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Later on, though he couldn’t say precisely how long, Fred heard the man beginning to stir. Every inch of Fred’s body sang with almighty pain, but he knew he didn’t have so long to wait before they were back at it. And he knew to a certainty, to a mortal fucking truth, that if Pap got back on top of him, he’d never get him off again. He rolled, torso grinding like powdered ceramic, heaved to his knees, and pulled himself over Pap’s body. Pap lay on the ground panting, too debilitated to attempt evasion, and when Fred twisted the man’s shirt up under his chin and lifted the rock high overhead, Pap gurgled, lifted up a hand, and said, “Gugh… huh… hwait! Cua—”

Fred brought down the rock, and Pap’s legs jerked. Then he lifted the rock and brought it down again. He lifted it and brought it down.

Pap’s legs only jerked the one time.

Gibs settled Barbara and Alish into Elizabeth’s bedroom in the back of the cabin, handed pistols to them both, and commanded them to lay the hell down and wait until someone not playing for the other team came to relieve them. If it was someone from the other team that came calling, their instructions were to perforate the bastards. Anyone not of their community were unlikely to stand around waiting for apologies.

He checked the Velcro on their body armor—the lightweight, black stuff Jake and Amanda had found in another lifetime—and sighed. The plate carriers were locked up in the house with the rest of the good stuff. He decided that if he got the chance, he’d punch in through a window and reclaim some of that bounty. If. Firefights had a funny way of not letting you get prepared once the fun began.

He took another look at the boards he’d nailed across Lizzy’s window, shook his head in disgust, and said, “You keep your good eye on that window, Babe! Those boards’ll slow ’em down, but they won’t stop someone who’s decided he wants through! You see that shutter move; I want you ready to dot his eyes and cross his goddamned t’s, Rah?”

Barbara nodded back at him, eyes wide as dinner plates, and managed a frightened, “…okay…

It was all he could do to walk out of that room. The most able-bodied fighter in there was a sweet, little gardener pushing seventy. He wanted to station someone in the cabin throughout the fight to look out for them, but he didn’t know if he was going to get that chance either. He had six people at his disposal—seven if Fred got his ass over in time. Amanda, who he dearly wished was at his side, ran the children up the mountainside in search of safety. Wang was right where he needed to be, assuming he could see anything at all, and Gibs sure as hell didn’t expect to see Brian for the rest of the night; the beating that kid swallowed for them all had seemed biblical… what little of it Gibs managed to catch as he hustled between buildings.

Now standing in the common room, he took a moment to see what he was working with. Oscar and Tom occupied both windows, sending lead downrange at Andrew and Victor’s old container home. They weren’t sure how many of Clay’s men had piled into the joint, if it was only a fraction or all of them had dived in, but the windows had been either shot or busted out, there was plenty of flash coming from the darkness beyond, and it seemed as good a thing as any to shoot at.

Rebecca crouched on the floor shoulder to shoulder with Monica, Samantha, and Greg, each of them jerking and flinching by turns as bullets impacted the thick log walls of the cabin. Alan was long gone by now, having run off toward the cleft entrance as fast as his legs could carry him. Those lowered to the floorboards ransacked the remaining weapon duffel for gear; setting aside rifles, filled magazines, and whatever else they could find that might prove useful. Gibs noted they seemed to be low on carbines. It was dark as hell in the cabin, but from what he could tell, there appeared to be a couple of shotguns, assorted pistols, and a whole bunch of loose ammunition.

He grimaced and chewed on his bottom lip to keep from spewing out a line of unhelpful curses. After a few more frantic moments, Greg set aside the last rifle, looked up at Gibs, and shrugged.

“That’s it?” Gibs demanded.

“It’s hard to see,” Greg muttered. “Hang on, lemme get a flashlight.”

“No, don’t do that!” Gibs barked.

“I can’t see a goddamned thing!”

“Again, I implore you: pretty-fucking-please, desist! You’ll silhouette Oscar and Davidson both. Those assholes across the way’ll see them, and then they’ll probably get killed to death. Can we take steps to avoid that, please?”

Gibs could not see so much as hear Greg’s expression when he gasped, “Oh, shit!”

“Yeah, duh. So, nothing else in that bag or what?”

“’Fraid so. There’s a few of the 40 mils, but… Tom doesn’t have his boomstick. It’s locked up.”

Gibs jerked his head down at the duffel bag. The idiocy of the situation struck him full force, and he mumbled, “This’ll be like tryin’ to fuck a honey badger with Barbie’s dick…”

“What?” Greg asked.

“I said we’ll be fine without the goddamned boomstick. Turn that bag over. I want to see everything out on the rug.”

Greg did as instructed, and two grenades came tumbling out; one smoke and one frag. Gibs grunted at this discovery and said, “Well, at least we’ve got some party poppers. Tool the hell up, guys, no time like the present.”

He selected a rifle from the pile, dreamed wistfully of his old H&K, and started stuffing STANAGs into hip pockets.

“Hey! Hey, someone’s coming!” Oscar called from his spot at the window.

“Who?” Gibs asked.

“Too dark! Big fucker, eh?”

“Shit, it’s not that Pap asshole, is it?” Tom barked.

He leaned hard to the right to aim his weapon in the direction Oscar pointed, and Gibs shouted, “No, Davidson! Keep the heat on Drew’s place! Oscar, don’t fuckin’ shoot! That might be—”

Someone open that mutha-fuckin’ door!” Fred bellowed from the front yard. Oscar scrambled to reach for the latch but succeeded only in binding an arm up in his shotgun sling. Gibs slipped around him, yanked open the door, and Fred howled all the way through the opening like a freight train set to derail. He collapsed to the floor, slid a couple of feet on his hip and shoulder, and came to rest up against the door to Amanda’s bedroom.

“Welcome home, Sunshine!” Gibs yelled. He slammed the door. Fred only lay there panting.

“Fred? Hey, Jesus, are you alright, man?” He took a knee by the giant and started prodding at him with his hands.

“Get the fuck off me, man!” Fred grunted. “Told you I don’t swing that way!”

“He’s okay…” Greg said, lining up by the front door.

“Where the hell’re you off to, Rambo?” Gibs asked him.

“Uh… getting ready to rush Clay’s douchebags and… what?”

Gibs was shaking his head slowly. “Oh for two? You’re just gonna run straight at ’em over open ground, is that what you do?”

“Well… Tom and Oscar can cover us—”

“Sweet Jesus, Amanda’s bedroom, man! The fucking window?”

Greg was quiet a moment; a dark shadow standing motionless at the door while bullets continued to thunk into wood, wing by overhead, and slip through windows. Finally, he said, “Right…” and strode to the other end of the room, hunching as he passed under Tom’s window. He went through the door without saying another word.