After the Fall: Catherine's Tale Part 2: The warrior's fight for survival begins

by David Nees

  Suddenly she saw a rocket coming straight at her.

  She dove under the heavy metal desk, cracking her head hard on the edge. Debris flew and immediately there was a deafening explosion and burst of light behind her. Hard objects pummeled her. She lay covered in dust and broken pieces of the room. Her ears rang. She was disoriented. She could hardly breathe.

  She pushed back against broken pieces of furniture, drywall and concrete, struggling to crawl backwards to get out from under the desk. Her eyes, nose and mouth were filled with an acrid-tasting dust. Finally she could stand. She wiped her hands on her shirt and tried to clear her eyes. The air was so filled with dust that it darkened the room; she could make out no details. The air had a metallic smell, toxic and dangerous. She coughed over and over. She fumbled with her clothing, trying to pull a piece loose to put over her nose and mouth.

  Still confused, she began to look around. Where’s my rifle? She remembered pulling it off the desk as she dove for cover, but she could not remember what had happened to it after that. Pulling back some of the debris piled around the desk, she saw the barrel sticking up. She reached down and began to tug at it, finally pulling the rifle loose after much effort. Would it fire again? Would the sights still be accurate? She didn’t know and at this point she didn’t care.

  She stood fully upright and looked around. The dust had begun to settle. The small office she had entered had disappeared. There was a round hole in the wall just to the left of the window. Turning around, she saw that the back wall of the office, made of cinder block, had been blown out. A large irregular hole looked out into a shattered hallway. The space was a field of rubble.

  The rocket must have passed through the wall before it exploded, she thought. And they know my position. Will they send another rocket to make sure of me? The thought chilled her. She looked around desperately for her backpack and carbine. She could not leave without them. After pushing through the mixed debris around the desk, she saw the backpack with the carbine lying under it. Both had escaped the brunt of the explosion. She grabbed the pack and, with the two rifles in hand, stumbled out of the room before another rocket could be fired.

  Struggling through the former hallway was like wandering in a nightmare. By dead reckoning, she found the door to the stairs. Pushing through it, she reached the relative safety of the concrete stairwell. She shuffled down the stairs to the ground floor and stopped to assess her situation.

  She was almost out of ammunition for the M110. She was out of positions from which to snipe. The sniper rifle was semi-automatic, but with its powerful scope it was not good for close-quarters shooting. It was time to shift over to her Bushmaster .223. She had four spare magazines plus one in the rifle, giving her a hundred rounds.

  Leave the M110 here. I can pick it up later.

  After propping the two rifles against the wall, she got her canteen out of her backpack. She splashed some of the water over her face and took a long drink. She put the canteen back, slipped on her pack, and grabbed the carbine. Her ears were still ringing, but she took a deep breath and exited the building. Billy was out there somewhere. She would try to link up with him.

  When she had shown Billy the plan on the kitchen floor, he had said he would come in from the east, on the opposite side of the compound from where she was. She had to assume he had stuck to that. So she would head south and then east, steering wide of the compound, until she could come back to the barricades on the far side. She had seen the northwest corner breached by explosions, so she hoped the militia had been drawn away from the other sections to help counter the attack. The line of improvised obstructions was far from perfect. If Billy had been patient enough to wait for his chance, he had probably already gotten in.

  She figured Billy would be going to the bank building. That was where Stansky would be.

  She would skirt the battle and approach the bank building from the rear.

  Billy wasn’t the only one looking for Stansky.

  Cut off the head and the body dies.

  “How can they get through?” Joe demanded.

  The militia officer shook his head, afraid to speak. The few reports that were coming in indicated that, slowly, inexorable, they were losing the battle.

  “Answer me! We got all the weapons we need. We know how to use them. There’s more of us. What the hell do I have to do, blow up the whole town?”

  “They got some good fighters…good shots. They don’t panic.”

  “Who’s leading them? Those valley farmers? They can’t beat us.”

  “They got some of the army leading them. Plus they got some mortars.”

  “What?”

  The officer reared back, blinking. “Soldiers,” he said. “Army soldiers. With some of their heavy weapons.”

  “The army left! Days ago!” Joe shouted.

  The officer looked fearful. “I saw them myself. Uniforms.”

  What the hell? Joe now knew he had a big problem.

  His plans had been working. Hillsboro was the best organized and best equipped city in the area. And now…this.

  He had expected to crush the attackers from the valley within an hour of their arrival. Then more had showed up, and the army was leading them. But he had seen them depart. As arranged. What had gone wrong? Had Roper double-crossed him? There was no advantage for Roper in doing that. Roper wouldn’t do anything that didn’t profit him, certainly not if it risked his hide. It didn’t make sense.

  Somehow Joe had to concentrate his firepower to make it more effective. He made an effort to speak calmly. “You move all the heavier weapons, machine guns, mortars, rocket launchers. Bunch ‘em together. Now. They’re hitting us on one street to the north and one to the south. Pick one, aim your firepower there, obliterate anyone and anything, then go to the next block. The riflemen, they gotta hold each block until the heavy weapons get there.”

  “But the mortars…”

  Joe got in the man’s face. “What about them?”

  “Half of ’em are gone,” the officer said nervously. “And…if we move those weapons around, it’ll expose them to incoming fire from the attackers that are already within the barricades…”

  “It doesn’t matter. You have to get this done. Understand? Your life depends on it. Now go.”

  The officer stumbled out the lobby door, and Joe drew in a deep breath and let it out.

  Soldiers. Plus mortars. He let it sink in.

  He decided it was time to leave.

  He was furious that all his work had come undone, but he was not going to wait around and let anyone catch him. He was not going to be a victim. He’d strike out on his own and try again. He had the drive, and with his stash of gold, jewelry, and weapons he could gather some men to form a gang. The gold and jewels would only really be worth something again sometime off in the future, but the hope of that wealth would buy muscle, and that muscle would get him control of the things that people needed.

  He’d lost Hillsboro. But he could do it again, and do it better.

  Joe headed for the loading dock and his pickup truck. His receptionist was still sitting on the floor by the door. As he rushed past her she called out to him again, but he didn’t hear her words, and he didn’t answer.

  As he stepped out into the sunlight and went down the steps, he stopped and looked around carefully. He could hear the firefight along the street at the front of the building. Back here it was quiet; the loading area opened onto an alley, and the attackers had not yet come around this way. One of the reasons he had chosen the block for his gang’s new base of operations was that the crisscross of alleys provided several different ways to leave. He’d have his pick. He would find a way out through the compound barricades and, if he hurried, he could be outside the town wall before anyone knew he was missing.

  Joe unlocked the truck and climbed in. The engine started immediately. He drove down the alley and turned left onto another one, away from the sound of the gunfire. That would have him leaving the block on the
east side. After he got out of the barricades he would leave by the eastern checkpoint.

  Chapter 33

  Billy heard the truck before he saw it. It was coming on the alley that crossed his own up ahead, coming from the right, coming from the direction of the bank. He brought his rifle up and started running towards the intersection. The pickup flashed into view. He opened up on full automatic. The truck accelerated hard and passed out of view, but his mind burned with recognition of the driver. It had been Joe Stansky.

  He reached the intersection in time to finish emptying his magazine at the back of the truck. Both rear tires blew out. The truck swerved, but it had reached the street. It turned right. He started to run after it. It can’t keep going with two flats.

  My shoulder!

  Joe fought the wheel. The pain was so savage that he thought he might faint. No. He turned right out of the alley onto the narrow strip of street behind the eastern barrier. No one was here. No fighting. Now where was the—

  He choked.

  There were no exits for vehicles. Of course there weren’t. No gaps.

  He hadn’t planned a way out and now he was sealed in.

  Going back to the center of the compound was out of the question. There was still a hot battle going on there.

  Was he trapped?

  No!

  He snarled and wrenched the wheel to the left, almost going faint with the pain. The pickup didn’t seem to be moving properly somehow; it wanted to crab sideways. He put the truck in four-wheel-drive mode and floored the accelerator. He aimed the truck at a little white Honda Accord in the line of obstructions. Smallest car he could see. He crashed into it. Kept the pedal down.

  The car shifted. Move! Why’s it so hard? It’s a teeny little car! He heard weird sounds, screaming metal, a loud strange flapping. He stood on the accelerator, and the back of the white Accord moved, rotated gradually out of the way, and then the whole car was moving, and he turned the wheel a fraction and pushed out between the Accord and the sedan next to it. Squealing scrapes along the sides, and then he was out. He was free.

  He powered straight across the road, up the little street he saw right across from the hole, who cares which one, just get out of sight, find my way from there—but something was wrong.

  He was not accelerating like he should. And the truck was shaking, and the wheel was doing strange things. The grinding continued, and there was a huge flapping that did not die down, and then the truck lurched and the flapping cut off, and in his rearview mirror he saw one of his tires lying distorted in the road behind him. Now he rode on a deafening metal racket.

  That guy back there had shot out his tires. He’d torn them off trying to push through the barricade. Now he was riding on the rims.

  I can’t get anywhere in this.

  In the mirror he could still see the barricade, the gap where he’d escaped. He saw a figure run out, past the white Accord. It was pelting after him, a rifle in one hand.

  Joe kept his foot on the accelerator and turned a corner, but the truck was not going much further. His shoulder was on fire, and the fuel gauge now read only two-thirds full. Maybe the fuel tank had been holed as well.

  It just wasn’t going to work.

  Catherine was approaching the eastern barricades at a full run, two blocks out, when she heard the sound of an engine. Then a flurry of shots. All the sounds of fighting were coming from other directions, from the north and the south, and further away. This was different, isolated, coming from the east. Something other than the main battle was going on.

  Is it Joe? Billy?

  She ran towards the sounds.

  Her ears strained. The engine sound rose and screamed, then dipped to a more normal tone. It had definitely come from ahead of her, away from the main battle, but after a moment she was less sure. Was it moving? The shots were the important part. They had stopped and had not resumed. She guessed at the direction and kept up her sprint.

  She was running across the street a block away from the barricades when she saw motion to her right. One block away, Billy was sprinting down the street away from her, his rifle in one hand. He turned a corner and vanished up the other street before she could call out. He was after someone or something. She turned and ran in that direction, trying to catch him.

  After running four blocks, Billy saw the faded brown pickup sitting in the road. He stopped. It was at the far end of the block he had just reached. Had Joe abandoned it? It was perhaps two hundred yards from him. He couldn’t see the shape of a head on the driver’s side.

  He didn’t want to be ambushed.

  He began to walk slowly forward.

  He had crossed perhaps a third of the distance to the truck when he heard rapid footsteps behind him.

  Whipping around, he raised his rifle. The figure running toward him yelled, “Don’t shoot!” It was Catherine’s voice. He stared. She seemed to be coated with white dust from head to foot. He wouldn’t have been able to tell it was her.

  He turned back toward the truck as she caught up to him. “What’s going on?” she asked.

  “Joe’s up there,” he told her. “In the pickup, I think. I shot at it as it went by, I might have hit him. I know I got the rear tires. I’m goin’ up there.”

  “It’s pretty open from here to the truck,” Catherine said. “Not much cover at all. We have to be careful.”

  “You don’t have to go. This is my fight.”

  “It’s all of our fight.”

  They slowly walked towards the truck, rifles at the ready. Billy focused on the truck, with Catherine scanning the buildings around them. When they were about fifty yards away, the driver’s door opened.

  “Stop!” shouted Catherine. “Throw out your weapons.”

  “Don’t shoot. I surrender,” came the reply. Was that Joe’s voice?

  “Throw out your guns,” Billy shouted.

  A rifle fell out the door and clattered on the pavement.

  “Now come out with your hands up,” Catherine yelled.

  “I’m shot.” The voice sounded thick with pain. “Can’t put my one arm up.”

  Joe Stansky climbed slowly out of the pickup and turned towards Catherine and Billy. He had a dark stain on his left shoulder. Billy saw that Joe still had a holstered pistol on his belt.

  “Drop that pistol,” Catherine said.

  Joe had begun to shuffle towards them. He stopped and slowly reached down and pulled the pistol out of its holster, then bent over to lay it on the ground.

  “Kick it away from you,” Billy said.

  Joe awkwardly kicked at the pistol. It skittered fifteen feet toward them.

  “Get down on your knees,” Billy said.

  Joe got down on his right knee, then he stopped. “I think I’m going to pass out…feeling light headed.”

  “I’ll tie him up,” Billy said to Catherine.

  “Don’t get near him. He may be tricking us. I’m not sure he’s shot.”

  “Look at his shoulder. It looks like he’s bleeding under his shirt.”

  Catherine’s voice was cold. “I don’t think we should get near him. Let him pass out for all I care.”

  “I’ll tie his hands. Then he can’t do anything. Right now he could do something the minute we take our eyes off him.”

  “Then we watch him.”

  “Shit, Catherine. There’s a battle still going on. It might catch up with us. Then what do we do? I’ll just tie him up.”

  With that, Billy started to walk towards Joe.

  “Billy, don’t!”

  Billy turned. “Look if it helps, I’ll leave my gun here. Then he can’t grab it. You keep him covered.”

  He laid his rifle on the street.

  He went on toward Joe. He passed Joe’s pistol where it lay.

  When Billy reached Joe, the man started to slump. As Joe went forward, he reached down to his left leg and pulled a small revolver out of an ankle holster.

  “Look out!” Billy shouted.

 
Joe raised the weapon and fired, not at Billy but past him.

  Billy lunged for Joe and grabbed the revolver before Joe could turn the pistol on him. He lost his footing and fell on top of Joe. The bigger man struggled to fling Billy off, but his free arm was weakened by the shoulder wound. The .38 was in Joe’s right hand. He kept twisting his hand, trying to dislodge Billy’s grip. Billy held on in desperation, pushing down on Joe, even shoving his head against Joe to keep him from using all his size and strength. They twisted and squirmed in a deadly embrace on the pavement, puffing and heaving.

  With an animal-like grunt of pain and effort, Joe brought his injured left arm up across his body, trying to find Billy’s eyes to gouge them out. Billy pulled back instinctively. He twisted his head away from Joe’s bloody fingers. He was losing control. Both his hands were needed to control the revolver, but that meant he was defenseless against Joe’s left hand. He would either get his eyes gouged out or Joe would twist the gun into his chest.

  “Catherine!” he shouted in desperation. Catherine didn’t come.

  What had happened to Lori Sue flashed through his mind. He thrust his left hand down and pulled his hunting knife out of his belt. His grip on the gun with his right hand slipped away. He brought the knife up and jammed it into Joe’s neck just as an explosion erupted in his right ear and everything went black.

  Catherine struggled to her knees. The bullet had hit her in the left side and knocked her to the street. It felt as if she had been hit with a baseball bat. Her side was screaming in pain. She thought a rib was gone. With her right hand, she slipped her backpack off of her shoulders. It slid off her and hit the pavement with a thud. The release jolted her side, and she cried out.

  She looked out through a haze, not yet focusing. She saw two bodies writhing and twisting on the ground. She turned to find her rifle. It was to her left. She lurched to her feet, crying out at the stab of pain, and stumbled to her gun. As she bent down to pick it up, she heard a shot. She dropped to her knees and clumsily brought the weapon around in her right hand. She couldn’t make her left arm move against the pain.