“I think that can be arranged,” Bryce replied, despite the look that Logan gave him.
“Either way, we’ll see you in three hours,” Trevor told them.
The two groups split up and went separate ways. Logan and Bryce went back to the vehicles, but before they got in Logan pulled Bryce aside.
“I know these guys are prior military, but what if this is just a trap to get more men and take us hostage? You just told them that we were loaded up, and if they take us, they will take our compound, along with everyone and everything inside of it,” Logan explained to Bryce.
Bryce hadn’t thought the entire process through. He had just endangered the lives of everyone at the compound. Even if the four soldiers didn’t set some kind of trap, they could definitely search for the hatchery. Bryce would have to seriously reconsider his actions and come up with a better plan for this scenario going forward.
Bryce nodded to Logan and silently admitted his failure. Instead of letting it go any longer, Bryce jumped in the Outlander and put it back in gear. Logan did the same, and they both headed back toward the hatchery to unload their weapons and wait for the soldiers to make a decision.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Payson, Arizona
Trevor, Jose, Anthony and Nathan walked back to their Suburban, which was still parked in front of the grocery store.
When they got to the SUV, their day got even worse. Before the marauders had chased after Trevor and they guys, they had apparently riddled the side of the vehicle with bullet holes. Now their Suburban had a puddle of gasoline and other fluids underneath it, and the SUV wasn’t going anywhere.
“Well boys it looks like we are going to have to find a new vehicle,” Trevor told them.
“We just can’t win today,” Nathan Jenkins replied with a sad tone.
Nathan was the youngest of the four and also the only one of them who was not career military. Nathan was in the Army Reserves and had been called in to protect Tucson during the Outbreak. His civilian career was far more exciting; he had been a sponsored competition shooter and competed weekly in everything from three-gun competitions to long-range marksmanship competitions.
His role in the Army had been as the Designated Marksman for their unit and subsequently he carried a heavily modified version of the M4 platform called a Squad Designated Marksman Rifle. He was trained on the rifle to be able to successfully hit targets at up to six hundred meters.
“I hear you, buddy,” Anthony Smith replied, “It’s been a rough day. Any idea what play we are going to make here lieutenant?”
Anthony had originally served as their radioman, but their radio had malfunctioned weeks ago. Even if it hadn’t it wouldn’t do them any good now.
“Well, let’s get a vehicle, and get back to the house, and then we can decide what to do from there,” Trevor responded.
“Roger that,” Jose Gomez sounded off.
Jose was a man of few words. He was the diesel mechanic for their entire company, and while he could give and take shit like the rest of them, he wasn’t interested in conversation.
The four of them set out to find another vehicle, which in a parking lot of vehicles should have been easy, but it wasn’t. Most of the vehicles that had been abandoned were no longer functional.
They spent a considerable amount of time before they finally got an old rusted Ford pickup truck running, and piled in. They drove back toward their home, and had Trevor bothered to check his rear view mirror, he might have seen the vehicle that followed behind them.
Instead, they pulled up to the house, got out of the vehicle and headed inside the house via their second-floor window, completely worn out from the day’s adventures.
On the inside, they stripped off their backpacks, took off their vests, and laid down to rest.
***
Outside the house, a second vehicle joined the first. The people in the vehicles had seen the carnage that was brought upon their friends, and found the four soldiers nearby, and that was enough evidence for them to know that these soldiers had to die.
Six men and three women got out of the two vehicles. They were armed with a hodgepodge of semi-automatic rifles, shotguns, and handguns. To make matters worse, they carried a crate full of hastily thrown together Molotov cocktails.
The group watched the house for a little while to determine if there would be any resistance other than the four soldiers. After they determined that the four were alone and nobody would come back out, they decided to strike.
Without warning, they opened fire on the house, raining lead down on the soldiers inside.
One of the men lit a Molotov cocktail and hurled it at the house, which struck the front door and exploded in a ball of fire. The entryway of the house erupted in fire and quickly spread across the front of the house.
Two more Molotovs were lit and tossed at the house, and soon enough the entire front half of the house was on fire, all while they fired hundreds of rounds into the façade of the building.
***
Trevor and his men hit the deck as soon as the rounds zinged into their home. Instinctively, they all repositioned themselves to have some form of cover so that they could fire back at the enemy. They were trapped and all they could do was shoot back.
Then, before they could even fire a round off in response, the front half of the house exploded and fire spread through the inside of the home.
With no other options, the four of them army crawled toward the rear window they used as a door. They crawled as quickly as they could while the bullets flew over their heads.
They made it to the window and one by one they jumped up and out of the window. Trevor took a millisecond to look behind at all of the supplies and munitions he had to leave behind and hated whomever attacked them. During his last glance, he spotted two of their vests that had been left on a chair near the window. He scooped them up, threw them out the window, and jumped out after them.
With no idea how many men had them cornered, their only hope was to flee to a neighboring home and fight back.
Trevor pointed toward the home with hand signals and his men took off at a run toward their Alamo. Trevor hoped that they didn’t have any more Molotov cocktails left up their sleeve or they would be seriously fucked. There were no more places to hide within three hundred meters; it was why they had picked this house in the first place.
Just as Trevor hopped down onto the ground from the second story balcony, two of the assailants flew around the corner with their guns raised.
Trevor rolled toward a stack of firewood that he and the guys had collected. He had barely tucked his feet in as the rounds pelted his hiding place. Luckily, the thick pile of wood worked as intended and sheltered him from the hail of gunfire.
Return gunfire came from his left and Trevor saw Nathan take carefully aimed shots at the enemy. Trevor glanced through a crack in the firewood pile and saw two of the men go down, while the third tried to drag his comrades to safety. Nathan didn’t hesitate to shoot the third person, which was a woman in this case, directly in the head. The resulting blood spray on their white home left Trevor a little shaken up, but now was not the time for nerves.
He stood up and sprinted toward the house where the others had already taken up defensive positions.
Trevor barely made it through the open window when the bullets landed near him again. He ducked inside and hit the ground with a thud. His men returned fire long enough for Trevor to get back up. He poked his head out the open window and saw at least five or six more men and women on the offensive. The guys returned fire with everything they had, which unfortunately was not a lot. Within only a few seconds, they were reloading their weapons and running out of ammunition. The suppressive fire was more than enough to keep the assailants’ heads down, but it was an unsustainable stalemate.
The action went on in this manner for another few minutes, and as Trevor and his men ran out of ammunition, the attackers started to get more brazen. They started to advan
ce too soon, and Trevor shot one of the younger men in the chest, which immediately put him down for good.
Trevor and his men spent the last of their ammunition as they tried to beat back the intruders with no success.
As they all ran out of ammunition one after another they switched to handguns and retreated farther into the house. They were out of options and Trevor knew it. He had to come up with a plan, but he didn’t know what to do.
The three men who had followed him since Tucson looked at him with sad eyes, because they all knew that there was nothing that could be done.
The four of them huddled into a back bedroom, with their guns pointed toward the door, and their backs to a window. They could jump out the window if they had to, but it wouldn’t get them to safety.
Trevor tried to think of a better solution, but he knew that they were legitimately fucked.
“Hang in there gents,” Trevor said weakly, “We’re going to make it out of here yet.”
He got a couple grunts, but none of them believed him. They had already resigned themselves to their own deaths.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Hatchery Compound, Mogollon Rim, Arizona
When Bryce and the others arrived at the hatchery, their families stood out front, and wondered whose truck they were in. Bryce drove over to the visitor center and waved for Logan to follow him.
They both parked the rear ends of their vehicles toward the door of the visitor center and jumped out. Their family members came over and as Logan lifted the tarp on the Ford, their eyes opened wide.
“Holy shit, where did all those guns come from, did you guys raid a military base?” Greg said out loud to nobody in particular.
“Actually, we found a vault underneath the gun shop. Apparently, the guy was prepping for the apocalypse or something and didn’t get the memo that it was actually happening,” Bryce laughed.
“Dad and Greg, can you two help us unload all of this into the visitor center? It’s going to be our new armory,” Bryce said with a smile.
His two fathers helped to get the guns out of the back of the two vehicles, and in a span of about two hours they had cleaned out the vehicles. They lined the walls in the visitor with row after row of ammunition, and then they piled the guns on top of the ammunition boxes. They took their time and organized each area of the visitor center for a specific purpose. There were fully automatic military style M4A3s, SAWs, sniper rifles, tactical shotguns, and all sorts of small arms. There were Berettas, Colt 1911s, Heckler and Kochs, Glocks and FN Herstals. There were also a few submachine guns, an FN P90 and an MP5 variant.
Bryce decided to lock up the hand grenades, rifle grenades, and explosives in the small shed away from the munitions. Bryce knew what he was doing, because it was part of his mission in the military to store and catalog the high explosives. Logan also had more than enough explosives training from the SEALs, but even he was a little hesitant to mess around with all the high explosives, because he didn’t know their volatility after being stored for who knew how long. Either way, they had to move the stuff to the shed, because Bryce did not want the whole compound to go up in flames if something were to happen to them.
After they got all of the munitions put away, Bryce looked at his watch, and it was almost time to run back into Payson to see if the soldiers were ready to join his cause.
Logan had expressed his feelings about it possibly being a trap, so Bryce intended to stake it out first and not barge in on them.
“Come on guys, let’s head out again. Hopefully we come back with some new friends,” Bryce told the group.
Logan, Robby and Jessica all followed Bryce over to the new Ford truck they had recently acquired. The crew cab had enough space to fit all four of them comfortably, and enough space in the back to accommodate any gear that the soldiers might need to bring.
Bryce said goodbye to his family quickly, as did the others, and before they were too far behind schedule they took off down the hill.
Bryce let Logan drive, since he had to start the vehicle anyway, and then they barreled down the hill at breakneck speeds as a result.
Before they arrived in Payson they could already see the smoke. There was a fire in the distance, and that was an ominous thing. Either a forest fire had broken out, or it was a manmade fire, and that always had serious implications. As much as Bryce wanted to be careful, he also needed all of the help he could get. The experience of four additional soldiers would be invaluable.
Without a spoken word, Logan slammed down on the accelerator and sent the truck careening toward the center of town. At the convergence of the two highways, Logan didn’t even brake; instead he slid the powerful truck around the corner.
They travelled three blocks toward the smoke and found two cars parked in front of the burning skeleton of a home. Through the smoke they saw flashes of gunfire, and they could hear the shots being exchanged. There were clearly two parties in the firefight, and Bryce knew who one party was.
Logan stopped the truck and everyone piled out with their rifles aimed toward the shooting. Bryce let Logan lead the way as he deferred to Logan’s combat knowledge, and the group headed toward the firefight.
They crept through the thick brush, unbeknownst to the two parties, and after they closed in far enough they could see that there were at least four or five people who had surrounded a house next door.
Since it was unclear who was who, Logan held up his fist to stop the rest of the group. He wanted to wait it out and see what unfolded. They watched as the shots rang out both from the house and from the attackers.
It only took Logan a second to realize that the shots coming from the home were all from military weapons, while the group on the outside all fired civilian weapons. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that the soldiers from Huachuca were in the house, and the attackers were most likely friends of the original group they had killed today.
The shots died down and the return fire from inside the house went away entirely. The attackers took the opportunity to move forward.
Logan seized the opportunity as well and whispered, “Robby and Jessica, you two cover us, and Bryce you’re with me.”
Bryce nodded, and the two of them crept out of the wooded area and into the fray. Logan announced their arrival to the attackers as he had placed one foot through the window of the house and shot the closest man through his left eye.
Bryce said hello with a carefully placed shot to the chest of another male attacker who thought he was going to lead the charge into the home.
Jessica and Robby also opened up on the attackers and in only a moment three more of the attackers had been killed by Bryce and his comrades.
***
Inside the house, Trevor and his team had heard the new rifles thrown into the mix, and all three recognized the sound of an M4/AR-15 platform. Someone else had joined the firefight, and now Trevor knew that they were really outnumbered.
They had placed the only dresser in the room in front of the door, and all four of them hid behind the bed, which had been turned on its side. They had a few handgun rounds between them, and Jose had pulled out a combat knife. The four of them were huddled together, ready to die as brothers.
Outside, the shooting intensified while multiple guns exchanged fire. Suddenly, the stomping of boots on the hardwood floors told them that their attackers were inside the house and it made the hairs on the back of everyone’s neck stand up as the boots came up the creaking stairs, and then down the hallway.
A single boot kicked the door in, and Trevor held up his sidearm and fired two shots directly into the chest of the intruder. The man went down, killed instantly, and the slide locked back on Trevor’s gun.
The shooting from outside grew even louder and the shots that came from the inside of the house lessened. Soon, the shooting in the house stopped after Trevor and the guys heard rounds hit the inside walls of the house.
They heard the shuffle of boots on the floor, as if the last s
hooter struggled to make it up the stairs. Anthony had the last bullets between them as he stepped into the hallway and waited for the shooter to make it to the top of the stairs. He crouched down, steadied his aim, and waited.
Not two seconds later, a wounded, bleeding man came around the corner and entered the hallway. Anthony didn’t hesitate at all and fired three rounds before his gun locked open, and all three rounds found their target, twice in the chest, and once in the head.
Anthony backed into the room and they all huddled behind the bed, ready to make their last stand. Not one bullet between them, not sure of what to do next. Trevor pulled out his knife, and motioned for Jose to follow him to the doorframe. Trevor posted on one side of the doorframe, and Jose hid behind the open door. They hoped that between the two of them, they would at least take a few of the attackers with them into an early grave.
Once again, they heard multiple sets of boots enter the home and slowly creep up the stairs. At the top of the stairs, nobody peeked around the corner.
Instead they shouted, “Lieutenant, that you back there?”
Trevor recognized the voice immediately; it was Bryce Sloan.
“Yeah, don’t shoot, we’re coming out,” Trevor responded.
Trevor stepped out into the hallway first, and saw Bryce step into the hallway just a second later. He let out a sigh of relief upon seeing Bryce.
Trevor immediately walked up to Bryce and held out his hand, “Thanks for saving our ass.”
“Well, it’s a good thing we showed up when we did,” Bryce said, “Were they friends of the ones chasing you in town?”
“Must have been,” was all Trevor said.
“Well, I hate to break it to you boys, but your home is gone,” Logan stated the obvious.
The Extinction Pandemic: A Post Apocalyptic Novel (The Hatchery Compound Book 1) Page 18
