by John Grit
The sporadic popping of distant gunfire continued as Caroline dashed past a nervous armed man and into the front door, scanning the living room, she didn’t see Samantha, so she rushed into the dining room, finding no one there. Rushing down the hall, she came to the third room and heard children’s voices. The tension on her face relaxed as she swung the door open and saw three armed women ready to shoot if she had been a threat. That relief washed away when she couldn’t find her little friend among the other children.
“Where’s Samantha?” she demanded.
“I think she is with the other children,” a Hispanic woman answered.
Caroline’s face grew rigid with worry. “Where?”
“Under the big oaks in the front yard,” another woman answered, in thick Mexican accent.
Caroline’s suntanned face blanched and a sudden chill flowed through the marrow of her bones. The big oaks were halfway between the house and the gate by the road, not far from the shooting. Turning on her stiff, artificial leg, she stepped into the hallway and aimed for the living room, intending to rush back out the front door. Suddenly stopping in her tracks and reversing course down the hall, she remembered she had only the 30-round magazine in the M4 she carried. It had been taken off a dead member of the murderous gang on the road so many months back. The unfortunate brigand had probably stolen it from a National Guard Armory early in the plague or killed a soldier for it. Either way, she had put it to good use since the day Nate gave it to her, sending many evil men to hell.
The thud of her hard replica foot in a worn-out boot hitting the scratched and scarred wood floor of the hallway gave evidence to her quick progress, ending with her in a room where she had left her pack and magazine pouch vest. Slipping into both, she headed down the hall and out the front door in a rush that would have left many younger women with two good legs in the dust. The firing at the gate had intensified. What concerned her more was the fact it seemed to have moved closer. Fear spurred her on.
Running among massive oaks hundreds of years old, she darted from tree to tree, using them for cover as much as possible and scanning the grounds for danger. Other men and women were doing the same; forming an inner ring that those at the gate would fall back to if they couldn’t repel the assault.
The firing grew louder and closer still. And Caroline had yet to reach Samantha and the other children. Throwing herself behind a three-foot-tall limestone rock, she paused to look around and realized the others had stopped advancing, taking up their assigned positions instead.
She was alone.
Damn it. She should’ve yelled to the nearest ones and explained that the children were between them and the attackers. Certainly, they didn’t know, otherwise, wouldn’t they have kept coming on? Wouldn’t they have risked all to protect the children? The slow deliberate firing of Kendell’s bolt-action 30-06 gave relief, but at the same time signaled an alarm – he was already under attack.
She pressed on.
Movement to her right, where a ring of large limestone rocks had been arranged around a massive oak for decoration many decades past, caught her eye. She readied to fire. The report of Kendell’s bolt-action alerted her not to shoot. She turned her attention to the direction she thought he was shooting at. A young man rose up and fired at Kendell with what looked like an M1 carbine, or a cheap copy, from behind a pile of oak logs someone had gathered the day before while trimming limbs from the oak trees.
A snap shot from her M4 took the young man down permanently.
She saw Kendell straining to see who had shot and waved at him. He waved back, not smiling, but appearing somewhat relieved. The strain evident on his face. She wondered if the children were there with him and realized they must be. He chose that position for a reason. Most likely, the children were all lying flat on the ground within the protection of that ring of rocks. The urge to run to Samantha was strong, but she resisted. Providing cover for each other by her staying at a distance made more sense than her repositioning within that ring of rocks alongside of Kendell. Why make it easier for the attackers to concentrate their fire? Her being off to the side would force them to divide their attention, as well as fire, reducing the effectiveness of both.
A bullet sent stone fragments flying, stinging her face. She ducked and dropped onto her left side, allowing her to see around the stone and keep her low at the same time. It was awkward for her to aim from that position, but her third shot took down the woman who’d fired at her from only 50 yards away. Damn! How did she get that close without me seeing her? She almost got me.
Caroline told herself to stop worrying about Samantha and keep her mind on the fight. There would be plenty of time to worry later – if they both were still alive. Kendell’s rifle cracked the air, and she thanked God for sending such young men to protect children. They would have to kill him to get to Samantha and the others.
Two men in their twenties rushed her. She sat up and cut them down with two well aimed shots. A desperate three-shot string from Kendell’s bolt-action warned her he needed help. She looked that way and her eyes widened. Four men and two women, all in their early twenties, were bounding from tree to tree, working closer to Kendell. Their coordination was poor and they were not covering one another while they bounded forward. Kendell had already killed two of their group, the evidence their still bodies lying on the ground.
She worked on those closest to Kendell and wounded two of them. That was good enough for the time being, as they were not going to rush Kendell’s position while writhing on the ground in agony.
As they worked their way closer, Caroline could make out their voices. What the hell?
A young woman yelled out, “Nature gave us Eden, Heaven on earth. But then came Capitalism and they raped the land.”
A man added, “The one percenters took food from the poor and charged too much for gas.”
The first woman finished with, “Corporations sent a plague to kill us all, but we survived and will exact revenge.”
Caroline aimed and fired. They’re all nuts. This is about hatred of the corporations that all went under when the plague hit? So, they hate Capitalism. What does that have to do with us? I haven’t seen a dollar or anyone lift a finger for a buck in a year. This farm is about feeding ourselves and surviving, you morons!
She fired and dropped another one. Bullets hitting the rock forced her to duck before she was blinded by fragments. A thought sent shivers down her spine. If those freaks get to the children there’s no telling what they’ll do. Hell, they may be doomsdayers wanting the human race wiped out. Children are the future of the human race, so they may kill them all.
Caroline took advantage of a lull in the fighting and reloaded. Thinking it would also be a good time to reposition in case they were planning a flanking maneuver, she scanned the scene for good cover she could rush to.
The attackers had other ideas and never gave her the chance to reposition. It took all she had to shoot them off her. A human wave of screaming maniacs almost overran her position, despite Kendell’s frantic, but accurate shooting and her resorting to full auto fire when they got within twenty yards.
Sickened by the slaughter, Caroline wished it would end. She didn’t harbor the hatred for these misguided young people that she did for men in general. Logic told her that most men were not sadistic rapists and she shouldn’t hold every man responsible for what her captors did to her and her family and what she witnessed done to a teen girl named Carrie, but her emotions were not so easy to control with logic. Even so, on this day, she found herself killing not out of hatred of men but in defense of herself and other innocents, and she wished it would all be over soon.
The roar of an engine and the rattle of a vehicle racing down the drive caught her attention. She couldn’t see it from her position, and all she could do was hope the others stopped it before the killers inside reached the house. A teen boy trying to sneak up on Kendell took her attention from the driveway and the approaching danger long enough fo
r her to take careful aim and fire. The result was the boy’s head erupting into pink mist. She grimaced and ducked back down behind the rock, just before a bullet screamed by where her head had been.
Realizing how close she’d come to suffering the same fate as the teen, she slumped down behind the rock and began to shake. Running her hand over her sweaty face, shame and anger at herself took over, and she resolved to be strong. She refused to be afraid of any man, especially a punk teen. Never again would any man have control over her or make her afraid. They could kill her, but they would never take her dignity or her freedom.
She peered around the left end of the rock and saw a young woman with a shotgun rushing between trees. Just before she squeezed the trigger, Kendell’s rifle spoke and the woman fell on her face. She never moved.
Caroline felt her stomach grow sick again. Damn it. Why don’t they give up and leave?
Shouting from the direction of the ring of rocks Kendell and the children had taken refuge in alerted her that something had changed. The bolt-action cracked the air several times in quick succession. She strained to see what he was shooting at but to no avail.
Motion out of the left periphery of her eye caught her attention. She turned to fire and squeezed the trigger in the face of a man only ten yards away. A mass of attackers were coming on even as she fired into them. Forced to retreat from behind the rock, she fired until it appeared she had stopped the human wave attack and then struggled to get up fast, despite of her stiff leg hindering the effort. Finally on her feet, she ran toward Kendell in a panic.
Kendell looked her way and his eyes rounded in shock. He pointed, shouting, “Behind you!” Warning her was all he could do, as she was in his way and he couldn’t shoot without hitting her.
She turned to look over her shoulder and stumbled on her fiberglass and steel leg, landing on her backpack. The impact caused her finger to involuntarily fire off a round. By utter luck, she had the muzzle pointed at a man’s chest when it went off. Before she had time to fire again, they were on her. Three men and a woman.
It seemed they were trying to take her alive, and that frightened her more than being killed. She’d been a prisoner before and under the mercy of sadists who knew no mercy. Never again! She fought with everything she had, screaming like a wild woman, but they had her trapped under the weight of four adults. Constantly squirming and resisting, her eyes wild with horror, she felt her body tiring, but fear surged through her nerves and adrenalin mixed with oxygen-rich blood, giving her the strength to tear her right hand lose long enough to reach for her hunting knife. She slashed out and cut a man’s throat so fast the others were shocked when blood spurted across their faces. The woman holding her left hand down was disemboweled instantly, intestines rolling out onto Caroline’s hand before she had time to lift it way. Screaming, her eyes wild, she slashed at the others, leaving them cut and bleeding. Before any of them had time to recover their wits, Caroline drove the six-inch blade into a man’s heart and rolled for her rifle.
A bullet hammered one man in the chest and Kendell’s rifle boomed from the rocks. Another shot from his bolt-action took out the last one within arm’s length of Caroline, just as she got her hands on her rifle and raised it up while still on her back, ready to take on any threats. Looking over the sights, she swung the muzzle in a great arc, screaming. Finding no nearby threats, she grabbed her artificial leg and repositioned it. Her chest heaved as she struggled to stand. Using the rifle for leverage, she pushed herself off the ground and stood. With one more look around, keeping the rifle ready, she turned her determined face to Kendell and the children and ran, her uneven lope eating up yards.
Kendell covered her with his rifle. When she dove behind a rock next to him, he glanced her way and nodded, then pulled his knife and reached it out to her, handle first. “You lost yours back there and I think you can use mine better than me, so you might as well take it.”
She did. “Is Samantha with you?”
Before he could answer, Samantha yelled, “I’m over here!”
Relief washed over Caroline’s face. “Are you hurt?”
“No.” Samantha answered, her voice sodden with tears and fear.
“You stay where you are, girl. I’ll come and get you when it’s time. Just lay flat on the ground and keep as low as possible.” She reloaded as she spoke.
“That was a hell of a fight,” Kendell commented. “I ain’t seen anything like it.” He scanned the area for danger. “I couldn’t do nothin’ for a while; they were too close to you. Sorry I couldn’t help until the end.”
“Don’t worry about that.” Caroline looked around for someone to shoot. “I would much rather you wait for a clear shot than to shoot me accidently.” The truth she would never admit to was, there had been flashing thoughts of her begging Kendell to shoot her rather than let them take her alive. The thought lived and died only while it appeared she wasn’t going to get away, but once she had her hand free and wrapped around the knife handle, all thoughts were on killing them and freeing herself with no help from anyone.
She looked out from between two limestone rocks and almost smiled. She did it! Even with those odds. And her leg hadn’t stopped her. Looking over at the dead men and women who’d just tried to capture her alive – and she could only guess what they had in mind to do with her – she mentally told them, No one will ever have the power of life and death over me again, and no one will ever make me beg.
Shooting and shouts from the direction of the house prompted both Caroline and Kendell to look that way.
The vehicle on the drive! Caroline remembered hearing a car or truck heading for the house. The gunfight seemed to increase in intensity over the next five minutes. She held her rifle tighter in her sweat-soaked hands. Feeling a sickly stickiness, she looked down and realized it was blood, not sweat. She ignored it long enough to snap her rifle to her shoulder and fire at a fleeting target, when a man darted between trees. She had doubts she had hit him, but screaming from behind trees near the man she shot at changed her mind. For some reason the man’s screaming irritated her. “Oh, shut up,” she yelled, “it’s not like you didn’t ask for it, you whiney son of a bitch!”
A glance at Kendell told her he was a bit put off. He remained silent, though, and didn’t give her any dirty looks. Probably feels sorry for me. Thinks I’ve lost it.
A spike of pain shot through her leg from the bullet she didn’t expect, a bullet from nowhere. It smacked into her flesh with a loud thud, followed by the report of the rifle that had sent the deadly chunk of copper-coated lead on its way. She jerked in response to the pain and turned onto her back. Her mind barely registered the vague silhouette of Kendell, leaning over her, tightening a cord around her leg. Her assailant, who had been hiding behind one of the trees to the rear of their position, made the mistake of moving closer before taking another shot. He could have killed Kendell, who was in the open while trying to stop Caroline’s wound from bleeding her to death. Caroline saw him and sat up, pushing Kendell out of her way and firing. She saw the impact of the bullet on his chest. His knees buckled and he fell forward as he lost consciousness, his rifle clattering on small rocks at his feet.
She glared at Kendell. “Don’t do that again! He almost killed you.”
Kendell stared back in surprise.
Samantha came running out from where she’d been hiding with the other children. “Caroline! You’re hurt!”
Caroline’s face revealed terror as strong as during her desperate struggle with those who tried to take her alive. “No! Get down!”
When she ran by Kendell, he reached out and grabbed her, pulling her to him and keeping her protected with his body. Shots kicked up dirt just over his shoulder.
Caroline fired into the trees from sitting position but without the support of either leg. “Get her back with the others,” she yelled, and fired twice more. She didn’t hear the helicopters landing in the pasture behind the house, some 300 yards away, as she fired until h
er rifle was empty. Reloading while lying on her left side, she kept watch as Kendell carried Samantha to cover, ignoring her screaming for Caroline.
A burst of gunfire near the house told Caroline and Kendell both the fight was heating up, but Caroline had stopped shooting out of a lack of targets. The shaded ground under the trees suddenly appeared empty. She continued to scan the area, seeing no movement. It dawned on her that shooting at the front gate had also stopped. All of the fighting was between them and the house.
Kendell yelled at Caroline as he reloaded his bolt-action rifle, one round at a time. “Tighten that tourniquet,” he warned, “or you’ll bleed too much.”
She paid him no mind and kept scanning the perimeter. Then she heard Samantha crying along with the other children. Reaching down, she twisted the extra cord, tightening the loop around her leg, and the blood flow slowed. Why didn’t the asshole shoot me in the other leg? It doesn’t bleed and can be replaced easier.
Caroline felt herself growing lightheaded and wondered how long she could hang on. Movement among the trees between them and the house snapped her out of her growing stupor and she readied to raise the rifle, not quite yet wanting to let go of the cord and allow what blood she had left to leak out. A man in camouflage clothing and armed with an M4 emerged from the trees and moved into a more open area. He was followed by several more. She strained to raise her rifle but found it had gained 100 pounds since she last shot it.
The men kept coming closer, spread out and alert with weapons ready but not bounding in teams. One came close enough to see Caroline sitting there staring at him with her rifle at her side. He raised his rifle and she thought she was dead. There was nothing she could do, as her own rifle had become too heavy to lift.
But he didn’t shoot. He yelled to cross the distance between them. “Lady, take your hand away from that weapon. I don’t want to shoot you, but I don’t know if you’re friend or foe.”
