This We Will Defend

by C. A. Rudolph

  “Cat got your tongue? I guess it’s possible you’ve heard someone tell you that before—maybe you just don’t know how to take a compliment.” He paused and sneered. “It was a compliment, by the way.”

  Lauren remained motionless and the man took another step closer. She could now plainly make out two patches on the leather vest he was wearing. One of them read Marauders. The other read President.

  “What’s your name?” the man asked.

  Lauren didn’t reply. She swallowed hard over a huge lump that had formed in her throat. She could feel adrenaline begin to course its way through her veins. It felt warm, but didn’t offer her any comfort.

  When the burly man didn’t get a reply, he pulled the pistol from his pants and aimed it at Lauren’s head in a flash, his thumb quickly making its way to and pulling back the hammer.

  “I asked you a fucking question,” he said angrily. “When I ask questions, I get answers one way or another, understand? Now tell me your fucking name!”

  “Lauren.”

  The man uncocked and lowered his pistol, then tilted his head and smirked at her. “That’s a pretty name,” he said. “It goes along with your pretty face.” He took yet another step closer. Lauren noticed a fresh cut above the man’s eye. “You’re not hiding any weapons, are you?”

  Lauren instantly provided a negative response. If she hesitated, her lie would be evident to him.

  “You’re sure?” Nothing left in that harness you’re wearing?”

  Lauren shook her head again.

  “Are you in the Army or something?”

  Again, Lauren shook her head.

  The man motioned with his pistol. “Take it off, then. You don’t need it anymore.”

  Lauren slowly unfastened her load-bearing gear and then reached down with one hand and unsnapped her belt, allowing gravity to pull it down to the floor. The harness dangled from thigh rig attachments at first until she unbuckled them as well.

  The man backed away so that he could lean himself against the wall behind him, his legs seeming to bother or otherwise pain him for some reason. He looked down at his pistol and then back to Lauren. He studied her carefully as he continued.

  “You know, Lauren—I used to really enjoy these moments,” he began. “I used to enjoy…a lot of things. And now…after today, it’s going to be a lot harder.” He paused and spit on the floor. “I’m guessing…all my men are probably dead now and I’m also guessing that you probably know something about it. Am I right about that?”

  Lauren didn’t respond.

  “That’s okay. I already know the answer. You see…you and your little rabble of folks here in Bumfuck, Egypt, murdered all of them—and I gotta be honest with you, I’m not the least bit happy about it.”

  The dryness in Lauren’s mouth had reached a point it’d never been and her adrenaline was now raging. She tried not to dwell on the man’s words, but it couldn’t be helped. His presence was terrifying. She tried to escape the present by remembering things her dad had said to her…things other people had said to her in the past, but she couldn’t think clearly. She was becoming afraid. She was starting to panic.

  The man chuckled solemnly and repulsively shook his head. “I lost brothers and sisters today,” he began, “and now, my future in this world has become unclear. I don’t know what tomorrow holds for me anymore. But I do have a plan for today. And that plan involves you.”

  He shoved his pistol back into his pants and reached inside his vest, pulling out what appeared to be a pile of photographs. He slid one out and unfolded it to display a picture of several young bikini-clad girls.

  “See the one in the middle?” he asked. “She was someone really special to me. We spent an incredible night together. I can’t remember her name, but I know for a fact I’ll never forget her.”

  He placed the photo back into the pile and shuffled through the rest. “There’s some others in here that I remember. Some were good memories, others not so much,” he slurred as he returned his glare to Lauren. “Wanna know whose picture gets added today?”

  After placing the other photographs back into his vest, the man pulled out a folded photo from his back pocket. He unfolded it and turned it around so that Lauren could see it. It only took a second’s glimpse of the photo for all her emotions to dissolve into a singularity that dominated the rest. The picture he now held in his hand was one that she’d framed and mounted to a wall in her bedroom on the first day she and her family had moved into the cabin. It had remained there every day ever since. Until now.

  Lauren felt something other than the fire inside her coming to life—something else entirely. It was a boiling primal rage stemming from deep within the most aggressive portions of her consciousness. And it was beginning to consume her. It was like nothing she’d ever felt before and it was taking all the willpower she had to keep from charging the man and gouging his eyes out with her fingers, and cutting his heart out with her teeth. She wanted him dead—right now. And she didn’t care how—she’d become unglued.

  “You’re not much of a talker, are you?” the man said with a sinister tone in his voice. “That’s okay. You’ll be making some noises soon enough.”

  Lauren ignored him. She couldn’t hear him and she could barely see him now. But her thoughts were coming in clearer now and were starting to make sense despite the force of rage that was growing inside her. She began remembering the backpacking trip she’d taken with her dad in Dolly Sods Wilderness and the things he’d said to her on their last night in camp. She could still hear his voice.

  If you’re ever backed into a corner or if you ever find yourself in a situation where you’re outmatched, outclassed, or you can’t fight your way out of, that you won’t let your fear decide your fate. Use that fear as a weapon. You keep your head, and you find a solution. Don’t ever limit yourself—use everything available to you as a weapon. No matter what, you fight…until you can’t fight anymore. Do…not…ever…quit.

  Lauren knew that she was more than outmatched. Her adversary was more than twice her size. His skin was tarnished and sun-beaten and he had the thick, calloused knuckles of a man who’d seen more than his fair share of violence in his lifetime.

  Sometimes, no matter how hard we try to avoid it, the battle picks you…and if that happens, we have to improvise.

  The sound of gunshots from outside the cabin filled the ambient air through the open front door. As several more were heard, the wood splintered on the outside wall of the cabin after being struck. The man in black ducked at first, then took off in a sprint from his position near the threshold. It caught the attention of Lauren’s foe, causing him to turn his head. In that moment, it had become time to improvise.

  Lauren reached back for a pair of dinner plates and backhanded them as hard as she could at the man, who still held her picture in his hand. He reached for his pistol, but before he could pull it, one of the plates smashed rigidly against his face. The other smacked the wall beside him and obliterated into pieces that rained over him.

  The man flew into a fit of intrinsic outrage as he began frantically pulling the shards of sharp porcelain from his face and hair. Some of the shards embedded themselves into the palms of his hands, and his blood began to drip onto the floor. His breathing quickly became deep and guttural as his anger increased the more he bled, causing him to sound more like a beast than a man. He didn’t even bother to reach for his gun. He expelled a howl of obscenities, put both of his leather-skinned hands before him, and charged head-on for where Lauren stood.

  The dinner plates that Lauren had thrown at him had given her the time she needed to gain the advantage. Just as he began to move toward her, he was hit in the chest by eight consecutive high-velocity .380 ACP frangible slugs from the pocket-sized Ruger LCP that Lauren now held in her hands. He gasped and stumbled backward with the impact of each shot, falling into the wall behind him and knocking several photo frames onto the hallway floor as he fought to breathe. He began to slip dow
nward along the wall as his body failed him. He fought to reach for his pistol.

  Time had begun to stand still in Lauren’s mind. Still recalling her last night at the Dolly Sods camp with her dad, another person’s voice started echoing in her mind. It wasn’t her dad’s voice, though. It was an older man’s voice. It was Bernie’s voice—the elderly man who’d tragically lost his daughter.

  If someone tries to hurt you, you make them wish they never crossed the likes of you. You make them pay…

  Lauren knew what that meant. She’d known what it meant when she’d heard Bernie’s grave voice utter the words. She needed to finish what she’d started. This wasn’t over yet.

  She lifted her knee to her chest and pulled her pant leg upward to expose the ballistic knife that she’d taken from the Pelican case—the same place where she’d acquired the Ruger LCP and the eight shots of hollow-point ammunition that had just saved her life. She carefully removed the knife from its sheath and disengaged the safety mechanism. She then aimed it and pressed the trigger, sending the spring-loaded blade soaring across the room and into the man’s chest. The man let out a deafening yell as his hands instinctively reached for the blade as it bayoneted him through the sternum. After a futile battle trying to free the blade, his body went limp seconds later, no longer having the strength to continue the fight. His hands fell beside him as he slid the rest of the way down to the floor.

  Lauren studied him and then approached him cautiously. Her attention was primarily on him, but she was also expecting his companion to rejoin them eventually through the open front door. The gunshots outside had ceased, but she couldn’t remember when. She thought she’d caught sight of someone she recognized in the yard at one point, but she wasn’t sure. And at this moment, Lauren didn’t care. She reloaded the LCP with the spare extended magazine that she’d placed in her pocket just in case. If the man walked through the door, Lauren was going to kill him. It was that simple.

  As she stepped to within inches of the man before her, Lauren looked down on the floor and noticed that he’d dropped the picture he’d been holding—the one of her and her dad. It’d been folded and was a bit tattered, but it was intact. Beside it lay the scattered pile of photographs of the young girls the dying man had been taunting her with minutes earlier. Lauren guessed they’d fallen out of his vest pocket when she’d shot him. She knelt reverently, picked up the pile, and thumbed through them, each smiling face causing her stomach twist into knots. So many beautiful faces. So many once-happy lives full of promise and passion for living. She wanted to feel sad for them—feel some sort of remorse for them, but she couldn’t right now. Lauren knew what had happened to them. She knew that their lives had been cut short by the man who was now bleeding on the floor beside her—a man that not minutes earlier was displaying the photos to her like medals of honor. It sickened her. Any one of those photos could’ve easily been her today. It could’ve been her friend Megan. It could’ve been her sister, Grace.

  You…fucking…bury them.

  It was Bernie’s voice again. His words were wrought with pain and anguish—the type of agony that could only be felt by a father who’d lost a child—his only little girl. His words were powerful, nearly deafening, and Lauren knew full well what they meant. The man before her was still breathing and it was time for him to die. And, it was up to her to end him.

  Lauren reached over to the man and, with a bit of effort, extricated the knife blade from his chest as his body convulsed. She placed a knee into the puddle of blood that was now accumulating on his rib cage and pushed out what little air he had left in his lungs.

  “This isn’t just for me,” Lauren said as she stared into his pitch-black eyes. “This…is for all of those girls you killed and did God knows what else to…and anyone else you’ve ever hurt or killed in your sick, pathetic, twisted life.”

  As the man’s eyes grew large and glassy and he continued to mouth foul, inaudible nothings to her, Lauren thrust the blade up and into his throat. It traveled in at upward angle and embedded itself into the man’s brain stem. His eyes rolled into the back of his head and his breathing quickly ceased, as did his existence on this earth.

  Lauren exhaled loudly and tried to expel all the rage that had amassed inside her. She took the picture of her and her dad back to her room and, among the disarray, soon came across the frame that it’d once called home. She did her best to smooth out all the folds and crinkles. She put the photo back into the frame and placed the frame back on the wall—right back where it belonged.

  “I love you, Dad,” Lauren whispered as she ran her fingers over the glass in the frame, paying close attention to the smiles on the faces. “I want you to know…that I’m not scared anymore. And I’m not going to cry…anymore. Ever again. I’m all out of tears.” She paused and turned her head away before continuing. “All these years, you’ve told me to turn them into something else. Well, today…you got your wish.”

  Lauren blew a kiss at the picture and then walked out and past the dead man’s blood that was now pooling in the hallway and on the kitchen floor in her home. As she stepped toward the door, Michelle and John erupted inside, rifles pulled to their shoulders.

  When Michelle saw that her daughter was alive and well, her eyes lit up, and she dropped her gun to the ground. She rushed to her and wrapped her arms around Lauren tightly. Lauren looked to John over her mother’s shoulder as he casually lowered his AK-47, his eyes fixated with wonder on the large man that now lay dead on the cabin floor.

  “John, the other man—outside,” Lauren said, a sense of urgency in her voice. “Is he—”

  “We got him,” John finished, still staring hard at the man on the floor. “Actually, your mom was the one who got him.”

  Michelle pulled away from Lauren and looked her over and then glanced down at the man on the floor. “Did he hurt you? Tell me.”

  “No. “I’m okay, Mom.”

  Michelle nodded her acceptance and pulled away. She walked over and into the kitchen and began surveying the mess in her home, noticing the fragments of some of her dinner plates on the floor. She also couldn’t help but notice that Lauren’s pistol belt and harness were lying on the floor as well.

  John stepped forward awkwardly with his head slightly lowered. He held out a hand and in it was Lauren’s Glock 22. “Here,” he said. “I found this outside. You must’ve dropped it or something.”

  Lauren took the gun from John, brushed some of the dirt and mud from it, and then slid it into her back pocket. Then she gave in and reached for him. John acted surprised at first, but took her willingly into his arms. Lauren affectionately nuzzled her face into his shoulder and neck.

  “We made it, John. I don’t know how, but we made it.”

  John squeezed her. “The good guys always beat the bad guys,” he jested. “You know that.”

  “I love you,” she purred. “Do you know that?”

  John smiled. “I do.”

  Chapter 31

  Although Damien Marcel and his Marauders MC ended up losing everything in the battle they’d chosen to fight against the free citizens of Trout Run Valley, losses were incurred on both sides. The decision to send a small disciplined group of more mobile, agile men on foot from the south had provided them the opportunity. Damien’s shadow team’s quest was simple. They were to rescue their brother Mickey and retrieve two motorcycles—the two that Mr. Ackermann had perched in his backyard. As a proviso, the men were also mandated to inflict as much damage as possible in the form of property destruction and civilian casualties. Then they would rendezvous with the others after it was all over.

  The six men in the shadow team were younger and in better shape than the rest of Damien’s men. But they were also well-rested and sober. They carried only a minimal amount of gear with them and could traverse the backcountry terrain with ease. Upon reaching the valley, they split up into two three-man teams. The first team’s initial target ended up being the first occupied property that they’d co
me across, which happened to be the home, farm, and elaborate gardens belonging to Bryan and Sarah Taylor.

  Before moving on to free their captive MC brother, the three men took pleasure in destroying the Taylors’ greenhouse along with every edible food item housed within it. They tore through and trashed every garden and devastated the autumn vegetables yet to be harvested. Then as a send-off, they slit the throats of the Taylors’ livestock and put a bullet into the head of the sow who was days away from giving birth. They had chosen to spare the house, but probably wouldn’t have if the Taylors had been home. Everything they had done, they did out of malice. The winter months were not far away, and now, the sustainable food supply that had once provided the Taylors and other families in the valley with so much plenty was a thing of the past.

  When they’d finished ravaging the Taylors’ property, they’d found their way to the Masons’ and made a daring play to retrieve their captured comrade. Michael Perry was the first to spot them from inside the house. He engaged them through a window, and although he managed to shoot two of them dead, he didn’t take cover in time before taking multiple hits from the third man’s rifle to the neck and chest. Bryan Taylor had come to his aid first, but was unable to help due to the rapid incoming fire through the window.

  The firefight ended abruptly when Bryan managed to score a well-placed headshot with his AR. By that time, Kristen had already reached her fallen husband and had begun to feverishly treat him for the trauma of multiple gunshot wounds. Kristen had been a paramedic for years and had seen horrific things in the span of her career, but nothing she’d seen to date was enough to prepare her for the sight of her fallen husband.