From inside the house, Jared watched as the four men came abreast of his ambush position. His finger was itching to make contact with the trigger, but he held, waiting for John’s signal. When he heard John’s booming voice from the far end of the block, Jared torched the first two rounds high, missing the man he’d lined up in his sights as an easy kill. Jared and John hadn’t spoken about whom they’d shoot, so at the moment John yelled, it was a free-for-all. As Jared regained control of his weapon, he fired several rounds into one of the three remaining men and saw he wasn’t the only one pounding the poor soul. The man’s shirt fluttered with the impact of bullets right before gravity snatched at him, dragging him toward his final resting spot on the hard pavement in front of a small modest home with a wind chime.
Jared saw the light-skinned black man turn towards Jared’s position and raise the shotgun. Jared was obscurely aware of the boom from the man’s weapon along with the clattering sound the weapon’s projectiles made when they reached the open windows. Jared wanted to duck, but was acutely cognizant that if he were to duck, it would allow the man an unfettered approach to his position. Rather than duck, Jared fired half a magazine at the man.
As he shot at the man, his mind registered the only other remaining man as he too toppled like a washed-up prizefighter. Everything slowed as Jared saw sparks fly from the shotgun-toting man’s weapon as Jared’s bullets tore into not only the man, but his shotgun as well. It was mesmerizing, like a firework show with all the sound of gunfire, the sparks from Jared’s ricochets, and all the while, a live human being writhed right in the middle of it all. What a wonderfully horrendous occurrence to bear witness to, Jared thought. The aesthetics were dazzling while the reality of the affair was heartbreaking on so many levels.
The world had declined so swiftly Jared’s head swam. These men made a choice to do unspeakable things that would have constituted lifelong prison sentences in the world of old, and now Jared and his friends were ripping them to shreds. When the last of the four men lay in a myriad of contorted and unnatural positions on the sidewalk, street and even the front lawn of Jared’s ambush house, he and his team stopped firing. Faintly, Jared could hear John’s distant voice calling for a cease fire before the last of the shell casings tumbled off windowsills to the floor.
As Jared’s world slowly began to transition from slow motion to real time, he heard Devon’s frightened voice. “Guys—ahh.”
Jared whirled, immediately seeing the cause of Devon’s concern. Dwight was lying on the floor faceup, blood soaking through the front of his shirt. His chest was rising and falling, but his head listed to the side, and his eyes were rolled back slightly in a way that struck panic in Jared.
“Man down!” he screamed out the same window he’d recently been using as a gun port.
Up the street, John heard Jared’s cry and raced to the door of the house he’d used to ambush their assailants. “Come on,” he ordered the women. Both Stephani and Claire leaped to their feet, not wanting to be left alone anywhere, especially after what just happened.
Jared dropped to his knees next to Dwight while Devon and Barry stepped back, shock painted across both their faces. Jared wasn’t trained for this type of incident, possessing no knowledge of how to cope with such an injury. He started to roll Dwight’s head back to face the ceiling, then stopped himself as he heard four quick shots from what sounded like John’s suppressed rifle. He swung his weapon up, training it on the door just as he heard John call out, “Coming in!”
Jared lowered his rifle as John burst through the door, followed closely by Stephani and Claire. At the sight of Dwight on the floor, covered in blood, John’s shoulders slumped for a split second before he dropped his pack and tore open a medical bag. He produced a pair of scissors and began cutting Dwight’s top off. He was about to cut through the man’s rifle sling in order to get it out of his way, but stopped short, taking the time to remove the weapon and preserve the sling.
Once John had Dwight’s shirt removed, he was still unable to locate Dwight’s wound. He pulled out a bottle of water and poured it over Dwight’s chest, causing the man to lurch as the cold water contacted his exposed flesh. When the water cleaned the blood away, everyone in the room saw the two small tears in Dwight’s neck and armpit. He’d been hit with two pellets from the shotgun. The projectiles from the shotgun were roughly the size of .32-caliber bullets, and both entered areas of Dwight’s body that contained substantially vital organs or major circulatory components.
No one else was hit, which Jared was thankful for, but still he stared in stunned disbelief as John worked on the dying man on the floor. John pulled out more medical supplies and began packing the two wounds. He had no other means with which to treat Dwight’s wounds.
“Fucking Dwight, Goddamn it, man, stay with me, brother. We’re gonna get you back to the ranch house, and Shannon is gonna fix you right up,” John said through clinched teeth as he worked to stop the wounds from donating any more of Dwight’s blood to the carpeted floor of the living room.
Jared couldn’t remember if any of them mentioned to Dwight the bit of trivia that Shannon was a schoolteacher and not a doctor. The fact that John was telling Dwight Shannon was going to fix him told Jared Dwight was a dead man.
Dwight rolled his head to stare at John. His eyes looked lucid at best as he swallowed hard, his mouth appearing to gulp although he wasn’t drinking. He held his head for a moment as if studying John’s face for any sign the man was being untruthful about Shannon and the ranch house; then his head slumped back to one side, and he continued the gulping motion. To Jared it looked like a trout he’d caught many years ago with his father. After taking the fish from its lake home, the trout had appeared to gulp at the air until it was dead.
John had seen men in this condition and knew full well Dwight was going to die on the floor of a stranger’s house in front of people he barely knew. The shotgun pellets undoubtedly damaged something vital when they’d ripped into his body. John was fairly sure the armpit shot caught the poor man’s heart or one of the large arteries attached to it. When John looked up, he saw the two women standing in the doorway, faces ashen white, while the rest of the men along with Devon stood deeper in the house, looking at him as if they expected John to somehow perform a miracle.
John reached out and touched Dwight’s neck, feeling for a pulse. He wasn’t sure, but he thought he felt a weak pulse for the first couple of seconds, and then it was gone. Dwight passed on to greener pastures, John hoped. He withdrew his hand and slowly shook his head without looking at a single member of the group.
“He’s the guy we came for,” Barry blurted.
John was on his knees, his butt resting on the heels of his boots. He turned his face to the ceiling and covered it with his hands for a full ten seconds before dragging his hands downward, stopping only when his fingertips reached his mouth. He curled his hands into fists, covering his mouth. “Jared, can you keep an eye out front? We made a lot of noise a minute ago,” John suggested in a soft, tired voice, completely ignoring Barry’s statement of the obvious.
Without hesitation, Jared moved to a window and scanned outside. He saw nothing, but remained focused on both ends of the street in the event anyone came to investigate all the racket induced by their ambush.
John slowly dropped his hands and looked to Barry. “We need to move him into a bedroom and at least cover him with a blanket.” Before Barry could argue about a burial, John continued in an almost pleading tone, “We don’t have the time or resources to bury him, man.”
Barry stood for a second, unbelieving of their situation, which had seemed to be about to get better, but now suddenly was worse than before they’d left the ranch. Still stunned by the events of the past few minutes, Barry shuffled forward, and together he and John hefted Dwight’s lifeless body off the floor, moving the dead man to the first bedroom they found. Inside was a full-size bed complete with blankets and sheets. They laid Dwight on the floor so John co
uld draw back the bedding. The men then placed their fallen comrade on the bed and pulled the bedding over the top of Dwight, covering him entirely.
“How did this happen?” Barry gulped after Dwight was covered.
“Bro, shitty things happen when people don’t act right. Especially when two forces start trading rounds,” John answered, wishing he had been able to kill all four men quicker so this hadn’t happened. John grimaced to himself, remembering his threat assessment had placed the man who’d killed Dwight as the least likely to have an impact in the fight, and therefore he’d chosen to go after him last. John didn’t think about Dwight’s death the same as the rest of the group due to his experience with losing friends in combat in the past. To John, Dwight’s death was something to shake his head at and chalk it up to the violent unpredictability of force-on-force conflict.
Barry shook his lowered head and walked out of the bedroom, with John on his tail. John knew they’d been extremely lucky today. Basically, he and Jared had taken on six men and won for the most part. He couldn’t rely on this streak of good fortune to continue. One of these times he or Jared was going to get hit, which would almost assuredly result in their group being overrun and killed.
The stress of constant vigilance and occasional battle was starting to wear John down. No one in the Special Operations community ever admitted to battle fatigue, but it was real, and deep down they all knew it. John and his mates never needed to admit they were fatigued because the leadership in his unit made sure to stay abreast of the mental and physical wellness of its troops, which it did a good job of. Now John was beginning to realize he would have to diagnose and treat all mental and physical ailments himself. The problem with this was John could diagnose all he wanted, but lacked resources to deal with much more than a cut or scrape.
Chapter 27
Jared remained posted at the window, keeping a watchful eye on the road for any unwanted guests, while Devon and the women stood awkwardly leaning against the granite-topped island that separated the living room from the kitchen, trying not to stare at the bloodstain Dwight had left on the carpet.
John and Barry returned from Dwight’s deposit in the bedroom, joining the group in the front of the house. “Let’s get out of here before we have company,” John muttered, his voice betraying the tremendous strain he felt.
No one argued as John brushed past everyone and exited the front door. When Jared left the house, he saw what John had been shooting at before he came inside the house where Dwight was shot. Every man in the front yard had a single shot to the head. John apparently didn’t have time to check for vitals when the man down call came in, so rather than taking the time to search and disarm, he’d simply shot all four men in the head.
It made perfect sense to Jared, whereas even two months ago he would have had a real problem with what John did. John grabbed all four weapons, leaned them against a stone planter box, then jumped on them. Every weapon was either bent or broken, rendering it useless. John siphoned off all the ammunition from the weapons and dropped them into his pack before exhaling as he looked at everyone, trying to gauge each person’s mental state.
It didn’t really matter since he couldn’t do a thing for them, so he turned and moved off in the direction they originally were traveling. It took half an hour to get back to the main road, but soon they were back on track, having only lost an hour and a half. John felt what he could only describe as combat fatigue mixed with a splash of depression. John experienced pressure during this operation like no other pressure he’d ever felt on any past mission. The burden of fighting and babysitting was almost too much. He wanted to go back to the ranch, have Shannon cook something hot, eat it, then sleep for two days.
Jared could tell John was slowly wearing down and knew the cause was most likely the responsibility the man placed on himself in regard to making sure everyone else was safe during their trip across the Bay Area. Jared caught up to Barry and jerked his head backwards, indicating Barry trade spots with him. When Barry dipped his head and fell to the rear of the group, Jared hurried his pace until he was even with John.
“Barry and I are smart guys, and I heard those two talking like tech guys talk about ideas for the ranch house and the whole Powerwall idea,” Jared probed, attempting to lure John into a positive conversation to get his mind off the fact that someone they’d put a tremendous amount of effort in finding was now lying dead in a strange bed.
John grimaced, stretched one arm out straight, and then rolled his shoulder. “What are we doing out here? I mean, Goddamn, man, we just suckered a guy out of his perfectly safe house and then got the poor bastard killed, for what?”
Jared chewed on the side of his lip for a second. “Yeah, but we saved two other people from a far worse fate. The kid wouldn’t have lasted forever, so I think we can count that as a positive.” Jared walked in silence for a moment. “Hey, man, we aren’t always going to be successful out here. All aspects of this new world are pretty much working against us, so the fact that we’re even alive is a positive thing.” Jared finished with a pained smile.
John walked on in silence. He knew Jared was right about the two women and the quirky teen, but Dwight’s death made the operation seem fifty percent a failure, and he didn’t like failing at those percentages. The two men walked side by side without a word spoken between them for a solid thirty minutes before John stopped and checked the city map. They were getting closer to the business Devon had toured during his research for the school paper he’d written.
Jared felt John was moving slower and presented a visibly worn-down version of his former self. It was oddly fascinating how when this man was in an upbeat mood, he seemed invincible, with his good looks and muscled frame. Now John actually came off a little pathetic, which bothered Jared.
He didn’t like the thought of carrying the load for their group. He was perfectly fine stepping up and doing any heavy lifting he had to when it came to decision-making, but when the hammer dropped and they were presented with a life-or-death situation like the one they’d just gone through, he needed John. He wanted to talk to the man, but after all the time he’d spent with Bart, Jared realized men like John didn’t want some chatty twenty-eight-year-old millennial chirping in their ear while they sorted out whatever it was that had them down in the dumps.
After John was finished with the map, he offered it to Jared. “Six blocks,” John said without emotion.
Jared glanced at the map and nodded without feeling the need to check John’s work. John stowed the map and they moved on. In less than twenty minutes they were standing in front of the business. It was late in the afternoon, and both Jared and John knew they’d be sleeping either at the business or nearby. The company was called Solar Green and didn’t appear to have been looted in any way. The large glass front of the business was intact, and the doors were closed.
Not wanting to compromise the skin of the building, John led everyone to the rear of the structure. The back side had a large steel roll-up door and a single swinging pedestrian door along with several windows fairly high off the ground. All of these were closed and, on further inspection, locked. The single swinging door was set in a steel doorframe, making it a real pain in the neck to force open. John knew if he were forced to breach this monster in the old days, he would have used explosive breaching charges.
He had no such equipment with him today, so he pulled out his lockpicks and set to working the door’s lock open. The door had only a single lock integrated into the doorknob, which John was thankful for. Had the door been outfitted with an additional deadbolt, it would have made his job twice as difficult. The lock was not a cheap setup, which was going to make John’s work challenging. He first gave the plug a shot of graphite lubricant, endeavoring to loosen all the key and driver pins along with the springs. The smoother everything worked inside the lock housing, the easier it would be to line the pins up with the shearline.
After the lock was lubricated, John turned to the gro
up all huddled around watching him, and gave Jared a what the fuck shrug. Jared knew immediately what John meant. Jared directed Barry to the opposite side of the building, where he could see anyone approaching. Jared next hid the two women and Devon behind a large blue dumpster. After the three were secreted, he took a position on the side of the building they entered on, and glanced back at John for approval. The man was already struggling with the lock, never bothering to look up.
John worked on the lock for fifteen minutes, cursing under his breath, changing lock-picking tools, then cursing more. At the twenty-minute mark, John sat back and pulled out a water bottle. He drank and stared up at the blue sky with its streaks of cirrus clouds overhead. After he drank his fill, John lay back on the hard pavement and stretched his arms out and above his head, trying to clear his mind. He knew the rest of the people were growing impatient with his lack of success with the lock, but none of them had tried picking a lock and therefore knew nothing of the difficulties involved.
John, however, knew all too well how troublesome covert entries could be. Sometimes a lock would succumb to a man’s lockpick tools in seconds, and other times, the stars just weren’t aligned and it took forever to coax the mechanism open. John found that if a lock refused his labors, he would remove himself from the resistant lock and take some time to reflect on other things. After clearing his mind, John would return and many times find the lock much more compliant.
John liked the fact that Solar Green had not been looted, and intended to stay the night inside the building. The glass in the front would not stop someone from entering, but would make one hell of a racket if ruptured. The rear of the building was secure enough that John didn’t think they would have to worry about posting a sentry at any of the doors.
The Jared Chronicles | Book 2 | Tears of Chaos Page 21
