Dark Days Rough Roads dd-1

by Matthew D. Mark

  Rob’s four wheeler approached and before it came to a stop the militia member came up firing. Chuck, who was next to Rob, fired back along with the other two. One of the men in the back fell off the four wheeler and tumbled along the ground dead. A sniper from the east side had to fire three shots, but hit the injured militia member, ending his life.

  The militia group on the east fired up into the trees when they spotted this man and hit him. The man had only been hit in the leg, but lost his footing on the reversed tree stand and fell to the ground breaking his arm and some ribs. He laid there unable to move and the militia finished him off as he laid there trying to get behind the tree.

  Mark’s area was much harder to assault. With most of the buildings and fortifications in place on the north side, it was hard for them to find suitable targets. Mark ordered a cease fire unless the snipers could definitely get a shot in. They couldn’t afford to waste any more ammunition on just trying to suppress fire.

  He called over to Brad. “We need to see about getting these people moving and exposed. See if they can fire into any of the tannerite cans and let’s see what happens. If we can’t get to them, it’s a waste of our effort.” Brad and Mark both passed the word along. A few of the guys started to take some shots on the tannerite cans, hoping to hit them.

  One of the cans near one of the militia’s northeast positions exploded, sending its nails flying. The two people in the fighting position were hit causing multiple cuts on their backs and the backs of their necks. Two nails embedded themselves in one of the men’s neck. He reached around and tried to remove them, but his jacket was in the way.

  The other man moved over quickly to help him out. Mark saw this and waited. When the man went back to his side of the fighting position, Mark fired and struck the man in the left arm and shoulder. The militia called in for aid and this is when they discovered the situation was worse than it actually was. They were on their own with what they had with them.

  The deuce couldn’t provide cover for delivery or extraction. The militia would have to stand their ground the best they could until the opportunity arose when someone could get more supplies to them. They had plenty of rounds, just no food or first aid capability for those who needed intensive medical treatment.

  Mark called a cease-fire again. He told everyone to save their rounds and not to fire on the tannerite anymore until they could plan a new strategy. Mark called Haliday. “Roger, how’s it going down there?”

  Haliday responded. “We are in the perimeter. We have most of the south side now. I need you to get some guys down here to help take out the other two positions.”

  Mark and Brad gathered a few guys together and went around to the south side of the airport. Once there, he assigned four guys to move forward to the brick emplacements and then work there way forward to take over the militia emplacements that had been seized. They would have to alter the positions to make them more effective, but right now they would serve them well enough.

  Mark would then concentrate on helping Rob and the rest of the guys take the other positions out of service. With Haliday and Chuck’s entry teams clearing the three most southern buildings, they would use these to help continue moving the assault closer to the admin and motor pool buildings. In between these buildings and the ones Haliday would take were the food and supply storage buildings.

  Over by the northeast corner of the compound, some of the townspeople started to take fire from behind them. They scrambled for cover. They were now practically caught in a cross fire. The militia had a couple of members heading toward the airport to join them.

  They had stopped to wait out the assault and then come help if they were called in. One of these militia vehicles had come up directly from the east and was now in a position to help out. The people in this vehicle had found an area to hide. They were now engaging the townspeople in the fire fight.

  Chapter 34

  Haliday adjusted the entry teams. He now had two teams with only three guys each. Chuck’s and his. They decided to go with two shotguns and an AR in order to prevent over penetrating the buildings. The first building they went to enter was a large hangar building furthest south. One of the guys went up to the back door and used the shotgun to blow through the lock.

  Once the man blew the lock he swung the door open and he tossed a tannerite can inside which Haliday then fired on. The can exploded, but instead of nails they had used the small airsoft beads. Basically homemade stun grenades. They didn’t want to damage what might be inside. Both teams entered the building and conducted the building sweep. This building was completely filled with food. They noticed Walmart tags on most of the items.

  The next building was very small. This one they could not reach yet because there was no back door. It was the building the militia had used for interrogating people. Haliday went to the back window and pulled out his mirror and took a peek. He waved Chuck over. Chuck took the mirror and looked in the window as well. There were a couple of chairs and a table, but there was also more.

  They had built a rack to suspend people from. They would use this to keep the person’s hands tied over their heads and their feet barely touching the ground. There was blood on one of the chairs and on the floor. The worst part was a man still hanging from one side of the rack. It looked like he had been dead for a few days already.

  Chuck looked at Roger, “I know that guy.”

  “Who is it Chuck?”

  Chuck looked pissed. “That’s the chief of police. He went missing the second day of the outage. No one knew what the hell happened to him. We all thought maybe he bugged out. He and the sheriff never got along. I guess we know now what happened to him. Seems like the chief wasn’t going to put up with any BS and they decided he was a liability.”

  Roger keyed his mic and told everyone what they had found. This re-ignited the rage that the people had for the militia. They went back into the first building and made their way over to the west side of it. They went out and Haliday’s team provided cover while Chuck’s team made it to the back of another building. This was going to be the last easy building to clear.

  Mark had heard the shots being fired over at the north east corner and knew something was wrong. He called and confirmed that there was a problem. “Ok, Brad,” he said, “We need to get over there and see what’s going on.” He called on the radio and told everyone to keep checking their rear. Roger and Brad took off. Rob stayed to make sure everyone got up to the emplacements.

  Roger got one team at a time moved up toward the three buildings. They got all three manned without any problems. They spent a few minutes arranging them to make it a bit safer. The next piece of the puzzle would be to get the other two positions emptied out. They had a couple of parlor tricks left to do this. He called a couple more guys up to his position. They came up and each brought a couple of large plastic toolboxes with them.

  Over the next 30 minutes they made two more trips with more supplies and ammo. They were almost ready to make the assault on the two positions. They had to wait for Chuck to enter the other building and clear it first. Chuck was there at the back. They blew the door, tossed in and then blew the tannerite can. As soon as they entered the building more shots were fired.

  Roger and his team got down low. They waited until the firing stopped. Haliday ran over to the building and crouched down low. He yelled into the door. “Chuck, what’s the status?” he asked.

  Chuck’s voice came back, “We’re clear. We have one wounded and we took out one militia.” Haliday entered the building. Inside was a woman lying there dead and Chuck’s man who was hit in the hip.

  Haliday walked over to him and checked him out. Chuck had put a pressure bandage on his hip. “How bad?” Haliday asked. Chuck said he would be ok, but wouldn’t be able to move. “We can’t get him out of here for at least another hour,” Roger said. He looked at the guy; “Can you make it until then?”

  “Ya, sure, it just hurts.”

  Haliday grabbed a
bottle out of his pocket and handed him a vicodin. “Take this. It’ll help.”

  Haliday told Chuck he was heading back to the other building to get ready. Once he got there, they looked out and saw the target. Haliday asked the guys if they were ready and both nodded. They would be launching a small assault from two buildings, his and the one Chuck was in. Haliday clicked his mic. “We go on my word. Everyone ready, three, two, one, go.”

  Mark and Brad had gone slow and came up across the street from the brickyard. They saw a truck over in the yard. “I wonder if that’s their truck?” he said.

  Brad said, “Yep, that’s where we got the tractor and it wasn’t there before.” Mark and Brad checked the woods around the brickyard. They spotted some movement and kept their eyes on it.

  Mark told Brad he was going to low crawl up into a better position. Brad kept watch as Mark moved forward. Mark was about 25 yards closer to the people now and he watched too. He heard some shots fired from the compound area and saw these people fire back. They weren’t wearing the Russian camo and he wasn’t sure who they were. He was wondering if they were good guys or bad.

  He motioned for Brad to crawl up. Brad moved up slowly, very slowly. Mark could tell he wasn’t used to this. He looked over at Brad and pointed the people out. Brad looked at them and then back at Mark and shook his head no. These were definitely not part of Rob’s group. He told Brad he was moving over to line himself up better.

  While he was moving the pair fired once again toward the compound. He heard the guy say he got one. “Good job, sweetie,” he heard.

  This was a couple, he thought. He moved back toward Brad. “It’s a man and a woman, I’m going to go further east and come through the brickyard. You come along to a point and then provide me some cover. We can’t get them from here. I need to take a clean shot and can’t get one right now.”

  They moved east and then found a place to cross. “You stay here. Brad. I’ll cross over and check it out. I’ll signal you when I want you to cross. Mark crossed over into the brickyard and made his way toward the couple. He peeked around a pallet of bricks and spotted two small children hunkered down behind them. He looked across at Brad and signaled him to back off a bit.

  Over toward the main gate, some of the guys took pot shots at the militia positions. They were not able to effectively do anything. They tried to light the gel fuel. They tried bows and arrows and aiming high hoping the arrows would drop on the guys, but nothing was working. One of the guys took a shot at a vehicle and ruptured the gas tank. Everyone else just looked at each other.

  They started shooting the vehicles themselves and were trying to puncture as many of the fuel tanks as they could. The militia pushed the vehicles in place but did not empty the tanks out. Gas was now flowing along the entire line of vehicles that the militia relied on for protection and cover at the front of the admin building.

  Once a couple of tanks were punctured and the militia caught on to what was happening they fired toward the townspeople. They unleashed over 1,000 rounds to try and stop them. The militia had hit a man and woman who were injured and another man was killed. The people lit some fireworks and aimed them toward the vehicle barricade. Finally one struck gas and within minutes they all started to burn.

  After about 10 minutes, the line of cars was so engulfed in flames you could hardly see through all of the smoke. The militia was able to pull back toward some secondary defensive positions rather safely. Only one man sustained a hit while making the moves, and it was just an injury that left him bleeding, but still able to fight. The townspeople took the opportunity to gather up any of their own wounded and get them to safety.

  Haliday’s team popped the door open at the same time Chuck’s team did. The team members with the AR’s laid down prone while the men with shotguns took different stances. One kneeled and one stood, both using the thin hangar wall along the door jambs as cover. They instantly started firing toward their assigned militia positions.

  The folks on the east and west sides fired as well. Haliday watched one man take off toward the center of the building complex and tried to lead his fire on him. Before he could fire on him though the concrete next to him shattered causing him to roll for cover. The two men with him continued to fire and eliminated the threat that fired on Haliday. The militia member running made it to another position, but this one was out of their view.

  Chuck’s team didn’t have such good luck. As soon as they opened to fire, they took hits immediately. Chuck fired away, but one of the guys had his shotgun jam on him, and as he tried to eject the shell he was hit twice and went down. Chuck continued to fire as the other man pulled the injured guy out of the way. He returned to help Chuck. The snipers still didn’t have any shots on this militia position and couldn’t help Chuck’s team.

  Rob had everyone moved up into the southern positions and now had a couple of guys in the buildings waiting. He went over to see if he could help Chuck. Chuck told him the guys were dug in pretty deep and wasn’t sure if they would be able to get them out of that position. They all backed up and waited. They called Haliday for direction. Haliday told them to send a couple to his location and he would come over and see what was going on.

  Mark took another look around the area. He couldn’t spot anyone else so he made his move. He shouldered his AR and pulled out his pistol. He sprang around the corner of the bricks and took aim at the two kid, he put his finger to his mouth. He spoke quietly and told them to raise their hands up which they did.

  Mark then had them lay down and he zip tied their hands together. The kids were maybe 10 or 11 years old, a boy and girl. Mark was shocked at this. “Here kids, you hide here behind the bricks while we go play army.” It was appalling in every sense. He didn’t like what he did next. He stood them up then called out to their parents.

  The parents froze. All they heard was “Drop your weapons and approach your children with your hands raised high.” They had no idea who had their kids or what the person would do. The husband suggested he sneak over across the street and try and come up behind them. The wife protested. The little girl cried out, “Mommy I’m scared. One of the bad men has us.” Mark’s blood boiled at this.

  Haliday walked in and looked down at the man from Chuck’s team who had gotten hit. The man was losing blood and would need help fast. Haliday grabbed his mirror and took a quick glance. No sooner had he put it in the doorway when the militia fired. The shots were too close for comfort and one came through the thin steel just above his head.

  Haliday looked over at Rob. “Listen, get a few more guys up here. Have them take over here in the building. In the meantime Chuck and I will take our teams and enter that big ass building they are using to keep all the food and supplies in. If we can get to the west end, we can take them out.” Rob signaled for a couple more guys to come over and he said he would stay as well.

  Chuck and Haliday got their teams together. They needed Rob to draw the fire and as soon as they started, they bolted for the door. They got the door open and entered it quickly without any tannerite can. They all kept low. They looked around. There were stacks upon stacks of food piled in here.

  Over at the main gate, not only had the smoke and fire given the militia a chance to retreat, it also gave a few people the chance to move forward close to the line of cars. Four people had rushed forward and then laid down waiting for the flames to subside. This was as close as anyone had managed to get to the admin building.

  Mark was waiting for the kids parents to approach. He heard the woman say, “Don’t hurt them. I’m on my way.”

  Mark yelled out, “Both of you. I said both of you.” There was a pause and she said her husband was injured. Mark couldn’t believe these people were playing games with their kids. “Listen lady, I have two guys in the woods. If he ain’t injured he will be. You wanna keep playing games?”

  He heard the man, “Ok, we’re both coming out, don’t shoot.”

  Mark waited and both of them came walking
out hands held high. Mark called out, “Brad, come on in, but tell your brother to keep his sights on these two.” Brad came out slowly with his rifle raised. Mark ordered them to the ground with their hands behind their backs. Brad approached and zip tied them.

  The zip ties came in handy. They were cable ties from an electric supply shop, but Haliday had made sure everyone took plenty with them. He told them to tuck them in their boots, their ball caps, waist bands, wherever they felt comfortable putting them. This was the exact reason why.

  Haliday and Chuck made it to the west end of the hangar; no one was in there. He looked at the wall and there weren’t any doors or windows. Up toward the top, he spotted two large air vents. Up against the wall was a rolling ladder. He slowly moved it over about 10 feet and climbed up. He pulled out his Leatherman and used it to pry open one of the louvers.

  He looked down. This was going to be the perfect angle for the one position, unfortunately the next position down the line would have clear shots and the lack of protection would be sure death for whomever was up here. He looked at the other vent. Two shooters could do it, just have to figure out how to get someone up there.

  Haliday kept looking around for something to use. “Anybody have any ideas on a platform for a second shooter?” he asked. “We have to be able to get down quickly too.” Everyone was looking around. Most of the hangar space had been cleared for the food storage. There wasn’t a whole lot they could use.

  Brad and Mark searched the couple and the kids thoroughly. Mark walked them over to their vehicle and opened it up. He looked around a bit and grabbed some rope. He tied them up to a pallet of bricks. He walked back over and grabbed a couple of blankets and tossed them over the kids. It was time to head back to the compound and help.

  Mark called in and told them about the four prisoners. He then made his way back to the compound with Brad. He went over the situation as it currently stood. They had made some good ground, but needed more. Once they fully secured the south end they could close the noose a little more.