Last Stand: Surviving America's Collapse (13 page)

T
he wounded were being carried in from the park by deputies. Two men and one woman. Their clothes were soaked in blood. A gash across the woman’s head was bleeding badly. Diane, Emma and other members of the medical team were there to receive them.

“What happened?” Patty asked, checking their wounds as they came in.

“We were ambushed at the river,” the man said. His name was Tray Lynch—he was an insurance salesman who lived in a house by the park. He was on Susan Wheeler’s water management team.

“What about the others?” Diane asked.

Susan was nowhere to be seen, along with two men from her group and the two deputies who’d gone with them to provide security.

The crush of residents rushing in was making it hard to get them to safety and John ordered some of his deputi
es to form a barrier so they could get to Patty’s living room which had recently been converted to a triage center.

John followed them in and closed the door behind them. He needed to find out what
had happened, who had done this and where Susan and the missing residents and deputies were. In all, Susan normally went to fetch water with five other members of her group. Each of them rode bikes with baby trailer attachments they used to pull the water they’d collected. Two or three armed deputies normally accompanied them during these excursions. The Tennessee River wasn’t far, but given the state of the neighborhood, the trip could still be dangerous.

One of the deputies who
had helped bring Tray in told John he’d been there and seen the whole thing. “We were parked by the river’s edge and they were filling buckets of water when the shots rang out. Susan was the first to get hit and she fell into the water. We tried to return fire, but we just couldn’t match them.”

He was talking about the pistols and deer rifles they were using against semi
-autos.

“All I know is four people are dead by the river and
one of them is Deputy Alex.”

“Alex Winters?” John asked.

The man nodded.

Alex was from the very first training class. A nineteen
-year-old kid who might have made it to the NHL if the EMP hadn’t hit. Now he was dead and Cain and his thugs were likely to blame.

Susan Wheeler was another lo
ss they couldn’t afford. In spite of her high-strung personality, she’d run the water retrieval operation like a well-oiled machine. Now someone new would need to take her place and John wondered if they’d be nearly as efficient.

While the wounded were being patched up, John took eight well-armed deputies and went to retrieve the dead. Part of him hoped Cain’s men were still there. As much as it was against his better judgment, he couldn’t help wishing for an opportunity to seek out vengeance for what those animals had done.

By the time they got there, only three bodies were visible. Deputy Alex and the two members of Susan’s team. All were dead. Susan herself
, who the surviving deputy had said had fallen into the river, was nowhere to be seen. More than likely her body had been swept downstream and left to snag on some jagged outcropping of rock or an overhanging tree branch.

It was becoming crystal clear that a war had started. Abraham Lincoln
had once said that God could not be for and against the same thing at the same time. The thought was at once sobering and heartening since it was difficult to believe He could be on the side of Cain and his gang of criminals. How all of this would turn out John didn’t know, but one thing was becoming clear. When the smoke finally cleared, only one group would remain standing.

T
hat evening, John had descended into the pod with Diane, Gregory and Emma to say goodnight. For them, sleeping down here was now more important than ever following Cain’s attack on Susan and the members of the water retrieval team.

There would need to be some kind of funeral in the morning. Right now the
community was on high alert until further notice. Going down to the Tennessee River for water was now off limits. The committee would elect a new resident to take on Susan’s responsibilities and additional hands to replace the folks who had been killed. From now on they would stick to draining the water heaters from houses on nearby streets. Those were supposed to be their last-ditch reserves in case of emergency. Well, the emergency had finally arrived.

John kissed
Emma’s forehead as she lay in her bunk. He then went to Gregory and did the same. The frailty of a human life had been driven home several times today. From now on, he would kiss his wife and children whenever he got the chance, knowing it might be his last.

Finally he came to Diane. She wasn’t tired, he could tell
—not physically tired, although emotionally, all of them were drained.

John took her in his arms
and hugged her.

“
Promise me you’ll get us out of here before things get too out of hand.”

He pulled away and stared at her, not entirely able to maintain eye contact. “You know I can’t make that promise.”

“A little voice inside me keeps saying we should have left straight away.”

“But how could we have known it would come to this
?” he cut her off. “I’m sure there are plenty of other groups within a ten-mile radius scraping by without a guy like Cain threatening to harm them.”

“We got a bum deal, is what you’re saying
?”

“I’m saying we made a choice based on the information we had at the time. If we hadn’t stayed and help
ed organize these people, how long would any of them lasted? At least now they have a fighting chance. You saw what Cain did to the others around us who didn’t band together.”

“I know,” she whispered. “That’s what I’m afraid of.”

“Maybe you’re right,” John said, hating what it would do for Willow Creek’s morale if he and his family were to up and leave. It would look like they had decided to cut and run and maybe that was exactly how Diane was feeling, but their marriage had always been a partnership, not a dictatorship.

The community would be shocked and
disappointed, no doubt about it. But his responsibility to them had always been a distant second to the responsibility he felt for his family.

“Okay,
tomorrow I’ll call a committee meeting and make the announcement that we’re leaving. I’m sure Peter and Frank will be able to fill my shoes quite nicely. I suppose getting the ball rolling was more than I could have asked for.”

The m
uffled sound of gunfire from topside made all of their heads snap to attention. Then came the distinct boom from the Barrett M107 being fired, followed seconds later by the fog horn. One short blast at first. Then two and finally three.

The first two meant the barricades were under attack.

The last meant the perimeter had been breached.

J
ohn scrambled up the ladder and slammed the hatch shut just as Diane yelled after him.

Wi
th his pistol already on him, John grabbed his chest rig and Colt AR-15. A second later he was up the basement stairs and on the main floor, heading for one of the front windows so he could assess the situation.

The echo from
sporadic gunfire rattled the window panes. It was dark outside, but the western barricade by Pine Grove was still visible. Three deputies stood in a squared stance, firing their rifles at an old tractor that was charging toward them. It had a shovel on the front which it had raised to deflect their bullets. They continued firing until the last minute when the tractor crashed through the barricade.

Sheet metal flew in the air and the two cars that covered the street were flung apart from the impact.
There was a blur of destruction as the barricade was left with a gaping hole.

Another shot from Frank’s Barrett rang out, cutting through the tractor’s windshield and killing the driver. It veered off and rolled
another few feet until it hit the curb and stopped. The tractor was out of action, but the damage had already been done. A handful of Cain’s men swarmed in, killing the deputies wounded when the barricade was breached.

Outside
was sheer pandemonium. People from both sides ran in every direction. Residents fired down on the attackers from the second-story windows of their homes. Deputies positioned on key rooftops were also engaging Cain’s men. A handful of deputies in the foxhole were pinned down by enemy fire.

John was getting ready to fir
e from his dining-room window when figures across the street darted from between the houses. Cain’s men had breached the back fences and were coming in from all directions. Some must have broken into the houses from the rear because the supporting fire from the second-story windows stopped.

A blur
tore past John’s own window. The same was happening on his side. Glass shattered in the living room. He and Gregory had spent the entire first day after the EMP boarding up all the back windows and creating a funnel in his home that would lead to a kill zone. The purpose had been to avoid precisely what was happening all over Willow Creek now—Cain’s men storming in from all sides and smashing through back windows to deny the residents the use of prepared firing positions. Whoever had come to attack his house had clearly seen the boarded windows and decided to attack from the front.

John scrambled back toward the kitchen and the
AR500 ballistic steel plate that would block their path. The plate had been fashioned with firing holes to enable John to fill the hallway with either slugs or double-ought buck from his Kel-Tec KSG shotgun as they approached. The shotgun was leaning up against the side wall. John shouldered his AR and grabbed the shotgun and then swung the metal plate closed. It clanged shut, vibrating in his hands just as screams of pain echoed from the living room. The attackers climbing through the windows had found the razor wire gift he’d left for them. The stuff could cut to the bone and any man wounded badly enough wouldn’t be able to use or operate a weapon afterward without getting the proper medical attention.

John racked the
Kel-Tec and set the selector switch to double-ought buck. An old claymore bag converted to hold shotgun shells was on the kitchen table, filled with buckshot and one-ounce slugs. He would start by peppering the hallway as they came on and then switch to the slugs once they got closer.

Receiving
one of those in the chest at close range was like being struck by a tiny cannonball. He’d seen a one-ounce slug hit a brown bear once on a hunting trip and watched it go right through the animal’s ribcage and out the other end. If it could do that to a thousand-pound brown bear, what would it do to a two-hundred-pound man?

John pulled
on the helmet lying on his kitchen table and brought the PVS-14 nightvision monocle down over his eye, drowning the room in green light.

The first thug came tea
ring out of the living room, carrying a pump-action shotgun. But the business end of John’s boom stick was already pointing down the hallway.

John squeezed the trigger. The kitchen and hall exploded with light and
a deafening blast as the buckshot ripped into the attacker’s chest and flung him back. John racked it just in time for the next attacker. Another loud boom from his Kel-Tec and this time it struck the man in the gut, dropping him to the floor as he screamed in agony. John quickly switched to the one-ounce slugs and racked the shotgun again.

A third man in the living room peered out and John fired at his head, missing by inches, but
punching a three-inch hole in the drywall. A second later an object came rolling down the hallway and clanged against the metal shield. The distinct sound the object made travelling down the hall was enough to tell John it was a grenade.

H
e dove for cover inside the laundry room adjacent to the kitchen. Combat training had taught him to keep his body as low as possible since a frag grenade tended to explode up and out. The concussion hit a second later, blowing the shield off its hinges and tossing it against the back kitchen wall.

Blood rolled out from John’s ears. H
e hoped his eardrums hadn’t been damaged in the explosion. His goggles were off and by his side. Patting himself all over, he realized that he hadn’t been hit by any of the shrapnel.

A moment later
, he was back on his feet, the AR front and center now. Cain’s men had stormed into his neighborhood, into his house and thought they could harm his family. John was about to let them know they’d made a terrible mistake.

The one who’d just thrown the grenade was in the hallway coming toward him, a
pistol in his hand. John fired the S&W, squeezing off four shots before the man fell dead.

The one he’d hit in the gut with the shotgun momen
ts before was pulling himself along the floor, heading for the front entrance. John used the pistol to finish him off. Soon it was clear that all of Cain’s men who’d stormed his house were dead, but the violence outside was still raging.

John exited via the front door, a move his tactical training
suggested wasn’t a great idea, but right now, climbing through the windows he’d laced with razor wire would have made even less sense.

The sight that greeted him outside was hellish. Three houses across the street were on fire, along with two on his side. One of those belonged to Al, and John hoped to God he and Missy weren’t still inside.

The deputies in the foxhole were still being pinned down and John made it his mission to get them back into the fight. He moved rapidly away from the burning house to keep his position hidden and took cover at the base of a nearby tree. From there he spotted the muzzle flash from the guns keeping his men trapped. The shots were coming from the western barricade. John zeroed in with his Trijicon
scope on three men with automatic rifles. Frank’s Barrett M107 hadn’t sounded off since the tractor had burst through their defenses and John hoped his friend had managed to reposition himself.

The AR kicked slightly as John placed rounds against his targets, killing one man outright and wounding another. The third scrambled for cover, but he couldn’t outrun a bullet and down he went. Then John realized a fourth man had been with them and in the firelight from the burning houses, he saw that it was Cain. Four more shots rang out from John’s AR, but each of them narrowly missed as Cain sprinted around obstacles, heading for the line of houses.

John rose and chased after him. Other battles were going on around him. The deputies at last were able to emerge from the foxhole and began fighting back.

The heat from Al’s burning house was intense and the feeling running past it was like running your hand over a BBQ pit. Up ahead, Cain disappeared into the
Hectors’ house. By the time John arrived a moment later, threads of orange flame and black smoke had already begun to spill out of the broken front windows. Cain must have lit the drapes on fire soon after entering.

He was trying to deter anyone from coming after him. A technique that might have
worked on a regular man, but not John.

AR at the ready,
John circled around back and entered the house through a yellow door. It led in through the Hectors’ garage. The important point was to avoid being where Cain was expecting him. He also wanted to ensure the drug-dealing thug hadn’t tried to escape through the backyard.

Inside, the ceiling was beginning to fill with black smoke. John moved purposefully from room to room, AR
at the ready. It wasn’t the ideal weapon for close quarters, but he could have his S&W out of his drop-leg holster and in his hands in a split second if he needed to.

A figure zipped by him ten yards away and fled up the stairs to the second floor. John didn’t have enough time to take a clean shot and didn’t want to give his presence away just yet. He wanted to see the surprise on Cain’s face when
he sent the man back to hell.

John grabbed a dishtowel from a rack in the kitchen and held it over his nose. He then proceeded toward the stairs and began mounting them. He would need to get this done quick since the fire downstairs was beginning to grow.

After reaching the top riser, John scanned the landing without seeing any sign of his target. Checking each bedroom was his next priority. He was about to enter the first when he heard a noise to his right. Cain was there about to fire his AK-47. John dropped to one knee, aimed in that direction and fired. The shots narrowly missed, blasting holes in the wall by Cain’s head. Splinters of wood and gyprock blinded Cain and he fell back into one of the front bedrooms. As he did, the AK fell from his hands and landed in the hallway.

Weapon or not, t
his was a dangerous place to be since the fire raging below them was directly underneath the room Cain had retreated to. John pressed on nevertheless. He needed to finish this, even if it meant further risking his own life.

Black s
moke inched down at him from the ceiling. John did his best to keep low.

When John reached
the doorway, he saw Cain fiddling madly with a stuck window. Perhaps sensing him there, Cain turned and immediately charged toward John.

John
squeezed the trigger right as the floor at Cain’s feet gave way, swallowing him whole. Flames licked up through the opening as though John’s prediction had been right and hell itself had taken him back.

John
turned and began to make his way downstairs to be sure the job was done. When he reached the first floor the flames in the front of the house where Cain had fallen through were raging out of control. No one could have survived that and John decided to retreat and help with the other beleaguered defenders before he was overcome by fumes. Surely with their leader gone, the criminals’ will to fight would die as well.