Pilliars in the Fall (21 page)

“Hey! Get it together!” I shook him, pleading.

The sound of an incoming round zinging off the concrete refocused Blake’s eyes. His head snapped around and he turned. His explosive shove caught me off guard and I fell away, saving me just as another rock impacted off the space on the wall where I had been kneeling moments ago. A loud chorus of shotgun blasts followed and Blake’s Beretta burped out a quick burst, and then another as he found the attackers. One more blast emptied the machine pistol and loosened the grip the rioter must have had on a molotov cocktail as a sheet of flame suddenly back-lit the snow filled air and ground.

I had just enough wits left to scramble away from the shotgun pellet impacts and back into the utility room before Blake found his new targets. Looking out, I could see that Clint wasn't quite pinned down, but he wasn't able to really get over to us either. Then I realized he was holding his leg, a dark blood spot growing under his hand. One of the shotgun pellets had found a mark.

“Flesh wound, I'm fine,” Clint’s voice radioed into my ear and I watched him rip open a bandage and wrap it around his own leg.

Through the colored smoke, two flashlights highlighted the propane cage. The way the lights were moving I could tell they were attached to shoulder mounted guns. Not good. Blake must have realized it too as he shoved a fresh mag into his pistol and took aim.

We had lost the initiative; we had lost our hiding place, and again, we would be losing our smoke screen quickly if we didn’t get out of here. Blake didn't care. He was fixated, now trying to pinpoint through it all with his pistol’s sights, taking careful aim at the surreal glow of a flashlight in the fog.

I couldn’t stop him. I was too far away now to physically reach out and drag him away, and with a fresh gun he would probably just cut me down before he knew what he was doing. A desperate and perverse thought crossed my mind that I may have to be the one to shoot him. Not kill him, just get him to end the massacre. He still had on his armored vest but I knew a high speed bullet from my AK74 would cut right through it. I wondered if he would even feel the impact of the little .22 pistol I had as my only other means.

Unconsciously, my hand drifted down and began to lift the pistol out of its holster. Would the .22 rock him enough to jolt him back to reality again or would it just get his attention enough to see me as another threat?

He fired another single shot. I watched as the plumes of light from where he was aiming, swiveled and illuminated the garage entrance, cutting through the disappearing fog. Clint’s big AR boomed and one of the lights immediately dropped to the ground. The other gun opened up, dumping what must have been a full magazine into the garage.

While I waited for the shooting to end, a telltale hissing sound grabbed my attention. One of the rounds had hit one of the last propane tanks still in the open and it was venting the pressurized gas right into us. If anything lit that off, we’d all be shredded by the shrapnel and cooked alive.

I started firing my suppressed CZ into the night air where the last flashlight had been. If I was lucky, the guy had just turned off his light and stayed in one spot to change mags. If I was unlucky, he had cut his light to move to a new spot and we were dead.

“Blake, toss it!” I screamed desperately to get his attention. He sa
t dumbfounded for half a second and then sprang painfully towards the leaking tank. Scooping it up by its rolled metal handle, he stood and with one hand swung it forward, then back to gain momentum. On its next trip forward he released the tank to go sailing off heavily into the air and thump down out in front of us. Turning to me with a big stupid grin, I looked at him and shook my head in relief... and then I screamed.

Three separate small caliber rounds tore into Blake’s leg and side as he stood. Burning, searing pain forced a muffled howl from his lips, the shock overcoming all else. His leg collapsed under his weight, sending his body even further out into the partially exposed garage entrance. I screamed again as I watched yet another bullet tear open his shoulder, his hand shooting up to cover the wound.

The bullets from the invisible shooter just wouldn't stop. With random monotony, they kept up the deadly barrage. They impacted the ground, pinged off the walls and one, one lucky little bullet managed to find another piece of metal to strike a spark. Seeing that, I fell away, back into the relative safety of the utility room again. Before completing my retreat, I saw another flaming rag stuffed into the mouth of a bottle come floating ominously our way through the air.

The blast rocked everything. The molotov landed close enough to spread its flames into the still venting propane cylinder that Blake had tried to throw away and in the darkness had only managed to send it out a few yards.

I blinked slowly, staring dumbly at my empty hands. The ringing subsided quickly to be replaced by a muffled feeling, like I was wearing thick earmuffs. Blinking again, I shook my head and my focus came back. There was the pistol I had dropped, why was it sideways? Because I was sideways. Even in the little room, I had been thrown back by the concussion and I found myself lying with my legs out against the back wall.

I rolled upright and my head flooded with a mix of pain and vertigo. Something else was different, it wasn't just my muffled hearing
; there was no more noise. No more gunshots intent on killing us, pierced the air. I guess they figured they didn't need to waste any more ammo in our direction after a blast like that.

Slowly, I looked out of the doorway. Snow and dust hung in the air. The eerie greens and oranges of our smoke grenades were gone. Clint was slumped in a corner and not moving. Blake’s legs, scratch that, one of his legs was doing what it could to scoot him forward. He was lying prone on his back, still in the entrance, his gun up and searching for targets. Somehow he was still alive and fighting.

I was done with this shit.

Tearing open another smoke grenade, I tossed it out the open doorway and with my head still swimming, dashed to pull him back into the cover of the concrete tunnel entrance. As gently as I could, I yanked him into the doorway of the utility room and dove to the other side as new shots again pounded into the area. My movement apparently was an inviting target to
whomever it was that was now walking in a crouch right up the middle of the driveway.

I scrambled to my feet to swing my AK back around and watched as Blake, with
one hand, reloaded his Beretta and then cut the man down.

Throwing his upper half forward, Blake pulled himself to a spot where he could cover me as I retrieved Clint.

I shakily got to my feet and checked Clint's breathing, he was out cold. A large lump had already grown on his head and the bandage on his leg was a bright red but it hadn’t soaked through. He was stable and holding. I gingerly checked his neck and everything felt fine. If I had to carry him I could, I really didn’t want to have to do that though.

"Common Clint, we’ve got shit to do. I need you to get up man!" I yelled at his un-listening ears and lightly slapped his cheek.

"Fuck!"

Two more rocks and a full beer can crashed into the area, the can foaming angrily. Amazingly after all this, there was still someone out there. Desperate to secure the precious propane still in the enclosure, they were not willing to give up. I understood it. It was the same thing we were doing
here; it meant life or death... for all of us.

Blake checked his magazine and rammed it back into his gun.

 Hacking out a cough I tried speaking; first out loud, then using the radio and pointing to it.

"Move back to the tunnel!"

We had to go, there was no way we'd last any longer if we stayed stalled out here and I couldn't carry them both. All I received in return was a thumbs down from him. Either his radio was out, or he was telling me...

He looked at me and tried to speak, mouthing the word "GO” but no sound came out. Staring into his eyes, the message was clear. Despite the abject fear, Blake had finally regained some clarity. He was aware that to kill the evil devil on his shoulder, the angel on his other shoulder would have to die too.

Blake pulled himself upright again, dragging his useless leg with him to sit against the wall on the other side of the garage entrance only ten feet away and completely out of my reach or ability to help him.

Another burp of automatic fire erupted from his pistol and he swung his head lazily to look back at me, eyes imploring, demanding, pleading me to go while there was still time. Looking at Clint still unconscious behind me, I shook my head. I couldn't leave Blake here, no matter what he had done or how messed up his head was, he was my best friend. I couldn't abandon him to save my own ass.

That's not what was happening though. He was sacrificing himself for what last good deed he could do. It wouldn't right his wrongs, but it would right himself.

I slung Clint’s gun along with my own onto my back and picked him up in a fireman’s carry. Blake fired again indiscriminately, giving me the cover I needed to get across the open space. His eyes burned into mine, yelling at me and at himself for deeds past and present.

"I'm sorry man. God I'm sorry. I'll get him out of here and come back for you. Stay down, get out of sight. I'm coming back alright, I'll be right back!"

He shook his head slowly from side to side, telling me not to return, that it would be for nothing. I looked out one last time before maneuvering Clint’s form into the tunnel. Blake was calmly sitting and looking out and up into the air, pondering the fresh, clean falling snow flakes.

Chapter 19

Knees screaming, arms numb, veins stretched and ready to pop out of my skin. Sweat’s dripping; stinging my eyes. My muscles were past needing to give up. I was moving on full willpower now. If I stopped for even a second I wouldn’t start again. The pit of my stomach hurt and I couldn’t force enough air back into my lungs.

I’ve been here before
...

My brain was working hard to realize simple things over the stress and strain. One more side door in the tunnel and then the stairs and I’d be back on Danielle’s end. Danielle. What would I tell her?

I stumbled again. Eye sight getting dark and narrow... a weird occurrence when you’re already in a tunnel. I was right on the edge of blacking out; right on that easy slide to dreamland. Legs doing something... I don't know what. Arms swimming in heavy water...

Just give in
.

It’d be so easy to stop and drop down. Curl up in a ball and rest. No more fear. No more pain. No more being tired.

“Keep going,” I grunted out loud to prod myself along.

Step after long, heavy step, I was giving in. The unending tunnel was going to win until an audible crack, loud and piercing, snapped me back to the
present again. Two, three, four different ones... not as loud. Then a snap quickly followed by a “thwump.” It was the sound of a grenade igniting and leaving its launcher tube. I was finally on the other side and Danielle was fighting to hold the ground for us.

 
The stairs. There were maybe six of them and they looked insurmountable. I steadied myself and muscled one leg up the first tread, then the next one. I finally lost it at the last step and fell, tumbling out and delivering Clint with all the gentleness of dropping a slab of roofing shingles.

A woman’s scream echoed across to my ears. Her second one abruptly muffled and cut short. Then another shot, close and thankfully distinctly recognizable as the M1 Carbine.

Slithering around the propane tank I had left in the way earlier, I made my way towards the doorway outside. Un-slinging the two guns on my back I grabbed whatever one would free itself first from the tangled mess of straps. Looking at what appeared in my hands, it was Clint’s AR10. I tapped its butt stock loudly against the floor grate inside the pump house and managed to croak out a call of “Friendlies!”

Danielle was just outside the doorway, crouched with her gun pointed in the other direction.

“It's about goddamn time! Where the hell have you...” she stopped talking when she finally looked at me. I must’ve looked like I felt.

Looking past her I surveyed the landscape. She had been giving someone hell, that’s for sure. White smoke curled from the last smoke canister that she had launched about sixty yards away. The remnants of her previous shots hung like a fog and the scratch in my throat and eyes told me she had used the CS rounds too. Not too far away from the truck a teenaged girl was doubled over and crying. A crumpled shape next to her the only evidence of Danielle’s handiwork in what I assumed was a guy intent on attacking her.

A building about two hundred yards away had been torched by the rioters and was fully engulfed in flame. The sounds of the fire muffled and distorted my hearing and its pulsing light and smoke wasn’t helping matters any.

Two more bezerkering idiots appeared through what was left of Danielle’s chemical cloud, one’s shotgun booming as he ran and the other holding a metal pipe in a ridiculous mismatched joust. Our two guns fired at the same time, cutting down the “winner.”

“Where’s Blake?!” Danielle screamed through her own ringing ears. Things had not been going well at the entrance of the tunnel either.

“He’s covering our exit. Stay here with Clint. Check him out and cover me. I’m going to run to the truck, bring it over here and grab Clint.”

“As soon as you start it up you’ll be overrun!” Danielle reasoned.

“Okay, you’re right. Cover us as I carry him. Then you stay at the truck and cover me again as I grab the last bottle and get it loaded. After that, you take the truck back to the clinic. Can you find it from here?”

Yeah like I had the energy reserves for all of that.

“I think so but what about Blake?” she demanded after quickly processing the plan.

“I’ll go back in for him while you get Clint out of here.”

I knew as I was saying it that it was a lie of false hope. It was the only thing I could think of to keep her moving and not fall apart. I had to keep her working and motivated, myself too.

“What's the matter with him? Is he hurt? Is he shot? Wait, are you shot?” she fired the questions at me, finally taking notice of the blood on my neck and the way I winced as I struggled to pick up Clint again.

“We’re all hit... now keep me a clear path!” I yelled and I took off with unsteady legs.

My lungs were on fire from breathing in the cold air so deeply. Danielle was quick to react, leaving her place of cover and retreating from the small wall, tailing me until she dashed ahead to unlock the truck.

I was having a seriously hard time keeping my legs under me now and ten feet from the truck one of them finally gave out. I went down to one knee, somehow saving myself and my cargo from doubling over. I breathed deep and steadied myself. The sounds of shouting and people stomping around intermingled with the blood pounding in my ears. I looked up and realized that even the whimpering girl that Danielle had helped earlier had disappeared. A random flashlight beam bounced along, then turned aside as it neared the truck.

More jeers and yells rose up again seemingly from all around us.

“Hey over here! Look what they’ve got!” I keyed in on one burly voice and saw a big guy in a puffy coat pointing at us from all of fifteen feet away. I couldn't even think about getting to my AK or Clint’s AR and Danielle was on the wrong side of the truck; bad luck for him. Adrenaline maxed out, my sausage fingers fumbled and finally drew my pistol. Unable to count the diminutive rounds from the little .22 caliber conversion, I emptied the gun into the puffy coat in a flurry of trigger pulls and flying down stuffing. To his credit, the guy actually managed to swear and run off.

I’d have to practice my stress point shooting a little more if I lived through the night; I made the snide mental note.

Unsure if my muscles would respond or not, I pu
shed and stood somewhat upright, or at least enough to let me try walking. Finally reaching the truck, I lowered Clint down to lean against a tire. The jolt finally bringing him back to, like a loud noise shocking someone out of a deep sleep, and he targeted the first thing he saw with his immediate fight or flight response, me.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa!” I yelled pinning his arms down, trying the exact wrong tactic to calm someone down. “You’re all right. Calm down, get your bearings for a minute.”

“Where are we?” he managed to get out at last, rubbing his head to clear the cobwebs.

“Other end of the tunnel trying to hide and outrun a murderous mob.”

“We all here?” he asked, obviously recalling the scene from the last few seconds before he got knocked out.

“Dani’s right over there,” I pointed. “Can you cover me from here? I’ve got to get back into the tunnel.” I gave him all the answer I could manage right now.

“Do it,” he forced his eyes wide open then let them level off.

“Does she know?” Clint asked while he checked his gun that I handed back to him.

“No.”

The shock and pain on his face was obviously redoubled now but Clint knew the score and knew that our immediate problem was the one to focus on.

“Dani, you still on the net?” I pushed the little transmit button for my radio and asked quietly.

“I’m here,” she confirmed after a second of silence.

“Clint’s back in it so here’s what we’re doing. He’s covering the cross street, I’m going to make my last run.”

“Got it, go!” she responded quickly.

I was exhausted but felt light as a feather now that I was unburdened on my last run back to the pump house. Ducking inside, I stopped to catch my breath again and a flashlight beam swung across the doorway.

“Bet there’s some cool shit in there!” I heard a young voice exclaim, followed by three rapid “clunks” of heavy 308 bullets tearing up the ground in front of the brick structure.

“What the hell was that?” the voice asked, soon followed by a separate one saying, “Screw this, hey let’s go see what those guys’re doing!”

I breathed a heavy sigh of relief and loosened the grip on my AK. The last bottle of propane sat idly by, innocently daring me to pick it up.

“I’m not so heavy; it’s just a little further.”

“Crowd is forming; lots of 'em headed your way. You’re going to be cut off in about ten seconds.” Clint’s voice came over the radio and into my already throbbing head. “Gotta leave the gas.”

A piece of the nearby building that was on fire crashed heavily down and the renewed roar of the fire sounded like a jet engine. I could feel its heat from in here. A barrage of gunshots broke out and I stuck my head through the doorway to find their source. It wasn’t a crowd; it was a sea of people. They were armed and pissed.

“We don’t have enough yet!” I implored through the radio. “Can you drive them back? Or hell, drive the truck over here and I’ll throw the last one in.”

“Truck’s a bullet magnet, you know that. Leave it. We’ll have to make do.” Clint reasoned with me and calmly shot a metal street sign to get the crowd’s attention away from me. No one seemed to notice as they swarmed closer.

Well this just sucks.

A quick smattering of shotgun pellets bouncing off the brick followed by the unmistakable sound of glass breaking drove me back into the little one room structure. I looked around the bare room desperately. Nothing had changed but a foreboding feeling had crept in from somewhere. The lone propane container still just sat there, but now it was staring menacingly at me.

“Smoke?” I yelled to Dani through the radio, desperate for a distraction to cover my retreat.

“We’re out!” she radioed back.

“Fuck... light something on fire then!”

“Like what?” she yelled back.

She was right. The snow was really coming down now and there was nothing that would light easily in this concrete jungle anyway.

“I don’t care what you …”
Aw shit.
I finally realized what the foreboding feeling was. It was a really bad idea forming. “Do you have any flares left?” I asked hesitantly.

“Yes!” she responded.

I paused and stared back at the silver colored asshole that was sharing the room with me.

“Alright, load one up... and range into the pump house,” I radioed back calmly to her.

“What?” her predictable response came immediately back.

“I’ll drive them back with a few shots, open up the last tank, fog the place, then get clear for you to launch a flare into it,” I explained unhappily.

“If the building goes, you won't be able to get back out,” Clint’s voice broke into the conversation.

“Just do it. I’m going back down there anyway... just means we come back overland,” I said guiltily knowing that I was playing a cheating card to get them to light the propane and that there would be no “we.”

“Once it’s done, get in the truck and get out of here. I’ll make for the clinic but worst case is that we meet back at your place. If the Doc doesn’t think its enough, make him think otherwise,” I released the button and finally dug out a box of .22 shells to reload my pistol with.

“We’ll wait for you guys at the truck,” Danielle’s disconnected voice said into my ear.

“No. These guys will overrun all of us and go for the truck, propane and everything else... including you. You’ve got to go now before someone gets their shit together and closes the roads. I’ll start the countdown and you finish it,” I cut off the non-negotiation and took aim at the doorway with both hands on my gun, then let out a big sigh.

Lashing out with my foot, I swatted the tank and it tipped lazily to the side, then finally lost its balance and rolled noisily down the stairs. Going slowly backwards down the stairs to keep my gun on the doorway, I reached the bottom and placed my hand on the round handle and started slowly counting down into the radio.

“Ten...nine... eight...”
This is a really bad idea...