by Schow, Ryan
At that point, all six men realized Harper wasn’t going to back down, and that she did indeed have the spine and the wherewithal to back her words. Just before the lead man turned and left, there was a brief stare down where Harper was resolute and the six men were now thinking twice about this fiasco.
None of them said anything.
“All the way to the road is our land,” Connor said. “You cross over and there are open fields for you. I doubt anyone will call you out tonight, so I suggest you get your kill, then get the hell out of this town.”
“Alright,” the one guy said.
“If I see you again, I’ll shoot first and ask questions later,” Connor said.
“Yeah?” he said, slipping even farther back into the darkness. “Well we’ll shoot back when we’re off what’s yours.”
“You see that convoy burned to a crisp down on the freeway in front of the Sheriff’s office?”
“Yeah, what’s that about?”
“That was us, fartknocker. That’s what happens in this town when we see strangers who don’t belong. It gets worse when they bow up, just like you boys are doing now.”
“You shot our friends,” he said.
“They didn’t listen the first time,” Harper added. “Then again, if you had come up the front of the property, you’d have seen the pile of skulls and bones, and the Chicom Jeeps. We protect what’s ours here, first using the Madigan Rule, and then by the gun.”
“What’s the Madigan Rule?” he asked.
“I do for you, before I do to you. We’re polite first, then we go lethal. This town has adopted this rule, which is why you shouldn’t come back here. So get your game, then don’t come back.”
He nodded, then said, “You’re a lot prettier with your mouth closed.”
“Of course you’d say something stupid like that,” Harper chided.
“It’s true though,” he said, now completely in the dark.
“Keep on talking and you’ll get a burial plot next to your friends,” she said.
After that, there was nothing, just the distant, occasional yelling out of an insult or two. Logan moved through the forest, toward them through the darkness.
“Good job,” he said, grateful neither of them were hurt, but bothered about the dead men in front of him.
“Yeah,” Harper said, picking up the flashlight and shining it down on the two men.
Harper didn’t need him to save her, or even protect her, but his instincts had him wanting to do both regardless. This made him lament his injuries even more.
“You did good yourself,” she told Logan. “Nice timing on that shot.”
“Yep,” he said, still alert to deeper sounds in the forest.
“So do we dig holes, or let them rot?” Harper asked Connor.
“They can cool overnight,” Connor said. “I’m ready to go back to bed. It’s gonna be a long day tomorrow building the sniper’s nests. And doing whatever we’re going to do with these two.”
“Help me with this buck,” Connor said. “I’ll take care of it up at the house first thing.”
“It’ll keep over night?” Harper asked.
“Don’t worry about it,” he said, irritated. “I just want to get back up there and get back to bed.”
Logan grabbed the back legs and said, “Let’s just burn the bodies tomorrow. No sense in expending energy digging graves.”
“I agree,” Connor said.
“Me, too,” Harper echoed. Walking up the hill, to Cooper, she said, “We were thinking we could move into the barn tomorrow. It should be warm enough with the insulation and blankets, and we’ve got two-ways, armaments and plenty of ammo.”
“You don’t have to go up there just yet,” Connor said. “Logan might need some extra care, in case that wound of his gets infected.”
Logan said, “I’m going to head into town tomorrow, have Dr. Quinn take a look. I’m sure it’ll be okay, though.”
“Well alright, then,” Connor said without another word.
As they huffed it up the hill, Logan got the feeling Connor was going to miss them. He also had the feeling that he’d be a bit lonely in the barn. Nevertheless, tonight proved that people’s respect for other people’s property wasn’t going to stop hungry folks from crossing into claimed lands, even if it meant their lives. For that reason alone, they had to protect the barn, the ammo safe and the garden, not to mention the food stores and the extra drums of rainwater.
Chapter Twelve
Skylar set out into the street with the older Chinese guy, wary of what lay ahead, deeply concerned about both herself and him.
“What’s your name?” she asked.
“Bo,” he said. The second he said that, he popped his rifle up and lined up a shot. She reached over quickly, lowering the muzzle.
“Wait,” she whispered, following his line of sight to an enemy. “Too loud.”
Her shoulders stung like a bitch, but pain was a state of mind. That’s what her Instructor Yoav said. He trained them to fight while in pain. Whether it was kicking shins with a partner, getting blasted in the nose with two big knuckles, or taking that one rocking shot in the ribs that makes your organs revolt, Yoav made sure they spent enough time in agony to get used to the idea of shelving it. This was her biggest test yet.
She needed her arms, so if the stitches broke, then so be it. She’d deal with that later. Creeping into the street, she snuck up on what looked like an SAA soldier. Another was behind him, calling his name, smiling as he headed over. The sight moved her. How do you smile in the midst of all this? When they caught up with each other, one said something to the other, and then they both laughed. She supposed dying on a high point was better than suffering a drag down, knockout, hardcore slaughter.
She drove the kitchen knife into the first man’s throat, ripped it out and swung at the other one. Reflexively, he backed up, her blade swinging wide. For whatever reason, with that big swing, her fatigue and the pain in her shoulders sucked about ninety percent of her energy away.
The dying soldier at her feet was gurgling, grabbing at her, falling to his knees. The man she missed tore his weapon from his holster, but by then the older Chinese man shot him in the head. He hurried over as Skylar was taking their weapons. She looked at him, rattled.
She shouldn’t have been so slow. Her shoulders were dragging her down though, the pain finally getting to her.
“Are you okay?” the older man asked.
She nodded, unable to thank him. She’d said she was a badass, and on the first kill, she almost bought it big time.
“This blade is flimsy, and these shoulders aren’t working right.”
“Now you have guns,” he said.
“But guns are loud. They draw the attention of others.” And with that, several men rounded the corner. “Go!” she said.
They took off running, but gunfire pinned them down. They ducked down behind one of the many abandoned cars. She snuck a look, and a bullet pinged off the metal in front of her. This took her breath, but she’d been startled before. She got over it quick. Pinned down, she fired off several retaliatory shots, but the SAA men she stole the weapon from hadn’t loaded his weapon, so she ran out of ammo fast.
“Are you out?” she asked, panic in her eyes.
“I have one round left,” he said. He held his head high, then said, “It was a pleasure fighting alongside you. It is time for you to go.”
And with that, he lined up his rifle, pulled the trigger, then withdrew a small snub nosed .38.
“I thought you were out,” she said.
“I have two rounds left in this weapon,” he said. “One for them. The other in case I cannot join you.”
She tried to get him to go with her.
He insisted she go alone.
“We can take them out,” she reasoned. “I’ve been in worse situations before.”
She looked around, frantic, unwilling to let him die. Right then she decided that, come hell or high water, he w
as living. She spun the rifle around, figured she could bash someone’s skull in with it and take their gun, or at least scrounge up a few extra rounds somewhere.
“Okay, so here’s the plan,” she said. The bullet interrupted her, the Chinese man falling down dead before her.
Stunned, it took her a moment to come around. And when she did, she was first horrified, then enraged.
Heart kicking like a mule, her breath high and rapid, she snatched up his gun, then peeked around and saw the two men cautiously approaching.
She fired both rounds, catching both men. Neither shot was a kill shot, but she was on the first guy before he could recover. With her empty gun trained on one man as a hollow threat, she dropped a knee and all her weight on the side of the other man’s face and rolled over it, slowly grinding his face into the asphalt. When he failed to respond, she stood and pistol whipped the unconscious man’s face three brutal times before going after the next one.
This man was shot in the stomach, but he was moving, eyes on her, brows pulled together, jaw set. She watched his hand slide across the dirty asphalt for his rifle.
If she couldn’t reach him by the time he got the drop on her, she was dead. At that point, she had time on her side, but the rage and adrenaline had her juiced and too high to go easy. She kicked off the dead man, pinned the live one’s wrist to the ground with a knee. He’d just managed to get a hold of his weapon.
“I don’t think so, maggot,” she growled.
Thinking about the Chinese man who so needlessly gave his life after saving hers, thinking about the Chicom occupation in this state, all their totalitarian demands, their oppressive rule—how they just killed people like they were ants underfoot—she grabbed his Adam’s apple, then dug in her nails and gripped it like all that meat, bone and cartilage was coming out in one piece.
With all her might, she imagined jerking an electrical plug out of a wall socket. She gave a ferocious yank once, then twice. Things shifted, but it was a no go. The man was gagging, squealing, thrashing around, and her shoulders couldn’t take much more of this. When she jerked at it the third time, she gave it her all, expecting it to tear free. But it didn’t. Breathing heavy, saliva drizzling out of her mouth, she came back to reality, saw what she was doing and let go.
The damage she did, however, would most likely prove to be lethal. It also took a toll on her shoulder. Too big of a toll.
Gripping the rifle from his unfurling hand, she sat up high and drove the buttstock down on his Adam’s apple.
“Soft targets, you bitch,” she swore under her breath.
She watched the man writhe and squirm, his dying movements oddly satisfying to her. While she was watching him die, she was also seeing the plague these communists had brought upon this country of hers. The desperate rigidity of his struggle abated. When his body finally relaxed into death, his final breath leaving him, she stood and spit on his uniform.
“You freaking prick,” she cursed.
In the distance, the sounds of bombs being dropped and helicopters circling was getting closer. It was not lost on her that she was in a much larger battlefield, and that her enemies had doubled. In these outbursts of war, she knew some men were dug in and some were fleeing. She only prayed they were not being flushed out in her direction. That was why staying under the radar was paramount.
The second Chicom soldier hadn’t regained consciousness yet. She felt for a pulse, found a weak one. She was surprised he was still alive. A ferocious bludgeoning finished the job. There was no sense in letting him suffer, even if he deserved it.
Besides, this was war.
The embers of her rage turned to a deep sadness as she returned to her newfound friend. He was still dead. Shaking her head, thinking of the life he must have lived and how tragic it was that it had come to an end here, she returned to the rendezvous point, found May awake and alert.
“I thought you abandoned me,” May said.
“I have supplies,” Skylar replied, cold, detached, her body drained from the fight and the subsequent adrenaline dump. “We need to clean you up, then get the hell out of here. The SAA is closing in on the Chicoms and we can’t be in the middle of this thing when it gets hot.”
“What about Ryker?” May asked.
“If he’s not here by now,” she said, her heart aching at the thought of him, “then he’s not coming.”
“You think he’s dead?”
Shaking her head, Skylar said, “I don’t know.”
“How are your shoulders?”
“If I talk about it, I think it’ll make them hurt worse than they already do.”
“Scale of one to ten?” May asked.
“Eleven,” Skylar answered. “They’re stitched up for now. But we need to get you cleaned up, see what we’re working with.”
The sounds of war were getting closer, louder. Pretty soon, the skirmish was right on top of them. A nearby bombing shook the foundation, causing the women to seek refuge in a closet. The building trembled for awhile, gunfire occasionally lighting up the street. She heard men moving in and around the building, and then there was either mortar fire or RPGs hitting fixed targets.
“They’re going to take this whole city apart before it’s over,” May whispered.
“San Francisco is done,” Skylar said.
“We need to get out of here.”
Skylar whispered, “How? They’re everywhere!”
“I don’t know.”
Even as things died down, Skylar and May remained huddled together, every so often abandoning their hiding place to sneak a peek outside the dusty window. In spite of a few random gun shots, it seemed the fight had moved on.
“Holy crap,” Skylar said a moment later. “May, come look at this!”
May hurried over, squished her face beside Skylar’s to peek through the blinds. “What am I looking at?”
“That Chicom guy by the truck,” Skylar said, breathless, “he just shot a bunch of other Chicoms in that troop truck!”
“Who is that other guy?” May asked. There was an SAA man with his gun trained on the traitorous Chicom shooter.
“I don’t know.”
When she saw the SAA kill a pair of Chicoms exiting the building below, when she thought of all the people who had just died, Skylar felt a sense of safety she didn’t feel before. Pulling away from the window, Skylar was already planning their escape. They needed the cover of darkness to get to the edge of the city. They also needed some mode of transportation to get home. If they couldn’t commandeer a Jeep, maybe they could get a motorcycle, a four wheeler, or at the very least, a pair of bicycles. And as the very, very worst case scenario, it was going to be a long walk. They’d find bikes long before they’d walk, though. This got her brain working. Cycling at an average of ten miles per hour, with at least three hundred and fifty miles to cover, adding in six hours a night to sleep, they could be in Five Falls in about two days. Of course, that didn’t account for the need for food, water and medical supplies. Or any resistance they encountered along the way. Mainly Chicoms or SAA assault teams.
God, she hated that idea.
Her wounds were most certainly getting infected already, her shoulders aching down in the bones. If anything, they needed to break into some kind of neighborhood pharmacy, or someone’s medicine cabinet and get antibiotics. And May? Skylar looked at her and thought, I can just leave her behind.
Did she really need her?
No, not really.
Then again, the girl saved her life and gave her and Ryker shelter when they were under attack and needing safety and medical care. So no, she would not leave her behind.
She couldn’t do that.
No way.
Chapter Thirteen
Ryker never really found the rendezvous point—even though he thought he was close. Half the buildings had their addresses ripped off, their signage destroyed. He knew he was near where he was taken from, but he just didn’t understand the different street names.
Now hunkered down, all but giving up, he watched for Chicoms and SAA battalions alike. Apparently, they found the Chicom soldiers he’d killed in the transport and had amassed fresh troops. Members of the SAA were on site, too.
It took him awhile to walk back after being taken by the SAA psycho, but how had the SAA gotten there so quickly? Not just to the neighborhood, but to San Francisco proper?
The EMP worked.
But at what distance?
The only thing he could figure was that the SAA’s choppers had been out of the EMP’s range and had since mobilized to fly in and drop SAA troops on site. Those same helicopters had been bombing San Francisco all day.
How long until the ground forces arrive?
The fact that the presumed rendezvous point was ground zero to this conflict was concerning. Half the buildings were crawling with Chicoms engaged in a hot war, but he had to at least see if Skylar made it. The more intense the battle, however, the more he began to believe she was not there.
At that point, he didn’t know where to go. The town of Five something or other in Oregon. Five what, though? Five…Five…
His head was a mess, his body hurting, but he was in go mode and getting pissed off at having to just sit there, waiting. Half the night had expired when the conflict finally settled down. A few SAA soldiers dragged out fourteen Chicoms in the middle of the street, but one of the captains yelled, “¡Guarda tus municiones!” Save your ammunition.
The SAA had rifles on their prisoners, but that’s when one of the SAA soldiers with a bat came behind them and started cracking them over the skulls, really putting his all into it. The man was big, his swing brutal, the kind that involved his entire body. There was no way any of them would survive that.
With each nerve-racking thump, Ryker turned his head, his body wincing and cringing, the violence becoming too much, even for him.
He thought of shooting the SAA, but there were too many. Furthermore, there was a chopper on a nearby roof, and a man in the gun pod, parked on the M134 Minigun.