Protecting Our Home

by Colton Lively

  Hemmed in by the MG fire, cabins two and three were quiet, but Mira and Henry were keeping up their extreme dissuasion tactics against the remaining gunman. Without a thought for his fallen friend—and Henry couldn’t be certain the man was dead, or even fatally wounded—the Nazi approached hastily, firing from the hip, trying to suppress Mira at her window for long enough to reach the cabin’s back door. It worked, but the door was locked and bolted; Tyvey tried firing at the lock, but it would not oblige as easily as he’d seen on TV.

  He was still trying to get in when Henry caught sight of him from the side window. Breaking the glass with the butt of his hunting rifle, Henry aimed and fired a single shot, but it went wide, and Tyvey took the initiative, hiding around the corner and chewing away at Henry’s window frame with accurate fire. Tyvey saw some red, and then the window was empty.

  There was no time to see what had happened to Skip; he had to get inside and clear out this nest. Kicking wildly at the door, he managed to force it out of its frame and then tried to bulldoze through, shouldering the door aside. He didn’t notice the strange object at his feet, with its crystal-clear sign: FRONT TOWARD ENEMY. Before his mind had even acknowledged the immense flash of brilliant yellow, a pressure wave savagely kicked him back through the doorway, and six hundred metal balls saturated the space where he’d been standing.

  The distinctive sound itself—wa-crum—was enough to start Ezra Cobb celebrating. “Yeah! Claymores, motherfuckers! See how you like some of that!”

  Mira crouched low and peered at the man through the shattered doorway. She approached warily, weapon aimed, watching for any movement of the enemy’s hands. But he was still, his hotchpotch uniform scarred with black, his hat blown off and boots embedded with chunks of metal debris.

  “You alive, you piece of shit?” she demanded, standing over him. “Henry?” she called, hoping he’d find and secure the other man, who hadn’t moved since Henry’s shot.

  “I got your buddy in the face,” Tyvey wheezed, almost unable to move his mouth. His stomach looked as though he’d been stabbed repeatedly.

  “He’s going to be fine,” Mira lied. “But you’re all done. Want me to finish you off, or leave you and your buddy out here for the crows?”

  The north was a contrast. Max kept silent, stepping low and slow through the undergrowth, his senses reaching out to search for the two men he knew were there. Cobb kept up a one-man monologue, intimidating and insulting the enemy. “Your mommas know you’re out here in the dark?” he asked. “They’ll be worried, especially since you ain’t finished eighth grade yet. Got to be nearly bedtime by now, right?”

  There… Max stopped at a tree, resting his AR-15 where a branch met the trunk to form a V-shape. The dude had stopped to listen, but carried on, stepping carefully but not silently. Through the scope, Max saw him trying to signal to his buddy, but in the dark, it was impossible. When he began moving again, still gesturing toward his comrade, Max’s finger depressed just very slightly, and a single round left the chamber.

  Crisco heard the report, and his head was turning to locate the sound when Max’s 5.56mm round met the soft flesh just above Crisco’s Adam’s apple. It carried on at over 400 mph, removing his larynx and then two of his vertebrae as it exited. There was no time for him to do anything but fall, lifeless. “Scratch one, cabin one!” Cobb sang out. Then he went in search of the other raider, shotgun leveled from his hip.

  “Medical to cabin four!” was the next cry, and it was Mira’s. Hit through the cheek and bleeding terribly, Henry was more furious with his combat performance than with the pain. “Stood there like a goddamned paper target, larger than fuckin’ life. I don’t know what the fuck I was thinking.” He spat out fragments of tooth, then grabbed a bottle of brandy—for anesthetic purposes—and continued liberally cursing their attackers. Skip remained where he lay and had still not moved, but Tyvey was now their prisoner, tied by his hands and feet and shoved into the pantry, where the door was locked on him.

  “We’re here,” said Maddy, arriving with Penny in tow, each carrying a medical bag. “How is the patient?”

  The MG 42 started up again, and in cabin three, both Cabot and Cody recognized this was different. The firing was more concentrated than the hapless spraying they’d begun with; now they targeted doorways and windows to suppress the defensive fire. As its inventors intended, the MG42 gunner stood and advanced with his unit, providing mobile fire support as the assault accelerated toward the cabins. The back windows were now little more than strangely ragged gaps in the cabin’s design, and Cody crouched behind a hasty defensive line of partly smashed furniture. “Eyes open,” he told the others, though Cabot was already laser-focused on whatever might come out of the trees.

  They were fast this time, rushing the cabins, reaching back doors and windows before the defenders could pull focus. As MG fire raked cabin three, Cabot and Cody fell back toward the front door, and Cabot moved around the side of the cabin to prevent a breakthrough between cabins two and three.

  From the windows of cabin two, Charlie was finding his targets with his NV scope. He recognized something about one of the men and realized he was tracking Paleface, the same arrogant son-of-a-bitch who’d threatened them on the trail. Aching to put the man down, he breathed steadily, letting Paleface cross his sights, and gave him four three-round bursts.

  Missed… All too high, and he’d wasted ammo by not pausing between bursts. Cursing himself, he switched windows, but the MG caught the movement and shredded the cabin as efficiently as a sawmill. Splinters caught Charlie across the face; one eye was painfully bloody. “Grandpa!” he called out, but Cabot had his own problems, engaging the fortunate Paleface as the Nazi dropped to a prone position behind the only structure that sat between the cabins, the stone surround of an abandoned well. Cabot fired at where the man should have been but heard nothing and withdrew toward the door of cabin three, where Cody was trying to see how many attackers had approached from the east.

  “Five? Maybe six?” he guessed. “Mira’s got things under control in the south, and I think Max hit one of them in the north.”

  “It’s not enough,” Cabot rasped. “Cover me while I flush this asshole down the well.”

  It was a nervy, uncertain exchange, with neither side sure where the enemy might be. Redbeard arrived to support Paleface, charging up through the gap between the cabins and presenting the only decent target. Cabot fired, but his rounds hit the cabin walls behind, and Redbeard flung himself heavily to the ground.

  Cody followed up, crouched and moving forward after each burst of fire. He took incoming, but it was scattered, the two men becoming aware of how precariously they were now placed. Behind them, the MG team had gone quiet, but Burridge was storming cabin three anyway, alone and desperate to get inside so he could end the threat from windows and doorways.

  Hidden under their beds, Jacob and Emma could only guess what the latest noises meant. “I need to get to cabin one,” said Jacob more than once, but Emma wouldn’t hear of it. As far as she was concerned, the camp was a death zone, and only when the adults said so would they emerge. “I can do some good over there,” he maintained, but his sister kyboshed the plan.

  “There’s a fucking war going on, Jacob,” she said, narrowly resisting the temptation to slap some sense into him. “You’re not going anywhere.”

  Downstairs, Burridge took half a moment to glance appreciatively at the almighty bedlam created by Angelo with his MG42 before heading upstairs to search the place. Most of the fire had come from here, and he assumed the defenders were still inside. Between the cabins, Cabot and Cody were still struggling to find Redbeard and Paleface but took fire from the two men and were pinned back. “Fuckers are dug in there. Wait here a second.” He stood and sprayed the gap between the cabins as he sortied westward, toward Cobb and cabin one. “Ezra?”

  “He’s gone looking for the other one,” Max quietly informed him.

  “All right. I need you and Bryce.”


  “Roger that,” came the twin responses. Detailed to guard the truck, Bryce could now move to help relieve some of the pressure on cabin three. “Wait, there’s someone in there…” He pressed on toward the cabin’s back door, then slipped through and crouched by the kitchen counter, in good cover and able to listen.

  The sounds were coming from upstairs, now, but he couldn’t tell if they were friendly or not. Almost on tip-toes, he crossed the cabin’s pock-marked, bullet-riddled wooden floor and found that some of the steps were nearly shot through. A silent approach was unlikely, but he would try; Bryce needed to see who was there and make sure Emma and Jacob were safe while their father was embroiled in his struggle outside.

  It wasn’t going well; Paleface made a run for it, and Cody missed the moving target, furious with himself. Then Redbeard threw something, and Cody had to back off; it was just a smoker, but the rotund Nazi made his escape behind the thick, green cloud.

  “Fuck. Cabot?” said Cody. “They’re doubling back.”

  “I saw ‘em,” Max said, appearing like a sapling that had somehow learned to dematerialize in the dark, “but I didn’t have a shot.”

  “Go and cover us from two,” he told Max. “See if Charlie’s okay. And find out where the fuck Cobb went to.”

  The answer came before he’d finished asking. Two low, terrifying explosions rang out to the north, and then they heard the old man shout, “Scratch a second one, north of cabin one. Coming in.”

  Cabot took stock and knew things were tight. The enemy had taken casualties; both northern and southern probes were at an end. The MG had been quiet for three or four minutes, which meant Angelo was reloading, cooling the barrel, or both. But Cody could hear someone moving in cabin three.

  He found Bryce by the kitchen counter, the boy promptly indicating that someone was upstairs. Their assailant had bypassed the downstairs bedroom where Mary now hid, with her sidearm trained on the locked door; instead, Burridge now posed a threat to Emma and Jacob. It was the sound of a door handle being wrenched by strong hands, and Cody moved before any thought could delay him.

  Head to toe in green, his face striped black, Burridge was intent on getting into the locked upstairs rooms and didn’t see Cody ascending the stairs. Firing twice, Cody missed high and then wide, but then managed to get one more round away before Burridge could aim his weapon. It grazed the man’s knee, and he fell awkwardly, but Burridge found he could raise and aim his sidearm. Without pausing, he emptied the clip down the hallway toward Cody.

  Angelo was making a solo assault on cabin four, where three women were patching up the injured Henry. Gut-churning ribbons of fire shredded the place, sending lethal wood shrapnel all over. Mira covered Henry with her own body, then pulled him under a table during a lull in the assault. It started again as soon as Angelo found a better firing position, aiming now to drive out the defenders into the open space between cabins three and four.

  Redbeard threw a second smoke grenade, this time into cabin three, and followed it in, using the red mist as cover. He was calling for Burridge, looking around urgently, but all he saw was the crouched form of an old man with an AR-15. There wasn’t time, and Redbeard knew it, but he tried to bring his weapon around as Cabot fired. Red spray and screaming were interrupted only by more incoming fire as Paleface tried to rescue the botched assault, charging in and firing from the hip. The kitchen counter exploded into fragments, and Cabot found himself face down, chewing wood shavings kicked up by the MG42’s demolition efforts. He tried to lever himself up, but a harsh, heavy impact knocked him down, and the world went from gray to black.

  Almost blinded by the cannonade from Burridge, Cody was in a heap at the bottom of the shattered stairs, literally patting himself down to confirm he wasn’t hit. Then he went for it, sprinting up the stairs two at a time, aiming to use his momentum and strength against whatever Burridge was doing.

  But it wasn’t Burridge; Cody guessed he’d fled while Cody was knocked sideways. Paleface now battered at the door, kicking at the handle, trying to wreck the lock. He fired at Cody, pushing him back down the stairs; as he landed, a stair gave way under him, and Cody was jammed between the splintered planks. Upstairs, the bedroom door gave way, and Paleface forced his way in. “I knew it’d be you in here,” he rasped and grabbed for Emma. “Time for a little of the spoils of war,” he grinned, shoving her sideways onto the bed and back-handing Jacob so that his glasses broke and spun away.

  All teeth and nails, the picture of defiance, Emma made her own body a weapon and lashed at Paleface, scratching his face and then lacerating his forearm. He punched her hard in the nose, a severe shock, but then rallied and was pulling at her clothes when he felt a sudden pull from behind, dragging him away from her. Landing heavily on the floor, Paleface looked up to see a woman holding a 9mm, but before she could say anything, Emma stood over him and brought her heel down very hard in the least welcome of places.

  “Woah… honey,” her mother said, shuddering. But then, she remembered: “Is this the same guy who threatened you in the woods?”

  Just a curt nod as Emma stared down at the stricken man, her would-be rapist.

  Mary saw what to do. “You want a moment alone with Casanova?”

  Another nod and Mary stepped out to let Paleface take his punishment. The screams were of a once-confident man being suddenly, terrifyingly brutalized.

  Cabin four was smoke-shrouded and gashed by MG42 fire, all the windows smashed, and the front door shot off its hinges. Under his table, Henry was uttering oaths of revenge despite the extraordinary pain in his face, but Mira had more practical solutions in mind. With her patient stable and Angelo’s MG momentarily quiet, she took the risk and dashed from the kitchen to the front door, and then out into the open. Quickly crossing the space and finding cover behind a tree, she found she couldn’t see Angelo but that she could smell the pervasive stench of cordite, which followed him around. He appeared to have withdrawn, and there was now no sign of Burridge, so Mira assumed they’d linked up to try another assault. She searched the woodland, staying close to the cabins, going slow and quiet, but they’d slipped away.

  Returning to cabin one almost out of breath, Cobb rested on his shotgun by the doorway before heading inside. He almost fired at the figure he saw sitting there, but good sense prevailed; it was Jacob, fiddling yet again with his radio project. “Son, this ain’t no time for show and tell.”

  “I’m not playing here. We’re gonna call Gabriel,” Jacob announced.

  “Yeah? It ain’t his usual check-in time. It’s also the middle of the night.”

  “Worth a try,” Jacob shrugged. He finessed a stubborn wire into place, then checked the unit’s current, but before he could switch it on, the MG lit up again. It first shifted from one cabin to another, as before, but then focused on cabin one and obliterated the dining room into clouds of sharp wood fragments. Jacob hit the floor and sheltered under one of the sturdy dining tables, shouting for Cobb to do the same, but the old man was either hit or had run out to face the enemy. “Mr. Cobb!” he cried again, but there was no answer, even when the gunner went silent and Jacob could look around.

  From the woods, Angelo and Burridge regrouped and made their play. With cabin one pinned down, they could advance somewhat, but Max and Bryce were providing overwatch from cabin two and cut them off before they’d come very far. Retreating, Burridge decided to use his remaining ace in the hole, praying it would be the decisive weapon they now needed. Slung under his weapon was a makeshift grenade launcher with enough range that he could fire from out here. With a deep, pneumatic thud, the grenade round arced through the air toward cabin one.

  Jacob thought the roof might cave in immediately. The explosion rattled everything in the cabin that was still intact, and within moments, Jacob could smell smoke. He made to leave, but the MG stopped him, hosing down the tables and kitchen yet again while Jacob huddled under the table with his radio.

  “Let’s hope this works,�
� he begged the machine and pressed the “push to talk button.” “CQ, CQ, calling CQ, this is Jacob Alexander Russell. I have, um, no station code.” To begin, he’d simply have to establish the unit was functional. “Any station, come back?” While he waited, he shouted again for Cobb, and then for Charlie, but neither replied. “CQ, CQ, calling CQ, this is the Russell Homestead,” he said and read out the exact latitude and longitude. “Calling any station, we are under attack, repeat, we are under attack by a group of armed men. Any station, come back?” The smell of smoke was only growing, and there was still no sign of Cobb, Charlie, or anyone else.

  Shooting continued from cabin two, but another of the grenades came in, impacting the roof and sending Bryce and Max scurrying for cover, as though the ceiling itself had become an enemy. Burridge followed his grenade, charging in the back door of cabin two, firing as he went, with Angelo following at a painfully slow pace, dragging a wounded leg; the MG was becoming impossible to handle, and he dropped the weapon in the doorway, cursing the hot metal and his disabling pain. But in the closer confines of the cabin, his sidearm would be more useful, and he drew it, preparing to defend the door and back up Burridge.

  “Fire in cabin one!” They heard Jacob’s cry but could do nothing.

  Scarring the stairs with bursts of fire, Burridge muscled his way up toward the defenders of cabin two and found that there were three, but one was already down. Bryce lashed the stairs with a fusillade, then fell back to reload in one of the bedrooms as Max took over. Together, they kept Burridge downstairs, where Angelo’s condition was worsening; he could no longer stand and begged Burridge to relieve him of the MG. The two argued, comically and inexplicably, even as Max and Bryce found angles at the top of the stairs from where they could fire down at them. Withdrawing quickly, Burridge grabbed Angelo and helped him to his feet, but then, more fire came in from behind the duo, and they had to turn and face yet another threat: Mira had finished her sweep of the woods and ended up behind the attacking pair.