Avalon: The Retreat (40 page)

He counted the downed and burned bikers and there were fifty of them.

“Maybe two hundred fifty or so,” he said as he reconsidered his count. “A cake walk, boys.”

Sam and Beth arrived at the National Guard Armory in an hour and as they approached, a man with a bullhorn said,

“Okay people, that’s far enough. State your business.”

It was a loud command and several of the children started to cry. Beth looked at the front of the building and did not see anyone, so she addressed the front wall as she spoke,

“I’m Beth Kelly, Federal Agent with the FBI, and I have to put these children and women that we rescued from the Slavers somewhere safe. I also need some fire-power from this Armory because we’re heading back to battle the bikers. There are others over there and they’re in need of a little help. There are only ten of them against several hundred Slavers. What can you do for us?”

Silence…

Beth hollered again, repeated herself, dug out her credentials, and thrust her arm out with them in her hand for display.

Silence…

They waited for at least five minutes and she was getting angrier by the second.

“Look, you SOBs,” she said with an edge to her voice, “open this door now! Sheriff Waters knows who I am, and he told me about you. Open up NOW!”

The front steel doors slid open slowly. It was actuated by chains and someone was yanking them from inside, causing the doors to open. It opened four feet and stopped. A man bent over and stepped out with a woman who rushed to the children. The man was tall and husky and looked like an ex-football player or a professional weight lifter. He was tall and probably weighed three hundred fifty pounds. He had gray hair, and she guessed him to be about fifty or so. He stepped in front of Beth and said,

“We talked to the Sheriff just now and he confirms what you said. Sorry it took so long; the Sheriff was using the bathroom when I called him on the radio. I apologize for the delay; we just can’t be too careful these days. Step this way and watch your head.”

They all went inside the Armory and behind them, the guy operating the chains closed the big door. The big man said,

“I’m sorry, I didn’t introduce myself. I’m called Randal Stone; I was the senior sergeant here while we were still a country. I don’t know what we are anymore, but I’m at your service. What can I do to help?”

“I need to feed these children and women,” she responded. “Do you have any food?”

“We sure do,” he replied, “and if you’ll follow me, we have a kitchen off to this side.”

They went down a large hallway and turned through two large double-doors to find a dining hall and a large kitchen. Several people were there and they all smiled as Beth and her entourage came in. Several of the women from Beth’s group ran over to the people who sat at tables and hugged them. Randal said,

“We will have them all fed in about fifteen minutes.”

Beth replied to what he said and the impatience was unmistakable in her voice,

“Mister Stone… Sergeant, I don’t mean to sound ungrateful because I am very grateful, but there are people out there who are about to be overwhelmed by hundreds of thugs. I want to get back as soon as I can to help!”

Just then a man came in and addressed the Sergeant,

“It’s all ready to go, Sarge.”

Randal nodded and turned to Beth, “Come this way, Miss Kelly. We anticipated your needs.”

Sam followed as they went into another large room, the main Armory.

“Do you think any of this will do you any good?”

“It’s makin’ my mouth water,” Sam replied, “And I swear I’m gettin’ a hard-on… oops, sorry, Beth.”

“Okay,” Randal spoke with authority, “Let’s load it up.”

Several of the men began to move to a Humvee that was parked adjacent to the Armory door.

In ten minutes Sam, Beth, and four soldiers from the Armory were on their way to the battle… in style. She was driving so Sam kicked back in his seat and enjoyed the ride. Beth looked over at him and said,

“We’ll go back to the camp and swing south from there; I want to be able to find them.”

“Just follow the shootin’ noise, ma’am,” Sam replied, “And we’ll find ‘em.”

As Beth headed toward what she hoped would be her final battle for quite some time, she thought of the children. They had come a long way together, and, after meeting Mike and his group from Avalon and the good people from Fitch, she knew the children would be safe now.

And that place upon the mountain… that place called Avalon… that place her father had taken her to so many years before, it really existed. She had traveled so far to reach it, uncertain if it was still there, uncertain whether it was a place of refuge or a place of danger. Avalon, she knew now, would be the safe haven where she could make a new life for herself, away from a world that had gone mad!

Sheriff Waters and a number of his people waited outside the large store in the parking lot where several deuces and a half and sixes by six sat. Men came out of the store and loaded into the back of the vehicles. The men from the Armory wore uniforms and were equipped with full battle dress, packs, weapons, grenades, and lots of ammo.

There were M-16s in the back of one of the trucks and they would be used by the Sheriff’s men. It was important that they all use the same ammo. Once they were all loaded, they started for the end of town toward the north where the highway began a swing to the west near the river. They heard a large boom and knew that it was the sound of dynamite.

The Slavers had been stopped for a little while, but once they had a chance to re-group, they would be ready to attack again. Bone Breaker was guessing, but he estimated that he had lost about thirty or forty men. They couldn’t get away from the flames in time, and many of them got blocked in completely and couldn’t escape. The smell of burnt grass and flesh was heavy in the air, but the breeze was, thankfully, moving it away from them.

The smell was putrid.

The only saving grace was that the fire ran out of grass and burned itself out. It was rocky and sandy here, which created a natural fire break. The terrain was devoid of thick grass, with only a few clumps scattered around the area. It looked to be an old prehistoric river bed.

Bone Breaker stood on the seat of his bike, and his booming voice came out strong, so most of them heard what he had to say,

“Okay we had a little set back, but the battle has yet to really start. We will charge straight on in a frontal attack and overwhelm them by sheer numbers. We are strong and we are used to killing. But just to cover our bases, I want one group to swing wide left and another to swing wide right. If we charge their flanks, there is no way they will be able to survive unless they are an army, and I don’t believe they are. I think there are a dozen of them at best. Kill ‘em all, but save the leader for me!”

“You,” he pointed to one group, “Go right!”

“You,” he pointed to another group, “Go left. The rest of you go straight on. Hit ‘em hard and hit ‘em quick. Let’s go boys; do it now!”

The motorcycles roared as they started up and the men revved them, making a cacophonous crescendo of almost one huge explosion of motor noises. No one could hear anything but they could all feel the noise, and the exhaust smell was overpowering.

Bone Breaker and several of his top lieutenants went back to the small hill that led up to the woods where Beth and the children had been camped out. He would observe the battle from there with his top people. The motorcycles closed in on Mike and his nine men.

“Keep your heads low,” Mike yelled at them, “And make every shot count!”

The Slavers drew closer and the noise from the motorcycles was deafening. The fumes were thick in the air but blew away from Mike and his people. Mike took one stick with the dynamite attached, lit the fuse, and lobbed it nearly the length of a baseball field. It laid there with smoke pouring from the fuse. He lit another and threw it off to the left and another went off to the right. They sailed through the air and landed.

He was counting mentally, five thousand, six thousand; in twenty nine seconds the first one blew right beside fifty or more bikers. In a few seconds, the second went off and more bikers were thrown into the air… and then the third went off. It rained motorcycles and riders. Many of the Slavers were missing arms or legs and a few heads, and some were on fire. The rest of the bikers laid down their bikes and started shooting at Mike and his people.

Bullets ricocheted off the rocky soil and whizzed away with a zinging sound that lasted for just a split second, flying like angry hornets coming from a nest someone had just swatted with a stick. All Mike and his people could do was keep their heads down. The cover of the creek bed was protecting them but they couldn’t shoot back for the hail of bullets coming their way. Suddenly there was firing coming at them from both the right and the left.

This was really bad!

Mike passed the word to keep low and move with the creek bed toward the east, which helped a little. Now instead of being nearly surrounded, they only had fire coming from the front and one side. The attack from their left suddenly stopped for some reason.

The firefight lasted for another thirty minutes and, incredibly, nobody on Mike’s side was hurt or wounded. Mike lit another stick of dynamite and threw it as hard as he could toward his front and quickly threw himself to the ground. As many as fifty or sixty bullets struck the ground but he was sheltered from them. The dynamite went off and killed at least another ten bad guys, but it wasn’t nearly enough. It looked grim and the good guys weren’t going to win this battle if they couldn’t fire back.

Then he heard it.

It was the unmistakable sound of an M-60 firing off toward the east that raked the landscape with murderous fire. Whoever it was, they knew how to handle that weapon. They heard the sound of motorcycles starting and moving away. The M-60 kept firing and they heard yet another M-60 along with small arms fire. The battle ground was getting lively and Mike noticed there were no more rounds striking the ground around him. He poked his head up and could see the army trucks parked to his left. Sam was frantically firing the M-60; his mustache making him look like a wild man.

The firing continued for at least another ten minutes and smoke was heavy everywhere; it was as if a fog unexpectedly descended into the small pocket of the battlefield. Several of the men’s faces were blackened by gun smoke and burned cordite. The breeze that had moved the wildfire slowly dissipated the heavy smoke. Several soldiers from one of the army trucks got up from their firing positions and walked the areas where so many of the Slavers lay. Some were smoking from the fire and others were torn to pieces from the hammering of the M-60. When the final count was in, they totaled two hundred thirty bodies. Only two were still alive and they were both dispatched with a single shot to the head.

Bone Breaker scanned the killing field with binoculars, studying the area with an intense scrutiny.

“Well boys” Bone Breaker said in a perfectly normal voice, “We need to head for the coast. I feel snow in the air.”

They cranked their bikes up and swung well south and west… for now… but they would not be beaten… they would be back later on with more men to finish this fight!

Back at the Armory, Sam saw a corporal open a large storage area and come up with the largest pair of binoculars he had ever seen. When he inquired about them Sergeant Randall said,

“Those came off a Heavy Cruiser that was being decommissioned, the U.S.S. Des Moines in fact. They were given to the Colonel who was in charge back in the mid-sixties because his dad was the last skipper on it. The Colonel died and the binoculars remained here. There’s a stand for them in another room that, when mounted, swivels 360 degrees in any direction. Why do you ask?”

“I have a spot up on our mountain where we could mount them.” Sam replied, “We could mount them up there and cover the entire road in to Fitch through the valley. It would give us all an early warning if anyone were to attack from any of those directions.”

“Well, from one Sergeant to another,” Sergeant Randall said, “Consider them yours.”

After returning to Avalon, Mike’s group began an all-out effort to build what was referred to as “Eagle’s Nest.” They mounted the oversized binoculars in a tower with a roof over it and manned them every day from first light to just before dark.

The glasses were extremely powerful and viewers were able to see the road coming in from Bishop to the East, all of Fitch, down into the valley toward the river south, and over to the road that headed away from Fitch toward the Coast. They could even see the old Slaver campgrounds clearer than grains of sand.

The radio message came into the Armory, breaking the silence. Corporal Linden answered, acknowledging receipt, and he jumped up and ran down the hall to where Sergeant Randal Stone kept himself busy. He burst into the office without knocking and put the message down on the Sergeant’s desk in front of him, who was a bit miffed at the intrusion until he read the message.