299 Days IX: The Restoration

by Glen Tate

  “Yes!” Sherryton yelled as she jumped up. She got her coat and looked around for instruction.

  Sap said to her, “Follow me.” The two of them ran down the stairs and out to Squad 4 and quickly told them of the plan.

  Sap pointed to a big utility box on the street that the Limas would be running down toward them. “That’s your cover.” Sherryton nodded.

  “Put your rifle over there behind it,” Sap said. “Go!”

  Sherryton took off her AK-47 and hid it in the bushes by the utility box. It was one of the sweet Century Arms C-39s they got from HQ. She made sure the safety was off. She didn’t want to mess with that in a critical time.

  She looked up at the intersection and felt a surge of adrenaline. This was it. It was what she’d been working so hard for the last few months. Payback time.

  Chapter 297

  Anne’s Revenge

  (January 1)

  “Wahoo! Hey! Over here boys!” Sherryton was yelling, in a drawn out slur. She was doing a magnificent acting job.

  She started to run toward six or seven heavily armed men, who were drunk and above the law. She was a very brave soldier.

  She quickly arrived at the intersection and was in the street lights, yelling down the street to the men. She yelled, “Come and get some, boys!”

  The Limas turned around. They couldn’t believe their eyes. She was hot, and drunk or high. They looked at each other, smiled, turned around and ran straight toward her. Some crazy drugged out chick wanted them, and they were happy to oblige.

  This was semi common for them. Women who wanted protection or food would let them have their way with them. It was partying; it was business. It was both nowadays.

  She let them get closer. When they were close enough for her to see them, she became terrified. They were civilian gangbangers. They all had rifles and looked sinister. She could sense the pure evil in them. They looked just like the gangbangers who came after her family. She was having flashbacks to Chicago.

  In an instant, she snapped out of it. She turned and ran. She couldn’t even feel her legs under her. All she knew was that she was running faster than she’d ever run.

  She got to the intersection, turned right and headed down the street and toward Squad 4. She looked right at where the squad was and couldn’t see them. Had they left? Was she all alone with them chasing her?

  She looked behind her and saw the gangbangers a hundred yards behind her. They were also running as fast as they could.

  She saw the utility box coming up and tried to slow down. It was hard to slow down, but she did. She grabbed her AK and took cover behind the utility box.

  This is it, she thought. This is payback. She put her sights on the closest one.

  “Boom! Boom! Boom!” Gunfire everywhere – a thunderous wall of gunfire came from behind her. She could feel the explosions in her chest. It was extremely loud. She had always trained while wearing hearing protection, so the loudness of the gunfire surprised her.

  She saw some of them in her sights and felt the recoil and muzzle blast from her AK. She was firing at their shapes, not really aiming. She was pretty sure she hit one. Everything was happening in slow motion.

  In a second, all the shapes were gone, but she kept her rifle pointed on target anyway.

  It was silent except for the ringing in her ears. She started to shake, but it wasn’t fear. It was like there was a drug in her. There was. Adrenaline. She felt stronger than she’d ever felt, like a super human.

  There was no movement where the gangbangers had been.

  “Cease fire!” Sap yelled. More silence. Nothing was moving.

  “Check ‘em out,” Sap yelled as he walked toward the bodies. He had his rifle pointed at them and all of Squad 4 was covering him. He had a weapon light on his AR so he could see them.

  Sherryton felt another surge of adrenaline. She jumped up and went toward where she’d been shooting. She kept her AK aimed at the bodies of the men strewn in the street. Her training kicked in. She remembered “search and assess.” She started scanning all around with her rifle for anyone who might be sneaking up on them. Slowly, the members of Squad 4 started getting up and doing the same. They were a few yards behind her.

  Sherryton got up to the first body which was torn to pieces and looked like it had been blown up. He must have been shot several times. She came up on the other bodies. Same thing. The crimson red blood looked purple in the streetlights, and it was slowly flowing down the street. It was amazing how much blood six or seven men had in them.

  “Still alive!” Sap yelled. “One of them is still alive!” Sap had his rifle aimed right at him.

  Sherryton ran up to the wounded man Sap was yelling about. She could see him moving slowly on the concrete. She clicked the safety on her AK and slung it over her shoulder. She walked up to the wounded man and got down on her knees over his chest so his face was right under her. She didn’t even realize what she was doing, but she took out her knife, an old M7 bayonet.

  That face. She hated that face down there. That gangbanger’s face that smirked while he was raping helpless women and girls. And shooting their fathers in front of them, like back in Chicago.

  She knew what to do. She gripped the knife, which felt cold in her hand. In one quick movement, she plunged it in his face. He winced and tried to scream, but he had too much blood in his windpipe to make any sound.

  It felt magnificent. She kept stabbing him, faster and faster. She couldn’t stop.

  “That’s for Ashley!” she yelled. “Lydia! Mom! Especially Mom! And Dad, too!” She kept stabbing until she heard the tip of knife hitting the pavement. She realized she’d stabbed right through his whole head.

  She looked at that ugly face. Or, at least, what was left of that ugly, ground up, bloody, former face. She stood up and looked down at him. She had her knife out and was standing there like she’d take on anyone else.

  Sap just stood there and watched her. He had nothing to say. He couldn’t stop her and he didn’t want to. She would be better now that she got that out of her system. Or she’d have nightmares of that mangled face for the rest of her life.

  Sherryton looked at her knife that was covered in blood. A tremendous amount of blood had splattered on her. It was all over her sleeves and her face. She wiped off her knife and tried to remove the blood from her hands. It was useless. She was just making a mess.

  Sap came over and said to her, “Go back to the squad.” He wasn’t sure if she’d snap on him, too. She seemed to be slowly processing everything that had happened.

  Sherryton stumbled in a daze down the street back toward the squad and walked right past them and to the brewery building. She wanted to wash all the blood off of her. The blood was from that man, and she didn’t want any of him on her. She also didn’t want the kids to see that. That’s all she could think about: the kids can’t see this.

  Anne Sherryton collapsed. She could no longer stand. As soon as her knees hit the pavement, she started throwing up. Great, she thought. Puke and blood all over her clothes.

  Sap was busy having Squad 4 move the bodies out of the street, which they threw into the bushes near the utility box. They needed to get those out of the way in case some Limas came by. Ted was getting all the other squads out along an even bigger and more reinforced defensive perimeter. Grant was up on the observation floor making sure no Limas were coming and listening to Jim Q.’s radio.

  Nick stayed with Sherryton to make sure she was okay.

  “Did the kids hear this?” she asked him.

  “No,” Nick said, lying. He wanted to reassure her so she could focus on recovering. “We told them to cover their ears right before everything happened.”

  Sherryton smiled and felt relieved. She didn’t want the kids to hear such violence. They’d already lost so much innocence.

  After a minute lying on the ground, she wanted to get back up. She felt embarrassed for having this reaction and knew, as a woman, she had to be extra-tough
to prove her worth. She didn’t want to get ripped off and only get the easy work just because she was a woman and couldn’t hack it. Although she knew that she had proven herself by volunteering to be the coyote bait. And what she did with the knife.

  “Still no Limas,” Barlow said up on the fourth floor. “For now.” He questioned the wisdom of baiting the gangbangers. He would have let them go and focused on remaining undetected.

  “What’s next?” Grant asked Ted.

  “A counterattack,” Ted said matter-of-factly. “If they can possibly muster it. Which, I’m starting to think, they can’t. But we need to be ready for it anyway.” Ted told Grant about the various squads on the perimeter. They even came up with a quick evacuation plan, which included grabbing the kids in case a bunch of Limas or some armor came at them.

  Grant hoped no Lima reinforcements came because he wanted to be right about his idea to attack them. He couldn’t contain his concern about his decision, so he looked for confirmation from Ted.

  “Still think it was the right decision to attack them?”

  “So far, yes,” Ted said. “If we get attacked, then no. But,” Ted pulled Grant close so no one else could hear and whispered to Grant, “never second guess past decisions. It’ll get you killed. Make a decision and go with it. Don’t look back. Don’t let the men know you’re having second thoughts. Got it?”

  Grant whispered back, “Sure. Thanks.”

  In his normal speaking voice, Ted answered Grant loud enough for the men to hear. “Yes, sir, that was the right decision. Those bastards had it coming. And now the 17th has shown the world that our training paid off. I’m proud of this unit.”

  Killing those guys was a big morale boost. Not that people enjoyed killing. In fact, they hated it, but they had worked so hard for months. Many of them were raw civilians. They didn’t know if they could pull off such a feat. They’d been keyed up for about thirty-six hours now. Two of their friends had been killed and a third injured. And now they had worked together and killed some bad guys. They’d put all their training together and done some nice work. They knew that their training had turned them into fighters.

  They spent the rest of the night on the perimeter, rotating people in for an MRE and a nap. Everything was quiet except for the sound of gunfire and occasional explosions in the distance.

  Grant felt way better after eating an MRE. He couldn’t remember what meal it was; he just knew that it tasted good. He had been getting woozy before he gobbled it down. After eating, he grabbed a twenty-minute nap which made all the difference in the world.

  Chapter 298

  Regular Military

  (January 2)

  “We have visitors,” Barlow said as he looked through his binoculars.

  Sap called in an alert to all the squads with radios. Runners from the “Chairborne” squad went from the squads with radios to the squads without them.

  “How many?” Sap asked Barlow.

  “Uh oh,” Barlow said. “Uh oh,” he repeated.

  Grant sat up from the floor he was resting on and looked at his watch. It was 3:23 a.m. and silent on the fourth floor. The only sound was the gunfire and explosions from somewhere outside.

  This might be it, Grant thought. They had gotten lucky with a half dozen drunken thugs. All eyes and ears were trained on Barlow and his NVBs. Barlow was concentrating.

  “At least thirty of them,” Barlow said. “Oh wait.” He started counting under his breath. “Correction: more like fifty.”

  Everyone on the fourth floor was terrified, including Grant. Especially Grant. He instantly thought his decision to kill the gangbangers was about to get his guys killed.

  “Actually, make that eighty-five,” Barlow said. “Military uniforms. Standardized weapons. M4s,” he said referring to the military designation for ARs. “Some big tubes. Looks like anti-armor weapons. Could be Javelins,” which was the military name for a shoulder launched anti-tank rocket.

  This was very bad news. Whoever these guys were, they would be able to kick the 17th’s asses. While the 17th had the advantage of being in a defensive position at the brewery, the trained soldiers had gear like Javelins. It wasn’t much of a match.

  “They’re moving like they know what they’re doing,” Barlow said. “Definitely regular military.”

  Grant shuddered. “Regular military.” That scared him. He realized that they had thought they were pretty badass slaughtering some drunken idiots, which was child’s play compared to a real military unit.

  Irregular, Grant said to himself. The 17th was only an irregular unit. They were tough and could fight, they just didn’t have as much training, or especially the gear like rocket launchers, radios, night vision, and machine guns, like a regular unit.

  And the kids. Grant thought about all the innocent little souls on the second and third floors. One of those Javelins could kill all of them.

  “They are stopping at the intersection,” Barlow said. That was the same intersection by the Baskin Robbins that the gangbangers had stopped at. “Setting up a defensive perimeter while they call in on the radio.”

  The radio. Duh. Grant and Sap simultaneously told Jim Q. to ask HQ if any friendlies were in their area. Jim Q. did so, talking in that weird, incomprehensible language.

  After a moment, more of that weird language squawked on the radio. Jim Q. smiled.

  “We have friendlies in our area,” Jim Q. said in English. “HQ is making contact now with who they think is at that intersection.”

  Another pause followed by more squawking in that weird language.

  Jim Q. said to Barlow, “The friendlies have been told to have three men hold their rifles up in both hands as a signal to us.”

  Barlow was looking through the NVBs. Nothing.

  Grant looked at Sap. He mouthed “Go time” to Sap. As in, it’s time to fight this regular unit. Sap closed his eyes as if to say, “Oh God.”

  This was it, Grant thought to himself. We’ll see if you really don’t mind dying, he thought. He waited for his brain to say something to him. All it said was “Don’t fail your men.” Not “be afraid of dying.”

  Sap walked over to Grant. They had some planning to do. Sap told a soldier to go find Ted and get him up to the fourth floor.

  “The signal!” Barlow yelled out. “There’s the signal. Three men with rifles over their heads!”

  Jim Q. said something excitedly in his language into the radio. A moment later, something came back over the radio in that language.

  “We are supposed to link up with them and temporarily house them here,” Jim Q. said.

  Sap got on the intra-unit radios and told the squad leaders what was happening. A welcoming team of three soldiers from the 17th went up to the regular unit and brought them into the brewery building.

  Grant went down to the first floor to greet their guests. Thank God they weren’t Limas, he kept thinking. He had a whole new appreciation for how much danger they were in. Up until this moment, Grant and the Team had always been the best armed and trained in any fight. The looters in Olympia, the meth house in Pierce Point, the Blue Ribbon Boys that the scouts took out and, of course, the gangbangers.

  Grant was curious to see who this regular unit was. As its members came into the first floor, he looked for any insignia on their uniforms. They had the standard “Wash. State Guard” name tapes.

  Soon, a man in his 30s came in and asked to see the commanding officer.

  “That’s me,” Grant said as he saluted the man who returned the salute. It was battlefield conditions and they were in a building—two reasons not to salute—but this was a momentous occasion. Both of them saluted without even thinking.

  “Captain Edwards, Bravo Company, Third Battalion,” said the man.

  Awesome, Grant thought. A regular military unit. A company commander. That meant a company of about a hundred men.

  “Lieutenant Matson, 17th Irregulars.” Grant said.

  “Pleased to meet you, Lieutenant,” Cap
t. Edwards said. He looked around and was very impressed with this irregular unit, which appeared squared away. They had decent weapons and were organized.

  “What can I do to assist you?” Grant asked. He needed to remember that Edwards was a Captain and therefore Grant wasn’t the head honcho anymore. That was fine with Grant. But, he had to admit, it was weird taking orders from a guy ten years younger than him. Oh well. That’s how it was. And Grant was happy to take orders from a regular military officer, which meant they were now paired with a well-trained and well-equipped unit, and thereby had a better chance of successfully completing their mission and making it back home alive.

  “Is this place secure?” Edwards asked, as he was looking around.

  “Yes, sir,” Grant said. He and Ted explained the perimeter defenses.

  Edwards was not overly impressed with the defenses. They were okay and, for a lightly armed irregular unit, pretty decent, but Edwards was an FUSA Army officer. He was used to having plenty of equipment. Helicopters, radios, battlefield computers, mortars, anti-armor rockets. He worked with soldiers who had several years of structured training, not a few months of training in some remote camp.

  “We’ll augment your defenses here, Lieutenant,” Edwards said.

  “Excellent,” Grant responded.

  “I’ll rotate my men and feed and rest them,” Edwards said. “You have food here, right?”

  “Yes, sir,” Grant said. “Not a lot. MREs.” There went the rest of the 17th’s MREs. But Bravo Company was on the same team. Sharing was an unspoken expectation. Those MREs didn’t belong to the 17th. They belonged to the mission.