The Last Layover (20 page)

Chapter 20: War on the Homefront

It had been a sleepless night for the families at the Homefront. The invaders took shots at them all night long. One shot at a time, every few minutes, at a different part of the house. Sometimes hitting the steel shutters, other times the doors, other times the brick itself. Griff believed they were using tactics trying to accomplish two things. One was to wear them down; if they could keep them from resting, they would be able to attack come morning with them exhausted and mentally off their game. The other was that he felt like they were probing the house. The attackers had focused so many shots at access points, it was like they were trying to find the soft spot. Luckily for them, the Homefront was a hell of a house and had been reinforced in all the right places. The shots also never came from the same direction twice. This told them that they kept moving to avoid the fifty cal, and it also gave the impression that they were surrounded and trapped inside with no clear route for a retreat.

“With all of Evan's preps, did he think of an escape tunnel per chance?” joked Griff over the walkie-talkie to Molly downstairs.

Before Molly could answer, a rough-sounding man’s voice came over the walkie-talkie and said, “If he had, we would be in there too.”

Crap!
Griff and Molly thought simultaneously.
They've compromised our channel.
They had just lost their communications if they wanted to keep any OPSEC quiet. “What do you want?” demanded Molly on the radio.

“Everything,” the man said.

“We don't have anything of value here,” she said.

“Oh, you do,” he said. “We know what you've got, and we aren't leaving without it.”

Griff looked at Greg and said, “Run downstairs and tell Molly to stay off of the walkie-talkies unless it's an emergency. Tell her just to click the mic four times if she needs you to run downstairs to relay a message back up to me. And while you’re down there, find out if she sees anything out there, because I think those guys are about to make a move.” Greg jumped up and ran downstairs to do as his father asked.

He came back up the stairs just a few minutes later, yelling, “Truck at the gate!”

Griff turned around and shoved the fifty barrel out the shooting port, and as soon as he did, bullets started to ring off of the reinforced shutters. They were trying to suppress his fire while a truck charged the gate. Griff didn't flinch at all while the bullets were bouncing off, just feet from him on the other side of the shutters. He held steady, focused the big fifty's scope, zoomed in on where the engine would be on the truck, and let loose a six hundred and sixty grain, full-metal jacket projectile that smashed into the engine block of the truck, disabling it instantly. He quickly re-chambered another round, readjusted his aim, and sprayed the driver’s blood and brain matter all over the inside windows of the truck. “That'll take a while to clean up,” he said under his breath.

“What?” Greg asked.

”Oh nothing, just mumbling to myself,” replied Griff.

Just then, a barrage of bullets struck the shutter where Griff was shooting, and a random bullet found its way through the shooting port. It whizzed by Griff and grazed the top of Greg's head. Greg screamed and dropped to the floor, holding his hands on his head as blood ran down his face. Griff let go of the fifty and turned around and limped over to Greg.

“Let me see it,” he said forcefully. He pulled Greg's hands out of the way and saw a deep laceration going all the way down to his skull where the bullet grazed off of his head. He could see the impact point on the wall behind him. “You’re fine, you’re fine!” Griff said. He clicked his mic four times and Judy came running up the stairs. She almost panicked when she saw all of the blood on Greg's face, but Griff reassured her it would be okay. “Just bandage him up to stop the bleeding for now,” Griff said.

Downstairs, Molly heard some rustling and struggling by the window next to the laundry room. “The Pyracanthas! One of those guys is caught up in it by that window.”

Jake looked at her, confused and then she said, “The fire thorns!” She ran across the room and grabbed Jake's VZ58 and yelled, “Watch your sisters!” She shoved the VZ barrel through the glass pane on the inside of the window, breaking through to get the barrel through the shooting port, pointed the gun down towards the bush, and emptied the thirty round magazine into the man. It was the first time she had shot someone and was so caught up in the adrenalin rush, that without a clear view of the assailant, she just shot until it ran dry.

She pulled the gun back in and had just begun to run back to the main basement room, when a man rammed the door with a makeshift battering ram in front of her, and in between her and the kids. The structural reinforcements, however, kept the door on its hinges for now. It was just then she realized she had emptied the gun and didn't bring a spare magazine. Jake ran across the room in front of her with the Mossberg 590 in hand and shoved it through the cat door that they had installed for a prone shooting port at the bottom of the door, and blew the man’s leg apart. He pulled the shotgun back in, racked a round in the chamber, shoved it back out the hole, and blindly fired another round killing the man who was now lying right in front of the blast.

Molly ran by him, grabbed him by the arm, and pulled him back into the center basement room. She slammed and locked the security door behind them where they met Judy as she was running back down the stairs. Judy and Molly updated each other on what they had each just seen and done.

Judy said, “Griff thinks they've figured out the fifty can't get a line on them once they are in close to the house, so if they draw the fifty's fire up front, they rush the house from the rear, or possibly vice versa. Either way, these guys are coordinating their attacks.”

Out on the road, Evan and Jason quickly developed a plan. They left the women and children with the truck and put several cans of ammo and Jason's Remington in the car. Evan looked at Jason and said, “I don't have enough 5.56mm left to get into a fight. In hindsight, we should have hiked up on that hill and stripped those guys you smoked at that roadside ambush of their gear. But hey, we are new to the whole end of the world thing and hindsight is 20/20. Give me one of your SKSs and a can of ammo and a bunch of mags.”

Jason ran back to the truck and grabbed two of the SKSs. Then slung one over his back and tossed the other one to Evan. Both had been fitted with thirty-round magazines and he tossed Evan a magazine bag containing eight loaded mags. He also grabbed an SKS for himself, as well, to back up the slow rate of fire from the Remington bolt action. They then jumped in the car and took off towards the gravel road.

Evan said, “You remember the tree stands, right?”

“Sure do,” replied Jason.

“Well, I'm giving you your hunting license. Go from stand to stand with your Remington and snipe at those guys. They will never think to look up into the trees, and if they do, remember you can rappel down, using the tree for cover. There is a climbing rig in each stand. I'm gonna try and be a thorn in their side, distracting them while you take them out. Just don't shoot me from a distance because you can't tell who I am.”

“No promises,” said Jason as he took off into the woods with his Remington in his hands and his SKS on his back.

Evan also slipped off into the woods, but he took a different course and set out to flank the truck that was parked sideways to block the road. He crept up on the lone gunman they had left behind to watch the truck.
He must be their rookie
, Evan thought as he stalked the man like he was a game animal. Evan readied the SKS with his right hand, and then picked up a rock and tossed it at the side of the truck with his left. The man heard the metallic thud as the rock hit the truck. He spun around in the direction of the noise as Evan lit him up from the side, sending three thirty-caliber bullets into his vitals. The man dropped dead to the ground before he even knew where Evan was.

After Evan verified that the scene was secure and that it did not appear that anyone was coming back to check on their cohort, he snuck over to the truck and opened the gas cap. He reached down and tore off a piece of his own undershirt from underneath his jacket. He twisted it up, shoved the t-shirt down into the gas cap, and lit it with the survival lighter that he always carried in his jacket. Once it was burning, he jogged on down the road towards the house and ducked back into the woods.

Meanwhile, Jason had come to his first tree stand. He climbed up the small tree stand hunting ladder that consisted of strap on climbing sticks. It was hardly noticeable at a glance, keeping the location of the stand hidden. Once he got up in the tree, he strapped himself into the harness for a quick egress. He raised his Remy up, propped it on a tree branch, and started scanning through his scope for an opportunity. From his vantage point, he had a great view of the field of fire in the front of the house. Just then, he heard an explosion coming from back on the road.

The explosion that Jason heard was the car fire that Evan made out of the aggressor's pickup truck. He did it to get the attention of the aggressors and to help with a diversion for Jason or anyone at the house that may need a moment to get a shot off. Just then, Evan saw a rough-looking man in his early thirties, with a tattoo wrapping all the way around his neck and up the side of his face, running down the road to investigate the explosion. Evan waited until the man jogged just past his hiding spot and he let two rounds go from the SKS. The first shot struck the man in the lower back and the second the back of his head, spilling his brains all over the road.

From Jason's vantage point, the man who ran back into Evan's trap gave away a hunkered down position where he and two other men lay low. They were using their position to occasionally spray a harassing fire at the house. Jason didn't know it at the time, but that fire was directed at Griff to keep him occupied with the fifty out front, while their cohorts approached the house from the rear. Jason zoomed in his scope to its maximum zoom and scanned for a target of opportunity. It was at least two hundred yards away, but with the powerful Nightforce scope, Jason was able to make out the top of a bald man's head. He adjusted his shot for the prevailing wind, and let it fly. The impact of the round took the very top of the man's head off, spraying matter all over the man sitting next to him. This caused the second man to move, giving away his position as well. Jason chambered another round and shot through some thin brush that was blocking his view where he assumed the man would be. The bullet ripped right through the man's side. The impact of the bullet tossed the body slightly into view, just enough that Jason knew he got the kill. He then patiently watched for any more movement from the position. He didn't see anything after a few minutes, so he slung the rifle on his back and rappelled down the tree. He then took off running through the woods to the next tree stand location.

Griff watched the position that Jason had just decimated through the scope on the fifty. He couldn't get a shot at the guys from where he was, but he could see the crossfire coming from ninety degrees to his position taking the men out. Griff got on the radio and said, “The cavalry is here, dirt bags. You picked the wrong house today.” He wasn't sure who was doing the shooting, but he thought a little psychological warfare couldn't hurt. Molly heard this and thought to herself,
Is that them? Are they finally here? Oh, God, please let it be
.

Evan ducked back into the woods and circled around the house to the right, while Jason's position took him around to the left. Jason reached the next tree stand, climbed up, got himself set up quickly, and was back to searching for a target. He could now get a clear view of the left side of the house as well as most of the back. He scanned the area with his scope and saw the two bodies behind the house that Molly and Jake had dispatched a little while earlier. He kept scanning the area until he saw two men behind the stacked firewood. The firewood was almost around the other side of the house in the back. Jason knew if he tried but missed, and they ran, they would likely go around towards Evan. He picked up his walkie-talkie and said, “Ev, sending.”

Evan heard the transmission and thought to himself,
I hope that means what I think it does
. He crept up to the edge of the woods on the right front side of the house and held his aim on the back corner. Jason took aim at the clearest target he could get, which was one of the men's boots, from what appeared to be him having his foot out behind himself while in a kneeling position. Jason carefully took his aim and squeezed the trigger. Through the scope, he could see the .300 Win Mag round rip through the man's boot, shattering his foot and blowing parts of it out the other side. The man fell backwards in agony and Jason quickly chambered another round and ended his misery with a shot center mass. The man next to him, realizing that they were being fired upon from an unknown position behind them, retreated from the wood pile, running directly towards where Evan patiently waited. The man ran right into Evan's sights as Evan put three rounds into him, dropping him like a sack of potatoes.

Griff watched through his scope and saw Evan dart out of the woods after his muzzle flashes gave his position away. “Holy crap, I think that's Evan!” he said out loud.

Evan crept up to the corner of the house and lay down in the prone position, being careful not to get into the Pyracantha bushes while using them as visual cover. Jason could now see him through his scope from his elevated position. He then turned to scan the rest of the yard, where he saw a man hiding in the chicken coop. Jason got on the walkie-talkie and made a chicken sound, “Bock, bock, bacock.”