The Weak Shall Die: Complete Collection (Four Volume Set)

by Taylor Michaels

Charles pushed her to the right and followed cautiously, continuing to use Carla as a shield. She led him across the kitchen and then through a door to the food storeroom. Charles stopped frequently to listen. Not hearing anything, he looked around the room. It was bigger than the kitchen and was filled with shelves along the walls and with two rows of shelves in the middle of the room. It didn't appear to have been looted or vandalized.

  They were in time, Charles thought. Finally, Carla was turning out to be an asset instead of the manipulative nuisance she had been.

  He grabbed Carla, pulled her back to the rear entrance and shoved her outside. "When they arrive, tell them I'll be out shortly." He turned and went back into the building, turning left this time, and searching the rest of the building. When he finished and went back outside, the van and both SUVs were parked at the far edge of the parking lot. No people could be seen. "Clear," he yelled.

  John and Cho peeked around from the side of the building and the others came from behind their vehicles. "Get the van, Cho, and back it up to that door." John said, pointing to the door Charles had come through. He walked over to Charles. "You check the whole building?"

  "Yes. Rooms. Closets. Toilets. Even looked under the beds. But I saw four other buildings. The food storage has not been vandalized. Appears no one else has been here since Carla left. Many loads of food in the storeroom. Carla wasn't exaggerating. It's a good haul. I'll take Harry and check the other buildings. We'll take care of the bodies."

  "Pierre, you and Fred stand guard. Pierre in front. Fred, you and Pierre scout around and find the best position for Pierre to defend the front. Then, find the best place for you to watch the rear of the building." John felt his spirits lifting out of the depression as he thought about living comfortably for the next six months. Going back to normal rations would make everyone much happier.

  "Iris and Carla, you take boxes from the van and start loading the food. Start with things already in boxes. Pack it into the van as tightly as you can, to the roof, but be quick." Cho brought the van up to the back door and hopped out. "Cho, you take the weapons from the vehicles and set them up where Fred tells you. Then, help Iris and Carla load. George, back the SUVs up as close as you can and be ready to start loading."

  "How long you figger we got, John?"

  "Your guess is as good as mine, George. No longer than sunset. From what Charles said, no way we'll load even half this food in one trip. Hate to let somebody just walk in after sunset and take it all. It'll take us two hours to load and two to go back home and unload. Another hour to come back and we're close to sunset by the time we are loaded. Doesn't sound good."

  They loaded the three vehicles and went back to the lodge and unloaded quickly. When they finished, everybody gathered in the kitchen around a pot of tea for a quick planning session.

  "What now, John?" asked Fred.

  "We have several choices. First, go back, take what we can and leave before sunset. Let them have the rest. Second, go back, fill up and then defend the place. Anybody think of anything else?"

  Fred spoke up. "This is not different, but after we take what we can and leave before sunset, we blow up what's left. Denying comfort to the enemy is always better than fortifying the enemy."

  "True, but not what I'd hoped for," said John.

  George countered. "What about taking what we can and then leaving snipers. We could use the Demon to see them in the dark and try to do some snake stompin'?"

  "Cho agree with George. Go now, get what can. Take Demon car. Leave in town. Load quick in van. Take to town. Leave in town. Come back after dark in Demon car. Shoot anybody who come. Front and back."

  "I'll vote for it," said John. "Just before dark, Cho and I'll drop off the van a short distance away and come back after dark in the Demon. Everybody else stays at the Retirement Home, finds good cover and waits. If nobody's opposed, let's roll. George, you bring the Demon. How well can you drive in the light?"

  "Not bad, the clouds will help. The cameras have auto dimming. It's near the end of our range though. I may just run the side window down and stick my head out."

  "Have any goggles or a face shield? Wouldn't want you blinded by a bumble bee or speared by a hummingbird."

  "Sunglasses."

  "By the way," John said, "Where's Charles. I haven't seen him."

  "Him stay behind. Say have plan."

  "What!" John said. "Why didn't anyone tell me? Cho, you knew. Why didn't you tell me?"

  "Charles say have plan. You say no can tell people what to do. He want to stay, he stay. No problem."

  John slammed a fist on the table. "Damn. You know what he's like. We need to stop talking and go back. You never know what that crazy Scot will do next." John jumped up and started pacing back and forth. "He'd risk his life without thinking twice if he thought it would help us. We need him." John saw everybody watching him intently and decided he needed to tone it down a bit. "We need everyone. I don't want anybody else taking any crazy chances. Understand?" John gazed around the group with a stern look. Everybody nodded.

  Chapter 51 - Where's Charles?

  The second trip to Big Gap was fifteen minutes shorter than the first time. George dropped off the Dark Demon behind a house four blocks from the Retirement Home. Fred and Masako picked him up in the SUV and they drove him the last four blocks.

  When John arrived at the Retirement Home, it quickly became obvious why Charles had stayed behind. A giant ditch had been dug around the front of the building, near the road. Short of a tank, no ordinary vehicle could cross that ditch. Between the ditch and the Retirement Home were half a dozen holes in the ground. John presumed these were spider holes. Most were covered with timbers and pieces of carpet for concealment. Charles was nowhere to be seen, but noise was coming from the back of the building. John drove around the building and, out back, Charles was busy with the backhoe Isaac had found, digging more holes. A large ditch near the rear had also been dug.

  "What's up, Charles?" John said, walking over to the backhoe. "Spider holes?"

  "Fox holes, any number of names. Same idea. Dang mud." He shook a clump of mud from his shoes.

  "Do we have enough people for all these holes?"

  "No. Under cover of darkness, we can move from hole to hole giving the appearance of a greater force and more soldiers."

  "OK, and the ditches are to stop enemy vehicles?"

  "Yes. They are shallow on the side of the Home to avoid the enemy using them for cover. I piled the soft dirt -- or mud -- on the outside."

  "Sounds good. Just don't think the girls will like the mud much. Heard anything?"

  "No, I've been busy. I've been keeping an eye out but I haven't seen anything."

  "OK. Looks like you don't need me. Let me know if you do anything else interesting." John walked back to the Home.

  "Iris, Cho, Harry, George and Carla, you begin loading the van. You have one hour. Then, no matter what, the van leaves. Fred, you and Pierre find yourselves a good, defensible location to guard the front. Charles has made a bunch of spider holes. If you want to use those, make sure to let him know which ones you'll be using or in the middle of the battle, he may hop in on you."

  Thirty minutes before sunset, the van was nearly full. John went to each person to make sure they knew what they were going to do. Pierre had piled a bunch of furniture around the window in the office to help catch stray bullets.

  "No spider hole for you, Pierre."

  "No Jean. Spiders are not my friends. I will stay here."

  "Do you know where Fred is?" John looked right, then left.

  "He is in the next building. I think he also does not like spiders or mud."

  John laughed, "We all have that much in common."

  Cho, Iris, Carla and Harry continued loading the SUVs and filling boxes for the next run.

  George and John drove out in the van and headed for the house where they hid the Dark Demon. Once there, they secured the van out of sight in a back yard, boarded the Demon and wai
ted for darkness.

  "George, this waiting is driving me crazy. I have to do something. I'll walk back and take up the best position I can. I think Charles made a spider hole near those evergreen trees. That's where I'll start."

  "Any instructions, ol' buddy?"

  "If they attack and are repulsed, then you follow them. Don't try to kill them. Just come back and tell us and we'll go after them tomorrow, right?"

  "Whatever you say. As long as I don't have to spend the night in a spider hole."

  "Stay in the Demon. That'll be great."

  John hiked back to the Retirement Home and hopped into the outermost spider hole after sending a message on the radio, just to make sure nobody made a bad mistake and took a shot at him. Charles was in a hole in the back of the Home.

  An hour after the tip of the sun dropped below the horizon and darkness completely shrouded everything, John heard the sound of motorcycles. At first, he couldn’t tell how many, but after a few minutes he made out four coming down the road from town. Their outlines could barely be seen in the distance. The clouds still covered the sky and the dark night was great for an attack. Bad for defense.

  Good battle tactics would require that the motorcycles do a hit and run to minimize casualties, but they were slowly coming down the road. Either they didn't think Carla was still around or they were intending to scare her into leaving by making loud noise. Either strategy would normally have a reasonable chance of success against an individual.

  John was tempted to take a shot as the motorcycles passed twenty feet in front of him, but he held his fire. He could have hit one or maybe two, but the others would have overrun him. They stopped about five hundred feet from the main building of the retirement home, probably thinking nobody could see them in the darkness. John pressed the transmit button on his radio as a signal to those inside the home to pay attention. He could barely see the attackers, but they moved as though they could see well. He thought that if they had night vision equipment, then he had to warn everyone. John climbed out of his hole and crept back to the back of the house next door and whispered into his radio. "May have night vision. Repeat night vision."

  "Me too, good buddy," came the reply from George.

  John could see the Dark Demon turning out of a driveway and inching its way down the road.

  "George. Those glasses can see your illuminators like they were torches."

  "No problem. Turned 'em off, ol' bud."

  That would improve the odds to two to four. Almost good enough. John had an idea. He walked carefully back to where George had parked and opened the door. "You have any lights? Like a big flashlight?

  George turned around and lifted the rear seat. He pulled out a large light. The reflector was almost a foot across. "Will this do?"

  "Yeah, what's this for, landing airplanes? I'll sit it on the curb of the road with my hand out of the hole. You call the Home and tell them to be ready to take a shot as soon as the light goes on. As soon as I turn it on, I'll have to take cover as they will be shooting at the light after they take their goggles off and recover their sight."

  John walked up the left side of the road, staying behind trees for camouflage as he went so that he couldn't be seen by the night vision goggles. At the last tree, he sat the big flashlight on the ground and jumped into the spider hole. He reached out and turned on the light, quickly pulling his hand back in and ducking down as low as he could.

  Almost immediately, shots were fired at the light. After five or six, the light went out, but before then, shots came from the Home and from George. John stuck his head out of the hole and took aim with his rifle. He could just make out the outline of a man running. John fired and the man fell. He watched for a few minutes, but could see no more movement.

  He pushed the button on his radio and said, "George, see anything else."

  "Nope. We got 'em all."

  "Going in. Cover me," he said, running over to where the men were lying on the ground.

  One of the men was still alive. He looked at John and said, "It ain't over. You better go if you wantta stay alive." He moved a hand toward his rifle, but John had his three twenty seven magnum in his right hand, his rifle in his left. He fired.

  Pierre and Fred walked up. Fred said, "What do you think that meant?"

  "The obvious, I suppose. We should stay on duty through the night and plan to leave at first light. George can do some patrols and watch for any activity."

  "Pierre said, "Yes. That was too easy. But, I do not believe these four would sacrifice themselves just to test our defenses. They did not know we were here. I am sure of it."

  "Maybe they thought Carla was still here and it would be easy. Especially with the night vision equipment."

  John knelt down and examined the man at his feet. "He did have night vision goggles," John said handing the goggles to Fred. He went to the other three and removed their goggles as well. "What should we do with these, Pierre? Clean them?"

  "Oui," said Pierre, producing a plastic garbage bag. "To be safe, I will take them back to the kitchen and sterilize them."

  They all went back into the Home so Pierre could sanitize the goggles. Inside, Carla brought John and the others a cup of tea.

  "How can you make tea here, Carla?"

  "The usual way? Why?"

  "The power and water are out everywhere."

  "We have power and water."

  John looked at Fred and Charles. "They must have a well and solar panels. We have to remember that. Also, we could recharge the Dark Demon. After all this is over, we could use this place as a charging station for the Demon to increase our foraging range."

  Fred made a tsking noise. "Always thinking two steps ahead, John."

  "Right. Back to our current problem. Is that it, Fred? We spend the night on guard duty and resume hauling in the morning? Will they follow us and try to take us on the highway? That's what I'd do. We would have the worst defenses then. We'd be all strung out. They could isolate the van and capture it."

  "In similar battles in the past," Fred said, "the force defending a fixed site generally has a three to one advantage. If we have six soldiers, they would have to have eighteen to take us."

  "If they thought Carla was alone here, then the four of them would have been able to take over."

  Charles looked skeptical. "They would have to be the worst military people on the planet if they hadn't noticed our presence. Especially me with that backhoe. I would have a spy watching this place twenty-four seven."

  "So," said John, "If you were in their shoes, what would you do next, Charles?"

  Charles cleared his throat before answering. "Historically, the best offense is to simply wait us out. But in this case, we have months of food. And if we are under siege for months and we eat all that food, then they have no reason to attack. They get nothing The next best offense would be to burn us out. But that would also destroy the booty. They could do a Trojan Horse, but it's not likely we'd fall for that. Their best bet is to make us come out."

  "I don 't know how they would do that, Charles. So, what I said before is the right strategy. Stay away and allow us to leave with our booty and attack us on the road. The road goes two ways, east and west. They would need a force stationed in each direction."

  Charles wrinkled his brow. "Afraid so, John. What choice do we have?"

  "We could leave with the Dark Defeater taking one person each trip with whatever food we could. We would have to wait a day for the Dark Defeater to recharge. It could take weeks to transfer all the food."

  Fred said, "Unless we transferred the food to a nearby place a mile or two away. Let the people slip out under cover of darkness."

  "I don't think darkness is a cover unless they don't have any more night vision equipment and I find that hard to believe. They wouldn't have sent in their only four headsets on the first attempt."

  "The only other choice," said Charles, "is a war of attrition against them. We send out one-man patrols. Take out whoever we
can, quietly. One at a time."

  "I hear Cho name?"

  "What? No, Cho. Nobody said your name. He said one at a time. One-man patrols."

  "And me, said Marceau. I taught her how to throw a knife. She is good, but I am better."

  "I thought you were back at the compound, guarding."

  "I turned that over to Iris. This sounded more interesting."

  John looked at Charles and said, "You started this. You fix it."

  "I can't fix it." He looked first at Cho and then Marceau. "They're right. We didn't bring the bows."

  "Damn right Cho right," said Cho, nodding to Marceau, who nodded back.

  After Pierre had finished sterilizing the night vision equipment, John fitted it for the two women and then looked at Charles. "Now, what do we do?"

  "An old military rule. If you can't lead, then be ready to follow. Give me one of those."

  Chapter 52 - Leaders and Followers

  "So what's your strategy, General Cho," John said.

  Cho looked at Marceau, who nodded. "George bring Dark Devil and shine light out back from side of building to blind anybody who watch with goggle. We go by foot. Out back. Door away from side. After two minute, George turn off headlight. Nobody see. Charles lead, then Cho, Marceau and John."

  "I thought you were going to lead and we were going to follow," Charles said.

  "Charles dig more hole in back than mad dog with dinosaur bones. Cho not want fall into hole and break leg. Charles find good path. After holes, Cho and John go left. Marceau and Charles go right. If trouble, call on radio. Right," she said, looking at Marceau.

  Marceau nodded. "Oui. No problem."

  "Oh God," said John.

  Pierre had been silent, but was fidgeting with his hands, "I do not like this plan. I do not like you risking your life, mon amour. We need another plan. I would like to do something to help."

  "Charles will protect me. You have nothing to worry about." The slightest smile lit up Marceau's face and she draped her arm around him. "You are not the best qualified for this. Charles is better. You know that. You are not a soldier. You are a doctor and a marksman. You watch the front. Watch out for George. They might try another attack. The Dark Devil is valuable to us. We might be need it to take us away from here."