Walking in the Rain (Book 4): Dark Sky Thunder (16 page)

“They got prisoners,” Mike announced coldly, and I focused toward the back of the group and made out a pair of figures being led along the trail by nooses snugged tight around their necks. Well, hostages or cattle thieves they hadn’t had a chance to dispose of properly, yet.

“Beth,” my dad called, now ignoring his own radio protocols as we got closer to action time. “Can you direct your team’s fire away from the rear of the group?”

“Uh, I can try,” came Beth’s honest response. She was the only one of her team to be issued the night vision goggles. Not because they didn’t need them, but because we had so few to go around. We had four of the fourth-generation night vision goggles from the Homeland boys and Dad had two of the lower resolution second-generation monocles he’d purchased before the lights went out and stashed in a Faraday cage. Additionally, the Barrett had a night vision and infrared scope, but since it was so bulky to carry even without the attached rifle, Dad opted to leave it with the sniper rifle for now.

So when the shooting started, and I was convinced there was no way this situation would be resolved without shooting, only Beth would be able to sight in on her target with any degree of accuracy. That would have been okay, if not for the prisoners.

“Honey,” Mike chimed in, “just keep your head down and do the best you can. Make sure your team sticks to their firing lanes and we’ll be okay.”

Good advice. I didn’t relish the thought of killing innocent victims, but these intruders weren’t here to ask for a cup of sugar. They might still only have been planning to cut through our fields, but their path was leading them closer to the homes and that could not be tolerated. And really, if their scouts were any good, if they just wanted to pass unnoticed, they would have made a beeline for the acres of corn sitting in the middle of our property. Even unripened corn can be prepared in a way to fill your empty belly, or so I’ve been told, and the stalks would have better served them as concealment as they crossed through.

At four hundred yards, the group began to shake out a bit as their scouts began angling them toward one of the fence lines and headed in the general direction of the homes and our blocking force. The ladies might be forced to fire blind, except for Beth, but I figured they would be able to lay down a withering opening volley. All we waited for was the signal from my father.

Those prisoners bothered me, and a few months ago, I might have tried to come up with a way to slip in and secure their release. Kill the escorts, cut their bonds, and then find a safe spot to hold when the shooting started. Hard to believe I was that dumb just such a short time ago. No, these prisoners would take their chances with a bullet, just like the rest of us. That wasn’t indifference, just simple common sense. Trying to pull off a rescue at this late stage, with the guards already on alert could only end in disaster. Thankfully, I was at least mature enough at this point to realize the truth.

At three hundred yards from our line and what I guessed was about an equal distance from the edge of our dug-in fighting positions, my father activate the microphone on his wireless loud speaker and addressed the approaching mob. By now, we knew the group numbered twenty-three, counting what appeared to be the two prisoners, and they appeared to be a hardened crew of survivors. The group contained a mixture of men and women but thankfully no small children. Teenagers, too, probably. Sorry, but in this new world if you were carrying a weapon into a fight, doing so made you a combatant.

“Stop where you are,” my father’s voice boomed, and the travelers dropped into defensive crouches or sprawled out prone on the grass. I hated to give any type of warning, but my father and the other oldsters felt it was necessary. These still might really be simple refugees, taking advantage of the dark of the moon to travel unmolested. Despite the previous attacks on the ranch, none of the older residents wanted to start shooting trespassers indiscriminately. Not yet, anyway.

“We have you outnumbered and in our sights. Sling your weapons and stand down. You will not be fired upon if you comply.” Dad continued his spiel but I could already tell they weren’t buying what he was selling. Rifles were being set to shoulders and tracking the source of the voice.

One shot rang out, and then another, as travelers targeted what they thought was my father’s location. In reality, he was about thirty yards to the west and ten yards behind where the shots went. The portable, wireless speaker was the size of a shoebox, and I doubted any of them would be able to score a hit.

Dad’s rifle spoke, and we all followed suit. During the slow approach of the raiders, we’d already determined our targets and the order of our shots. The men with rifles on the other side went down first, struck in the opening moments. I shot a man holding what appeared to be a scoped hunting rifle, the bullet striking him in the side of the neck and punching out a spray of blood that looked black in the distorted view of the goggles.

I went to the next target, a man firing a short-barreled assault rifle in my direction, and saw my shots strike first his upper chest, and then low on the face. He was dead before his head hit the ground. And then I was looking for my third target when I saw the effects of the automatic gunfire from Beth’s team strike down my next two targets.

The automatic fire, except for the shots from Beth, were sprayed in the general vicinity of the enemy force. The sudden eruption of suppressed weapons from an unexpected angle doomed the attackers, though they couldn’t tell it in the dark. I saw at least half a dozen of the raiders fall in those first few seconds, and then we were was simply mopping up the rest.

If I saw a weapon in hand, that person died. Simple rules of engagement at this point. They had wounded, screaming for mercy or momma or some unknown source of absent comfort, but I didn’t pay those cries any attention. I’d heard it all before and I wasn’t interested.

“Hold your fire,” my father whispered in my ear. “We need some prisoners.”

I stopped firing. Though the radio call had not been directed specifically at me, I had been the only one methodically shooting each of the wounded. I was careful to check to see if my target had a rope around their neck before I squeezed the trigger each time.

“Everybody hold tight,” my dad continued, now sounding like a golf announcer as he asked for each of us to check in on the radio. He was counting heads, I realized. If you couldn’t respond, that likely meant you were dead or critically wounded. The time seemed to stretch on for hours, not minutes, as the calls came in. I felt a profound sense of relief creep over me as finally the last caller, Connie, chimed in with a “present.”

After that, the cleanup began and we worked steadily until the first tinge of daylight broke the horizon. Despite my best efforts, some of the raider wounded survived. The two women who’d been roped together by the neck survived, too, though the older of the two women sported a bloody wound to her side. A mere flesh wound, Beth said as she tended to the injury.

As for me, I had my assignment already. Getting out my rubber kitchen gloves, I got to work piling up the dead and preparing them for a mass grave over on Boot Hill. That was where my family had been burying all the dead raiders. No prayers, no headstones, just a common shallow grave and a heart-felt good riddance.

I still hated having to handle the dead, going through their pockets and piling up the pitiful collection of what they considered loot. This crew was heavy on precious metals, mainly gold rings and what looked like the contents of a coin collection but light on food and ammunition. Lots of blades, however, and the ones I examined closely looked to have been poorly cleaned. I resolved to get a big pot and boil the whole lot. Forget rusting, I was worried about nicking myself and risking any of a number of blood-borne illnesses.

No, I didn’t like cleaning up after the battle, but that was a job I could handle. I did a lot of stuff I hated, and so far survived to tell the tale. And bitch about it. When my dad came to check on me, I assured him I was fine.

“I’m all right, Dad. Better me than some of the youngsters having to do this. Not fun, but not as bad taking a long walk in the rain, you know.”

“Yeah, I know. I just hate…you know, I just hate this world for you. And Paige, but you’ve been bearing the brunt of these changes, I’d say.”

Dad got pensive for a moment, and I let him have his time. He’d already found two of the raiders to interrogate, as well as the two prisoners we’d liberated. The ladies in our group would get the details from the two women, but I could help with the two raiders.

“Dad, why don’t you go spend some time with Mom and Paige? I know Paige still needs a lot of your attention after what happened to Grandpa. She still blames herself, you know. Last night can’t have been good for her. Go spend time there, and I’ll get with Mike and we can question those two.”

Dad glanced up and saw I was serious and a frown set across his bearded features. “Christ, Luke. Can you do what needs to be done? Mike and I usually have to water board these guys to get any answers.”

I laughed. “Waterboarding? Shoot, I never tried that. Never had the water to spare. Usually I just scared the shit out of them until they spilled. No, I’ve never done full-on torture, but I’ve always been able to make them talk.”

“Full-on torture? As opposed to what?” Dad asked, but my expression answered his question more clearly than words.

“Is there any horror you haven’t seen, Luke? Don’t…don’t answer that. Just, get these weapons cleaned up and spend some time with Amy. I’ll find out what these jokers know and we can discuss the details later.”

All right,
I thought.
Suit yourself.
As I collected up the stack of firearms, I thought about possibly giving some of the ammunition, at least, to the Greenville folks.

God bless them, they showed up at the fence near the break-in within twenty minutes of the first shot fired. At first we worried these were reinforcements, but then I recognized Paul and Wes leading the four-man team.

Short on ammunition and still nearly broken in body and spirit, they came to help us hold off the invasion. They would do as neighbors and friends, I decided. Time would tell, but I already had a good feeling about these people. Well, goodish.

And I would see about getting them better weapons for the future. And radios, too. I knew we would be needing friends at some point, and I thought about that old saying I read in one of my father’s books. A friend helps you move, but a good friend helps you move a dead body. Well, we had plenty of corpses now and good friends these days helped you make them into dead bodies.

Pretty soon, I knew, we’d be able to assimilate these other survivors into our own system. I figured that for Dad’s long-term goals, since he was willing to let some of them inside the wire to work in the gardens. They would become part of what we had here, but only after Dad had a chance to evaluate each one of them. But not today, and not right now. We would thank these people for their concern and send them home with news of our victory here.

Though I didn’t recognize any of the dead, I could well imagine that before the lights went out, these scattered meat sacks had been neighbors, or at least people you passed with a polite word in the grocery store. Now they were worm food, and I couldn’t muster up enough emotion to feel sympathy, or even anger. I was tired, and I still had dead to bury.

Maybe tomorrow I would find the key to my lost emotions. Or something. Now I had to finish this nasty chore and go find Amy for some reassurance. Nothing to it, I lied to myself, still better than walking in the rain.

The drive into Center was surreal. I think that was the right term, anyway. Coming through the area that first time, my attention was not the best, and I knew I was experiencing tunnel vision at the idea of getting home. Now, my head was on straight and I was scanning my sector carefully. The changes I noted made my heart heavy with realization.

The winding two lane was not exactly a well-traveled thoroughfare before the lights went out. Thoroughfare. I always liked that word. It sounded sophisticated. Anyway, as I looked closely, I could make out the telltale signs of refugees having passed this way. Stripped and looted vehicles dotted the roadway, of course, but so did the abandoned detritus of countless pedestrians walking this stretch of blacktop.

Damaged shopping carts and discarded roller luggage littered the downtrodden grass shoulders. I thought I saw shapes that might have been bodies rolled off in the ditches. I had to look away from the baby strollers tossed haphazardly aside, praying they were unoccupied.

We rode in Dad’s big king cab diesel, with the old man driving and me riding shotgun with the barrel of my CETME barely sticking out of the lowered window. After the ambush two days ago, I was determined to stick with my bigger rifle whenever possible. One shot with the thing was enough to take down just about any threat I faced, and with the scope, I was good out to four or five hundred yards, even using surplus or reloaded ammunition.

The squish factor on my range was bullet placement. I could consistently hit a man-sized target at five hundred yards, but at four hundred, I was pretty comfortable with headshots. No, still no zombies, but if my target was wearing body armor, the big .308 Winchester round was likely to penetrate. If not, then a headshot. Maybe I was paranoid, but if we saw any more of those Homeland thugs, I was going for headshots all day long.

As we motored down the road, I really wished we could have brought two vehicles, and Dad shared my concern, but we simply lacked the manpower. For about the hundredth time since returning home, I wished some more of my father’s friends had made it to the ranch.

In the back seat, Lori and Beth sat flanking one of the new women, Kate Carnahan, rescued from the gang two nights ago. She was the main reason we were late in our planned visit to town. The original plan had Mike accompanying his wife, but Kate was too freaked out being that close to a strange man. Recalling Sarah Trimble’s reactions, I quietly suggested we take Lori in place of Mike.