The day after: An apocalyptic morning (62 page)

              "But..."

              "Now!" he yelled, sighting on the closest one and pulling his trigger three times.

              His aim was true and the man spun to the left before falling in a heap. Just as that stricken invader's companions started to react to this, the rest of Mick's troops, including those with the shotguns, opened fire as well, drilling the man behind him full of holes. The other two dove into the grass and began to fire back at them. At the same time, from the trees, four more guns began to shoot. Within a second or two, glass was shattering on the windows of the cars they were using for cover and bullets were slamming into the metal bodies.

              "Get the two on the ground first!" Mick yelled, wincing as safety glass from the shattered windshield sprayed in his face. "Take them before we worry about the trees!"

              Obediently, his men (and women) kept their fire concentrated on the two men left stranded in the open. Though they had made themselves as small of targets as possible by lying on their bellies facing the threat, it was only a Micker of ten or fifteen seconds before shots from the scoped rifles and the AK-47 found them. Though they were small targets, they had no cover to hide behind.

              "They're all down!" Mick yelled to his men after the last one's head snapped back in a spray of blood and dropped to the grass. "Shift fire to the trees now. Keep them from moving!"

              Christine, running with the M-16 in her hands and her radio in her back pocket, moved closer and closer to the popping of rifles. Maggie, a town woman who was a little more competent than most, trotted right behind her, carrying the Winchester hunting rifle. Both of them had ammunition stuffed into every available pocket and both were nearly out of breath from the running.

              "We're getting close," Christine said, slowing her pace a little. "Let's cut over along the houses so they don't spot us."

              "Okay," Maggie panted, following her across a soggy lawn without question. Though normally she was just as condescending to Christine as everyone else, she instinctively knew she should follow the young girl's orders now. The confident way she moved and the unmistakable tone of command in her voice were impossible to ignore under these circumstances.

              "We need to stay as close to these houses as we can," Christine told her. "Jump over bushes if you have to, but don't get more than five feet away from the wall."

              They began to move again, their pace now little more than a trot, Christine staying in the lead. Her blue eyes were alert and peering forward, towards the sound of gunfire, searching for the flashes. Soon enough she spotted one. It came from about two hundred yards in front of her, from the side of the house on the north side of the street, right where Skip had told her it would be. Once she spotted that she was able to make out the figures of two men hiding along the wall. They were taking turns firing their rifles towards the community center. The first would fire and then duck back to put in a fresh round while the second took his turn.

              "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 center, 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."