The day after: An apocalyptic morning (61 page)

              "But he's just a boy. Are you deliberately putting him in harm's way?"

              "That's where he belongs," Skip said. "I trust him a lot more out there than I would trust anyone else in this group."

              "But..."

              "Quiet," he barked at her. "It's almost time."

              They were quiet but very restless, not just Jessica and Dale, but his entire group. A few of them had pulled guard duty before, a few had even shot at stragglers, but this was the first time that any of them had been in close combat where people were going to actually be shooting back. He could sense the fear and near-panic radiating off of them. It was like a stench almost. He hoped they would hold when the time came. If they held, there was no way that the four men approaching would be able to defeat them. If they panicked however, it was all but assured.

              He spotted movement near the front of the park and a moment later two figures darting from the side of the street and heading for cover behind a large brick planter in the front lawn of a house. "They're here," Skip told his troops. "About two hundred yards north, right along that green and brown single story. I only got two of them so far. Hold your fire until I tell you to shoot." His intention was to let the enemy make the first move. He wanted to spot where their fire was coming from before he wasted precious ammunition returning it. But Dale apparently had different thoughts on the tactical situation.

              "I see one," he screamed, leveling his shotgun in the general direction and pulling the trigger. The 12-gauge boomed as the shell was fired, sending ten pea-sized pellets flying downrange on a gout of flame. The pellets spread out rapidly as they left the barrel, flying in a very un-aerodynamic fashion, and dropped harmlessly to the ground sixty yards short of their target. But before they did so, the sound of the shot reached the enemy, giving away the position of the defenders and destroying any chance of an ambush. The two men reacted quickly, diving to the ground behind the planter.

              "You fucking idiot," Skip yelled as two muzzleflashes suddenly winked at them as the men Dale had shot at shot back. Two more flashes followed a second later twenty yards to the left, both from the corner of the house across the street. Bullets came whizzing in, sounding like angry insects buzzing over their heads. There was a loud ping as one of them struck the jungle gym.

              "They're shooting!" Jessica yelled just as the sound of the gunshots reached them. She too, contrary to two different sets of orders, unleashed a round from her shotgun.

              This threw the rest of the group into a general panic. Guns began to go off one by one and bullets began to fly towards the two houses from which the shots had come, most of them badly aimed and nowhere close to target. A window shattered and a large chunk of a chimney was chipped away. Jessica and Dale both fired their shotguns again, prompting Skip to scream at them to knock that shit off. "Aim for the muzzleflashes," he told the rest. "Use your scopes if you've got them." He himself popped five rounds from his AR-15 at the spot where he'd seen a gun go off.

              The hunters returned fire again and more bullets began to whiz by them. One thunked loudly into the wood just eight inches from Dale and this was just a little too much for him to take. His fear boiled completely over. "They're gonna kill us!" he screamed, leaping to his feet and preparing to bolt.

              "Dale, get the fuck down!" Skip shouted, dropping his rifle and trying to grab him. Just as he got his hand on Dale's leg there was a whiz and a meaty thud. Skip felt him jerk and looked up to see a hole in his back, just above his beltline. He gave a pull and Dale fell to the ground next to him.

              "I'm shot!" Dale yelled. "Oh god, I'm shot!"

              Since Dale was now lying on his back, Skip could see where the bullet had exited. It was not an encouraging sight. Blood was welling from a hole the diameter of a silver dollar. Muscle, fat tissue, and even a small coil of intestine, torn and shredded by the chunk of lead, were clearly visible protruding from the wound. "Jessica," he yelled at her as three more bullets crashed into the wood or whizzed overhead, "Dale's hit! Get over here and put some pressure on this wound. Use a piece of his shirt!"

              Jessica, who was now cowering against the wooden planks, hugging the ground like she thought she might spin off, raised her head up just enough to take a quick look. She hiccupped once and then vomited up the small amount of breakfast she had managed to eat all over Skip's outstretched leg. She then turned and began scrambling to her feet.

              "Jessica, goddammit, get down or you'll get shot!" Skip yelled at her, trying to grab hold of her.

              He missed his grip and she began running towards the community center as fast as she could go. Four other members of his group, two men and two women, seeing her flee, lost the thin margin of control they had been hanging on to. They too jumped up and tried to make a break for it.

              "Stay down and fight, you assholes!" Skip screamed at them. "Don't you dare abandon me!"

              They ignored him and began to run after Jessica. Just as they started to pick up speed, another barrage of bullets came flying in and two of them were hit. Rick Stanton, a former gas station attendant at the Garden Hill Shell station, was struck in the back of the head, snapping it forward and throwing a sizable portion of his brain out onto the ground in front of him. He dropped instantly, falling face-first, and did not move. Sherri Philo, who had been married to a gynecologist before the comet and who was one of Jessica's closest gossip cronies, took one high in the back of the leg, shattering her femur. She staggered forward two more steps and then fell screaming next to Rick. Jessica and the other two who had bolted never looked back. They made the hundred-yard dash to the community center as if they were on fire, throwing themselves through the doorway.

              Two other people had been set to bolt until they saw what fate awaited them if they stood up. They dropped back down just as the next volley of fire came rolling in.

              "Shoot back at them!" Skip yelled. "For God's sake, shoot back at them!" He then poked his head up long enough to unleash six fast shots towards the invaders.

              Finally, left with nothing else to do, his remaining people began to shoot back once more.

              Meanwhile, two hundred yards to the east, on the far side of the community center parking lot, Mick lost two of his group before contact was even made with the enemy approaching them. They heard the pops of gunfire coming from the other side of the building and, despite Mick's pleas and threats, dropped their weapons and ran.

              Though Mick himself had never been in any sort of combat situation, had never even had opportunity to fire at a straggler outside the wall, he held firm, encouraging his remaining troops to hold in place the best he could. With his heart hammering in his chest, he pointed his AK-47 out over the hood of a Ford F-150 and kept his eyes peeled for the invaders. The rest of his group were spread out behind the engine compartments of the other vehicles parked there, two per vehicle.

              Just as the volume of fire from Skip's position began to pick up after a long, discouraging period of non-response, he spotted them. They were spread out and crouched low, darting from the cover of a house on the far side of the park towards a group of trees about twenty yards inside the perimeter.

              "There they are," he called, feeling a strange calmness overtake him now that moment was at hand. "Hold your fire until I shoot. Let's let them get closer in."

              "Closer in?" someone, a male, asked with a trembling voice. "I thought we were trying to drive them away."

              "We're trying to kill them," Mick said firmly, watching as the continued to draw closer. "That's what this is about. We'll chop them up when they get halfway between."

              "But..."

              "Shut up," Mick barked. "Get ready." He tightened his grip on his weapon and began to track the lead man across the top of his sight. "Those of you with shotguns, hold your fire unless they get close in. Everybody else, be sure to use your sights if you can. Don't just fire randomly."

              "Aren't they close enough?" someone else, a female, asked this time. "Mick, they're almost on top of us!"

              "Not yet," he said, his breathing slowing down and becoming more regular. The group made it to the trees and took cover behind it for a moment, temporarily disappearing from view. That was okay. He knew they would reappear in a few moments. To his left, the sound of gunshots from Skip's group continued, mostly rifle shots but with occasional cracks from the AR-15 thrown in. He could also hear at least two people screaming, one, it sounded like Dale, yelling over and over that he was going to die.

              "What the fuck is going on?" someone asked, her voice wavering on the edge of control. "What are they doing?"

              "Patience," Mick said. "They'll head for us in a moment."

              "Keep shooting," Skip told his people, who seemed to have settled down just a bit. "Move a few feet to one side each time you shoot so they don't sight in on you. Take aim at their muzzleflashes through your scopes and try to hit them the next time they pop up. Remember that it takes the bullet a second or two to get there!"

              More bullets plinked in, kicking up splashes of the water that was contained in the sawdust in front of them or flying over the top of them. Occasionally one would hit the wood that was providing cover for them and blow off a chunk of it. Skip fired a few times whenever someone was reloading his or her weapon, just to keep the pressure on, but otherwise conserved his ammo. He knew that these four were not going to rush them. They were just the diversionary group.

              Behind him, both Dale and Sherri were still screaming in pain and fear. He could do nothing but ignore them for the moment since he had no one to spare to offer first aid.

              "Fuck yeah! I got one!" Steve Enders, the former pool man, said excitedly. "I hit him in the fuckin' face!"

              "Good," Skip said, popping off a few more rounds while the woman next to him shoved a few more shells into her gun. He mentally subtracted one from four. "Do it again with someone else now. We can take these fuckers, people if we keep working together. Keep the pressure on them!"

              He sensed some sort of teamwork and camaraderie at work now as battle-lust took over. He was glad for it but could not allow himself the luxury of becoming a part of it. He was responsible for much more than what was going on here. He put his head down and picked up his radio for the first time since the battle had begun. "Mick, this is Skip, what's your status?" he asked into it.

              "We have them in sight in the trees near the northeast corner of the park," was the reply. "We're gonna hit them hard when they try to move in. Be advised that two of my people have deserted."

              "Copy," he said. "I know the feeling. Let the rest of yours know that I got two people hit because they broke cover. They need to stay where the fuck they are when the shooting starts!"

              "They copied you," he said. "I'll keep them here."

              "Right," Skip replied. "Kick some ass. Take out as many as you can. No fucking mercy for these people. Christine, are you with me?"

              "I'm here," she said immediately. "We're still holding in place."

              "Move in," he told her. "Steve dropped one of our guys but I've still got three people holed up at the north end of the park, directly across Cypress. There are two covering to the west side of the brown and white house on the corner and one covering behind the brick planters in front of the green and brown house. We've got them pinned down right now but we're gonna start getting short on ammo here pretty soon. I want you to drop down south to Cypress and then move east until you have a shot at them. Be careful, they're pretty good with those rifles. Once you have a clear line of sight, either take the motherfuckers out or drive them out of cover so that we can. Got it?"

              "We're on our way," she said. "Moving double time."

              "Good girl," he told her. "Let's kick some fuckin' ass, baby."

              "Shit," Mick said, seeing only four people emerge from the trees. They were still in a crouch, weapons held ready, moving quickly towards a grassy knoll about sixty yards from where they had started. The other four enemies, he knew, would be in the trees to cover their advance. Now what?

              "Where are the rest of them?" he was asked. "Mick, they didn't all come out!"

              He thought furiously for a moment, his brain working on overdrive, weighing the various options that he had. Should he attack the ones on the move, therefore alerting the ones in the trees to their presence or should he wait until such a time as both were in the open? But what if both never came into the open? What if by the time they did, they were too close for his un-trained and undisciplined troopers to hit them all?

              "Mick?" the voice was now frantic. "What do we do?"

              "Open fire on them," he said. "Take 'em down."