“Anybody not on shift would have gathered at the school once the shooting started,” she said.
Grossman dispatched one of his two security to grab a signaler while he gave some last-minute instructions to Davis and made his way down the steep stairs with his cane and bad leg.
By the time he got to the truck, it was running and ready to go. He hauled himself up into the passenger seat and told the driver to hit it. “East bridge first, since the defense there is just reconstituting.”
The truck arrived not a moment too soon. The surviving members of the bridge guard were pinned down while reinforcements were trying to get set. The cargo truck was just tall enough to give Grossman a vantage point. With the bed of the truck sandbagged as well, his two security were able to lay down some good suppressive fire from a protected position. The truck itself screened the reinforcements so they could get into position.
Once the situation there was stabilized, they moved toward the south. The amount of smoke and the smell of burning were getting noticeably heavier as they covered the few blocks to where his people were holding their secondary line. When he got there, Grossman could see that the fire had spread to at least five houses on both sides of the last street at the edge of town.
The defensive line was set up at the next line of houses. The townsfolk were both inside the houses and between them, aiming across the backyards at where the invaders were. Grossman had no idea how heavy the firebombs Carter’s people were using were, but the fact that there were two splats of flaming fuel short of the unburnt line of houses was a good sign that they were out of range.
“I need you to hold them here!” Grossman called out to his defenders. “Do not let them start burning this block. This is as far as they go.”
In response, a lit highway flare arced across the street. It bounced off the back of a house and landed on a brick patio.
Grossman sat back down in his seat and gave the order to move on to the west.
“Whoa!” his driver said.
Grossman followed where the man was looking. Another cargo truck, twin to the one he was in, had just crossed the bridge into town and was slowing down.
Hank Carter was running from cover to hop into it.
25
Daniel Prange couldn’t believe his luck. The amount of rushing and shouting happening outside of his cell was one thing, but he could also hear just the slightest sound of gunfire filtering to him in the rare moments of stillness in the basement.
The amount of disruption had to be Carter coming in. Prange only had to hope that nobody in the town decided to off him before the cavalry arrived to pick him up.
Somewhere in the back of his mind, he knew that an attack on the town was no guarantee that he’d be successfully rescued, but he was so excited by the possibility that he shoved any serious consideration of failure from his mind. With maybe twelve hours to go before his execution, a bold stroke to free him was just too perfect to not work.
The one voice Prange noticed was missing from the bustle and chaos in the hallway was Vic Davis’s. He figured the police chief was either up on the roof or out on the streets. That left maybe one other actual trained cop in the building. The rest were regular citizens who’d volunteered after the Event. It was something to keep in mind, should an opportunity present itself.
There was also no reason to wait for that opportunity when he could nudge it along a little bit. After his man had escaped detention at the school, Prange and his cell had undergone a reasonably thorough search. His folding chair had been seriously looked over before being taken away, as had the card table. All he was left for furniture was a couple of pillows and an air mattress. At mealtime, he was given paper plates and plastic cutlery, which were pointedly inventoried when they were dropped off and picked up again.
All of this was fine and good, except that Prange had managed to gradually work loose a nail that had been used at one time to hang a picture frame or whiteboard to the wall. He’d managed to hide it well enough that the guards hadn’t found it.
The door was hinged to swing inward, and since the lockset had been installed to keep people coming in from the outside, not out from the inside, he’d noticed that a hasp and padlock had been installed on the hallway outside. Prange had enough bulk that he figured he’d be able to muscle the hasp if he got truly desperate to get out of his cell, but that would make a lot of noise. He’d long since figured that the hinges on the inside of the room were his best bet.
Since he was typically left alone for a while after every meal, he’d gradually worked the hinge pins with the nail until he could get just enough of a gap to get a good grip with his fingers. Whenever somebody was in the cell, he made sure to always put himself in a corner of the room and keep their attention on him instead of the door. So far, he’d been successful, and nobody had noticed the pins sitting a little proud.
The swing of the door opening and closing with the pins up a bit had also loosened the entire system up enough that he was able to pop the pins with almost no effort anymore. As the battle went on outside the building, Prange kept his ears tight to the door, trying to figure out the number of people still down in the basement and how close Carter might be.
Over what he assumed was a half hour, he heard the pace ebb and flow. Twice, he heard the distinctive sound of rounds hitting the town hall building itself. Those would have been good moments for him to bust out, assuming that Carter was very close at that point, but they also came with a marked uptick in traffic through the basement hallway.
“All hands. All hands, let’s get moving!” somebody called down the hallway. There was a burst of foot traffic moving past Prange’s door toward the nearest stairway. It was not accompanied by silence, though. As soon as large bodies finished moving out, he heard smaller people moving back in.
“Remember, only twenty-five rounds per, not the full thirty. Mayor says these mags are unreliable when fully stacked.”
Down the hall, he heard a key slip into a lock, and what sounded like ammo cans being carried out to a room across the hall. This was followed by the sound of magazines being loaded from stripper clips and teenagers being obnoxious with each other as a way to relieve tension. If it weren’t for the steady traffic of adult boots incessantly tromping down the hallway to pick up and swap empty magazines for full, it would have been the perfect time for him to make a run for it.
Finally, Prange heard the right combination of sounds. More rounds were hitting the building, and at a startling rate. Somebody else shouted down the stairs, “We need everybody around back. Everybody around back.”
The teen voices got silent, but the pace of magazines being loaded didn’t slow down. A pair of adult boots he hadn’t previously tracked sprinted down the hall and charged up the stairs.
It was time. Prange pulled the pin on the top hinge. The lower hinge gave him some problem, as the door started to twist slightly in its frame. He had to lean into it just right to relieve the pressure before he was able to wiggle the second pin loose.
He used his fingertips to pull the door free, and it swung noisily open, twisting and tearing the screws on the hasp free. The kids loading magazines across the hallway all turned and gawked at him standing in the doorway. One stood up and started fumbling for a holstered pistol at his belt.
Prange didn’t hesitate. He charged the boy while he was still trying to bring the pistol up and punched him hard in the face. While the kid was momentarily stunned, he took the weapon from his hand and pistol whipped him. The boy fell to the floor, bleeding from a busted nose and cut cheek.
“Get up!” Prange growled, snarling at him. “You two, into the hallway.” Prange kicked over the table of ammo cans and magazines on his way out of the room, then stood in the middle of the three teens, watching the stairways at both ends of the hallway. At the first sign of somebody coming down, he aimed and fired as soon as he got a clear view of a torso.
His bullet hit. The body sprawled backward, then tumbled dow
n the stairs. The teens screamed and somebody from upstairs shouted. A second pair of legs appeared.
“It’s Prange. He’s out!” one of the teen girls said. Prange smashed the pistol into the side of her head.
“Give it up, Prange,” a male voice from the stairs called out, as the legs retreated.
“Come and get me.”
26
Peter, Chuck, and Larry heard the shooting in town start while they were still a few minutes out. They hoped Grossman’s two messengers had at least gotten back to safety first.
“I’m guessing the fight’s happening at the bridge,” Peter said. He’d seen the preparations the town had been making to defend the easy routes in, and figured that was where they were making their first stands. “Should we join in there, hit Carter’s men from behind, or cross the river up here and come into town from the north?”
“We’ll sandwich Carter’s folks, for sure,” Chuck said, “but with the slope of the land, we’ll be throwing stray shots into the trenches.”
Larry faced Chuck. “And there’s just the three of us. Sounds like a much bigger fight is happening there. Don’t know if we’d tip the scales all that much.”
Peter said, “We’ve had to defend on separate fronts. I think the three of us could provide some good leverage. But I get your point about friendly fire. What say we bushwhack to the river and follow it down. Hit the baddies from the side, so we don’t have to worry about dropping rounds on friendlies.”
His two companions nodded. Peter made sure all three of them were wearing their red bands, on the correct arms and ankles. “Let’s do it,” he said, pointing into the woods at the side of the road.
They were on a reasonably gentle slope and could have made better time if they weren’t doing their best to also hold some good noise discipline. It was early enough in autumn that there wasn’t a thick layer of fresh, dried leaves on the ground, but there were enough to make it real work to move quietly.
It was also early enough in the season that there was still a decent amount of undergrowth to visually screen them as they moved.
Since the right bank of the river was the gentler one, the three followed the river down a short distance until they found one of the easier places to cross. With the overall rain for the month having been light, it was flowing slow and easy, chest-deep at most. “Boots and socks off, hold your weapons and ammo high,” Peter said, finding a fallen log to sit on. As they reassembled and got their clothing and gear put back together on the far side, Peter pointed downstream.
“I know we’re on the exposed side of the river now, but we can stay inside the tree line most of the way down to the bridge. The river quirks just upstream of it, so depending on the actual terrain, we may be able to lay down behind some natural cover. If not, we’ll do the best we can to get a flanking position from inside the cover of the trees.”
“At least we don’t have to run across a big open field, like the last time we did this,” Chuck said.
“As long as we can help our guys hold the bridge,” Peter said. “If not, there’s a long, exposed retreat back to the second line, and another one back to town.”
“So, our job is to not have to retreat,” Larry said.
It seemed like it took no time at all for the three to get to the last bend in the river before the bridge. Fortunately, nobody on the invading side was keeping eyes upstream.
“River’s narrow enough here to clear in a good jump,” Chuck said. “And we can use that steep far bank as good cover.”
Peter shook his head, instinctively not trusting the arrangement before he really knew why.
“Too hard to get back out or maneuver if we’re sighted and take a concerted assault,” Larry said, putting into words what Peter was feeling in his gut. The steep left bank was almost the perfect height to be able to stand and fire, but there was also a lot of fallen and tangled wood at the water’s edge on that side. Plus, the water itself ran swift and close to the bank. It would be a real bear to get away from the wall if they needed to.
“From here, we’re taking long shots, but we’ve got cover and concealment and we can melt into the trees if we get charged,” Peter said. He and Larry were each armed with an SKS with a scope. Chuck had a large-bore hunting rifle with a really good scope. From what they could see, none of Carter’s men on the east flank had anything but M-16s with iron sights.
“Time to join the fight,” Larry said, sidestepping to a fallen log.
Peter and Chuck found their own positions and started scanning for targets.
They were out at the limit of Peter’s ability to hit a moving target. At the range, he could hit paper at greater distances. If it were a deer in his sights that far out, with the rifle he had, he’d probably let it go, knowing he was as likely to just wound it as he was to make a clean kill.
The present situation was different. He was the kind of person that would feel bad about winging a deer and having it run off in pain, to potentially suffer and die slowly later. Carter’s men didn’t raise the same concerns. “Fire at will,” Peter said once he’d picked his target. He waited until he heard the deep bark of Chuck’s rifle before he started his own trigger squeeze.
His first shot missed. His second knocked the man over. He got off a couple more shots before everything downrange changed. While he’d been paying attention to the aggressors, he hadn’t been watching the defenders. The first sign he had that they’d broken was when all of Carter’s men at once jumped up and started sprinting for the bridge.
“Crap!” Larry shouted. “What’s the plan?”
Peter looked up from the tunnel vision of his scope to get a bigger picture. Four townsfolk were running for the line of trenches between the bridge and the first houses of Bowman.
“Keep shooting,” Peter said, putting his eye back to his scope and looking for a target. He’d never tried leading a running target before, and he burned four rounds, then saw the man he’d been tracking turn and point almost directly at him.
That was the man’s critical mistake, slowing down. Peter was still lining up his shot when he went down, apparently shot by one of the town’s defenders.
“They see us,” Chuck said.
“They don’t care,” Larry said.
Peter had to agree. The other men hadn’t slowed their charge toward town, firing full automatic bursts as they ran. Carter’s men overran the second trench line and started angling toward the houses. They shifted to a fire-and-maneuver rhythm, dropping prone to shoot between sprints.
A burst of gunfire tore through the air right above Peter.
“It’s from the flank,” Chuck said, pivoting.
A second burst came through, very clearly from the left.
“Think Carter’s got a reserve?” Larry asked.
Peter took a quick peek out from behind his cover. “Maybe. Now let’s hit the river, get down past the bridge, and see how best to rejoin the fight from there.”
The three pulled back from their position in the woods and slipped down the gentle right bank of the river. Some fire still came in at them, but none of it was truly threatening. A lot of it was rounds sweeping widely overhead.
As they took a short breather down by the river, Chuck said, “I don’t think they ever had eyes on us. Just sending some harassing fire at the sound of our weapons.”
Peter and Larry nodded agreement and started heading south. They came up a couple hundred yards south of the river, where one dead-end street brought houses closer to them than in the rest of town.
Peter decided to take the risk of climbing up the bank, holding his rifle by its stock and holding his hands up. He stood there for five seconds and ducked back down. “Okay. If anybody’s watching this way, hopefully they got a good look at the red and won’t shoot us up. Let’s go.”
As he led the way across a field of wild grass, he saw somebody open a window at the back of a house and wave a strip of red cloth. Taking that as a signal they were recognized and clear to go, he
went from his slower, crouched jog into a full-on sprint. Larry, having a much longer stride, quickly outpaced him, while Chuck chugged along at the tail.
The closer they got to town, the more they were able to pick out individual fights going on. There were a lot of them, scattered around, though they appeared to be radiating out mostly from the three main roads into town.
“Came to join the fun, did you?” somebody shouted from the house they were running for. Peter recognized the voice as the school’s math teacher.
“Doing what we can,” Larry said. “What can you tell us?”
“Just that things are hot all over. Seems like a better class of thug this time, more organized and got some idea what they’re doing.”
“We noticed the same,” Peter said. He turned to Chuck and Larry. “Where to? Town hall to defend there, or something else?”
“Hey. What’s the street look like down toward Fairmont?” Larry asked.
“Calm, so far,” the math teacher said.
“Let’s hit my place,” Larry said. “We know the good lines of sight. We can set up in the attic and snipe.”
“Works,” Peter said. “Let’s go.” He let Larry take the lead for the half block to his house. His friend slipped out his house key and unlocked the front door, seeming to barely break stride.
One nice feature of the Williams house was that the attic had been semi-converted to living space, with nice skylights set into the roof. Larry and Peter had used those to keep an eye on the neighborhood when they were kids, playing at being secret agents or border guards, spying on an enemy.
Up in the attic, Larry told Chuck, “Latches are right on the side here. You can only get the windows open about six inches, plenty enough to fire from.”
Peter backed up Chuck on the north side of the house while Larry kept his eyes out to the south.
Age of Survival Series | Book 3 | Age of Revival Page 16
