But Sarah became far more capable as time went on, in spite of her injury. Eventually she started to do everything for herself, though Carly still insisted that she was willing to do anything Sarah needed. Sarah toughened her mind and toughened her body, knowing that she had to be in peak shape to take on the task in front of them. She began doing one-armed push-ups and even managed to do one-armed pull-ups, starting off with Carly's assistance but eventually managing them on her own. She gained a good amount of musculature and became very strong. She trained herself how to use guns with one hand, and trained for a number of combat scenarios. When the time for the assault on the base came, she would be ready.
Sarah pulled out the map that they had stuffed away in a drawer and laid it out on the bed. She and Carly leaned over as Sarah started poking certain points with a stiff finger.
"I'm thinking it's time to hit their outpost here," Sarah said.
Carly looked over the map at where Sarah pointed then traced her eyes around to other locations and routes that pertained to the enemy. "But why?" she asked. "It's just an outpost. You don't think there's actually anything there, do you?"
"Not in terms of supplies..."
"Are you..." Carly started, "talking about kidnapping them?" Her eyes lit up at the suggestion. She had never considered it before, but Sarah had gotten in the habit of thinking a few steps ahead of everyone else, always figuring out ways to make inroads on the enemy and strengthen their position.
"Yep," Sarah replied. "I think it's time we got some direct intel. I've noticed on Wednesdays they always have a commander going through there. His entourage is always small, so we should be able to do a quick snatch-and-grab before anyone figures out what happened."
"That's brilliant!"
Sarah just gave a smug smile, then she turned back to the map. "Okay, so if we bring about ten people, maybe fifteen if we really want to be careful, we can go up this path here through the woods. That'll bring us right up behind them to this vantage point where we can wait them out. When the commander shows up, half of us can flank up this ridge and the other half can come up behind here. They won't see us coming."
Carly nodded her head up and down, processing all the information. "That sounds like it'll work. So that's Wednesday, you said? Wait... that's tomorrow, isn't it?"
"Yes. We can brief the others shortly and we'll figure out who to take with us."
The two of them chatted for a bit longer, talking about other operations or just about general things that were private between them. They stowed the map away when they were done and left the small room, heading back toward the chapel.
Everyone was finished with breakfast and went over their individual tasks for the day. Sarah watched on, making sure the ship was sailing smoothly. A small smile came to her face and she was proud of the job she had done as a leader. Even a month ago she wouldn't have guessed that she would be this successful, but here she was.
Doug had all of the weaponry laid out across a few pews on the far end of the chapel away from the hallway leading to the entrance. He knelt down in front of them, painstakingly checking to make sure they were all in working order and cleaning each one. He noticed Sarah walk by and he gave her a toothless smile.
"Where did you tell Jim to put the supplies they brought in last night?" Sarah asked Carly.
"Just over in the first resource room by the front door," she replied.
The two of them headed into the hallway so Sarah could take a look at the supplies that had been rummaged from some nearby houses and go through them.
"Why's that door closed?" Sarah asked, furrowing her brow.
All of the rooms in the hallway stood open except for a prayer room halfway down.
"I don't know," Carly said. "It should be open."
Sarah walked up to it quietly and pressed her ear to the door. She heard voices inside, but they were too muffled to make out what they were saying. She quietly turned the handle and opened the door, poking her head in.
Three of the men from her group were inside sitting around a table with a small cloth draped over the middle and something underneath.
"They're going to be coming tomorrow," a garbled, squawking voice said. "Make sure you radio in when and where you reach the outpost."
None of the men in the room had yet noticed Sarah come in, and one of them put the walkie-talkie to his mouth and held the call button. "Roger that. We'll make sure to lead them right into your trap."
Sarah stood in the open doorway, her mouth falling open. The others looked up at last and noticed her, a similar look of shock painting their faces.
"We want Sarah," the garbled voice over the walkie-talkie said. "Make sure she's there."
The man quickly pulled the walkie away and hid it under the cloth on the table, not taking his wide eyes off Sarah.
Carly stood behind Sarah and had heard everything that she did. For the longest time, none of them made a single move or spoke a single word, the shock stunning all of them into inaction.
Then the three men sitting at the table all at once reached under the cloth and pulled out three pistols.
Sarah and Carly dove out of the way as the men shot at them, the bullets narrowly missing and burying into the other side of the hallway. The man guarding the front doors of the church looked on in shock as the three men came out of the room and shot him to death. Sarah ran into the chapel and started screaming for Doug. "Get the guns! Get ammo!"
Doug looked at her like a deer in the headlights at first. He had heard the shots loud and clear just like everyone else in the chapel, but it was still too early for him to process what was going on. Despite that, he started taking magazines that he had piled up next to all the weapons and slid each one into an appropriate gun. He handed two off to Sarah and Carly just as the men came around the corner into the chapel, and they fired at the three of them. The men ducked back into the hallway, taking cover, as everyone in the chapel began to panic.
Suddenly gunfire erupted from the back of the chapel and slaughtered many people caught in the middle. Sarah snapped her head over and saw that a third of her people were huddled together at the back, all firing automatic weapons. She ducked down behind a pew, her mind racing and trying to figure out what was happening and where they had gotten the weapons from. But then the answer came to her: this was a set-up. Right from the very beginning she had been infiltrated by the enemy. She had always been surprised at first how fast they came across new recruits, and now it all made sense.
Sarah and Carly popped out of cover and tried to fend off the three men in the hallway and the twenty or so men attacking from the back of the chapel. All the other survivors in the middle crouched down behind the pews and Doug started handing out weapons to them as they made their way to the front.
Behind the roar of gunfire, something made a chinking sound next to Sarah's feet and she looked down to see a hand grenade rolling up to her shoe. Her eyes widened and her instincts kicked in. She dropped the gun on the pew in front of her and picked up the grenade then lobbed it back toward the three men in the hallway.
It went off before it even hit the ground and huge fragments of wood exploded in every direction as the front of the hallway was destroyed, leaving the sight of lifeless and charred bodies on the floor.
The survivors that weren't part of the enemy forces snaked their way around the pews and came to the front now that the threat to their side was taking care of. Doug continued to pass out weapons as they came by him, and soon there were two full forces on either end of the chapel trying to kill each other.
People on both sides periodically raised their heads up over the pews and fired a volley of bullets at the other side as their targets ducked down. The forces on both sides slowly dwindled as each person caught a bullet and went to the ground, some of them dying instantly and others left to slowly bleed to death.
Then something else was lobbed in the air from the other end and it landed near Doug. He picked it up, but he was too shellsho
cked to understand what it was or figure out what to do with it. The flash bang exploded in his hand and left Sarah and her people stunned.
Sarah couldn't see and a horrible ringing filled her ears. The pain in her eardrums was incredible and she held out her arm to reach around and figure out where she was as her eyes blinked open and shut, still not able to see a single thing. She fired off blind shots in the direction she thought was toward the back of the chapel, but she had no way of knowing.
After a few more seconds, her vision and hearing started to come back to her. She saw one of the attackers skirt around the pew right next to her, aiming his M4. Sarah swung her arm around and fired three shots into his chest and he fell to the floor. She poked her head up over the pew and saw the ten remaining attackers flanking to either side.
She retreated to the other side of the pew where Doug had been crouching down, and she fired off shots at the people advancing from that end, forcing them to duck down into cover and cease their approach. She looked down next to her and saw Doug lying on the floor. His hand that had been holding the flash bang was nothing but mangled and dangling strips of flesh now and scorch marks covered his chest and face. Blood came out of his mouth and his eyes drifted from the ceiling down to Sarah's. He tried to open his mouth and say something, but a soft gurgling was all that came out. A moment later he was dead.
The people fighting on Sarah's side had been picked down to almost nothing. The attackers killed many at first with the element of surprise, and even though Sarah's forces had been superior in number, they were now down to just a scant eight, including her and Carly.
The others on her side regained their bearings and started to move up behind Sarah at the end of the pew. They feared the Shadow Man's forces flanking them to the other side, and they tried to contract when they expanded. But the enemy flank had been successful, arriving at the front of the chapel and closing them in to the side. Shots continued to be traded back and forth endlessly as Carly took over from Doug and brought more ammo to the others.
Carly passed Sarah an AK-47, and Sarah lay down on her stomach, looking underneath the pews. She laid the rifle flat on its side on the floor and used the gun's kickback to sweep it across as she held down the trigger, creating a fan of bullets that covered the length of the pews where the enemies hid.
Screams rang out in the chapel as she hit a number of them in the feet or ankles. The ones who hit the floor started to turn over and aim at Sarah after they worked through the initial pain and shock, and Sarah and Carly lay on their stomachs and finished the job before the enemies could fire.
Just then, one of the attackers came up behind all of them without anyone noticing and began gunning them down. Four on Sarah's side were killed instantly. Sarah rolled onto her back and aimed the automatic rifle up at the man just as his torso came into view over top of the pew behind her. She held her leg up in the air and propped the rifle on it to steady it, then she pulled the trigger and a hail of bullets ripped into the man's torso and face. Blood and bone exploded out of his cheek and his body went limp. His chin caught the corner of the pew on the way down and the force snapped his neck, making doubly sure that he was dead.
"How many are left?" Sarah yelled to Carly.
Carly poked her head up for a moment and then ducked back down as a volley of bullets chewed up the top of the pew in front of her. "Five on their side," she said. She looked around her and then added, "Four of us."
Sarah flipped over onto her knees and poked her head up. The remaining enemies had fanned out in the chapel, some of them retreating back to the other set of pews on the other side of the aisle. Carly continued resupplying them with guns and ammo as the warfare continued back and forth.
One of the enemies caught a bullet in the forehead and went down. One of Sarah's made the brash decision to run in a crouch along the length of the pews and come up behind some of the enemies, but they all popped up and focused their fire on her and perforated her. Her lifeless body hit the ground and then it was four against three.
An enemy used Sarah's tactic against her and started firing under the pews. Sarah, Carly and the other survivor dove onto the closest pew in front of them, hiding their entire bodies from the shots. When the gunfire ceased and the enemies had to reload, the three of them came out of cover and fired back. They all flanked at once, catching some of the enemies by surprise as they hunkered down and switched up magazines. Two more enemies went down, and Sarah only had the advantage for a few seconds before someone surprised the last remaining survivor with her and Carly and shot him.
Sarah and Carly crouched down, looking at each other for support. There was fear in both of their eyes, and Sarah wished that wasn't the case.
"How many?" Carly asked frantically.
"Just two more," Sarah replied, trying to remember the numbers in her head. She peeked up over the pews and saw where the two points of gunfire were coming from. She pointed out the directions silently to Carly. "I'll fire down the middle and give you cover as you go left, then when you start firing, I'll go right."
Carly nodded her head shakily and then she set off, crouching down, and she hurried around the front of the chapel. Sarah popped up and fired the new pistol that she had, trying not to expend too much of her ammo. Sarah kept an eye on Carly and watched her go around the left side, coming up at the other end of the chapel near the hallway where the grenade had gone off. Carly leapt out to the side and fired her gun mercilessly. Cries of pain and terror rang out behind the gunfire as one of the remaining two enemies hit the floor.
More shots came out from the back of the chapel and Sarah moved around to the right. Carly traded shots back and forth with the enemy long enough for Sarah to get to the vantage point she wanted, then Sarah came out of cover and gunned down the last enemy. The bullets riddled his lower torso and incapacitated him, but didn't kill him. He lay on the floor, gasping for air as his limbs slowly dragged back and forth like drugged snakes. Sarah pulled the trigger to finish him off, but her gun clicked. The enemy tried to reach over for his rifle in his last, dying bit of strength, but Carly casually walked up to the other side of him and put a bullet through his head.
Both Sarah's and Carly's chests heaved out in expulsions of relieved breath. They looked at each other, taking a moment to just silently say thank you for having the other's back. As they turned to assess the damage, more gunfire rang out from behind them. They dove down onto the floor, looking around at their bodies to see if they had been hit or not. When they found that they were both uninjured, they stared underneath the pews to see where the gunfire was coming from, but they couldn't see anybody.
Sarah peeked up over top and saw a hand holding a gun coming out from behind the pulpit up on the stage. The person behind it fired all of his shots off blindly, too timid to come out from behind cover. Sarah motioned toward the guns at the front of the chapel and Carly nodded. They worked their way along the floor, crawling under the pews where the final attacker couldn't get them, scurrying quickly across the aisle and then continuing until they reached the weapons. Neither of them said a word to each other, but they had the same idea. They each picked up an M16 and filled it with a fresh magazine, then they snuck up toward the stage along the side of the chapel.
When they got near the front, they crossed over to the aisle in the middle and paused at the end of the pew. They waited until another few bullets were fired from the man behind the pulpit, then Sarah nodded back at Carly.
The two of them jumped up and stood in the middle of the aisle, aiming the rifles at the pulpit. Sarah turned to the side and propped the rifle up on her left shoulder to steady it, then the two of them opened fire. Two streams of unending 5.56mm ammo ripped the pulpit apart, turning the front of it into a mess of wood splinters and sawdust.
The final attacker hiding behind it slumped to the side and his blood poured over the stage, reaching the front and running down onto the floor.
Sarah and Carly went up to him carefully to make su
re he was dead, and they saw that he had at least eight bullets in his chest and three in his head. They waited for another attacker to spring out, but the church was suddenly silent. Their ears rang from the aftereffects of the roaring gunfire and explosions, and the buzzing tone in their heads was almost enough to drive them mad. They dropped their weapons onto the floor and looked around at the madness that had occurred, the full gravity of the situation finally starting to be grasped.
The church looked like a war zone. Blood was splattered everywhere and bodies littered the ground. In the span of fifteen minutes, everything Sarah had worked toward was gone.
3
REGROUPING
"What just happened?" Carly asked, still in shock.
Sarah looked over the wreckage, her hand on her hip. She walked up the aisle, glancing left and right at the carnage that had been left in the wake of the attack. She thought she had been so smart and so ahead of the game, but spies had wormed their way in right under her nose.
Carly stayed near the front of the chapel, trying to take everything in. And then a sudden rage set in. She wanted to lash out at those who had attacked them, but they were all dead. So she did the next best thing.
She marched over to the hallway leading to the entrance, past the three dead men who had initiated the attack, and she went into the room where they were having their secretive conference. The walkie-talkie sat on the table just as they had left it, and it was silent now, not having received a transmission from the three men for some time. She picked it up and held it to her mouth, her thumb about to depress the call button.
"No!" Sarah yelled from behind as she ran up and ripped the walkie-talkie out of her hand.
"Why not?" Carly asked angrily.
"Because..." She trailed off, suddenly deep in thought. She hadn't had time to think about it in the chaos, but now that things were settled she found it curious how the person on the other end of the walkie-talkie had known about their plans for tomorrow. She and Carly had only just talked about it in private right before that with no one else around to eavesdrop. Sarah puzzled over the answer, then as she watched Carly scratch that same damn spot under her ear that she had been scratching for the past two months, it hit her. She walked up to her, putting the walkie-talkie back on the table. "Let me see that."
Zombie Apocalypse Series (Book 5): Scourge of Evil Page 2
