“We will, thank you!”
Thomas and Julie then hopped in the rusty, old trailer car waiting for them at the exit.
“Open the gates!” Hobbs said to the guards.
The guards complied. They removed the latch and opened the gates. Thomas started the engine and got out, heading toward the woods.
***
The silence in the car was almost touchable. The engine rumbled and the rifles skidded across the trailer whenever Thomas was taking a sharp turn. Both Thomas and Julie were thinking about how this hunt will proceed. Will they kill something or will they go home empty-handed? If they will kill something, what will it be? Will they kill enough for the entire community of two hundred souls or will some be fed while others starved? Or maybe they will catch absolutely nothing and the entire community will starve today. Julie broke the silence.
“You know, I was thinking…” she said to Thomas.
“About what?” Thomas asked her.
“About the fact that we stayed.”
“What about it?”
“We broke our mom and dad’s last wish by staying in that town.”
“What? Come on, Julie, don’t be ridiculous. Mom and dad never told us not to stay anywhere.”
“This was their rule, Thomas. Don’t you remember what they used to tell us? ‘Never stay in one place for more than one week.’ And I remember that in some places, we used to stay for even less.”
“Yes, but… it was never their dying wish for us not to settle anywhere for more than that, and remain vagrants forever.”
“So you’re saying you remember what they told us in that town before we abandoned them to the rebels?”
“Julie, what the… what’s gotten into you? We didn’t abandon them. They basically ordered us to leave. And if they didn’t, the rebels would have killed us too. You, me, Carla, Fred, we wouldn’t be here today if we hadn’t left that day and let them do the fighting. We would have shared the same fate with them. Is that what you would have wanted?”
Julie sighed and said:
“No, I suppose not.”
“See? And to answer your question, yes, I precisely remember what they told me that day in that town before we left. You can’t because you were too young, but I remember. And they never said that we were to stay in one place for more than one week. This might have been their rule, but they never told us to do that after their deaths. Besides, aren’t you glad that we stayed in that town? After all, you did meet Darryl.
“Yes, I suppose you’re right,” Julie said, sighing.
“I miss them, Thomas. I miss them so much. They weren’t even there to see me in my wedding gown.”
“I miss them too, Julie. Trust me, I do. But we are alive today because they gave their lives for us.”
“Yeah. How right you are.”
***
The car pulled over. Thomas and Julie got out, took the rifles from the trailer and entered the dark woods.
“Okay,” Thomas said. “Let’s start looking for tracks.”
They walked slowly, to avoid scaring the wildlife. All the while, birds were singing above them in the trees. Mockingbirds, sparrows, pigeons, crows, cuckoos. And they all adapted well to the prolonged darkness. They could have simply aimed up and caught one in the scopes. But today, they were not after birds. Today, they wanted to hunt for deer. Hell, even some rabbits will do the trick.
“Okay,” Thomas whispered. “Flashlights out!”
He and Julie took out their flashlights and turned them on. They scanned the ground for animal tracks.
Suddenly, they heard a sound in the distance. They turned toward its direction and pointed their flashlights toward it.
“What was that?” Julie asked.
“I don’t know. It sounded like a deer.”
“How do you know what deer sounds like?”
“Trust me, I do. And if I’m right, this is our lucky day. Come on. Let’s go toward its direction.”
They both started walking toward the croak. They were both threading carefully and slowly, as they were walking on nails.
“Oh, God, Thomas, look!” Julie suddenly said. “I think you were right. Check it out!”
Thomas came toward her.
“What? What is it?”
Julie aimed the flashlight toward the ground in front of her.
“Look! Tracks.”
Thomas crouched and took a look.
“Oh, yeah, Julie,” he said. “This is indeed our lucky day.”
He put his hand on them.
“These are deer tracks. And they’re fresh. Not older than an hour. Our boy… or girl is close. Come on! Let’s follow them!”
They started walking while aiming their flashlights at the ground. Suddenly, an owl hooted. Julie startled.
“Damn, these woods give me the creeps,” she said.
After walking for a while, they hit a ravine. And down in the ravine, they saw it. A stag, scratching his antlers on a tree.
“Oh, my God!” Julie said. “It’s beautiful.”
“Oh, yes it is. And it’s ours for the taking. All right. Let’s do this.”
“Got it!”
Julie aimed the flashlight at the deer, who ran away, scared, while Thomas aimed the rifle. He took a deep breath and fired. He hit it right in the heart. The deer took a few more steps, then collapsed.
“Yes!” they said simultaneously. They high-fived and they both headed down in the ravine.
“You take the back legs, I’ll take the front ones,” Thomas said.
“Got it!’
They grabbed it by its legs and lifted it up. But just as they were about to start walking, they heard footsteps, coming toward them.
“What the hell is that?” Julie asked.
Then, they heard a growl and the sound of the steps intensified. Thomas put the stag down and aimed the flashlight in the direction of the noises. He saw a huge bear running toward them, its eyes glowing in the light.
“Holy shit!” Julie said.
The bear ran toward Thomas and almost hit him, but Thomas managed to throw himself on the side The bear then Jumped at Julie. Lucky for her, she was fast enough to lift her rifle above her head, thus preventing his mouth from reaching her.
“Thomas, help!”
“Oh, no you don’t, you bastard.”
Thomas grabbed his rifle and shot the bear in the thigh. Infuriated, the bear got up on two legs and growled at him. Then, it ran toward him and jumped on him. But just like Julie before him, Thomas was lucky enough to put his rifle above his head and prevent the bear from biting him.
Julie grabbed her rifle. She shot the bear in the head, spreading its brains all over the ground. The body fell on Thomas, who felt like a bus dropped on him. Julie gave him her hand and helped him crawl from underneath it.
“Are you okay?” she asked Thomas.
“Yeah. Just fine,” he reassured her. “You?”
“I’m fine too. Come on! Let’s get our trophy and go home. I’m sick of these woods like I’m sick of an abscess.”
“My thoughts exactly. Come on, let’s go!”
***
Hobbs patrolled his town’s streets. Every day, at exactly eight o’clock in the morning, he took his M-16 on the shoulder and got out on the streets to patrol, ensuring the safety of the folks who elected him. The fact that he was fifty five and growing grey hair didn’t matter. Quite the opposite. Having a rifle on his shoulder made him feel younger.
Today seemed like a regular day. He walked on the streets casually, while everybody greeted him.
“Mister Hobbs,” a man yelled, “nothing ever happens in our quiet, peaceful little town. We have no killers, no thieves, no rapists… and yet you keep patrolling. Why is that?”
“Well, first of all, it’s my job. Second of all, I like it.”
“Oh, so that’s what it is…” the man said.
“Yep, that’s what it is… what about you, Tim? I saw you yesterday going out the gate at abou
t four o’clock. Where were you going? Why didn’t you say anything about you leaving?”
“Well, sir, what can I say… I’m a merchant. And merchants… well…trade. I was out trading with the neighboring settlement. As for not telling anything, well… I forgot.”
“You forgot? You forgot the protocol of this town? You forgot to say where you were going when you got out through the town gates? What if something happened to you? We wouldn’t have known where to find you.”
“But it didn’t.”
“Yeah, it didn’t…. So what was it this time? Fur?”
“No. Hides.”
“Hides… okay. Next time you leave, you let the guards know where you’re going and when you’re coming back, you hear me?”
“Yes, sir,” Tim said, performing a mock military salute.
“Okay, stay safe!”
“You too, mister Hobbs!”
Hobbs left to continue his patrolling. Suddenly, a sentinel, who was supposed to be on the walls, watching for potential dangers, came running toward him.
“Mister Hobbs, mister Hobbs…” he said, while still running.
“What is it, Frank?”
The sentinel stopped in front of him, gasping for air.
“Sir,” he said, “I think you’d better come see this.”
The two then started running toward the wall. Once they got there, they climbed on it and the man, along with the rest of the sentinels, showed him what they were looking at in the distance.
“Sir, look!” another sentinel told him, before pointing at a far-away hill.
Hobbs looked and he was shocked. Lights. From cars. Tons of them.
“Jesus Christ, tell me that’s not what I think it is!” he said to a sentinel next to him.
“Oh, I’m afraid that’s exactly what you think it is, sir,” the sentinel told him.
***
The rebel leader looked at the town, from a distance. He was thinking big. He was thinking about victory. He was thinking about revenge. He was certain he would win the battle ahead. The people he faced were no more than common farmers, good with a spud, bad with a gun. Victory was certain.
“What do you see?” he asked his second-in-command, standing behind him, looking through the binoculars.
“Well, sir,” his second-in-command answered, “by the looks of it, they saw us. They’re looking this way.”
“Good!” the leader said. He then got up, raised his hand and lowered it quickly, in a gesture that said “forward.”
“Let’s go!” he yelled.
All the cars started their engines and moved forward, toward the town.
***
“Shit!” Hobbs said, while watching the cars coming toward his town. He turned around and yelled:
“Rebels! Coming toward us fast!”
Everybody started yelling and panicking. People were running wherever they could, most of them at their homes, in an attempt to hide.
“All the men and women who are able to fight, take the children, the sick and the elderly in the basements,” Hobbs yelled. “Then, get up on the walls.”
Everybody did exactly what their leader told them. The elderly, children and sick hid in the basements while the men and women able to fight grabbed their weapons and climbed on the town walls. They also brought torches, put them on the wall, loaded their weapons and waited for the enemy to come.
Children and some women started crying and getting nervous. People were running, hiding, and preparing for battle.
In this atmosphere of wailing and despair, the brave women and men who had to protect their town were loading their weapons and assumed their positions on the walls. They were all wondering whether they will survive tonight and see their families again. But at the same time, they knew that they fought for their families and community. It was for them that they would die. And that gave them a sense of pride.
The rebels were getting closer. Their rusty old trailer cars were jumping up and down on the rough terrain. Their blinding lights were now looking like the eyes of some monsters approaching the gates. All the rebels had their pupils dilated in anticipation of the slaughter ahead of them. They couldn’t wait to kill, rape, steal and destroy another community.
“Ready!” Hobbs yelled to his men, who immediately pointed their assault rifles at the rebel cars, which were getting closer and closer.
“Steady!” he yelled again, as the rebels got even closer.
Everybody was gripping their assault rifles, as they were waiting for the magic word, which finally came after what seemed to be an eternity of waiting.
“Fire!” Hobbs ordered.
“Fire!” the rebel leader ordered as well.
Both sides started firing at each other almost at the same time. White-hot bullets whizzed through the air in the darkness. Almost instantly, there were victims on both sides. Several rebels were hit the first time, while three townsfolk got hit right in the head, dying instantly and collapsing from the walls like bags of potatoes.
A woman fired at one of the cars containing rebels. At first, she hit nothing. She missed the second time too. But her third burst was lucky. She hit no less than three rebels, who collapsed on the ground, dead. But soon, her luck ran out. Just a few seconds after her victorious shots, one of the rebels’ 50 caliber machine guns shot her right in the head, which burst into pieces of brains, tissue and blood.
The rest of the townsfolk kept firing from the walls, hitting a few rebels from time to time. One man shot two rebels before being hit in the head. Another one managed to hit five, before being shot in the shoulder.
“Fuck! I’m hit!” the man said.
“Stay down!” Hobbs told him. “You’re going to be just fine, you hear me? You’re going to be just fine. Put some pressure on it and…”
Just before he could finish his sentence, the man was pierced through by a 50 caliber bullet, which penetrated both the wall and him and left him with two giant bullet holes, in the back and torso. The poor guy only lived for a second more, before his head fell on his chest and died.
“Will someone take care of that 50 caliber?” Hobbs yelled.
“I got it!” a girl no older than twenty, told him. She aimed her sniper rifle at the rebel maneuvering the heavy weapon and fired. His head burst in a mix of blood and pieces of brain and bone. The rebel collapsed on the car’s trailer and left the heavy 50 caliber machine gun with no handler.
The rebel leader took position in front of four cars.
“You, you, you and you…” he said, pointing at the drivers. “Make circles around their walls and waste the fuckers on all sides.”
“Yes, sir!” the drivers said, almost simultaneously.
The drivers complied and started driving around the town walls, while the rebels in the trailers fired at the people on the walls. While some bullets were hitting nothing but the wooden walls, causing splinters to jump off and leave holes in it, others were lucky and they could hit some of those defending the walls. But vice-versa was also valid. Some of those on the walls who had good aim were able to hit some of the rebels firing at them, reducing their numbers significantly.
Suddenly, a lucky guy hit one of the rebel drivers, causing the car to flip and the car behind it to bump into it, flipping as well. The rebels in them, knocked by what just happened, were easy pickings for those on the walls, who machine gunned them in an instant.
Meanwhile, another rebel climbed aboard the car that had the 50 caliber machine gun attached to it and started maneuvering it. He hit seven people, killing four and seriously wounding three, severing one’s left leg.
“For Christ’s sake,” someone yelled, “that 50 caliber is tearing us to pieces. Someone do something about it!”
“I got it!” someone with a sniper rifle said.
He aimed at the fuel tank and fired. The car blew up in a ball of fire, which engulfed the rebels who were still in it. They were already dead when they were blown away.
“Enough games!” the rebel le
ader yelled. “Take out the RPG and blow up their gates!”
The rebel in charge of the RPG took it out from the trunk of his car and aimed at their gates. He fired. The rocket blasted the gates, which created an opening for their cars. But before they could go in, they had to clear the people on the walls. The rebel with the RPG fired again and the rocket blew up the front wall to the right of the gate. The people on it died in the blast or got too injured to fight. Then, the rebel fired again. The left side of the front wall blew up, killing those on top of it.
“We go in!” the rebel leader yelled, before jumping in his car.
The rebels who were not inside the cars jumped in them and they entered the gates.
“Everybody off the walls and take cover behind the houses!” Hobbs said, from another portion of the wall.
Everybody did like their leader said. They got off the walls and took cover behind their houses, from where they continued to harass the intruding rebels. But the rebels kept up with their spirits and refused to quit. And even though it was harder now, they too were harassing the townsfolk, sometimes hitting them while they came out from behind the houses.
The fighting was now house to house. The rebels would go inside a house, set positions in front of a window and fired at the townsfolk from the windows. Sometimes, the strategy was effective, causing the rebels to hit some townsfolk from their covers. But sometimes, the tides would go in favor of the townsfolk, especially those with sniper rifles.
The rebel leader had an idea when he entered a house. While his men were fighting from house to house, he decided to search for the basement of the house he was in. He opened the basement door, took out a small flashlight from his pocket and aimed it at the basement. And his hunches were confirmed. He grinned wickedly.
***
On the streets and inside the houses, the bullets kept flying. Occasionally, a rebel would get hit, other times a local.
Until the leader got out from the house, surrounded by six children and ten elderly, whom he had at gun point.
“Cease fire!” he yelled at his men. “Cease fire!”
The rebels complied and ceased fire. So did the townsfolk, when they saw the children and elderly at gunpoint.
Dark Apocalypse: A Post-Apocalyptic Family Saga Page 15