TEOTWAWKI: Beacon's Story

by David Craig

  The first two Blue Heads reaching the private gardens tried to jump over the low three foot chicken wire rabbit fences and plowed into the nearly invisible three strand eight foot high wire deer barriers that topped the rabbit fencing. Getting caught up in the wire slowed them down and made them easy targets. The next few, thinking they were breaching the fort's defenses, rushed past them only to trip up on the barbed wire tanglefoot traps next to the stockade.

  As the first of them tripped and sprawled face first the fifteen year old girl with a bolt action twenty-two caliber rifle put a bullet through the heart of the second.

  Working the bolt quickly she aimed center of mass and squeezed the trigger again as the other one got up. He went down without a sound.

  One of the men Beacon had loaned two of his trade guns to; a Ruger Bearcat twenty-two caliber single-action revolver and an old beat up Ruger 10/22, was in the position next to them. He hadn't fired a single shot.

  Beacon took back the unused Ruger 10/22 from him and gave it to Jackie. Then he gave the tube fed bolt action twenty-two rifle the non-shooting man. Impressed and humbled Beacon also handed her the three extra loaded rotary ten round magazines and the little Ruger Bearcat that would fit nicely into her small hand. He also gave Jackie a few boxes of twenty-two ammo and heard "Thanks honey." over his shoulder as he hurried off to someone down the line yelling for help.

  All around the fort the fenced private gardens proved to be an unexpected delaying implement allowing defenders a little more time for a few more shots before the attackers reached the tanglefoot barrier. Most of the attack faltered in the gardens, but some Blue Heads got through to the stockade.

  Without blockhouses to flank or overlook the walls the Blue Heads who made it to the stockade were protected from shooters inside the fort. The defenders could not shoot at them without leaning out over the top of the logs and exposing themselves to enemy fire from the tree line. Few defenders chose to do so and the attackers could shoot into the fort through the cracks and loopholes as easily as the defenders could shoot out of them.

  Since the Blue Heads could shoot through the fort's loopholes and cracks between the logs the inside of the fort at ground level became a shooting gallery with defenders running and ducking as they played hide-and-seek shooting it out with attackers sometimes only inches away.

  Beacon had a messenger pouch full of short fused quarter sticks of dynamite surrounded by nails and wrapped in duct tape. He began lighting the fuses and tossing them over the wall wherever Blue Heads were shooting through the stockade cracks.

  But Beacon wasn't the only one with explosives. Three columns of about fifty men each converged on the gate. Two from the sides and one straight up the middle of the meadow. Old Bill took a toll on the center column with his lever action 30-30's through the loophole in the gate but the slow loading relic rifles and pistols couldn't put out enough bullets to stop the charge.

  He'd gone over to Pat's house to exchange an empty rifle for one of the ones she was reloading for him when the blast occurred. It blew Old Bill flat on his back and the Blue Heads started pouring in the wrecked gate.

  But they hadn't counted on Pat. She grabbed up the MAC and holding the barrel strap in her left hand at waist level with her right hand holding the pistol grip against her hip she looked at their feet and swiveled her hips like Beacon has shown her as she swept the opening with a burst of machine gun fire.

  At that close range it was hard for her to miss. The first platoon of Blue Heads was blown over backwards riddled with bullets. Pat may not have had combat training, but she was no fool; she ducked back behind the log wall in front of her home out of sight of the gate and out of the line of enemy fire as she reloaded the MAC while shouting at the screaming children to stay down.

  There were two other groups of Blue Heads coming in from the gate's left and right plus the survivors of the first group. Maggie's forty-four roared as she and the reserve rushed over from the tent. The mass of blue heads pouring through the gate was such a big target even kids who'd never fired a gun before made hits. The woman and her daughter with the bows and arrows got a two also. Then Pat reappeared with the reloaded MAC and sprayed the opening again.

  As Pat ducked back to reload again the Blue Heads still coming would have made short work of Maggie and the kids with their now empty revolvers before more arrows could be nocked but Beacon arrived still armed with his Colt forty-five and those fifty rounds loaded in magazines.

  In times of stress people tend to fall back on training and what they've practiced in similar situations. For years he'd spent weekends at "Combat Matches" on the local shooting range. Beacon was in the "Combat Match" of his life. There was no need to pause for target identification; anyone in front of his sights was a target. Muscle memory took over as his hands and arms lined up the sights on every Blue Head coming through the gate.

  Later Pat would say he chanted "Front sight! Front sight! Front sight!" as he let loose a hail of lead that sounded like he was shooting a machine gun. The pistol got hot in his hands and empty magazines and shell casings rained on the dirt as Beacon dodged and weaved back and forth in front the gate's opening firing as fast as he could pull the trigger pausing only to reload.

  Then Pat reappeared with yet another full magazine in the MAC and let loose through the open gate. The few Blue Heads who were still coming towards the gate when Pat finished shooting turned tail and ran as the woman and her daughter let fly with another flight of arrows augmented by blasts from Old Bill's two pistols fired from the sitting position. Beacon and Maggie shot the retreating Blue Heads in the back until their pistols ran dry.

  The human wave attack was over.

  He reloaded with his final magazine, reholstered and began scooping up as many of his empty pistol magazines as he could find in the gore. Then he helped Maggie and the kids stack anything they could find in the opening left by the ruined gate as the kid with the spear made sure all the Blue Heads that had made it inside the fort were dead. Then they piled dead Blue Heads on top of their improvised barricade.

  White Flag

  As he reloaded the last of his pistol magazines Beacon heard rifle fire coming from the position where he'd left his rifle with sixteen year old Randy. Shouting "Hold your positions, it's a feint!" he ran towards the sound of gunfire.

  The kid had put down Beacon's rifle and was pumping out a steady cadence of twenty-two rounds by the time Beacon climbed back up atop the trailer. There were about twenty bodies out in the field. As Beacon watched the kid added to the score.

  "I figured there was no use wasting big bullets once they started running away." He said as he squeezed off another shot.

  Beacon saw another retreating Blue Head go down trying to clutch at the center of his back. "Good thinking" Beacon said impressed with the kid's marksmanship. Cautioning the kid to stay down he retrieved the empty M1A magazines and returned to Fort Apache to reload them. On the way he checked the ammo supply of several of the other guns he'd loaned out.

  Taking the reloaded M1A magazines back to Randy he met Jackie, the tiny girl he'd seen shoot two grown men with the twenty-two bolt action rifle. Beacon liked her sprit, congratulating her on her marksmanship he learned she'd been on her high school's ROTC rifle team. She also claimed more "probables" and complained about the ones that got away while she was reloading.

  About twilight someone told him Gail wanted him at her position right away. He hurried to her. She'd spotted what she thought was a group of Blue Head leaders standing in the shadows just inside the tree line by the trail near where he'd first seen her. Gail thought they might be Blue Head leaders and she had a plan.

  "If I shoot now I get just one and the others will take cover, but if you and Old Bill shoot at the same time…" she left the sentence unfinished with a grim smile.

  Beacon agreed with her reasoning running to get Old Bill, Jackie and Randy before the opportunity slipped away.

  Standing in the shadows where they thought th
ey were invisible in the failing light the three well fed, well dressed men with tattooed faces and what looked like whistles hanging around their necks cradled Thompson submachine guns in their arms as they talked while looking toward the fort's repaired gate. As Beacon watched through the riflescope a skinny man ran up to them, bowed and said something.

  He was answered and dismissed by the big fat guy in the middle whose face was completely covered with tattoos. Beacon couldn't be sure in the fading light, but he thought all their faces were tattooed blue.

  "Gail, maybe you've discovered why they're called Blue Heads."

  The others arrived and Gail laid out her plan. Beacon and Gail with their scoped Mini-14s were to take out the big guy with the blue tattooed face. Assigned the leader on the left Randy stood on Beacon's left with his scoped M1A he and Jackie would shoot the Blue Head on the left while Old Bill, on the right carefully aimed his ancient Winchester 30-30 at the dark spot in the fading light that was Blue Head leader on right side from their point of view.

  On Gail's command they all started their trigger pulls. It didn't matter who fired first, the sympathetic jump each of them would experience as a nearby rifle fired would cause their trigger fingers to spasm and pull their triggers just enough to slide the sears that final infinitesimal amount and fire their rifle too. The important thing was to have the target in the sights when that happened.

  The five rifles fired almost as one and then they each switched to their secondary targets Beacon and Gail to their respective left and right and the other two riflemen to the inner two targets.

  But Blue Heads were no longer standing where they'd been when the rifles discharged. With no visible target the five discharged the rest of their rounds into the bushes in front of, behind and to either side of the spot where the leaders had been standing. These were high value targets well worth the expenditure of extra ammo.

  When they'd all emptied their guns Beacon called a halt to the shooting. If they hadn't hit the leaders by now they probably weren't going to. Old Bill went back to the gate while the three with scoped rifles scoured the area along the trail. They picked off two Blue Heads who came looking for the leaders and chased two more off with rifle fire as it became to dark to see anything.

  At dawn Beacon assigned Randy to watch the bushes where the three potbellied bodies hopefully lay while he, Gail, Maggie and Old Bill held a war counsel. They'd agreed fixing the gate had to be their number one priority when Randy called out, "White flag coming in from the trail."

  Hurrying to the spot they saw a woman with a dirty white shirt on a long stick waving it as she walked slowly towards the fort.

  When she was at the edge of the gardens Old Bill yelled, "We ain't surrenderin' and we ain't takin' prisoners so y'all just move on. If any of y'all comes near the fort we'll kill ya' first and ask questions later."

  "I have information you'll want to hear" she said.

  "Let's hear it" Beacon yelled.

  "They're all dead or gone. I'll tell you everything if you let me inside"

  "She just wants to scout out our defenses" Old Bill grumbled.

  Beacon decided to play her to see how far she was willing to go to see the inside of the fort. "If that's true you can go over and pickup those three Thompsons and bring them to us' he yelled.

  "All right", she said, and began walking towards the three dead men waving her white flag as she went. She slung two of the Tommy guns and a messenger bag over her shoulder, then cradling the third sub gun, the white flag's pole and a camouflage backpack in her arms she returned to the front of the fort staggering under the weight of the armament.

  By now nearly everyone in the fort was coming to see what was going on. Beacon had Maggie send them back to their positions and then have the Counsel of Crones go around telling sentries to watch their assigned areas of responsibility and keep their heads down.

  If the woman with the white flag was a ruse he'd expected her to simply disappear into the trees rather than deliver such coveted and deadly firepower to her enemies. But she had returned.

  "Why do you want in?" Beacon asked peaking over the palisade.

  "I'm hungry and everybody went off and left me."

  Beacon got a small bota bag and poured a quarter of a bottle of vodka from the Settlement's trade goods in it. Then he threw the bag over the palisade. While the woman drank greedily from the bota bag he threw an old clothesline rope over the wall.

  "More!" she demanded after sucking the bota dry.

  "Tie the guns and the bota to the rope," he said adding, "no guns no vodka."

  After she'd given up the Tommy guns, backpack and messenger bag while sucking the bota dry twice he started extracting information. The messenger bag was full of loaded 30 round stick magazines, the backpack was full of loaded 50 round drum magazines and the woman was loaded with of vodka.

  Alcohol was almost impossible to come by in the post-apocalyptic world since brewing required equipment, supplies and being in one place. From the looks of it she'd been a long time without enough to eat much less booze. Any resistance to the effects of alcohol would have worn off long ago. Figuring she was now too drunk to lie effectively Beacon began asking her detailed questions.

  She said the three fat dead men had been part of a large outlaw motorcycle gang that raided a Thompson machine gun collector's home shortly after The Blowup. The collector put up a fight. The three had been the only survivors.

  According to her the three decided raiding was too dangerous to do in person so using the collector's guns they'd rounded up a bunch of starving survivors, including the woman and made them, raid whatever survivor camps they found.

  The modus operandi was always the same. Raids were planned by the three bikers, led by a few trusted sub-lieutenants and carried out by the vast mass of semi-armed survivors they swept up as the moved across the countryside like a swarm of locusts destroying the remnants of civilization everywhere they went.

  The three gang members kept close control of the group's guns and ammo. Only long guns and small amounts of ammo were issued just prior to attacks. Possession of a pistol by any but the favored few was a capital crime with the sentence carried out at once. Beacon surmised that the three feared assassination but didn't interrupt the woman's account.

  She pulled back her hair to show a scar on her neck where it joined her shoulder while saying she'd been with the Blue Head group the first time it raided the Sanctuary Settlement.

  "Looks like ya' missed that shot" Old Bill hissed in Beacon's ear.

  "I was kind'a rushed at the time" Beacon replied curtly.

  Her description of the attack meshed well with Beacon's recollection. In the evening the Blue Head leaders; Blue Head, Blue Beard and Blue Balls, they were known to their peasant followers, according to the woman, had infiltrated the swarm of starving survivors to a point just over the hill from the circled vehicles of the Sanctuary Settlement and waited for dark as usual.

  Then, in the middle of the night, each of the tattooed blue leaders took a contingent of cannon fodder over the hill to wait for the attack time. The woman said the Blue Head leaders had gold watches and plenty to eat. "While their minions slowly starved." Beacon added silently. At midnight, as usual, they threatened to cut the tongue out of anyone who yelled and sent their troops forward.

  She said they'd been surprised by Beacon's rifle fire, but to retreat before the whistles blew earned an automatic death sentence. Usually, she said, when they attacked in the middle of the night everyone in the targeted camps was asleep. Old Bill and Beacon turned to look meaningfully into the eyes of Maggie and the Counsel of Crones who'd edged up close to hear everything the woman had to say.

  The Blue Head woman had been among one of the platoons to attack that night and she had been wounded as she tried to run between two SUVs. Too scared to advance or retreat she'd laid on the ground bleeding until the whistles sounded before running off with what was left of the attack force.

  The Blue Head swar
m had taken terrible losses that night and the leaders had sworn revenge, but it had taken them quite a while to build their forces back up again to a size capable of taking on such a formable opponent as the Settlement.