Dark Days Rough Roads (45 page)

The man
let go of Haliday’s throat and punched Haliday in the side of the rib cage. The
area was tender and the previously broken ribs had not yet mended. Haliday
gasped for air. He had given Kayla his vest so he had no protection. There came
another punch and Haliday went over. The man rolled and went to choke him
again. Haliday pulled him in close in a bear hug and then brought his right arm
up, quickly sinking his knife into the base of the man’s neck, severing his
spine. Haliday blacked out for a brief minute. He opened his eyes to the sound
of gunfire.

The
security at the airport was heavier than normal. Rob had spread the word and
they did what they could to coordinate the strike. The hunters within the group
had taken up residence on the rooftops of the neighboring buildings as far away
as they dared to go depending on their skill. Some of them found other places
to hide. Haliday had also warned them about the sniper on the roof.

Down toward
the south end of the airport, one townsman crawled up to the fence. He had
previously spotted the end of a fence section and he started clipping the wire
that held it to the pole. He had finished clipping by the pole, then started
working along the top. He spotted a militia quad heading his way. The militia
rider fired awkwardly with one hand toward the man as the man ran back to the
tree line.

Once he
reached the tree line, he grabbed his rifle and fired toward the quad. The
rider skidded to a stop and jumped off. He leaned over the seat and fired a
couple of bursts. Before he knew it the rider was facing the return fire from two
shotguns and an SKS. He was using the quad as a shield. Two of the tires went
flat and the gas tank was ruptured.

The guy
by the quad reached up and tried to start it, but didn’t have any luck. He
called for help on his radio. He aimed his rifle over the seat and would fire a
few bursts in the direction of the woods. He looked back toward the compound
and saw a side by side four wheeler coming up. One guy was standing in the back
and firing. He had rigged up a harness to keep himself steady.

The
militia man heard his partners yelling at him, “Get in. Get in.” He jumped up
and ran over to the four wheeler and jumped in; it took off before he actually
landed in the seat. The man in the back spun around as it left and laid down
some more suppressing fire. The four wheeler shot toward the other side of the
compound to get away from the townsmen and their fire.

They were
passing a small wooded area when a blaze of rounds opened up from their left.
The man in the back went down and dangled from his harness as the driver
swerved to avoid the gunfire. The driver took a hit to the arm and floored it.
The passenger they picked up was able to avoid getting hit. The four wheeler
made its way quickly back toward the admin building.

The
militia men cut the harness and lowered the man down. He was already dead. He
had been hit four times total. One shot pierced a lung, one his spleen and another
his stomach, with the final round severing his femoral artery. He had passed
out and then bled out all within two minutes. The driver had a shattered
forearm. He was taken inside and his friend was taken to an empty hangar, where
they had set up a morgue of sorts until they could bury the men from the marina
and the track fire.

Two
townsmen ran back out to finish cutting the fence open. They had started to
snip the wires again when another shot rang out. One man fell backwards and the
other one grabbed his arms and started to pull him back toward the woods.
Another shot rang out and the man was hit again. The militia sniper had made it
up to his rooftop and went to work. The man was already dead when his friend
dragged him into the woods.

The
sniper had them scared. After Haliday had blown the guy’s foot off they went on
the roof and fortified the position with more sandbags. Nobody could really see
him now and they didn’t quite have the range to effectively reach him anyway.
The man up there now wasn’t one of the two snipers the militia originally had,
but he had been training to become their third. He was still a damn good shot.

Across
from the main gate there was a small car repair shop. To the west of that were
a couple of small houses and a clump of trees by the road. Rob and a couple of
other guys had rigged up a huge redneck style slingshot behind the trees using
rubber tubing. They filled a bunch of quart jars with gas and shot them toward
the front gate and then sent over some flaming bottles.

The
militia had set up two “U” shaped sand bag emplacements on each side of the
gate. As soon as the gas started to hit they ran toward the row of cars behind
them to use the defensive positions they had set up there. The sand bags were
burning and causing the walls to falter as sand fell out of them.

The two
guys had about 50 feet to make it to the row of cars. They had both run for
fear of catching fire and burning like the people in the track had done. From
the darkened window of the repair shop came an unnoticeable twang of a bow. The
arrow hit one man right in the back and he stumbled forward, fell and crawled toward
safety.

His
partner just left him there to make it back on his own. The sniper looked
around. He had concentrated on trying to find the guys firing the Molotov
cocktails and without a muzzle flash he didn’t know where the shot came from.
He assumed it was a suppressed weapon. It was too dark for him to see the arrow
in his friends back.

The man
hit by the arrow made it toward the row of cars and crawled behind them. The
sniper continued to scan the area, but could not find the gunman. The fires
were still burning and had turned the emplacements into piles of sand. The
plastic type surplus sand bags weren’t such a good deal after all. The militia
would be foolish to try and use these barricades again.

The
archer inside the auto shop pulled out an arrow. The arrow had a card board
tube on the shaft which was filled with black powder and finishing nails. He
had taken care to balance it as much as possible and glued it to the shaft. The
fuse was taken off some fireworks he had lying around. He drew back and another
man lit the fuse. He released the arrow and sent it over the cars. They heard
the arrow explode but it sounded like more of an M80 than a bomb.

This gave
away their position and they headed toward the back of the shop. The sniper put
a couple rounds through the front windows just for the sake of doing so. The
arrow was not effective enough to do any damage. Just a few small nicks from
the nails. They had hoped it would have a more profound effect than it did. No
such luck. It was a wasted effort. They felt stupid for trying it instead of
just using regular arrows and firing from the dark window.

Rob took
a plastic ball that his wife had used in the washer for fabric softener and he
packed this with BB’s and gun powder. The hole was sealed with wax with a fuse
attached. They lit this and used the slingshot to launch it toward the
building. It landed just behind the cars out front and exploded sending BB’s
everywhere. This was far more effective. The two front windows of the building
shattered and one of the militia got hit in the face, losing an eye and
embedding another BB in his chin. People always looked too long at objects
thrown at them instead of taking cover and this guy found that out the hard
way.

The lower
windows had been covered with wood, but a smaller upper window shattered. Not
much building damage, but at least they had made a statement. The townsmen
concentrated coverage toward the front of the building. The main problem was
the sniper on the roof. They couldn’t really advance while this guy was up
there. They would have to figure out how to get him down.

A woman
came out of the back door of the admin building with two men. The men fired
wildly toward the street providing cover fire as she ran toward the motor pool.
She had her rifle slung on her back and keys in her hand. From a distance of
150 yards away and from another small building across the street came another
shot dropping one of the men.

The round
struck him at the base of his nose. His AR fired as he fell. Blood trickled out
of his ears and nose as he lay motionless on the ground. The remaining man
fired toward the building on full auto, burning through magazines. The sniper
looked, but didn’t see anything; he had a lot of ground to try and cover. They
were calling the attack in to their patrol group at Haliday’s, who were engaged
in their own assault. Both groups were on their own.

The
townsmen were slow and methodical in their fire. They didn’t want to waste the
ammo they had and didn’t want to give away their positions to the militia. The
wide open spaces around the airport made it hard to get close. They were also
playing it as safe as they could. They knew this was serious, but didn’t know
how serious it really was. They heard a truck start in the motor pool.

*****

Haliday
shook it off and rolled over. He looked over toward the house. From within the
property and the surrounding area he watched occasional patches of muzzle
flashes. He was quickly trying to get a fix on where most of the action was
taking place. It was sporadic; there was no sustained attack on any one part of
the property.

He
checked the militia man and found his radio. He unplugged the man’s earpiece
and listened for a few seconds. It was all static and he could hardly make
anything out. During the struggle, the antenna had been broken near its base
and the reception was poor at best. He kept it close regardless. Anything he
heard would be better than nothing.

He looked
over at the Barrett, grabbed it and set it back up on the bi-pod. He looked
through the scope for a target. Off in the woods he spotted one of the quads.
He took aim and readied himself for the shot. He squeezed the trigger and watched
the round. Aw crap, he said. He missed it, he was mad at himself. He had wanted
to check the zero on the scope and the quad was the only readily visible
target.

He looked
at the scope; it had to be off just a bit. He had knocked it pretty good with
his knee and it was just enough to take it off zero. The rifle set up this guy
had was probably 12-15 grand when he purchased it and he couldn’t believe how
the scope reacted to the hit it took. He didn’t have time to play with it. What
was maybe a sixteenth of an inch on the scope base could equate to a couple of
feet at 700-800 yards where the round would impact.

He
couldn’t afford to use it. He needed accuracy and reliability, the system that
he knew well. He ran about 20 feet away and brushed aside a pile of leaves and
some loose branches and pulled out his M24. He ran back to the Barrett’s
location and set up his own rifle. He scanned the area for another target.

Over by
the woods, they would need the most help. He listened on his radio, but didn’t
hear much traffic. The militia was still probing right now. They would advance
or fire and then watch where the return fire came from. He kept scanning the
area because someone would have to show themselves eventually.

A little
more than half of the strobes were still working. He concentrated near the
darker spots. He caught a glimpse of muzzle flash and started working on
finding the person behind the gun. He’d have killed for a night vision scope.
The illuminated reticle on his at night was only good for making sure you were
centered over your target, but that was only if you could clearly see your
target.

Alan
wasn’t having any luck either. He was staying low and using one of Roger's
homemade periscopes to try and find some movement. Once he was able to locate
someone, he would then try and fire on them. To just sit there exposed while he
hunted for a shot was asking for more trouble than he wanted.

Alan
looked down the street and spotted movement along the ditch. It was about 250
yards out. He took a deep breath and lifted his rifle into position using the
notch as his protection and the wall as his bipod. The figure started to cross
over from one side of the road to the other. He fired the round and ducked back
down.

The round
dropped more than he expected and entered the woman’s left shoulder. The round
caught her off guard and she dropped to the asphalt and started to work her way
to the ditch. Another militia member ran over and provided suppressing fire toward
the crow’s nest. Haliday changed his own angle of aim.

The lady
was toward the edge of the asphalt near the gravel shoulder of the road. The
man continued to cover her by firing three and four round bursts. The muzzle
flashes lit him up perfectly. Haliday fired and the round went through the
man’s left chest area and came out through his right rear shoulder blade,
hitting his aorta as well.

The woman
sat up slightly and called toward the downed man. She crawled back over to him
to check his injuries. Once she realized he was dead, she tried to crawl back toward
the ditch. Alan watched this and popped back up put another round into her,
hitting her leg. The woman now laid there. She had been hit twice and was
calling on her radio for help.

Haliday
just heard the crackle of the radio and a word or two. Road and help was all he
could make out. He called Alan on the radio. “Be careful, but keep an eye on
that woman. They might be coming to get her. You let me know if you see
anything. We might be able to coordinate something.”