A twig snapped under John’s boot. The sound seemed loud in the silent woods.
He froze, hoping they hadn’t heard him. He held his breath.
“You hear that?”
“It’s nothing. Get back to what you were saying.”
John let out a quiet sigh of relief, and continued.
Suddenly, there was a flurry of movement off to John’s right, away from the campfire.
Something was coming at him. Something big. Coming fast.
John spun around too slowly. Not enough time to get off a shot.
His attacker was of medium height with a barrel chest. Big and powerful.
The man’s hands were on John’s rifle before John could use it.
The two of them locked eyes. Four hands were on the rifle, which ran parallel between them.
John was strong, but not strong enough.
With a final grunt, the man got enough control of the rifle to pull the butt towards himself, getting the muzzle end to swing around, heading right for John.
The rifle collided with John’s skull hard enough to knock him down.
Pain flashed through John.
He reached for his handgun. His hand gripped the handle, but his attacker was fast, who kicked with precision, his shoe knocking the gun from John’s hand.
It was happening so fast, there wasn’t much time to think it all through. But John knew something didn’t make sense. What had happened to the men around the campfire? Was his attacker one of them? It didn’t seem possible. He hadn’t heard a break in their conversation. And yet, he was close enough now that they must have heard the commotion.
A hard kick to his stomach sent more pain rushing through him.
John had to act. If he lay there, taking the beating, he’d wind up dead.
But his attacker didn’t seem to want him dead. He hadn’t tried for the guns. No, he wanted this to be personal. Physical. Man to man. As if he had a vendetta.
John was ready for the next kick. Ignoring his own pain, he acted fast.
As the leg came towards his head, John shot out his arms, seizing the man’s ankle. He gripped hard, holding on tight, and pulled towards himself with all his strength. The man let out a grunt of surprise and fell backwards. He hit the ground hard, his back slamming into the earth.
John reached for his gun. But he couldn’t find it. He was just wasting time.
By the time John struggled to his feet, fighting against the pain, his attacker was on his feet too.
Where were the men who’d been around the campfire? This man with the intense eyes opposite John couldn’t have been one of them.
“I told you I’d come after you. You think you can get away with what you did?”
John didn’t know what he was talking about. He was sure he’d never seen the man before in his life. He wasn’t going to waste his energy answering him.
The man was keeping his distance. For now.
John knew he wasn’t a match for this man physically, who was simply too powerful. Each of his kicks had felt like sledgehammers.
What were his options?
John kept his ground. He didn’t have much of a chance of running away. And he wasn’t going to leave his gun there.
With his boot, John tried to feel for his gun. He didn’t want to take his eyes off his opponent even for a second. If he did, he knew that was when the attack would come.
John’s boot knocked against the gun. He felt the hardness, and he heard the gun go scuttling across the ground.
His attacker looked down at the ground. John seized the opportunity, locating the gun first with his eyes, and then reaching down for it.
The man was rushing at him, closing the distance between them fast.
John was bringing the gun up as fast as he could, trying his finger inside the trigger guard.
A punch was coming at him, the man’s arm swinging wide, his whole body going with the momentum.
The safety was on. John fumbled for it.
He got it, but not in time.
The punch collided with the side of John’s head.
It sent him reeling. He stepped backwards, trying to stay on his feet. But it was too much, and he fell to his side. His shoulder hit the ground hard.
John had kept the gun up, his arm extended. He took aim, squeezed the trigger twice in quick succession.
He hit the man in the chest with both shots. He crumpled to the ground, breathing heavily.
John lay there on the ground, his vision blurry, feeling dizzy, feeling the full brunt of the pain. He kept his gun up, finger on the trigger.
Two men appeared, stepping cautiously into view. They must have been the men who’d been sitting around the fire. They didn’t appear to be armed.
John aimed the gun at the one who was closest to him.
“Don’t take another step,” growled John.
“We didn’t…”
“Shut up and tell me who you are,” said John.
8
Art’s head was still throbbing from when Sarge had gotten to him. It wasn’t the worst blow he’d been dealt. But it was in the top ten for sure.
Night had fallen.
Art had spent the day with Sarge, going over the plans. They’d poured over maps. It was the most time Art had ever spent with Sarge. And it had just confirmed his suspicions that there wasn’t anything good about the man. He was mean through and through.
“If you do this one right,” Sarge had said. “There’s going to be a lot in it for you. Don’t you forget that. And don’t think you can go running off by yourself. You know how we work. We’ll find you, and when we do, you’ll wish you were dead.”
Art wasn’t holding out much hope for a reward. He wasn’t holding out much hope for anything. He didn’t see how he could live outside the militia. Even if he managed to get off their range, what would he do? He didn’t know how to survive on his own in the wilderness. And whoever was out there now, outside the reaches of the militia, well they were probably worse than the militia themselves.
He’d heard the stories, that there were heavily armed groups out there. Where that was exactly, no one seemed to know. Knowledge had already seemed to deteriorate among the militia men. Art hadn’t, for instance, seen a map since the EMP until Sarge had shown him one.
It was probably an intentional tactic. Keep the “front line” soldiers, the grunts like Art, in the dark as much as possible. They were all disposable, and they more they knew, the harder it might be to get them to do what was needed.
And what was the point of even trying to escape? When Art had hammered in his neighbor’s skull, he’d lost himself. He’d become one of them, one of the militia members. Whether he liked it or not, he was changed forever. And he didn’t consider himself morally worthy of continuing to live.
So he’d go along with what was required of him. He’d live for a while. Eventually someone would kill him.
That was the way he thought about it. He was completely stuck.
The plan was to break into houses and gather information. Sounded simple enough.
But the house was supposedly the hangout of a small group of men and women. Word was that they were trying to organize some kind of rebellion against the militia, trying to subvert it in some way.
The militia was the law of the land.
Anyone who fought against that was as good as dead.
“Why don’t you just send in a bunch of us and we’ll wipe them out?” Art had asked Sarge.
Sarge had given him a backhanded blow on his ear for that question.
“They’re not stupid enough to put all their men there,” Sarge had said. “They’re spread out. That’s why we need information. We need some kind of roster, something that lists all their hideouts. They’re like cockroaches, springing up everywhere.”