Ashley carefully washed her red Porsche. Karen thought this was bizarre since they would be leaving the cars when they left town. Then she watched Ashley , Liu, and Doron go scavenging for clothes in the remnants of the town mall. Mike, Chloe, Brad and Cheryl paddled out in a couple of canoes to a small island in the middle of the lake.
Karen laid in the shade watching David, Samuel, and K-Bar wade in the spring. Samuel squealed with delight each time he jumped into the deeper section.
“Did you see me?” Samuel asked.
“Oh yes,” Karen said.
“I didn’t see any sharks yet,” Samuel said, pointing.
“Sharks usually like the oceans, probably none here,” Karen said.
“See, Mommy Karen, deep,” Samuel called, as he swam around the spring. K-Bar jumped in after Samuel. The water came to his chest as K Bar stood up next to Samuel.
Around the bonfire that night, Karen looked at each one and was glad they were all healthy, happy, and well fed. She slept peacefully until Liu woke her for the two am guard shift.
92.
The next day they broke camp before sunrise. They covered about thirty miles when they stopped to scout the mountain gap.
David signaled, stopped, and waited for everyone to gathered around.
“Mountain gaps are ideal ambush sites, natural funnels into a kill zone,” David said.
“Zeke, Liu and I will scout first driving through on out motorcycles, Karen on sniper watch, Doron driving truck 1, Mike truck 2,” David commanded.
“Any comments?” David asked. There were none.
“Locked and loaded, heads up. Everyone drink some coffee or energy drinks,” David said, as the sound of muted metallic clicks confirmed they were ready.
Zeke, Liu, and David raced through the gap, spread out, and waited behind boulders. Zeke mirror flashed Doron’s truck. Karen did not see any movement through her binoculars, and tapped the top of Doron’s truck.
Doron flashed his headlights, clicked the radio twice, and sped the truck through the mountain gap, followed by Mike’s truck.
Shots rang from all sides, shredding the tires in Doron’s truck, which crashed, blocking the narrow road. Mike couldn’t stop in time and crashed into Doron’s truck. Karen and Samuel jumped into a ravine. Chloe, Ashley, and the kids dived in nearby. They tried to form a wagon train perimeter, as the shooters pressed the attack.
“We will attack the shooters up the mountain on the left. Zeke, Mike, Doron, Liu and I will attack. Karen, Ashley, and Chloe, you stay in the ravine with the kids,” David yelled as they ran to attack.
The attack was intense, and Karen soon realized they were running low on ammunition. She could see David and Zeke scrambling up the mountain on the other side of the pass. They were making progress to the top, where the gunshots seemed centered.
Suddenly Karen saw rock fragments spray her. She grabbed Samuel, and Chloe grabbed Brad and Cheryl.
Karen began to panic when she realized these shooters were on her side of the pass. David and Zeke were only twenty yards away. Karen could see them clearly, but they might as well have been on another planet, since they were on the opposite cliff.
“We are taking fire from above. Do you see anything?” Karen screamed into the Yaesu shortwave radio. Karen saw David stop, and Zeke began firing above her position, full clips.
“David!” Karen screamed.
“Karen there are multiple shooters above and to your right. Toss a grenade at the ledge to your right where I will shoot,” David said. He fired to Karen’s right, and she tossed a grenade. Only one grenade left, she realized.
“Direct hit!” David yelled. “You killed four!”
Karen heard a primal scream as multiple shooters surrounded her from above, and both the left and right. Some of the attackers began to drop from the full auto fire from David, Zeke and Liu.
Karen could see David race down the mountain, but he would never get here in time. She realized it was a mistake to send all the men up the other side. Political correctness was absurd, she knew the harsh reality was men and women were not equal in combat. They performed comparably until the ammo ran out. And, sooner or later, the ammo always ran out. When it was hand to hand, or someone needed to be carried off the field, women usually came in second. And in combat, second place is dead last.
It was like Karen was in slow motion and the sound grew dim. She realized David and Zeke would never have opened up with everything unless she was about to be overrun.
She could now hear and even smell the attackers flanking the ravines on both sides, coordinating the final assault. The attackers were even arguing over who got Ashley, and who got the “leftover women”.
K-Bar had ominously quit barking, he was growling, and crouched, preparing to kill.
“David, I love you,” Karen said, brokenly.
She loaded her last 9mm clip, and frantically dumped out her backpack, hoping to find just one more clip for her empty AR 15.
But there were no more clips.
She wiped her eyes, hugged Samuel, and calmly checked her boot knife.
93.
“No!” David screamed.
He could see Karen and Samuel being surrounded on the other side of the mountain gap. They attackers were methodically advancing, under cover. He was frustrated, he knew he could shoot ten magazines and never hit one of them in the crevice. He was about three stories above the bottom of the gap. Once he reached the gap, he would have to climb up to her location.
He knew he would never rescue Karen before she was overrun if he continued to fight yard by yard down the trail.
“She is using the 9!” David cried. Zeke looked down.
“ Karen would never drop her AR15 unless she was out of ammo,” David said.
David ripped two of his four clips off his vest, tossing one to Zeke and Doron, and slinging two at Karen’s position as hard as he could. The one clip left would be plenty, he knew he probably would not live long enough to even shoot it.
“Got the clip, thanks,” Karen radioed. They could hear her load it, and watched her hand the 9 to Chloe, then return fire with her AR 15.
David’s hands trembled, he felt nauseous. There was no other option. He would jump off the cliff, then attack from behind to relieve Karen.
“I am going to jump,” David said calmly.
“Don’t do it David. Getting killed won’t help Karen!” Doron yelled.
David didn’t say anything, he just squeezed Doron shoulder. In Alabama you just don’t let your wife die in combat first, it just isn’t done. It is one of those things no one really talks about, but everyone knows, David thought.
David calmly calculated he would break both legs, and probably suffer internal injuries. It was three stories and he didn’t know what was on the ground, rock, or sand from the dry river bed. But he could crawl up the ledge, and then hopefully shoot down at the attackers from behind before he bled out.
Just run the checklist, he told himself. He had to focus now on simply reaching the edge of the cliff without being killed in the crossfire. The injuries would take care of themselves later.
“Just cover me, single, aimed fire,” David said, moving out of the ditch.
Zeke looked at the clip David had tossed him, swallowed hard, and looked away.
He knows, David thought.
David nodded goodbye to Zeke, and jumped up. Bullets aimed at David ricocheted off the rocks. Zeke and Doron opened up with cover fire.
David sprinted full speed off the edge of the mountain to die with Karen.
________
Chloe looked over in the ravine, and saw Karen hug Samuel. Karen had killed many greens but now she was out of ammo and using the 9. Karen caressed Samuel’s head, told him something, then pulled the pin out of her last grenade.
“We are not going to be captured,” Karen calmly explained.
“David and Zeke are not going to be able to get here in time. I don’t think I can kill them hand to hand,”
she said looking at her knife.
“You can surrender if you want, just go further down the ravine around a bend,” said Karen.
“Samuel and I will grenade out when they reach us,” Karen said quickly. “We will Samson out several as we go.”
Chloe just nodded, then moved closer to Karen with her two children. Ashley just looked confused, and did not move.
“Do not detonate the grenade!” commanded a soldier running up from below, shooting the attackers.
Chloe later wondered why Karen did not throw the grenade at him, or shoot him with the two rounds left in her 9mm. Or why K-bar did not even growl at the soldier.
Whoever this soldier was, he was a professional. The attackers were dropping in heaps as he fired his old M-16, and slung grenades. Suddenly the battlefield was absolutely silent.
“Cease fire,” they heard Zeke scream, as he ran down the mountain.
Chloe screamed into the pass “We are fine!”
Chloe was amazed to see David get up from the dry riverbed sand and run to Karen’s position.
_________
Zeke caught up, and David followed, rushing past Karen and Samuel to follow the tracks and reinforce the rescue soldier. The tracks were easy to follow in the dry mud, which cracked with every step.
The rescue soldier’s tracks stopped in the middle of a hundred yard wide, muddy creek bed that had evaporated.
David looked at Zeke, but neither said anything as they circled all around the boot prints that just disappeared in the middle of the bone dry mud.
Every step David and Zeke took cracked the brittle mud crust, and left boot prints.
94.
The wind picked up, blowing away from the camp. Zeke thought the smoke should dissipate, so he lit up a joint downwind from the campfire. Doron joined him behind a boulder.
“Doron, you know what Samuel said?” Zeke asked, tossing him a Marlboro cigarette pack full of joints.
Doron lit one, shut his eyes, and inhaled deeply, “What?”
“I was patrolling on guard duty. I heard Samuel tell Karen the rescue soldier was the same soldier that protected him in the attic when his Mom was killed!” Zeke said.
Doron smirked.
“She told Samuel not to tell anyone,” Zeke added.
“Of course she told him not to tell anyone. She knows Samuel is a bright, imaginative kid. Probably yesterday he saw Santa Claus, and the Easter Bunny,” Doron said.
“But Doron, I saw this soldier wipe those shooters out with his M-16. His tracks disappeared in the middle of a dry mud lake bed,” said Zeke.
“He was probably wearing carpet slippers over his shoes to mask his tracks, like drug smugglers on the border ,” Doron said.
“No, the river bed was cracked dry, we could have seen anything with an imprint,” Zeke said.
“The soldier was probably just some other survivor who just didn’t want Karen grenading him. Perfectly logical,” Doron said.
“Or it could just be some story from Samuel’s little Bible,” Doron said dismissively.
“Did you ever hear Samuel say this was an angel warrior?” Doron pressed.
Zeke thought for a moment, “No.”
“Did Karen say he was an angel warrior?” Doron asked.
“No, she just told Samuel not to tell anyone,” Zeke said.
Zeke was shaken. Doron seemed smart and had an answer for everything, but he felt this was real. He stubbed out his joint after only two draws. I know better than this, he thought. His Mom was an addict and he had seen a destroyed life first hand.
“So Samuel didn’t say he was an angel warrior, and even Karen didn’t say he was an angel warrior,” Doron said, pausing for effect.
“But Zeke, I will give you this, if K-Bar or even a jack ass tells me it was an angel warrior, then I will be concerned,” Doron raised his hands in conciliation, laughing hysterically.
95.
They sped along much faster on the open road, but the sun was sinking quickly behind the mountains. David signaled Doron to pull over. “I don’t want to go into another mountain after dark without better recon,” David said. That was a lesson learned.
“The sun is going down, probably forty five minutes until dusk. But I also don’t want to camp here in the flat desert where we are visible from the mountains,” said David.
“How far away to the mountains?” Mike asked Doron.
“Ten to fifteen miles,” said Doron.
“Let’s pull off the road at least a half a mile, set up the trucks in a defensive perimeter. We set up a dark camp with no lights, fire or noise,” said Mike. David didn’t like it, but it was the least worst option. That’s what many command decisions were, the least worst option.
Everyone was asleep less than thirty minutes after dark. David returned to the tent after being relieved by Doron. He could hear Karen breathe steadily, and he was glad she could sleep. David instantly fell into deep sleep, almost a stupor.
Suddenly, David woke up, terrified. His heart was beating uncontrollably. Karen woke up instantly.
“What is it, David?” she whispered.
David didn’t answer, he just grabbed his gun and slipped his boots on without tying them, and burst out the tent. Karen picked up her rifle and combat pack and followed. She had her boots loosely laced so she could slip them on. K-Bar was instantly alert and followed Karen.
“Calm down,” David told himself. It could just be a nightmare. But it was so real.
He hurried south of the bank where Doron was on guard duty. There was a quarter moon, the sky was clear and crowded with stars. He forced himself to pause and listen. His adrenaline surge screamed for him to run and shoot.
David knelt on one knee, and scanned the horizon, looking for movement. Doron was nowhere in sight. Karen turned her back to his back, and looked the other way first, quickly scanning the perimeter with her naked eyes, then slowly with her sniper scope. K Bar was in an alert, crouched position, ready to pounce.
Karen silently pointed to footprints, it had Doron’s imprint. David followed the tracks past the bank towards the mountains. Karen moved to his right, as K Bar moved ahead. He crouched through the bushes to avoid the cactus. He aimed his rifle as he heard breathing, then suddenly swept the barrel away.
Doron was propped against the bottom of the riverbed bank in a deep sleep. His M16 had slipped out of his hands and was pointing towards the camp.
David was livid. He handed his rifle to Karen to punch Doron, when she put her hand on his arm.
“Easy,” Karen whispered.
Karen moved Doron’s rifle away, then said “Doron, its Karen and David. Doron still slept soundly.
Karen gently shook Doron’s shoulder. He woke up suddenly, horrified, reaching for his rifle.
“Karen?” Doron said.
“Yes, Doron its Karen and David,” Karen said. No one said anything. Doron hung his head.
“My bad,” he said.
Karen was very proud of David when he didn’t immediately hit Doron for endangering everyone’s life.
“Later,” David said with barely controlled fury. David checked his watch, it was probably an hour and a half before sunrise
“We need to spread out, and search the perimeter, check for tracks,” Doron said.
“Doron, we will talk about this later when I calm down,” David said, walking away.
_______________
David was even more furious now, burning with anger, and Karen was too keyed up to sleep. They decided to stay on guard duty until sunrise. They saw Zeke walk back from the desert in the predawn light.
“Good morning,” said David.
“Morning,” said Zeke. David thought Zeke seemed distracted, very relaxed. Maybe he just wanted some privacy in the desert while using the bathroom. David however, sensed Zeke was hiding something, trying to be too calm. It seemed Zeke was in a different zip code, like some friends he knew that smoked weed every day after school.
David and Karen watch
ed Zeke trudge back to the camp as the dawn light increased. Once he was out of sight, David jumped up.
“Where are you going?” asked Karen.
“Let’s just see where he went,” David whispered.
Karen followed David as he tracked Zeke’s footprints. K Bar ran ahead and stopped. Zeke had followed the dry riverbed about twenty yards, then stopped at some rocks, where the boot tracks disappeared.
David could still smell the sweet smoke lingering in the predawn stillness. He moved the dirt with his boots, and found marijuana debris and burnt rolling papers stubble.
Karen was quiet when she saw the marijuana stubble. Neither Karen nor David said anything.
“Was Doron doing drugs also?” David whispered to Karen.
“While on guard duty!” David said in an angry whisper. He kicked the dirt back over the debris, and they walked back to camp.
96
“What’s wrong?” Chloe asked, instantly alarmed.
Everyone gathered around the hood of the pickup truck.
“This meeting is for adults only, the kids need to play near the tent,” David motioned
Clearly this was some type of showdown. Chloe wondered if it was over the women. She had told Mike trouble was inevitable when you mixed attractive young women, raging teenage male hormones, automatic weapons, and lots of ammunition.
“Doron fell asleep on guard duty, and Zeke has been smoking weed,” David spat out angrily.
“How long has this been going on?” demanded David.
“Zeke and I loaded four duffle bags with marijuana and whiskey we found,” Doron explained, calmly. “It calms us down.”
“You have to make a choice, the weed and whiskey or us. You can’t have both,” David said.
“Chill, David,” said Doron. “You are right to be angry about me using weed while on guard duty. My bad,” Doron continued, shrugging his shoulders. Chloe noticed that shrugging the shoulders seemed to stoke David’s anger.
“But what we do on our own time is our own business,” Doron said.
Nuclear War Club: Seven high school students are in detention when Nuclear War explodes.Game on, they are on their own. Page 27
