Forsaken World:Coming of Age (15 page)

The house sat in a large clearing well back from the road in the valley floor, and the clearing extended up the slope. There were several other buildings around the house, but they only saw the mass of stinkers. “You want to take that on?” Ian mumbled through his gas mask.

Lance studied the house and looked over at Ian. “The house has been breached; they are here because of the bodies.”

“You want to take those on,” Ian said again, looking over at Lance. “I quit counting the moving ones at two hundred.”

“Better here than the cabin,” Lance said, bending down. He took off his right glove and touched the leaves on the ground. He moved over to a tree and felt the leaves, and like the forest floor, it was damp. “Can you shoot an arrow in the middle of that group?”

“Dude, we’re like two hundred yards away. I can get it near them, but there won’t be no aiming.”

“I just want the arrow in the group, not hit one,” Lance said, putting on his glove.

Letting his rifle hang, Ian took his bow off his shoulder as Lance reached over, taking an arrow out of his quiver. Ian stopped as Lance unscrewed the field point and pulled out the medicine bottle with the soaked cotton balls. “You realize that house, those buildings, and the cars around it are going to burn, right? Don’t forget we are in a forest.”

“It’s wet enough that the fire won’t spread out much, and if it does, who cares?” Lance said, pushing a cotton ball on the field point then screwing the arrow tip back in. “I’m wondering if some of those columns of smoke could be from spontaneous combustion. Not like they just explode in flame, but a pilot light or other open flame nearby could set some them off.”

“The closest one to us looked over ten miles away,” Ian said, taking the arrow. “We aren’t going to see.” Lance pulled out his lighter and lit the cotton ball. “If we get burnt up, I’m blaming you,” Ian said, pulling the bow back, and aimed up in the air. Looking back down at the group below him, Ian aimed a little higher.

Releasing the arrow, they watched it sail in a long arc toward the house and group. “Damn, that looks like a good one,” Lance said as the arrow started down.

“Feel like I’m Robin Hood.” Ian grinned under his mask. The arrow was forty feet over the group when they heard
whoosh
, and a wall of blue flame erupted from the group. Over two hundred yards away, they felt the heat wave wash over them.

“Damn,” Lance said, watching the stinkers farther out catch on fire. “Look,” he said, grabbing Ian’s arm and pointing at a group on the outer edge move away.

“Yeah, I would run too if I just saw everyone catch on fire,” Ian said, putting the bow on his back.

“They didn’t do that before,” Lance said, bringing up his rifle. Aiming at the farthest one trying to get away, Lance squeezed the trigger and missed. “Shit,” he mumbled, kneeling down and resting his elbow on his knee. He squeezed again. It took three shots, but it finally went down. Ian pulled up his rifle and started shooting any that were trying to get away.

After what seemed like forever, Lance finally lowered his rifle, looked over the smoking barrel, and didn’t see any stinkers trying to leave. He saw a few on fire crawling around, but he left those as Ian lowered his rifle. “You do realize we were shooting at targets almost four hundred yards away,” Ian said, bending down and picking up his empty magazines.

Lance took his mask off and could feel the heat from the house and buildings now on fire. “Good practice,” he grinned, putting his mask back in the bag hanging on his waist. “Get some pictures, and cover me. I’m going to light those up that moved out.”

Putting in a fresh magazine, Ian nodded and pulled his rifle up to his shoulder as Lance moved down the slope.

Lance glanced over his shoulder and said, “Dino, come,” in a low voice. He soon saw Dino trotting through the trees.

It didn’t take Lance long to run out and around the fire and light up the bodies. Only a few had made it to the road. He glanced down the road and ducked down, seeing figures stumbling along the pavement. He brought up his rifle and saw nine stinkers spread out, but they were all trotting away from him. “They really don’t like fire now,” he said, lowering his rifle, and took off in a run back to the woods.

When he got back, he found Ian loading magazines. “How many did you use?” Ian asked, looking up at him.

Reaching back, Lance stuck his hand in his dump bag. It was just a padded nylon bag that hung off his belt that he dropped empty magazines in. “Four. You?” Lance said, pulling them out.

“Three and a half,” Ian said, passing over a bandolier of ammunition.

With all their magazines loaded, the two moved back up the ridge to the buggy. As Ian climbed behind the steering wheel, he looked over at Lance. “How about we just scout this time and take care of shit later? At the rate we’re going, it’s going to take a fucking week just to look at this sector.”

“Yeah, you have a good point,” Lance said, climbing in and bringing his rifle up.

Most of the houses were in the valleys with only a few in draws that fed into the valley. Ian drove down the valley and stopped as Lance motioned him. “How about I get a little closer?” Ian suggested as he looked down the slope.

Lance glanced at the map in his lap then down at the slope. “Okay but no closer than a hundred yards from the tree line,” he said in a low voice and looked over at Dino, who was rigid and staring into the valley.

Ian eased down the slope and stopped when he could see a break in the trees below them. They climbed out and moved up to a house that looked intact, but another house across the small road looked wrecked. On the road were some of the stinkers Lance saw running away from the fire. Ian started taking pictures as Lance watched five stinkers move down the road toward the fire and the group leaving it. He brought his camera up as the five stinkers slowed down.

Before the two groups met, the five stopped, turned around, and headed the other way. With his mouth hanging open, Lance lowered his camera. “That should be enough pictures,” Ian said, tapping his arm.

Shaking his head, Lance turned around with a nod and led the way back to the buggy. When Ian climbed in, Lance looked over at him. “Did you see those five turn around?”

Ian pointed behind them at a huge column of black smoke rising in the air. “It doesn’t take a genius to figure out what that is.”

“They saw that, but they didn’t turn around till they saw that group was leaving,” Lance said, pulling his AR up as Ian drove off parallel to the slope.

“Kind of reaching there, dude,” Ian said. “Develop your hypotheses at the cabin; out here, get in the game. Any fuck up and we will pay dearly.”

“Understood,” Lance said, scanning around.

They finished the rest of the houses in the valley they were in, and Ian looked over at Lance. “You want to eat or cross over the road and stop on the other side and eat?”

Looking both ways down the road, Lance didn’t see any stinkers close. “Haul ass, but stop on the ridge. While we eat, I want to watch the stinkers.”

“Brother, we have porn, and you want to watch stinkers.” Ian grinned and eased down to the valley floor. When he reached it, Ian stomped the pedal and shot across a field and over the road. Lance was hanging on for dear life as Ian drove back into the trees on the other side of the valley and slowed.

Not saying anything, Lance just cut his eyes at Ian then started looking around for threats as Dino caught up with them. Ian stopped on the crest of the ridge then turned and drove down until he found a spot where they could see the road on the valley floor.

Lance took off his small backpack and pulled out his binoculars and an MRE. “You hear that?” Ian asked, pulling out his food.

Standing up and turning his head left and right, Lance nodded. “Yeah, sounds like…” he stopped and looked over at Ian.

“Motorcycles,” they said together.

Putting their food down, they grabbed their rifles and looked out over the valley six hundred feet below them. “Want me to get on the M14?” Ian asked.

“Brother, we aren’t engaging, and if they see us, we are hauling ass,” Lance said, reaching up turning the volume up on his hunter’s ear.

They could hear the engines getting closer, but it seemed to take forever when suddenly, around the bend to the south, a dump truck rounded the curve. Lance raised his binoculars and saw a group of motorcycles riding in two columns behind it. Counting by twos, Lance stopped at forty. The roar of the motorcycles drowned out the dump truck, and they were still over a mile away.

“Those guys are complete dumbasses,” Ian said, digging out his binoculars. “Those bikes can be heard farther away than a gunshot.”

“Hey, get the real camera, and get some pictures of them,” Lance said as the group slowed down. “What are they doing?”

Ian was pulling at the digital camera with a large lens and almost jumped on the buggy and took off. He turned and saw the group stop off to their right on the road below them. The bikes pulled around, and many shut down. The riders climbed off as two bikes sped off down the valley toward the smoke. “Scouts,” Ian said, taking off the lens cap, and started taking pictures.

Lance looked at his watch. “11:18,” he said, bringing his binoculars up. He saw a man talking on a radio. “Remind me so I can check the radio recordings.”

Taking the man’s picture that was talking on the radio, Ian nodded as men started climbing out of the bed of the dump truck. “Whoa, that’s smart,” Ian mumbled, taking pictures. “I’m thinking the dump truck was carrying thirty or forty.”

Lance was watching a rather large, muscular man walking around talking on the radio. He then shouted at someone, and gunshots rang out. Scanning around, Lance saw the group shooting at stinkers coming from the fire. Looking behind the group down the road, Lance saw a mass of stinkers coming from where the group came from, and he sucked in a breath. “They are either dumbasses or very brave,” Lance said, moving his binoculars back to the group, and the man in charge was handed another radio and started talking on it.

Lowering his binoculars, Lance shook his head. “I think they’re dumbasses. Nobody should make that much noise knowing the stinkers have a hard-on for noise.”

“Hey, just means we won’t have to fight so many of them,” Ian said as he continued to take pictures. Hearing the motorcycles returning, he glanced up the road to see the scouts coming back and steering over to the big guy. They talked for a minute, and the big man spoke into the radio one of the others had given him; then, he tossed it to the man driving the dump truck.

Lance and Ian both heard a helicopter coming and jerked their heads to look north. There was a black helicopter flying toward the smoke. Lance glanced down at the group, but they were all laughing and talking as others were shooting stinkers. “With that truck and those few bikes running, they don’t hear it,” Lance mumbled, seeing the helicopter reaching the smoke and doing a slow circle.

When he looked back at the group, they were scattering across the road to the fields beside it. They couldn’t hear the chopper, but they could damn sure see it, and someone in the chopper must have seen them. The helicopter stopped its second circle and moved down the valley toward the group, and everyone in the group raised weapons and opened fire.

Lance and Ian both jumped as a hundred automatic weapons roared, making Lance think of the war movies he had seen. None even came close. Looking up at the helicopter, he saw it was banking west and saw a man leaning over a gun on the side.
Burrrr
sounded like a weird chainsaw as a line of red shot from the side of the helicopter and raked the dump truck and several motorcycles.

None of the group below stopped firing, and Lance looked back up before the helicopter dipped behind the ridge they were sitting on. “That was a damn mini gun,” Ian said, moving his camera back to the valley as everyone stopped firing.

Mesmerized at the sight, Lance lifted his binoculars and saw everyone reloading. He was shocked at how many belt-fed weapons the bikers had. To the south, the helicopter shot over the ridge, heading right for the group. This time, two lines of tracers shot from the chopper at the group as it headed for them. Swinging his binoculars up, Lance saw a door gunner on each side of the chopper leaning out and spraying the group.

Most of the group opened fire with only a few running away. As the helicopter flew over, the door gunners swiveled and continued spraying the group as the chopper banked for the ridge they were on again. Before the chopper cleared the ridge, a muffled explosion sounded, and black smoke started pouring from the engine.

A loud whine started just as it dipped below the ridge. Turning back to the valley, Lance saw the dump truck smoking and four motorcycles burning. Around the area, he saw men limping and many on the ground not moving. “Note to self: If attacked by a chopper, don’t stand near a large target,” Lance mumbled and started counting people on the ground.

“Look to the north,” Ian said, and Lance turned and saw the chopper was heading that direction, leaving a black smoke trail. “I think it’s heading to Manchester.”

“That’s the direction,” Lance said, turning back to the valley. “I count six dead and ten wounded so far.”

Ian continued snapping pictures and noticed the big man climb up in the dump truck and jump down, holding the radio he had tossed to the driver. “You count the driver and passenger of the dump truck because they got cut to pieces,” Ian said as the big man started talking in the radio.