by Nathan Jones
Lewis felt a surge of anxiety. They'd taken a long time to gather everyone up and get the truck started down the canyon. He wouldn't be surprised if the blockheads had started their attack before his team was ready. “Are they moving?”
His wife took a second to respond. “Um, yeah. Just not the way we expected.”
What did that mean? His dad braked the truck just out of sight behind the bend, and even before the vehicle stopped moving Lewis hopped out, missile launcher in tow, and moved in an awkward crouch with the heavy weapon. Jane was correct that the vantage offered a view of the mouth of the canyon down below, but what he saw was baffling.
His wife was also right that the enemy was moving. Specifically, all the soldiers previously lined up in squads, ready to be deployed, were piling into the trucks. Which had all pulled around to face away from the canyon. The tank was awkwardly turning around on its treads as well.
Even as he watched, in a display so obvious it might as well have been a parade, the blockhead attacking force packed itself up and left.
Carl had come up to join him, as well as a few volunteers from the back of the truck. They all broke into confused murmurs as they watched the departing enemy. “So that's it?” Carl asked. “All that time and effort getting all those troops together, and they turn tail and run before encountering even a hint of resistance?”
Martin shrugged. “Maybe they finally released it was a bad idea. Only a fool underestimates the enemy.”
“Or maybe they got called to fight somewhere else,” Travis suggested. He pointed. “Look, they're heading north towards Highway 6.”
Lewis felt an itch between his shoulder blades. “Something's off about this. Maybe they planted mines and are trying to lure us into them, or they've got snipers or guys with grenade launchers sneaking up on us. Let's get out of the canyon.”
He suited his words by trotting back to the truck, slinging his missile launcher into the passenger foot space and climbing in to the middle seat. Carl handed the other missile launcher up to him, waited for him to arrange it beside the first one, then scrambled in and slammed the door behind him.
His dad was already starting the engine, and as the last of the volunteers hopped into the back the vehicle lurched into gear. With a squeal of tires his dad turned them around, and the padded seat beneath Lewis bounced as they roared back up the road as fast as the heavy vehicle could accelerate.
As they went Lewis did his best to keep his balance and focused on the area around them, searching for any possible signs of danger. There didn't seem to be any, and his prickling feeling of danger faded as they got higher up the canyon. Especially once they passed the explosives Graham had rigged. That territory was unquestionably theirs, so it was easier to feel safe beyond that point.
Still, it didn't hurt to be cautious. “What's it looking like up there Jane, Tam?” he asked.
“The blockheads are moving out,” Tam replied. “Heading north towards the highway.”
His dad shook his head. “Why on Earth?” He glanced in side mirror, even though he couldn't possibly see the valley with it. “I watched them arrive, Lewis. Just drive right up, deploy for an attack, then sit there. And then, after scaring our pants off for less than an hour, they're gone? There's no way that's the best thing they could be doing with their time.”
They rounded a bend going close to 40, and waiting in the shadows beneath a tree up ahead Lewis saw a dozen soldiers, faces masked by camouflage bandannas. One stepped away from the others and lifted the distinctive shape of a rocket-propelled grenade to his shoulder.
“Look out!” he shouted. But he couldn't depend on his dad to react quick enough, so he reached out and yanked on the steering wheel. The truck swerved, hard enough to slam Lewis back against Carl, and a streak of fire flashed by the driver's side window. As they went over the side of the road, plummeting down the steep slope of the gully toward the stream below, the deafening concussion of an explosion from behind rocked the entire truck.
His dad yelled a surprised question as he fought to get the runaway vehicle back under control, voice distorted by being jounced around the cab as they half rolled, half skidded over bumps and rocks.
Lewis was being jounced around too, and his efforts to regain his balance kept getting thrown off by his dad or Carl slamming into him. It didn't help that only half his attention was on that task, as he fumbled to turn on his radio's transmitter. “Tam! There's enemies on the r-” he started to shout, then yelped as a particularly vicious bounce slammed his dad's head into his face.
That bounce turned into an eternal moment of weightlessness as the truck finally flipped, and he heard screams. Loud screams from his dad and Carl, muted screams from the volunteers in the back.
Then gravity remembered its job, slamming him down into the ceiling with a noise like a gong shattering. Or maybe that was the windshield breaking.
* * * * *
In the future, it would probably be smart to put on a seat belt, even when driving away from a potential combat situation at breakneck speeds. Or maybe especially then.
Of course, if for some reason you had to quickly leave the vehicle, the seat belt might delay you just long enough to be fatal. You'd have to weigh the probability of a blockhead with a grenade launcher causing your truck to flip, slamming you headfirst into the ceiling, over just about any time that you might need to get out fast.
Right, blockhead with a grenade launcher. Focus, Lewis.
He hadn't quite passed out, but for what seemed like hours he felt like he was floating in a small bubble, and everywhere outside it was searing pain in his head. He couldn't focus his thoughts on anything immediate, anything important, so they kept drifting to his usual analysis of a situation and how to best respond to it.
Sometimes his mind quickly grasped on a solution, like lightning. Other times with deliberate focus it squeezed around the problem like a vise, exploring all angles, exhausting all possibilities, until finally cracking it. But however he did it, he solved the problem.
Which was all well and good, but his mind was drifting again. Probably because this time it was his mind that felt like it was in the vise, ready to crack if he exerted the slightest pressure. But if enemies were coming to kill him anyway, he might as well go out kicking and screaming. Or at least screaming.
With grim determination he focused through the hazy bubble and into his searing headache, trying to figure out what was going on. He could hear a distant, muted popping noise. Not quite regular enough for popcorn, but that wouldn't have made sense anyway. He opened his eyes and tried moving his limbs as he became aware of them.
The cab was dark around him. There was a sharp pain in his back, something solid digging in there. His G3? He also felt a tangled weight over his legs, and another weight pressed against his side. Wetness on that side. Water? They'd been headed for the stream. No, he could smell a sickly metallic tang. Blood.
His dad, or Carl? Which side was which? The sudden fear of loss gave him something else to focus on, and he fumbled at his combat vest. Which pocket held the flashlight? He'd reached for it hundreds of times, but that almost reflexive action failed him.
He pawed over pockets with spare magazines for his G3 and his 1911, and the empty one where he usually carried his night vision goggles, which he'd left behind as unnecessary. Finally he realized the light wasn't in his vest at all, but on his belt, and his hand immediately lowered in the familiar motion to grab and unclip it.
The light blinded him for a moment until he covered it with one hand, and his headache nearly got the better of him again. The windshield in front of him was blocked by what looked like mud, same with the driver's side window. They must've plowed into the ground once they were upside-down.
His dad was the weight across his legs, blood trickling from his nose and one leg bent at an unnatural angle. Lewis felt a surge of fear and forced himself to shift his position, ignoring the lancing pain in his back where the G3 dug in as well as in his head. H
e was barely able to reach his dad's outflung arm, and only after two tries managed to wrap his hand around the forearm and press his thumb against the inside of his wrist.
A pulse, steady. His fear turned to relief. His dad should be okay, once they got out of here.
With effort Lewis twisted around the other way. The pain in his back eased as he took weight off the rifle, but fireworks popped behind his eyes at the effort. On that side he could see a mass of tangled leaves and branches pressed against the passenger window, a hint of light filtering through. None of the reinforced glass had broken, although the windshield sported a long crack across it. The roof might've dented, although he couldn't really tell with most of it covered by him, his dad, and . . .
Carl.
The two heavy missile launchers had been on the floor, and as the truck flipped both had come down on his friend. He might also have slammed the side of his head against the window, judging by the dark streak across the glass.
Lewis couldn't bear to look for more than that brief moment to confirm what had happened. He'd seen plenty of terrible sights since the Gulf burned, but the sight of a close friend suffering something like that was its own kind of terrible. With his eyes closed he reached over and felt for Carl's arm. No pulse. He sucked in a horrified breath, suddenly grateful for the headache making it impossible to focus on anything but what he had to do.
Get out. The easier way would be through the passenger window, past Carl. He could only bear to do it in the dark, gently moving his friend and the missile launchers out of the way and then squeezing past them. It took longer than he would've liked, with legs that felt like lead and a head that felt like a cracked walnut.
With everything so screwed up, he was almost surprised when the window rolled down with only a bit more effort than usual. The popping noises grew louder, and his dazed mind eventually identified them as gunfire.
Some of his people were alive out there.
The branches began snapping in as soon as the window rolled down enough to let them, and Lewis winced away until he was finished. Then he covered his face with his arms and pushed himself against the tangle, fighting to get free.
It seemed to take forever, and the branches scratched at his head and the backs of his hands until he abruptly popped out the window and half slid, half fell onto cool mud. He was on the stream bank, the gunfire going on somewhere above him.
Lewis couldn't open his eyes in the blinding daylight at first. When he finally could it was only a slit, and he had to content himself with scanning the area around him one sliver at a time. The empty stream bed, a few lines of bootprints moving away towards a nearby copse. The sound of gunfire was coming from there.
He thumbed his mic, but the radio seemed to be dead. He tried turning it on, but it already was. Maybe his dad or Carl's radio still worked. He needed to get them out of there anyway, in case the blockheads decided to launch another grenade and finish what they'd started. Or the fuel in the truck might catch fire, although he thought diesel didn't burn very easily. He didn't think it'd explode, either, although he wasn't willing to take that chance.
With some effort he began clawing at the mud to turn himself back around, dragging his face through it as an alternative to lifting his head. The truck looked surprisingly intact in spite of being upside down, at least as far as he could see, but he didn't have much hope for the M2 that'd been mounted on top of it.
Which didn't matter. His dad. Carl. Gritting his teeth, Lewis moved one agonizing inch after another, determined to get to the window and get the people inside out. It was only a few feet.
He only made it one before passing out again.
* * * * *
The next time Lewis woke up was because of his head being jounced around painfully left to right. His body was swaying, tightly restricted from shoulders to toes. He opened his eyes to the sight of green canvas, making a narrow canyon up to a painfully bright sun shining down directly overhead.
He was being carried in a makeshift stretcher. Tarp from the truck's back cover? He tried to speak and it came out as a croak. The coughing that followed made his head feel like a nail was being pounded into his forehead, but then his voice came out clearer. “Hello?”
Travis Marsh's voice came from overhead. “Good to hear you talking, Lewis. You were looking pretty bad when we found you. Just rest easy, we've got you.”
Under the circumstances there weren't many choices besides resting easy. “Did you get my dad?”
To his relief it was his dad himself who answered, somewhere beyond his feet. “I'm here, son. Got a busted leg so they're giving me the same full service treatment.”
Travis spoke up again. “And it's not easy, considering we almost don't have enough people in good enough shape to carry those with broken bones or who're otherwise injured. For example, I'm doing my best to manhandle this thing one-armed because my wrist is fractured.”
Lewis tried to look above his head. All he saw was Travis's back. But there were no sounds of gunfire now. “What's the situation? Are the blockheads still out there? Is Catherine sending help?”
“Yes and yes,” his dad replied grimly. “Jane and a couple dozen defenders are on their way fast, and we think the enemy is bugging out.”
“Yeah,” Travis agreed. “We had a pretty intense firefight with them, although it didn't last too long. They hit the truck with another grenade after we managed to get you and your dad out, but that seemed to be the last of what they had. After that we were well enough dug in that they must've figured they wouldn't be able to take us out before help arrived, so from one minute to the next they vanished. Martin and a couple others followed to make sure they don't come back, and so far they haven't radioed in.”
Lewis's head was swimming, and it was hard to pick out one in every two words from what the man was saying. But he fought to focus. Stay conscious. “It was those commandos from yesterday, the guys with the camo bandannas.”
“Yeah, I noticed,” Martin said. There was the sound of spitting. “Maybe it was personal, for you hitting them, I don't know. We're guessing they snuck into the canyon, then had the blockheads in the valley gather up like they were attacking to lure us down in the truck. Your dad says you saw them just in time to turn us off the road before we got blown up. Guess this outcome is slightly better.”
His canvas stretcher abruptly bounced, Travis and another voice cursing above him, then something hit the back of his head. A strangled cry of pain tore free of his throat, then the spinning in his head spiraled down to unconsciousness again.
* * * * *
The next time he woke up he was lying on something soft, and the familiar sight of the inside of his tent greeted his opening eyes.
As well as Terry leaning over him, face tight as he wrapped a bandage around Lewis's head, just above his vision. Behind Terry, crouched in the doorway, Jane watched everything with sharp eyes. He'd never seen her look so frightened, and in his confused state that made him frightened too.
He started to sit up, and Terry immediately pushed him back down. “Whoa, easy. You just don't want to stay under, do you? At least don't make us tie you up.”
“I need to stay awake,” he mumbled. “Concussion, right?”
Terry shook his head. “Staying awake isn't an agreed upon necessity anymore. The general consensus these days is that concussed patients need sleep to recover, but should be awakened every couple hours to make sure they can be without trouble.”
Lewis closed his eyes, and that felt a bit better. “And if I can't?”
His friend hesitated. “Then you'd probably need help I can't give you,” he admitted. “We'll just have to pray for the best.” Behind him Jane made a wounded sound.
Terry's prodding along the top of his head hit something tender, and Lewis sucked in a breath as the pain in his head spiked so sharply he almost threw up. “Great.”
His friend patted his shoulder. “You should be fine. I don't see anything that really worries me. Just focu
s on getting some rest.”
He wasn't really in a position to argue that, even if he'd wanted to. “How bad?” he mumbled, opening his eyes again.
There was a somewhat uneasy pause. “Your head?” his friend asked carefully, looking back at Jane. “I just, um, explained to y-”
“Not that.” Lewis tried to wave towards the door of the tent and managed to jerk his hand awkwardly. “How bad was the attack? Who was hurt? Who died?” He had a brief, horrible image of Carl's broken body lit up by a flashlight. But that had to be a nightmare, right?
There was an even longer pause, reluctant this time. “I think that's something you can hear after you've had some rest,” Terry said. He started to back out of the tent, inching his way around Jane when she was slow to budge.
Lewis reached out and caught the man's collar. The movement hurt, bad. “Don't leave me here wondering,” he half demanded, half pled.
His friend sighed. “It's not great news.” Lewis just waited, keeping his hold, and Terry sighed again. “We might be able to salvage something from the truck, although they blew up the engine block. The M2 is scrap metal. Your dad's leg is broken in three places and he also has some broken ribs. He'll be as immobile as Chauncey for a long time, I'm afraid. A few others have broken bones from when the truck flipped, and they're out of action too. During the fight afterwards Ike Randall took a bullet to the hip. It missed the bone, but he'll probably also be out of action for a while.”
Terry fell silent, and something about it made Lewis sure the worst was yet to come. “And?”
“And Abel Moss, Toby Daniels, and Carl Raymond are dead,” his friend replied in a pained voice.
The words struck him like a blow. “Carl?” he repeated, finally releasing the man's shirt. So that hadn't been a concussion fueled nightmare.
His friend nodded sadly. “He died in the crash. I won't go into detail how.”
Lewis looked away, feeling a moment of anguish. Tam, and Jen. Thanks to him their husband and father had died. His carelessness, his overconfidence.
