked. Nate brought him up to speed. When he was finished, Mike got up and hurried into the garage to update his buddy Charlie. They listened as he enthusiastically told them to prepare for war. Charlie on the other hand seemed a little caught off guard.
“Mike. We’re not ready.”
“Get ready. We do this tonight.”
After getting off the ham radio he darted past them and shouted up to those on the second floor.
Mike whistled and a large Alsatian dog appeared from outside with a harness on. Mike scribbled something on a piece of paper and tucked it into the harness then held the dog’s head in his hands and told him where to go. The dog turned and shot out the back door.
“What the hell?” Nate said.
“For those we can’t communicate with via ham, we use the dog.”
“Smart thinking.”
“Yep, dogs aren’t being stopped on the streets.” He hurried into the kitchen and asked for an update from the guys on the radio. “Any news on the eight?”
“They’ve found them,” said a guy with buzzed hair and a large red birthmark down the side of his face. “And they sounded pissed.”
“Good. Everything is going to plan.” He moved past them and opened a pantry closet door. The inside had been gutted and the whole thing had been turned into a gun rack and used for ammo storage. Mike reached in and began throwing out tactical vests. “Gear up, boys, it’s time we party.” Mike turned around holding an armful of fireworks.
“What do you plan to do with those?” Danny asked.
“Oh, you’ll see.” He grinned like a kid as he came out and the rest of his men who had been monitoring the radios got into vests and collected AR-15s, hunting rifles and M4s.
They were about to go to war.
23
Tyler squinted through the green hue of night vision goggles as he plunged the knife into the neck of the unsuspecting soldier with one hand while the other covered his mouth. Allie took out his companion from a distance with her bow. Discovering them wasn’t luck or even skill, but the loss of one of their own that had alerted them to the presence of militia scouts. Though tragic, the death wouldn’t be in vain. It made sense that the militia wouldn’t all be within the town limits but would disperse soldiers around the perimeter to alert them to a potential attack. With this newfound intelligence they were able to tweak their plan, and they began to seek out and kill those on the northern and western outskirts of Whitefish. It meant leaving the horses and trucks farther back and sending out scouts with night vision goggles on, but with Tyler, Corey, Andy and Jude’s experience it didn’t take long to determine what vantage points would work best for them. The mission from there was simple. Circle around and kill them as quietly as possible. Over the comms, one after the other they reported their victories.
“Another two down,” Bennington said.
“Two more for us,” Corey added. It was a slow and arduous process and there was still a high probability they woul
d overlook an area, or unseen militia scouts would alert the rest of the town, but that was the risk they had to take if they were to get near enough to take back the town.
With close to a hundred and sixty people prepared to fight, they divided themselves into two groups of eighty with Tyler and Andy coming in from the west on 93 and Corey and Jude heading south down Lakeshore Drive from the north. It would be a three-prong attack when including Nate’s group. After learning about those in town who helped Nate and Erika, Tyler had got back in touch with Nate before leaving to tell him what they had in mind. They were to come up from behind them and provide support. It was a dangerous task, more so for Nate as they were stuck in the heart of it, but if they were to breach the town, they would need some assistance.
Tyler centered the binoculars on the western roadblock. He could see soldiers milling around oblivious to the coming attack. With a radio in hand and the frequency given to Nate, they were waiting to hear that he was in position before Andy unleashed an RPG at the roadblock. That was just one of the perks of running a military surplus store, Andy said, as he prepared to unleash hell.
Five minutes passed without any communication. Andy was starting to get impatient. “Where the hell is he?”
“He’ll be here.”
Andy tapped his watch. “He’s late.”
“The town is swarming with soldiers, Andy. Cut him some slack.” Tyler expected to hear some snappy comeback but Andy refrained, instead he went over the plan again with the other seventy-eight men and women crouching in the tree line with rifles in hand. Tyler could only imagine how scared they were. He wished it hadn’t come down to this but it was what they had to do. Once they breached the western side they would spread out, staying in groups of no less than two and taking out as many of the militia as possible. They knew once that RPG made contact and exploded, all hell would break loose but hopefully by then Corey and Jude would be coming down from the north and cause the militia’s efforts to be divided, which in turn might even the odds of survival.
“Nate, come in,” Tyler said. “What’s holding things up?”
There was a moment of silence then he replied. “We’ve got a problem. It looks like they are about to execute another group of civilians outside City Hall.”
City Hall was at the heart of the downtown on the same street they were about to access from the west. As much as Tyler wanted to wait, they couldn’t delay their attack any further. With or without Nate’s help they were about to move in.
Hopkins dragged each of the civilians in front of the chief and threw them down like bags of trash. He had a look of glee in his eye as he looked out at the crowd that had gathered. There were close to four hundred civilians under the watchful eye of armed militia, mostly those that had assisted in the building of the walls around the northern and eastern side of town — those who were easily controlled and fearful for their lives, those who hadn’t shown any resistance. As soon as the line of men and women were on their knees, Hopkins brought up a megaphone to his lips and bellowed over the speaker. “Ten of my men are dead because of your chief,” he said pointing to Bruce. “He refuses to tell us who is behind it and for that reason, more of you will die. Take this as a warning. Follow the rules and you will live, break them and you will see how far I will go.”
He was blaming Bruce but he had no idea who was behind the killings, still that didn’t matter. That wasn’t the point of his theatrical display. This was a power move, another way to manipulate the masses by striking fear into them. Also, it was easier to pass blame and execute more civilians than face the fact that he had bitten off more than he could chew. It seemed crazy to think that their town wouldn’t oppose the militia but that was partly his fault. Had he not followed Hopkins’ orders and put out word that the militia were hired guns from the government, there to help the town, maybe more of the town would have fought back. But it was too late now. Even though Whitefish at one time had a population of seven thousand, that had greatly dwindled in the first month of the blackout. Many abandoned homes, fled the town to be with family, others went further afield in the hope of finding towns unaffected by the power outage. That had cut the population by about half. The following month saw it reduced even further as hardship and hunger took over and locals who wouldn’t hunt went in search of food and help from other townships. All in all, it meant that Hopkins’ group of two hundred soldiers were able to control those that remained using only a fraction of the town. They didn’t need to strike fear into the hearts of everyone, or get everyone on board. It only took a few. However, he obviously hadn’t anticipated groups of civilians rising up and fighting back.
Hopkins beckoned Bruce forward with a wave before he placed in his grip a loaded Glock. No sooner had he done that than the chief heard a gun cock behind him and felt cold steel pressed against his head. One of Hopkins’ men had been given instructions that if the chief didn’t execute each of the civilians at point-blank range, he would die. It was the ultimate form of control. Handing a loaded gun to your enemy and having them do your dirty work. The urge to turn and fire it at Hopkins was overwhelming but the gun behind his head was a constant reminder that it would only end badly for him. Hopkins stood in front of Bruce and smiled. “Blood for blood. This will continue until you tell me who killed my men. Last chance.”
“I don’t know. I’m just the chief. You’ve pissed a lot of people off. It could be anyone,” he said. “But that’s not what this is about, is it, Hopkins?” Bruce let a smile dance on his lips. If he was going to be forced to kill, he sure as hell wasn’t going to let him get away with it without making him feel like shit. “It’s about you. You’re losing control, aren’t you, Hopkins?”
“Shut up and do it.”
“This town is slipping through your fingers. Isn’t it?”
Hopkins gritted his teeth and got so close that Bruce could smell stale cigarettes on his breath. “You better squeeze the trigger or he will,” he said gesturing with a nod of the head to his man standing behind Bruce.
“You’re a piece of shit,” Bruce said.
As he lifted the gun to the head of the first civilian, gasps and cries spread among the crowd. “No. No!” Yelling ensued but not even that deterred Hopkins.
“Do it!”
The chief thought about a number of things in those final seconds. With his finger trembling on the trigger, he closed his eyes preparing to squeeze when an epic explosion followed by fire and billowing smoke caught their attention. Farther down the street to the west the roadblock was under attack. Fire had engulfed stalled vehicles, and gunfire erupted. Hopkins got on the megaphone and began yelling for his men to get down there and provide support but no sooner had they began to sprint west than their passage was blocked as skyrocket fireworks came at them from multiple angles. Rounds peppered men, taking them down one after the other. It was hard to tell where they were coming from except that it didn’t cease for even a moment. In the chaos, and sudden eruption of gunfire, soldiers ducked and civilians ran for cover. Chief Bruce saw his moment, he turned to shoot Hopkins but he was no longer there. “Damn it!” Gritting his teeth he turned and instead fired three rounds at the soldier who had been behind him but was now distracted and taking cover nearby.
That was when he saw those responsible. The chief looked up and saw men and women on top of buildings, firing down upon soldiers. Grenades were hurled sending shrapnel tearing through bodies. Bruce ran backwards and took cover behind a truck and fired upon every soldier that came into his line of sight. A surge of confidence ignited as he witnessed the town fighting back. Driven back by an onslaught of gunfire from the west, and seeking cover from those firing from above, the soldiers retreated east. Chief Bruce watched as one after the other, soldiers fell. Like a tide pushing back against the shore, a wave of armed civilians flooded the streets to engage with the enemy. Windows were shattered, concrete peppered and vehicles lanced with rounds. Then the chief caught sight of Hopkins darting in between vehicles with f
our men covering him.
Determined to make sure he didn’t escape, the chief took off after him.
From the north, Corey and Jude charged forward with seventy-eight men and women cutting off soldiers as they tried to retreat to the north or east. They had come down Wisconsin Avenue killing any soldier that crossed their path. Wisconsin cut through Happy Haven and merged into Baker Avenue. They pushed forward across the bridge that arched over the train tracks. That was where they encountered a second roadblock. Hopkins’ men didn’t stand a chance. It was a tidal wave of armed people firing upon them, moving forward and hurling grenades. Although many of Camp Olney’s people were cut down, more of the militia were killed. Forced back by the enraged crowd that was gaining mass as civilians came out and joined in, they had no choice but to back up, straight onto Second Street that cut through the downtown.
The battle was fierce, and without mercy.
Both sides suffered casualties but as time wore on the fight for Whitefish gained ground. “Keep moving!” Corey bellowed as he leaped over the front of a burnt-out car that was being used in the roadblock, then dropped to a knee to unload more rounds.
More explosions shook the ground.
The militia were using mortars. Corey spotted a two-man team that had set up on a rooftop and were pummeling those on the ground with back-to-back shells. He watched as two women disappeared in a cloud of smoke when an explosion tore apart asphalt and ended their lives. “Bennington!” he bellowed over the radio. Bennington, who was a fair distance from him, looked over. Corey pointed to the two guys on the roof. Bennington glanced up then slid across the top of a truck, got into position and took one of them out. Attempts to get the second one failed as he ducked behind the lip of the building’s roof wall. Protected and unseen he continued to unload shells.