Diving from the open hallway back into the living room, John slid across the ground just as a particularly low flying round roared past barely a few centimetres higher than his forehead. He could feel the displaced air rush past his left ear just as the bullet finally found the sofa to John’s rear, cracking through several layers of its flimsy makeup before eventually coming to a stop in the wall behind.
Scrambling to his feet, but staying low enough to avoid some of the higher placed shots, John fired off a series of rounds with his M4 in the very rough direction of the 4x4 parked on the corner of the street. At present, he had no idea whether the man who’d previously taken up residence in the back of it remained in place, but then covering fire’s intention never really was to hit the target anyway.
Firing off a third shot, John was happy he was at least pausing the attacker’s ability to fire, and so used the opportunity to make his way to the rear of the room. Gesturing for Devon to do the same, he continued to fire a fourth, fifth and sixth time until the pair had arrived at the staircase leading down to the basement, the same route they had used the night before to gain entry to the property.
All but shoving Devon down the steps, John continued to let off what were effectively random shots, opening up further holes in the boarded windows and sending even more mess flying throughout the house. Eventually feeling as if he’d distracted them long enough, John too quickly descended the steps to the basement below, just barely reaching the bottom as another shot whistled past a foot or so above his head.
Now underground, John felt like things were at least somewhat safer. With their newly lowered height, it was unlikely that any of the shots taken from outside would be taken at a trajectory capable of reaching them. But that didn’t mean ricochets weren’t still a real concern, or that any other attackers nearby might be making their way to the rear entrance at that very moment.
Going with the more optimistic assumption that the remaining two assailants were all that remained for them to deal with, John pushed on towards the rear door of the darkened basement, his footsteps pounding hard against the solid concrete below and echoing throughout the empty area around him. Yanking the door in front of them open with great speed, John’s rifle was drawn and ready to fire on anything that might present itself from the other side.
But the stairway back up into the garden was empty, so John moved forwards through the doorway, and began ascending the steps in front. Now making his way back up to the level at which some incredibly luckily placed shots might still find them, John ducked down low upon reaching the top of the steps, and made his way into the tall grass of the rear garden, ensuring that as little of his body as possible was protruding from the surrounding greenery.
With Devon holding position at the bottom of the staircase, John began a quick but thorough inspection of the area immediately around him. The garden itself was empty, and so far as he could tell, the nearby roads were devoid of any backup that the 4x4 might have had following close behind. It looked as if they might be in for a closed-off firefight, exactly the kind of situation John was confident he could come out on top of.
Giving the signal for Devon to join him up top, John waited for his companion to come up alongside him, and then briefly instructed the man on what to do.
“You take that side”, he said, pointing over Devon’s shoulder, “I’ll come around this way.
“We shooting to kill?”, Devon asked, himself having only knocked out his target.
“Only if they make you”, John replied, still preferring not to commit murder when he could avoid it.
With a nod of confirmation, Devon turned on the spot and began making his way along the rear of the house, ducking involuntarily as further shots bounced around the inside of the building. John meanwhile headed around his own side of the property, his fairly short-ranged M4 ideal for close quarters combat, but slightly less so if he was forced to try and pick someone off on the far side of the very wide street right outside.
Peeking around the corner that led to the front of the house, John exposed just a few millimetres of the side of his head in order to get a better idea of what was going on, and was almost immediately rewarded. In the centre of the street, John could see a tall, muscular man with torn off sleeves and a bandana wrapped around his head, indiscriminately firing upon the building from the back of the Jeep he had arrived in.
Based on a combination of the man’s wasteful use of ammunition, and his incredible ability to stand with little to no cover and announce his position to anyone around, John imagined the person in front was far from a professional. But much to John’s surprise, that didn’t stop the man from quickly spotting the new presence at the rear corner of the property, and turning his attention John’s way.
Ducking back behind the wall, John barely managed to re-conceal himself before bullets began sailing past. Skirting along the woodwork decorating the exterior of the building and sending splinters flying in every direction, the shots were taken fairly inaccurately, but were nevertheless now trained on one position, something John was less than pleased about. This marked the first point where either of the two remaining guards had locked sights on their targets, and it was John of all people who’d given himself away.
Keen to recover from his mistakes, he leapt down onto the ground in front, all but disappearing beneath the long grass that coated the area. Waiting for the gunfire to cease, John then rolled out from the corner of the building, slowly making his way across the overgrown lawn until he was a good four metres away from the side of the house, his vision the entire time stretching no further than the grass immediately in front of his face.
For a nerve-racking few seconds, all John could do was wait. If what he had just done had been seen by the Jeep-based guard, he had just signed his own death warrant, presenting his position on a silver platter and all but inviting the man to obliterate the area in a hail of gunfire. But if it hadn’t, then he was now in a position the guard in front was unaware of, something that would place the ball firmly back into John’s court.
Before long, the gunfire resumed – the gunman having presumably switched to his next magazine – and so John made sure to pay close attention to the sound of the bullets. The cracking of wood was music to his ears, signalling that the gunman had yet to notice John’s changed position, and that he was instead continuing to open fire on the house John had so recently been taking cover behind.
Now though, the next risk in John’s plan was presented; what happened when he got up to take his shot. Knowing a man was on the back of the Jeep was one thing, but it didn’t answer the question of where the other target was currently located. Without such information, John couldn’t be sure he’d be safe even if he managed to take down the first guard without issue, as a second may be trained on his position at that very moment.
But laying a great deal of faith on his brief but detailed analysis of the battlefield in front, John opted to assume that he was safe to take the gamble, or at least that it was likely to pay off. Rolling onto his back, John threw his bodyweight forwards and pivoted, causing him to spin up off of the floor into a crouched position that very quickly turned to face in the direction of the crossroads where the Jeep was parked.
Raising his M4 up to eye level – where his muscle memory quickly lined up the weapon’s iron sights with the target in front – John confirmed that the shot was good to go, and then watched with an odd sense of satisfaction as the man in front so briefly realised that some unknown entity had quite simply appeared from the grass to the left of where he was shooting, just in time to see the muzzle light up with a bright, hot flash of energy.
John took no chances this time around. Letting off the first shot, he allowed the gun to settle before letting off a second, and then a third, after which he briefly stopped to inspect the results of his work. John was more than willing to keep going – the gun seemed to be fully loaded – but didn’t particularly want to remain in view of the still unaccounted for target
any longer than he had to.
Thankfully, and not all that surprisingly given John’s skill level, there was no reason for a follow up shot. The first of his rounds had just nicked the right shoulder of the gunman, but the second had pierced straight through the top of his chest. The combined effect was that the man’s gun was thrown well out of reach a mere few milliseconds before he himself had been thrown backwards by the second shot, the third bullet then free to sail over his now falling body, its presence no longer required.
Happy his work had been completed, John immediately threw himself back down to the ground, just as another hail of gunfire came raining in from somewhere up ahead. Having ducked down prior to seeing the muzzle flash, John was unaware of its source, but based on the events that had led up to that moment, was fairly certain the shooter was in the upstairs windows of one of the two buildings he had earlier seen them storm their way into.
Luckily for John, one person was paying much closer attention to things.
On the other side of the house, himself also peeking around the corner of the property – but in his case doing so from in-between overgrown bushes that were better obscuring his presence – Devon had himself been lining up a shot on the 4x4-based gunman just as John had taken the lead on the target, leaving Devon with a dead man in his crosshairs and no obvious signs of where to go next.
But thanks to the other target’s hastily made decision to open fire on John immediately afterwards, Devon was now able to see him clear as day, in the upstairs far-left window of the left-hand house, their face illuminated by the rising sun and their barrel protruding out of the open glass. Devon couldn’t have asked for an easier shot, and so wasted no time in lining up his HK416, and unleashing a quick series of four rounds.
The first struck the unknown figure in what looked through Devon’s scope to be his head, whilst the second and third landed somewhere in the chest area. The fourth was somewhat of a safety shot, taken after the man had already fallen, and placed in the rough area where Devon felt the bullet would make its way through the wall and into the body of the fallen target. He didn’t want to take any chances with what he was hoping was the last member of the group in front, something that led to him remaining scoped in on his target for several more seconds, confirming as best he could that they were definitively down.
Before long though, as silence once more returned to the area, it became clear that the danger had subsided. Moving towards the front of the house, Devon and John met once more a few short steps in front of the Jeep, where they quickly confirmed that the penultimate guard was well and truly deceased, before grabbing up what little ammunition he’d yet to unleash on them, and then reconvening on their side of the vehicle.
But before they could begin planning for their final attempt to make it back home, yet another batch of engine noise caught the edge of John’s ear, this time coming from further along the street, to the north of their current position.
“What in the hell”, John remarked, looking along the road just in time to see a large truck race across a distant crossroad heading directly away from the stadium, followed close behind by another much smaller vehicle.
“More survivors?”, Devon asked, just as a third vehicles came briefly into view.
“Not with that many vehicles”, John remarked, watching on as yet another flew by.
But it wasn’t until the fifth vehicle – a jet black Jeep 4x4 that appeared to be exactly the same as the very one they were currently stood in front of – went sailing past that John began to realise what might be happening.
“The stadium’s sending out an army”, he stated, uncertain it was definitely the answer but growing more confident as he saw yet more vehicles go flying by, “And they’re going east”, John added, looking to his right in the direction the vehicles were moving, off towards lake Michigan, towards the city, and of course, towards their camp.
Chapter 40: An old friend
John’s feet pounded hard against the floor, harder than he could remember, and faster than he thought he was capable of. Sprinting down the street away from the scene of the gunfight, his mind could only play worst case scenarios, imagining the hell that might unravel when his campsite was caught unaware against the angry remains of a much bigger settlement, their guns loaded and no doubt some explosives ready for use.
In the interest of time, John had first tried to get the now unoccupied Jeep moving first. The problem however was that without the keys, the vehicle wouldn’t budge, and with every second now worth its weight in gold, he didn’t much fancy sitting there trying to hotwire it. As for locating the keys, John had no idea which of the guards had taken them out of the ignition, and with their bodies and belongings now spread out across different buildings, he felt making a break for the Ford was the most sensible option.
At just two blocks further down the street, and then a block or so over, their destination wasn’t all that far from their current location. But at a time like this, it seemed like it was in a whole other country, and it didn’t seem to be getting closer anywhere near quickly enough. John could even see the top of the apartment building their vehicle was parked outside of, stretching up into the air like a miniature skyscraper in an area of otherwise fairly low-rise buildings.
Watching houses sail by on each side, John found himself oddly grateful for the reduced loadout he was now carrying with him. Though he missed his Ruger and hunting knife – two weapons he’d carried with him for longer than he could remember – profusely, and was fairly fond of the M16 that had been taken off of him too, the slimline nature of the M4 he now held was a godsend, and thanks to all the supplies he no longer had to carry, running at speed was much, much easier.
Following close behind, Devon was making sure to keep up whilst also checking their rear intermittently for any sign of followers. Though they were fairly confident that the bulk of the threat was already making its way out of the area, that didn’t mean there weren’t other guards out looking for them. In fact, given the number of men and women they’d seen inside the stadium, it was a safe bet that despite sending a huge force out straight after losing an unknown number of recruits, the stadium would still be well staffed enough to continue dispatching scouting parties.
Accordingly, when Devon did turn around to inspect the area behind them, he did so with his rifle drawn and ready to fire. He didn’t want to provoke anybody into a full-scale firefight if he could avoid it, but nor did he have any intention of having their return to camp slowed down any more than it already had been. For one rare occasion, Devon was shooting on sight, and he was more than willing to do so with kill shots.
Arriving at the first of the two blocks headed eastwards into the city, John sprinted across the area not only at a greater than average pace for moving around on foot, but in fact even faster than he did in a vehicle. Unlike his usual more careful self, John didn’t even bother to look to see if anything was headed their way – aside from briefly ensuring the convoy of vehicles wasn’t still making its way past a few blocks over – and instead simply powered through with nothing but their destination in mind.
Thanks to this mindset – as well as the relatively high fitness level of both men – they arrived at the end of the second block fairly quickly, and even better, without incident. Turning left onto the road that now ran towards the apartment block where they had parked the Ford, John looked up ahead just in time to see a number of figures in the distance, before slowing his pace and then darting sideways into one of the gardens on the front of a nearby building.
“Move to the side”, John announced, not yet sure of what it was they were facing. “Keep quick but keep quiet, I don’t want them knowing we’re here, whatever they are”, he instructed.
Obeying orders, Devon reduced his own pace and kept in tight behind John, still intermittently checking over his shoulder for threats, but now more focused on the all but guaranteed threat in front.
Around fifty metres up ahead, between ten and fifteen
bodies were stood in the centre of the street. Their features were fairly difficult to pick out from such a distance, so determining whether or not they were armed and if so, whose side they might be on, was difficult. But thankfully, one characteristic was incredible easy to spot even at such a distance, and that was the swaying limbs and staggered walking of the dead.
“Biters”, John called back, now much less worried but still somewhat concerned over the potential danger they represented, “I count twelve”, he continued, before spotting another figure amble out from behind a van parked on the side of the street. “Make that thirteen”, he corrected himself.
“How about the Focus?”, Devon asked, knowing the importance of keeping tabs on the dead, but knowing also that if the Ford was no longer there, they had bigger issues to worry about.
Slowing his pace again in order to get a better look, John attempted to steady his breathing, and focus his gaze on the line of cars along the side of the street. Moving along the vehicles, he quickly discounted the brighter car, as well as any that were clearly the wrong shape, and was eventually left with two. Getting closer now, John managed to identify the first as being the correct look but the wrong brand, and then the second, as their very own Ford Focus RS.
“It’s there!”, John exclaimed, happy to see the vehicle had remained in place, but still far from happy with their current situation.
“Thank god”, Devon replied, before responding to John’s now once again quickened pace by increasing his own speed. “What’s the plan with all of them?”, he then asked.
“We leave them, if they’ll leave us”, John decided, “No sense picking a fight right now, whether we think we can win it or not”.
Coming within range of the vehicle, John was finally able to switch to his closer ranged weapon – the Beretta M9 that had thus far served him well – and begin crossing the street to the right-hand side. Approaching the rear of the Focus, John kept himself low and his pace even lower, as he attempted to reach the driver-side door without so much as a whisper of sound that might allude to his presence.
Road to Grissom: Part three of the Aftermath series Page 33
