Dark Days Rough Roads dd-1

by Matthew D. Mark

Out in the tree line, a strobe light started to flash. Haliday called Rob, he didn’t waste a lot of breath on words of wisdom or anything, he simply told him “Start your offensive.” The strobe light flashed about 45 times a minute. It was a small strobe head about the size of a quarter mounted in small 1X2 inch housing running off a small 12 volt tractor battery.

  This was anchored to a tree about 10 feet off the ground. These were normally mounted in fog light areas, back up lights on police cars, car grilles or almost anywhere. They were pure white light and worked well. Each flash was like a small flash of lightning.

  The tree bark splintered followed by the rifle’s report. The bark splintered yet again and then the report. The third shot hit the battery and exploded it. The strobe light fell to the ground with no power. The militia sniper had taken it out. It was hard to hone in on due to the flashing light, but eventually he got it. He was happy, there would be no more light to blind the militias’ night vision goggles, he thought.

  The tree line started to blink randomly. These were all angled away from the house to avoid interfering with the sight of Haliday’s group. Pretty soon there were almost 20 of these blinking around the perimeter of the property. If one was taken out they would know where at least one militia member would be, or at least the general area. Hopefully this interfered with the night vision entirely.

  A white flare erupted and sailed into the air. Haliday’s group spotted movement, but only shadows on the ground. They were able to locate a couple of the vehicles, but these were too far away to accurately see what was going on. The flare drifted slowly to the ground. A couple of the strobe lights went out.

  The militia sniper was surveying the area. His original thought was to take out the blinking lights, but there were simply too many of them. He would expose his position, which he did not want to do. When the flare went off, he spotted Alan up in the crow’s nest. He made his calculations and hugged the Barrett close. He heard the rustling behind him and reached for his pistol. Haliday had come out of his hide. He would have chosen this spot for his own hide; he counted on this man doing the same. He was only 15 feet away from the sniper.

  The sniper rolled over in an attempt to protect himself and fire. Haliday had leapt forward and came down on his upper arm with one knee and accidently knocked the Barrett over with his other. He grabbed at the pistol and managed to move the slide back about a quarter of an inch. It didn’t fire. Haliday increased his grip and snapped the pistol around toward the man, nearly tearing his trigger finger off.

  The man reached up and grabbed Haliday’s throat and tried to choke him. One of the first things Haliday taught people in his self-defense classes was how to avoid being choked. If you can stop yourself from breathing, you can stop the choking. Haliday did this with an exaggerated cough and stopped breathing. He managed to free the pistol from the man’s grip and tossed it aside.

  The man let go of Haliday’s throat and punched Haliday in the side of the rib cage. The area was tender and the previously broken ribs had not yet mended. Haliday gasped for air. He had given Kayla his vest so he had no protection. There came another punch and Haliday went over. The man rolled and went to choke him again. Haliday pulled him in close in a bear hug and then brought his right arm up, quickly sinking his knife into the base of the man’s neck, severing his spine. Haliday blacked out for a brief minute. He opened his eyes to the sound of gunfire.

  Chapter 28

  The security at the airport was heavier than normal. Rob had spread the word and they did what they could to coordinate the strike. The hunters within the group had taken up residence on the rooftops of the neighboring buildings as far away as they dared to go depending on their skill. Some of them found other places to hide. Haliday had also warned them about the sniper on the roof.

  Down toward the south end of the airport, one townsman crawled up to the fence. He had previously spotted the end of a fence section and he started clipping the wire that held it to the pole. He had finished clipping by the pole, then started working along the top. He spotted a militia quad heading his way. The militia rider fired awkwardly with one hand toward the man as the man ran back to the tree line.

  Once he reached the tree line, he grabbed his rifle and fired toward the quad. The rider skidded to a stop and jumped off. He leaned over the seat and fired a couple of bursts. Before he knew it the rider was facing the return fire from two shotguns and an SKS. He was using the quad as a shield. Two of the tires went flat and the gas tank was ruptured.

  The guy by the quad reached up and tried to start it, but didn’t have any luck. He called for help on his radio. He aimed his rifle over the seat and would fire a few bursts in the direction of the woods. He looked back toward the compound and saw a side by side four wheeler coming up. One guy was standing in the back and firing. He had rigged up a harness to keep himself steady.

  The militia man heard his partners yelling at him, “Get in. Get in.” He jumped up and ran over to the four wheeler and jumped in; it took off before he actually landed in the seat. The man in the back spun around as it left and laid down some more suppressing fire. The four wheeler shot toward the other side of the compound to get away from the townsmen and their fire.

  They were passing a small wooded area when a blaze of rounds opened up from their left. The man in the back went down and dangled from his harness as the driver swerved to avoid the gunfire. The driver took a hit to the arm and floored it. The passenger they picked up was able to avoid getting hit. The four wheeler made its way quickly back toward the admin building.

  The militia men cut the harness and lowered the man down. He was already dead. He had been hit four times total. One shot pierced a lung, one his spleen and another his stomach, with the final round severing his femoral artery. He had passed out and then bled out all within two minutes. The driver had a shattered forearm. He was taken inside and his friend was taken to an empty hangar, where they had set up a morgue of sorts until they could bury the men from the marina and the track fire.

  Two townsmen ran back out to finish cutting the fence open. They had started to snip the wires again when another shot rang out. One man fell backwards and the other one grabbed his arms and started to pull him back toward the woods. Another shot rang out and the man was hit again. The militia sniper had made it up to his rooftop and went to work. The man was already dead when his friend dragged him into the woods.

  The sniper had them scared. After Haliday had blown the guy’s foot off they went on the roof and fortified the position with more sandbags. Nobody could really see him now and they didn’t quite have the range to effectively reach him anyway. The man up there now wasn’t one of the two snipers the militia originally had, but he had been training to become their third. He was still a damn good shot.

  Across from the main gate there was a small car repair shop. To the west of that were a couple of small houses and a clump of trees by the road. Rob and a couple of other guys had rigged up a huge redneck style slingshot behind the trees using rubber tubing. They filled a bunch of quart jars with gas and shot them toward the front gate and then sent over some flaming bottles.

  The militia had set up two “U” shaped sand bag emplacements on each side of the gate. As soon as the gas started to hit they ran toward the row of cars behind them to use the defensive positions they had set up there. The sand bags were burning and causing the walls to falter as sand fell out of them.

  The two guys had about 50 feet to make it to the row of cars. They had both run for fear of catching fire and burning like the people in the track had done. From the darkened window of the repair shop came an unnoticeable twang of a bow. The arrow hit one man right in the back and he stumbled forward, fell and crawled toward safety.

  His partner just left him there to make it back on his own. The sniper looked around. He had concentrated on trying to find the guys firing the Molotov cocktails and without a muzzle flash he didn’t know where the shot came from. He assumed it was a suppressed weap
on. It was too dark for him to see the arrow in his friends back.

  The man hit by the arrow made it toward the row of cars and crawled behind them. The sniper continued to scan the area, but could not find the gunman. The fires were still burning and had turned the emplacements into piles of sand. The plastic type surplus sand bags weren’t such a good deal after all. The militia would be foolish to try and use these barricades again.

  The archer inside the auto shop pulled out an arrow. The arrow had a card board tube on the shaft which was filled with black powder and finishing nails. He had taken care to balance it as much as possible and glued it to the shaft. The fuse was taken off some fireworks he had lying around. He drew back and another man lit the fuse. He released the arrow and sent it over the cars. They heard the arrow explode but it sounded like more of an M80 than a bomb.

  This gave away their position and they headed toward the back of the shop. The sniper put a couple rounds through the front windows just for the sake of doing so. The arrow was not effective enough to do any damage. Just a few small nicks from the nails. They had hoped it would have a more profound effect than it did. No such luck. It was a wasted effort. They felt stupid for trying it instead of just using regular arrows and firing from the dark window.

  Rob took a plastic ball that his wife had used in the washer for fabric softener and he packed this with BB’s and gun powder. The hole was sealed with wax with a fuse attached. They lit this and used the slingshot to launch it toward the building. It landed just behind the cars out front and exploded sending BB’s everywhere. This was far more effective. The two front windows of the building shattered and one of the militia got hit in the face, losing an eye and embedding another BB in his chin. People always looked too long at objects thrown at them instead of taking cover and this guy found that out the hard way.

  The lower windows had been covered with wood, but a smaller upper window shattered. Not much building damage, but at least they had made a statement. The townsmen concentrated coverage toward the front of the building. The main problem was the sniper on the roof. They couldn’t really advance while this guy was up there. They would have to figure out how to get him down.

  A woman came out of the back door of the admin building with two men. The men fired wildly toward the street providing cover fire as she ran toward the motor pool. She had her rifle slung on her back and keys in her hand. From a distance of 150 yards away and from another small building across the street came another shot dropping one of the men.

  The round struck him at the base of his nose. His AR fired as he fell. Blood trickled out of his ears and nose as he lay motionless on the ground. The remaining man fired toward the building on full auto, burning through magazines. The sniper looked, but didn’t see anything; he had a lot of ground to try and cover. They were calling the attack in to their patrol group at Haliday’s, who were engaged in their own assault. Both groups were on their own.

  The townsmen were slow and methodical in their fire. They didn’t want to waste the ammo they had and didn’t want to give away their positions to the militia. The wide open spaces around the airport made it hard to get close. They were also playing it as safe as they could. They knew this was serious, but didn’t know how serious it really was. They heard a truck start in the motor pool.

  * * *

  Haliday shook it off and rolled over. He looked over toward the house. From within the property and the surrounding area he watched occasional patches of muzzle flashes. He was quickly trying to get a fix on where most of the action was taking place. It was sporadic; there was no sustained attack on any one part of the property.

  He checked the militia man and found his radio. He unplugged the man’s earpiece and listened for a few seconds. It was all static and he could hardly make anything out. During the struggle, the antenna had been broken near its base and the reception was poor at best. He kept it close regardless. Anything he heard would be better than nothing.

  He looked over at the Barrett, grabbed it and set it back up on the bi-pod. He looked through the scope for a target. Off in the woods he spotted one of the quads. He took aim and readied himself for the shot. He squeezed the trigger and watched the round. Aw crap, he said. He missed it, he was mad at himself. He had wanted to check the zero on the scope and the quad was the only readily visible target.

  He looked at the scope; it had to be off just a bit. He had knocked it pretty good with his knee and it was just enough to take it off zero. The rifle set up this guy had was probably 12-15 grand when he purchased it and he couldn’t believe how the scope reacted to the hit it took. He didn’t have time to play with it. What was maybe a sixteenth of an inch on the scope base could equate to a couple of feet at 700-800 yards where the round would impact.

  He couldn’t afford to use it. He needed accuracy and reliability, the system that he knew well. He ran about 20 feet away and brushed aside a pile of leaves and some loose branches and pulled out his M24. He ran back to the Barrett’s location and set up his own rifle. He scanned the area for another target.

  Over by the woods, they would need the most help. He listened on his radio, but didn’t hear much traffic. The militia was still probing right now. They would advance or fire and then watch where the return fire came from. He kept scanning the area because someone would have to show themselves eventually.

  A little more than half of the strobes were still working. He concentrated near the darker spots. He caught a glimpse of muzzle flash and started working on finding the person behind the gun. He’d have killed for a night vision scope. The illuminated reticle on his at night was only good for making sure you were centered over your target, but that was only if you could clearly see your target.

  Alan wasn’t having any luck either. He was staying low and using one of Roger’s homemade periscopes to try and find some movement. Once he was able to locate someone, he would then try and fire on them. To just sit there exposed while he hunted for a shot was asking for more trouble than he wanted.

  Alan looked down the street and spotted movement along the ditch. It was about 250 yards out. He took a deep breath and lifted his rifle into position using the notch as his protection and the wall as his bipod. The figure started to cross over from one side of the road to the other. He fired the round and ducked back down.

  The round dropped more than he expected and entered the woman’s left shoulder. The round caught her off guard and she dropped to the asphalt and started to work her way to the ditch. Another militia member ran over and provided suppressing fire toward the crow’s nest. Haliday changed his own angle of aim.

  The lady was toward the edge of the asphalt near the gravel shoulder of the road. The man continued to cover her by firing three and four round bursts. The muzzle flashes lit him up perfectly. Haliday fired and the round went through the man’s left chest area and came out through his right rear shoulder blade, hitting his aorta as well.

  The woman sat up slightly and called toward the downed man. She crawled back over to him to check his injuries. Once she realized he was dead, she tried to crawl back toward the ditch. Alan watched this and popped back up put another round into her, hitting her leg. The woman now laid there. She had been hit twice and was calling on her radio for help.

  Haliday just heard the crackle of the radio and a word or two. Road and help was all he could make out. He called Alan on the radio. “Be careful, but keep an eye on that woman. They might be coming to get her. You let me know if you see anything. We might be able to coordinate something.”

  “Ok, Roger, what about the woods though?”

  “I’ll watch those for right now.”

  Roger called Mark next. “Mark, we have them moving in closer over in the wood line. You over there at all?”

  “Ya, I have a spot next to Lisa and Kayla, who are in the fighting positions. We can’t really see anyone yet. They are holding off at quite a distance. All we’re getting are probing shots. I only have half our guys over here firing back
to help keep up a level of surprise.”

  Haliday heard a light thump followed by four more. He looked over at the street and saw smoke rising around the woman. The militia used their launchers and put smoke down on the road to attempt retrieval. They had a Jeep speeding in toward the location of the wounded woman.

  The crow’s nest started to take more suppressing fire and Alan dropped down to the loft floor. He ran over to the middle of the cabin. Earlier he had removed a Velcro cover and piece of insulation. This revealed a one foot by one foot tin roof vent that he raised up. He would be able to avoid the shots at the crow’s nest, but still help fire along this side of the house to help out. He picked up an AR resting there.

  Out past the woman, two rifles had started the barrage in order to provide cover for this Jeep. It was coming in completely dark, not a single light on. Mike was over on this side of the house and he launched a flare into the sky above the road. The smoke was illuminated and looked eerie. The Jeep laid on the brakes momentarily, then it continued on. NVG’s, Haliday thought, the flare ruined it. The driver had to stop and take them off.

  The suppressing fire continued. They fired between the crow’s nest and Mike’s fighting position. Mike couldn’t get his head up to take any shots. Suddenly the wood line on the other side of the house erupted in gunfire. Mark ordered them all to return fire. Shots were being fired from both Haliday’s group and the militia regularly now.

  Across from the neighbor’s house came even more fire. Kevin, Dawn and Diana returned fire striking the house and surrounding landscaping. Kevin swept the shrubs and trees from side to side anywhere from six inches to a foot off the ground. Dawn swept the areas from 2 to 3 feet off the ground and Diana sprayed the house and took aim at areas she saw muzzle flashes.

  Haliday was ready to go and sought out the targets. He had taken over the hide after the militia sniper had fired in order to utilize it against the aggressors. None of them really knew what happened and with all the action they thought their own man was still over there covering their movement. Haliday put an occasional shot into a safe zone for just that effect.