by Mike Kraus
Josh fired at Perry and the bullet went soaring off into the night, his aim having been wildly off. The crack of the rifle made Perry spin around and search for the source, his elevated position making it easy to see where the shot was coming from. He had hidden himself behind the duct on purpose, expecting a shot from the person on the ridge, and was pleased that the person had both revealed themselves and that they were such a terrible shot.
Perry peeked out from behind the duct and saw a figure standing on the hill beyond the parking lot. He flipped the fire mode switch on his rifle back to single fire and ducked low behind the ducts and barrier at the edge of the roof. After crawling several feet to the side he took a deep breath and rose to one knee. His rifle went up to his shoulder and he instantly sighted his target.
While Josh’s shot hadn’t even come close to hitting Perry, Perry’s first shot and the immediate follow-up were both on target. Josh reeled back in pain as the first round passed through his right arm. He dropped his rifle in pain and the second shot nicked the top of his head due to his sudden movement. Three more shots came next, with two of them passing through Josh’s leg and the third passing through his right lung.
As shock overtook his body, Josh went from writhing in pain to lying still on the ground, taking in short breaths of air as he fought hopelessly against the inexorable embrace of death. “Asshole.” Perry muttered under his breath as he watched Josh through his scope, making sure that the man was truly down. A burst of fire to Perry’s left made him duck low until he realized that it wasn’t directed at him but at the car carrying Frank and Linda that was peeling out of the parking lot.
On the ground, Linda struggled to fasten her seatbelt and Frank clung to the steering wheel as he tore across the parking lot, heading for a section near the edge where the curb had worn away over the years. The area offered easy access to the slope above and Frank approached it at full speed. The car lurched as it went from the hard flat surface of the parking lot and into the rising slope of grass, but their decrease in speed was barely perceptible as Frank kept the gas pedal to the floor.
Gunfire cracked from behind the car, but instead of coming from the rooftop it came from the ground, off to the side of the school. Frank spun the wheel and the car swerved sharply, sliding across the grass at the top of the slope and broadsiding the guardrail. The car jerked back to the right but Frank managed to keep it at the top of the slope until the guardrail abruptly ended and he could pull back onto the road.
While Reggie was busying himself with firing at the car, Liam was crouched behind a tree trying to spot the person on top of the school who had been pinning him down. There hadn’t been shots for a long moment and as he heard the car pulling out across the parking lot he realized what was going on. “Shit! They’re getting away!”
Liam ran through the trees back up towards the road, being careful to stay far enough into the woods that the person on top of the school wouldn’t be able to fire upon him. On the other side of the school, Reggie also realized that the car was getting away and assumed that Liam would want to pursue it. As he ran for the top of the slope he briefly forgot to hide behind the slight ridge and Perry was able to get a few shots at him. None of them impacted, though, and Reggie quickly ducked into cover and followed the ridge up to the top of the slope.
Liam was the first to arrive at the car and he saw Josh slowly pulling himself along the ground to try and reach the vehicle. Liam flipped Josh’s body over with a kick and snarled at the wounds dotting the dying man’s body.
“Help…” Josh barely managed to whisper the words as Liam stepped over him and into the car. Reggie showed up a few seconds later and jumped into the car before glancing out the window and gasping at the sight of Josh.
“Liam, aren’t we going to help him?”
“He’s already dead. And we have a job to do.” As Liam pulled away, he didn’t so much as glance back at Josh’s body. His attention was focused completely on the car that was barely a few minutes ahead of them and the two passengers that were inside.
With the car being just out of sight of the top of the school, Perry could do no more to try and stop the shooters from reaching it. He ground his teeth in frustration as he heard their vehicle start up and watched the glow of their headlights recede into the distance as they gave chase to Frank and Linda.
“Good luck, you two.” Perry shook his head wearily. “You’ll sure as hell need it.”
Chapter 14
“Fucking hell.” Linda watched in the rearview mirror as the small town receded into the distance, slamming a fist against the dashboard in frustration.
“What is it?” Frank didn’t take his eyes off the road as he replied to Linda’s outburst.
“I’m sick of running! This is twice that we’ve turned tail and fled from these bastards.”
Frank was quiet for a moment before replying. “What do you want to do about it?”
Behind them a pair of headlights flared to life in the darkness. The sight of the lights made Linda smile slyly. “I want to end this nonsense.”
Frank glanced in the mirror. “That them?”
“It has to be.”
“So what do you want to do?”
Linda’s tone was deadly serious as she replied and Frank felt a cold chill run up his spine at her response. “Kill them all.”
“Fair enough.” Frank laughed nervously. “How do you want to do it?”
Linda didn’t answer for a few moments as she kept an eye on both the road ahead and on the car behind them. It was somewhere in the early morning hours before dawn and the sky and road were both dark. The only illumination came from their car’s headlights as they raced down the highway, dodging wrecked tractor-trailers and abandoned cars that were strewn in the road.
The vehicle behind them was neither gaining distance nor receding, and at Linda’s prompting Frank had slowed their speed enough to allow the car to catch up. It was still far enough back that whoever was in it wasn’t taking shots at them but the margin of error for their driving no longer existed. One wrong turn or slip of the wheel would mean that their pursuers would catch up to them in no time at all.
“Take the bypass here. Skirt around the edge of this city ahead.”
“Bypass around Brookville. Got it.”
As Frank merged onto the bypass from the highway, a sign caught Linda’s eye and she nodded thoughtfully. “That might work.”
“What might work for what?”
Linda focused on reading the road signs as they drove along, trying to form a mental picture of the area despite the fact that they didn’t have the benefit of a map. “We’re on the road to Pittsburgh now, once you turn off on the exit a couple miles down the road.”
“You want to try and make it all the way there and let the military handle them?”
“Hell no. I want to set a trap on the bridge that’ll cross back over this river.”
“Say what now?”
“Look at how the roads are laid out. We just went over some big river and we’re looping around the city. By the time we get to the next exit we’ll have to cross over another bridge and that’s where we’ll spring the trap.”
“What kind of a trap?”
Linda smiled. “We’re going to make good use of all that gasoline and motor oil back there. We’ll need a good two minutes lead on them to get it ready, though. Think you can pull ahead of them by that much?”
Frank grimaced. “Maybe? Depends on how long this overpass is and—shit!”
Frank pulled the wheel sharply to the right as the car lurched left. The screech of metal-on-metal made his skin crawl as the car scraped against a piece of a trailer that was sticking farther out into the road than he had thought at first glance. The sharp bits of metal sliced into the side of the car, causing jagged tears down the side. A loud pop accompanied the screech of metal and Frank fought with the wheel again as the car swung wildly to the left.
“Dammit!” Frank shouted as he wrestled with t
he car, trying to reduce their speed and get it back under control before they spun out of control or—even worse—flipped over off the side of the road.
“Keep it straight and hit the gas!” Linda shouted and Frank did as he was instructed. The car’s wild fishtailing gradually evened out as Frank increased their speed, though the ride was considerably bumpier than it had been before.
“Now ease up on the accelerator!” Frank again did as Linda instructed and the car gradually slowed down.
“Good call there.” Frank let out the breath he had been holding and glanced over at Linda.
“That was all you; kickass driving there, Frank.”
“Yeah, but we’ve got a problem.” Frank kept a death grip on the steering wheel, wrestling with it as they continued down the highway. “I think we lost both of the wheels on the left side. There’s no way we can do whatever it was you wanted with the whole trap thing.”
“No, we need to get off the highway. Take the next exit; I don’t care what it is.”
“Got it.” Frank continued reducing their speed in order to maneuver around the cars and debris in the road ahead. While he dared not take his eyes off the road, he could tell due to Linda’s uncomfortable shifting around in her seat and the increasing brightness above his right eye that their pursuers were gaining on them.
“Hold on tight, we’re taking this exit at speed.” Frank drifted into the shoulder and then turned, taking the exit far faster than was safe even if the car had all four wheels. A loud thump and a bump from the front of the car indicated that the last of the rubber from the front left tire had just been ejected from the wheel. Metal groaned as it met the surface of the road, giving Frank even less traction to work with.
“Any suggestions on where we should go would be great right about now!” Frank shouted above the noise of the car and Linda held out her hand to point at a building just off to their right.
“There! The radio station! Pull in there!”
“A radio station?”
“Closest defensible building we can get to unless you’ve got a couple wheels you can pull out of your ass!”
Frank mumbled a string of curses under his breath and turned the wheel of the car, fighting against the metal behemoth to get it off of the road and into the parking lot in front of the radio station. A massive metal tower sat just behind the squat, single-story brick building whose roof was covered in antennas and satellite dishes.
Frank hit the brakes as they slid into the parking lot, but the brakes did next to nothing and the car smashed into another vehicle in the parking lot before finally coming to a rest. The right headlight was broken, the left was blinking on and off sporadically, the engine was coughing and sputtering as it slowly died and the car’s horn blared uncontrollably. Frank and Linda, however, were alive.
Linda grunted in pain as she shoved her door open and jumped out, pistol in hand. Frank unbuckled his seatbelt and tried to open his door, but it wouldn’t budge until he threw his weight against it several times. After he hopped out he could see the jagged tears in the metal on the side of the car and realized what a close call their accident had truly been.
“Get inside, Frank! They’ll be here soon!” Linda shouted over the deafening sound of the car horn and waved for Frank to follow her. While Linda limped as fast as she could towards the building, Frank grabbed his rifle, his and Linda’s bags, the bag of food and the bag of ammunition from the back of the car. He felt like a pack mule as he stumbled into the building after Linda but he wasn’t about to leave any of their precious gear behind again.
The radio station building was smaller than he had expected with most of its space devoted to the lobby and the large broadcast booth just inside. The broadcast booth was the only enclosed area inside the building as the rest of the space was taken up by small offices divided by flimsy cubicle walls. The front section of the broadcast booth facing the lobby entrance had a large, thick multi-layered sheet of plastic and glass and a single door made from the same material.
After a quick look around the inside of the station Linda headed for the broadcast booth, first pulling on the door before realizing it only opened inward. Once she was inside she motioned for Frank to follow her in and he dropped their bags with a thump.
“Frank, they’re going to be here any second.” Linda fixed Frank with a steely gaze and he nodded in affirmation.
“Yep, and I’ve got a plan.”
Linda raised her eyebrows in surprise. “Let’s hear it.”
“You saw all the stuff on the roof? Satellite dishes and whatnot. There’s gotta be roof access either outside or inside. I’m going to head up to the roof while you barricade yourself inside here. Get hidden and protected. You lure them in and then I’ll ambush them from the roof. If you flip that table over and push it up against the door and window it’ll provide excellent cover. Once you hear me shooting you can fire directly out through the front doors at them.”
“It’s a shit plan. Let’s do it.” Linda nodded and turned to the table. She began shoving the computer and audio equipment off of it onto the floor. Frank, meanwhile, headed back through the door and looked out through the lobby into the parking lot out front. The single light on their car was still blinking on and off and the horn was still blaring. Out behind their car he could see a pair of headlights growing steadily brighter and he realized that they were nearly out of time.
“Dammit!” Frank ran through the building as Linda pushed the large wooden table up against the door to the broadcast booth. She sat down in one of the rolling chairs once she was done and began checking her pistol and reloading a spare magazine with ammunition from her bag.
Frank kept his eyes on the ceiling, using his flashlight sparingly to avoid giving away his position to the people approaching from outside. There was no obvious access to the roof from inside the building and he was starting to think he would have to go outside and look for a ladder when a sign on a door at the back of the building made him pause.
Rooftop Access - Authorized Employees Only
“Jackpot.” Frank smiled and pushed open the door, finding a metal ladder on the wall leading up to the roof. A door leading out behind the back of the building was open and Frank realized that aside from the front entrance the back exit was the only other way into the building. Thinking quickly he grabbed a broom and mop that were standing up in the corner and jammed them through the handle of the door after pulling it closed. He then twisted the lock for extra security before swinging his rifle over his shoulder and starting his ascent up the ladder.
Loose rounds of ammo jingled in his pockets with each step until he reached a small hatch in the roof. The hatch had a simple bolt locking it in place and he slid it to the side, pushed the hatch open and emerged onto the roof. The shrill sound of the car’s horn once again filled his ears, but it was accompanied by the sound of a roaring engine as well. Frank crouched down low as he headed for the edge of the roof where he hid behind a satellite dish before peeking down at the parking lot below.
In the parking lot sat an old Corvette convertible with the top down and two figures running from it towards the damaged car. Frank unshouldered his rifle and took aim at the figures when one of them opened fire on the damaged car, sending a burst of fire into the passenger and engine compartments. A few seconds later the sound of the horn finally died and the two figures ran towards the front entrance to the building. As they stood directly beneath Frank he no longer had a clear shot on them though he could hear them talking to each other as they discussed their impromptu plans.
“Go around back, see if there’s another way in.”
“What if there’s not?”
“Then meet me back here, dumbass!”
“Right. On my way.”
One of the two figures ran around to the side of the small building and Frank crossed his fingers, hoping that the locked and barricaded door would remain shut. He crept around on the roof for a moment, hoping he could get into a better angle to
see the figure still standing at the front entrance, but the roof’s overhang stuck out far enough that it was impossible to see where the person was standing.
It only took a minute for the person who had gone around to the back of the building to return, where he and the person who had remained out front held another brief conversation.
“Well?”
“There’s a door but it’s locked tight.”
“Didn’t you try breaking it in?”
“I tried, but I couldn’t!”
“Worthless.” A loud sigh was interjected into the conversation. “Fine. We’re going inside. They’re holed up somewhere in here, no doubt. You go in first and watch the left. I’ll watch the right.”
From inside the broadcast booth Linda couldn’t hear a word of the conversation outside but she could see the blindingly bright light from the vehicle’s headlights and the moving shadows from the figures standing near the door.
“Dammit, Frank. Where’s the ambush?” Linda whispered to herself as she watched the shadows and the lights outside. Without knowing how many were outside or their precise locations she didn’t dare risk giving her position away prematurely. Instead she kept herself tucked into a corner on the floor of the broadcast booth, waiting to see what happened next.
“One. Two. Three.” The whispered countdown was followed by a loud slam as Liam and Reggie flung open the front doors and stormed in, waving their rifles and flashlights wildly in all directions. Reggie jumped over the receptionist’s desk in the front lobby before continuing on, bypassing the broadcast booth completely to start checking the small cubicle workspaces. Liam did the same thing on the right side of the room, and by the time the pair met in the back they were starting to wonder where their prey had hidden themselves away.
