United States Of Apocalypse Page 25

  “It’s a fucking ambush.” Mike squinted into his scope, desperately seeking a target that had not yet exposed itself.

  “They see it,” Tynes said right before the first rifle report rang out. A seven inch trap door on the side of the truck bed slid open, and the barrel of a rifle appeared. The man pulling his wife back towards the compound was hurtled forward as a bullet slammed into his back, sending him sprawling to the ground chin first, his arms rendered useless when the projectile severed his spine. His wife dropped down next to him, grabbing his arm. She stood and tried to drag him, her head rocked to the side as a bullet nearly scalped her, sending brain matter spewing all over the baby in her arms. Her arms instinctively wrapped around the child as she collapsed on the ground next to her dying husband.

  Mike felt like things were happening in slow motion. He watched in horrifying detail as the woman’s mouth opened—he wouldn’t swear it on a stack of bibles, but he was pretty sure he witnessed her soul exit her body in a wisp of white. Two more ports slid open. Mike saw the muzzle of a wicked-looking machine gun poke out. Long licks of fire erupted from the barrel as multiple bullets flew downrange and into the confused, exposed group. People were nearly cut in half from the relentless hail of hot lead. Those that weren’t immediately gunned down, impotently sought a refuge they had no hope of reaching.

  The dump truck was receiving return fire, but the ports were small enough and the metal thick enough that most of the shots were ineffectual. Mike did his best to calm his breathing and use all the tricks his father had taught him regarding targeting. He centered his front sight post within the peep scope simultaneously focusing on the post. He gently eased the trigger back, making sure that when it finally fired, it would surprise him as well as the person he hoped the bullet would obliterate. He rocked back slightly as his body absorbed the recoil. The muzzle of the machine gun launched backwards as Mike’s bullet hit the gunner in the nose. The round scraped off the soft cartilage and pitched upwards, neatly bisecting the man’s brain. His hands reflexively clamped down on the trigger, sending sprays of bullets harmlessly overhead.

  “That you, Talbot?” Tynes asked.

  “I think so.”

  “Good job. Now keep shooting,” Sergeant Yonts said, not skipping a beat as she continued to fire. Most of the people that had sought a peaceful exodus from the coming fray were dead or dying. Five were nearly within the relatively safe embrace of their peers, and the guardsmen were doing their best to ensure that they made it. Gunfire intensified on both sides to a crescendo and then dropped off when the five made it back inside. There were cries for mercy from those bleeding on the street. Pembroke’s men did not shoot them; the injured were left as potential lures to force the Guard to attempt a rescue, exposing more of them to slaughter.

  “Just kill them,” Mike pleaded. Their suffering was nearly unbearable for all those witnessing it.

  “We need to get them,” Sergeant Yonts said.

  “With what? You have a tank?” Mike asked.

  “No, but close.” She got up and started running. Mike followed. Tynes grunted and did the same.

  “She’s fast; our kids could be track stars,” Mike said as he descended the steps and headed out of the building. The sergeant was a good twenty yards ahead.

  Tynes nearly bowled Mike over as he caught up.

  “Where’s she going?” He asked.

  “Motor pool.” Mike pointed as he ran. They could hear the start of a large diesel engine as a plume of black smoke shot into the air.

  “Hurry up,” the sergeant urged. Mike and Tynes dived into the back of the troop transport.

  “This will stop a bullet?” Mike asked touching the walls.

  “Should,” was her one word reply.

  “Should?”

  “Never been tested—and remember, this stuff is all bought from the lowest bidder. Could be brittle steel like what they used for the Titanic.”

  “Sergeant—”

  “Tracy, my name is Tracy. Even with the uniform, it’s safe to say that you’re not military, so you can stop calling me sergeant. Open the gate!” she shouted while also blaring the horn.

  Mike was rolling her name along his tongue when bullets began to impact the truck, sounding like a epileptic clapper from inside a gigantic iron bell. The thin strip of glass that was the windshield began to star and crack as shots made contact. Mike flinched with each new ping, yet Tracy drove on, undeterred.

  “Doesn’t this thing have any way of defending itself?” Tynes was looking for weaponry.

  “No, the machine gun is in maintenance.”

  “Ah, perfect.”

  So many rounds were being fired, it sounded like one continuous reverberation. Thinking was out of the question, communication as well. Tracy pulled up in front of the mass of dead and wounded, using the truck to shield them from further injury and insult.

  “Move!”

  Tynes was already out the back, Mike close behind.

  “Only the living!” Tynes yelled needlessly.

  Mike was shocked into momentary immobility as he witnessed the destruction of so many humans up close. The soldiers were one thing, but the butchered and battered bodies of the women and children were too much for him to take. He turned his head to the side and let go of everything he’d eaten in the last year.

  “Not the easiest thing to witness,” Tynes said almost tenderly. He had a woman cradled in his arms and was moving toward the truck. “But you can get sick later, Mike. We don’t have the time right now.”

  Mike managed a grunt and dragged his sleeve across his mouth; long lines of bile coated his arm. He held no hope for the survival of those rescued. Their bodies were pierced, their blood nearly drained. If nothing else, he thought, they would get a proper burial. At least he could give them that.

  “We’ve got company!” Tracy shouted. “Grab who you can and get back in!”

  Mike panicked. There were two with their hands outstretched and maybe another three who were pleading at him with their eyes.

  “Tynes, help me!” He was dragging two people along the ground.

  “Mike, there’s no time! Get in the truck!”

  “Can’t!”

  “You had better not get me killed!” Tynes roared as he came back out.

  “What are you two doing?” Tracy turned to look. “For the love of all that is holy.” She checked her weapon, opened the driver’s door and used it as a shield as she leaned out. She fired multiple rounds, causing those who were coming closer to rethink their choices in life. She hit two, killing one instantly. The rest dispersed, heading back to safety behind the dump truck. “Uh-oh,” she said when a plume of smoke signified the starting of the armored truck. “We’re about to have some large uninvited guests! Get in! And that’s an order!”

  Mike and Tynes were carrying the last of the living, including a baby. Mike still had one foot on the roadway when the carrier began to back up. He was roughly yanked up, Tynes grabbed and steadied him, when he was inside.

  “Thanks.” Mike paled. He’d turned to give the driver a piece of his mind when he realized the entire front of the windshield was dominated by the grill of the dump truck that was bearing down on them.

  “Get down! I can’t see!” Tracy said. She’d turned and was looking through the rear door which was still standing open. Mike dove to the right, Tynes to the left. The carrier swayed violently from side to side as she applied more gas, every slight adjustment on the steering wheel threatening to turn the top-heavy vehicle over on its side. Mike grabbed a rail on his side at the first jarring impact of the dump truck slamming into the front end of the troop transport. Loud squeals erupted from the front as the tires were pushed violently to the side, leaving large black swaths of rubber on the roadway.

  There was a moment when Tracy overcompensated and the left side of the truck raised up off the ground. Mike thought briefly how much it would suck to have Tynes land on him if they did flip. Another strike from the dump truck
actually leveled them back down with a jarring jolt; blood ran from Mike’s mouth where he bit into his cheek. He couldn’t hear much over the mighty diesel engines pumping loudly and the tortured radiator fan of the carrier striking against everything in its path inside the compressed engine compartment as the dump truck crushed it further into the body. Gunfire could be heard, but for once, it was not ricocheting off their hull. The dump truck began to slow and then moved away. Mike could not tell from his vantage point if it was going backward or had merely stopped. Either way, what he heard next nearly brought tears to his eyes. It was the eruption of a wild chorus of cheers as the carrier popped and groaned its way back through the gates of the compound.

  “Damned fools!” The colonel was outside the truck along with a plethora of medical personnel taking the injured to sick bay.

  Mike was shaking as he looked down at his blood-soaked hands.

  “You all right, man?” Tynes placed his large hand on Mike’s shoulder, startling him slightly.

  “I uh...I’ve never seen dead kids, man.”

  “Yeah, and it never gets any easier. You just learn to deal with it.”

  Mike almost asked how he knew and then realized the cop had probably seen countless people scraped off the roadway after horrific accidents.

  “Sergeant, my office now,” the colonel ordered.

  “Yes, sir.” Sergeant Yonts moved quickly past him and toward his office. The colonel turned toward Mike and Tynes. “You two are about as sharp as Chinese slippers. She order you men to do this?”

  “No,” Tynes said. Mike just shook his head once.

  “And still you went?”

  “Yes,” Tynes said. Mike nodded.

  “You going to be all right, son?” The colonel was looking at Mike whose knees were shaking along with his entire body.

  Mike gave an ambiguous gesture as he half nodded and shook.

  “This goes a long way toward making things right with my Guard. I will take your actions into consideration.” And with that, he strode away.

  “Should I tell him the only reason you followed the sergeant was the view from the rear?”

  “Don’t you dare, man. All things considered, I think I’d do it again.”

  Mike wanted to take a shower in water hot enough to slough off his skin, but he was not going to get the opportunity. The attackers had decided to bring the fight closer. The trucks were approaching with fighters walking closely behind.

  “Let’s get back up on the building; they’re going to use those trucks to break through the fence.”

  Mike and Tynes were getting into position when they heard the earsplitting whoosh of a rocket. They watched the smoke trail off to their right as it raced toward a truck, blew through the windshield, and exploded the entire cab into a fiery twisted hunk of scrap metal. The flaming truck veered off to the right and crashed through a storefront. The gunners hiding behind it started firing when they became exposed but quickly ducked for cover when they began to take casualties.

  Two more rockets halted progress in their respective directions but, as of yet, had not completely stopped the aggressive approach that Mike and Tynes were watching from above.

  “Another rocket would be nice right about now,” Mike said as he tried to get a shot off on the lead driver. A piece of heavy steel had been placed over the entire windshield. “How is he seeing to drive?”

  “Has to be cameras, but I don’t see any. Shoot around the grill; they have to be there somewhere.”

  A hiss shot up from the front of the truck as the radiator was destroyed, but it did little to halt the forward progress. The truck hit the fortified fence at twenty miles per hour. Metal ground into metal with an intolerable screeching noise. The truck kept rolling, thundering into the building Mike and Tynes were perched on, the impact reverberating under their feet.

  Men rushed in from the breach, easily a hundred or more. The guardsmen did their best to stem the tide, but there was not enough firepower; the Guard next to Mike had his lung and heart punctured. He slumped over, hitting Mike in the arm, dead.

  “Tynes come on!” Mike stayed low but was heading toward the roof access door.

  “Coward!” one of the men said, turning back.

  “They’re coming into the building, idiot,” Mike shot back. “Where do you think they’re going to go first?”

  The man mumbled an apology. Mike was already out of range of the words.

  “Oh fuck!” Mike opened the door and a trio of bullets slammed into the cement above his head as the men coming up fired. He leapt back out, quickly shutting the door.

  Tynes ran back to the men at the roof’s edge then came back holding a grenade.

  “Here you go.”

  “What am I supposed to do with this?” Mike asked, looking at the explosive device as if it might do what it was designed to do at any moment.

  “I’ll cover you; you toss it in there.”

  “I hate you,” Mike said grabbing the grenade. He pulled the pin and depressed the arming lever, not sure if he was supposed to have it closed before pulling the pin. “Open the fucking door!” Mike nearly shrieked.

  Tynes did not question, did not hesitate. As he yanked the door open, Mike tossed the grenade in. It hit the railing and bounced onto the landing.

  “Fuck!” Mike hit Tynes as hard as he could, making him stumble to the side a few steps as the door blew out onto the roof, smoke billowing out from the opening.

  “Nice toss, asshole.” Tynes said.

  Mike waited until the smoke cleared enough to afford him an opportunity to look inside. The railing had been destroyed, cut in two and twisting toward the stairwell. The two men who had been at that level received the worst of it. One had been completely decapitated from the shrapnel. The other looked like he’d been bludgeoned to death with an axe handle. If there had been more men in the stairwell, they were long gone given the escalation in weaponry.

  “How many grenades do you think I’ve ever tossed?” Mike was shaken.

  “You all right?”

  “Now you ask. What if my head had been blown off like that guy on the stairs?”

  “Might be an improvement.”

  “Now who’s the asshole? Now what?”

  “We have to guard this door.”

  “The sergeant is down there somewhere.”

  “You’re going to do something all testosterone infused, aren’t you?”

  “The sergeant is down there.”

  “Something tells me she’s much better equipped to keep herself safe than you are.”

  “Doesn’t matter.”

  “Didn’t think so.” They were already halfway down the stairs. “Mike, we can’t leave this building,” Tynes said as they stood on the first-floor landing. “We do, and those men upstairs are toast.”

  Mike could not believe how close he was to saying “screw ’em.” Instead, he nodded. “You’re right.”

  Mike peeked through the safety glass and noticed the lobby of the building was full of Pembroke’s men.

  “It might not just be their asses that are toast.” Mike pointed to the window for Tynes to take a look.

  “We can’t leave anyway. They’re coming.” Tynes pulled back, taking Mike with him. They backed up and went three steps up the first flight. The stairwell got darker as a man peered in through the glass, blocking the light. Mike put a bullet in his forehead, and the indirect sunlight streamed in once again.

  Gunfire from the men behind their fallen comrade poured into the small opening and dented the door as heavier AK rounds tried their best to worm their way through the metal.

  “Up.” Tynes backed up, pulling Mike behind him. “You’re not going to be able to save her if you’re dead.”

  The door flew open, a leg quickly retreated. A column of fire blistered the paint on the far wall.

  “Flamethrower,” Mike said needlessly. This time, he didn’t need to be pulled anywhere as they both ran up another set of stairs, the heat still intense
from a floor above.

  “Wish we had another grenade.” Tynes peered over the railing.

  “Really? Because the first one went so well.”

  As the man wielding the weapon turned, the flame began to flow up the stairs. Mike leaned over the railing; for the briefest of seconds, the combatants locked eyes. The flame swept in his direction while he pulled the trigger quickly four times. Three missed. The fourth hit the assailant on the top of his boot, went through the leather, the many bones of his foot, and tore through the tender heel. As the man fell back, the blaze swept up, and Mike leaned away just as the flame caressed the top of his head.

  Tynes smacked the back of Mike’s head, sending his burning hat fluttering to the floor below like a singed butterfly.

  “What the…” Mike started before seeing it. Screams of the man who had his foot shattered diminished as the door closed again. “No more tap dancing for him. Don’t look at me that way. I use humor when I’m scared. I almost became a human s’more.”

  “Oh, I understand the need to diffuse tension. But it would help if you said something that was actually funny. We should pull back. My guess is they’re going to swarm the opening using overwhelming force.”

  As if Tynes was precognizant, the door pounded open violently. Multiple rounds impacted the walls in the spot they’d just vacated. The noise was louder than anything Mike could ever recall, threatening to capsize his equilibrium; only the adrenaline pumping through his system kept everything afloat. Tynes pushed through the first-floor door and into a large hallway, which opened into a general barracks full of the utilitarian bunk beds used for generations by the armed forces. The gunfire was still going on behind them.

  “Now what? Do we hide?”

  “Can’t, we left those guys on the roof completely exposed,” Tynes said, trying to think of something.

  “Man, all I wanted was a little damn food, pizza, bag of pretzels, I’m not picky would have taken a damn Twinkie. This was not part of the bargain.”

  The gunfire subsided. “They’re coming,” Tynes warned.

  “Fantastic,” Mike added sarcastically. “Because I am extremely pissed off right now.”