As Greg loaded his guys back up in the truck much to the dismay of his people, Bryce took him aside and talked to him privately.
“If something happens to us down here, I want you to pack everyone up and get the fuck out of there. Take the back road, and don’t come back,” Bryce said quietly.
“Where should we go?” Greg asked with a concerned look.
“Just load up and head northwest into the forest, drive about twenty miles and you’ll run into Knoll Lake. If we make it out, then we’ll come and find you guys,” Bryce told him.
Greg nodded slowly and got in the truck. The idea of having to leave their new home and run for the hills was not something either of them wanted to seriously consider.
Bryce, Logan and their men spent the last few remaining hours of daylight on the expansion of their defenses, which included improvised pillboxes on each side of their line. The pillboxes did not constitute more than logs stacked on top of each other with rocks in between to make shooting space, but they would serve their purpose just fine. They put one M249 in each pillbox, which enabled them to sweep the entire highway with concentrated machine gun fire.
If the resort crew were stupid enough to come up their road and storm the Hatchery, they would be cut to pieces by the two machine guns.
After their makeshift defenses were finally constructed, they decided to hunker down for the night. A really ominous spring storm was on the horizon, and as the temperature dropped there was a real possibility for snow. It wasn’t uncommon for Northern Arizona to get snow all the way into April, but tonight was not the best night to sit out on the highway in the open.
As night approached, so did the storm, and just after the sun descended below the horizon, the first snowflakes started to fall. Bryce and his men quickly began to freeze their asses off, and the guys wanted to start some fires to warm up. Logan knew fires were not smart in a combat situation, but decided to keep that to himself. These men were not soldiers, and if he let them sit and freeze all night it would make them combat ineffective, so it was really a Hobson’s choice.
They gathered whatever dry wood they could scavenge from the forest nearby, and made a large pile in the middle of the road near their defenses. Since the wood was slightly damp from the snowfall, it refused to light, so to solve they started the fire with a cotton ball soaked in Vaseline. Within minutes, a fire roared in the middle of their position and everyone huddled around to warm up.
The hours went by without incident, and inevitably everyone started to get tired. Everyone wanted to get some sleep, so they proposed shift rotations for guarding the highway. Bryce decided that this was a reasonable idea, and they split the group. Logan told Bryce he would stay behind with the first group of guys and keep an eye on things. Logan decided it would be good for Mitch, Robby, and Alpha team to take the first watch. Bryce also thought it would be wise to have half of the command team at the Hatchery anyway, so Gloria, Jessica and Bryce headed back home with Bravo team.
Bryce told Logan that they would be back in four hours and to call him on the radio if he needed.
After Bravo team and the others were gone, Logan sat down next to one of the fires and tried to get warm. As he sat down, he couldn’t help but think that it was going to be a long night.
Chapter Forty-Eight
Resort, Mogollon Rim, Arizona
The entire group stalked out of the lobby and slogged through the new snow down to the creek below the resort. It was a two-mile hike along the creek, under the overpass, and to the bottom of the hill where Bryce’s men waited. It took the group almost three hours and well into the middle of the night to get set up for their assault.
Roger Wilson walked as quietly as he could through the newly fallen snow. He felt like each step he took sounded like shards of glass that broke underneath his feet. His people crept behind him as they slowly approached the position Bryce and his men had constructed.
Earlier, Roger had watched Bryce and his men as they built their defenses all day, so that when night came, he knew there was no way they could take the Hatchery group head on, especially after he watched as they loaded the two machine guns into the makeshift defenses.
After Roger had seen everything he could before the sun went down, he walked back to his people, and they begin to formulate a plan. There were thirty people left at the resort who were willing to take out their neighbors whom they had declared enemies for one reason or another. Some wanted vengeance for their fallen family members, while others simply wanted the resources that were up for grabs. The only people left at the resort after they had left were a few adults and children. Everyone else had joined in arms to follow Roger into battle.
It was such an interesting role for Roger, battlefield leader, because he had never been a fighting man. Before the Outbreak, he had sold used cars and dabbled in other sales-related positions. That was mainly why his group had chosen him as their de facto leader. He was a smooth-talking man and could spin a great backstory. The people were more than willing to fight with him, once he had told them that the grass was greener on the other side of the highway.
It didn’t take a military career for Roger to know that he was extremely outgunned by Bryce’s group, but he had more men than Bryce by almost double. That being said, Roger knew that Bryce had some highly trained men, and even a few of his own men who had been led astray. That was what pissed Roger off the most. He had lost four good fighters to that asshole, and it would cripple his camp in the long run. What if they ran into more groups like Bryce’s? Roger needed to end this right now, and he was prepared to do whatever it took to accomplish that goal.
The civilized part of him regretted that he had to shoot at men who were until yesterday part of his camp, but in the end, he knew that they had chosen the wrong side.
While they prepared for their assault, Roger had gotten everyone packed up and assembled in the lobby of the resort. They grabbed whatever firearms they had, and all the spare ammo. They didn’t need to conserve it, because when they were done, they would have more than enough.
Roger hoped that they could take them by surprise, get them to surrender, and then take their supplies. What he would do with them after that, he didn’t know. He just figured that he would cross that bridge when he got there.
It was about two hours from sunrise when Roger finally got everyone in position and ready to attack the group from their right flank. Roger’s plan was to overwhelm the group quickly and prevent them from calling the rest of the group at the hatchery.
Now in the thick of it, Roger and his party slowly crept up the hill. At about thirty yards out, he got down on his belly and started to low crawl toward them, like another scene from some movie. Movies were his go-to battle tactic training material, since he really had no other information to use. He crawled for an indeterminate amount of time and he got so close to the Hatchery men that he could see them as they huddled around the fire, and watched as their silhouettes cast dark shadows across the forest behind them.
***
A single stick broke in the distance and Logan spun his head around. His senses, through years of training, had not been dampened by his retirement from the Navy.
Logan stood up, clicked on his flashlight, and walked toward the edge of the road. His son stood up and looked groggy, but still fairly sharp. Logan waved Robby away to back off a bit and his son complied.
Logan walked a few feet farther into the edge of the forest, and within a heartbeat, all hell broke loose as a bullet zinged past his head, so close that he could feel the heat, and suddenly the forest erupted in gunfire.
Logan dove to the ground and yelled to his men over the gunfire, “Everyone get down! They’re coming up from the creek!”
Logan grunted as he pulled his rifle out from under him and returned fire. While he fired, he slowly scooted back toward the safety of their encampment and his men, while bullets landed all around him.
“Cover me!” he yelled back to them.
When he got within a few yards, he hopped up into a low crouch, turned, and ran like hell. He dove behind the embankment and continued to fire rounds into the forest. It was way too dark to see into the woods, and all they could see were the muzzle flashes. He mentally kicked himself for having allowed them to have the fire, because now it had completely ruined their night vision.
“Put out that fire as best you can!” Logan told his son.
Robby hunched over, ran toward the fire, and slid to a stop in front of it. He kicked at the fire and spread it out with his boot. Nathan and Jose finally managed to get the two M249s moved to the embankment and fully opened them up on the resort group. Suppressive fire should help keep their heads down, Logan hoped.
Since he didn’t want to take a chance on the suppressive fire, Logan ripped one of the grenades off of his vest that he had distributed to only the military men.
He pulled the pin on the grenade, yelled “Grenade!” and threw it with all his might. He heard the thump it made as it landed in between the sound of gunfire, and then the explosion ripped through the forest. The light was blindingly bright and seared a vision of the attackers into Logan’s brain. He estimated at least twenty attackers still stood, but he could also see in that blindingly fast instant that the grenade had been effective. Multiple people had been blown to pieces, or bled out on the ground.
Logan didn’t waste another second before he ripped a second grenade off his vest and lobbed it at the enemy like he had the first time. The explosion that resulted was just as deafening, and just as deadly.
Behind him, just as Nathan got the gun set up on its bipod to fire the weapon, he took a bullet. The round slammed into his neck and came out the other side, which sprayed blood all over his lieutenant.
Trevor immediately dropped to the ground and tried to stop the bleeding. He grabbed a Quikclot from his pocket and splashed it into the wound on his young friend’s neck.
Logan looked at the poor soldier, but knew that nothing could be done. Instead, he ordered Anthony to get on the M249. Anthony dropped his rifle and wormed over to fire the machine gun.
Mitch was huddled behind the engine block of their truck and had the radio pressed to his lips with one hand and his M4 rifle in the other hand as he blindly fired over the top of the truck toward the forest.
“Hatchery, come in!” he yelled into the radio, “We are under attack and need assistance!”
***
Before the radio call even came in, Bryce heard the exchange of gunfire and explosions down by the highway and he was already moving. He ran through the compound and told everyone to get their shit and get down there.
Within two minutes, every man he had was armed and they all stumbled out of their quarters. He waved them toward the vehicles and jumped in the driver’s seat of one of the trucks. Before he bothered to check to ensure everyone was in the vehicle, he slammed the gas pedal to the floor.
As the first turn in the road approached much too quickly, Colonel Bradley yelled out, “Slow down, Bryce! You killing us on the road is not going to save our boys!”
Bryce slammed on the brakes and power slid the weighty truck around the corner, which made everyone in the back of the truck scatter across the truck bed only to then slam together and land in a big pile, with grunts and curses.
It took what seemed like an eternity to reach the bottom of the hill, and when they got there they could see muzzle flashes that came from the forest. It looked like there were hundreds of them in the forest and they all shot at his men, but there were only a few weapons that returned fire from Logan’s side.
Bryce’s heart jumped into his chest as he wondered who was hit, and hoped that it was not Logan, Robby or Mitch. The three of them were far too valuable to him.
***
Logan heard the trucks approach from the north, which caused him to turn and see Bryce and the rest of the men pile out of their vehicles. Logan wondered if every single individual in the Hatchery had come to their rescue, because he knew that he needed it.
Lieutenant Steele had been in the middle of chest compressions on Nathan as he tried to save his life. He shifted his position slightly to get better down force on Nathan, when a round struck him square in the chest from a high-powered rifle. The round ripped through his chest and burst out of his back.
Trevor collapsed instantly, and then he lay on the ground to bleed out next to the brother he had tried so desperately to save.
Logan looked over and caught a glimpse of Trevor as he went down, but he couldn’t rush to save him. Logan knew that he needed to keep suppressive fire on the enemy until Bryce and the others had joined the fight, but with nobody to tend to Trevor, the life quickly began to drain from him.
While this exchange took place, two other devastating things had happened on the front line, Jose had been shot in the shoulder and Anthony had been caught in the eye by some shrapnel as a round ricocheted off a rock. He was blind in one eye, but fired his M249 anyway. Jose switched shoulders and kept firing his gun as well. The two men were tough soldiers, because they had already watched two of their friends go down, but still they continued to provide suppressive fire. Both Jose and Anthony knew that it was the only thing that kept the enemy at bay.
Logan and Robby had made it this far without injury, but Mitch had taken a bullet to the leg and he lay in a pile behind the truck that he used for cover. Mitch lay on the ground and bled from his leg, but he still called out over the radio.
Logan knew that Bryce and the others couldn’t have gotten there soon enough. He was in the middle of a losing fight and he couldn’t stop the enemy with the forces he had. His only hope was that Bryce could push the enemy back so that they could tend to the wounded.
***
Roger Wilson was on the other side of the embankment, and he was locked in the deadly stalemate. He had lost nine men to the far superior firepower, and specifically the grenades. He had thought that with only seven men on guard by the highway, it would be an easy fight. The mistake had cost him almost one third of his fighting force.
As soon as Roger saw the trucks pull up and Bryce jump out, he knew that all was lost. Bryce had brought another two-dozen men into the fight. He was no grizzled war veteran, but he knew when to make a tactical retreat, and now was that time.
Roger quickly told everyone to keep firing, but to make a run for it underneath the overpass and back to the resort. They would have to fight them from the lobby of the resort and hope that they could kill enough of them to make them give up.
***
Bryce watched as the gunfire slowed down and started to get farther away. They must have been in the middle of a retreat, and he knew now was the time to strike.
Bryce, Bravo team, and the rest of the men all ran toward their friends. When they got there, the scene was unreal. There was blood everywhere, which was illuminated by the remnants of the fire. Nathan was clearly dead, and Trevor looked to be barely there. Mitch and Jose both had horrible wounds, and Anthony was also wounded.
Logan yelled to Bryce that they needed to counter attack and finish this off once and for all. Bryce told Bravo team to follow him and told Greg and a few others to get the wounded men up the hill for triage.
Command team and Bravo team ran toward the highway. They wanted to cut Roger and his people off before they came out from under the overpass. The quick plan was to cut them down from an elevated position and hopefully end the confrontation right then and there.
Bryce led the way and ran as fast as he could toward the overpass, but with all the gear and ammunition he carried he didn’t run nearly as fast as he wanted. As Bryce and the others approached the wall, bullets ricocheted off the top of it, which caused them all to duck down below the cement barrier. Not to be dissuaded by a little return fire, Bryce popped his head up over the overpass and fired down into the men and women. He saw two of them struck by his volley and fall in the dim light as dawn broke.
The rest of Bryce’s men arrived, and they poure
d lead into the resort group as they all fled toward their home. The enemy went from twenty survivors down to ten in a matter of seconds. The smarter ones took cover behind boulders or other natural outcroppings and returned fire.
Bryce took careful aim and shot at one of the men. Suddenly, a round from a high-powered hunting rifle slammed into his chest at over two thousand feet per second. The impact of the bullet caused him to stumble backward, as he looked down at his chest. He took a step forward and tripped over his feet, landed on the wall, and pitched forward over the edge.
Logan saw his friend fall over the wall and reached out for his leg. In a split second, he grabbed Bryce’s boot, just as he went over the edge. Bryce fell forward, and his forward momentum, stopped by Logan caused Bryce to smack his head on the railing, which made him black out.
Logan ended up with a boot in his hand, as Bryce dropped over the edge and fell over thirty feet to the creek below.
Bryce felt like he was flying, like he soared through the sky at a million miles an hour.
While he was flying in his dream, he fell toward the water below. He fell head first into the frigid water below and as he sank to the bottom of the deep hole under the overpass, his vision changed.
His wife stood in front of the Hatchery and had his son loaded into the back of the Outlander. He wasn’t sure why they were leaving him, but he wanted to know what he did wrong. He called out to his wife, but she didn’t respond. She packed up the Outlander with supplies and he watched as his son cried in the back seat. His father and mother-in-law then joined Victoria and loaded their own belongings. He called out to his father-in-law, looking for an explanation, but was offered no response. It was like he didn’t even exist to them any longer. After Bryce gave up shouting out for an explanation, they had finished packing their stuff and they all got into the Outlander. Victoria started the engine and without even looking into the rear view mirror she tore off down the road toward the highway. Bryce watched as his son turned around, tears in his eyes, and waved to his father for the last time. Bryce watched as they drove off into the distance and he called out for them. Bryce was left standing alone at the Hatchery, as tears rolled down his face. Clearly, he had done something horrible to make his family abandon him.
The Extinction Pandemic: A Post Apocalyptic Novel (The Hatchery Compound Book 1) Page 29
