Desperate Times (24 page)

“I don’t know,” Jon replied. “I don’t like
this. Be ready, Jimmy. Be ready…”

Another car’s high-beam headlights were
switched on below, pointed directly at the gate. Jimmy held his
hand over his eyes. Another pair came to life from the opposite
side of the lawn. The effect was blinding and again the crowd
cheered.

“No!” shrieked Brenda.
“Nooo
!
”

In a great whoosh of flame, Brenda was
blazing like a torch. Jimmy moaned. Jon screamed and raked the
trees with automatic fire. Jimmy popped off a shot, careful to aim
away from the writhing shape in the fire.

“You bastards!” shrieked Jon, his clip
exhausted. “Get me some more ammo. Now!” he ordered Jimmy, pulling
the lever action out of his hands.

Jimmy ran blindly down the ramp and into the
darkness. There were fresh clips in the garage. He heard automatic
fire from the two guards in the corners. Jimmy nearly ran headlong
into Julie who was running from the house.

“What’s going on?” she asked, her eyes wild
with fear.

“Don’t go down there!” barked Jimmy. “Get in
the basement!”

“I won’t!”

Jimmy kept on running; there was no time to
explain. He reached the dark outline of the garage door and heaved
it open. He then frantically crawled on the floor until he came
across a milk crate full of loaded clips. He heaved it up to his
waist and waddled back toward the wall, groaning as he listened to
the pleading screams of a dying woman. Jimmy’s stomach rolled.

“Hurry Jimmy!” shouted Jon from above.
“They’re coming with ladders. It’s an attack!”

Others had gathered at the wall, awakened by
the gunfire and Brenda’s terrible screams. The lights from the
outside provided an eerie glow behind the wall. Julie stood there
and held her hands over her ears. Tears ran down her cheeks. Jimmy
wanted to hold her in his arms, but he didn’t have time. He raced
past the others who stood huddled together at the gate. Jimmy ran
up the narrow ramp as fast as he could, praying he didn’t step off
the side.

“Give me a clip!” shouted Jon.

Jimmy set the crate down and pushed two clips
into Jon’s waiting hands. Jon slapped one into his assault rifle
and stood. He quickly sprayed a hail of gunfire into both sets of
headlights that were trained on the wall; the outside perimeter was
suddenly visible in the firelight. Jon trained his fire on the
charging crowd. Bullets whizzed by and shotgun blasts thudded into
the wall. Jon screamed and fired wildly until the clip was empty.
He squatted next to Jimmy and banged in another clip. “Resupply the
others. They’re out of ammo. Do it!”

Jimmy looked in the glow of the firelight and
could see that the Kwapik kid had abandoned both his rifle and his
post. He turned his head in the other direction and saw Joe Hanson.
Hanson hung draped over the wall, his rifle lying at his feet. He
was dead; Jimmy was sure of it.

Brenda’s shrieking reached a crescendo and
she began to moan in a terrible voice that carried over the
gunfire. Jimmy looked at Jon. “Do it!” he cried. “For God’s sake,
just do it! Have some mercy on her!”

Jon nodded grimly and fired a short burst
into the flames below.

Brenda was silent.

Jimmy said a short prayer and suddenly Julie
was at his side. She reached down and pulled two clips from the
milk crate; her red eyes looked to be just this side of insanity.
Silently, she scrambled toward Kwapik’s abandoned rifle at the far
end of the wall.

Jon rose again and fired, this time on
semiautomatic. He popped off three quick rounds, ducking for cover
as bullets continued to fly overhead while others thumped into the
wall. Jimmy grabbed three clips and crab-walked down the walkway
toward the body of Joe Hanson. He set the clips down and fumbled
with the rifle. The stock was bloody and Jimmy fought with the
latch, his fingers slipping in the sticky wetness. He finally
calmed himself and thought about what he was doing. There was a
click and the spent clip fell from the rifle. Jimmy slapped in a
fresh clip and took a deep breath. He had to get control of
himself. He poked his head over the top of the wall.

There seemed to be ladders coming at them
from all sides. Bodies lay on the grass, some writhing, others
still and lifeless in the firelight. Orange pops of gunfire seemed
to be coming from everywhere. A bullet flew by his ear, so close
that Jimmy could hear it whizzing as it passed. He ducked down
again, his hands trembling. Bullets slammed into the wall in front
of him. From down the walkway he could hear Jon and Julie
firing.

“Shoot the damn thing!” screamed a familiar
voice.

Jimmy turned and saw Patty and Ken at the
base of the wall underneath him. The fear on their faces gave him
the strength he needed. He stood and sprayed the lawn below with
automatic gunfire. He watched in horror as his bullets ripped home.
Men screamed and others fled. Still more picked up where they’d
left off and resumed the charge. Jimmy dropped to his knees and
inserted a fresh clip.

Jimmy could hear gunfire clatter all around
the compound. The attack had been planned well and they were coming
at them from all sides. Jimmy stood again and rained bullets down
on the charging men. Two ladders stood at the wall and men were
climbing them, hunting rifles slung over their shoulders. Jimmy
took aim and spent the rest of his clip on those men. They fell
like dominoes. Jon popped shot after shot into the crowd, with
deadly accuracy, and Julie fired in the same manner with the same
results. Jimmy ducked and sent home his only remaining clip. He
switched the lever to the semiautomatic position and said a quick
prayer. He then stood and began to fire.

“They’re inside the wall!” someone shrieked
from below. “They’re heading for the gate!”

Jimmy turned and saw Ken leveling a shotgun
into the blackness. A bullet tore at Jimmy’s sleeve and he turned
back, knowing that there was nothing he could do for Ken. He fired
blindly into the screaming men below. Jimmy heard a blast from
Ken’s shotgun, followed by another.

The attack lasted another ten seconds. Jimmy
continued to fire as the ragged group began to retreat. He could
smell cooking meat and it nauseated him. There were more gunshots
behind him and Jimmy turned to see what was happening. Ken and
Patty were gone. Jimmy leapt to the ground, hanging on to his rifle
with both hands. He fell to his knees in the blackness, but he was
instantly back on his feet and he ran to the first man he could
see.

“Some of them are inside,” Pete Donnelly said
in a wheeze. “I’m hit. Got one in the stomach… Oh, shit. Don’t let
them open the gate!”

Jimmy looked up to Jon who had quit firing
and was staring down the walkway where Julie had been. Jimmy
followed his gaze and saw Julie in the darkness. She lay crumpled
on the walkway, one arm hanging limply over the side. Jimmy
screamed.

“Behind us!” wheezed Donnelly. “They’re
coming straight for us!”

Jimmy turned just in time to see a group of
five men charging the gate from inside the perimeter. They
screamed, firing wildly as they ran directly toward where Jimmy and
Donnelly stood.

“I’m out of ammo!” cried Jon from overhead.
“Shoot!”

Jimmy felt pure rage throbbing at his
temples. He clicked the rifle to full auto and pulled the trigger.
He raked the attackers with a hail of gunfire and they tumbled to
the lawn. Satisfied, he turned to Donnelly who stood holding his
stomach. “Get inside!” Jimmy ordered. He then turned and sprinted
up the ramp, down to where Jon crouched next to Julie.

“Oh no,” cried Jon, “oh God, no!”

Jimmy could just make out Julie’s form in the
glow of the fire. He tried to look over Jon’s shoulder, but Jon
blocked his attempt. “Don’t look,” he said. “She’s hit.”

Jimmy tore at Jon’s shoulder, nearly throwing
him over the side. He moaned when he saw Julie. She lay on her
stomach and around her head was a pool of blood. She wasn’t
moving.

And Jimmy screamed again, a primal howl that
echoed across the lake and into the darkness.

The term New World Order refers to the
conspiracy theory of an emergence of a one-world government. During
the years 1946 to present day, the United States has lost its
status as the largest creditor nation, and we have sunk to the
point of becoming the largest debtor nation. Given the fact that we
continue to ship our manufacturing jobs overseas, it would be hard
to argue that our country is not leveraging itself against the
working man.

Paula could see that serious trouble was
brewing. The teeming throng had reached a boiling point and she
could hear men discussing plans for escape. They would do it that
very night and within the hour. Her father had scavenged some
venison from a few of the many skeletons that hung in the trees.
They roasted the scraps over a small fire, eating them just after
they’d browned.

A new group had arrived at the campground.
Their arrival accelerated the talk of escape. They rode in two
abreast on loud motorcycles with another group following them in a
school bus. Guns drawn, they secured an area of their own. Campers
gave them a wide berth and the bikers built a roaring fire at the
center of their campsite.

Stanley had hustled his people as far away
from that crowd as he could. There were soon others there. Babies
cried. A gunshot echoed in the distance.

There was nowhere to run. No place to
hide.

The siege of Ely had begun and the night air
was rippling with gunfire.

Executive Order 10990: Allows the government
to take over all modes of transportation, including the highways
and seaports.

Dawn arrived slowly that morning. The sky was
the color of cold steel and wind lashed at the trees. The sobbing
cries from beyond the wall had diminished some. What was left of
that beaten group had buried their dead with a backhoe and were
attending to their many wounded. Sally had been struck down and
died in the early morning hours.

A simple truce or cease fire hadn’t satisfied
Jon this time. He and a few of the others had followed the ragged
army over the wall and continued to fight them in a one-sided
battle. He dictated the terms of their surrender, confiscated their
weapons and gave them until noon to bury their dead and vacate the
premises.

Many of their own group had been killed. Pete
Donnelly had succumbed to his wounds at three that morning. The
Kwapik family had been slaughtered, along with the Sandberg clan.
The five of them had sought refuge in the shed and had been
brutally shot like fish in a barrel. Joe Hanson had died from one
of the first shots of the battle. What was left of Brenda had been
loaded into a wheel barrow and brought out back. Fresh graves were
dug in the pale morning light, and the eight had been laid to rest
next to Billy Campbell and Tom Bauer. Some others had been wounded.
Glen Putnam had been grazed by a bullet in the upper arm. Rita
Lopez had been hit through the wall by buckshot and had seven
pellets lodged in her backside. Lyle Swenson had fallen off the
wall during the battle, breaking his ankle, and it had swollen up
like a black balloon.

Julie was another of this group. Jimmy had
thought she was dead. A bullet had cut a groove into the side of
her head and the concussion had left her lifeless. The wound was
serious and bled for over an hour. Patty and Rita had tended to her
the best they could, but both women admitted that she was going to
need a doctor. She hadn’t regained consciousness and lay sprawled
out on her couch on the front porch.

Jimmy stayed at her side, holding her hand
and stroking her arm. Her face was ashen white, her lips nearly
blue. He sat there for hours as night turned into day, waiting for
a miracle. He didn’t know when he had fallen asleep, but he’d
mercifully nodded off and didn’t wake up until Ken tapped his
shoulder.

“Jimmy,” Ken whispered from his wheelchair.
“Wake up.”

Jimmy’s eyes popped open and he could smell
breakfast being prepared in the kitchen. He looked over to Julie,
but she was still as she was. He reached over and stroked her pale
cheek.

“Come on, you’ve got to eat.”

“I’m not hungry,” replied Jimmy. “You go
ahead.”

“I’ve already eaten. You need to get
something in your stomach, kid. You and Jon have a long walk in
front of you.”

“What do you mean?”

“I guess I should’ve asked you first,” Ken
said, rubbing his tired eyes. “We need someone to go into Ely and
get Doc Benson. Your name came up. Would you do it?”

Jimmy stood up, ready to leave at that very
instant. “You know it,” he said. “Is Jon ready?”

“He’s already had breakfast and he crawled
back into his tent to catch some more sleep. He said to wake him
after you’ve finished eating and we’ll get the two of you supplied.
You should probably take a quick shower. How does that sound?”

“Great,” Jimmy said. “But why don’t we just
drive? We could be there in fifteen minutes.”