Bled Dry

by Lou Cadle

  “Feel like a wimp.”

  “Don’t. You were shot. That hurts, I hear from a friend. He’s the toughest guy I know, and even after two weeks, he’ll still wince.”

  “If that’s all that’s wrong with me, we should move.”

  “Shh.” She thought she heard something. A whistle, a block or two distant. She thought it might Curt. It was a neighborhood signal.

  Cold relief poured through her veins at the thought. “They’re coming,” she said.

  “A patrol? Or the others?”

  “Your friends. Mine.” Sierra had to wait for the urge to cry to pass. Her throat was closed up with it, and she had to get control. But she did keep herself together, and she stood and whistled back.

  “Cup your hands around your mouth,” Jackson said.

  She did and whistled again, giving it her all.

  A whistle replied immediately, the same signal she’d given: friend.

  She sank back down. “Did your side bring one of the medical people you have?”

  “We only have a vet and a dental assistant.”

  Right. “Either would be better than me. And Kelly best of all.”

  “Keep an eye out for our friends. Don’t let them shoot us by accident.”

  For a second, she had been able to forget she’d just murdered Roy. Now it—and the avalanche of awful feelings—came back full-force. Did Jackson know?

  “Sierra?”

  “No,” she managed to get out. “I won’t let them shoot you.” She didn’t want anyone else to feel what she was feeling. Not tonight. Not ever. “I’ll be right back.” She left her rifle on the ground and ran out into the intersection, not giving a shit if someone from the apartment building saw her or not.

  When she saw the first of them marching down the center of the street, a half-block distant, the urge to cry grew stronger. She felt like a little kid, six or seven, lost in a big mall in the city. And here was her dad, finding her, coming to rescue her from the confusion and noise and strangers. She couldn’t whistle past her tight throat, but she raised both arms over her head and waved them.

  “Sierra?” came a familiar voice. Curt.

  “Yes.”

  He split off from the group and came trotting forward. She ran to meet him and threw her arms around him, clinging to him.

  “You okay?” he said.

  She nodded, unable to speak.

  He gently pulled away from her.

  She bit the inside of her lip hard to keep from crying.

  “You sure you’re okay? Is Kelly? Is Dev?”

  She forced herself to get control. “Dev cut his hand. And his headache came back. Kelly is fine. I’m fine.”

  The others had caught up.

  “Sit rep,” said a voice.

  She knew the term from her reading. And the voice. “Wes?”

  “Yeah. Tell me.”

  She made herself forget her problems and think straight. “This building is where they live. Six of us are in there, fighting them. Townsmen all, but our side. Kelly is on the far side of the building, outside, preventing escapes. Dev is at the jail. We released eight men from the jail and armed them. One died outside a city building. One is dead here. Jackson is hurt, right over there by the building.”

  A figure split off and came to take her arm. “Where?” A woman’s voice.

  Sierra turned and pointed, though in the dim moonlight, the woman might not be able to see the gesture. “Toward the front of the building, close to the wall.” As the woman ran over to see about Jackson, Sierra spoke to the group. “They can shoot out of the windows, so watch that. And don’t shoot our side. Two whistles or the word ‘Kelly’ are our pass signs.”

  “How many dead?” Wes asked.

  “Two, like I said.”

  “No. The enemy.”

  “Oh, uh, not sure. Six or seven back there by the jail. They cleared the first floor of the building, so some in here, I imagine. I don’t know how many.”

  “Good.”

  She wished he’d quiz her some more. Answering factual questions was much easier than being pummeled by her own emotions. “I should go in first. Me and Kelly, if you’re going in to support them. They know us.”

  Another long round of gunfire came from the building. “Third floor, I think,” she said. “They’re getting it done.”

  “The moon is coming out,” said a man’s voice.

  It was. The moon had broken through the clouds. Her view of the world went back to normal. “I need my rifle,” she said. She walked back to the scene she’d like to forget. Too bad no one had ever invented a forgetting pill. There’d been talk of it on the news feeds for years, research into some brain chemical that helped memories move from short- to long-term. If they’d ever invented the pill, she’d be begging for one now.

  Maybe two.

  She took up her pack and her rifle, said to the woman tending Jackson, “He’s going to be okay?”

  The woman said, “I’m sure he will. He’s tough.”

  Sierra turned and saw Roy in the moonlight, lying on his back, dead. Gone forever. A wife or a kid—no daughter, but did he have a son?—knowing they’d come so close to getting him back, but Sierra screwed that up too. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. And she left the scene, guilty at walking away, but relieved to no longer have to look at what she’d done.

  When she went back to the new group, she found Curt. “Where’s Joan?”

  “She was hurt.”

  “Oh no. Shot?”

  “Well, sort of.” He lowered his voice. “She shot herself in the hand.”

  “On purpose?”

  “No,” he said, sounding amused that Sierra had thought so. “I think it was more unfamiliarity with firearms. She was leaning over, she said, and it discharged.”

  “Bad?”

  “Could have been worse. All her fingers are still there, and there’s no broken bones. She shot herself through the webbing between the thumb and forefinger. She can’t hold the rifle now, so she’s working at alerting the townsfolk in the area we cleared. One of the others stayed with her in case we missed any of the enemy out there.”

  They were walking to the front of the building. “How many did you kill?”

  “Five. A team of three, a team of two.”

  “Guard patrols? There are also three missing that fled the government building when they ran out of ammo,” she said.

  “Tell Wes when we’ve finished here,” he said, as they approached the door. “You ready?”

  “Ready. Who’s with us?” she said.

  Wes said, “I’m taking six over to Kelly.”

  “She should be at the corner. Whistle twice. Say her name.”

  “Got it,” he said. “Good luck.”

  Sierra entered the building and stopped immediately. She put on her goggles again and stepped across the threshold. She whistled twice, just in case. But there was gunfire far overhead, and she suspected this level was clear. She turned to the group. “Anyone know this building?”

  No answers. So she led once again, feeling much less capable as a leader than she had twenty minutes ago. There were dead men ahead. One lay in the hall. She turned left, aiming toward the wall where Jackson lay outside. As she passed an open door, she saw another body in an apartment. Nearing a third one in the hall, she stopped to shove it aside with her boot. “Don’t trip over the dead man,” she said to the others. “On your right.”

  On she led them, down the hall, finding a staircase near the corner of the building. She pushed it open and saw another body on the landing between two half-stairs leading up. “Another body ahead. Six stairs up, turn right at the body, probably six more stairs after that.”

  They made it up the stairs without any trouble worse than someone tripping on the dead man and cursing softly. She kept going up the stairs, not checking the next floor except with a quick glance through the stairwell door. The guns firing were still overhead. At the third floor, she stopped at the door and listened, pressi
ng her ear against the cold surface. Nothing. They’d probably gone up to the next floor by now. Just in case, she cracked the door and said, “Kelly.”

  “Sierra?” The voice came from the stairs overhead.

  “Yeah? Who is it?”

  “Leland.”

  She remembered him, one of the oldest guys from the prisoners. “I have six friends with me. All men, I think. Don’t shoot them.” No one behind her complained, so she assumed there wasn’t a woman in this group or she’d have spoken up.

  “I won’t shoot.”

  “Where’s your partner?” she asked, trotting around the bend in the stairs.

  “Pinned down inside.”

  “No reason to limit light now,” Curt said. “They know he’s here.”

  “You’re right,” she said, pulling up her goggles again. She had stuck her phone in her jeans pocket. She pulled it out and thumbed it on. “This is Curt. Curt, Leland. I don’t know the other names, sorry.”

  Curt shook hands with Leland. “We could use a map. Where your guy is pinned? How many of the enemy?”

  “Don’t know how many for sure. At least five, I think.”

  “Is there another team on this floor?” Sierra said.

  “I don’t think so. Haven’t heard any shooting.”

  “Was it Jackson and Roy paired with you two?” she said.

  “Yeah.”

  “Then it’s just you two.”

  A voice from down a couple of stairs said, “The other six might come up the other side of the building, remember.”

  “Of course. Damn, I wish we had a way to communicate to them to go on up to the fifth floor.”

  Curt said, “Yelling will work.”

  “Right.” She was so used to sneaking everywhere, she forgot the simplest form of communication of all.

  “Leland, draw a map of the floor on the door with your finger,” Curt said. “Where’s your buddy?

  “He’s in the first apartment on the right.” Another burst of fire. “Or was. He’s locked in, but a lock won’t stand up forever to that.”

  “Okay,” Curt said. “Sierra, mind if I take over?”

  “Please,” she said, feeling relief at handing over control to someone else. “Do.”

  Curt outlined a brief plan. Three at the door, one behind, two to the side, with one of them up one step. He named one of the others. “Handgun,” he said to him.

  Everyone else was to wait on the landing for now. That included Sierra. It was strange to not be at the front, not be in the thick of things. But it was a relief too. She handed Curt her night vision goggles and went down the stairs with the others, saying to Curt, “Don’t forget to call out signals in case Wes’s group are coming.” She kept her phone turned on but turned toward her, so the stairwell was dimly lit.

  “The other stairs are in the far corner,” Leland said.

  “Good to know,” Curt said. “Okay, ready?”

  Leland and Curt stood ready at the side of the door that would open, Curt one step up on the stairs. The third man held onto the handle of the door. When he opened it, he’d have the cover of the door, though now that Sierra looked more closely, three rounds had come through it, so it wasn’t much protection.

  “Light out,” Curt said. “I’ll need a second to adjust to these goggles.”

  Sierra flipped her phone off but kept her thumb on the on button.

  Ten seconds later he said, “Now.”

  She felt a draft of air as the door opened, a subtle change in the pressure on her eardrums.

  The next burst of gunfire from the hallway was much louder, and she saw muzzle flashes. She squatted down until she couldn’t see them, jostling the men to either side of her.

  A rifle—Curt’s, she thought—and a handgun returned fire from the doorway.

  A shout from the hallway sounded surprised. The man with the handgun unloaded his clip, and more shouts came, the sound of running feet, and a door slammed.

  “Three running,” Curt said. “One is in the apartment two doors down to the left. Let’s go,” he said, and the three men sprang through the door. Before it could shut, Sierra ran up the steps and grabbed it, keeping it open so she could hear. She heard the other men climb up behind her.

  “What’s going on?” said one of them.

  In the hall, a voice shouted, “It’s Leland! Open up! You okay?” He pounded on the door.

  She heard the apartment door to the right open, and the two men from the jail talking. “I thought I was dead,” said the one who’d been hiding.

  Curt said, “Everybody line up, shoulder to shoulder, and fire straight down the hall.”

  Everyone must have, though only Curt could see clearly what he was firing at. And only he could see the result. The bullets flew, and Sierra moved to the side of the door to avoid being hit by return fire. “One down. Two gone. Okay, ready to move?”

  “Reloading,” a voice said.

  A man behind her said, “Hurry it up,” in a low voice.

  “Ready,” Leland said, and she heard Curt yell, “Come on out of there.”

  No response.

  The sound came of someone kicking the door. Once, twice, a third time. Then a pop.

  “He must have furniture blocking it,” Leland said.

  “Push, everyone.”

  Sierra could hear more gunfire on the same floor, but far away. The other group, Wes and Kelly and them, might be engaging the two who had gotten away from Curt. But that was just a guess. It was strange to be so far behind the leaders, to not have the goggles, to not know what was going on.

  A sharp squeaking sound, then breaking glass. Shots from inside the apartment. Muffled thumps.

  It was maddening to not be able to see. She hadn’t appreciated what the others had been experiencing until now. Everything seemed much more chaotic. You had to pick clues out of confusing noises, and you might be interpreting them entirely wrong. It’s a wonder more of them hadn’t shot each other.

  “He jumped,” Curt said, his voice barely audible. More distant, he said, “Yeah, he did. Jumped through the window.”

  “Did he survive?” asked a voice.

  “He isn’t moving,” said Curt, “but I’ll make sure.” Two shots sounded. “I think the fall killed him, but he’s definitely dead now.”

  He came back to the hall. “Sierra? Everyone? You okay?”

  “Right here. At the door.”

  “Come here, Sierra,” he said.

  She opened the door wider and walked through. “Where are you?”

  “Six feet straight ahead. No obstructions.”

  A second later, a hand touched her shoulder to stop her. “What should we do?” she asked.

  “I want your group to clear the apartments. Use your light. Open the doors, shoot the locks, kick them open, whatever. Then reach around with your light. See if anyone shoots. If not, risk a look. Those with you, kill anyone you find.”

  “Right.”

  “It’s most dangerous for you,” Curt said. “They’ll shoot at the light if they see it.”

  “I can survive a hand wound.”

  “Could be painful.”

  Good. She deserved some pain. It seemed the right punishment for what she’d done outside the building. Or not enough punishment, but a beginning.

  “We’re going,” he said, and he moved down the hallway.

  Sierra turned. “You all hear that?”

  “Got it,” said one man.

  “You, whoever just spoke, you’re in charge of getting the doors open,” she said. “Try the knob first, then shoot, then kick. Whatever it takes. Then the rest of you be ready to fire at anything you see or hear. I’ll hold the light. Okay?”

  “Sounds like a plan,” said another.

  “Let’s do this,” she said. “Left wall first.” She put her hand on the wall and trailed it along until she felt the jamb of a door.

  “Just keep the light on,” said a new voice.

  “Makes sense. I wasn’t thinking.”
She flipped the light on and could see the faces of the men behind her, all from the other neighborhood, one or two vaguely familiar from the meeting at the start of this night.

  The first door was unlocked. She reached around with her phone and lit up the room while everyone stayed back. Nothing happened. One man of the three designated shooters peeked around. “Empty, I think.”

  “Let’s make sure,” said another.

  “I’ll go first,” Sierra said. “Cover me.”

  All of them crowded into the apartment, which was a filthy mess, with empty food cans sitting on tables, couch cushions kicked off, and a television set that had been shot up. It was only a three-room apartment, and they cleared it fast.

  As one of the shooters turned from checking the closet, she saw his face and said, “You work at the grocery store, don’t you?”

  “Produce manager,” he said. “Tim Jolly.”

  “Sierra,” she said.

  “Everyone knows your name. Francie and Wes talked about you.”

  “Wes talked you up,” said another.

  “He shouldn’t have,” she said, with feeling.

  “Next apartment,” said the guy who’d kicked in the last door.

  They searched room by room, making sure none of the invaders were hiding. They found one dead just inside a door, lying in a pool of blood. The guy kicking doors had to trade off jobs halfway down the hall, but Sierra kept hers, for it was a job that didn’t require firing into dim spaces and risking hurting an ally.

  By then, the gunfire from the other end of the hall had stopped. Curt and Leland and the others hadn’t returned. She was worried about them, but she pushed that worry from her mind and focused on her own job. Not much of a job, shining a light into rooms. But shining a light never killed a friend. It had that going for it.

  The only living man they found fired at them, missed, and he was killed. No one on their side was injured. They didn’t have to deal with the question of what to do with someone who had surrendered, though with the men they held in jail, that question would have to be addressed eventually.

  Gunfire overhead made everyone jump. “That’s the top floor?” a man said.

  Sierra said, “Yeah, I think. And except for a handful still in town, unaccounted for, this may be the worst of it. The last battle.” An hour ago, that might have made her sad. Right now, it seemed like the best possible news.