by Nick Randall
Ojo stayed silent. How had he not thought of that? Could Spider really be smarter than he had thought?
Slowly, Ojo eased up on the gas pedal, and then he applied the brakes to bring the GMC to a halt on the road.
“Alright then, amigo,” said Ojo. “I knew you would smarten up eventually.”
Spider rolled his eyes. Meanwhile, Jonah was opening his own, either from his sleep or his pretend sleep.
“Cool, so we actually gonna think up of something now then?” asked Spider.
“The spotlight is on you, my friend,” said Ojo. “I’ll give you a chance to tell me what you got, and then maybe, I’ll promote you to my first lieutenant if I’m impressed.”
“Alright then,” Spider relaxed back in the seat, deciding he’d play Ojo’s little game. “The nearest town to us, we gotta go there. That’s where that little homesteading bastard would have gone, and if he ain’t there anymore, we just move onto the next town up the road.”
Ojo was silent for a moment.
“That’s it?” he finally asked.
“Well, you got anything better?” Spider asked.
Ojo sneered.
“Running around aimlessly until we find that little bastard,” Ojo shook his head in disappointment. “You must think you’re a brilliant scientist in a white suit or something.”
“So what you were doing wasn’t any different?” Spider retorted.
Ojo’s hand clenched into a hard fist. A dark fury began swimming in both of his black eyes, the same uncontrollable fury that he had when he mercilessly killed Pills and Jerry a few days ago, and the two young men they stole the truck from.
Having been quiet throughout the whole ride and conversation, Jonah suddenly spoke two words through a cracked and fearful voice: “We’re surrounded.”
“What?!” Ojo yelled in frustration, spitting saliva all over Jonah’s face.
But the fury that was in Ojo’s eyes quickly dissolved away when he slowly turned his head to see what Jonah was pointing to. The angry and intimidating sneer on his face morphed into one of primal fear.
There were no less than twenty militia men armed with rifles and shotguns surrounding them on all sides. All wore tactical gear or camouflage clothing to some degree, and some had masks covering their faces.
Their leader, standing directly in front of the truck, was a tall grizzled man in his 50s with wild gray hair to his shoulders, a beard, and an eye patch over his right eye. He wore a long black leather jacket that fell nearly to his knees and no doubt concealed a variety of deadly weapons beneath it. He cradled a Mossberg pump action shotgun in his arms.
“Out, all of you!” he barked out, indicating with his shotgun for them to step out. “And let’s see some hands in the air and weapons on the ground while we’re at it!”
Ojo instinctively shut off the engine to the truck and then slowly opened his door. He waved his left hand out.
“Okay, okay, amigos!” he called out. “We’re coming out! Nice and slow! No funny business okay?!”
“That depends entirely on you,” the grizzled man with the eyepatch responded. “Hands in the air and guns on the ground, like I said.”
A few seconds later, Ojo, Spider, and Jonah had all emptied out of the vehicle and thrown their guns on the ground.
“The machete too, brother,” the grizzled man motioned the muzzle of his shotgun to the machete that Ojo had hanging from his hip.
Ojo obeyed and the machete fell like a lump to the ground next to his .357 revolver and Spider’s .30-30 lever action.
The grizzled man approached, as the nineteen other men surrounding the vehicle now closed in to inspect it.
“What’s this about, amigo?” Ojo asked. “We just passing through like ordinary folk, you know?”
Suddenly, someone grabbed Ojo forcefully from behind and flung him down to his knees. Hands began patting him up and down from head to toe to check him for concealed weapons. Spider and Jonah promptly received the same treatment. All three of them knew better than to fight back and offered no resistance other than a look of scorn.
“Ordinary folk?” the grizzled man let out a little chuckle. “If you and your two comrades here are what’s considered ordinary you must come from a different part of the world, brother. And not a good part of it.”
The militia man who had patted Ojo, Spider, and Jonah looked up to the grizzled man and nodded. “All clear. No hidden weapons.”
“Tie ‘em up,” the grizzled man ordered. “Duct tape and paracord together. Real tight.”
“Nah, nah, nah, amigo,” Ojo smiled. “That won’t be necessary. I can give you my personal guarantee — ”
WHAM!
The grizzled man swung the stock of his shotgun with such unexpected force and speed against Ojo’s temple that it left him sprawling on the ground in front of Spider and Jonah. They both winced as if they had been struck themselves.
“SHIT!” Ojo cursed as he grabbed the side of his temple and writhed in pain. The skin had split and blood was seeping out. A pounding headache had already set in and his vision of the world had become blurry.
The grizzled man with the eyepatch kneeled down in front of Ojo. A gloved hand shot out and grappled him tightly by the throat. Ojo gasped and gurgled for breath.
The one good eye of the grizzled man peered deep into both of Ojo’s eyes at once, into his heart and soul. For the first time in a long time, Ojo was vulnerable and completely at someone else’s mercy. His reign of supremacy was over.
Seeing that Ojo was now totally defeated and submissive, the grizzled man with the eyepatch partly released his grip to offer more oxygen. Then he spoke, and the putrid smell of his horrific rotting breath brought tears to Ojo’s eyes.
“Let’s make one thing clear now, brother. This truck, its contents, and your lives are now all the property of Nero. Do you understand?”
For the first time in his adult life, Ojo gulped in mortal fear for his life.
The grizzled man grinned. “It’s Nero’s call, but something tells me that you’re gonna make a fine soldier.”
Part II - The Bug Out
Chapter 1
“Roy, we’re surrounded!”
Josie couldn’t control her fear. Sweat had soaked her hair to the scalp and was running like a waterfall down the sides of her face.
Peeking her eyes and forehead above the front window on the upper level of the house, she could see the dawn of the morning sun revealing at least twenty militia members taking up positions inside and round houses on the opposite side of the street.
“More on this end!” Roy yelled from his side of the house. “I count seventeen!”
“Twenty from here!” Josie yelled back.
“Keep your head low,” Jon instructed Josie as he forced her head away from the window. “Those acrylic windows are tough but they’re not bulletproof.”
“What the hell do we do?” Josie asked frantically.
“We don’t let them breach the walls,” Jon replied. “They get through the walls, it’s over.”
Jon had geared up with a tactical vest filled with AR-15 magazines over his torso, and his Daniel Defense AR-15 with the red dot sight was slung across his shoulder. Roy also had his own scoped AR-15 ready to go from his position.
“Do we shoot?” asked Josie.
“No, only if they shoot first or make a run for the walls,” said Jon. “We don’t yet know their full intentions even. Where’s your weapon?”
Josie picked up the AK-47 with the red dot that she had taken from the masked man who they had gunned down before.
Jon nodded in affirmation and then continued: “Go downstairs and watch the windows. Roy and I will keep things secured from up here.”
From his position on the couch on the main level, Ben could hear someone bursting down the stairs and soon Josie rounded about the corner.
“What the hell is going on?” Ben asked weakly.
He saw the AK in her hands. That couldn’t mean anything g
ood. He already knew that something was amiss, but the three of them had completely ignored him when he returned to the house.
“Not now, Ben,” said Josie as she glided past Ben and across the room.
“Tell me!” Ben tried to pick himself up partly from the couch, only to slide back down as the pain was much too intense.
Josie took up position behind a wall next to the front window and peered outside.
“We’re surrounded,” she finally admitted.
“Surrounded?” Ben tried to tilt his head to see her. “By who?”
“We don’t know. Only that they’re part of the same group we ran into before.”
“What do they want with us?”
“I don’t know!”
“What happened when the three of you went into the town?!”
“I can’t explain now!”
“Quiet!” Jon’s voice boomed from upstairs and shut them up.
Josie sighed.
“Listen, Ben, we’re surrounded by nearly forty armed men and that’s all we know, maybe more.”
“Did you find the insulin?” Ben asked after a moment to take in the reality of what Josie had just told him.
Josie shook her head. “It was all gone. All of it.”
“Mom, what’s going on?” Alex asked, stepping down the stairs. “Who’s surrounding us?”
“Alex, go back to the safe room upstairs now!” Josie barked.
“I want to know what’s happening!” Alex responded.
“I said go upstairs!”
Alex disappeared back around the corner, but Josie could sense that she was still there sitting or standing on the staircase.
“Alex, in the safe room, NOW!” Roy’s voice boomed louder than Jon’s did before, and a moment later Josie could hear Alex’s feet hightailing it up the staircase.
Why did she listen so easily to Roy and not to her?
“You see movement down there?!” called out Jon’s voice.
Josie took a quick peek around the window and through the gate at the front of the walls. Nothing.
“No!” she replied.
“These guys are biding their time!” she heard Roy. “They aren’t in any rush.”
Suddenly, Josie could hear gunfire erupting from behind the house, followed by somebody returning fire from within the house, likely Roy.
“Never mind that!” Josie managed to make out Roy’s voice over the gunfire.
Even though the shooting was coming from up the stairs, it was already deafening. Ben and Josie covered their ears.
Then, the gunfire stopped as soon as it had begun.
“Roy?!” Josie called out.
“Two down, two down, I got two down!” Roy called back.
Josie peered back around the window, and saw the quick flash of two masked militia men running past the gate.
“I see movement!”
A few more gunshots screamed in the distance. Jon’s AR-15 boomed from just above the ceiling over Josie, and when Josie glanced back around the window, she could see one masked man through the gate on the ground writhing in pain on the ground, trying to courageously crawl away from a gory gunshot wound that had torn apart his hip.
There was one more shot fired from Jon’s AR and the man’s head snapped to the side, spraying blood across the pavement of the street.
“One more down!” she heard Jon.
“They’re pulling back from my end!” Roy called back. “Going to regroup.”
“They’re pulling back from up here too!” Jon replied.
Just then, automatic gunfire opened up from one of the buildings across the street and began to pepper the house and the wall surrounding it. A few bullets screamed past the gate and struck the front door.
Josie dove for cover across the side, as more bullets shattered through the front windows and missed her by mere inches.
“Take cover!” Jon called out over the gunfire.
Ben rolled off the couch and then beneath it for protection. A half second later, three bullets ripped apart the top of the couch where he had just been.
The gunfire continued for a few more seconds and then came to an abrupt stop, followed by dead silence.
Jon’s house and the fortified wall perimeter were built out of durable concrete and the outside doors out of heavy duty steel, which had stopped most of the incoming bullets, but the remainder of them had made short work of the acrylic glass windows, shattering through them like normal glass and shredding up the inside of the house.
Josie peered around, and she could see several bullet holes had punched through the inside walls and several pieces of furniture were now torn up with the stuffing bleeding out.
“Anybody hit?!” Roy called out from upstairs.
“No!” Josie and Jon responded in unison.
Josie saw Ben’s head peeking from under the mattress.
“You hit, Ben?”
“No, no, I don’t think so,” he said.
“Are you sure?!”
“Hey, I was shot three times previously, so I think I’d know if I was, don’t you?!”
“Okay, okay!” Josie was already bolting up the stairs.
When she arrived to the top floor, Jon was taking cover behind the front of the house and Roy at the back. As with the downstairs, the acrylic glass windows had been destroyed and there were a few bullet holes present in the walls.
“We can’t stay here!” Josie exclaimed. “That was just the probe! The next push will be too much for us to handle!”
“You don’t know that!” Jon snapped. “As long as we stay away from the windows we’re safe from behind the walls.”
“For the time being! Listen, Roy and I were attacked before at our homestead. We were probed there too. If you think this is as bad as things are gonna get you’re dead wrong!”
“So what do you suggest we do, surrender?!”
“I’m not saying we surrender…I’m saying we hightail it the hell outta here!”
“And go where?!”
“I don’t know! Just away from here!”
“You’re mad!”
“No, Jon, she’s right!” Roy intervened from his position at the end of the house. “We simply don’t have the manpower to resist a small army like this. There’s forty of them at least and maybe more!”
“We leave this house, and we’re exposed out in the open!” Jon was constantly turning his head between them and the blown out window to keep an eye out for more signs of the enemy. “The walls in this house are built out of fortified concrete. They give us our best chance of survival and you both know it.”
“The moment your precious walls are breached, we’re done for,” Roy was trying to keep himself calm and not shout. “That will be the end of it. Listen, I have an idea. You’re not gonna like it, but I think it’s our best shot.”
Jon checked through the windows again and then rolled his eyes. “Go on.”
“Outside of Carleton Alex and I parked the Land Rover,” Roy began. “We can pile into your Suburban with some supplies and hightail it down the road that way. Once we reach the Land Rover we can take both vehicles, split up to throw them off, and then meet up somewhere later.”
“That’s a good way to die, brother,” Jon shook his head. “We stay here and fight.”
“We stay here, and we will die,” Roy responded. “But if we bug out, there’s a chance. A small chance, but a chance. And I don’t know about you, but I like chances.”
“We will not leave behind this house and everything in it!” anger was burning up inside of Jon and his face had flushed red. “I’m in charge, as I said before! We’re staying and that’s that!”
“We can throw everything we can into your Suburban, and I got more gear in the Land Rover,” Roy argued back, keeping his cool. “And I don’t think they have any vehicles, I haven’t seen any. Have you?”
Jon said nothing.
“That means we have the opportunity to quickly escape,” Roy continued. “Listen, Jon, this is
your place and you’ve put a lot of work into it. I get it. But all they gotta do is pin us down through the windows and attack from all sides at once. Once they climb over the walls or breach the gate, we’re done for. I’m begging you, your Suburban is our best bet. We can throw supplies and gear in it and board it up for defense. But we have to do this right now, because the next attack could come at any second.”
Jon looked out the window again. He could see a couple of enemy militia members peeking with binoculars through the windows of the buildings across the street. A few more were lying prone behind some brush on the front lawns. Down the street, at least three more bolted across the road.
Roy was right: the next attack would be imminent, and it would be absolutely merciless. The real assault had not yet begun.
There was no more time to argue or contemplate on what to do. It was either bug in or bug out. And that was a decision he had to make now.
“I’ll board up the Suburban. Roy, you load as much food, water, and ammo as you possibly can. Josie, keep a look out from up here. Anything that shoots at us you shoot back at it. We’re outta here in ten.”
Chapter 2
In the garage, Jon hurriedly nailed flat pieces of wooden boards followed by diamond treaded heavy duty aluminum sheets to the outside of his 1980s Chevrolet Suburban, covering up the doors, sections of the windows, and the front engine. The work was crude due to the rush they were in, but it would have to do.
To the outside of each aluminum sheet he next affixed a layer of ballistic nylon, the kind that was featured on some bulletproof vests. Jon hoped that with the wooden boards, aluminum sheets, and ballistic nylon all stacked over one another, it would be able to stop incoming bullets. Maybe not rifle bullets, but pistol bullets at least.
Meanwhile, while Jon was going about trying to bulletproof the car, Roy was hurriedly throwing things into the back. Backpacks, a few guns, ammo boxes, water bottles, food packets, first aid bags, and whatever else he could pick up around the house. He wasn’t worried about orderliness or organization. He only had one mission: to throw as much stuff into the back of the Suburban as he could fit.
