After It Happened (Book 1): Survival

by Devon C. Ford

  The Sig was a harder weapon to handle than the Glock, so he instructed her with his own gun – it was easier to use with smaller hands. They went into the industrial estate and he set up targets at ten and twenty feet. She was about sixty per cent accurate at twenty feet, which was good enough for him. He took the opportunity to sight his own M4 as she did hers. She remembered how, despite the years since she had held a firearm. Adjustments were made, and Dan saw she was eight for ten at what he guessed was a one hundred and fifty metre range. Pretty damned good.

  He kitted her out with one of the body armour vests, having to tighten it up as far as it would go as Lexi had narrow shoulders and a fairly flat chest. He gave her the Glock and the spare magazines, and showed her how to load and unload them to ease the springs.

  He ran though primary weapon failures and having to go to the secondary and reloading. He gave her a rucksack and a list of what she should take every time she went out, finally adding a couple of knives to her kit.

  As he went over the rules for different scenarios with her at the armoury trailer, he stripped, oiled and rebuilt a Sig to replace the Glock he had given to Lexi. He loaded three magazines, sat two of them neatly in place on his vest and slapped the third one home in the gun. He racked the topslide to chamber a round. Looking at Lexi, he thought he should probably loot some black clothing for her too so that they didn’t look too different. Uniforms, no matter how bizarre the situation, have a psychological effect on people.

  As he was running through map skills and what kind of buildings and vehicles to mark, she held up a finger to shush him and looked sharply to her left. Dan heard it at the same time, and snapped into action. Unmistakably a motorbike, and what sounded like a person shouting a screaming like they were drunk or deranged. Dan decided to leave the Land Rover where it was, and they both approached on foot as fast as they could. Between them they had nearly three hundred rounds of 5.56 ready to fire on full auto, and that was before they even used their pistols. Whatever it was they were hearing was unlikely to be a threat to them. He hoped.

  As they neared the sound, they could hear a voice pleading for help. The word ‘no’ was being screamed though sobs of pain, mostly drowned out by the motorbike.

  Dan held his hand up and they both stopped. He saw a fixed steel ladder running up the side of a building with a flat roof, and pointed it out to Lexi. She nodded, slung her rifle and ran to climb it. He knew she had a more than average chance of hitting anything she saw within a short distance and felt more secure having some top cover. When she reached he flat roof he readied his carbine and rounded the corner at a crouch, knees bent and walking fast.

  What he saw horrified him. A young man was riding a dirt bike around an older man. The older man was covered in cuts, and the rider was enjoying himself riding past him and making slices through his clothes with a machete not unlike Dan’s. This kind of Mad Max shit made him very angry; people like that have such an ignorant understanding of anarchy – they think it’s a free ticket to rape. To maim those weaker. To prey on others.

  The older man was trying desperately to protect a younger female by shielding her with his body. Dan would see no more of this man’s blood spilt, so he flicked the safety catch to auto and fired three short bursts at the motorcyclist. Fuck the verbal warning, he thought with a savage flash of remembered anger; that was for a world with barristers who call you a murderer for doing your job.

  The initial burst blew dust from the gravel in front of him. The second strafed up the front wheel and onto the instruments, the last caught the man with three or four rounds from thigh to neck. The bike toppled instantly and stalled. By the time he reached them, still watching him through his optic and moving forward in a semi crouch, he had died. Dan was just in time to see the last few weak spurts of arterial blood pulse from the ragged hole the bullet had torn in his neck.

  He safetied and slung his M4, and bent down to the body. It looked like a fairly normal young man, not some crazed biker psychopath. He always believed that some people were just born bad, and this was one of them – just waiting for a situation to arise where he could throw off the bonds of acceptability, remove his mask of a normal person and hurt other people for fun. Dan despised him, and felt no remorse for having ended is life without warning.

  A scream from behind him made him spin round and drop to one knee. The hysterical girl who was protected by the now unconscious bleeding man had seen another would be rapist enter the yard on another motorbike. Dan was thirty feet away, probably too far to be effective with the Sig which he had never fired before, but he held the man in his sights and shouted a warning.

  “Fucking leave, now. Do it now and I won’t kill you” he shouted. The girl still screamed and keened in terror. The man he was aiming at looked past him at his dead comrade, and revved his bike. Dan settled himself to squeeze off rounds systematically and try to bring him down. As he started to breathe out and squeeze, he saw the man shudder and fold over the handlebars, both body and bike hitting the ground together. A split second after the impact he heard a sharp crack and the report of Lexi’s rifle. He ran over, covering the body with his Sig but found that the 5.56 bullet had shattered his sternum and the heart behind it before blowing a small chunk of flesh out by his right kidney. Sick as it seemed, he was very happy with his new recruit’s accuracy and timing.

  He shouted Lexi and asked if she was ok. She called that she was fine, and he replied to stay where she was and take out anything that didn’t look friendly.

  Dan sprinted back to the Land Rover and drove it back as fast as he could without losing his trailer. He knew he should administer emergency care where he was but he needed to be out of the area and back to Kate some time yesterday. He dragged the man and girl to the truck and forced them in; he was barely conscious and bleeding badly, she was in hysterics.

  Dan jumped onto the bonnet, then the roof rack and called Lexi to come down. She shinned down the ladder quickly by holding the sides and sliding then trotted round the side of the building to them.

  “Three more bikes, a mile or so out I think” she said. He decided not to wait to be introduced, not that these two would ever speak again, and gunned the diesel engine hard back to camp.

  HOW TO MAKE FRIENDS

  Lexi had her head on a swivel on the way back as Dan concentrated on the driving. She checked the mirrors and kept turning to look behind in between shouting questions at the girl. “Who were those men? How many of them are there?”

  She was incoherent, other than to cry “Dad” repeatedly at the unconscious man bleeding beside her. Dan caught a glimpse of his face in the mirror; he did not look good and was probably going into shock. The quicker he got the man to Kate the better; they lacked the equipment to save him here, he needed more intravenous fluids than the one litre bag Dan had scavenged so far.

  They turned in hard to the camp and Dan sounded the horn three times before coming to a stop by Kate’s ambulance. He was out of the Land Rover as it stopped, roaring her name. She appeared from Penny’s caravan and her face suddenly dropped, she threw down her cup of whatever and ran towards them as Dan was dragging the unconscious man from the car. The girl was left there for now – her immediate issues were mental, not time critical or physical and nothing could be done for her yet. Her Dad was the one who need treatment quickly. Kate shouted at Dan to put him on the bed as she started ripping open sealed packs and cutting his clothes off. Dan was the only other person in the group with medical knowledge, so he stayed and did as he was told, only pausing to unclip his M4 and rest it against the stretcher at the back. He told Lexi to get Neil and Penny, now.

  They arrived as he was helping strip to unconscious man. “Lexi, Neil, get guns out of the trailer now. There’s a group of hostiles about a mile south, we killed two and there were more. Lexi, top cover. Get up somewhere; on one of the lorries if you can but get me eyes on now. Neil, load the tactical shotguns too. Go. NOW” he yelled as they were both stood waiting for more
orders.

  Penny called to him “What should I do?”

  “Get everyone to load up. Use the last of the daylight to be ready to move ASAFP. We are moving tonight. DO IT” he yelled, whilst helping Kate dress the least serious of the wounds – the ones that didn’t require stitches to stop the bleeding. Kate was trying to find a vein to get fluids into the man, but had to resort to his neck as he was already in shock due to blood loss. It looked likely that he would die.

  Kate worked feverishly on the man. "Kate, we need to move" Dan pressed her. She ignored him and continued to work.

  He went outside the ambulance to see how the rest were doing breaking camp. The caravans had been hastily hitched and the 7.5tonne trucks were started. It was a mess; people were split up just to get enough drivers behind wheels. Dan went to check on the girl, and found her in a daze still in his Land Rover.

  He saw people throwing bags into any vehicle they saw, and Neil had hitched his precious fuel tanker before throwing tools into the back of his own 4x4.

  Lexi made eye contact him and froze briefly before carrying on. He knew he would have to deal with the trauma forming in her head soon, but now wasn't the time. She had just killed someone without the time to reason why; that would hit her hard when the panic stopped.

  Dan jumped back in the ambulance.

  "Kate, either we move or we could all die" he told her.

  "Ok, that'll have to do" she said

  He closed the doors and did a last check of everyone. All were accounted for and their supplies were ready to drive, more or less.

  "Sidelights only, follow me and be careful" he shouted, climbing behind the wheel.

  FLY, THE ENEMY IS UPON US

  He drove out of the car park, leaving behind months of food and fuel.

  He didn't want to have to try and protect these people with his back to a wall; better to run.

  He knew this was risky; he was asking untrained people under extreme stress almost blind with fear to drive unfamiliar large vehicles into the dusk not knowing where they were going.

  Better to set a slower pace than risk a pile up.

  His convoy crept north, keeping to the smaller roads to avoid pursuit. Mental note, don't leave any more messages about their location until they were stronger.

  We wound through cars in the road, once having to use the Land Rover to push a crashed estate car out of the way to give room to the lorries.

  After what seemed like an hour of checking the mirrors, expecting to see headlights hunting them down, they came to the prison. There was a large hard standing at the front of the big house, and Dan halted the convoy there. He got out and waved the lorries past him and pointed them to a side area. The cars pulling caravans closed up, and he realised they'd had to leave one behind as there weren't enough tow bars; better to prioritise the fuel over a temporary living space.

  He called everyone in and took a knee, resting the butt of his carbine on the floor.

  "Well done everyone" he said, looking around at the faces. He realised Kate was missing, probably tending to the man strapped to her stretcher.

  "Lexi, Neil and I will keep watch tonight" he said. "Everyone sleep with your boots on, if you hear shooting then run to the back of this building and hide in the woods by the lake" he covered his thinking time by a tactical reload of his weapon, slapping in a full magazine in place of the one he had half emptied into Mad Max. He realised that people were looking at him in horror; he was covered in the man’s blood.

  "Try and get some rest, we'll reassess in the morning" they took that as dismissal, and most faded away apart from Penny, Neil, Lexi and Jimmy.

  He saw Leah leading a shaking Kev by the hand. Maggie had climbed into the back of his Land Rover to comfort the girl he had completely forgotten about on the drive here. She hadn’t made a sound.

  Penny didn't know what to say, so Dan thanked her for getting everyone out safely. He told her to get some rest.

  “I’ll help Kate” she said, and turned away.

  He turned to Neil and Lexi, "Neil, can you get set up with the GPMG? Take some goggles" Neil nodded and turned away towards the munitions trailer. Jimmy was loitering but Dan waved him away for now.

  He took Lexi by the arm and walked her away. He stopped and turned her around.

  "Thankyou. You saved the lives of three people by taking that shot. You did the right thing" he said softly.

  "I know" she said, looking at the floor "I. I killed someone though"

  Dan didn't know the best way to deal with this. If he knew her better, he would know how to approach it. He decided on the hard-line.

  "Yes. You did what is expected of you to keep these people safe. You have the skills I need, WE need, to make this work" he said harshly "you'll find a way to cope with what you did but I tell you now it was the right thing. Get yourself squared away, reload and grab a warm coat. I need you ready in five minutes"

  He worried that he'd been overly harsh, but didn't have time to talk her through the psychological process of coming to terms with taking a life.

  He grabbed his own coat, a foam bedding roll and his small rucksack. He walked up the drive to a small copse of trees to find Neil setting up under the leaves, the bipod on the barrel of the huge machine gun pointing it towards the approach road. He also had a shotgun and his Glock and was fitting batteries into a set of night vision goggles. A curt nod was all Dan got.

  "Mate, there aren't enough of us to take it in shifts, we're all going to stay awake tonight" he said, knowing it was the wrong way to do it but he had no choice.

  "I can help" said Jimmy, approaching from behind him. He handed a multipack of red bull to Dan and another to Neil.

  "I can set up a noise trap" he said "I saw it in a film - empty bottles and string" Dan thought about it for a minute.

  "Ok, grab the stuff you need and I'll come with you" he said. Jimmy ran off and Lexi came jogging towards them.

  "Ready" she declared. She saw that both Neil and Dan had a foam roll, and cursed herself silently for not bringing insulation to lie on.

  "Lex, I have an idea. Grab your sleeping bag, rucksack and a bed roll - there's a spare in the back of my truck. I want you set up over there" he pointed towards a small low structure – probably something to do with electricity - with a flat roof which lay about one hundred metres away from where the broken barrier lay at an oblique angle. "You can cover both approach roads from there. It'll be an uncomfortable night, but if you see anyone who isn't friendly, you shoot. Got it?"

  She nodded and jogged off to get set up for the night.

  Jimmy returned with some string and a crate of small beer bottles. Dan covered him whilst he tied the string between trees and emptied out the bottles to line them in the road and tie others into the web he had strung. When he had finished, a distorted spider’s web of string obstructed the road with small glass alarms dangling from the lines. It would be hard to see in the dark, but anyone running into it would cause the bottles to fall to the tarmac.

  Dan thanked him and sent him back to get some rest. Jimmy tried to argue, but Dan told him he needed him as fresh as possible for a nasty job tomorrow. Jimmy went, and Dan jogged across the field to Lexi's position. She had done well. She'd taken a camouflage net from the side of the trailer and was lay flat on the building in her sleeping bag under a crude but effective shelter. She had her rifle trained on the roads.

  "If you hear glass breaking, it's the noise traps Jimmy just set up. If they come, I’ll try to light them up with flares for you" he said, looking over her hide and giving her the red bull Jimmy had given him.

  "I'm sure they haven't followed us, but we need to be ready tonight" he considered instructing her in using the night vision goggles, but decided it wouldn't be effective if she didn’t know how they worked.

  Dan walked back towards Neil and found him settled in. He told him of the plan to throw some flares if anyone came in which would give them light. His plan was risky because he was close to Nei
l's field of fire, and would be in Lexi's if she fired to the left side of her field.

  He set up in a shallow dip behind an oak tree which was almost as wide as his Defender for a little more security - Neil's weapon could bring a brick built house down with a thousand rounds and the tree wouldn't hold out forever, but this was the best he could do. He needed to be close enough to hear the glass breaking and throw the few flares he had onto the road if they came. He settled down on his bed roll, rested the carbine over his rucksack and like all the others there, he didn't sleep at all.

  CALM AFTER THE STORM

  As day broke Dan shuffled backwards from his hiding place, gathered his gear and walked a long loop back down to the road stretching his cramped muscles as he went. He lit a cigarette, having refrained from smoking all night to save giving away his position.

  Neil looked awful, but he was still awake. Dan told him to stow the machine gun, but keep the shotgun with him. He walked over to Lexi’s hiding place and found her asleep face down on the bed roll.

  He called her name softly as he approached, not wanting to startle a scared, tired and emotionally unstable girl holding an automatic weapon. She came round with a yelp and brought the weapon up, searching for a target.

  “It’s ok” he said “It’s me. We’re safe”

  Lexi breathed hard for a few seconds before struggling out of her hide and starting to take it down.

  He walked with her back to the makeshift camp to find people emerging from the wobbling caravans. It didn’t look like anyone had slept.

  He knocked and stepped into the ambulance where Kate woke with a start from the seat she was slumped in. She had worked tirelessly on the man, and Dan could see dressings covering the exposed parts of the machete victim. He was attached to a drip and was still unconscious. He nodded to Kate, who stood and stretched before checking the man over again.

  Dan could hear the sounds of a camp kettle being lit, and realised he was in desperate need of a coffee.