The day after: An apocalyptic morning (58 page)

              Missy and Jeff were not so lucky. Though both of them were peppered with shrapnel - Missy all over her left hip and flank, Jeff all over his chest and stomach - and although Missy in reflexive surprise had bitten down on Jeff's penis nearly hard enough to sever it, neither had been hit in a vital area. Missy, dazed and bleeding, fell to the right on the bed. Jeff, holding his injured and hemorrhaging dick with both hands, fell backwards. By the time it occurred to them a few seconds later that they were under attack, it was already too late. The pesticide fumes filled the air in the small bedroom and penetrated their lungs, entering the bloodstream via respiration. It was also soaked in through their very pores, the process made even easier by the fact that they were naked and bleeding.

              Both of them tried to crawl to the radio. Neither of them made it more than a foot before their parasympathetic nervous systems rebelled in a big way causing them to simultaneously vomit, defecate, and urinate uncontrollably. They began to choke on their own vomit and a few seconds later, they began to convulse, their bodies flopping around where they lie like fish out of water. It was an agonizing death but thankfully it was a quick one. Less than a minute after the cans had flown in the window, while Bill and the rest of his men were kicking in the front door to clear the building, both of them were dead.

              Paula heard the small beep come from her wristwatch, indicating that it was the top of the hour. She was looking out over the wall, tossing a few ideas - none of which seemed to have much merit - about the Jack and Stacy problem around in her head. Brenda was sitting on the bed behind her, painting her fingernails and chattering on and on about Hector and how she was beginning to suspect that maybe - just maybe mind you - he was leading her on. Paula was about to offer a mildly snide comment about Brenda's powers of deduction when her eyes locked onto a sudden movement directly below her window. Someone had just been right beneath them and was now stepping out into the open.

              Skip, in their firearm training outside the wall, had made them work extensively with the pistols they carried. He had done to his guards what the instructors at the San Joaquin County Sheriff's Academy had done to him over the course of his tenure there. He had made it an instinct to draw their pistol whenever danger presented itself suddenly from close quarters. Paula's .45 was out of her holster and pointing out the window before she even realized what she was looking at.

              All she saw was a dirty, bearded man, which meant he was a straggler. He had somehow gotten inside the wall and right up to her position, which meant he was dangerous. He had something - she did not have time to identify it - in his hand and he was cocking his arm back to throw it at her. Her brain quickly processed all of this and came to the firm conclusion that she was in mortal danger. Without pausing to send this information to her higher brain, where it could mulled over and completely analyzed before a decision was made, the lower part of her brain, the part concerned with basic survival instincts, commanded her to fire the gun. She pointed it at the center mass of the man and began pulling the trigger.

              Brenda screamed behind her as the gun in Paula's hand began to explode with noise and expended shell casings began to fly around the room. Paula had no idea how many times she shot him but she clearly saw bullets impacting his chest and spraying blood out behind him. Just as he started to drop, just as the object that he had been about to throw fell from his hand, another figure emerged right behind him. He too had an object in his hand and he too quickly turned and prepared to hurl it.

              Before she could shift her fire to him or even properly process the fact that he was a new threat, the Raid-bomb from the first man hit the driveway and detonated. Some of the shrapnel and the fumes managed to blast upward towards Paula. She felt a sting in her right arm as a piece of aluminum sliced into it. The gun dropped from her hand and clattered to the ground below. But the majority of the blast hit the two people on the ground. The one she had shot was falling forward at the time and took much of it in the chest. The one about to throw the second bomb felt metal slice into his ankles and thighs. His arm was halfway through the throwing motion when the explosion occurred but it was just enough to throw his aim off. His bomb flew upward and struck the side of the house two feet to the right of the window, exploding almost harmlessly ten feet up.

              John Kramer, who, along with the rest of his force, was positioned thirty feet away along the fence line to the side of the house, watched helplessly as his carefully formulated plan began to fall apart. First that idiot falling off the wall early that morning when they had penetrated, almost giving them away, and now this. How had that guard in there shot so quickly? How could anybody react that fast? Now one of his men was dead on the ground and the other was already starting to choke and gag from the effects of the insecticide cloud that was enveloping him. And the two armed guards in that house were still alive. They would be calling in to the community center any moment on their walkie-talkies.

              "Shoot them through the wall," Kramer barked at his men. He pointed to the side of the house above the garage. "They're right behind that wall! Everybody! Start shooting!"

              With almost military precision they swung their hunting rifles upward, knowing that the .30 caliber, high velocity bullets would punch through the thin layer of plaster and sheetrock as easily as a BB fired from a child's gun would punch through a sheet of paper. They began to fire.

              Brenda was still screaming as the noxious fumes of the pesticide started to penetrate through the open window. Paula yelled at her to shut the fuck up (which she did not do) and took a moment to look at her wrist. There was a piece of thin, black metal protruding from the side of it, about half an inch sticking out. Blood was oozing slowly around the sides. She moved all of her fingers and found that they still worked as they were supposed to. She pulled the metal free and threw it to the floor, an act that caused the bleeding to increase.

              Outside, the second attacker, the one who had thrown the can against the side of the house, had fallen to the ground and was convulsing rather grotesquely. Even from fifteen feet away, even over the odor of the pesticide itself, she could smell the sharp stench of feces rising up. Nerve gas of some kind, her well-read mind told her. That was what they had tried to attack with although both of the bomb throwers also had rifles. Who the hell were these people and how many of them were out there?

              Dripping blood on the floor, she picked up the M-16 from its place with one hand and the rifle with the other. She tried to hand Brenda the rifle but she was in complete hysterics and wouldn't take it.

              "Brenda, goddammit, someone's trying to attack us! Take the fucking rifle!"

              "Ahhhh, ohhhh Goddd, ohhhh Goddddd!"

              "Shit," Paula muttered, throwing the rifle to the ground and starting to head for the radio. Just then there was a pop from behind her and something whizzed over her shoulder. It was quickly followed by five or six other pops and whizzes and holes began to appear in the ceiling and the upper part of the wall. Just as this registered, the sound of gunshots from outside reached her and she realized that she was being shot at. Terrified, but still acting instinctively, she threw herself to the carpet. "Brenda," she yelled, seeing with horror that she was still standing and screaming. "Get down!"

              Brenda got down, but not because of voluntary action. Though the first volley of shots from the outside missed her cleanly, the second volley did not. Two of the high caliber bullets hit her, one in the chest, the other in the throat. She fell to the ground in a heap, gagging and gurgling.

              "Brenda!" Paula yelled, knowing by the way that blood was pouring onto the carpet that there was nothing to be done. "Shit!"

              The gunshots continued to echo from outside and the bullets continued to fly through the plaster and whiz through the air above her. How many fucking people were shooting out there? She needed to get the hell out of the room but first she needed to report what was going on. She began to belly-crawl over the carpet towards the window, where the walkie-talkie was, dragging the M-16 behind her. As she reached up to grab it, one of the bullets whizzed so close to her hand that she was able to feel the wind of its passage.

              "Jesus," she said, bringing her hand back down and instead rocking the table until the radio fell off. She picked it up quickly, fumbling with it for a moment and trying to orient it towards her face. Just as she was about to key up, the gunfire abruptly stopped. It did not taper off, it just stopped instantly, as if a switch had been thrown.

              "Hold your fire!" John had yelled at his men an instant before. Used to following orders from him, they had done just that, lowering their weapons a bit.

              "We probably hit them," he said, projecting more confidence than he felt. Though logically the bullets should have hit anyone in that room at least once, he was smart enough to know that once things started to go wrong, the trend usually continued. "But we need to be sure. Main group, reload as fast as you can. Jed," he said, pointing at one of the better men of his group. "Get your pistol out and let's clear that house! We're moving in!"

              They pulled their sidearms, letting their rifles hang from their shoulders, and started to move in.

              Meanwhile, at guard position 3, Bill had already determined that all three of his targets were down. One quick glance inside the upstairs bedroom had been enough to convince him, which was a good thing since one quick glance was all he could take, so strong were the odors.

              By the time they made it back down the stairs and outside, the sound of gunfire from the west reached their ears. It was very faint, barely audible over the constant sound of the rain, but it was unmistakable. There was shooting from the first guard post. Shooting meant that something had gone wrong.

              We need to get over there as fast as we can," Bill told his men as he shouldered his rifle. "Follow me. Keep a sharp eye out and make triple time. Let's go!"

              They began to run through the streets, their feet splashing through the puddles.

              Faintly, over the sounds of the rain, Paula heard a male voice yelling something, the tone that of an order. Only three words were clear from the entire statement: "We're moving in."

              Though not a military expert by any means, Paula knew what that phrase had to mean. They were going to attempt to storm her position. She leapt to her feet so fast it looked like she had been burned. Moving at a speed she would not have thought possible, she dove through the bedroom door and tore around the corner of the hall, the M-16 in one hand, the radio in the other. She threw herself back to the carpet next to the staircase, pointing the rifle between two slats of the railing. She now had a clear shot of the front door, the most likely avenue of entry. It was still closed and locked, just like it should be. If they came through the back instead this was still the ideal place since they would have to pass in front of her before they could mount the stairs.

              Keeping one hand on the rifle, she keyed the walkie-talkie. "Skip," she yelled into it, "this is position 2. We're under attack!"

              Before he could answer her, the front door was kicked violently open. Two men with pistols in their hands tried to rush through it. She let the radio drop from her hands and gripped the M-16. It was currently set on single fire but that was not a serious disadvantage. She began to shoot, pulling the trigger as fast as her finger could perform the motions. The two men were both killed before they made it more than two steps into the house. They dropped in the entryway, spilling blood on the marble tile.

              Paula, who had no idea she had just killed the leader of the attackers, kept the rifle trained out over the doorway, waiting for more to try their luck. From the radio next to her, Skip's voice was asking her to repeat what she had just said.

              "There's someone still in there!" one of the hunters outside yelled as he heard the gunfire.

              "Shit," someone else put in. "They must've got John and Pete!"

              "John!" another began to scream, hoping for an answer. "John, you all right?"

              Silence was the only answer and the men, now reduced to four in number, shifted their rifles back and forth uneasily, not knowing what to do next. John had been their leader! Though they had turned into fairly accomplished fighting men since the comet, none of them had the ability to lead and make critical fighting decisions. John and Bill had deliberately withheld such training and practice from them in fear of having one of the underlings try to take over.

              Not knowing what to do next, they did nothing, simply holding in place. Bill would come soon, they knew. Bill would be able to tell them what to do.

              Skip, like most people in town, had been eating breakfast in the gym. He was sitting at a table with Paul and Mick, who had taken his mental health night off the previous evening and was therefore enjoying the novelty of eating breakfast with everyone else. The three men had been quietly discussion the possibility of organizing the other men in defiance of voting Stacy from town. Though they agreed that it would segregate the town along gender lines and send a message that they, as men, had the power to veto any decision by mere women, they really didn't see any other avenue to choose.