by Summer Lane
Dead.
And there’s a red bullet wound right below his ear.
“Ambush!” I shout. “Cover, cover, cover!”
Whoever is hiding in the grass lets loose. The fusillade of rifle fire cuts through the air. I stay close to the ground, adrenaline shooting through my veins, heightening my senses. I manage to swing my rifle up and rattle off a thirty-round magazine of suppressive fire.
Militiamen scramble, jumping out of their saddles, taking cover behind the hulking, muscled bodies of their horses. Katana snorts and paws the dirt. Another militiaman hits the ground.
“There’s at least ten shooters out there!” Derek yells, his rifle in his hands. “We’re dead if we move!”
“We have to reach cover!”
“There’s no way to get there without being shot!”
I shake my head. That’s not true. There’s always a way.
Chris would find a way. Come on, Cassie. Think like Chris.
I yank a white smoke grenade out of my kit.
“We need to cover our escape!” I shout. “I’ll throw the first grenade, Derek will follow it with another, and then Uriah, Manny, Vera, Andrew and so on. We’ll create a smokescreen!”
The rest of the militiamen are returning fire, shooting back at muzzle flashes in the moonlight. I don’t hesitate. I pop the ring on the grenade and chuck it as far as I can into the open field. I jam my boot into the right stirrup of Katana’s saddle and hang on for dear life to the restraints, keeping my body on one side of the horse. Uriah slaps Katana’s rear flank and she charges forward. I’ve got one leg halfway over the saddle, using her body as a shield. I maintain a desperate grip as Katana leaps away. The grenades explode, billows of thick smoke curling into the air, creating a thick curtain across the field. More grenades detonate. More gunfire. Louder, faster, quicker.
Boom, boom, boom, boom!
Murderous rounds from a large caliber weapon hammers into action.
My arms burn, clutching the saddle as Katana sprints forward. Tears slide down my cheeks, an effect of wind and resistance and the torturous effort of maintaining a grip on Katana’s saddle.
More grenades detonate. Men mount horses and follow me.
Bullets zip past, snapping the air with supersonic cracks, ricocheting off rocks and earth. I’m almost to the edge of the field – almost to the woods. My hands are sweaty, making it difficult to keep my grip on the saddle horn.
I grit my teeth and tough it out.
We reach the edge of the field. Katana stumbles just enough to throw my balance off. My grip slips and I hit the ground with a thud, rolling over and over in a tangle of arms and legs. The wind goes out of my lungs as two more grenades blast the field. I tumble into the bushes.
“Cover, cover, cover!! Come on!” Uriah yells.
Somehow, he has ended up next to me.
Figures.
I jump to my feet, unslinging my rifle, sighting muzzle flashes. Going through the motions of battle. After all, I am a sniper. This is what I do best. In a way, it is almost like being outside of myself – mechanically but expertly reacting to an attack with fluid, instinctive actions.
Mach and Katana are stamping the ground, stomping and snorting, rolling the whites of their eyes. Poor guys. I know the feeling. Firefights are no fun. Yet they don’t run away. They stick with us. Amazing! They’ve been trained well.
The militiamen that have made it to cover stay concealed beneath bushes and behind trees, hitting the field with shots. I lie on my stomach, sweat and blood dripping down my forehead. I look through the optics of my rifle, searching the fields for shapes. There is nothing. Only muzzle flashes. I see one and snap a quick shot. A short yelp of pain follows.
“What are we dealing with here?” Uriah says. He has to shout to be heard above the sound of the gunshots and grenades. “Omega?”
“I don’t think so!” I sweep the field once more with my scope. “This isn’t their style.”
More likely than not, we’ve run across rogue militia.
This could be worse than Omega. Rogue militiamen and vandals aren’t organized into military units. They’re made up of brutal gang remnants – without rules and regulations. Without a code of honor.
Not that Omega has a code of honor, but still.
You get my point.
A militiawoman – Sarah - is shot in the chest a few yards away from me. Her heart stops beating the second the bullet punctures her ribcage. She locks eyes with me for a split second, tossing a magazine in my direction. I crouch and roll, grabbing it. She is dead. I hold her final contribution to the fight in my hand, jamming it into my gun, reloading.
I shoot toward the enemy in the waving grass, returning fire methodically. Shoot three times, change my position, shoot one time, change my position…keep moving. Constant movement keeps me from becoming a target myself.
You’re looking for the invisible enemy, Chris would say. You’re a sniper. You’re one of the few people in this world that can find them. Look for irregularity. One element that’s off.
I settle and study the grass field through my scope again. There’s a small patch of tall grass that has been smashed. By animals? By people? I don’t know.
The grass is a clue, Chris whispers in my head. It’s telling you something.
I sweep downward, at the bottom of the field. Just a few feet away from the smashed grass, there is a tiny – miniscule – black line in the dirt. I zero in on it. It’s an irregularity. The one element that I’m searching for.
I carefully aim and squeeze the trigger. My shot is clean. It hits the line, and just as I thought, my optics picks up a spray of blood in the air. I move to the left and settle again.
“Aim low,” I tell Uriah. “They’re hiding in some kind of trench.”
“Good eye, Cassidy!”
He spreads the word. I find only one more hostile target and I don’t hesitate to take it out. Ten excruciatingly long minutes drag by. The horses are beside themselves with the noise from the gunfire. Then, suddenly, at minute eleven…it stops. There is no return fire from the trench, and I order my men to hold their fire. We don’t want to waste ammunition.
The silence rings in a stark contrast to the noise we just experienced.
We stay hidden in the bushes. I struggle to maintain an even breathing pattern. I wipe the sweat out of my eyes.
“Alrighty, Commander,” Manny huffs, breathing hard. “What’s your take?”
I say, “Okay, I need three hunter-killers teams.”
This is a tactic that Chris taught me. A Hunter-Killer team is usually composed of two men. Three teams equals six total assaulters. We will round the enemy from the left while someone stays here and holds down the main force. In other words, we’re sneaking up on the enemy’s flank while the rest of the militiamen attack them from the front. We’ll box them in from two points.
“Derek, you take command while I take my teams,” I say. “Keep their heads down so we can move. You’ll hear us when we’re in position. Got it?”
“Got it, boss. Go for it.”
My three teams assemble around me – all of them veteran militiamen with common sense and great aim. We stay low in the bushes and trees, following the slight curve of the edge of the woods. It extends behind the grassy field. We move quickly and silently, too angry to be afraid.
I slip a little further along the wooded territory line, dropping down. I scan the field, searching for any enemy that might be lurking in the grass. It’s clear. We’re safe, and we’re close to their position. Very close.
I see the ditch where they are hiding. They’re idiots. Stupid tactics. There’s nobody guarding their flanks. They’re wide open to an attack. An enfilade, Chris would call it. I check the area one more time. All clear. My men see the opening, too.
“Okay, boys,” I say, “Finish this.”
In the next minute, we blow through ammunition in a vicious, overwhelming barrage of fire. There is screaming as the men in the ditch twis
t and fall, dead. Our bullets tear through their line of defense. I pop a red flare to signal Derek. He gives three blasts on his field whistle and his men stop firing.
“Skirmish line!” I yell.
I walk, reload, fire, reload and fire again. My teams spread out beside me, and together we finish off the rest of the enemy combatants in the ditch. They don’t have a chance.
They are dead. All of them.
I choke on a shaky breath, gasping for air. Sweat sticks my uniform to my skin. I stop and look at the bloody carnage around me. I am horrified. How did I get to this place? How did this happen to me? How did I become such a killer?
My men are silent, checking their weapons, looking around them. I know what they’re thinking. The same thing I’m thinking.
We have changed. All of us. We’re not mere civilian survivors anymore.
“Good job,” I say. “Now sweep through this and secure it. Do a search.”
They stand around me, looking at me in a way that they’ve never looked at me before. Maybe they’re just as horrified by what I’m doing as I am. Maybe I’m not the only one who doesn’t recognize myself anymore.
I swallow a lump in my throat. “Move it,” I mutter.
I turn away. I know that they can see the tears streaming down my face, but I don’t care. If I didn’t cry for this, I would be afraid that I’d lost all sense of humanity.
I slowly lower myself down, sliding on mud and grime. I crouch near the first dead figure. It’s one of the men that I shot. There’s a hole in the dead center of his head. I shudder, disgusted, and turn him onto his back. His entire body is clothed in black. His hands and fingers are wrapped in strips of black cloth. A black bandana is tied around his forehead. The only visible piece of flesh is the skin around his eyes – tiny slits on his facemask. I pull the facemask off. He’s an average looking man. Maybe thirty years old. Uriah, Manny, Vera and Derek arrive at the scene, checking the perimeter.
In all, there are eighteen enemy ambushers.
“Who are these people?” Derek asks, kneeling next to me. “They’re not Omega, and they’re not militia.”
“They’re rogue,” I shrug. “They probably wanted to steal our gear.”
“Or they’re mercenaries,” Vera states.
I bite my lip. It’s possible.
“Search their uniforms for any kind of identification,” I say.
My dad used to call this pocket litter. Clues to someone’s identification. I go through the dead man’s pockets, unbutton his jacket and search the lining. Nothing. There aren’t even clothing tags. Everything is clean. No clues whatsoever.
“I don’t like this,” Andrew murmurs. He’s sitting on the edge of the ditch, staring at the militiamen searching the bodies. “People have lost their minds.”
I take the gun off the dead man’s shoulder and unbuckle his ammo belt. I remove the ammunition and weapons, sorting through the valuable items – and the items that we don’t have room to carry.
“We can’t find anything,” Vera reports. “They’re clean.”
“What’s the age demographic?” I ask.
“Twenties to mid-thirties. No women. They’re all in good shape, too.”
“You might be right. Mercenaries.”
Andrew stands up. “Which means they were working for Omega,” he says. “And when they don’t report back, they’ll send out a search party, find their dead bodies, and then they’ll start tracking us.”
“Then we should get moving,” Manny suggests. “This isn’t the most relaxing rest stop I’ve ever taken, anyway.”
“We have to hide the bodies,” Vera tells me. “They’ll find them eventually, but if we make them search, that’s extra time that we can buy ourselves to hit Los Angeles before Omega starts looking for us.”
“Good plan,” I approve. “Let’s move.”
The militiamen find a spot in the woods that could pass for a pit. With the manpower of twenty-five, the eighteen dead men are moved into the hole and covered with leaves and shrubbery. Under normal circumstances, I would suggest that we burn the bodies. Leaving them to rot in the woods is morbid – and I don’t believe that it’s humane, even if these people were trying to kill us. But we don’t have the time. So we remove traces of our presence in the woods and backtrack to the ditch, clearing away brass and footprints. By the time we’re finished with it, no one would be able to tell that there was a firefight here. Not unless they were looking really hard and they knew what to look for.
“Okay, we’re good,” I say. “Nice work, boys.”
The words taste bitter in my mouth. Congratulating people for hiding dead bodies is not something I thought I’d be doing. Ever.
“The horses have been tended to,” Manny announces as we walk towards the woods again, “but they’re jumpy from the gunfire.”
“They’ll get used to it if they hang around us,” I say.
“True story,” Uriah comments.
“A little gunfire now and then builds character,” Manny adds.
I laugh. It feels good, considering what a depressing night it’s been.
“Shall we move on, my girl?” Manny asks.
“Yes,” I reply.
I want to get as far away from here as possible.
Chapter Six
The next morning, exhausted, we stop and rest the horses again. I stroke Katana’s nose, fighting tears. How many militiamen died last night? Three. Good men and women, volunteer soldiers just trying to do what’s right and defend the things they believed in. They were under my command. I’m responsible for their deaths…aren’t I?
I press my cheek against Katana’s neck and stifle a sob.
I can’t let anyone see me cry. Not now.
So I take a deep breath, blink back the tears, and try to force it out of my head. Someday, when this nightmare is over, I’ll be able to stop and let the emotions roll in – if I’m not an emotional zombie by that point. But today is not that day.
Vera walks around the front of Katana and stands there in silence. I don’t look at her.
“It wasn’t your fault,” she says suddenly. Harshly.
I stare at her. My eyes are red.
“It was,” I reply. “They were my men.”
She crosses her arms.
“We all volunteered for this, and we all know it’s a suicide mission,” she continues. “You’re the one who keeps pointing that out. For the love of God, Cassidy, just do your job.”
She exhales rapidly – as if she were holding her breath for the entire conversation – and stalks off. I blink a few times and smile. Bewildered? Yes. Confused about her intentions? Sure. But she has a point.
This is a suicide mission.
These militiamen and woman are here voluntarily.
If people die, it is not entirely my fault, is it? It’s horrible, yes, but it’s the price of war. The price of fighting for something you really believe in. The ultimate sacrifice.
The realization that I must carry their deaths as a burden for the rest of my life is harrowing. The price of leadership.
I close my eyes and scratch Katana behind her ear.
“We’ll make it through this,” I whisper.
She shakes her head, nickering. I laugh.
“You doing okay over here?” Manny asks. “I could have sworn you were talking to yourself.”
“I was talking to the horse. Remember, I’m a horse whisperer.”
“Ah, yes,” he says. “A woman of many talents. I remember.” He pauses and assesses Katana. “Your horse likes you.”
“I get along well with animals.”
“So I noticed. But what about people?”
“I can take them or leave them.”
Manny’s weathered, wrinkled face dissolves into an amused grin.
“I’ve often felt the same way, my girl,” he says, “but in the end, it’s not animals or trees or the universe we’re fighting for. It’s people.”
“Yeah,” I mutter.
&n
bsp; “People aren’t all that bad,” he counters.
“I beg to differ. Omega is nothing but a bunch of people, and they suck.”
He laughs.
“That, my girl, is the truth,” he says. “We should talk more often. Your philosophy is entertaining.”
“No more entertaining than yours.”
“Oh, now I could debate that. The things that I’ve seen-”
“-Are probably things we never want to hear about,” Uriah interrupts. His National Guard baseball cap is pulled low over his black hair. His left cheek is scraped up. He looks at me. It’s an intense gaze – then again, when is it not with Uriah? “How far are we from the perimeter of the city?”
Manny answers, “Two days. Maybe three. Depends on if we get caught in any more firefights. Those always stretch the arrival time.” He winks. “What I’m more worried about is Mad Monk Territory.”
“Excuse me…what?” I demand.
“Didn’t Arlene mention it to you?”
“I think I would remember that.”
“It’s in a fifteen mile stretch of territory before the city,” he says. “A religious order of monks took over the area. They were driven out of the city by Omega, and since Omega doesn’t take kindly to any religious groups of any kind…well, they’re living in the mountains.”
“Omega doesn’t take kindly to anything,” Uriah says. “Why do they call it Mad Monk Territory?”
“It might be because of the murders.” Manny reaches in his back pocket, and pulls out his ever-faithful flask. I was beginning to think he’d lost it. “Dozens of survivors leaving Los Angeles have been found dead on the trails. They say it’s because the monks went mad.” He shrugs. “More likely than not, they’re just a little bit…stir crazy.”
“It doesn’t sound like religious monks to me,” I state, tracing the knife on my belt with my finger. “It sounds like a gang. Can we bypass the territory?”
“Not unless you want to add another week to our trip.”
“Screw that,” Uriah comments. “We need to get to L.A. now.”
Manny pulls a map out of his saddlebag. He folds it in half and points to a stretch of mountainside about thirty miles outside of Los Angeles.
“This is Mad Monk Territory,” he says. “Chances are, we’ll be able to go straight through it and we won’t have a problem. But…on the off chance that we do run into some crazies…” he lifts the map up. “We’ll be in big trouble.”
