Pilliars in the Fall

by Ian Daniels

  Suddenly his facial expression changed again and he snapped the FAL back into his shoulder and fired off three more earsplitting shots.

  Instead of looking to see what it was that he was shooting at, I was transfixed by watching him as he shot. There was an unnerving calmness to him and it could have been a trick or play of what little light there was, but I was pretty sure I could see a faint smile break across his lips.

  Did that mean something? Heck I was finding myself becoming more and more calm every time I pulled the trigger over the last few days. Maybe he was smiling at shooting someone before they loosed a few rounds back at us, I hoped. Whatever it was, it was dark and disheartening to know that he, we, as a society and as a country... all of us had fallen this far.

  Two more bottles and a fist sized rock sailed in, tearing me back to the here and now. My first smoke grenade was beginning to dissipate, the orange hue now just a thin transparent cloud. Movement, more movement caught my eye. I looked over to Clint who had joined us again as he was adjusting his gun and had his smoke grenades and a spare rifle magazine all laid out in front of him, looking like he was very much ready to fight, and also very ready to get out of there.

  Blake however was still busy keeping peoples heads down. Whenever a new something was thrown our way, be it a rock, bottle or bullet, his FAL would quickly crack out a retaliatory shot. I had assumed that he was just keeping their heads down, firing into the ground or trees near the rioters but as the orange smoke cleared, I started to see the carnage.

  It was terrible. He was shooting exactly what he aimed at and the last few I saw, they weren’t even the people who were armed or attacking us. He was shooting the ones who were trying to drag away to safety the other people he had already shot. He was watching as the blood splashed, the cries of the pain that he was inflicting never reached his ears.

  “Blake!” I yelled. “We’re done here. Get down the tunnel and make sure its clear for us!”

  It was the best thing I could think of to get him to peel off and point him in a safer direction. He wasn’t listening. I turned to see Clint toss his two smoke grenades. Green smoke billowed up from the two impact points and I readied my last one to complete the line.

  “Hey they’re stealing our propane!” Blake suddenly yelled out.

  “What? What the hell’re you talking about?”

  “We left the cage open and those guys are stealing it, Look! Get your gun up and help me!”

  In the small lull, a couple of quick thinking guys had ducked in to the open storage enclosure and were making off with four of the big white bottles.

  Blake fired again, his shot easily hitting home. It wasn't the freezing temperature and it wasn’t the running, dragging and lifting, or the strain from the pain of being shot, the cold sweat that quickly came over me had nothing to do with any those things.

  “Fuck dude!” I reached over and pushed the forearm of the FAL away and off target. His face suddenly changed again into complete anger, this time directing it at me, He swung around and jammed the FAL into my side, pulled the trigger and looked down at the locked back bolt. It was empty, but I wasn't.

  “What the fuck are you doing?!” I demanded, yanking the FAL out of his grasp by the steaming hot barrel and forcing it backwards into him. His hand reflectively dropped to the Beretta at his side. I saw it coming and locked the pistol down into its holster with my other hand.

  “Hey! Get it together!” I shook him, pleading.

  The sound of an incoming round zinging off the concrete refocused Blake’s eyes. His head snapped around and he turned. His explosive shove caught me off guard and I fell away, saving me just as another rock impacted off the space on the wall where I had been kneeling moments ago. A loud chorus of shotgun blasts followed and Blake’s Beretta burped out a quick burst, and then another as he found the attackers. One more blast emptied the machine pistol and loosened the grip the rioter must have had on a molotov cocktail as a sheet of flame suddenly back-lit the snow filled air and ground.

  I had just enough wits left to scramble away from the shotgun pellet impacts and back into the utility room before Blake found his new targets. Looking out, I could see that Clint wasn't quite pinned down, but he wasn't able to really get over to us either. Then I realized he was holding his leg, a dark blood spot growing under his hand. One of the shotgun pellets had found a mark.

  “Flesh wound, I'm fine,” Clint’s voice radioed into my ear and I watched him rip open a bandage and wrap it around his own leg.

  Through the colored smoke, two flashlights highlighted the propane cage. The way the lights were moving I could tell they were attached to shoulder mounted guns. Not good. Blake must have realized it too as he shoved a fresh mag into his pistol and took aim.

  We had lost the initiative; we had lost our hiding place, and again, we would be losing our smoke screen quickly if we didn’t get out of here. Blake didn't care. He was fixated, now trying to pinpoint through it all with his pistol’s sights, taking careful aim at the surreal glow of a flashlight in the fog.

  I couldn’t stop him. I was too far away now to physically reach out and drag him away, and with a fresh gun he would probably just cut me down before he knew what he was doing. A desperate and perverse thought crossed my mind that I may have to be the one to shoot him. Not kill him, just get him to end the massacre. He still had on his armored vest but I knew a high speed bullet from my AK74 would cut right through it. I wondered if he would even feel the impact of the little .22 pistol I had as my only other means.

  Unconsciously, my hand drifted down and began to lift the pistol out of its holster. Would the .22 rock him enough to jolt him back to reality again or would it just get his attention enough to see me as another threat?

  He fired another single shot. I watched as the plumes of light from where he was aiming, swiveled and illuminated the garage entrance, cutting through the disappearing fog. Clint’s big AR boomed and one of the lights immediately dropped to the ground. The other gun opened up, dumping what must have been a full magazine into the garage.

  While I waited for the shooting to end, a telltale hissing sound grabbed my attention. One of the rounds had hit one of the last propane tanks still in the open and it was venting the pressurized gas right into us. If anything lit that off, we’d all be shredded by the shrapnel and cooked alive.

  I started firing my suppressed CZ into the night air where the last flashlight had been. If I was lucky, the guy had just turned off his light and stayed in one spot to change mags. If I was unlucky, he had cut his light to move to a new spot and we were dead.

  “Blake, toss it!” I screamed desperately to get his attention. He sat dumbfounded for half a second and then sprang painfully towards the leaking tank. Scooping it up by its rolled metal handle, he stood and with one hand swung it forward, then back to gain momentum. On its next trip forward he released the tank to go sailing off heavily into the air and thump down out in front of us. Turning to me with a big stupid grin, I looked at him and shook my head in relief... and then I screamed.

  Three separate small caliber rounds tore into Blake’s leg and side as he stood. Burning, searing pain forced a muffled howl from his lips, the shock overcoming all else. His leg collapsed under his weight, sending his body even further out into the partially exposed garage entrance. I screamed again as I watched yet another bullet tear open his shoulder, his hand shooting up to cover the wound.

  The bullets from the invisible shooter just wouldn't stop. With random monotony, they kept up the deadly barrage. They impacted the ground, pinged off the walls and one, one lucky little bullet managed to find another piece of metal to strike a spark. Seeing that, I fell away, back into the relative safety of the utility room again. Before completing my retreat, I saw another flaming rag stuffed into the mouth of a bottle come floating ominously our way through the air.

  The blast rocked everything. The molotov landed close enough to spread its flames into the still venting propane cylinder
that Blake had tried to throw away and in the darkness had only managed to send it out a few yards.

  I blinked slowly, staring dumbly at my empty hands. The ringing subsided quickly to be replaced by a muffled feeling, like I was wearing thick earmuffs. Blinking again, I shook my head and my focus came back. There was the pistol I had dropped, why was it sideways? Because I was sideways. Even in the little room, I had been thrown back by the concussion and I found myself lying with my legs out against the back wall.

  I rolled upright and my head flooded with a mix of pain and vertigo. Something else was different, it wasn't just my muffled hearing; there was no more noise. No more gunshots intent on killing us, pierced the air. I guess they figured they didn't need to waste any more ammo in our direction after a blast like that.

  Slowly, I looked out of the doorway. Snow and dust hung in the air. The eerie greens and oranges of our smoke grenades were gone. Clint was slumped in a corner and not moving. Blake’s legs, scratch that, one of his legs was doing what it could to scoot him forward. He was lying prone on his back, still in the entrance, his gun up and searching for targets. Somehow he was still alive and fighting.

  I was done with this shit.

  Tearing open another smoke grenade, I tossed it out the open doorway and with my head still swimming, dashed to pull him back into the cover of the concrete tunnel entrance. As gently as I could, I yanked him into the doorway of the utility room and dove to the other side as new shots again pounded into the area. My movement apparently was an inviting target to whomever it was that was now walking in a crouch right up the middle of the driveway.

  I scrambled to my feet to swing my AK back around and watched as Blake, with one hand, reloaded his Beretta and then cut the man down.

  Throwing his upper half forward, Blake pulled himself to a spot where he could cover me as I retrieved Clint.

  I shakily got to my feet and checked Clint's breathing, he was out cold. A large lump had already grown on his head and the bandage on his leg was a bright red but it hadn’t soaked through. He was stable and holding. I gingerly checked his neck and everything felt fine. If I had to carry him I could, I really didn’t want to have to do that though.

  "Common Clint, we’ve got shit to do. I need you to get up man!" I yelled at his un-listening ears and lightly slapped his cheek.

  "Fuck!"

  Two more rocks and a full beer can crashed into the area, the can foaming angrily. Amazingly after all this, there was still someone out there. Desperate to secure the precious propane still in the enclosure, they were not willing to give up. I understood it. It was the same thing we were doing here; it meant life or death... for all of us.

  Blake checked his magazine and rammed it back into his gun.

  Hacking out a cough I tried speaking; first out loud, then using the radio and pointing to it.

  "Move back to the tunnel!"

  We had to go, there was no way we'd last any longer if we stayed stalled out here and I couldn't carry them both. All I received in return was a thumbs down from him. Either his radio was out, or he was telling me...

  He looked at me and tried to speak, mouthing the word "GO” but no sound came out. Staring into his eyes, the message was clear. Despite the abject fear, Blake had finally regained some clarity. He was aware that to kill the evil devil on his shoulder, the angel on his other shoulder would have to die too.

  Blake pulled himself upright again, dragging his useless leg with him to sit against the wall on the other side of the garage entrance only ten feet away and completely out of my reach or ability to help him.

  Another burp of automatic fire erupted from his pistol and he swung his head lazily to look back at me, eyes imploring, demanding, pleading me to go while there was still time. Looking at Clint still unconscious behind me, I shook my head. I couldn't leave Blake here, no matter what he had done or how messed up his head was, he was my best friend. I couldn't abandon him to save my own ass.

  That's not what was happening though. He was sacrificing himself for what last good deed he could do. It wouldn't right his wrongs, but it would right himself.

  I slung Clint’s gun along with my own onto my back and picked him up in a fireman’s carry. Blake fired again indiscriminately, giving me the cover I needed to get across the open space. His eyes burned into mine, yelling at me and at himself for deeds past and present.

  "I'm sorry man. God I'm sorry. I'll get him out of here and come back for you. Stay down, get out of sight. I'm coming back alright, I'll be right back!"

  He shook his head slowly from side to side, telling me not to return, that it would be for nothing. I looked out one last time before maneuvering Clint’s form into the tunnel. Blake was calmly sitting and looking out and up into the air, pondering the fresh, clean falling snow flakes.

  Chapter 19

  Knees screaming, arms numb, veins stretched and ready to pop out of my skin. Sweat’s dripping; stinging my eyes. My muscles were past needing to give up. I was moving on full willpower now. If I stopped for even a second I wouldn’t start again. The pit of my stomach hurt and I couldn’t force enough air back into my lungs.

  I’ve been here before...

  My brain was working hard to realize simple things over the stress and strain. One more side door in the tunnel and then the stairs and I’d be back on Danielle’s end. Danielle. What would I tell her?

  I stumbled again. Eye sight getting dark and narrow... a weird occurrence when you’re already in a tunnel. I was right on the edge of blacking out; right on that easy slide to dreamland. Legs doing something... I don't know what. Arms swimming in heavy water...

  Just give in.

  It’d be so easy to stop and drop down. Curl up in a ball and rest. No more fear. No more pain. No more being tired.

  “Keep going,” I grunted out loud to prod myself along.

  Step after long, heavy step, I was giving in. The unending tunnel was going to win until an audible crack, loud and piercing, snapped me back to the present again. Two, three, four different ones... not as loud. Then a snap quickly followed by a “thwump.” It was the sound of a grenade igniting and leaving its launcher tube. I was finally on the other side and Danielle was fighting to hold the ground for us.

  The stairs. There were maybe six of them and they looked insurmountable. I steadied myself and muscled one leg up the first tread, then the next one. I finally lost it at the last step and fell, tumbling out and delivering Clint with all the gentleness of dropping a slab of roofing shingles.

  A woman’s scream echoed across to my ears. Her second one abruptly muffled and cut short. Then another shot, close and thankfully distinctly recognizable as the M1 Carbine.

  Slithering around the propane tank I had left in the way earlier, I made my way towards the doorway outside. Un-slinging the two guns on my back I grabbed whatever one would free itself first from the tangled mess of straps. Looking at what appeared in my hands, it was Clint’s AR10. I tapped its butt stock loudly against the floor grate inside the pump house and managed to croak out a call of “Friendlies!”

  Danielle was just outside the doorway, crouched with her gun pointed in the other direction.

  “It's about goddamn time! Where the hell have you...” she stopped talking when she finally looked at me. I must’ve looked like I felt.

  Looking past her I surveyed the landscape. She had been giving someone hell, that’s for sure. White smoke curled from the last smoke canister that she had launched about sixty yards away. The remnants of her previous shots hung like a fog and the scratch in my throat and eyes told me she had used the CS rounds too. Not too far away from the truck a teenaged girl was doubled over and crying. A crumpled shape next to her the only evidence of Danielle’s handiwork in what I assumed was a guy intent on attacking her.

  A building about two hundred yards away had been torched by the rioters and was fully engulfed in flame. The sounds of the fire muffled and distorted my hearing and its pulsing light and smoke wasn’t helping
matters any.

  Two more bezerkering idiots appeared through what was left of Danielle’s chemical cloud, one’s shotgun booming as he ran and the other holding a metal pipe in a ridiculous mismatched joust. Our two guns fired at the same time, cutting down the “winner.”

  “Where’s Blake?!” Danielle screamed through her own ringing ears. Things had not been going well at the entrance of the tunnel either.

  “He’s covering our exit. Stay here with Clint. Check him out and cover me. I’m going to run to the truck, bring it over here and grab Clint.”

  “As soon as you start it up you’ll be overrun!” Danielle reasoned.

  “Okay, you’re right. Cover us as I carry him. Then you stay at the truck and cover me again as I grab the last bottle and get it loaded. After that, you take the truck back to the clinic. Can you find it from here?”

  Yeah like I had the energy reserves for all of that.

  “I think so but what about Blake?” she demanded after quickly processing the plan.

  “I’ll go back in for him while you get Clint out of here.”

  I knew as I was saying it that it was a lie of false hope. It was the only thing I could think of to keep her moving and not fall apart. I had to keep her working and motivated, myself too.

  “What's the matter with him? Is he hurt? Is he shot? Wait, are you shot?” she fired the questions at me, finally taking notice of the blood on my neck and the way I winced as I struggled to pick up Clint again.

  “We’re all hit... now keep me a clear path!” I yelled and I took off with unsteady legs.

  My lungs were on fire from breathing in the cold air so deeply. Danielle was quick to react, leaving her place of cover and retreating from the small wall, tailing me until she dashed ahead to unlock the truck.

  I was having a seriously hard time keeping my legs under me now and ten feet from the truck one of them finally gave out. I went down to one knee, somehow saving myself and my cargo from doubling over. I breathed deep and steadied myself. The sounds of shouting and people stomping around intermingled with the blood pounding in my ears. I looked up and realized that even the whimpering girl that Danielle had helped earlier had disappeared. A random flashlight beam bounced along, then turned aside as it neared the truck.