After the one nervous guy left saying he’d discuss what to do with his new leader, the gang expected more talking from the people living in the apartment complex. They expected easy pickings once the gate was down. Now people were shooting at them from the third stories of two different buildings.
It didn’t take long for the gang-bangers with guns to start a mostly ineffectual return fire. Those by the gate were dropping fast as the snipers quickly slipped into firing, reloading, aiming, firing and reloading again. One of the snipers took a lucky shot to the face from a gang-banger and fell silent, his shotgun clattering to the ground outside the building. Ted and his men kept up a steady, if slow, rate of fire on the attackers. After all, shotguns were not meant to be sniper rifles. Erik watched. The gate was bent slightly near the top from the sheer weight of the attackers. It was still holding.
THE GANG’S LEADER didn’t like what he was seeing. The apartment defenders were shooting his front people. He’d lost eight or nine by now. Pulling out his own pistol and pointing at the men trying to run, he convinced them to surge forward.
“If we all hit the fuckin’ thing at once, it’s gonna break! Look, it’s already bent!” he said, pointing through the torchlight at the damaged gate. His men got the idea. “Those fuckers got something worth protecting in there! Probably a bunch of cheerleaders on a school trip got stuck here!”
Lust and alcohol will make a weak-willed man do many a foolish thing. It was enough for the gang-bangers to surge forward. Through the sheer crushing weight of 26 men smashing into it at once, the gate partially gave way.
ERIK’S EYES BULGED in surprise. He couldn’t believe they were ramming the gate with their own bodies. What the fuck is wrong with these people? Can’t they see they’re dying? he asked himself as more shotgun blasts belched out from the windows above him. He expected to see bodies drop like flies, now that they were all pressed into the gate like that only about thirty feet away, but no one was dying.
“Ted, what’s going on?” he asked.
Another few shots before Ted answered over the radio. “Don’t know, we’re aiming, they’re just not dying!” A pause while a few more shots were fired. The men at the gate were getting an organized shake going, making the gate wobble dangerously close to the breaking point. They began cheering and hollering like an army of ghouls fresh out of Hell.
More Molotov cocktails sailed through the air to smash against buildings, cars and plants. The lights from the fires were casting an unearthly glow on the siege. The random gunshots from the mob were starting to track towards the defenders’ positions, gouging out bits of stone and masonry from the side of the building.
“We’re out of solid shot…we just got riot scatter shot now…” said Ted’s voice over the small radio speaker.
Erik cursed. “Just keep on ‘em. When they break through, get down behind ‘em and flank them...”
“Roger that.”
Erik reached down and pulled the flare gun out of his belt. It was the signal gun he’d squirreled away in his survival supplies. Never knowing when he’d use it, it was on sale and cheap and besides, when he got it, he’d thought it was just plain cool. Now it was going to save his life. He hoped. If he timed it right. If it worked. He hoped the flares didn’t have a shelf life less than two years.
The gate wobbled and creaked, one of the hinges tore free of the concrete retaining wall. Finally another gang-bangers body dropped to the ground. The scatter shot just wasn’t as effective at killing someone as the solid shot. It was designed to wound and scare, to break up a crowd. The opposite effect was happening. In their drunken and drugged state, the stinging pellets only enraged the would-be pillagers and fueled their thirst for blood.
Through the dim light from dozens of small fires, Erik could see one of the remaining gate supports give way. The gate almost broke down completely. One of the attackers slithered up the leaning wrought iron and dropped down on apartment soil. Others were climbing up now. Erik decided it was time to call in the cavalry. But first, he aimed his pistol and shot the son of a bitch who was first to land on the inside of the gate.
HOSS WAS SITTING astride his bike, checking the load in his sawed off shotgun when he saw the signal flare streak into the sky down the street and arch up and over. He dropped the remaining shells in his hand back into the worn leather saddlebags on his bike.
The bright fluorescence of the light cast shadows on the ground around the complex. Gunshots rang out, people were screaming. Folks from the surrounding neighborhoods were starting to peer out around trees near intersections further up the road. People were trying to figure out what was happening.
“Alright boys, that’s our cue. Let’s get some payback!” roared Hoss as he started the powerful Harley. “Saddle up!” The rest of the bikers kicked their machines to life and thundered down the road towards Colonial Gardens in a wedge formation. This is for you, Sal! If it don’t work, I’ll see you soon, baby…
WITH A FINAL groan, just as the flare was crossing overhead, the gate collapsed under the weight and pressure of the attackers and slammed to the ground amid the cheers of the gang-bangers. They surged forward and into the parking lot, heading for the closest building, the leasing office. They wanted to get at the snipers—they wanted to kill everyone standing in their way. They wanted a bloodbath. It would be a slaughter.
“Now!” Erik said, ordering the ones with him to start shooting. The three men with guns opened up at point blank range, dropping attackers quickly. For every one that fell, however, two more came at them.
Right on cue, Erik heard the roar of motorcycles cut through the sporadic gunfire and shouting. In seconds, Hoss and his gang tore through those attackers still waiting to get inside the complex.
The motorcycles slashed through the attackers like charging knights, headlights looking for all the world like white lances. Hoss’s bikers unloaded shotguns and pistols as they cut a swath through the men still in the street.
Ted, watching from his third story sniper perch, saw the bikers slice through the gang-bangers and cheered as they roared past. Hoss lead his crew down the street, turned them as a group and headed back to chase down those thugs who were scattering for safety. The rest of the attackers poured into the gate to escape the bikers.
More than one biker was shot, or somehow pulled off his or her bike. The gang-bangers, at least the ones in the front of the melee, oblivious to the noise and death going on behind them in the street, pressed forward against Erik’s small band on the ground.
“Let’s go! Get downstairs!” Ted said, ordering his snipers to help out on the ground, where the shotguns would do the most damage.
ERIK HAD GIVEN his spare magazines to one of the others with a pistol. In short order he tossed aside his empty weapon. Stepping calmly around his concealing shrub, Erik caught the attention of the first three attackers. They paused, seeing the big man suddenly appear and walk slowly towards them.
“Roma Victa!” Erik bellowed. It was the code word for the others with swords to attack. Erik drew his katana in a slow, deliberate movement and walked towards the closest thug. A few of the attackers paused, trying to figure out what they heard. The rest of his hidden swordsmen followed their leader a little nervously, but they screamed and made as much noise as possible, as it appeared to shake up the attackers.
Baseball bats, 2x4s and knives are no match for sharp, well cared-for swords. The first drug-crazed man to reach Erik swung a piece of wood with nails sticking out on the end. Erik side-stepped the first attack, then swung his katana in an upward arc, slicing the 2x4 neatly in half. The thug paused to look at his worthless weapon. He had used it earlier in the day to bludgeon to death a woman trying to protect her daughter. Now it was just a stump of wood in his hands, cut with a smooth edge.
Erik’s sword put an end to the man’s confusion as he reversed his swing, brought the lethal Japanese steel downwards and caught the attacker on the side of the neck. The gang-banger dropped, gushing blo
od and writhing. He would die less than a minute later from the gaping wound near his jugular.
Slicing and swirling to keep moving forward, Erik’s blade flashed in the torchlight, chopping up and down, spinning, slicing, stabbing. He didn’t have time to notice the extra light coming from the fires beginning to eat at the leasing office building. They were shedding light on the battle and that was all Erik needed to know.
Man after man charged, attacked and fell by Erik’s sword, bleeding and dying. All around him, the chaos of hand to hand combat erupted as the rest of the attackers not cut down in the street by the bikers joined the fight. Over the screams and noise, Erik could hear shotguns and pistols still going off, albeit more sporadically now. It was a bloody free-for-all. He stepped outside his consciousness and dealt with the matter at hand. It was the only way he could function. He was dealing death like it was his profession and a part of him was utterly disgusted. The part that demanded protection for Brin would not be silenced. This part of Erik’s soul took over.
Every few seconds, Erik would glimpse one of his swords rising and falling, blood stained. His greenhorn troops were holding their own for the moment, cutting down anyone foolish enough to charge them. But they weren’t moving forward. An explosion on the other side of the battered down gate signaled the death of one of the bikers. Erik didn’t have time to ponder what happened before three more men rushed him at once.
THE LEADER OF the street thugs peered at the flaming wreckage of the last biker to go down before his men were wiped out in the street. He had been forgotten, hidden as he was behind a tree just off the road opposite the gate. He could see through the dim firelight of the first burning building that his gang was through. It was only a matter of time, he realized, as those bikers dismounted and charged through the gate.
For some damn reason they were on the side of the people living in the apartment complex. He couldn’t fathom why that was so, only shrugged. He now knew for sure this place definitely had something worth defending. His greedy mind wondered if it was money, drugs, food, water, girls…it certainly wasn’t a lot of guns.
He had been watching and counted only six different muzzle flashes from the windows of the two large three story buildings on either side of the fight. There were a few more on the ground. He expected if they had guns, they would have been using them. Instead, he couldn’t quite make out what everyone was fighting with. Though every now and then he swore he saw a sword or two flash in the firelight.
Either way, he thought to himself as he crept away in the darkness, I’ll have to find some new homies and come back to this joint…I don’t like it when people tell me ‘no’. Maybe those bad-asses downtown I been hearin’ ‘bout might want to get in on this action…
TED RUSHED FROM his sniper building at full speed, blew the face off a man that tried to step in front of him with his shotgun and continued to make his way towards Erik’s position. He could see roughly half the attackers had been dispatched, with a good many of those lying in the street outside the complex, writhing and wailing in pain. The noise threw Ted back to the Gulf, back to Iraq, back to Fallujah. The screaming, the blood. The chaos. Ted shook his head and cleared his mind just in time to duck the swing of an aluminum baseball bat. He stood up and crushed the thug’s face with the butt of his shotgun and jumped over the crumpled body.
The bikers were beginning to park their rides at the gate, shining their headlights on the battle before dismounting and joining the fray from the rear. The enthusiasm they had for revenge more than made up for the empty weapons they held in their hands. Shotguns became clubs as the bikers tore into the rear of the remaining gang-bangers with a vengeance. At the start of the battle, the attackers held the slight edge in numbers. Just minutes into the fray, roughly half the attackers had been dispatched and the remaining thugs were going down fast as more of the defenders and bikers were getting into the fight on all sides. The surviving gang-bangers were surrounded. Blood and gore was splattered all over the parking lot where the battle was taking place.
The guard-in-training Erik had handed his Viking sword to suddenly appeared next to him, staggering from a gash on his right leg, but holding the bloody sword and smiling gruesomely. Erik grinned between gasps for air and took a baseball bat to his right shoulder. Cursing his stupidity for standing there grinning like a fool, Erik ignored the pain, rolled to his left and sprang up from the ground where he fell, sword stabbing blindly ahead of him in the direction of his unseen assailant.
The fat ex-con who finally hit somebody saw this and jumped to the side, swinging the bat as he did so. It missed Erik’s head by about two inches, close enough so Erik could feel the breeze and be thankful it didn’t hit home. Before his attacker could finish him off in his off-balance state, a huge man wearing a leather vest and bleeding from multiple cuts and scratches appeared through the crowd and with one meat-hook of an arm toppled the fat dirty man who attacked Erik.
“Hoss!” Erik said in relief as the biker finished off the thug with his own bat. The attacker’s head made a squishy noise as Hoss pulled the captured bat back.
“Glad to see you could make it!” Erik grinned, gripping the larger man’s forearm in a shake. Hoss flipped the greasy hair out of his eyes and smiled, dirt, blood and filth partially obscuring his face.
“Heard there was a party going on—“ Hoss said, smacking a smaller thug off his feet with the captured bat. “Wouldn’t miss this shit for the world, man!”
Erik saw the defender with one of his Ninja swords turn to his right and hamstring a gang-banger with a vicious down-sweep to the back of the leg. The thug was fighting someone else with an empty gun and went down in a heap, his leg useless.
The battle was slowing. Instead of two and three men attacking each of the guards, now it was more one on one. Two of the guards even managed to team up and attacked one gang-banger. In minutes it was all over. Those that refused to flee, died. There were no prisoners. No one had thought that far in advance.
Erik spun, avoiding one last aluminum baseball bat—he could see the price sticker as it sailed by—pierced the attacker through the chest with his katana and jerked the sword free, allowing the man to slump to the ground with a slow gurgle emanating from his chest. Erik prepared for the next attacker as the man on the ground clutched feebly at the lifeblood seeping out of his chest and onto the pavement.
There was no one threatening him. On the ground, men were moaning and in various stages of death. The only ones still standing up were residents or bikers. In the distance, one of the bikers was on his knees choking to death a wounded gang-banger near the gate and sobbing over a lost friend.
It was over.
Erik looked around and only saw people he knew. Interspersed with the defenders were bloodied bikers, holding guns like clubs or captured baseball bats. Five or six were down, being attended to by their compatriots. In the street, one bike was still burning, two others destroyed. One guard was being helped by a biker. Four guards lay dead, surrounded by attackers’ bodies. The Viking replica sword was sticking up out of the still-warm corpse of a gang-banger, the blood on the blade sending chills down Erik’s spine. Seeing the sword like that was like stepping back into time.
Everyone was cut or bruised in some manner. In the dim light of the fires all around them, the ground appeared covered in bodies. The defenders were all panting and suddenly tired. Battle induced endorphin rush faded fast. Everyone was sucking wind and leaning against a building, a sword, a bat or someone else—it didn’t matter if they were a resident or a biker. They had survived. They had done it.
Forcing all of the anguish over the dead, all the fears, all the worries and all the joy at surviving into one hard knot, Erik pointed his bloodied katana at the night sky, threw his head back and roared in victory. In a heartbeat, his comrades were all cheering and raising swords, guns, fists, and a few bats to the sky to offer thanks and proclaim their triumph. They had been challenged for the first time and had bested the enemy.
After a few minutes of gruesome work, the dying enemy combatants were dispatched mercifully. With no doctors in sight, no real medical supplies worth mentioning, many of the wounds the attackers received would be fatal anyway. Erik began to worry over the wounds his volunteers suffered, especially the man with the gash in his leg who wielded his Viking sword so well.
Residents began creeping out of hiding places deeper in the complex to see the result of the battle. Women ran to their men, crying in joy or falling over the body of their loved one, wailing in grief. Erik stood by, helpless and watched it all, sinking to his knees. Before he could piece together all the information his eyes were seeing, Brin crashed into him and held him tight, crying in relief that her husband was safe.
A fire chain got started by Lentz and before long the fledgling fires trying to consume the leasing office were put out, as were the brush and grass fires set by the Molotov cocktails.
Fatigued as he was, Erik managed to work out a plan with Lentz that entailed moving some cars to prop the damaged gate back into place until the morning after dragging the bodies of the attackers into the street. The wounded defenders were taken inside the rear of the leasing office to tended to by wives or anyone who wished to help. The fallen defenders were to be placed on the pool deck to be cleaned and prepared for burial the next day.
Erik allowed Brin to half drag, half walk him to their apartment, where she laid him down on the porch and cleaned and dressed his minor cuts and scratches with their extensive first aid kit. Some alcohol swabs over the wounds, hydrogen peroxide to follow, then clean bandages.
“There! Good as new…” said Brin, admiring her crude handiwork. She was thankful Erik hadn’t received any major cuts, like that poor man with the gash in his leg.
Alea Jacta Est: A Novel of the Fall of America (Future History of America Book 1) Page 37
