The Collapse Trilogy (Book 2): Escape and Evade

by Rod Carstens

  “Ask her. I got a feeling she saw it all,” Vin said.

  “Mason, what happened?”

  “They drug a girl in here and were doing what they been doing to the other girls. These heroes came in and killed them. That’s when I showed up.”

  “You know there’s a bounty out on you, Tanner?” Ross said.

  “No, I didn’t.”

  “And from the descriptions, you must be Cat,” he said, pointing at Cat. Then, pointing at Matos, he said, “And you’re Matos.”

  Cat and Matos nodded.

  “You all have bounties on you. But I don’t know this one.”

  “She’s with us. She escaped our friends here,” Vin answered.

  “That’s right. Bear took her on a scavenge our last tour, and they never came back. How’d you do that? You were chained.”

  Blondie nodded toward Vin and said, “He killed them all.”

  Ross looked impressed. “That fuck deserved to die a long time ago, but they wouldn’t let us intervene. Mason, why don’t you lower your weapon while we figure this out.”

  The woman did as Ross asked, but everyone kept their hands on or near their weapons as they faced each other across the room. The only sound was the crying of the girl.

  Blondie finally said, “Can I at least find her a blanket?”

  “Sure.”

  Mason turned and reached down for a blanket lying behind her against the wall. She tossed it to Blondie, who tried to give it to the girl, who swung her knife wildly. Blondie put it on the floor in front of the girl and backed away. The girl grabbed it and put it around herself.

  “What’s it like out there?” Ross asked.

  “You mean on our own?”

  “Yeah. We’ve all thought about it, but you’re the only guy I ever met who did it and lived to talk about it.”

  Vin hesitated. How did he begin to tell him how good it was in spite of being so hard?

  “It’s hard, but it’s good. You’re free.” Vin hesitated before he said, “You get to do things like this. If I had to make a guess, you guys had observation-only orders.”

  “Yeah. We did.”

  “And you were getting real tired of just watching these fucks. After a while, you know you’re not helping with resources. You’re being used for a lot of things you don’t understand.”

  The four of them exchanged glances. Then the girl whimpered again and swung the knife at Cat, who had been trying to get closer.

  “He saved me. Otherwise, I would still be chained up over there in the park. He made a difference. And he just did this. What have you guys done lately?” Blondie said.

  Vin could tell that struck a nerve with all four of them.

  “How did you do it? I mean, we don’t have any skills. All we know is this.”

  “Most settlements need people like us. They don’t understand security. We found a settlement and you could too.”

  “Look, I was part of a Free Company before the Deviants captured me. They were a bunch of National Guard, regular Army vets, Resource walkers, and other security types. They were forming their own companies and trying to bring some peace to an area. There aren’t many out there, but I hear more are forming. If the government won’t do it, somebody has to,” Blondie said.

  “How long have you guys been out?” Vin asked.

  “Two weeks.”

  “And how many times have you been resupplied?”

  “Once,” Ross said.

  “And what are your conditions like back in the world?”

  “Not much better, and we have all the silly shit that comes with being back inside.”

  “You make my point.”

  The four exchanged glances and then Mason said, “Why were you five here? There’s nothing but a gang.”

  Vin hesitated, then thought the truth was better than some lie. “We need a Resource computer, and we came to try and ambush the team covering this gang and take their's.”

  “Fuck you,” Mason said with a chuckle.

  “Why do you need a computer?” Ross asked.

  “Because…we want to raid into the City, and we have someone who can disable some of the security systems, but we need a computer to do it.”

  “You were going to kill us?” Ross said.

  “Good luck with that bitch,” Mason said.

  The Resource team brought their guns up, and so did Vin and the others, except for Blondie. She stepped in the middle of the two groups.

  “Now let’s just slow this the fuck down,” Blondie said. “I’ve only known these people for a few weeks, but the last thing they do is shoot first. So just slow this the fuck down.”

  “Ambush was the wrong word. We were going to try and steal it from you somehow. None of us could kill you. We are you,” Vin said.

  “You want to raid in the City. For what?” Mason asked.

  “Does it matter to you?”

  She paused before she said, “No, it doesn’t. But you know if we lost it there would be hell to pay.”

  “Goddamnit, this is our chance. We’ve been talking about walking. Why not now. They can help us,” one of the team members who had not spoken.

  “Smith shut up,” Ross said.

  “No, he’s right. I was going to come down here and do these guys they just beat me to it. I’m done,” Mason said motioning to the dead gang members.

  “I’m with Mason. I’m done too. What have we got to go back to? Starvation rations and more of this shit? Look at them,” Smith said, pointing to Vin and the others. “They’re better fed and cleaner than we are.”

  The last team member to speak said, “I’m in. None of us got family back in the City. Why go back? Besides, who’s going to find us out here? Tanner’s been gone a long time. I figure we’re at least as good, if not better, than these guys.”

  Vin watched the four. He knew what they were all thinking, and he also knew he had said enough. Walking away was something you couldn’t talk someone into. They had to come to their own decision.

  “Everybody over here,” Ross said, and the four went down the hall.

  Blondie looked at Vin, then the others. “Shouldn’t we say something? Try and convince them?”

  “No, this is something they have to decide. They’re either at the right place, or they’re not.”

  It seemed like a very long time before Ross turned and walked back into the room, followed by the others. “We’re gonna walk, and you can have the computer on one condition.”

  “Okay.”

  “You help us take out the Deviants. They should’ve had a visit from a Spec Act Team a long time ago. I’m not leaving them still in operation.”

  Vin smiled, and before he could say anything Cat said, “Fuckin’ A.”

  “I’m in,” said Matos.

  “Me too,” added Mike.

  “We need to scrounge their weapons,” Vin said.

  “Be our guest.”

  Vin found several more full clips for his 9mm. Blondie grabbed a well-taken-care-of old M16 plus magazines. Cat found a nice .45 on one of them, and Mike found a nice .308 with a ten-power scope. They stripped them all of anything else useful.

  “You’re gonna have your pick of a lot more weapons. They are well armed,” Mason said.

  “You got a plan? You’ve been watching them,” Vin said.

  Mason smiled, “Yeah, it’s what I’ve been doing to stay awake. They’re going to outnumber us, but I don’t think it will be a problem.”

  She glanced at her watch.

  “It’s close to one now. We should be in place by three. Three is always the best time to hit someone.”

  “What about her?” Blondie asked.

  “We’ll take care of her. I don’t think she's going anywhere,” Mason said. “Everybody come over to this table. I want to draw this out.”

  Chapter Twelve

  Mason did have a plan. She had been watching the Deviants for over a week and knew where every outpost was and their manning schedule. The gang was holed u
p in an L-shaped building that had originally been a maintenance building for the park. They had guards at the main gate. Since an eight-foot brick wall surrounded the park, it was the only easy way in. If they ignored those guards at the gate, they would have people at their back, so first they were going to have to take the guards out. Some paths meandered through the park, but only one led directly to the maintenance building, and it had a guard on it. The rest of the guards were in a rough circle around the building, and a big fire pit for cooking and gatherings was located at the angle of the L.

  Mason suggested they break up into two assault teams. After taking the guards out at the gate, they would split up and hit the building from two sides at once. To keep in contact and coordinated, they assigned Mason to Vin’s team, since she had a radio. Cat and Mike went with Ross’s team, and Blondie and Matos stayed with Vin. Since Mason had designed the attack plan, Vin’s team would lead and take out the guards at the gate.

  Vin and Mason both had pistols with silencers and would be the kill team. Mason led Vin down the street to the left of the gate through a series of deserted buildings until they could cross without the guards seeing them. Mason had said the gang usually had two guards at the gate, one on each side, and they changed them at midnight and four in the morning. So at 3:00 a.m. the guards would be in their last hour on watch. They would either be asleep or almost asleep.

  Mason had her night vision glasses on and checked the guards at the gate, then turned and put three fingers up. There were three guards she could see. Mason signaled for Vin to wait, and she slowly made her way across the street, moving from one shadow to the next. She slipped through two abandoned cars and stood with her back against the wall. She signaled for Vin to follow, and he took the same route from shadow to shadow until he stood next to her and could turn to watch their rear. They slowly approached the guards until they were just on the other side of the wall from them.

  Vin could hear one of them snoring. He turned and got behind Mason. She stepped into the gate entrance and turned to her left. He did the same and turned to his right. The guard on the right was sleeping in a chair. Vin put two rounds in his head, and he just slumped over. He heard Mason’s pistol pop three times, and a body hit the ground. He and Mason stood still for a second, scanning all directions. Nothing moved. In front of them was a path that would eventually lead to the maintenance building. They both stood still and waited for a full minute, and still, nothing moved.

  Finally, Mason whispered into her radio, “Execute, execute, execute.”

  Vin and Mason went to the right and waited behind a large oak tree as the rest of the team crossed the street. Vin’s team entered through the gate and turned right. Ross’s team came through the gate, turned to the left, and disappeared into the trees and bushes. Mason was point for Vin’s team, since she had the night vision. With her leading the way, they were able to move quickly and silently through the overgrown park. She picked the best and clearest way through the brush to their jumping-off point.

  A path ran in front of the maintenance building, facing the angle of the L. Between the path and the building was the only open space around the building. It was obviously where the cooking and gatherings took place. The area was covered with scrounged chairs and tables. When they reached the path, they spread out in a skirmish line roughly fifteen feet apart. Mason told them she thought there could be between fifteen and twenty gang members, plus an unknown number of captives—that number seemed to change regularly.

  In the dim light of the fire pit, Vin could see there were two doors: one to the left that opened into the long part of the L, and one to the right that opened into the short part of the L. Both doors were open, and he saw no movement inside. Vin and Mason were to take out the two guards at the ends of the building on the near side, while Ross and his team would take out the guard at the rear of the structure. Ross’s team would then come around to their side of the building, and each team would stack up beside one of the doors, Vin and Mason on the left and Ross on the right.

  Mason put her finger to her earpiece and nodded. That meant that Ross had taken out the guard in the back. Vin moved slowly, parallel to the building just inside of the tree line, until he could clearly make out a guard slouching against the building. The guard had what looked like an AK-47 with a big banana clip pointed down at the ground.

  He was about twenty yards away. Vin could make the shot but it was dark, and there was too much at stake. He wanted to move closer. He squatted down and moved forward ten yards, until he was behind a chair made from wooden pallets. Then, resting his pistol on the top of the seat, he carefully took aim at the man’s head. Usually, he would go for center mass in a situation like this one, but he needed this guy to drop like a rock. The guard slowly moved away from the wall and started walking toward Vin. It gave Vin a perfect silhouette. When the guard got ten feet away, Vin put two rounds into his head. He dropped in his tracks.

  He heard two coughs of a silenced pistol to his left, and he knew Mason had taken care of the other guard. He clicked his tongue twice to let her and the rest of the team know his guard was down. Slowly, everyone emerged from the tree line and took up positions behind chairs and tables.

  Mason whispered, “Friendlies incoming.”

  Vin glanced at the building and saw Ross’s team at the other end of the building, step over the body of the guard, and begin to stack up beside the door. Vin followed Mason, and they stacked up begin to stack up beside the door on the long side of the building. Blondie had lived in the building for several weeks before Vin rescued her. She described the inside as a maze of small cubicles set up for the leaders of the gang. She had drawn a map of the inside of the building from memory but said it was always changing depending on whims, scavenged items, and changes in ranking.

  They entered the building. To their right was a series of cubicles for the secondary leaders of the gang. Each one had a door and was individually constructed according to the occupant’s wishes and what could be scrounged. If nothing had changed, there would also be three cubicles to their left and five on the opposite wall. To their right at the end of the room was the largest cubicle, for the leader of the gang. Blondie thought it would be someone named Snake because he had been second-in-command to Bear.

  In the middle of the main room were two tables, a long one for the secondary leaders and a large, square one just outside of the leader’s quarters, with all manner of scrounged chairs around them. Blondie had told them there would be all types of lamps, chairs, and tables throughout the open area and in each cubicle. In other words, the worst kind of close-quarters-fight space. Vin had had everyone tape a flashlight of some sort to their weapons, because once the gang responded to the attack, it would be a firefight in the dark. He wanted as few friendly fire or captive casualties as possible.

  Mason looked over at Ross and nodded. He returned the nod.

  “Execute, execute, execute,” Mason said.

  Mason entered the room and followed the L-shaped entrance foyer to the left. Vin was behind Mason. In the low light, he could barely make out the cubicles without night vision, so he followed Mason as she went into the first cubicle. They found a man asleep on the bed on his back with a young girl chained to the end of his bed. Mason put two rounds in his head, and Vin made a quiet sound to the frightened girl. She nodded, and they moved to the next cubicle. This time they found another man sleeping facedown on his cot. Mason let Vin put two rounds in his head, and they moved on to the next cubicle. Behind them, Blondie and the rest of the team were facing the other cubicles in case other gang members were awakened by the noise. It was going too well, thought Vin. Something was about to go wrong.

  They entered the last cubicle on this side of the building and found a man on top of a young girl. He was forcing himself on her, and she was whimpering with each thrust. Mason moved quickly to the cot, put her silenced pistol to the back of his head, and fired twice. The blood splattered all over the young girl’s face.
<
br />   “Ahhhhhh!” she screamed.

  Their surprise was gone. Now it was a gunfight in an enclosed space. The worst kind of fight. Vin and the others had discussed this exact scenario before they left, and they all reacted immediately.

  Blondie began to shout, “This is Blondie! All captives stay down! Stay down!”

  Everyone snapped on their flashlights, and the room was suddenly filled with shafts of bright light. It would give them a chance to blind a still-groggy gang member and to make sure of their target. Vin immediately turned, stepped out of the cubicle, and moved to the left side of the door with his back to the wall. A naked man stepped out of a cubicle on the opposite side, a rifle in his hand. Vin turned on him, the light from his pistol blinding him. Tanner put two rounds in his forehead and one in his chest before he could lift his rifle. He dropped to the floor in a heap.

  “Captives, stay down!” Vin screamed as he moved forward to clear the cubicles on the other side of the room.

  Blondie was kneeling in the middle of the room next to the long table. Two bearded men, one heavily tattooed, stumbled out of a cubicle. Blondie turned, and her shotgun roared. Her first shot caught the first man out of the room in the chest. The other dove to his left. Blondie racked a new round into the shotgun and fired. Her shot struck the man in the chest and head. He dropped to the floor a bloody, mangled mess.

  As more of the gang members emerged from the cubicles, the fight became a series of black-and-white images for Tanner. A naked bearded man was holding a young girl in front of him as protection as he brought up a pistol. Vin shot him in the head. Vin saw a man in the light of Blondie’s flashlight being torn apart by twelve-gauge shot. Blood flew in a black mist. Blondie grabbed a naked girl and threw her against the wall near the entrance.

  Mason was moving through the cubicles on the far side of the room, making sure they had not missed anyone as Tanner joined Blondie and the others in an impromptu skirmish line moving toward the big cubicle on the far side of the room. Someone started shooting wildly through the cubicle’s walls in their general direction. Vin and the others opened fire and riddled the cubicle with rounds until the walls began to come apart. The return fire stopped, and Vin moved forward and stepped into the big cubicle. It was elaborately furnished with stuffed chairs, a real bed, lamps, and even pictures on the wall. Blondie had told them that this would be the new leader of the gang’s cubicle. She said it was probably a guy named Snake. Sure enough, a man was lying on his back shirtless, bleeding from a chest wound with a large snake tattooed across his torso. In the glare of Vin’s flashlight, he put up his hand as if to ask for mercy. Blondie stepped into the room and looked down at him.