by neetha Napew
raped, left exhausted and dying by a roadside for the wild dogs to feast on.
She might save five rounds, she thought. She pumped the M-16's trigger. A
three-round burst, then another and another. She shattered the windshield of the
pickup truck coming dead-on for the back of the house. But the truck was still
coming. A man stood up from the truck bed, a torch in his hands. He was swinging
it.
Sarah pumped the M-16's trigger—the gun belched two rounds and was empty. The
man fell back and the torch was gone from sight.
She sank behind the sink again as a burst of automatic weaspons fire came.
This assault would end soon—she understood their tactics by now. Get the
occupants to waste as much ammunition as possible. Dead men were apparently of
no concern.
There would be another attack and another—then the
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final rush.
She needed a tactic of her own.
"Tim—Tim!"
It was Michael's voice she heard.
"He's dead, Mommie—I think he's dead."
Sarah Rourke felt sick—her first thought was, "Who will replace him in the front
of the house?"
"I can fire a gun—Daddy taught me a little."
She closed her eyes. "Take Mary's AR-15, Michael— and stay down."
She made the sign of the cross over her chest.
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Chapter 21
Michael Rourke sat by the window, Mary Mulliner beside him—he waited. He'd
watched his mother do it many times before. He tried thinking about how it must
feel.
"Michael—maybe you won't have to kill anybody."
"I killed a man once—maybe a second time. I'm not sure about that."
"But maybe—"
"It'll be all right. The stock for the rifle is too long for me so I can't hold
it that well. But it'll be all right."
"You're only a little boy, Michael—"
"I'm eight years old."
"Michael—"
"It'll be all right, Aunt Mary," he told her.
He didn't know if it would be all right. His father had only just started
teaching him to shoot seriously. He couldn't remember for certain, but he
thought he was five the first time he'd been taken out into the woods behind the
house and given a gun to shoot.
He remembered the gun—the Python. His father had cut his left hand holding the
gun down in recoil. He remembered what he'd told his father, "Wow—that gun
really kicks."
"It's a .357 Magnum," his father had said.
"Is that a powerful kind of gun?"
"Pretty powerful—you're going to have to be ten or
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twelve before I let you try a .44—"
"I wanna try a .45—"
"Gotta be too careful with a .45—any automatic. Keep your fingers out of harm's
way. Gotta be older." But he had let Michael try the CAR-15. And Michael had
liked that, his father complaining, he remembered now, about the ammo cost, then
laughing.
Michael reached out his right arm to its fullest extension—he could barely reach
the trigger.
There was gunfire—coming from the rear of the house, but from outside.
He squinted his right eye, his left eye shut. He saw a man, coming out of the
bushes at the front of the house.
"There's a man there," Mary MuIIiner said. Her voice sounded upset to Michael.
"I know," he told her, trying to keep his own voice calm. He was afraid.
He pulled the trigger.
The recoil hurt his right shoulder and the top edge of the stock hit his jaw and
that hurt.
But the man in the bushes fell over. Michael Rourke guessed the man was dead.
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Chapter 22
She had begun with three magazines—exactly full. She had fired out ten rounds
from one of the magazines, firing on semi-automatic only now in order to
conserve ammunition.
She assumed Michael had less than thirty rounds left.
There was the Winchester.
She picked it up, the unfamiliar shape in her hands seeming awkward to her.
She had watched old Tim load it.
Sarah Rourke, the M-16 leaning beside her against the sink cabinet, worked the
lever—the hammer cocked.
She pushed herself up, a phalanx of brigand bikers rushing the house. She
squeezed the trigger, the booming of the .30-30 deafening, her ears ringing, her
shoulder aching—one brigand biker went down.
She worked the lever again as she ducked down.
"Mrs. Rourke—I'm afraid."
"So am I, Millie—don't worry," Sarah answered.
She could hear the little girl crying, hear Annie saying, "Mommie'll take care
of us—everything'll be okay—you wait and see, Millie."
Sarah smiled in spite of herself—as Michael was becoming a man before her eyes,
so was little Annie growing—but all to die. She bit her lower lip, raised
herself up and fired, working the Winchester's lever, firing again, levering,
firing again, levering and firing again.
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Each shot had been a hit but the lever was too slow to work.
She dropped down, picking up the Colt rifle, her bare knees aching on the cold
kitchen floor.
She pushed herself up, pumping the Colt's trigger at the phalanx of bikers. One
shot, one dead. Another shot, another dead.
But they were still coming.
"Mommie!" It was Michael.
"The curtains are on fire!" It was Annie, Sarah feeling her heart in her mouth
as she saw the girl standing up. And beyond Annie, into the living room—the
parlor as Mary Mulliner called it—she could see flames,
"Michael—get out of there!" Sarah was on her feet, running, Michael standing up
behind the sheet of flame, firing the AR-15 from the hip, Mary Mulliner crouched
on the floor beside him, one dead brigand half through the window, the glass
shattering out the rest of the way as Michael fired—two rounds, the body
twitching twice, the man's clothes catching on fire.
The man was screaming.
Sarah fired the M-16, one round to the head. Mary Mulliner'screamed, Sarah
wheeling around, Annie and Millie running from the kitchen, Annie holding the
.45.
"Mommie!"
Hands reached out from the kitchen doorway, a massive man in blue denim and
black leather right behind them. Sarah fired the M-16, shifting the selector to
full auto, the burst running from the man's bare sweating midsection and up
along his chest in a ragged red line, the eyes wide open, the body lurching back
through the" doorway.
Sarah snatched the pistol from Annie's hands.
The other ammo—the Winchester. The spare magazines for the .45 and the M-16—all
in the kitchen.
Another of the brigands was coming through the door-
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way, Sarah pushing the children down as the man raised a shotgun. Sarah fired,
the M-16 coming up empty as the man fell back, the shotgun discharging into the
chandelier in the center of the ceiling, Sarah hearing it, feeling the glass as
it showered down on her.
"Mom!"
Michael's voice.
She wheeled, Michael firing his rifle, a man coming through the window, the
curtains barely gone now as the fire spread to the outside wal
l, the smoke
acrid.
Sarah started to jerk back the .45's hammer, but Michael was firing again, the
body spinning out, the hands—bloodied—reaching for Michael's throat.
The boy rammed the rifle forward, the flash deflector punching into the center
of the already floundering man's face.
The man fell back.
"My gun—it's empty, Mommie!"
"Get over here," Sarah shouted, drawing Annie and Millie against her skirt,
holding the children with her left arm. Michael was beside her now, and so was
Mary Mulliner.
The brigands would come—in a second, perhaps two—she would kill her children,
kill Millie Jenkins, kill Mary Mulliner—she still didn't know if she could kill
herself.
There were seven rounds in the pistol. Two for Michael and Annie. One for
Millie. One for Mary. One for herself—five.
She had two left to fight.
The smoke was heavy now, the wind from outside the house that blew through the
shot-out windows feeding the flames.
A brigand—she could see the look of lust in his eyes as he jumped through the
window, the flames which caught at his shirt swatted out under his massive right
hand.
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She raised the .45.
"Get out of here!"
"Yeah—later," the man snarled, raising the rifle.
Saran pulled the trigger. The .45 Government Model Colt bucked in her hand, the
man's face registered shock, surprise. He toppled backward.
Michael had picked up a leg from a broken chair. She didn't know how it had
gotten broken. He held it like a club.
"Let 'em come," he snarled.
"No," Sarah whispered.
One round was left. She edged back toward the stairwell, to escape the flames,
to postpone—the inevitable.
"Mrs. Rourke!"
It was Millie Jenkins. Sarah looked down at her face, then at her eyes, then up
the stairwell.
A man at the head of the stairs, a submachinegun in his hands.
Sarah pumped the trigger of the .45—once, then once again, the body lurching
back, then doubling over, falling, the submachinegun spraying into the wall as
Sarah pulled the children close to her.
The body fell at her feet, Mary Mulliner reaching down and picking up the
submachinegun.
"It's empty I think," Mary almost hissed.
Sarah took the submachinegun—she thought it was an Uzi.
It was empty.
She looked at the dead man—no other gun, no spare magazines she could see.
There were not enough rounds left in the .45 for her to kill herself.
It had to be Michael first—he'd try to stop her otherwise.
She pressed the muzzle of the .45 to his head as she hugged him to her.
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"1 love you!" She screamed the words.
She started to squeeze the trigger.
"Mrs. Rourke!"
She looked to the doorway beyond the smoldering curtains, a man having gotten
through. A young man, carrot red hair. "You're safe!"
It was Mary's son.
Calmly—Sarah raised the thumb safety on the .45 and handed the pistol to Mary
Mulliner.
Every woman had the right, Sarah thought—at least once. She closed her eyes and
fell, her head swimming, bright floaters in front of her eyes.
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Chapter 23
Sarah Rourke sat with her blue jeans across her lap, a blanket wrapped around
her shoulders and her bare legs against the wind, the fire licking loudly in
front of her.
"We got all your things out of the house—Mom told me where they were."
"How are the children, Bill?"
"Fine, Mrs. Rourke—Michael's sleeping and so's Annie. Millie's sitting on Mom's
lap—but she's all right. Won't go to sleep though."
Sarah looked behind her at what had been the farmhouse. It was as burned and
gutted as her own house in Georgia.
"I'm sorry for your mother's house," she whispered. "Sorry I fainted on you,
too. But—"
"Hey—I understand it. I'm just a kid—at least I was. But—well, since the Night
of The War, I seen a lot, ya know, ma'am."
"Yes—I know. I have too," Sarah told him. "Your resistance people were just like
the cavalry—just in the nick of time," and she forced a laugh.
"Here," he said, sounding awkward to her. He handed her a gun—it was shiny. A
.45, small like the ones her husband carried, but different somehow. "This was
my Dad's—that's why Mom's crying. Not 'cause of the house, ya see—Dad—he didn't
make it during the last raid on the Russians in Nashville."
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She turned the gun over in her hands. As she looked at it, young Bill Mulliner
continued talking to her. "Dad was a friend of this guy named Trapper—gunsmith
up in Michigan before the Night of The War. Trapper made the gun up for him
special. Started out a Colt Combat Commander—the one with the steel frame.
Them's Smith & Wesson K-frame rear sights—gun's real short in the barrel and
slide and the grip—a round shorter. Makes it nice to carry. And that's a Colt
ambidextrous thumb safety on her—no grip safety—pinned in. That's a special
nickel plating Trapper used."
"But this was your father's gun—you can't give it—"
"Ma'am—see, I got plenty a guns—and—well—if it weren't for you, my mom'd be dead
too. Figure with this on ya, and a regular .45—you can use the same clips—"
"Magazines I think they're called," she smiled, feeling self-conscious at
correcting a man about a gun.
"Yes'm—but you'll always have six extra rounds when ya need 'em. She's a
smoothie of a shooter, ya know— and—well—so here," and he handed her a spare
loaded magazine for the pistol.
She looked at the pistol in the firelight. The right side of the slide read
"Trapper Gun" and there was a scorpion etched there in the metal, like there was
on the flat black grips, barely visible in the flickering of the flames. "Thank
you, Bill—I don't know what to say—I, ahh—"
"You just stay alive with it, ma'am—that's thanks enough and more."
"We can't stay here anymore, can we?" she said, still holding the gun, wrapping
the blanket more tightly around her.
"No, ma'am—there's a big refugee camp not too far from here—should be safe from
them brigand vermin. You and Mom and the children are gonna be okay there. Least
ways ya should be."
She leaned across to the boy, still holding his dead
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father's gun. She kissed the boy on the cheek.
"Mrs. Rourke," he drawled.
She leaned back against the side of the log that was being fed slowly into the
fire, feeling the pleasant warmth. She closed her eyes. But she didn't let go of
the pistol.
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Chapter 24
Colonel Nehemiah Rozhdestvenskiy picked up one of the rifles at random. There
were dozens ranked along the wall, more still in crates. He personally liked the
M-16—not as well as the Kalashnikov pattern rifles, but liked it nonetheless.
And for the coming situation, American-made arms would be the best choice. He
turned to the junior officer beside him—a Captain Revnik. "Captain—you must see
to it that each of thes
e rifles is thoroughly inspected. There is no use in
storing arms which are defective. Any rifles which prove defective must be
detail stripped and the defective part found, discarded or repaired and the rest
of the parts binned according to type for use as spares."
"Yes, Comrade colonel," Revnik beamed. Rozhdestvenskiy disliked too much
enthusiasm. "And the same with the pistols, Comrade colonel?"
' 'Yes—but only the .45 automatics—the Smith & Wesson revolvers will not be
inventoried since there is no need to house .38 Special ammunition as well as
