Pilliars in the Fall (20 page)

“Well, what’d you guys find?” Blake asked again looking back and forth between the two of us.

I made eye contact with Danielle and finally leaned my head back against the tree and closed my eyes. She took my silence for what it was and tried to put her own thoughts into words.

“What did we see?” she repeated, pausing as Clint reappeared through the overgrown bushes like a ghost. “It was crazy! People fighting, smashing stuff… there were even little kids with paintball and pellet guns plinking at people like it was cool. I swear I heard someone playing a drum set. It's a freaking circus. A couple of older guys were walking around in the middle of the street shooting at stuff. It was insane. It's like you hear about those mobs that burn down a police station because there wasn’t enough police to help them. Why in the world would they do that? I don’t get it, it doesn’t make sense!” she rattled on.

"And what're you, bored?" Blake asked sarcastically when he saw me sitting motionless with my eyes still closed.

“We took out... engaged, a couple of hostiles and then got some space and high tailed it out of there,” I ignored his tone and finished the recap for Danielle.

“Okay but what about the propane? Is it there? Can we get to it?” Blake excitedly hurried past the gravity of what we were trying to relay to him and produced the furniture dolly from the back of the truck to help us move the heavy cylinders.

“It's there,” I opened my eyes and confirmed.

“Blake, didn’t you hear me? We’ve got to get out of here!” Danielle was shaking slightly from that perfect mixture of fear and adrenaline.

“Babe, I hear you and I’m sorry, but it’s not like we didn’t know that there are people going nuts in the streets. Heck it’s almost better this way. It’s a perfect distraction. If we can get enough gas we’ll be setup like kings!”

“What do you think?” Blake asked, turning to me, oblivious of the hurt feelings of his wife.

“Dani said it, it’s a mad house.”

“What? Come on! This is the type of shit we can be good at! What’re you afraid of?”

"Don't mistake pessimism for fear," my eyes tried their hardest to bore holes through him. “I’m not all that hot to go wading through people that are hell bent on death and destruction, but I do think that we can still pull it off.” I amended after slightly giving in to the look of disappointment on Blake’s face.

“Okay then,” he visibly brightened.

“No, there’s no way. If that mob comes any closer it’s too far to the cage from where the tunnel comes out and you guys will be hauling a hundreds pounds,” Danielle objected again.

“Look, it’s what we expected. We’re geared up and ready… and we need this. This is nothing, it’s not a surprise, we’re still a go.”

Blake almost sounded exasperated by our assessment of the situation. I could sense he was fighting with his temper and mentally crossed my fingers.

“Clint, what’ve you got?” I asked.

Clint had been quiet as normal, letting everyone else argue about points he had probably already considered.

“Flashlights, Molotovs, car horns, yelling… it’s a full on riot,” he supplied in his ever so helpful way.

“It’s the perfect distraction,” Blake urged again.

Blake’s disregard for the potential problems a mob could pose to us was disconcerting, but not all that alarming at this point either. It was his personality, like it or not, and he wasn’t exactly wrong.

Looking at Danielle, I tilted my head to the side and raised an eyebrow, letting my body language speak for me and conceding Blake’s point that we could still do it.

“Cops are all
gone; we’ve got great access in and out, cover the whole way...” Blake again argued, almost pleading this time.

“Alright how bout this? As long as it stays quiet here, Dani holds this end of things. Clint comes with us for cover and a quick reaction if the crowd turns our way. Blake and I still do all the hard work and heavy lifting,” I tried vainly to lighten the mood a little.

“Good enough,” Clint responded.

I was under no delusion that he approved of our actions. The flip side was that it was as solid of a plan as there could be given the circumstances. He also knew the necessity and benefit of what it would mean if we were successful.

“You okay with that?” Blake stepped over closer to Danielle, finally trying and repair the earlier damage now that it looked like he was going to get his way, I noticed.

“I guess so,” she finally relented.

“And you’re okay with being here on your own for a little bit?” he again asked her.

“Yeah, that’s not a problem,” she hoisted the M-79 look-alike grenade launcher.

“You don’t think it’s so weird now, do you?” I kidded her as Clint slung his rifle and unnecessarily checked the chamber of his pistol one more time. It was loaded. It was always loaded. I realized then that it was as close to a nervous act as I had ever seen from him.

"Hey, let's just do this nice and easy
, a quick in and out. We don’t want to shoot anyone that doesn't pose a visible threat," I reminded Blake while trying to present it as neutrally as possible.

"Did you see anyone with guns?" Clint asked.

"A few here and there, mostly not in the mob itself but you can bet there are people besides us that are armed. And obviously we want to try to go unseen and unheard but if you get spotted by someone with a weapon, don’t hesitate. If they look like a threat then you nail them. Knife, club, rock… whatever. Nail them before they are in range of nailing you. It's not your fault they chose the wrong weapon to try to hurt you with," I pep-talked for everyone.

"Well obviously," Blake dismissed me.

"Dude, hear me out. Dani, you too. You just saw it. Those aren’t all uniformed bad guys out there. Its teenagers, women, kids... they're harder to put your sights on but if you need to do it then
do not
hesitate. For the sake of your own soul, you'd better be damn sure they need to be shot though," I lectured.

"Ahh when did you start believing in souls? Let’s go save Mom!" Blake said it as if it would be a tag line for a movie. He was headed back to the tunnel entrance before I could say anything more.

Clint saw me looking to make eye contact with him and avoided my gaze.

Great.

The three of us rallied together inside the pump house where I checked the short silencer on the end of my converted pistol, knowing that we had now opened the door for the rioters, looters, or anyone else to come into the tunnels from the other side.

"Remember, do whatever you can to not shoot. We fire in here and we all go deaf,” I reminded everyone to not be too jumpy with their guns inside the tunnels.

Pistol and flashlight held in front of me, I led the way quickly through the now not so unfamiliar tunnel. We made good time with no surprises and came out at the other end, Blake hauling the dolly into the room and producing some tie down straps out of his own small backpack.

It looked like the mob had come through the area again from the tracks in the snow. Thankfully they had moved on already and everything was deathly quiet to the point of being able to hear the snow flakes as they hit the ground. I only hoped the rioters were not just circling to come back here one more time. There wasn’t much left intact that they could destroy anyway. They were probably all headed to find a new place to take out their frustrations, maybe down by Timmy’s gas station. They’d get a real warm welcome there from him.

We each eased out of the little room and fanned out. I was looking at the footprints in the snow, following their path to see that a couple had veered off over to the locked cage of propane. With as desperate as everyone was, including us, for something as precious as that, I knew we didn't have long before they came back with something to cut the lock and loot away to their hearts content. We needed to beat them to it.

I was pointing out the tracks to the others when some quick shouts and a glass bottle sailed down and smashed loudly inside the garage. Two gun shots from across the way rang out. Then more yelling and running.

"This is nuts," I heard someone say beneath their breath, the acoustics of the area we were in amplified the voice to be loud enough for us to all hear clearly.

I led the way back over to the building’s corner that Danielle and I had looked out from. The scene of utter chaos and anarchy was still taking place. Surprisingly, I noticed that a few of the bodies that had fallen in the street had been collected, leaving only dark red patches that told of where they fell.

“Set the stage,” Clint directed me, effectively saying that it was my show now.

"Clint, find a spot to over-watch from and hold the area. Blake, let’s leapfrog in the shadows and under cover. There's the cage," I pointed and watched as Clint again checked his rifle and placed a hand on his holstered pistol.

In no time at all Blake and I had gotten to the propane cylinders cage just a couple dozen yards away. As quietly as possible, I checked the chain and was working on hoping I still could pick a lock when Blake bumped me and pointed, reminding me about the bolt cutters in his backpack.

After I rolled my eyes at my own stupidity and impatience, we eased the door open and went in. Besides the chest high racks of bottles that lined the walls, there were other tanks scattered and piled around inside the enclosure. I tested a few of the tanks to be sure they were full and not just empties. They were plenty full, and plenty heavy.

Slinging my AK and hitting the radio, I apprised Clint of the situation. “We’re loaded up and ready. We’ll make three runs. That should give us plenty of full cylinders to bargain with; even more if you want to lug a couple on the last trip with us... sniper up out there.”

“Copy,” the cool and calm voice came back immediately.

“Holy shit,” Blake swore as he picked up a cylinder in each hand.

“C’mon you pussy,” I laughed at him and hefted the pair I’d be taking. I was lucky I was in as good of shape as I
was; these things were heavy as hell.

“Strap 'em up. I can fit three on this dolly and I’ll just carry the last one. Get another batch ready while I run these to the truck,” I huffed at him when we arrived in the little utility room entrance.

I made the awkward trek down the tunnel in good time, having to switch arms more than a few times while carrying the one odd cylinder and pushing the cart hauling the others. By the time I hit the stairs at the truck end, I was breathing hard and dripping sweat despite the cold and snow. The short distance to the back of the truck was still a long way away when I was loaded down with all this stuff.

“First load is here,” I alerted Danielle that I was back. “Everything okay on this end? Over.”

“I’m fine. I thought I heard shots though, are you guys okay? Over.”

“Wasn’t us, we’re all fine. I’ll do another load, then we’re all coming back with a third one and then we’re out of here. Over.”

“Okay... be careful,” she added.

Not such a bitch after all...
Maybe I just hadn't spent a lot of time around her. Plus I was sure she had to be worried about everybody.

I pondered all this as I jogged back to the other side of the tunnel with the moving dolly rolling along in front of me.

Chapter 18

At the other end of the tunnel Blake had four more cylinders all moved and waiting for me. The second trip was no easier, even if I was finding my stride. This time I left the one extra that I had hand carried at the top of the stairs and just went with the dolly to the truck, figuring we’d pick up the lone tank on the last trip.

Happy to be coming towards this end of the tunnel and this entire affair, I started to get a weird feeling. What was it? Shit, I could hear stuff, and right now that was weird. Mashing my radio transmit button I tried to keep my voice steady and collected.

“I’m back again. Sitrep? Over.”

Nothing.

I tried again but was still under ground and the little radios we had were proving to not be able to get a signal out from inside the tunnel. Finally I emerged into the little utility room again. Blake had another two propane cylinders ready to go and I could see two more that had been rolled in on their sides a few feet away. A quick burst of gunfire strung across the driveway to the parking garage made me instinctively duck behind the concrete doorway, only to realize it was Blake that had fired outward from the entrance.

Looking out I saw a scene that I really didn’t want to be seeing. Random piles... bodies... were laying across the expanse of ground from a few feet out right up to the other buildings. There must have been seven to ten of them sprawled out or curled up into a ball. I didn't stop to count as I un-slung my AK and rushed forward towards Blake who was reloading his FAL.

“What the hell happened?” I asked him, allowing him time to take cover and get a spare magazine into his gun.

“Fuckin’ mob came back. Some guys spotted me carrying the last two tanks. Dad hit two of ‘em but the group just split and kept coming. I’ve got two mags left.”

“Where’s Clint?” I asked quickly.

“I'm right here,” he limped slightly into view from around the corner. “Whoa! Friendly, coming in!” he announced as I instinctively spun my gun on him.

“You okay?” I asked, noticing him favoring his right foot.

“Slipped and twisted my ankle, nothing serious... we need to go,” he relayed to us.

“Down!” Blake yelled and quickly fired off two more ear piercing shots out past Clint.

I caught a quick mist of red highlighted against the increasingly heavy snow as one of his bullets found his target.

“Did you see a weapon? Blake!” I reached out and shook his shoulder, seeing his eyes transfixed on the last spot he had shot at. “Were these people armed or what?”

Looking at the fallen bodies in the snow, I couldn't see well enough to tell if any of them even had weapons or not.

“Of course!” he shrugged out of my grasp.

Unsure, I looked at Clint.

“A couple of them fired on him, I fired on those guys and then had to displace. I didn't see the rest of it,” he said slowly realized what I thought had happened.

“I just told you! What? Do you need
him
to tell you they were going to shoot us? You don’t believe me?” Blake ranted and faced me, his FAL barely pointed away from me. “Look I’ll show you...” he began to walk out towards one of the bodies that he had shot, headless of the open space he was venturing out into. That’s when I found out that at least one of them had been armed and was playing possum.

A single shot boomed and hit Blake, his right side jerking back. He continued to fall backwards with the momentum until he hit the ground, then scrambled towards us in a painful and panicked crab walk as Clint cut down the possum. I quickly pumped two suppressed shots from my AK74 into each of the bodies on the ground as if they were the stationary cardboard targets in a training drill like I had shot so many times before.

The split second it took to see my best friend get shot by one of the people I thought he had needlessly murdered was all I needed to decide that I was all-in on taking out any further threats before they got to us. Clint scanned out his side of the garage door entrance, pausing to break off his concentration from his scope and check on Blake every few seconds until he was back under cover with me on the other side of the driveway.

“Where’re you hit?” I called to him and changed magazines.

“Its okay!” he heaved. “The vest caught it.”

“Say again, over.” I suddenly heard Clint say out loud.

“What?” I called over to him and in answer he pointed to his ear. The little radio earpiece speaker had fallen out of my ear. I traced the cord and pressed it back in, hearing the last bit of conversation.

“...coming out of everywhere. If they spot the truck...” Danielle’s voice broke through the airwaves and then clicked off.

Either a part of this rioting group or different one had gathered in her area.

“Keep 'em back. Don’t let them get too close for you to use the smoke and gas. In fact might as well gas ‘em now. We’re on our way back. Save the smoke for when we are on your end and loading up!” I directed into the microphone clipped to my collar. We should never have split the four of us up to leave one person alone.

“You okay to move?” I looked sideways at Blake who I could still hear breathing heavily.

“Hell yes, let's get out of...”

He was drowned out again as I heard and felt the buzz and a sting of hot, metallic splatter on the back of my neck. A small caliber bullet had whizzed in, impacting on the wall behind us and sending it's broken up shards all over. One lucky piece hit my armor on the very upper edge that covered my back, another zinging off my exposed lower neck.

Three more poorl
y aimed shots were sent our way, each one safely missing anything vital as they impacted all around us.

Clint disappeared out of the side of the garage closest to him and I left Blake to cower in safety on the other side of the wall from where I was. Spinning, I brought my gun up and searched for the shooter. I wasn’t thinking about the surprise of having been targeted or the fear or anger of having been hit, I was just focused on the immediate action to be taken. Moving off to the side of the garage opening I headed towards a nearby tree with a park bench and square shaped garbage can that was decoratively adorned in pebbled rock.

As I went with my head up I could see plenty of people still moving around on the street. Even now after all the gunfire, they were still mulling around and screwing around. Looting, smashing and destroying, not caring about any dangers as they focused on expelling their pent up anger and depression.  

"Clint, we've got a small caliber sniper somewhere," I radioed to him instead of yelling.

"No eyes on him yet. You guys okay?" he replied.

"Yeah we’re fine... he had us zeroed though. Until we find him, the door is closed."

I put my hand to my neck, feeling the sting, but not finding much of a blood stain on my gloved hand as I pulled it back.

"Screw it then. What we’ve got will just have to be good enough. Let
's exfil. Over," he advised through the radio again.

"Copy," I replied after making eye contact with Blake and nodding my agreement.

There were two cylinders left where he had dropped them close to the entrance. We both eyed them greedily and I wiggled a smoke grenade in my hand for him to see and prepare one of his own. I stood up, preparing to pull the tab and run back to the safety of the garage.

“Toss your smoke,” I yelled to Blake. “
Let's grab these last-”

One, then two breathtaking blows pushed me to the ground. A third missed so close I could feel the heat and shock wave of the bullet as it passed while I fell.
 Between the snow in my eyes, the darkness of the night and the shock, I could just make out the vision of a stocky guy in military issue gortex camo pants, a white long sleeve tee-shirt and a stupid beanie hat, silhouetted against by the white background, striding boldly toward me.

Christ, that hurt.

"
Four o’clock," I croaked to Clint and Blake after gathering enough breath to make myself heard. Bright lights danced in my eyes and I saw a swirl of movement coming over a small rise and around the sides of two different nearby buildings. Smoke grenade still clenched in my hand, I pulled the pin and tossed it as far as I could toward the oncoming crowd. It went maybe ten feet.

Clint and Blake each immediately changed their aim and cut the guy down, Clint emptying what was left in his AR10 at another shape that had a skinny rifle in its hands. When empty, he immediately grabbed his pistol and fired two more rapid shots back in the direction he had been covering originally. I wondered if the mob really was this big or maybe if Danielle’s CS gas has flushed them right back into us. With my luck and the right amount of wind, that was probably what was happening now.

A pair of feet ran up next to me and then rose into the air as the body they belonged to slammed into the cold hard ground as Blake hit his target.

"Get your ass up out there, we need to move!" Clint called over to me.

His gentle words giving me some urgency, I pushed off the initial worst case scenario fears and felt around with my hands, realizing nothing was broken or penetrated. The armored vest had saved me from two of the large caliber shots, with the third missing me altogether. The pain was incredible and I was wishing I hadn’t left the ceramic plate carrier at home, which would have doubled up on the bulletproof-ness. The old winter coat and heavy clothes I was wearing had helped to deaden some of the force of the fall to the hard ground. It had nearly, but not quite, knocked the wind out of my lungs all on its own.

“Fucker shot me with a snub nose and one of ‘em had a goddamn power drill! Idiots!” I proclaimed to Blake after I had crawled back into the relative safety of the concrete garage, having caught sight of the fallen shooters.

“Hi Point huh? Should’ve just let him keep shooting. Eventually it would've exploded and killed him," Blake deadpanned.

Suddenly his facial expression changed again and he snapped the FAL back into his shoulder and fired off three more earsplitting shots.

Instead of looking to see what it was that he was shooting at, I was transfixed by watching him as he shot. There was an unnerving calmness to him and it could have been a trick or play of what little light there was, but I was pretty sure I could see a faint smile break across his lips.

Did that mean something? Heck I was finding myself becoming more and more calm every time I
pulled the trigger over the last few days. Maybe he was smiling at shooting someone before they loosed a few rounds back at us, I hoped. Whatever it was, it was dark and disheartening to know that he, we, as a society and as a country... all of us had fallen this far.

Two more bottles and a fist sized rock sailed in, tearing me back to the here and now. My first smoke grenade was beginning to dissipate, the orange hue now just a thin transparent cloud. Movement, more movement caught my eye. I looked over to Clint who had joined us again as he was adjusting his gun and had his smoke grenades and a spare rifle magazine all laid out in front of him, looking like he was very much ready to fight, and also very ready to get out of there.

Blake however was still busy keeping peoples heads down. Whenever a new something was thrown our way, be it a rock, bottle or bullet, his FAL would quickly crack out a retaliatory shot. I had assumed that he was just keeping their heads down, firing into the ground or trees near the rioters but as the orange smoke cleared, I started to see the carnage.

It was terrible. He was shooting exactly what he aimed at and the last few I saw, they weren’t even the people who were armed or attacking us. He was shooting the ones who were trying to drag away to safety the other people he had already shot. He was watching as the blood splashed, the cries of the pain that he was inflicting never reached his ears.
 

“Blake!” I yelled. “We’re done here. Get down the tunnel and make sure its clear for us!”

It was the best thing I could think of to get him to peel off and point him in a safer direction. He wasn’t listening. I turned to see Clint toss his two smoke grenades. Green smoke billowed up from the two impact points and I readied my last one to complete the line.

“Hey they’re stealing our propane!” Blake suddenly yelled out.

“What? What the hell’re you talking about?”

“We left the cage open and those guys are stealing it, Look! Get your gun up and help me!”

In the small lull, a couple of quick thinking guys had ducked in to the open storage enclosure and were making off with four of the big white bottles.

Blake fired again, his shot easily hitting home. It wasn't the freezing temperature and it wasn’t the running, dragging and lifting, or the strain from the pain of being shot, the cold sweat that quickly came over me had nothing to do with any those things.

“Fuck dude!” I reached over and pushed the forearm of the FAL away and off target. His face suddenly changed again into complete anger, this time directing it at me, He swung around and jammed the FAL into my side, pulled the trigger and looked down at the locked back bolt. It was empty, but I wasn't.

“What the fuck are you doing?!” I demanded, yanking the FAL out of his grasp by the steaming hot barrel and forcing it backwards into him. His hand reflectively dropped to the Beretta at his side. I saw it coming and locked the pistol down into its holster with my other hand.