Last Stand: Surviving America's Collapse (12 page)

J
ohn and the others made their way south along Lakeview until they reached Woodland. The expedition so far had been long, tiring and stressful. They would all be glad to get back to the relative safety of Willow Creek.

Huddled behind the corner house, John peered out to ensure that the coast was clear. When he didn’t spot any threats he gave the signal for them to move. Crossing over open terrain was one of the most dangerous times for a soldier and John’s heart hammered in his chest as all five of them
sprinted across Woodland Drive. They were less than halfway there when John heard a noise on their right. Sounded like someone whistling, the sort you might hear at a concert or when someone was hailing a cab.

John scanned right. A spotter on the roof of a nearb
y house was whistling and pointing in their direction. Then an engine roared to life and tires squealed. The older black pickup tore out of a driveway. The windows were tinted but in the truck bed were two men with automatic rifles.

“Run!” John shouted as he
tossed Frank the medicine. Bringing up the rear while the others raced off ahead, John kept an eye out for the pickup which he knew was about to come barreling around the corner onto Lakeview. Running away from a gun battle was a great way to get shot in the back, which was why he would cover his friends’ retreat.

When he heard
the truck approach, he dropped to the ground behind a group of stone steps and rested his AR into a supported firing position. It had been years since he’d fired a shot in anger, but instinct was quickly settling in. He quieted his breathing as the pickup appeared. The two men in the back fired wildly at Frank and the others. John squeezed the trigger three times in quick succession.

Two of the shots landed low. The third cut through the truck’s sidewall. The two men
standing in the truck bed banged on the hood and the truck sped east on Woodland. John laid off a handful more shots, forcing the men in back to duck for cover. It seemed as though he’d frightened them away, which was good enough for him.

Frank and the others were three houses ahead of him and John
rose and hurried to catch up. Between the tactical vest, full magazines, his AR and sidearm he was having a tough go of it. He made another mental note on his list of things to do: Get in better shape. It was good and fine to have a fully stocked bunker in your basement, but if you couldn’t run for your life when the time came, it might all be for nothing.

Behind him came the roar of the truck. He turned briefly to see it rocketing west now on
Woodland. The black pickup was going in the opposite direction and John wasn’t sure why. He hurried nevertheless, tracking the noise the truck made as it raced through the back streets. Then it dawned on him. They were trying to cut them off before the park, and there was no way to warn Frank.

John charged ahead, shouting Frank’s name, but when the adrenaline was running high,
your hearing was sometimes the first sense to dull.

The truck’s engine
roared louder and John expected to see it coming straight for him every time he hit another cross street.

Up ahead was the park
. Frank and the deputies were less than two houses away. There was one last street between him and safety. John took a quick look, saw nothing and made a break for it. As he did, shots rang out striking the side of the house he was using as cover. Chunks of brick filled the air. They had him zeroed in. Now he could hear the truck on the move again, but it wasn’t coming toward him. It was circling back around. The driver must have dropped off the two in the truck bed and was now coming around so he could approach from the south on Lakeview and catch John in a pincer movement.

Frank and the others
were alerted to the situation after hearing the most recent shots and the three of them doubled back. The last deputy kept running through the park and into Willow Creek, presumably to deliver the meds in case none of them made it back alive.

There wasn’t a lot of time.
From across the street, John used hand signals to let Frank know there were two shooters west of them, moving closer. The deputies took cover in a gully and prepared to engage the pickup when it arrived. At least one of them had the Remington deer rifle, which offset the first man’s SIG pistol.

What John really wanted was
for Frank to use suppressing fire to pin down the two who were cutting off his escape. That way he could cross the street before the truck showed up.

He threw Frank more hand signals telling him to la
y down the suppressing fire he needed. No sooner had he done so than the pickup came skidding onto Lakeview. The passenger window was down and a man hung out the opening with an assault rifle. Without any cover, John did the only thing he could. He dropped to the ground to create the smallest possible target, hoping the move wouldn’t force him to lose precious time before he could return fire with his AR. Dirt kicked up around him as rounds from the truck narrowly missed. Both deputies were now shooting as well. One scored a hit through the front windshield and the car swerved, tossing the shooter back and forth. John saw an opportunity and followed suit. If he could kill the driver, the passenger would be a sitting duck. Using the Trijicon ACOG Scope mounted on his AR, he squeezed the trigger a half-dozen times in rapid succession. The truck’s windshield fragmented into a giant spiderweb, sending the vehicle swerving onto a nearby lawn.

A second later it
crashed into one of the houses. Steam rose from the engine. John put three more shots into the passenger side door, aiming low. He didn’t want to kill the man who’d been shooting at him. Not yet at least.

From across the street, Frank shouted that the two shooters had turned and run away when they saw the pickup crash.

The driver was presumably either dead or seriously wounded. That left the passenger alone.

“We’ve go
t you covered,” John shouted as he cautiously approached. “Throw your weapons out the window and we’ll let you live.”

He heard the faint sound of a man
groaning in pain.

Frank kept an eye on the rear to make sure the other two didn’t double back.

A moment later the man in the passenger seat tossed a Chinese Type 56 (AK-47) out the pickup’s window. Then another along with two Beretta 9mms.

John approached from the rear the way police officers d
id during a traffic stop. In that way he could cut the angle in case the guy in the truck decided to try something smart. The two deputies approached from the south, moving along the line of houses, each with weapons at the ready.

When they were both within ten feet John said: “Are you hit?”

“My leg’s shot up,” came the reply and it was clear he was in serious pain.

“Put your hands out the window where we can see them.”

The man complied. He had tattoos etched across the knuckles of his fingers. Put together, the letters spelled out a rather nasty curse word.

The two deputies collected the weapons on the lawn.

John then opened the passenger door and pulled the wounded man out. He fell onto the ground like a sack filled with dirty laundry, yelping in pain. His jeans were bloody from the knee down. Looked like John had placed those final shots well.

Inside the cab, the other man appeared to be dead. John slung his AR over his shoulder, removed his S&W and crawled into the cab to feel for a pulse.
There was none. It wasn’t clear which of them had been the one to kill the driver, but either way this death wouldn’t be the last. If Cain had had any doubts before about his offer, now he would know it had been soundly rejected.

T
hey took the man prisoner and kept him under armed guard in the Wilsons’ empty house. They also took the truck. The collision hadn’t done much to harm the engine—nothing that couldn’t be fixed. Didn’t matter if the fender and grill were dented. Having a truck to fetch water and perform other chores would really help.

Betsy was still in John
’s garage. He’d been reluctant to bring the Blazer out since it represented his only real means of getting him and his family to safety. Working vehicles were a hot commodity in a country where everyone was suddenly on foot.

The gun battle had rattled many people’s nerves on Willow Creek.
With a group of their own out on a mission, rumors had begun to spread that they’d all been killed. Peter had even begun organizing a group to head out and see what was going on. But intense as it was, the gun fight hadn’t lasted longer than about ten minutes, and by the time Peter was approaching the eastern barricade, flanked by deputies, the action was all over.

The exchange had also shown John that when push came to shove, his deputies had performed better than expected. Of course, the mission
wasn’t a complete success. They’d gone out with a laundry list of meds to retrieve and come back with less than half of what they needed. That would mean they’d need to make another trip and bring more men along with them when they did.

Diane
had been using the pressure canner to sterilize tshirts for cloth bandages when she heard what was happening and came running to greet the men as they returned. Gregory and Emma were there too along with many of the other residents. The men were greeted as heroes, but the expression on Diane’s face was something else entirely. She hadn’t wanted him to go out in the first place. Let someone else’s husband risk his life.

B
ut that wasn’t the kind of man John was. In combat, he never asked his men to do something he wasn’t willing to do himself.

Patty Long had also been in the crowd
, gawking along with everyone else at the bloodied prisoner they brought back with them. To the gathering crowd, these were the drug dealers who had kidnapped the Applebys and nearly killed the Hectors. A taste for revenge was in the air and John was sure a few among them would love to finish the man off. But John needed him alive, at least for now. Even when Patty told him they should organize another committee meeting to discuss what had happened, John told her it would have to wait. He had some questions of his own he needed answered first.

•••

Not long after, they set up in Dr. Wilson’s empty basement. The wounded man’s jeans had been cut off at the knee, revealing the extent of his injuries. It seemed a tragedy to use the fresh bandages Diane and Patty Long’s medical crew had been making since yesterday, but John hoped the intel would be worth the price.

Patty and her assistant worked for an hour
stemming the bleeding and sewing his wounds. The bullets had gone straight through the soft part of the man’s calf, which was lucky for him since it meant no broken bones or lead fragments that needed to be removed with tweezers. Painkillers were the one thing John had refused to give him.

Peter and Frank were both there as Patty and the others shuffled out.

The man wore loose baggy clothes similar to how Cain had been dressed. His hair was dark, greasy and hung in his face. A scar ran across his right temple. In spite of his injuries, his arms and legs were bound with paracord.

“What’s your name?” John asked, pacing before him.

The man winced with pain. The wound in his leg was clearly starting to throb. “Why should I tell you anything? You’re just gonna kill me.”

“You’ll die for sure
if you don’t talk,” Frank shot from behind them. “That’s a promise.”

“Your name. What is it?”

“Your mother, that’s my name.”

John kicked the man’s bound legs and
the man let out a screech of pain.

“I don’t want to hurt you anymore than I already have. Answer our question
s and we’ll see to it you’re treated fairly.”

His eyes were welded shut in agony. “James. My name is James.”

“Thank you, James,” John said cordially. “What’s your last name?”

James
hesitated. John’s eyes dropped to James’ legs and the implied threat of another kick seemed to jog his memory.

“
Clay. My name’s James Clay.”

“You’re one of Cain’s men.” John stated it as a matter of fact.

James nodded. “Guess you could say that. I’m part of his crew.”

“Crew?”

“Meth. Cain has labs all over the city. Mobile homes, basements, you name it.”

“You’re drug dealers.”

“We’re businessmen. We’re venture capitalists. We can sniff out an opportunity and that’s exactly what Cain saw when the lights all went out. But if you think we’re the only ones you’re fooling yourself. This whole city’s being carved up as we speak. Big fish eating little fish and getting fatter and fatter.”

It was sounding to John like
Mogadishu, where local warlords effectively controlled the city with an iron fist, keeping its citizens in a perpetual state of fear and panic.

“What does Cain want with us?
We haven’t done a thing to him.”

James snickered. “You’re still not getting it. Sequoyah Hills is Cain’s turf, his fiefdom. You and everything you own belong to him.”

“The hell we do,” Peter cried, coming forward.

John and Frank held him back.

“How many men does he have?” John asked after they’d managed to calm Peter down.

“
Couple hundred. But more are coming in everyday. Cain has a real knack for making people do what he wants.”

There was a scar along James’ neck, as though someone had held a
knife there and pushed until the blade broke the skin.

“That how he convinced you?”

“Maybe. But that’s ancient history. I been working for Cain for almost five years.”

“Does he have any other vehicles?”

“Cain gets whatever he wants. You steal one of his trucks, he’ll find ten to replace it. You people can’t win.”

“We’ll see about that,” John
replied. “Where’s he headquartered?”

James scoffed. “I ain’t telling you that. I’m already dead if he finds out I
said a word to you people.”

John knelt down and grabbed the meat of James’ wounded calf. “I’m gonna ask you one more time.”

“I told you—”

Closing his fingers tight, John listened to the man howl in pain. He hated having to resort to such barbaric methods, but when it came to protecting his family and by extension the people of Willow Creek, he was willing to do what
ever was needed.

“He’s on Towanda Trail. 552 Towanda Trail. Please just stop. Please.”

John let go.

“He’s over by the interstate,” Frank said.

“Makes sense,” John replied. “That way he can control the flow of human traffic in and out of Sequoyah Hills. Maybe even raid the highway from time to time and nab survivors to satisfy his perverted pleasures.”

John was heading for the door when Peter said: “What do we do with him?” He was pointing at James who was doubled over in pain.

“Keep him here and make sure a deputy’s watching him at all times. We may have some more questions for him.”

•••

The committee meeting which followed was frantic. The entire community was justifiably frightened and John felt a need to balance telling them the dire truth of their situation with the risk of inciting panic. Luckily, Susan Wheeler, perhaps the most excitable of the bunch, was off with her team restocking the water supply.

The most important facts were that Cain was a dangerous man and that he meant business.

“He’s a local drug dealer who’s using his street thugs to claim Sequoyah Hills as his own,” John explained.

Al looked positively beside himself. “I’d really hoped he was just bluffing this whole time.”

“Where’s the National Guard?” Arnold moaned, his mouth locked in an expression of disbelief.

“I’m sorry to say we’re on our own here,” John told them starkly. “If the Guard or even the army still exists, I’m sure they’ve got bigger fish to fry. And that’s exactly why a lowlife like Cain is taking advantage of the situation.
We got four more weapons from his men. Two Chinese AK-47s and two Beretta 9mm pistols. They’ll come in handy, but each of us needs to be extra vigilant. I suggest everyone who has a weapon in their home for self-protection keep it on their person at all times.” John wasn’t done yet. “If we’d taken in those refugees earlier, not only would they still be alive, but we’d have a larger defense force to draw on.”

“I hope you’re not holding us responsible for the deaths of those people,” Curtis exclaimed. “We weren’t the ones who pulled the trigger. How were we sup
posed to know that would happen?”

John wasn’t buying it for one second. “Fact are facts. The night before we all heard the gunfire.
What did you think was going on? You chose to save yourselves and now we’re in a tougher spot because of it.”

“You’re not being realistic
, John,” Arnold said. “As it is we’re low on food. We would have all starved to death.”

Patty clapped her hands together
, making the bracelets on her wrists clang together. “And how do we know what chronic medical conditions they were bringing in with them? We already have one young girl with diabetes and we’re struggling to keep her going.”

“I’m not saying the choice was an easy one,” John told them. “What I’m saying is that with a breakdown of law and order, security is always a grave concern. Gangs forming to prey on the weak is a fact of life in every country where the police aren’t there to help people. We need to stop thinking that we’re any better, or any different.”

Just then, Peter burst into the room, startling the committee members. The look on his face spoke volumes and none of it was good.

“What is it?” John asked, his pulse
quickening.

“There’s been an accident.”