by Justin Bell
She knew Phil had wanted to make a statement when he volunteered to take the next shift, and she knew she should trust him, but part of her just wished he’d leave this stuff to her. He’d have to learn this sort of stuff eventually, if they were going to continue surviving in this new world, but for now? She’d rather just be the one taking watch.
Even so, her eyes ached with the strain of keeping her lids open and it would be nice to get to sleep for a few hours while Phil took the watch. Her exhaustion was to the point that the room was dim with her barely opened eyes and each step progressed with slow, practiced precision.
She took a right down the hallway, navigating to the first room on the left and looked in, seeing Phil curled up on top of the covers inside. She opened her mouth but he spoke first.
“I know, Rhonda,” he whispered. “I’m awake. I’m coming.”
“Thanks, Phil,” Rhonda replied. She left the room and walked back into the hallway, out into the living room. Halting for a moment, she looked down at Jerry and couldn’t help but notice just how young he was, and yet he had more combat experience than anyone else in the house. She knew he’d never leave this place. He’d probably rather die here than travel further east away from his family, but she couldn’t help but think what a valuable member of their team he could be.
Maybe in another life.
She turned towards the door just as glass exploded inward, followed a second later by the flat slap of an echoing gunshot, a punch of sound rolling over the flat terrain of the Colorado plains. Rhonda’s mouth sprang open as she jerked back, then took two uncertain steps and crumpled to the carpeted floor.
“Rhonda!” screamed Phil as he charged into the living room, and Jerry was up in an instant, his M4 spun up and around into a well-practiced two-handed shooting grip. He squeezed off three or four shots in the direction he thought the first round came from, slamming rounds through his own front window, shattering glass and sending 5.56 millimeter rounds out into the darkness.
“Get her out of here!” Jerry shouted, pointing towards Rhonda, then darting his eyes towards Phil. “Get cover!” He fired three more times as the front door burst open and Greer scrambled inside, his own pistol out and ready.
“I can’t even see them!” he shouted. “Where are they?”
“That shot sounded long range,” replied Jerry. “They could be anywhere out there!”
“What’s going on?” the harried voice bellowed from the hallway, Winnie stumbling out of her room.
“Stay under cover!” Angel shouted, pushing himself out from the kitchen. “Stay!”
“Mom?” she screamed, seeing Rhonda laying prone on the floor. “Mom!” her voice split the air, and she charged forward, rushing towards her fallen mother.
“No, don’t!” shouted Greer as he stumbled into the living room. Throwing himself to his feet, he charged forward and wrapped Winnie in a rough tackle, knocking her back out of the living room just as the windows and walls exploded under a deafening barrage of automatic gunfire. The thin outer walls of the trailer puckered and burst, holes blasting apart scrapped fragments, spraying bullets and chunks of house debris into the living room and scattering white dust over the red carpet.
Max emerged from the bedroom door, his hands clenched into fists. “Mom!” he shouted.
“Kids, stay down!” Greer yelled from the floor where he had Winnie wrapped up. Brad came out behind Max, his eyes wide, and his fingers clutched at the frame of the doorway to their makeshift bedroom.
“Cover!” Jerry shouted, shouldering his M4 and squeezing off a quick burst of single-shot gunfire back out the window. Phil scurried towards Rhonda, ducking down behind the couch as cushions thumped and stuffing spewed up into the air like white puffs of cloud blood. Greer stood in the shallow part of the hallway, holding Winnie back with his left hand, the Glock clasped in his right. He leaned around the corner and fired three times into the darkness.
“Phil, toss me a weapon!” shouted Angel as he scrambled back behind the bar between the kitchen and the living room. Working his way around the sofa in a low crouching walk, Phil stuck close to the floor as the entertainment center splintered with sporadic gunshots, shattering the framed photos on top and stabbing a jagged scar on the front of the television set. Phil wrapped his hand around the SIG .22 caliber rifle that his wife had used to save their lives what seemed like an eternity ago and tossed it over the couch towards the kitchen. Angel reached over the counter and snapped it out of mid-air, pulling it back behind the bar just before faux granite popped and burst apart from gunshots.
“Twenty-two?” Angel shouted from the kitchen. “What am I supposed to do with this?”
“Is that bad?” Phil shouted.
“It’ll do, I guess!” Angel replied with an exasperated tone. “Sure would be nice to have something with more stopping power, though!”
“Less shouting, more shooting!” Jerry barked back, standing with his M4 and firing out the busted front window. Three swift pops kicked his weapon back as he pulled the trigger. An almost immediate burst of return fire barreled back at them, and Phil saw two impacts in Jerry’s chest, pouches bursting as he lurched backwards, slamming his spine on the bar in front of the kitchen. His legs splayed out from under him and he toppled left, collapsing to the floor just next to Rhonda.
“Not good, not good, not good!” Phil shouted as he snatched at a pistol, lifting it and holding it tight while remaining crouched low behind what was left of the front wall. More bullets scattered in, knocking chunks out of the wall as Phil crouched beneath it, ducking away from the scattering rounds.
For a brief moment, he heard the slamming steps rushing up the short stairs, then a foot crashed into the door, banging it open, revealing a short, broad man overstuffed in a black tank top. He clutched a small semi-automatic submachine gun in two hands and swiveled towards Phil, raising the weapon. Phil didn’t know what to do; the man with the gun was so sudden and unexpected, he froze in place, his arms locked tight, but the pistol he’d just grabbed remained pointed at the floor.
Two loud cracks echoed in the small room and Phil’s head snapped around to see Angel coming up from behind the bar in the kitchen, the SIG 522 barking as he fired. Both shots punched into the man with the submachine gun, the first hitting him high in the chest, the second tearing through his neck, and he toppled backwards back out the door, tumbling down the short flight of stairs as he screamed in agony.
Phil sprang up into the broken window, and holding his pistol and in the darkness, he could see the vague motion of several shapes outside. Tracking one of them, he squeezed the trigger of his weapon three times, sending bright yellow sparks into the night, but he couldn’t tell if anyone was hit or not.
“I think I saw six or seven of them out there,” Phil said between hoarse breaths as he dropped back down below cover.
“We can’t just sit here and let them overrun us!” shouted Greer from the hallway. Winnie pinned herself to the wall, tears streaming down her face, and for the first time, Phil could see the frantic face of Max on the other side of his daughter, looking pained and desperate.
“Can anyone see Rhonda?” he asked. “Is she okay?”
Greer tried to get eyes on her. “I see her and Jerry both, but I’m not sure how they are. Neither is moving, but I think at least Jerry is breathing.”
Curling around the corner of the wall, Greer roared off a few shots with his Glock for good measure. A scattering of shots screamed back at them, smashing harmlessly against walls inside and Greer pulled himself back around the corner, wincing and clutching at himself where his stab wound ached from just two days before. Two days…it had seemed like a lifetime which was probably why he kept on forgetting the wound was there.
“I can’t leave mom there!” shouted Max as he charged forward.
“Don’t!” Greer exclaimed and reached for him, but he squirted past, running across the floor. Gunfire continued its relentless assault on the living room and Max sc
rambled down behind the couch. Silent puffs of cloudy stuffing burst up into the air as bullets pounded the furniture to his left, but he dove next to Rhonda. She was laying chest-down, her left cheek pressed into the carpet, her eyes open. Max’s stomach flipped for a moment when he saw the look on her face, but when he hit the floor, her pupils narrowed and followed his movement. She was still in there, somewhere.
“Mom, you okay?” Max asked. Rhonda nodded, her skin rubbing against the thick, red carpet. “Can you breathe?”
“Yeah,” she mumbled. “Hurts, but I can breathe. Maxie, you shouldn’t have come out here. You need to be safe.”
“Nobody is safe, mom!”
Rhonda started to shake her head, but Max gestured her to be quiet. “We just need to get you out of here.”
As if in answer to that ridiculous proposition, a scattering of rounds smacked into the counter above them, showering them with broken fragments. On the other side of the counter, Angel sprang up with the SIG and let loose with a handful of shots. Behind Rhonda, Max could see Jeremiah stirring as well.
“You all right?” he asked in a hoarse whisper. Jerry’s outstretched hand reached for his M4 and closed around the rounded body of the rifle.
“I’ll be better after I toss some 5.56 back at those dirt bags.” He rolled onto his left shoulder and reached into a pouch on his vest, retrieving a magazine. Max saw the punctured cloth of his vest, but there was no indication of any blood.
“You’re not shot?” he asked.
Jerry punched himself in the chest, and his knuckles banged on smooth metal.
“Armor plate, tough guy.”
Max smiled, though inside he wondered why the heck Jerry was wandering the Colorado plains wearing an armor plate.
Then Max realized what was going on around him and rethought that curiosity. Maybe they lived in a world now where an armor plate was as natural as a t-shirt and underwear. Jerry swapped the magazine and came up onto his backside, pressing his spine against the counter behind him.
“I’ll be darned if I’m gonna sit on the defensive until they come in here and waste us,” he growled. “Angel!”
“Yeah?” Angel replied back.
“If I make a move, you got my back?”
“Just give me the word, Hermano!”
Jeremiah chocked the semi-automatic set selector on the weapon and leaped to his feet, his face twisting in pain as he moved. “Consider it given!” Popping up into a firing stance, he ripped off a three-round burst out the front window, then charged forward and jumped, clearing the shattered remains of the bottom half of the window and plunging out into darkness. Angel slammed his palm on the counter and tossed himself over it in a less-than-graceful vault, hitting the floor and bringing his SIG around in two hands, firing three more times over Jerry’s left shoulder. He charged forward as well, as the man ahead of him activated the tactical flashlight on his rifle.
White light slashed at the darkness, revealing three men in the low tumbleweeds, two of them with pistols and one of them with a submachine gun. Jerry sighted down on the submachine gun and pumped three shots into his chest, throwing him roughly back onto the dry dirt ground. Angel adjusted his own aim and dropped another, with his measly .22 caliber doing enough requisite damage to throw a man down. Greer swung around the corner behind them and made his way towards the door, holding his Glock in two hands and firing.
“Come on, Max and Rhonda, let’s go,” Phil whispered, coming low around the couch and looping his wife’s arm around his shoulder, lifting her to a clumsy, stumbling walking movement. “Not much time, honey.” He looked back down the hall. “Winnie, Brad, let’s roll!”
Brad stood in the hallway stock still, his eyes roaming the living room, seeming to latch onto every last bullet hole in every last piece of furniture and every last inch of wall.
“I don’t…I can’t,” he whispered.
Winnie squeezed his shoulders. “Come on, bud,” she whispered. “You can do it, okay? We’re all just as scared as you are.”
“I’m not scared,” he hissed a reply. “You don’t understand.”
Winnie smirked in spite of herself. “Well, then come with us and help me understand, okay? We’re all in this together.”
Brad nodded, seeming at least somewhat reassured, then joined Winnie as they followed Greer out the front door.
Up ahead Angel was standing at the front corner of the house, shooting at something Phil couldn’t see. “Come around the house!” he barked. “Follow Jerry towards the back!”
Greer shot a few more times himself and Phil swung out behind both of them, half helping and half-dragging Rhonda behind him. He could hear the kids close behind as they went, with Angel and Greer drifting off towards the left, tracking movement in the bushes. Pops and staccato chatters echoed in the night, but no rounds struck the house as they went, and it seemed as if they might make it.
“Don’t you dare move!” a growling voice came from the darkness as they moved around the backside of the house. Jerry was several steps ahead of them shooting off to his left, and Phil stood there, his arms filled with Rhonda’s limp body, glaring at the man who was pointing a long-barreled revolver straight at his face. “Oh, man, Bruce is gonna love me for this,” he snarled.
Two quick pops made Phil’s shoulder jerk as he heard them, but he felt no pain and instead saw the man with the revolver lurch backwards, drowned by shadows. He turned his head and Max came up behind him, a revolver in his hand, his eyes wide and wet in the low light under the stars. Phil could hear his son’s rapid breathing as the young man looked at the body of the person he just killed, trying to process what had happened.
“Max?” Phil pleaded. “Are you okay?”
Max nodded, his eyes affixed on the shadowed mound laying among the rust colored dirt. He still held the weapon too tightly, his arms locked straight as if he was holding it as far away from his body as he possibly could. His initial bravery with the weapon was quickly fading at the realization of what he had just done as shock took over his system.
“Where did you—never mind, it doesn’t matter.” Phil wanted to take the weapon from his son, but with his wife still in his arms he couldn’t very well manage both, so he whispered again, trying to snap his son out of his daze. “Good work, kid. You saved our butts. We gotta keep moving though, okay? You with me, Max?”
Max finally turned his attention to his father, his face ashen as he nodded slowly without speaking and they continued moving towards where they’d parked the four-wheelers.
“You coming?” Jerry shouted from the darkness. Phil could see a scant pool of white light shining from the weapon-mounted tactical light.
Gunfire around them had subsided to isolated barks here and there, no longer the sustained rattle that it had been.
“Open that trailer, would ya?” he yelled at Jerry, and Jerry moved to the large, silver metal trailer and popped the latch, opening the back door. Phil guided Rhonda into it and laid her down. “This is going to be uncomfortable,” he whispered to her, “but we’ve gotta move. Once we get some distance, we’ll get you settled. Where are you hit?”
Rhonda rubbed at her left collarbone, her head lolling back and forth.
“Okay. Rest, sweetie, okay? Winnie? Can you get in there with her and keep her steady?”
Winnie squeezed past him and worked her way into the trailer with her mom as Phil spoke to her. “Will do, dad.”
Max and Brad followed close behind, Max holding the revolver while Brad seemed to shuffle along like he was weighed down. Phil gently took the revolver from Max’s hands, his son more than happy to hand it over, and he whispered to Max. “I’ll take it from here, okay, buddy?” Max nodded numbly as he looked inside the trailer at his mother and sister. Next to him, Phil kept the revolver trained on the woods behind them, just in case anyone was following when a thought ran through his head. “No!” Phil shouted at no one in particular. “We forgot the bag!”
“You forgot the bag,” Ma
x said. “Brad loaded up the weapons and snagged it on his way out.”
Phil smiled, smacking Brad on the back. “You’re great, kid. Toss it in the trailer, just don’t hit Rhonda. Then we need to check out!”
Brad nodded, smiling himself, the pride of what he’d remembered evident on his narrow, beaming face.
Angel came towards them, walking backwards, his weapon trained into the darkness, with Greer close on his left. Three gunshots echoed over the fields, and a single round careened off the top edge of the metal trailer. Just for good measure, Angel fired a few times towards the shot with the SIG rifle.
Without words, everyone fell into positions on the ATVs. Jerry jumped in the driver’s seat of one, and Angel swung his leg over the one pulling the trailer. Phil and Greer each took one, with Brad and Max sliding into the seats behind each of them.
“Winnie, hold Rhonda back there, okay?” Phil shouted. They all mounted the vehicles, another barrage of sporadic weapons fire bolted from the night, muzzle flashes dancing along the horizon in an uneven row of white bursts. The four-wheelers’ engines barreled to life, a roaring and whining chorus of gasoline, then one-by-one they exploded from their spots in the backyard, kicking back rocks and dirt and screaming back towards Interstate 70, putting some much-needed distance between them and the approaching Bruce Cavendish and the West Plains Militia.
***
He couldn’t remember the name of the bar, but he could still see it in his mind—the ornate, faux-vintage interior aesthetic, the floors and walls made up like old, knotted wood. The bartender had been a thirty-something-year-old guy, gelled black hair, permanent five o’clock shadow, and eyes that drew the attention of nearly every female sitting at the stools.
The details were crisp and embossed on the mind of Brandon Liu, walking through the door with three of his friends. They were celebrating his recent completion of fifteen weeks of grueling training for the Customs and Border Patrol down in Georgia. His friends had promised to get him out of Chinatown and they’d delivered, rocking one of the college bars that attracted just the kind of audience that a law school graduate and recent inductee into the CBP wanted to hang with.
