Ever Onward (45 page)

“There’s no need for alarm,” Doc said
to the young woman. “Probably just somebody coming back from
shopping in town and forgot to unhook the alarm. Might even be the
wind.”

Willard shook his head. “Aint the
wind. I watched Saddy close them tight when we passed
through.”

The little Turk nodded
agreement.

Doc frowned at the tall farmer, then
turned to Tom Leeson. “Tom, its probably a waist of time, but would
you and a couple of the men go and check?”

Tom nodded and stood up. The boys,
Kenneth and Jessie made to rise, but Brad shook his head. The
hound, Og, looked up expectantly, but settled back down on the
porch with the boys. Tom, Fred Perkins and Sadat headed down the
road. The little Turk was the only one not carrying a rifle. They
hadn’t gotten thirty feet, however, when they saw the line of
lights rapidly approaching. All three stopped in their
tracks.

“Get back here!”, Brad yelled.
“Everyone, into the house! Kenneth, sound the alarm!”

As the porch cleared, Gus Kenner, the
old lobsterman Josh had brought back from Main, caught hold of
Brad’s arm. “Where’s Cobb?”

Brad looked at the plump, balding old
man. “Probably up at the boathouse. Jenny’s been cooking for him
lately. Why?”

Gus nodded towards the fast
approaching lights. “He’s an ex-soldier. We might need
him.”

Brad turned to Kenneth and Jessie.
“Get Cobb.”

Both boys leapt into the
night, Og running at their heels.

Standing beside the idling jeep, One
Arm shouted through a bullhorn, his voice distorted, sounding more
than a little like Darth Vader. “Come out with your hands up and
you will not be harmed! Try to fight us and you’re all dead meat!
You have one minute to decide!”

Like the jeep, the two cars on either
side of him had their lights trained on the front of the big house.
The garbage truck, parked off to one side, looked like a dark,
wooly mammoth, tusks upturned and ready to charge. Pete the Prick,
Straw Hair, Raoul and the others waited anxiously down the line,
each one of them fondling his favorite weapon.

Rambo came up beside One Arm, holding
a short, slender tube. Grinning around his scarred face, he
extended the tube, flicked up the rear sight and lifted the Laws
Rocket to his shoulder.

The seconds ticked away.

Straw had gotten to thirty-nine when
the rocket went off. There was a sudden coughing sound. Fire
belched out of both ends of the tube and the mini-rocket streaked
off towards the house. Rambo’s aim, though not yet fully accustomed
to being one-eyed, still managed to strike the upper story of the
building. The resulting explosion blew out the dormer windows and
took a good part of the roof with it. Flaming timber and shingles
rained down. The grass of the yard began to burn.

“Kee-riste!”, someone exclaimed. “That
should bring them out!”

What it brought was a volley of
gunfire from the main floor. The attackers scrambled back behind
their cars, trading shots as they went. One of them was dead on the
ground and two others had been wounded.

Inside the house Brad had half of them
keep firing while the other half fought the flames. It was clear to
all, however, that they had to get out soon or not get out at
all.

“The back door!”, Doc Gruber cried.
“Quick, before the roof falls in!”

Brad nodded and all ran for the
kitchen. At the back door Mrs. Wang was signing to Mai-Ling, her
mute granddaughter, to stay close. Plump Thelma Wiggs took the
wide-eyed girl under her ample arm and Doc Gruber ushered them all
out into the night. The rest followed.

They hadn’t gotten thirty feet when
part of the roof did collapse. Smoke and sparks spiraled up into
the summer night. One Arm’s jeep and another car tore around to the
back of the burning building. Shouting followed, then shots.
Someone cried out and fell. Tome Leeson, running beside Brad, was
hit and sprawled on the grass. Brad tried to pull him to his feet
but saw the back half of Tom’s head was blown away. Automatic fire
began to rake across the field. Up ahead a woman screamed. Brad
looked up in time to see Thelma Wiggs fall to her knees. Cursing,
he turned and fired his handgun at the approaching vehicles, his
Glock Compact’s 9 mm. slugs sounding like angry bees. The left
light of the car went out. One Arm’s jeep suddenly swerved, clipped
a parked car and came to an abrupt stop. Brad, down on one knee,
continued to fire till the Glock ran dry. Suddenly Willard was
tugging at his arm. There was blood on the large farmer’s face.
“Come on, Brad! Into the trees!”

Then a loud rumble reached their ears.
Wide-eyed, they watched as the massive garbage truck smashed
through the burning side of the building and continue on straight
for them, chunks of flaming wood caught in its long forks. Willard
yanked Brad to his feet and they ran.

Behind the wheel of the big truck,
Rambo grinned. The flames turned his scarred face into a demon’s
mask. Stomping down on the accelerator, he aimed his deadly beast
at the two running men. Then the windshield suddenly shattered,
spraying him with glass. His one eye momentarily blinded, he groped
for the door handle, thrust it wide and jumped. The truck swerved
to the left, flattened a small pump house and slammed into an
ancient pine, its rear wheels churning up the sod.

Back at the jeep the man beside One
Arm suddenly spun around and fell at his leader’s feet. One Arm saw
a large hole in the man’s chest. A moment later a heavy caliber
bullet slammed into the hood of the car he was hiding behind. He
dropped to the ground a second before another blew out both side
windows.

“Get that asshole!”, he
screamed.

A bearded man named Sal turned and
yelled: “What asshole?” Before One Arm could reply, Sal was on his
ass in the grass, looking down at his intestines. He only got a
quick glance, however, for another shot hit him right between the
eyes.

Rambo was up and running; a red blur
filling his good eye, a red rage filling his heart.“Bastards!”, he
cursed. “Fucking bastards!” He reached the back of his jeep and
fumbled for the heavy Heckler & Koch Rotating Machinegun.
Tossing the belt of armor-piercing shells over his shoulder, he
hefted the large gun, its weight feeling like a lover in his
arms.

“Soup’s on!”, he growled.

One Arm crawled over to him, sweat and
fear glistening on his stubbled face. “I saw a muzzle flash! Up
there by those trees to the right!”

Rambo grinned into the darkness. The
blaze behind them cast its hellish flames over the cluster of pines
two hundred feet in front of the jeep. As they watched they saw
several more flashes. Two small and one big. Off to the left
another of their men went down.

The H & K began to
speak, its voice a throaty roar. Tracer bullets streaked off into
the night, striking the grove of pines and ripping it asunder. Bark
flew, branches fell and trunks split. The smell of burnt cordite
mingled with ashes and soot. One Arm giggled like a demented fool
as Rambo sprayed out his rain of death.

In the trees, Cobb shoved both boys to
the ground and covered them with his own body. Luckily they were in
a slight depression. The whine of the tracer shells roared by just
inches above his head. The hound, Og, lay trembling beside him.
Branches fell. The pine needles caught fire. The barrage seemed to
last forever. When at last it was over, Cobb rolled off the boys
and grabbed his M-4 Carbine. Clearing dirt from the night-scope, he
crept to the lip of the depression and peered through. What he saw
made him groan out loud. Two men in an open truck were racing
towards a knot of people being herded along by several armed
men!

“What is it?”, Jessie demanded.
Kenneth, his ears still ringing, knelt beside him.

“They’ve captured a bunch of us,” Cobb
said.

“My dad?!”, Kenneth
shouted.

“No. Mostly women.”

“Shoot the bastards!”, Kenneth
yelled.

Cobb turned and looked at the young
men. “Their too close together now for a clear shot. Moving around
too much. We’ll have to wait.”

Kenneth’s face twisted into an angry
grimace. “Wait, hell! Mai-Lings out there!” Then he was up and
running, his .22 target pistol in his hand. Jessie went to follow
but Cobb pulled him back.

“Let me go! I can’t let Ken
---!”

“You can’t help him now!”, Cobb
hissed.

Jessie continued to struggle and Cobb
hit him. The youth sagged back, unconscious. Cobb hefted his
carbine and sought a clear target as Kenneth continued to run
towards the large group now being herded into the
truck..

Bobby Stewart and Gloria Ambrose had
been out for a little romantic paddle in the lake when the shooting
started. By the time they were half-way back the main house was on
fire. Gloria groaned and Bobby cursed, then they both doubled their
efforts to reach shore.

“Are you armed?”, Bobby
yelled.

Gloria, dressed in her best summer
dress, one she hoped Bobby would find attractive, shook her
head.

Bobby swore again. He had his .357,
but by the sound of it, whoever was attacking the main house was
using bloody cannons! Grounding the canoe on the beach, Bobby was
out and running before Gloria was even standing.

“Bob-eee!”, she yelled.

“Ah, shit!”, Bobby exclaimed, running
back and taking her hand. Ever since Trina had made it clear that
she was more interested in Eddy than she was in him, Bobby had been
down in the dumps. Then, about a week ago, he noticed that the
scraggly punk with the shaved head wasn’t looking so scraggly. Mrs.
Wang had taken her under her wing and Thelma Wiggs had gotten her
interested in dressmaking. She’d washed the pink shit out of her
hair and put on a little weight. To Bobby’s way of thinking, in all
the right places too! One night last week he’d ‘asked her out for a
walk’. They’d been hanging out ever since. He hadn’t gotten too
far; just copped a feel a few times, but nothing more. Tonight was
going to be the night. After the canoe ride in the moonlight,
Bashful Bobby was planning to make his move.

Now this shit!

“Alright, come on!”, he said, pulling
her up the bank. “But stay close behind me!”

As they ran through the trees they
could see the main house going up like a torch. In the field
between them and the fire, Bobby saw a group of people clustered
around a large open truck. He was too far way to make them all out,
but he did recognize Doc’s gray hair and Mrs. Wang’s slight form.
Mai-Ling was also there, along with several other women. Armed men
were shoving them into the back of the vehicle.

Then he saw someone break from what
was left of a smoldering grove of pines and run right at the bunch.
Whoever it was was yelling and waving a gun.

“Kenneth!”

“What?”, Gloria asked.

Bobby dropped her hand and started
sprinting to intercept the young fool. He almost made it. With only
five yards between them, Kenneth suddenly threw his arms up in the
air and fell. Unaware of the bullets flying all around him, Bobby
dropped to his knees and cradled Kenneth’s head in his arms. He’d
been hit in the chest several times.

“Oh, Christ!”, he moaned, rocking the
dead boy, clutching his lifeless body, speaking to him like a
mother would her child. “Oh, you’ve done it now! What’s Brad going
to say? And Mr. Williams?! He told me to look after the both of
you!”

Then someone screamed. A girl’s voice.
Gloria! He turned in time to see two men dragging her back toward
the others. She must have followed him! He fumbled for his gun.
Like someone caught in a dream gone sour, he brought the heavy
weapon up. Too fucking close! a voice inside his head screamed. He
fired anyway. Over their heads to scare them away.

It didn’t. Hearing a sound, he turned
in time to see two others running toward him. As he raised his gun,
one of their heads suddenly exploded. The sight shocked him. “This
can’t be happening!”, he muttered.

Then the second man was on him.
Something heavy slammed against his ear and the lights went out.
The nightmare, however, was far from over.

In a corner of the Old
Mill, Jenny Hiller cringed in terror, trying to get away from the
two men who now pawed and slapped her. The one with hair the color
of moldy straw held her arms while the other groped insider her
blouse. Curled up on the floor, her mind turned inward, seeking a
place far away from this terrible reality.

After leaving Cobb’s place over the
boathouse, Jenny had taken a walk along the stream. She needed to
be alone; to think things through. She’d been attracted to the
handsome stranger ever since Cobb joined the community; hanging
around him, asking him questions. She’d even started cooking for
him now and then. He’d been polite, but nothing more. At supper
tonight she’d finally made her feelings clear.

So had he. ‘Thanks, but no
thanks.’

Oh, he hadn’t used those exact words.
He’d sighed and patted her hand and mumbled something about a ‘wife
and kids’ and how the ‘memories were still too fresh’. Hell! Did he
think that he was the only one who had ever lost someone? What
about her? The memory of waking up in her parents’ house and
finding them both crumpled heaps in their bed still haunted
her!