by Mark Goodwin
Kate’s radio came to life. It was an unknown voice. “Your obstinance before the Lord has cost the lives of your friends. Repent now of your unholy defiance and save the souls of those who remain.”
Pritchard picked up a nearby radio. “I figure this is the man who calls himself the reverend. Let me tell you somethin’, boy. I remember when you and your no-account brother wasn’t nothin’ but a couple little punks runnin’ around town causin’ mischief. You ain’t foolin’ nobody but yourself with this reverend business, Lloyd Graves. You ain’t no preacher and you ain’t no man of God. You just a heapin’ up more punishment for yourself come judgment day.”
Graves called back over the radio in response to Pritchard’s rebuke. “Thy fate is sealed! Prepare yourself for the wrath of the righteous!”
With his rifle over his shoulder, David McDowell embraced his mother. “I guess he’s coming here next.”
Kate looked to Jack for orders but saw that he was in no position to lead. “Annie, Corey, we need to get Kelly upstairs so you can work on her there. We’ll hold them off downstairs as long as we can.”
Gavin took Jack by the shoulders. “We need you to stay with us. Annie is going to do all she can for Kelly, but for now, Rainey needs you to keep her safe.”
Jack watched Annie and Corey lift his wife’s listless body from the floor. His eyes moved to his daughter, then to Gavin. He gave a shallow nod. “Okay.”
Vicky was obviously holding back the tears. She shouldered her rifle and glanced at her aunt. “Sam is ….?”
Kate gave her a quick hug. “I’m afraid so, honey. But he did what he did so we could get away. Let’s make him proud.
“Jack, you, and Rainey go upstairs with your wife and hold them off. The rest of us will fight from down here.”
Pritchard led Kate, Vicky, and Gavin to a downstairs bedroom which had a view of the front and back of the house from the doorway. “Y’all shoot from here. David McDowell, Warren, Pete, Ernest, and me will guard the rear. I’ll put the menfolk from Laurel Ridge across the hall from you. All the women have guns, too. They’ll be upstairs with the Russos.
Kate nodded. “How many do you think there are?”
Pritchard held his rifle and stroked his beard. “Hard to say. If there was five in each vehicle I reckon that’d make about a hundred. Might a done killed twenty or thirty of ‘em.”
Kate hated the odds. Her group was slowly getting picked apart.
Stanley Hess nodded at Kate when he limped down the hall with his rifle. He was followed by Wes Holloway and Marshall Yates.
“Kate, Gavin, Vicky, good to see you. Sorry the circumstances are so dire.” Wes waved as he went into the room across the hall.
Kate forced a smile, knowing that soon she’d likely be reunited with Sam and Terry. She stood in the doorway, positioning her rifle to shoot toward the front. Gavin aimed toward the back of the house. Vicky knelt on one knee below Kate, also ready to fire forward.
A hail of bullets pounded the front door like metal rain, some of the rounds piercing the door. Kate ducked behind the cover of the bedroom door frame until the shooting subsided. Next, the door flew open and Graves’ men came pouring in like a flood. Kate and the others opened fire cutting down the first wave of intruders, but more kept coming, crawling like a plague of locusts over their fallen comrades.
“I’m out! Cover me!” Vicky struggled to change magazines.
Kate slowed her rate of fire so she wouldn’t run out until Vicky had reloaded. “They’re closing in on us, hurry, Vicky!”
Vicky resumed firing and Kate swapped her mag. Gavin grabbed them both by the shoulder and pulled them inside the bedroom. He slammed the door behind them. “Come on, we have to go.”
“What are you doing, Gavin?” Kate began to open the door and re-engage.
“This battle was over before it started. It’s going to be an absolute slaughter. We need to escape out the window.” Gavin shoved a large desk in front of the door and opened the window.
“And abandon our friends?” Vicky’s face was contorted with fear and grief.
“They’re already dead. We can’t save them. But I might be able to get my wife and my niece to safety.” Gavin tugged Kate’s arm toward the window. “I don’t see anyone on this side of the house. Run straight for the woods. I’ll cover you and Vicky until you get across.”
Kate knew he was right but still couldn’t stand the thought of running out on the others. “Okay. Vicky, you go first.”
Vicky crawled out the window and Kate followed.
“Go now! Run!” Gavin screamed as he began taking shots at men who noticed the girls running across the yard.
Kate led the way and slid behind a thick tree trunk. “Come on, Gavin!”
Vicky looked back in horror at the window through which they’d just escaped. “They’re coming in the room!”
“Hurry!” Kate coaxed.
Gavin sprinted toward the trees with gunfire biting at his feet. Kate shot back toward the window where two of Graves’ men were shooting at Gavin.
Gavin tumbled to the ground as soon as he reached the tree line.
“Vicky, keep shooting!” Kate lunged toward her husband to help him up and into the cover of the forest. “Are you hit?”
He winced in pain. “Left arm.”
Kate couldn’t stand the thought of Gavin going unconscious again; not in this situation. She stuck her fingers in the bloody bullet hole of his shirt and tore away the material. She positioned her flashlight on the wound. “You’re bleeding pretty heavily, but it looks like it just nicked you.”
Rifle fire peppered their area. “Aunt Kate, you have to turn off that light. It’s giving away our location!”
She nodded and complied with Vicky’s command. “Gavin, can you walk?”
“No, but I can run. Let’s go!” He directed the girls deeper into the woods.
Kate took cautious steps so not to trip over any branches. “Where are we going?”
“We’ll take the perimeter trail to the top of the hill. We’ll head over to Laurel Ridge and hide inside one of those houses for a day or two.” Gavin looked back over his shoulder to make sure they weren’t being followed.
“What if they search Laurel Ridge?” Kate asked.
“One of us will stay on watch at all times. We’ll hear them coming. If they do, we’ll be ready to bug out with a moment’s notice. We’ll disappear into the woods. But I doubt they’ll go there. Laurel Ridge doesn’t have enough supplies to make it worth their time. In fact, I don’t think they have anything except the few buckets of food we gave them. We can live off those for a week or so. That will give us time to come up with a plan.”
They finally reached the perimeter trail. Kate turned around to have one last look at the neighborhood that had been her home. In her heart, she felt that she was saying goodbye to everyone she knew. “Look, through the trees!” She pointed down the hill.
“Are those reinforcements?” Gavin watched in amazement at the stream of flashlights coming up the winding narrow road toward Pritchard’s house. The beams scanned through the barren trees.
“Quick! Get down or they’ll spot us.” Kate pushed Vicky to the forest floor.
Gavin lay prone next to the girls. “Don’t move a muscle.” The ultra-bright lights scanned through the woods bouncing left and right directly over their heads.
Kate heard one of them speak into his radio.
“Second Lieutenant, bring your platoon up through the woods and flank the house from the right. Make sure you’re taking precise shots. I think we’ve got civilians being attacked by a local gang. We don’t want to accidentally hurt the people we’re trying to help.”
“That’s not the Badger Creek Gang!” Vicky whispered.
“It’s the military.” Kate remained still.
Gunfire was exchanged for several minutes between the military and the Badger Creek Gang. The soldiers moved closer and closer to Pritchard’s house. Many of Graves’ men es
caped the house, fleeing into the woods.
“This guy is coming right at us!” Vicky took aim.
Gavin shoved the barrel of her rifle to the ground. “No! You’ll give away our position.”
“We can’t just let him get away!” Vicky protested.
Kate watched the man. He was headed straight in her direction with no clue that they were in his path. He stopped just short of Kate and looked down in absolute surprise. She grabbed his ankle and jerked his foot out from beneath him. He fell to the ground on his back. Kate jumped on his chest, put one arm around the back of his neck and slid her other arm beneath his. Using her bicep, she pushed his arm over his throat and held it there with her head. Moving like a crab, she crawled over the man’s torso in the opposite direction of where she was holding his head and rotated away from him. With each inch that she moved, the pressure on the man’s neck grew tighter and tighter. She felt him go limp and she sat up.
Gavin drew his knife and slit the man’s throat. He wiped the blood from the knife on the man’s jacket and put the knife back in his pocket.
Vicky turned away from the gruesome sight.
The gunfire gradually died off. Kate, Gavin, and Vicky continued to watch from concealment.
Pritchard and Jack emerged from the house with their hands up and their weapons hanging by their slings.
“Gentlemen, keep your hands up. Step forward and the sergeant will remove your weapons.” A man in an Army uniform motioned for them to approach.
“We’re residents of the neighborhood. My ID, which lists my address as being on this street, is in my pocket. We were attacked.” Jack walked slowly toward the man giving the orders.
“Okay, I’ll check that out, and you’ll be free to go.” The man went into Jack’s pocket.
“What about our weapons? Will we get those back?” Jack kept his hands up while the man inspected his ID.
“You can put your hands down.” The man handed Jack’s wallet back to him. “We’ll be providing security from now on. DC has chosen Asheville as one of the major reconstruction projects. The Army will be taking control of a fifty-mile perimeter around Asheville. The Army Corp of Engineers will be re-establishing electrical service in Asheville, then the surrounding areas.”
Pritchard objected to losing his rifle. “I appreciate you boys comin’ along when you did, but you can’t be everwhere at once. We need to be able to fend for ourselves. These Badger Creek fellas is meaner than a nest of pit vipers. A heap of ‘em took off through the woods when you boys showed up.”
“We’ll handle them, sir.” The man inspected Pritchard’s ID and gave it back to him.
Kate whispered, “We need to stash these guns before we come out.”
“Agreed.” Gavin gradually got up from the ground and backed toward the perimeter trail.
“How about that downed tree by the Smiths’?” Kate asked.
He nodded and signaled for Vicky and Kate to slowly lead the way. “I think that’s the place.”
Vicky motioned toward the dead man. “He has weapons.”
“Get them, too,” Kate said.
Quietly, Kate, Gavin, and Vicky slipped through the woods and stowed the rifles, handguns, and magazines in the shallow ditch made by the fallen tree. They raked a thin layer of leaves over the guns to hide them from view. Then, they walked back toward Pritchard’s house.
One of the soldiers spotted them. “Hands up! Come on out of there.”
They did as they’d been instructed. “We live here. We were attacked,” Kate said.
“Okay, let’s see some ID.”
She replied, “We just moved here after the crisis. But the other residents can verify that we live here.”
“Vicky! You made it!” David McDowell came running toward her. He embraced her and held her tight.
The soldier nodded at Kate. “Okay, I guess you guys are alright. You didn’t have any weapons?”
“Ran out of ammo and had to run.” Gavin held his palms up.
“Okay.” The soldier looked at Gavin’s wound. “We have a medical tent set up down by the entrance gate. You should have that cleaned up.”
“Thanks, I’ll take you up on that.”
“Do you want me to go with you?” Kate inquired.
“No. Go check on everyone else.” Gavin put his good arm around her neck and pulled her in for a tender kiss. “I’m sorry about Sam and everyone else who didn’t make it, but I’m glad you’re still around.”
The adrenaline which had been keeping Kate going was fading fast, making room for a wave of sorrow to come gushing in. “Me, too.”
“See you soon.” Gavin started down the drive.
Kate looked at David comforting Vicky. Her niece seemed to be in good hands, so she walked into Pritchard’s house. Inside was a display of carnage unlike Kate had ever seen. She’d witnessed her brother’s death, been in multiple shootouts, taken the lives of many, and endured her own home being turned into a bloody mortuary. Yet, she was unprepared for what her eyes beheld. Bodies were stacked up in piles, Pritchard’s floors were crimson red and sopping wet. Some of the corpses she recognized but most she did not. She found Pritchard standing in his kitchen surveying the remains left behind by the butchery. “Where’s Jack?”
“Upstairs, with his youngin.” Pritchard didn’t look up.
“Rainey is okay?”
“Okay ain’t the word for it, but naw, I don’t reckon she got shot.”
“What about Kelly? Did she make it?”
“Nope; ‘bout all of ‘em’s dead.” He looked up. “What about Gavin and the girl?”
“They’re okay.”
Pritchard’s eyes were filling up with tears. “The hand of the Lord saved you, Gavin, and the girl. Me, too, I reckon. Them what was in the back of the house with me is all dead, the men from Laurel Ridge, too.”
“What about the people on the second floor?”
“Them devils went up there. Killed Corey and a bunch more of ‘em.” Pritchard looked up and counted off names on his fingers. “Jack, Rainey, Kim Sweeny, Judy Hess, Annie Cobb, and her little boy, David and Amanda McDowell. They stuffed Rita Dean back in the closet to hide her before the fightin’ commenced. Them’s the only one who survived, I reckon.”
Kate couldn’t even remember how many of her friends and neighbors who were no longer among the living, according to Pritchard’s list. She watched as soldiers marched past, carrying the bodies of the dead. The commanding officer came up to her and Pritchard. “I know this is a hard thing to ask, but it’s necessary. We can make an educated guess about which side each of the dead were on, but it would be better if one of you could make positive identifications of the residents.”
“I’ll do it.” The lines around Pritchard’s eyes showed his grief. He followed the officer out the door.
Kate traversed the open grave, careful not to step on any of the dead, but eager to get out of the house. The first light of dawn was glowing over the mountains. The sun would soon be warming the frigid night air.
Kate walked back to her own cabin where other soldiers were carrying out more of the dead. She readied herself for what she knew awaited her. She ascended the porch stairs and stepped across the bodies of two intruders. She looked down the hallway.
There on the floor, slumped up against the wall was Sam. Don lay face down in a pool of blood only three feet away. Kate covered her mouth in dread. The soldiers had already taken their rifles and stripped off their tactical vests. Her nephew looked so peaceful.
Two soldiers came in and started to pick up Sam. Tears streamed down Kate’s face. “That’s my nephew. Could you bring him upstairs and put him on the bed instead of taking him outside with the others?”
One soldier looked at the other. The second soldier nodded. “Sure. Just show us where.”
Kate led the way upstairs to her room. The soldiers put Sam on her bed and left her alone to mourn. She pulled up a chair next to the bed and took his hand. “We’re going to miss yo
u, buddy—especially Vicky. But we all made it out alive, thanks to your valiant sacrifice. And I’ll make sure it was not in vain. We’ll give ourselves some time to grieve, we’ll say goodbye to you and all the others, then we’ll pick ourselves up and move on. But we’ll never forget you, and we’ll always remember what you did for us.”
She turned to see Vicky and David standing behind her. Vicky dried her eyes with the sleeve of her shirt. She knelt by the bedside and stroked Sam’s lifeless arm. “Ditto.”
Kate pulled Vicky’s head gently to her chest. She kissed the top of her soft hair. “We’ll get through this. We have to, for Sam.”
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Thank you for reading
Cyber Armageddon, Book Two:
Feast of the Locusts
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