Irene got it and sprinted the rest of the way up the stairs. Peter followed right on her heels, praying he had read the situation correctly. Below him, pistols started firing. Irene rounded the door jamb right in front of him, and he heard her weapon fire. As soon as Peter got into the room, he saw a man in uniform standing up in a far corner. Unfortunately, Irene was too close to his line of fire, and was focused on another man who was flying backward. Peter made a snap decision. He angled his shoulder and threw himself forward, muscling between Irene and the wall toward his target. He was moving way too fast to make anything but a truly wild shot, so he let the momentum carry him on and crashed into the man, bear hugging him.
Just as he made contact, he felt an intense and searing pain in his arm.
21
Prange was having a hard time figuring out what was happening, with the outbursts of gunfire popping up all over town. He mentally stepped back to focus on what he knew about the situation. Just as his people were signaling with whistles, it seemed the townsfolk were using patterns of gunshots.
To him, that implied there was some sort of plan in place they were following, and any plan was dependent on leadership. Prange at least knew where that leader was.
“What’s happening at the bar?” Prange shouted to his sharpshooter.
“Guys on the roof are still glued to their scopes. Not seeming to care about anything close, definitely looking into town.”
Prange kicked at a sandbag in frustration. “Shoot the people on the roof, then this whole town is a free-fire zone. Anything with a gun that isn’t on our crew is fair game. Have fun.” He grabbed his driver and went down to the street.
As he stepped out onto the street, the closest gunfire was in the opposite direction of Carter’s team. He stalked up to his truck and had the driver head toward the firefight.
“Get in!” Prange shouted as the truck pulled up behind his men. He fired his pistol through the empty space where the windshield had once been, to try and put down a bit of cover so his men could disengage. “Now get us to that damn bar!” he said, once his guys were on board.
As the big truck lumbered forward, he noticed that a couple of the people firing back at him had strips of red cloth tied to their arms.
“Kill anybody with red armbands, whether they threaten us or not,” he called into the back of the truck.
The truck tore through town, taking the corners hard. They took sporadic fire, but nothing impeded their progress out to the edge of town. The first thing Prange noticed when they got a clear look at The Duck Blind was Carter leading his men away from the building. They were jogging down the bar’s long driveway, keeping their heads down and their eyes in the direction of town.
The telescopes were still visible up on the roof, but nobody was up there.
“There better be at least three dead bodies inside, and one of them had best be Grossman,” Prange snarled as Carter and his men ran up to the truck.
“By the time we got here, place was empty. Asshole managed to give us the slip again,” Carter said.
“Drive!” Prange said. “Follow this road here back into town.” The driver put the pedal down and the truck got moving too fast for Carter or any of his men to jump on board.
Prange leaned out of the cab, looking down into the steep ditch on the side of the road opposite the town. He had no military training, no experience hunting or in any sort of real outdoor craft, but even he could see that somebody could easily follow it into town without being detected.
Two hundred yards out, several bullets suddenly cracked through the cab of the truck. Prange could see muzzle flashes from inside the first couple houses up ahead before he ducked down. “Run it!” he shouted.
His driver downshifted and the truck whined as it accelerated. The armor inside the doors of the truck did its job, stopping bullets while they drove past the gunmen. It did nothing to protect the driver, who had to keep his head up to see where he was driving. Prange heard the sickening wet thump of a round hitting, followed by a spray of blood through the cab.
Fortunately, the impact threw the driver sideways, dislodging his feet from the pedals. Prange slapped the gear shift into neutral and grabbed the steering wheel to at least keep the vehicle on a steady trajectory. Its gradual slowing ended abruptly with a loud crash of metal and glass.
Prange risked a quick pop up, to see they’d hit a parked SUV. There were no bullets whizzing past at the moment, but he knew that situation wouldn’t last long.
“Everybody out!” Prange shouted. “Gather on me.”
As the three men in the back ran up to him, he was relieved that none of them had been hit. It seemed like the men who’d shot up his truck were busy with new targets. He figured it was probably Carter’s team. That took a little bit of pressure off, but Prange knew that he couldn’t just stand around and make a leisurely plan. Now that there was an open battle going on, he knew that any homeowner with a gun in any of the houses around him just might decide to take a shot.
He decided the best bet was to work his way back to the town hall. “This way,” he said, pointing down a side street. He and his men took off at a run.
Halfway up the block, it finally happened. A single gun fired from across the street. Prange could have sworn he felt the breeze of the bullet as it zipped past the back of his neck. “Keep moving!” he yelled, stepping up his pace. Then another burst of gunfire opened up, from directly in front of them.
His first instinct was to flinch and wait for lead to start tearing through him, until he realized it was automatic weapons fire. It was his own people firing.
Even better, they’d flushed the townsfolk that had fired at him out of cover. A few men in camouflage with red armbands burst out from between the two houses on the next corner, firing as they ran. The leader was heavily favoring one leg, firing a pistol with one hand, leaning heavily on a cane with the other.
Prange smiled. He had three men on one side, at least two on the other, and the mayor was caught in the middle.
Prange turned and barked at the three men behind him, “Get Grossman!”
22
Grossman slowed his party as he got up to the house where a couple of friendly troops had last been seen. Taking aim at the corner of the house, he scuffed his foot against the pavement to make a bit of noise.
A voice from around the corner gave the password, and he countered.
“That you, Mayor Tom?”
“It is.”
Two men stepped out, showing the red bands around their arms and ankles. They had barely gotten a chance to look at each other when gunshots rang out from the direction of town. All five men immediately hit the ground. Grossman was the first one to return fire. At the range they were at, his pistol was unlikely to hit anything. The four men with him had hunting rifles, which were much more effective. One of Prange’s men suddenly spun from the impact of a clean hit to the chest, which sent the other one fleeing.
“We’ve got to keep moving,” Grossman said. “Somebody keep eyes behind us in case that one follows.” He gladly accepted a hand getting to his feet. Picking up his cane, he wondered whether he could effectively use the AR-15 single-handed but rejected the idea. Ever since his injury, he had practiced firing a pistol off-hand until he’d gotten proficient at it. Never having done the same with a rifle, it wasn’t time to try to learn on the fly.
A block up, there was a fresh wave of gunfire, punctuated by the crunching sound of two large motor vehicles colliding. “Ignore it!” Grossman said when he noticed his men slowing to rubberneck. “Our objective is the staging point so we can pick up the plan.”
They cleared several houses, using a simple fire and maneuver to cover each other while they leapfrogged toward an intersection a block and a half up from the town hall.
“Wait one!” Wes said, signaling the rest to stop as they prepared to cross a street. There were some light bushes in the front yard that gave them a little bit of concealment. “Prange and some thugs
.”
Grossman let himself take a quick peek around the corner of the house they were hiding behind. Sure enough, it was a man in civilian attire with a couple men in Army uniforms running down the road, angling for an intersection that would lead them toward the town hall as well. “Take him,” he told Wes.
The young man shouldered the stock of his rifle and put his eye to the scope. He fired and Prange flinched but didn’t go down.
“Keep moving!” Prange yelled at his men.
Grossman aimed his pistol downrange. The men with him followed suit, but never got the chance to fire, as two automatic weapons opened up on them from their unprotected flank. Grossman and his men all burst instinctively into a run, scattering in three different directions.
At the sound of gunfire, Grossman saw Prange slow and turn to look, a flash of recognition crossing his face.
If it weren’t for the fact that he was caught between two armed groups, Grossman would have risked slowing for a shot. He clearly heard Prange order his men to get him, which got him moving even faster for cover. His knee threatened to give out, and it was only by pulling up every last reserve of will that he kept his feet under him and got to a parked car. He collapsed behind it, Wes hot on his heels.
“I’m sorry I missed, sir.”
“Don’t fret over it. Think about your next shot.”
Bullets started tearing into the car. Grossman holstered his pistol and got the AR-15 into his hands. “If we’re lucky, they’re going to blow their wad before they get to us,” he yelled over the noise.
An opportunity presented itself when he caught sight of one of his opponents stopping to reload. He popped his head and shoulders over the car’s hood to take a shot, when he saw Prange out of the corner of his eye, coming into position to flank him.
For a moment, Grossman didn’t know exactly where the rest of his own men were. All he knew was that Prange and his men, five in total as near as he could tell, were all bearing down on him.
23
When the bullet hit Peter, it threw his momentum way off. Instead of nailing his foe with a solid tackle, he stumbled and tripped over something on the floor. He heard several shots from painfully close, and felt another sudden sharp pain in his leg.
He was sure he was going to die as he rolled into the other man’s legs, but the impact unbalanced the man and he fell over. Peter made a desperate sweep with his injured arm that at least knocked the man’s rifle away. When his opponent lunged for the weapon, Peter used his good arm to snag the man and pull him back to the ground.
Every move he made sent waves of pain through is body. If he hadn’t spent so much time out on the gridiron practicing, learning to fight through fatigue and exhaustion, sore and pulled muscles to manhandle others, he knew he would have accomplished nothing.
Peter wasn’t a wrestler by any means, but he did have a lot of weight and raw muscle mass in his favor. Once he got on top of the other man, he set his mind to just staying there. The sounds of gunfire elsewhere in the house, of Irene shouting, “Damn it, give me a shot!” were distant distractions, things he was only vaguely aware of far behind the screaming agony in his arm and leg.
In his struggle, Peter’s opponent grabbed the fresh wound on his arm and squeezed hard. The pain was enough to cloud his vision and sap his strength. The other man pressed the advantage, sharply raising a leg, slamming his thigh into Peter’s groin.
Peter grit his teeth and snarled, pouring everything he had into keeping the man smothered under him, but the low blow had taken a lot out of him. His strength was rapidly giving out, and the man was wriggling free. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Irene tucked into a corner, holding her pistol at the ready in case she got a chance for a clear shot.
“Your knife!” Irene said.
Peter dug deep to find the endurance to hold on a little bit longer, doing his best to keep his foe tight up against him with his good arm and leg. The pain in his wounded arm redoubled as he twisted it behind him to reach for the knife on his belt. He slipped his knife from its sheath and went for the nearest target, slamming it into the side of the fake soldier’s thigh.
The shock momentarily froze his opponent, giving Peter a brief window for one quick-aimed shot.
With his last bit of strength, he yanked the knife free and plunged it into the small of the man’s back, a hand’s breadth to the side of the spine. The man went rigid and sucked his breath in. Fighting against a near-paralyzing level of pain from the wound in his own arm, Peter jerked the knife up and in, burying it to the hilt.
“You’re hit,” Irene said, coming up to her knees and reaching into a pocket.
More bullets went flying through the room, coming in from outside of the house. Irene flattened herself to the floor. “Avoid the windows!” Peter reminded her, voice weak.
“Come here. Let me get that,” Irene said.
Peter crawled to a corner of the room that wasn’t visible from the window. The flow of bullets from outside the house had stopped, but the storm of lead from inside continued unabated. From his position, he could see across the upstairs hallway into the bedroom on the opposite side of the house.
As the men inside exchanged gunfire with Bill and Larry, he caught sight of a leg as one of the soldiers crouched down. “Your gun,” he said.
“I’ve got to get you patched up,” Irene said.
“Just give me your damn gun.” He reached around behind himself. Irene place her pistol in his hand.
His vision was blurring. If he weren’t flat on the floor, he’d never have held the pistol steady enough to aim it. Slowly, he squeezed the trigger until it was just at the release point. Holding it until his eyes cleared just enough to verify that the sights were lined up on the target, he pulled the trigger that tiny last bit. The recoil almost ripped the pistol from his hand, but he heard a startled scream and the man in the other room fell forward, clutching his leg and moaning in pain. Peter adjusted his grip on the pistol, brought it back into position, and fired again. The man stopped moving.
Rounds kept flying through the walls, even though Peter couldn’t see the other man firing from the opposite bedroom.
“You can give up,” Larry called out.
He got a blast of profanity, and another burst of gunfire in response. Several pistol shots rang out from the stairway.
“Sit the rest of this one out, Peter,” Irene said, fishing a field dressing out of a pocket.
Peter finally spared a moment to look at his left arm. It was bleeding heavily. He tried to lift his head enough to look down at his right leg, but another wave of lightheadedness came over him.
There was another spray of bullets on full automatic that flew out of the other bedroom, more pistol fire, then the higher-pitched popping of the rifle ceased. It sounded like a herd of elephants had suddenly broken into the house. Judging by the guttural roar that came with, it was just Bill Roth charging up the stairs. Peter heard him ricochet off the wall and keep running. Bill’s shotgun fired three times rapidly.
“Clear!” he shouted.
As much as Peter wanted to let the blackness overtake him, now that he knew the house was secure, he pushed it back. The battle was won, but there was still a lot of work to do once he got patched up.
24
Tom Grossman turned around so his back was pressed against the wheel of the car. “Two or three coming around from my side. What do you have?”
“Two,” Wes said. “They’re staggering, so one’s firing while the other reloads.”
“I was afraid they’d figure that out. You see our other guys?”
“One of them. He’s keeping low. Looks scared.”
Grossman could understand. He was surprised at how well his people had been doing so far. He had a core of old veterans that had thrown in with him, but the bulk of his people were younger, without any sort of tactical training. Wes was one of them, and so far, he was holding steady. “You’re doing great, by the way,” he said, tapping the young
er man’s shoulder.
One of the men with Prange crossed his line of sight, running between two houses, possibly to come around and create a threat from a third direction. Grossman fired three times as he led the man, one of which hit. The man stumbled and fell but landed behind the house he’d been going for. Whether he was still able to fight or not was unknown.
The sound of gunfire from Wes’s flank changed. Instead of short bursts of automatic fire that seemed to come always from the same place, there were now single shots, and they were definitely on the move. The rounds were coming steady enough that there wasn’t a good gap to pop up and shoot. They were also firing deliberately now instead of spraying, clearly hitting the car very close to where Wes was. It wouldn’t take long before the two enemies had a clear shot up an unprotected flank.
“Get ready to take your shot the second you get target,” Grossman said. At that same moment, Prange’s other man leaned out from cover and opened up, fully automatic. He and Wes pressed themselves even harder into the side of the car. He shot back but couldn’t force himself to take aimed shots against the onslaught of automatic bursts. At least his return fire was just enough to keep the other man from aiming as well.
Grossman knew his only hope was to pray that he didn’t get hit before the man had to stop to reload. When that happened, though, Prange leaned around and fired his pistol.
The walking fire on Wes’s side was clearly coming close enough that they’d have a clear shot any minute. He reached behind himself and grabbed the sleeve of Wes’s shirt. “Get ready to make a break for it. Just run until you’re clear.” As soon as Prange stopped firing, Grossman pulled hard on Wes’s shirt, swinging him around to the front of the car. It would give him cover from the two flankers, hopefully long enough to get up some speed to run free.
Age of Survival Series | Book 2 | Age of Panic Page 20
