Push Back: A Post Apocalyptic Thriller (The Disruption Series Book 2)

by R. E. McDermott

  “Roger that. Keep your eyes open. Howell out.”

  They were a good ten miles from the Pecos Trader; almost two hours at this speed. It seemed unlikely the cons would abandon the attack, especially given what she’d heard on the cop car radio. What the hell were they doing?

  Jefferson County Courthouse

  1149 Pearl Street

  Beaumont, Texas

  Day 29, 6:35 p.m.

  Spike McComb stood on the small observation deck near the top of the courthouse, fuming as the little convoy crept from under the railroad bridge and made its way downstream. He lowered the binoculars and turned to glare at Snag, who was fidgeting nervously.

  “I told you this was gonna happen. These assholes are doing whatever they want right here in our territory. And now they go makin’ a recruiting trip right under your frigging nose, Snag.”

  Snag began to protest, but Spike cut him off. “And then, they fall in your lap, and this is the best you can do?”

  “Spike, we only had a half hour, and we still got—”

  “You got shit for brains, is what you got, Snag,” Spike said. “Now get on the radio and move everybody south, and get some of those boats you been roundin’ up on the water. But call the armory first and make sure they get their butts over to the launching ramps with long guns and ammo.”

  “But, Spike, we’re gonna need those boats for the attack—”

  Spike’s eyes narrowed as he glared, and Snag shut up. “As I was saying, pick your best marksmen and put a couple in each boat. I want two or three more guys with shotguns in each boat. The riflemen will keep the shooters’ heads down so the boats can get within point-blank shotgun range; then I want the shotguns to unload on the boats right at the waterline. They ain’t nothing but fiberglass, and we can sink ’em right from under ’em.”

  “I dunno, Spike, we’re gonna have to get pretty close. Are you sure it’s worth maybe gettin’ a bunch of the boys shot up before—”

  “I swear sometimes, Snag, I don’t think there’s one of you sumbitches who can think beyond the end of your dicks. Now just why do you figure the people on the ship would come ashore to gather up MORE people? And they came for Trixie, and she says her ex is on the ship. So just think about that. I mean, they can only carry so much food, and they only got so much room, so why get more crowded and share your food with somebody unless those somebodies are …”

  Spike waited expectantly for Snag to make the obvious connection and fill in the blank. Snag screwed his face up a moment, followed by a smile of understanding.

  “Pussy?”

  Spike’s face purpled. “FAMILIES, YOU MORON! The crew’s families must be on those boats. And if we got the families, we won’t NEED to attack; we’ll have ’em eatin’ out of our hands. Now get going, and have some boats standin’ by to pull survivors out of the river. They won’t do us much good if they’re dead.”

  Snag turned and raced for the stairway, but Spike called after him.

  “On second thought, maybe we can use the dead ones. Make sure to collect any bodies too, especially kids. We’ll pile ’em in a boat and send ’em to the ship with one of the survivors, just so they get the point about what’s gonna happen to the rest of them if they keep messin’ with us.” Spike grinned. “Ain’t nothin’ says surrender like a buncha dead kids.”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Neches River

  Approaching Hawkins Slip

  Beaumont, Texas

  Same Day, 7:05 p.m.

  “I knew it was too good to last. We got company,” Alvarez said to Jones.

  He turned and was about to yell up to Earl, but saw him already waving to the other boats and moving to tighten the cordon around the lifeboat. Alvarez’s radio squawked.

  “Talk to me, Alvarez. What’s up?” Howell asked.

  “Six boats of shooters coming out of the slip ahead,” Alvarez said. “Hug the left bank as close as you can, and we’ll pull in tight around you in a semicircle and try to keep them away. Over.”

  “Roger that,” Howell said, and Alvarez watched her inch the lifeboat even closer to the east bank.

  Jones raised his M4. “Here they come—CRAP!”

  Jones ducked behind their sandbags and Alvarez instinctively followed suit as a dozen rounds splatted into their improvised armor. Jones was clutching his right ear; blood flowed between his fingers.

  “Son of a bitch got me in the ear,” Jones said. “I think this bunch is a little bit better equipped, and they can sure shoot straighter.”

  Alvarez nodded and took off his booney hat to raise it above the sandbags on the muzzle of his rifle. It immediately drew heavy fire, and he pulled it down and stuck his finger through a neat hole.

  “They’re serious about keeping us down,” he said, “but we can still screen the lifeboat, so I don’t get it.”

  The roar of the outboards on the approaching boats grew louder, almost deafening, but not loud enough to mask the blasts of automatic shotguns seemingly only a few feet away. Their attackers sped by in line, now intent on savaging the second boat in the screen. As they came into view astern, Alvarez and Jones opened fire at the last attack boat in line as it sped away. Two men fell in the boat, including the driver, and the boat veered off to the left at a crazy angle, uncontrolled and out of the fight.

  “They ripped us a new one just below the waterline,” Earl yelled down. Alvarez turned back forward to see Earl out from behind his sandbags and leaning over the starboard side, peering down at the hull.

  “How bad is it?” Alvarez yelled.

  “It ain’t good,” Earl yelled back. “We was already leanin’ right from all these sandbags, so any water coming in is gonna stay on that side, and we’re just going to lean more and more. Like as not we’ll sink, if we don’t flip over first.”

  “How long?” Alvarez asked.

  “How the hell should I know? I ain’t no sailor. I was in the Army.”

  Alvarez watched the remaining attack boats speed upriver and execute a long arcing U-turn to roar back downriver, hugging the far bank. He had no doubt they’d repeat the maneuver downstream and come roaring back on another strafing run. He turned back to Jones.

  “How are the other boats?”

  Jones shook his head. “We got it worst, but they all took hits. None of them will take much more of this.”

  Alvarez nodded. Their own boat was listing noticeably more to starboard now, and moving sluggishly. He looked downriver as their attackers completed the turn.

  “Earl, cut speed and fall back against the next boat,” Alvarez yelled. “If we can tie off to her, at least we can protect her hull. They can’t shoot her through us.”

  Earl nodded and cut speed, and in seconds they were bumping along the starboard side of the second boat in the screen. They barely had time to get tied off and back behind their sandbags before their attackers returned.

  They could do nothing but absorb the blow, then fire on their retreating attackers. Three more screening vessels were badly damaged, one so badly it sank almost immediately, and its three occupants scrambled aboard the next screening vessel in line. The remaining damaged vessels had enough reserve buoyancy to stay afloat, with the more severely damaged quickly roped together and towed as a screen for their two less damaged sisters.

  With surprise no longer a factor, the outcome of the third attack was a bit different. The defenders were a compact mass now, much more difficult to suppress, and no longer engaging their attackers piecemeal. When the line of attack boats roared toward them the third time, they met the concentrated fire of a dozen rifles and broke off the attack long before they were in shotgun range. They sped out of range downriver to circle and wait, like hyenas waiting for a wounded gazelle to bleed out.

  That was the good news. The bad news was that the gazelle WAS bleeding out. The more severely damaged boats rode ever lower in the water, and they lost a second when they were five miles from Pecos Trader, cut loose to sink as they rearranged their makesh
ift screen.

  “You thinking what I’m thinking?” Alvarez asked.

  “If you’re thinking we’re going to be screwed when the river opens up to that big anchorage where all those old reserve fleet ships are, I guess I am,” Jones said.

  Alvarez nodded. “That’s two miles of open water where we can’t hug the bank. We can try screening the lifeboat on both sides, presuming we have at least two screening boats still floating, but all the sandbags are on the starboard sides …”

  Alvarez and Jones both looked up at the distant roar of outboards UPRIVER. A lot of outboards. “Or maybe not,” Alvarez said. “Sounds like our friends have called in reinforcements.”

  “What the hell are we gonna do?” Jones asked.

  Alvarez didn’t hesitate. “Put Pete, Jimmy and the rest of the Gillespie brothers in the lifeboat. Keep all the noncombatants low in the boat and a shooter at every gun port. Maybe they can keep those hyenas downstream off the lifeboat long enough for Howell to get it to the ship. You and I and everybody left will cut loose from the sinkers and take the two good boats back upstream to engage the bunch coming downriver. We’ll try to slow these bastards down long enough for Howell to get the families to the ship.”

  “You know that’s at least a half hour, maybe more, right?” Jones asked.

  Alvarez merely nodded.

  “And you know your plan sucks, right?”

  Alvarez nodded again.

  “Just checking,” Jones said. “For the record, if we don’t survive this, I’ll be seriously pissed off at you.”

  Neches River

  Near Old Mansfield Ferry Road

  South of Beaumont, Texas

  Earl Gillespie drove back upstream toward the island they’d passed just a few minutes before in their downstream flight. The island split the river evenly, with the deeper, dredged shipping channel on its west side and an equally wide but shallower channel to the east.

  As they neared the island, Earl slowed the boat, and fifty feet away, his counterpart in the other boat did the same. The sound of multiple powerful outboards could still be heard in the distance upstream, just around a bend.

  “Which side of the island you reckon they’ll come down?” Earl Gillespie asked. “I mean, I DO figure you mean to set an ambush, seeing as how we have two slow, sluggish boats with bellies full of water, against God knows how many faster, maneuverable ones. Thing is, sounds like we gotta set it fast, and if we pick the wrong side of the island, they’ll just cruise on past.”

  Alvarez was already nodding and pointing to the west channel. “There, those empty barges moored against the island. We’ll leave some bait to draw them into this channel then ambush them from the barges. Get us to the upstream end of the island, quick.”

  Earl turned into the west channel, and the second boat fell in behind. When they reached the north end of the little island where the channel split, Alvarez ordered Earl to stop a hundred yards inside the entrance to the west channel and put them alongside the second boat. He shouted over to the man at the wheel.

  “Drop your anchor, then cut power and come aboard our boat. We’ll leave your boat as bait, and when they stop to check it out, we’ll open up on ’em from those barges,” Alvarez said.

  “The anchor will drag in this current,” the man replied.

  “It doesn’t matter. It only has to slow the boat enough so it’s still visible when they come around that bend,” Alvarez said. “Which may be any minute, so move it.”

  The man was moving before Alvarez finished speaking, putting out the anchor as the others switched boats. Less than a minute later, Alvarez glanced nervously upriver and pointed Earl toward the first in a line of empty barges moored against the shore of the little island. He shouted instructions as they moved toward the barge.

  “Okay. We’ll split up. Jones, pick four men and we’ll land you on this first barge.” Jones nodded, and Alvarez continued. “Does anyone else have combat experience; before today, I mean?”

  One man raised his hand.

  “All right, you pick four men and we’ll drop you at the second barge. That will leave Earl, me, and two men here on the boat. We’ll pull out of sight downstream behind the third barge and engage targets of opportunity or any boats that make it downstream past you. Clear?”

  There were hesitant nods, and Alvarez continued, looking at Jones and the other newly created squad leader.

  “Spread out on the barges, and find something solid for cover. I don’t know how many boats to expect, but it sounds like a bunch. If you get overwhelmed, do the best you can. If you have to retreat, jump into the mud and water on the shore side of the barges and crawl into the brush cover on the island. We’ll reform on the opposite side of the island if it comes to that.”

  “When do we engage?” Jones asked.

  “You’ll be in the best position to see what’s going on, so you decide when to fire, and when YOU open up, everyone else will fire at will. Got it?” Alvarez looked around the group. They were all nodding now, a bit more confidently.

  “One last thing,” Alvarez said. “A still target’s a lot easier to hit than a moving one, so target the boat drivers. That should slow down their response as well.”

  He finished just as Earl pulled alongside the first barge. One by one, the men stood on the bridge rail and crawled up aboard the tall barge. He left Jones deploying his group and moved on to the second barge to repeat the operation. Two minutes later, Earl nosed the boat in behind the third barge, and Alvarez boosted himself up and moved across the barge to crouch at its edge, where he had a better view upstream.

  He smiled as the first few boats rounded the bend at high speed, then slowed and made for the west channel and the bait boat. His smile faded quickly.

  “Sweet Mother of God,” he whispered to himself as he watched boat after boat turn into the west channel. They were powerboats of all types, no doubt looted from dealerships and private garages. He stopped counting at fifty, and the only thing they all had in common was they were all faster and more maneuverable than his own waterlogged vessel. He turned and moved rapidly back across the barge to yell down at the boat.

  “Plan B, Earl. Pull the boat completely out of sight between the barge and the bank, and everyone climb up here and spread out. There’s no way we could survive engaging this force on the water. We’ll have to add our guns to the fight from this barge,” Alvarez said.

  Alvarez barely had his men positioned when Jones opened fire, prompting a fusillade from the second barge as well. It went as planned, and a dozen boat drivers dropped.

  Except the plan hadn’t included so many boats. Though the first strike was deadly, it wasn’t disabling, and the other boats started moving again immediately. They’d stirred up a hornet’s nest, and the hornets were pretty pissed.

  Even though the distance was greater, Alvarez ordered his group to open fire, in hopes it would spread the cons out and draw some of the hellacious fire away from the first two barges.

  Alvarez crouched behind the block of a pump engine, firing in disciplined three-round bursts, while the others fired from their own spots of cover.

  “Hey, Alvarez,” called Earl, from behind a hatch coaming.

  “What?” Alvarez replied.

  Earl flashed Alvarez a nervous grin. “Jones was right. Your plan sucks.”

  Neches River

  Just North of McFadden Bend

  Howell started to pull the lifeboat door closed after the last of the men had come aboard, but Jimmy Gillespie stopped her.

  “I’m thinking we should keep a shooter here,” Jimmy said. “And the same for the forward access hatch. Between that and a shooter at the gun ports on either side, we won’t have any blind spots.”

  Howell nodded. “Makes sense. They’ll probably start circling us like a pack of wolves anyway. We can at least try to hold them at bay until we get to the ship.”

  Jimmy nodded to Pete, who picked his way to the forward access hatch through the women and childre
n seated on the deck. Jimmy’s two brothers did the same, taking positions at the improvised gun ports on opposite sides of the lifeboat. Movement was difficult, with the boat full to over twice its rated capacity. Howell had ordered all the passengers to get as low as possible, and they were taking up almost every square inch of real estate the bottom of the lifeboat had to offer, in many cases on top of each other.

  Howell headed downriver as fast as the lumbering lifeboat would go, wondering how long it would be before their attackers engaged. She didn’t have to wonder long.

  “Here they come,” Pete said from the front hatch.

  “They may not realize we have teeth,” Howell yelled. “Make the first shots count. You only get to surprise them once.”

  “They’re forming two lines to run down both sides,” Pete yelled. “I’ll take the lead boat on the left.”

  “I got the right,” Jimmy yelled from behind her. She glanced back through the open door and only then realized he had used the closing dogs on the open door as footholds to boost himself up so he could steady his rifle on the top of the fiberglass canopy and shoot over it.

  She watched through her viewing port as the attacking boats separated, two in line to her left, and three to her right. They grew larger as they raced toward her, and she had all she could do to keep from screaming SHOOT! SHOOT!

  But she needn’t have worried. She heard Pete’s M4 in the front of the boat, and the driver of the lead boat slumped at the outboard, and the boat veered off at a crazy angle. Then Jimmy’s gun barked, and like Pete, he had targeted the driver, striking the man in the arm.

  The driver jerked, sending his boat smashing into the now driverless boat from the left column, capsizing both. The following boats only narrowly avoided the wreck and spread out wide to either side of the lifeboat, guns blazing.

  Howell heard the strange double THWACK of bullets passing high, through and through the fiberglass canopy, punctuated with the altogether more terrifying sound of rounds striking the steel plates protecting her position. But most of the fire was directed at the front hatch, below which Pete now crouched, out of sight.