Trail of Tears (3 page)

* * *

Sandra Harrington forced her way through the
crowds of rushing people. Everyone knew where they should be; it
was just that the celebration had everyone out of position. Not
only were they far from their normal positions but many had left
their weapons in their rooms and everyone was rushing to get armed.
The only way back into the dormitory area was a narrow corridor
that was packed full of people trying to move in both directions.
All that training reduced to nothing because they had been caught
at the wrong moment. The sound of gunfire made everyone move more
quickly and the general air was one of near panic.

She didn’t know who had found them or how
many were involved in the attack but panic would only make
everything fall apart. She had to do something. She drew her pistol
and shot a single round into the air. In the cramped confines of
the corridor the sound had an immediate effect and everyone stopped
dead in their tracks.

“We don’t have time for this,” she shouted
as people turned towards her. “Everyone already inside continue on
and collect all the weapons, not just your own. Get everything you
can find and hurry. Those of you still outside move directly to
your positions and someone will deliver a weapon to you. Don’t
worry if it’s not yours for now.” People continued to stare at her
as if she had just told them the sun was pink. “Move it people,”
she shouted and the first few moved to obey.

Once the pressure eased in the narrow
corridor others realised the logic of the orders and they quickly
moved to obey. Within minutes the traffic in the narrow corridor
was moving steadily and Sandra sighed in relief. Of course, she had
just sent half these people out to their posts unarmed with an
attacking force of who-knew-what coming at them.
Jesus, I hate
command
, she thought. She looked out at the horizon. “Peter
Harris,” she whispered, “get your ass back here or I will hunt you
down and kill you myself.”

Smiling wryly she headed back out into the
rain to help with the placement of the people she had sent out to
the pickets. Her pistol wasn’t much but it was better than what
most of the defenders had to work with.

* * *

The bullets tore through the barriers with
ease. In fairness the barrier was more a visual camouflage than a
physical one, but the invaders had seen the humans arrive, backlit
as they were by the lights from the dance floor. Sandra cried out
in rage as she saw four men torn to pieces by the hail of fire. All
four were unarmed and they jerked spasmodically each time a round
hit. She emptied her clip out towards the flares in the distance.
Her finger kept pulling the trigger despite the fact that the
hammer kept clicking dully on an empty chamber. She fell to her
knees, sobbing.

“Someone turn those fucking lights off,” a
shout rose to her left and a rough hand grabbed her by the shoulder
and threw her behind cover. Two shots rang out behind them and
darkness enveloped them like a blanket.

“I said turn them off, Adams, not shoot the
fucking things to pieces.”

Sandra slowly drew herself together and
spent a moment reloading before looking at her rescuer.

“We don’t need any more senseless deaths,”
the man said quietly and touched her arm in the darkness.

“I sent them out here without weapons,”
Sandra whispered and ran a hand across her eyes, wiping away the
rain.

“I saw,” the man said gently. “And it was
the right thing to do, despite the outcome. We need bodies out here
manning the defences or those bastards will overrun us before we
can get ready.”

Sandra sniffed and looked at the man but
couldn’t place him. He had deep set eyes that were almost hooded by
bushy eyebrows. His hair was receding on the sides, coming to a
point in the middle like a V. He wore it long. His face was
weathered from long hours in the open, his skin scorched from heat
only a far hotter climate could inflict. He looked like he was used
to having his orders accepted without argument.

“I’m Phil McAteer,” he smiled and his face
suddenly looked far less threatening. “I was in the last batch that
was rescued before your, ah, relocation.”

She snorted at his delicate reference to
their exile. “It was the right call, Ms Harrington.”

“Sandra,” she replied automatically and took
a deep breath to pull herself together.

“I have a few men with me that will hold
this area; they’re already fanning out and taking positions. We’re
okay here for now.”

“Military?” she raised an eyebrow as she
studied the man.

“Twenty years with the Marines for my sins.”
He smiled. The men with me are from my platoon, they know what
they’re doing.”

She nodded and then turned back towards the
wasteland.

She scanned the darkness. There were darker
pools of black that marked gutted buildings out in the landscape.
Off to her left she heard the occasional heavy chatter of their
MP50 emplacement and the dull thud as the heavy slugs thumped into
ruined walls, scoring deep holes in anything that remained
standing. From out in the darkness she heard the fainter pop of a
light machinegun and the answering heavier rasp of the invaders
fire.

“Who’s out there?” She turned to him
urgently, her eyes wide in shock.

“I think I heard someone say Emma Logan,”
McAteer replied.

“Jesus, why are they firing that big cannon
then? Don’t they know?”

McAteer shot out an arm and held her back as
she tried to run from cover. “Sandra,” he urged, “right now that
.50 calibre is the only thing keeping that force at bay. We need
time to regroup and get ready for them. Otherwise we’re all
dead.”

“Emma’s only a little girl, not a soldier,”
she snapped and pulled against him.

“We’re all soldiers, Sandra,” he sighed but
held on tightly to her arm. “We can’t help her right now. If she
keeps her head down and stops drawing attention to herself we might
be able to get to her later.”

Sandra wrenched her arm away. “Drawing
attention? That girl out there was the one who warned us in the
first place and is risking her life to buy us the time we need.
Maybe you can’t help, but I don’t leave children to fight my
battles. Shame on you, Marine.” She had slipped into the darkness
before McAteer could respond and he was left wondering how these
people had survived till now. Didn’t they realise that emotions had
no place on a battlefield?

Denis Jackson hobbled towards the outer
perimeter. Two XM8 assault rifles clattered against his back with
each swing forward on the crutches. Bringing two weapons to the
front wasn’t much but it was all he could carry and every minute
counted. They still did not know who or what, or even how many,
were involved in this attack. Was it because the radio blocker had
been down for a week or had a patrol merely stumbled across them?
They had no way of knowing.

The only thing in their favour was that, if
it had been a full assault, they would already be over-run. The
chances were that it was just a patrol. But how big and how well
armed? A hail of bullets buzzed from the darkness and his left
crutch was torn from his grasp. He fell awkwardly into the mud and
one of the weapons dug painfully into his back. He felt hands grasp
him and pull him towards a low wall.

“Determined to get yourself killed, aren’t
you?” There was no humour in Delilah’s face.

“I brought presents,” he said weakly and
offered her an assault rifle. She grabbed it but said nothing,
turning instead and scanning the darkness.

“You’ll have to stay here now,” she said
softly. “You make too big a target with those silver stilts of
yours. Pull yourself up here and make yourself useful.”

“Is this a date, then,” he tried again to
lighten the mood but her continued silence left him in no doubt
that she was not amused. Suddenly the impending attack seemed less
worrying than the tongue lashing he would invariably suffer later.
If they survived.

* * *

Emma heard the whispering and stopped
moving. She had thought the invaders were further to her left but
it was hard to tell with the rain hammering down and that damn .50
calibre chattering incessantly.
Jesus, they were so close.
She had been trying to make her way back towards the complex but
the .50 calibre was tearing through brick and rock as the defenders
swept across the wasteland. It was certainly keeping the bad guys
from launching an attack but it was also ripping everything to
pieces around her and sending deadly ricochets and shrapnel
buzzing. She had already been hit twice by small pieces of
shrapnel. Both wounds hurt like hell but she dared not move to
examine them. She lay with the rain soaking her back and hair and
the mud seeping into her clothes. There seemed to be nowhere that
was safe.

The bullets washed over her every eight
seconds or so and the thunder of the heavy weapon along with the
noise from the flying hail destroyed her hearing. She had only
heard the whispering at all because the heavy weapon was obviously
being reloaded.

“Sir, the radio isn’t working,” the voice
whispered urgently and there was a faint squeal of static as if in
support of the report.

Wilkins must have finally gotten the radio
shield back up. Thank God. For whatever reason this patrol hadn’t
reported in before they began the attack. That was the only piece
of luck they’d had tonight.

“Forget it,” a voice replied. “This won’t
take long. We’ve done what we needed to do here. Bravo team will
have flanked the complex by now. Once they take out that fucking
heavy calibre we’ll tear through these bastards easily.”

Emma felt cold fingers of dread grip her
heart. She was about to move slowly away from the patrol when the
.50 calibre suddenly began to chatter and bullets swept over her
again, pinning her to the ground. Every time she tried to move she
felt sharp needle-like stings as shrapnel pricked her skin in
countless places and forced her to remain huddled in her hollow.
She had to warn the others, but with the friendly fire and the
threat of the patrol in front of her she was effectively out of the
fight. If the flanking force took out the .50 calibre it would
allow her to move but, if that happened, then it would already be
too late.

* * *

Sandra fumed as she made her way over to the
heavy machine gun emplacement. How could they continue to fire when
one of their own was still out there? She wasn’t stupid, she knew
that they needed to keep the patrol pinned down until they got
organised. But Harris would have found a way to do both. They had
not been gone that long but already the community seemed colder
than before. Yes, it was larger and it wasn’t always possible to
maintain the sense of community they had enjoyed when there had
been only a few of them. But, somewhere along the way, the
community had lost something. She wasn’t particularly religious,
especially in light of what had happened in the world, but the only
way she could describe it was that the community had lost the very
essence that had made them strong. In short, it had lost its
soul.

She wasn’t sure that she wanted to be a part
of it anymore. That could be her grief in losing Harris and so many
others, of course, but it just didn’t seem to be worth fighting for
anymore. Any community that could pour heavy fire on a small girl
in order to save itself wasn’t anything she wanted to be part
of.

She saw something dark move out of the
corner of her eye. It wasn’t movement exactly, more an absence of
light. The dark around her wasn’t complete; the sliver of the moon
still cast enough illumination to allow her to pick her way through
the rubble when the clouds allowed. What she saw was a complete
darkness to her left and she reacted while her conscious mind was
still trying to figure out what might be there.

There was another movement in the darkness
and her mind suddenly made the breakthrough. She shouted a warning
but her voice was drowned out by the .50 calibre ahead of her. Twin
spouts of flame erupted to her left in a short burst and the .50
calibre suddenly went silent. She brought up her own weapon and
sent controlled bursts in the direction where she had seen the
muzzle flash, but she had no idea if she hit anything. She
continued to fire until the weapon clicked on an empty chamber.

Her hand dropped to her side, automatically
grabbing a new magazine and ramming it home in a fluid, practised
movement. She shouted a warning behind her and began to place her
shots into the darkness hoping to hit something. Her night vision
was ruined by the flare of the muzzle flash but she began to move
back towards the community while continuing to lay down fire. She
was nearly at the main perimeter when she heard a buzzing and
something slammed into her. For a moment she felt fine, just a
little winded, and then the strength suddenly left her legs and she
fell to the ground. She frowned, puzzled as to why she was on her
knees and then the pain washed through her body. She tried to bring
her weapon up again but her arms wouldn’t work. She tried to call
out again but only managed a faint croak. Something else slammed
into her and suddenly mud splashed her face.
Where did that come
from?
She wondered and then the darkness pressed inwards,
growing denser before enveloping her entirely.

* * *

April Cassavettes watched the activity
around her in confusion. For a moment she thought she was in a
dream, helplessly watching everyone pass silently around her but
the pain from their constant jostling convinced her otherwise.
Everyone was rushing, their faces scared, their eyes wide but they
moved too quickly for her to read their lips. She could tell that
there was a lot of shouting from the strain on people’s faces.