EMP [Collateral Darkness] | Book 4

by Tony Mastrolacasa

  They had spend a good portion of the morning planning for something like this. Depending on the situation, Stu would have three options to choose from, each triggered by saying the name of one of his friends.

  Calling Stacey’s name was a long shot, but it was still worth considering. It was thought that hearing Stacey’s voice might settle them down and convince them to talk it out. They may be more willing to trust her when she tells them that they won’t be harmed if they leave peacefully. The ‘Stacey’ option was the Sudbury gang’s best chance to keep all of their belongings and receive that care package that Stu had mentioned last night.

  Calling upon Brian would prompt a similar, but slightly more forceful approach. He would appeal to their sense of self preservation and demand that they lay down their weapons and come out peacefully. If Brian’s technique was utilized they would still be permitted to leave uninjured, but they would be doing it at gunpoint and their weapons wouldn’t be leaving with them.

  The ‘Corey’ option would be disastrous for Mick, his gang and Hal’s lovely cabin. One second after hearing his name called, Corey would open fire in full-auto. With Stu and Brian immediately joining in, the occupants of cabin number one would simply be torn to shreds. The cabin would also quickly find itself in serious need of renovations. While Stacey watched with her hands over her ears, her friends would see how quickly they could each burn through two 30 round magazines.

  As interesting an experiment as that would be, Stu decided against it, ammo preservation finally swinging him towards a less stimulating option.

  “Brian.”

  “Mick, it’s time for you and your friends to step out.” Brian shouted, genuinely relieved by Stu’s choice. “We’re ready to have that talk.”

  Silence for a few seconds and then Mick shouted back, “Yeah right! Tell that to your buddies out there. We got no interest in getting shot today.”

  The fine blonde hairs on the back of Stacey’s arms bristled upon hearing the unmistakable voice of Tom’s older brother. As sure as she was that she knew these men, she had still been entertaining the possibility that she was wrong. Hearing Mick speak, though, had finally crushed the small amount of hope that she had been clinging to.

  “It’s just a precaution, Mick.” Brian shouted. “Nobody wants this to turn into anything. You were told to have your rifles outside and ready for collection. How did you expect this to go? We don’t want to get shot either.”

  “Then go home!” Mick called back. “Nobody gets shot… Everybody wins.”

  “Not gunna happen, Mick.” Brian said sternly. “What if we all agree to lower our weapons? Will you come out then?”

  “Just tell us what you want and then you can fuck off!” Mick replied.

  “We want your guns, Mick. I think you know that.” Brian said.

  “Not gunna happen, asshole.” Mick said.

  “You other three in there… Mick is gunna get you all killed today.” Brian shouted, trying a new approach. “We’re willing to let you leave with all your stuff and your snowmobiles. We only want your rifles. If you let Mick hold you back you’re all gunna die.”

  A small commotion started up inside the cabin. Brian had hit a nerve with at least one of them. They weren’t speaking loudly enough to be overheard, but Brian thought that he might finally get some cooperation. Then, just as quickly, it all fell apart.

  “We talked it over and the answer is still fuck off!” Mick shouted.

  This is gunna be bad.

  “Five seconds, assholes!” Stu shouted, no longer interested in discussions. “In five seconds you all die!”

  “Five.”

  No movement, no sound.

  “Four.”

  Still nothing.

  “Three.”

  A bit of rummaging around.

  “Two!”

  Rapid footsteps and a shadow streaking past the shaded window.

  “One!”

  The door opened a crack and they saw two empty hands appear in the doorway. As Stu, Brian, Corey and Stacey allowed themselves to exhale, the door slowly and cautiously began to open.

  “Alright, calm the fuck down! We’re coming out.” A second person called out unenthusiastically.

  Stacey’s hair stood on end again. That was Joe Fleer, she was sure of it.

  Sure enough, Joe stepped out first. His hands were empty, but they weren’t raised or signalling surrender either. Enzo came out next followed immediately by Larry. Their hands were also nonchalantly swinging at their sides. As they walked out onto the deck, they shuffled to their right to make room for Mick to exit. Surprisingly, when Mick finally stepped into the doorway, his hands were slightly raised. Perhaps he knew that, if any of them would be given the benefit of the doubt, it certainly wouldn’t be him. Regardless, they had all wisely chosen to leave their rifles behind.

  Mick took a step out onto the deck and immediately looked towards Stacey, a familiar humourless grin creeping onto his face.

  “Hi, Stace… Where’s my niece?” Mick asked coldly.

  Just as Stacey was about to respond, Mick’s forehead suddenly exploded outwards in a spray of unimaginable gore. The single gunshot from within the cabin echoed loudly through the door bringing with it a momentary flash that lit up the entire cabin. Mick instantly crumpled to the ground with a small entry hole in the back of his head and an egg sized crater in the front.

  Startled and fully expecting to be next, Joe, Enzo and Larry reached behind their backs where each of them kept a hidden pistol. Joe raised his weapon towards cabin number two while Enzo targeted Stu. Larry, choosing a far less suicidal approach, hit the deck and took cover behind Mick’s large frame. Joe and Enzo had no idea who had just killed Mick, but Larry was standing right beside him. He knew damn well that the shot had come from behind them. While his buddies attempted to engage the others, Larry rolled onto his right shoulder and fired blindly back into the dark cabin.

  Stu, Corey and Brian, equally surprised, simultaneously squeezed the triggers on their C7A2 automatic rifles. As the large window behind them shattered, Joe and Enzo were riddled with bullets. Both managed to get off a shot, but neither of them were even close to targeting anyone before they too were lying dead on the deck. Unlike Mick, however, they were not killed instantly.

  Larry was soon killed as well, but not until he had fired his pistol a dozen times into the cabin. All of his wounds were to his back. Several of the bullets that found him had been stained in blood a millisecond earlier as they first passed through the body of his expired captain. Larry died never having seen his target.

  As the men from Sudbury spilled their blood out onto the snow covered deck, Stu turned his attention back to the door.

  “Cease fire!” Stu shouted as he targeted the doorway. “Whoever’s in that cabin, come out right now!”

  After a few seconds with no response, Stu signalled for Corey and Stacey to head around front. Corey unholstered the Beretta from his chest rig and handed it to Stacey before changed out the mag in his rifle. As they cautiously moved out, Stu motioned for Brian to follow him.

  “You’re with me.”

  Stu and Brian jogged over to the cabin and slowly climbed the four steps to the back deck. They carefully stepped between Mick’s fragmented head and Larry’s bullet riddled torso and took position on either side of the door. After a quick head nod count of three, they both burst in, Stu breaking right and Brian veering left. Not surprisingly, only an empty room greeted them. Gunsmoke still wisped in the beams of sunlight filtering in through the bullet holes in the walls. The majority of the smoke had surely come from Larry’s attempts to avenge the death of his buddy. They were equally certain that the holes in the walls were from Stu, Brian and Corey.

  Knowing that the shooter had to be hiding in one of the adjoining rooms, they crept over to the first bedroom door. Stu readied himself in front of the door as Brian stepped to the side and prepared to open it for him. Just as Brian placed his hand on its door knob, they heard
Stacey calling out to them from around front.

  “Stu, Brian, come quick!”

  Surprised at how clearly they had heard Stacey’s voice, Stu and Brian glanced towards the front window. That’s when they noticed that the bottom sash had been opened. The shot hadn’t come inside the cabin at all. It had come from outside of that window or rather… the person Corey and Stacey had just found.

  ◆◆◆

  The group defending the house had watched every step that Stu and his group had taken down that hill. When they finally disappeared from view, Hal’s people allowed themselves to relax and get a little more comfortable. The sun behind them was shining brightly, but it was still cold, far too cold to be standing still doing nothing. Looking at the men and women positioned around him, Hal could tell that the chill was already working its way through most of them. Almost all were stomping around now or blowing into their gloved hands.

  “How long you think they’ll be?” Rob asked his brother.

  “As long as it takes.” Hal replied. “Why, you got a date?”

  “Very funny, dick.” Rob said with a grimace. “I forgot to put on my good boots. Be right back.”

  “Just toughen up, you little…”

  …Hal stopped talking when he turned around and realized that Rob had already run off.

  “Everybody, keep moving around and try to stay warm.” Hal called out. “They could be down there a while.”

  He received some form of acknowledgement from everyone and began hopping around a little himself.

  Damn, I could have used my good boots too.

  Less than five minutes later, Rob came jogging back sporting a comically large and impossibly puffy pair of minus 100 rated boots. He actually had to jog with his legs slightly further apart to keep from tripping over them.

  “Ice fishing boots…? Really?” Hal asked.

  “Nora set them over by the fireplace too.” Rob said, really hamming it up. “Yours were sitting right beside them…”

  Rob could tell that his last comment was having an effect on his brother’s psyche. Hal continued to look down the hill, but Rob knew that his thoughts were only of that fireplace, his mind’s eye staring directly at those heat soaked triple insulated boots of his.

  “…All warm and toasty.” Rob added, for no other reason than to be a jerk.

  “Shut up, asshole.” Hal said.

  “Alright, sorry.” Rob said with a chuckle. “Hey, have you seen Hess around? Liv said they lost track of her a while ago. She thought that maybe she came out here to join us.”

  Looking over at her husband behind the truck, Hal could see that Nate was still standing there alone. Quickly panning around the area revealed no sign of her either.

  “I don’t see her, but she could be on the other side of the house or over in the trees with Leo.” Hal said. “Maybe you should go take a…”

  …a gunshot suddenly rang out startling them both. The sound raced across the frozen lake, bounced off of the rock faces along the various shorelines and echoed back over and over again. Of course, by the time the loud crack had completed its first roundtrip, the air was filled with the sound of automatic weapons fire. The echoes now served only as a multiplier adding to the already terrifying auditory assault.

  The hellish fusillade was over in seconds, the echoes ending seconds later. Unfortunately, nobody around the house could say whether that was a good thing or not. After a few minutes of dead silence, Hal and Rob still stood slack jawed and frozen in place. Neither of them had a clue about what had just occurred either.

  They also had no idea that Corey and Stacey had just found their sister.

  Chapter 12

  After following the freshly shovelled out walkway that led around the barn, Luke and Easton had taken position against the wall at the side door. As per Xander’s orders, they waited anxiously for the band to finish the song before making their dramatic entrance. When the door suddenly swung open unexpectedly, they immediately flattened themselves against the wall and froze. They were both relieved when the obviously drunken man failed to notice them. Without a care in the world, the man took a few uneasy steps towards the snowbank, unzipped his fly and began to urinate.

  Looking the man over, neither Luke nor Easton could believe what they were seeing. They had no idea what country this man was from, but his uniform definitely wasn’t Canadian. The strange looking combat rifle slung over his shoulder was also something that neither of them had seen before.

  Despite the band’s unyielding exuberance, they knew that this foreign soldier would eventually discover that he wasn’t alone. By way of introduction, Luke decided to pass Easton his rifle and slide a long knife from the sheath on his belt. As the man swayed back and forth, adding to the multitude of yellow boreholes in the snowbank, Luke slowly crept up from behind. The soldier didn’t know it, but he was currently enjoying his last peaceful moment on Earth.

  Luke quickly snatched the soldier’s forehead with his left hand while using his right to thrust the tip of his blade directly into the base of the man’s skull. Luke grasped the soldier’s head tightly while twisting the handle grinding the blade into muscle and bone. He held him upright as blood gushed from the wound and ran down the front of Luke’s coat. When the soldier began to choke on the blood that filled his throat, Luke released him and allowed the blade to slip from the back of the man’s neck. The soldier instantly buckled and fell forward. He would take his final laboured breath lying face down in his own piss.

  As Luke turned back to his friend, the door swung open again and two more soldiers began staggering outside. Apparently, they had decided that their bladders needed emptying as well. They stopped in the doorway, their smiles vanishing upon seeing a blood soaked man standing over the motionless body of their comrade. Sobering up instantly, they began to shout in their native tongue as they fumbled with the rifles on their shoulders.

  Easton, however, already had two AR-15s at the ready, one for each of them. As the band played on and the guests danced their jigs, Easton began pulling triggers creating his own music and causing the soldiers to dance jigs of their own. They would both die with their bladders evacuated as well.

  When the soldiers finally collapsed, one of their boots got caught in the doorway. It propped the door half open allowing Luke to see clearly inside. What he saw was shocking and he instantly regretted not having his rifle in his hands. Soldiers were running around everywhere. Dozens of them were mixed in with screaming women and children. As the music died, panic ensued and Luke suddenly realized that the soldiers inside could clearly see him as well.

  Their automatics sprang to life. Luke could only reach for his pistol and try to inflict a little more damage before the inevitable occurred. Miraculously, he somehow managed to get halfway through his magazine before a buzzing swarm of bullets finally found him. Luke crumpled to the snow, his dead eyes staring directly at Easton who was now left to hold the position on his own.

  From behind the safety of the block wall, Easton reached into the doorway and fired blindly back into the barn. This momentarily cut off the flow of return fire allowing Easton an opportunity to kick the dead soldier’s foot out of the way. Now free of its obstruction, the door quickly sprung shut again. Relief washed across his face as he heard bullets striking the door with none of them making it through. Whatever calibre of round those soldiers were firing, they weren’t powerful enough to penetrate the door’s steel sheathing. Being an outwardly swinging door, Easton realized that he may be able to prevent any of the soldiers from getting out as well. He only needed to wedge it shut or place some weight in front of it.

  Once he had the three dead soldiers piled up in front, Easton grimaced and looked over at his dead partner. Knowing he would need to use Luke as well, Easton grasped him by the arms and started dragging him over. He tried to treat his friend’s body as gently as possible, but when the soldiers inside started pushing on the door, Easton simply picked him up and tossed him on the pile. Then he q
uickly collected up the soldiers’ rifles and took a few steps away from the door.

  As Easton reloaded his two AR-15s, he kept a watchful eye on that door seam. The moment they got it opened a crack he would use their own rifles to send a hail of bullets inside. Then he would force the door shut again, reset and repeat.

  Easton was no weakling and he was hardly modest, but even he knew that this tactic wouldn’t work for long. If he didn’t get some help soon he would have to abandon this exit. Accordingly, he shouted out for the others in hopes that they would hear. His friends heard him just fine, but they currently had problems of their own.

  ◆◆◆

  Not being absolutely sure what to do yet, Xander told Tom to grab the woman he had captured and run off behind the Minecats with her. Once they were safely over with Ken and Cam, Xander and Mars followed.

  The herd of frantic partygoers had run off towards the cottages and the front door had swung shut again. It seemed Luke and Easton still had the complete attention of whomever was still inside. It sounded like they were also being subjected to a ton of gunfire. Xander figured that he had less than a minute before the front door would burst open again and the fight would come to him. Knowing he needed more time to get some information from this blubbering woman, Xander finally came up with a plan.

  “Kenny, Cam, hop on your sleds and park them in front of that damn door! Buy us some time.” Xander shouted. “Then get your asses back here.”

  They immediately ran off leaving Mars and Tom to cover the door on their own. Xander then turned to the woman and instantly changed his demeanor. Mars glanced over at Xander and allowed himself a faint grin.