The day after: An apocalyptic morning

by Jessy Cruise

  "Get down!" Christine barked, diving to the soggy grass on her stomach as she said it.

  Maggie hesitated for the briefest of instants, not very keen on the idea of lying down in the wet, muddy grass, but finally decided that when it came down to a choice between being muddy and being dead, she would have to go with the mud. She splashed down next to Christine.

  "You see them?" Christine asked. "I got two along that wall."

  "I see them," Maggie said, watching as they went through a cycle of shooting.

  "Sight in on the one on the right," Christine told her. "Aim for his body and take him out."

  "Take him out?" she said nervously. "I don't think..."

  "Do it," Christine yelled, sighting on the left man. "As soon as you drop him, I'll take the other one with the 16."

  "Maybe you should take the first one," Maggie said. "I'm not sure..."

  "Do it," Christine repeated. "I've seen you shoot at stragglers from further away then this. You can do it. Wait until he's standing still. It'll take a second or so for the bullet to reach him."

  " Christine," she pleaded. "I...

  "You can do it, Maggie," Christine said firmly. "I need your help here. Now aim at him and take his ass out."

  Slowly Maggie put the rifle to her shoulder and looked through the scope. She was trembling so badly that it took a moment for her to be able to steady the weapon enough to get a sighting. Once she did, she had to move back and forth for a moment until she saw the target. "I got him," she said slowly, hardly noticing that her trembling had stopped. "He's shooting again."

  "When he steps back to let the other one up, nail him," Christine said, her finger tightening on the trigger.

  In her sight Maggie saw him unleash a shot towards Skip's position. He then raised up the rifle and stepped back three steps while the second man stepped up. He paused there to put in a fresh round. Just as his hand started to work the bolt on his rifle, Maggie fired, continuing to watch through the scope. The bullet reached him as he was halfway through the motion of pushing the bolt back. It struck him right in the center of the chest, causing him to drop his rifle and stumble against the wall.

  "I did it!" Maggie squealed excitedly, raising her head up. "I hit him!"

  Before he even began to drop, Christine opened up on the other one, firing two quick three-round bursts on automatic fire. He was just starting to turn towards the sound of Maggie's shot when four bullets struck him in the chest and head. He was dead before he hit the ground. She shifted her sights to the first man, who had slumped down into a sitting position against the wall of the house. He was probably dead - the rifle had fallen from his hands - but she fired a burst into his chest anyway, just to make sure.

  "That oughtta do it," she said, raising her head a little. She pulled out her walkie-talkie and keyed it up. "Skip, Christine here. We just dropped the two against the house. They're out of it!"

  "We saw one of them go down, Christine," he answered. "Glad you got the other one too. Good shooting. There's one more over there behind the planter. Do you have a visual on him?"

  "It's out of my sight line," she said. "We'll move out a little and try to get some fire on him."

  "Be careful, Chris," he told her, his voice taking on a tone other than that of command for the first time.

  She felt a smile forming on her face. "I will," she told him. "I've been taught well."

  She shoved the radio back in her pocket and turned to Maggie. "Let's see if we can get the other one now."

  "Where is he?" she asked, not having heard the radio traffic.

  "Skip said he was across the street, behind a brick planter. Let's move out to the right, real slowly, and see if we can pick him up. Be careful and keep down. He knows we're here now."

  Christine, without waiting to see if Maggie was going to follow, began to belly-crawl to her right, moving herself further out onto the lawn and widening her view of the target area. Just as the corner of the planter in question came into view she saw a flash from it. She rolled sharply back to the left a half-second before the bullet slammed into the mud where she had just been. She did this instinctively, without a thought, and only after the incident was over did she realize how close she had just come to dying. "Christ," she muttered, her heart hammering in her chest. "Get back, Mags," she warned. "Don't come any further out."

  "What are you doing?" Maggie asked with alarm as Christine stood up.

  "I know where he's at now," she said. "I'm gonna flush him out of there."

  "How?" she asked. "You're gonna get yourself killed."

  "I won't," she said, taking a deep breath. She sidestepped to the right three steps and fired a burst at the planter. As soon as the bullets left the barrel, she dove back to the left, out of the sightline once again.

  The bullets were not aimed very well - they had not been intended to be - but when they slammed into the bricks of the planter and the stucco of the house, they completely unnerved the single remaining hunter that was cowering back there. He fired a single shot back at the girl, knowing even as he pulled the trigger that it wasn't going to hit her. What the hell had happened? Things had seemed to be going so well for the first minute or so of the battle despite the fact of there being more guns than they had thought. They had clearly seen two of the defenders flee in terror and three of them fall to the barrage of fire they had put up. Victory had seemed assured. But then things had taken a turn for the worst. In the last three minutes, all three of his companions had been killed. First Glenn, the man Bill had put in charge of this ill-fated diversionary force, had taken a shot right between his eyes as he popped up to fire his rifle. And then, out of the blue, Steve and Lou had been mowed down by automatic gunfire coming from another direction. It had to have been the guardhouse personnel. How had they forgotten about them?

  The girl popped out again and her rifle flashed. Again, he pulled the trigger on his rifle, trying to put a bullet in her before she could duck back out of sight, but this time the trigger didn't move and the gun didn't fire. As four more rounds came flying in, chipping bricks and smashing the small window that looked in on the garage, his nerve broke. Without even realizing that he had forgotten to chamber a new round, he discarded the rifle and stood up. His intention was to flee back the way he had come, running as fast as he could until he reached the wall and was able to get himself out of this place, but he only made it two steps.

  Had he been more coherent, he might have noticed that the volume of fire from the community center had slacked considerably off once he started getting shot at from the other direction. This was because Skip had ordered all but two of his people to cease fire and wait until someone popped up. The moment his head became visible over the top of the planter, three rifles and an AR-15 opened up on him. Two bullets hit his chest, driving him down to his knees. Two more hit him in the head, finishing the job of killing him.

  "He's down!" Skip yelled, seeing him drop. "Cease fire!"

  His group was completely in the battle mode now - or at least as in the mode as untrained, undisciplined people could get - and they obeyed him instantly. From the other side of the community center, the sound of a drawn-out fight was still echoing. From in front of them and to the left, came another burst of M-16 fire as Christine, not realizing that her target was down, fired again.

  " Christine," Skip said into the walkie-talkie, "he's down. You drove him out of there and we dropped him. Hold your fire."

  It took her a moment to answer. "I copy he's down," she said.

  "Move in and secure that area. Remember, keep your guard up until you know they're all dead."

  They were all dead. It was confirmed two minutes later when the two women advanced in and visualized the carnage they had helped cause. While Maggie stared in awe at the dead bodies, Christine gave the all-clear signal to Skip over the radio.

  "Copy, Christine," he said. "Stand by. Paul, are you there?"

  Paul had been monitoring the battle from inside the community cente
r, feeling about as helpless as a man could feel, listening to the gunfire rattling back an forth, hearing bullets hitting the side of the building, and hearing the screams of those that had been hit every time Skip keyed up his radio. "I'm here, Skip," he said.

  "We're secure out here now but we've got two wounded that need to be taken care of. Dale and Sherri have been hit."

  "I'm on my way," he said, picking up his first aid bag.

  "You'll need some people to help you," Skip said. "If Jessica's in there, why don't you have her do it? She should see what she helped do out here."

  Paul looked over to where Jessica was sitting against the wall. She was trembling wildly, her face ashen, her hands wringing nervously. She had vomit stains on her rain slicker. "I don't think she's in any kind of shape to do that," he replied. "I'll find someone else."

  "Tell her thanks for the help she provided," Skip said icily. "We really appreciated it out here."

  "Mick, what's your situation?" came Skip's voice.

  As Skip's had done before it, Mick's group was now performing as a fairly well disciplined team. They kept up the volume of fire on the trees, exchanging shots at a controlled pace with the group hiding within. So far, though the cars they were hiding behind were riddled with bullet holes and leaking various engine fluids onto the ground, no one had been hit. As far as they knew, none of their enemy had been hit either. They were just pinning each other down.

  "Still in position," he told Skip as another volley of fire came rolling in, punching more holes in the cars. "They split into two and tried to advance. We took out four of them. The rest are hiding in the trees near the southeast corner of the park."

  "So you have four left?"

  "Affirm. Eight entered the trees. Four came out to advance. I don't know if we've hit any of the remaining ones or not. We're somewhat at a stalemate here."

  "And your people?"

  "No one is hit but we're starting to get low on .30 caliber ammo. I still have two more clips of 7.65."

  "Slow down your rate of fire a little," Skip told him. "We don't have any way of getting someone out to you without putting them at risk. The other group is down now so I'll get you some help."

  "We'd surely appreciate that," Mick said, signing off and putting his radio back in his pocket. He told his people to ease up on the ammo consumption a little and then sighted in on the trees and squeezed off another two rounds.

  Skip was elated to hear that Mick, who had not been tested in combat until now, had managed to wipe out half of the force attacking him. With his elation came a plan. He directed Christine around to the north and then the east, telling her to link up with Jack at his position to augment his automatic rifle with her own. Maggie went along for the ride in case her long-range scoped rifle was needed. Once they made the link-up, he told them to move south until they had the trees in sight and in range. While they were making the trip, and while Paul and several of the women from inside the community center came out and began tending to Dale and Sherri, Skip led his group back to the supply room (all of them giving contemptuous looks at Jessica as they passed her) where they quickly grabbed extra ammunition.

  "Okay, guys," he told them. "It's time to end this thing. Follow me."

  He led them out a side entrance and pointed across the park, towards the flooded baseball diamond. "We need to get over there," he said. "We can put some fire on those assholes if we can get in the dugout."

  "The dugout?" someone asked. "How are we going to do that? They'll see us when we cross the parking lot and the grass."

  "No they won't," Skip said, "because we're not going to cross the parking lot and the grass, at least not from this direction. Come on." He began to head off to the west, away from the diamond, keeping the community center between his group and the trees where the enemies were located. He moved at a fast pace, not quite a full-out run, but a little more than a simple jog. His group of recently popped cherries consisted of seven women and three men. They ran single file behind him, their weapons clanking and their extra ammo rattling.

  He led them out of the park and into the residential area, down a street where many of the town residents, including Dale and Jessica, kept house. They went down one block and turned left, to the south, keeping up the pace they were setting for two more blocks, at which point Skip hooked back towards the park. When they reached the street that ran alongside of the park, the wooden backstop of the baseball diamond was now standing between them and the trees, keeping the enemy from spotting them.

  "Move up to the backstop," Skip told them. "Keep low as you move, so your heads don't show on the other side." He then led by example and did exactly as he had told them to do. It was a rather tense dash but a minute later all eleven of them hunched down against the painted green wood. They took a moment to catch their breath.

  "Good job," Skip told them. "Now let's get into position."

  The dugout was just that, a pit dug out of the ground and lined with concrete where the baseball players that had once romped here sat awaiting their turn to bat or take the field. It was about four feet deep and twenty feet long and, since it was a low spot in the park, it was about half filled with rainwater.

  "Keep your weapons out of the water," Skip told his troops as he made the five-yard dash from the back of the backstop, across the muddy first-base line, and into the dugout. He made a splash in the water and his legs were instantly chilled to the bone. He ignored it, submerging his hips and lower stomach as well as he crouched down to keep his body covered. He kept his rifle and the radio carefully out of the wetness. "Come on," he told the next person. "Get the hell over here."

  One by one they followed his lead, stomping through the mud and then splashing into the water. Skip kept expecting the gunfire from the trees, which was still popping, to turn towards them at any time since the dash from the backstop brought every person that did it briefly into the view. But apparently the tree people were a little too busy exchanging shots with Mick's people to notice that. It would be their undoing.

  "Perfect," Skip said, once all of them were in. He set his radio down on the ground in front of him and trained his rifle towards the trees. He could see two of the invaders without even looking through a scope. From his angle they were perpendicular to the trees instead of behind them. "Those of you with scopes," Skip said, "find a target and get ready to shoot. Once we start shooting, keep it up and keep the pressure on them. We're going to drive them right out of there and into a trap."

  There were some murmurs of agreement and they took aim. Skip picked up the radio and called Jack and Christine.

  "We're in position," Jack told him. "We have good cover and an escape route if we need to pull back."

  "Copy that," Skip said. "Get ready to rumble over there, we're gonna drive 'em right into you. Hold your fire until they break cover and come at you. Mick, when you hear us open up over here, you do the same. Pour fire on those motherfuckers and we'll do the same."

  "Ready when you are," Mick assured him.

  "Okay, let's do it."

  Bill was doing all he could to keep his people in position. Their ammunition was getting short and with each bullet that thunked into the tree trunks opposite of where someone was hiding, their sense of panic and doom grew. It was now apparent that a big mistake had been made in attacking this town, had been apparent from the moment that four of them were cut to pieces out on the grass by the group that was now firing at them, but there was nothing that could be done about it now. He was trying to figure out a way to get his people out of here so they could live to fight another day but he saw no escape. If they went back the way they had come, they would be mowed down in the open ground. If they went forward, they would be mowed down from there. If they went sideways, towards the houses on the far side of the park, they would be mowed down by the group that Glenn's group had been exchanging shots with (an exchange which had come to an abrupt end a few minutes ago) or by people inside the community center itself. They were trapped
like rats. So far no one had been hit by gunfire but how much longer could that last?

  Just when he thought things couldn't get worse, they did. Bullets began to fly in from the left of them. A lot of bullets. They slammed into the trees and whizzed through the air. There was a scream as one of the men was hit and fell to the ground. Bill looked just for an instant, just long enough to see flashes coming from the baseball diamond. Instinctively he tried to edge around the tree he was using for cover to get away from this new threat. As he did so, he edged right into the line of fire from Mick's group. Before he had a chance to realize his mistake, he felt something strike him in the chest. It felt like someone had punched him while holding a roll of quarters. Suddenly his legs would not hold him up anymore and he was falling, pitching forward. He landed in the mud, unable to move because the .30 caliber bullet had cut his spinal cord as it had passed through his body. He found it difficult to even breathe, since it had passed through his right lung on its way to the spinal cord. As his consciousness began to fade he was cognizant that his two remaining men were fleeing in terror. One of them stepped on his head as he tried to make his escape.

  That was the end of the battle. The two men managed to get across the field without getting hit by any of the fifty some odd bullets that Skip and Mick's group fired at them, but the moment they reached the street, they ran smack into Jack, Christine, and Maggie. The trio had hidden themselves in a row of bushes that separated two houses, their guns pointing outward through the dead leaves. They held their fire until the two men were less than forty yards away and then they opened up. A hail of lead smashed into them, killing both of them before they even had a chance to realize they were under attack.