by Eric Vall
“No, but you would have if they hadn’t come along,” the redhead hissed.
Then she leveled the gun at his face and pulled the trigger.
The buzzcut soldier's head snapped back, and he fell hard onto the pavement.
Jenny swung the pistol sideways until it was level with the second one’s face.
“I was just following orders!” the pudgy one yelled. “Let me live and I’ll just run off. You’ll never see me--”
“Fuck you,” the redhead said before she pulled the trigger. As the pudgy one fell she fired again and again until the gun’s slide locked back, and the soldier’s head was a pile of red mush on the ground.
I stepped in and pried the gun out of her hands.
Jenny dropped to the ground and started to sob. She leaned forward and pounded her fists against the dead man's chest. “Fucking bastards.”
“What do we do?” Tara asked as she walked up to me.
“We let her grieve,” I said as I handed her pistol back to her. “Let’s start stripping the gear off these guys and getting the trucks ready for transport. With any luck we might be able to make it back to Betty’s farm before dark.”
She nodded but stood there a moment with her eyes were fixed on the sobbing redhead.
“Come on,” I nudged. “We’ll keep an eye on her while we work.”
“Alright, make sure she doesn’t do anything stupid,” Tara said.
“I will,” I said with a nod.
Tara sighed and then started to pick the bodies clean of gear.
I grabbed a blanket from where I had found Jenny, draped it over the sobbing woman’s shoulders, and then got to work looting the dead, too.
Chapter 12
We started the tedious task of going over each and every soldier to strip them of their gear. Almost all of them had an M4A1 carbine, an M9 pistol, and extra ammo. These guys didn’t have as many grenades as the guys at the farm, but I still pulled six more fragmentation grenades and a single flashbang from the corpses. I was thankful they had not been in a better place to deploy their grenades against us.
Jenny still sat in a small pile of blankets on the side of the road, and she rocked back and forth and continued to cry while Tara and I did our work.
I let out a sigh and shook my head. It was clear that she needed more than just time to get over her day. I didn’t feel like I could do anything to help her, but I couldn’t let her just sit there either.
“Hey Jenny, how’s it going?” I asked as I knelt down beside her.
Jenny looked up at me and, with tears in her eyes, shook her head.
“I’m sorry,” I sighed. “I wish I knew what to say, but I don’t. All I can do is promise you that I’ll do everything I can to prevent something like this from ever happening again and hope that it helps some.”
Jenny nodded and wrapped me in a large hug again. She squeezed me tight and laid her head on my shoulder.
We sat there until Tara joined us a few minutes later. The platinum blonde had a soft smile on her dirty face.
“Hey guys,” she said gently.
“Hey,” I said as I gave her a small wave.
Tara knelt down beside us and rubbed Jenny’s back in an attempt to comfort the hysterical woman.
“We really have to get everything ready to go before it gets dark,” I said quietly to Jenny. “If you’d like you can climb into the cab there and wait for us to finish up.”
Jenny pulled away and shook her head. “I’d like to help.”
“Are you sure?” Tara asked.
“Yeah, the best thing for me to do right now is to work,” she replied. “Doing something useful will help get my mind off this day.”
“Okay,” I said with a nod. I pulled off my backpack, grabbed my water bottle and tossed it to Jenny. “Drink that. You need the water way more than I do right now.”
Jenny nodded, popped the top, and drained the bottle in one long chug. When she was done she let out a sigh, stood up, and tossed the bottle back at me. “Okay, I’m ready,” she sniffled and wiped her bleary eyes. “What do you want me to do?”
“Start moving that pile of guns into the back of this truck,” I said as I pointed to the closest forest camo painted beast. “Tara and I are almost done unloading all of them. We’ll add them to the pile as we do.”
“Alright, I can do that,” Jenny said. She walked over to the pile and picked up an M4. She turned it over in her hands and inspected the weapon before she looked back up at me. “Do you think I can keep one of these?”
“Of course,” I said. “There are more than enough to go around.”
Jenny slung the rifle over her shoulder and then picked up another two. She carried them to the truck, tossed them into the back, and came back for more.
“You’ve made sure we stripped these guys of everything but their clothes, right?” I asked Tara.
“Yeah, I think so,” Tara said.
“Did you get their vests?” I asked.
“Oh, no, I didn’t think of that,” she admitted. “I was too busy worrying about the guns.”
“Just grab the kevlar that looks to be in good shape. I have a feeling we might need a few of them in the days to come.”
“Maybe an assault on this outpost will go as well as our battle today did,” Tara said as she propped up a soldier and stripped his vest from him.
“Maybe, but we got lucky today,” I said as I tossed another M9 into the pile. The next body I rolled over was the officer that had accompanied them. His grey flat top was stained with his own blood. He didn’t carry the same side arm as his men. Instead he had an old Colt 1911 tucked into a shoulder holster. There were two spare magazines with it, and one in the gun itself. I tucked the magazines into my pocket so that I could give them to Anna next time I saw her. They would fit her own 1911 nicely.
I got to the M249, unloaded the belt of ammo, and hefted it onto one shoulder. It was heavier than the other guns and I didn’t feel like making Jenny carry this one.
“That looks like it could do some serious damage,” Tara said.
“It fires a lot of bullets pretty fast, but these things are better for suppressing people than killing them,” I said.
The M249 would make an amazing addition to our base defenses back on campus. We could set this up on the roof of the dorm building and then maybe build a roof and some cover around it. From there we would be able to cover almost the entire campus grounds. If we could take out this outpost, then we could take the 50 cals and put one on each rooftop. The more gear we got the less worried I was about future assaults. The number of advantages we had when defending our home were huge.
“I’m glad none of you got hit by it,” Jenny said as she passed me on her way back to the pile for more guns.
“They tried, but Tara and I took them down too fast for them to really fight back,” I said.
Once I got to the truck, I pulled the flap back and looked inside. Our collection of weapons was an unorganized pile. These things were durable, but I still didn’t like them sliding around in the metal truck bed. I set the machine gun down gently on the bench and looked around. That’s when I spotted the crates they had used to make a barricade. “Tara, what’s inside those?”
The platinum blonde stopped what she was doing and rushed over to the small pile. She popped open the top crate and pulled out a green package.
It was growing dark, but even the dim light of early evening was not enough to keep me from recognizing MRE packaging. I smiled and let out a laugh.
“What are these?” Tara asked as she pulled out another one.
“Those are food,” I said. “Military rations. Each one of those packages contains a full meal.”
“Are they good?” Jenny asked.
“Oh god, no,” I chuckled. “Why do you think these guys were stealing livestock?”
“Fair point,” Jenny said.
“Tara, empty the MREs into the truck we found Jenny in and then bring me those crates,” I ordered
. “We’ll load the guns up in them so that they aren’t just loose.”
“On it,” Tara replied as she hefted the first crate over towards the truck. After she dumped all of the MREs into the truck, she brought me the crate, and I started to fill it full of M4A1 carbines. It took three crates in total to hold all of the carbines. Another was filled with the M9 pistols, and a fifth one was used to hold the 5.56 and 9mm ammo we scavenged from the dead.
We also ended up with fourteen usable kevlar vests. They were easily the best thing we had managed to get out of this fight, especially with what we had to do next.
The sky was a deep orange by the time we finished looting the bodies, but we had a nice large transport truck full of guns and gear that served as a nice reward for our day’s work.
“We should burn the bodies,” I said.
“Can’t we let the animals eat them?” Tara asked.
“No, we will need to come back through here soon, and I would rather not have to deal with wild beasts crossing the road,” I explained.
“I’ll gladly help you burn them,” Jenny said quietly.
“I thought you might,” I said. “Drag the bodies into the middle of the road. I don’t want to worry about lighting the trees on fire.”
Gathering the bodies was a somber affair, and none of us felt like chatting while we worked. A few minutes later the three of us stood in front of a small pile of dead soldiers that we’d covered with a bunch of lighter fluid we’d found in the back of one of the trunks. I pulled out my lighter, flicked it open, and looked over to Jenny. “Care to do the honors?”
Jenny nodded, took the lighter, and sparked it to life. It took her a moment to get the fire going, but once it did the pile of fabric covered corpses went up quickly.
We took a step back as the pyre burned bright and bathed the area in an intense orange glow. The stench of burning flesh and hair quickly filled the air. The girls started to cough and moved farther away from the pillar of flame.
There was something cathartic about watching the fire eat away at my dead enemies. It served as the perfect end to what had been a very long and very difficult day. Though it also felt like the right way to mark the start of something bigger. The burning bodies were, in a way, my declaration of war.
“What do we do now?” Tara asked.
I turned around to look at the two women. “Jenny, do you think you’re up for driving one of these trucks?”
“Yeah, I can handle that,” she said.
“Good, then let’s sort out what we have and start making our way back to the other farms,” I said. “We’ll each take a truck and see if we can get this all taken care of in one trip.”
“Well, the livestock should be easy to sort,” Jenny said. “All of Grandma Betty’s cows are branded. What I’m worried about is what they did to keep the animals calm.”
“What do you mean?” Tara asked
Jenny walked over to the truck with the livestock and pulled back the flap. There were six cows lying down in the back and the benches on the side had cages full of chickens. “They tranqued the cows.”
“What’s wrong with that?” I asked.
“It just means getting them out of the truck is going to be harder,” the redhead explained. “Looks like all but two of these are Grandma’s cows. There’s no real way to sort the chickens, but we can easily just let the other farms take whatever number they had before.”
“Aw, the cows all look so cute when they’re laying down,” Tara said.
“Try not to think of this image next time we eat beef,” I teased.
“I like steak too much for a cute memory to make me feel bad for eating them,” Tara said.
“Yeah, I’ve helped raise these, and I still don’t have a problem eating meat,” Jenny said.
“Well come on,” I said. “It’s getting late, and I want to get you back to your grandma.”
“I wouldn’t mind seeing my brother too,” Jenny said.
“I’m sure they’ll both be happy to see you alive,” Tara said.
“Hey, I don’t think I thanked you guys yet,” Jenny said.
“It’s no problem,” I said.
“Yeah, we were just doing what had to be done,” Tara added.
“Don’t sell yourselves short,” Jenny started. “You guys went up against more than twenty armed and trained soldiers just to get me back. If you hadn’t come along then…”
I couldn’t blame her for not wanting to think about what might be going on right now had things turned out differently.
Tara rushed over and wrapped the girl in her arms. “Hey, it’s okay. We got you now.”
“You don’t know how much I appreciate what you guys did today,” Jenny said. “I’ll never be able to repay you for this.”
“We didn’t do this for a reward,” I said. “Like Tara said, we did this because it was the right thing to do, and because this is our chunk of America, and we won’t let tyrants, rapists, and thieves take it from us.”
“Yeah, you’re under our protection,” Tara said. “We took down those bikers and we can take down these National Guard fucks, too.”
“Everyone in this area owes you guys so much,” Jenny said.
I let the girls have their moment and did one more walk around the area to make sure I hadn’t missed anything. I couldn’t help but kick around empty brass as I wandered through the road. These guys hadn’t held back, and I was happy to be alive. If they had been even a little more disciplined, or slightly more prepared there was a good chance Tara and I wouldn’t still be alive right now. I looked down at the cut on my arm. The pain had subsided to just a dull throb, and I knew that it needed to be cleaned up. If we hadn’t used most of our supplies on the prisoners at the farm, it wouldn’t have been an issue. I pushed the pain from my mind and returned to the women.
“You guys ready to go?” I asked.
“Yeah, I want to get back home,” Jenny said with a nod.
“Alright, let’s get going then,” I said. “I don’t know these roads really well, so can you lead us to all the farms, Jenny?”
“Yeah, I’ll take point,” she said.
She gave Tara one last smile and then jumped into the truck with the animals in the back.
I walked over to Tara and clapped her on the shoulder. She looked as exhausted as I felt.
“I think she’s going to be okay,” Tara said to me as she looked over to Jenny’s truck.
“You played a large part in that,” I said. “I couldn’t have pulled this off alone. Never forget what you did here today.”
“I won’t,” she said with a smile. “Thanks for bringing me along and giving me the chance to do what I couldn’t do a few years ago.”
“Of course,” I replied. “You more than proved yourself here today. When you’re not busy being angry, you actually make a nice stealthy companion.”
“I think I actually prefer fighting like that,” Tara said. “I’d rather be close and try to take them out quietly than pick them off from afar or get in a shootout.”
“It’s always good to have a scout,” I said. “Maybe this outpost will have some weapons with silencers that we can get for you. Then you can run full on stealth missions with me.”
“Sounds fun,” Tara grinned.
“We’ll see,” I chuckled. “You still good to drive?”
“Yeah, why wouldn’t I be?” she asked.
“You just look tired is all,” I said.
“How dare you, Tav,” she said with mock indignation.
“Hey, I didn’t mean it that way,” I pleaded with a laugh.
She put her hands on her hips with feigned anger. “I’m always a ray of sunshine, and don’t you forget it,” she laughed.
“Alright, alright, well then we better get going,” I said. “Jenny is waiting on us now.”
“See you soon,” Tara said before she gave me a kiss and scurried off towards her truck.
I gave one last look to the large fire burning in the middle
of the road and got in the third truck.
As soon as Tara and I both had our vehicles on, Jenny started off down the road, and we followed behind her on our way back to the Millers’ farm.
With the battle now behind us, and my adrenaline now long gone, I found the dark drive to be a tedious and slow affair. I hummed and sung old songs to help keep myself awake. The pain helped me keep my eyes open, but the dull hum on the big engine tried to lull me to sleep.
We broke free of the trees a little while later, but the clouds were back, and the sky was a dark black because of it. Thankfully Jenny seemed to know where she was going because I would not have been able to spot the small gravel path that she turned on to.
The driveway was narrow, muddy, and dark. I kept the tail lights of Jenny’s truck in front of me and just trusted her to get us there safely, and a short while later we pulled out outside of the two-story farmhouse.
As Jenny turned off her truck Mr. Miller pushed his way outside with a rifle in one hand and a lantern in the other.
“I’ve already given you all that I have,” I heard the man scream as I turned off my truck.
He set down his lantern and raised the rifle as Jenny opened the driver side door. “Stop right there.”
I quickly threw mine open and jumped out. “Calm down, it’s just us.” As I approached him I pulled out my flashlight and shined it on my face.
“Yeah, it’s the good guys,” Tara said as she hopped out of her truck.
“I never thought I’d see you guys again,” Justin said with a relieved sigh. “Who’s driving the third truck?”
Jenny slowly emerged from the truck a moment later. “Sorry, I kinda forgot we drove up in the same trucks that took stuff from you earlier.”
“I can’t believe it,” Justin blanched. “You guys actually did it.” He tossed down his gun, rushed over to Jenny, and wrapped her in a large hug.
“It’s nice to see you, Mr. Miller,” the redhead chuckled.
“I guess they know each other,” Tara said as she walked up next to me.
“Seems like it,” I said.
“Should we give them a moment?” Tara asked.
“Nah,” I said as I shook my head. “It’s late and, as nice as the Millers are, I’m ready to get back home.”
