“The next problem is exactly where to approach. Those guards are probably employees familiar with the campus. Our advantage will be surprise and hopefully superior weapons, but we won’t know the exact nature of our assault until we’re familiar with the layout.
“We’ll split into two teams and coordinate a staggered approach from different angles. When the guards realize an attack is in progress, their attention will be drawn to Team One. This could make it easier for Team Two to approach the building and breach the security perimeter.
“Men, our biggest ally, the darkness, will also prove to be a major obstacle. That’s why it’s important to locate all guard positions while it’s still daylight and hope they maintain those at night.
“Visibility could be even worse inside the building. Any lanterns or fires may be extinguished as a last-ditch defense. And if we get inside and can’t see, all hell could break loose. These people will know their way around their building. We will not.
“As far as teams go, let’s put Ed, Bart, and Aiden on Team One. Nick, Aaron, Jimmy, and me will be Team Two. We’ll see how these teams work during our scouting run and make any changes before tonight. Questions?”
On the drive over, the difficulty of what we were trying to do finally became tangible enough to scare the shit out of everyone. We were traveling west and hadn’t gone far when we found an unpaved road that ran north and south. From there we were close enough to catch glimpses of the DC, its rectangular bulk reflecting orange hues from the sky. We were maybe a half-mile away, but I wondered if the guards could hear our engine running and our tires crunching over gravel. Or for that matter if they could hear the ever-present screeching of the world, if that awful sound had wormed its way into their heads the way it had lay waste to mine.
On our left stood unimproved pasture, brown grassland dotted here and there with mesquite trees and the occasional oak. When we discovered an unlocked gate guarding the entrance to a forgotten-looking dirt road, we turned and found a place among some trees to hide the pickup.
From there we approached the DC on foot: Mack and Nick; Jimmy and Aaron; Bart by himself; Ed and me at the rear. What a smug bastard the slick cat was in his hip jeans and his lean frame squeezed into a shirt too small for him. He probably thought he was better than me. He was probably a godless, libtard Democrat who voted for Killary and Obummer and took money from George Soros. He was everything wrong with America. He deserved to be shot.
The trees grew denser the farther we walked and my mind began to wander. What would it be like inside the warehouse? Would there be lemonade? What sort of food would I eat first? Something canned? From a bag? A box? I wondered if I would ever eat another pizza. I tried to understand the appeal of pizza. Nothing more than bread and sauce and cheese but put one in front of me and I would eat the entire thing. I pictured the whole world as a pizza, where you could take a bite of anything, anywhere, and it would taste like your favorite slice. In fact, when I looked down, the texture of the ground had changed. It was softer, springier, and coming up on my right was a large, brown boulder that might have been made of pork sausage. But it couldn’t have been. Right? Except beyond the boulder lay a series of red, oily discs, flat on the ground, that anyone could have mistaken for slices of pepperoni. And large cacti shaped like chopped bell peppers, and concrete slabs that looked like onion slices. Brown, crusty cliffs loomed in the distance, as if we had stumbled without knowing into a large, structural basin. Eventually the ground began to change again, the cheese giving way to a red, gooey swamp, and I realized the entire surface of our planet floated on a great lake of blood, which in a perfect world would have contained the blood of every person who had ever wronged me, like for instance my absent parents and my disloyal sister and every slutbag who never returned my calls. And all the liberal elites who made me feel stupid and provincial. I was so hungry I could imagine falling to my knees and slurping this blood right off the ground, laughing the way a hyena laughs while he devours his prey alive.
Eventually our progress slowed and then stopped altogether. Mack turned around and raised a finger to his lips. I thought he might invite us to fill our bellies with pizza before the attack, but when I looked around, the food had disappeared. All I saw were the other men standing in a narrow grove of trees. Through branches and leaves, the rectangular bulk of the DC loomed enormously. We were closest, at that point, to its northeastern corner. Mack and Nick and Aaron crept closer to the edge of the trees, using binoculars to look for any posted sentries. They observed for a few moments and then returned, encouraging us to gather into a rough circle, like the shape of a pizza. Where the hell was the pizza?
“So the problem we have,” said Mack, “is a buncha semi-trailers parked at the docks. These will provide cover for the guards, while our approach will be made across a wide-open lawn and parking lot. The only cover we’ll enjoy is darkness, but as I said before, that will make it more difficult to identify our enemy targets.”
“If they’re well-armed,” said Ed, “this attack sounds like suicide.”
Mack nodded. “I know it seems like every weekend warrior nowadays owns a military rifle, but most of these weapons are toys compared to what we’re carrying. Even so, we don’t have a lot of ammo. This means we must shoot efficiently.”
Speaking of ammunition, each of our weapons was loaded with a 30-round magazine. Because I was carrying a semi-automatic rifle, and couldn’t fire as rapidly, I hadn’t been given a spare. Mack was carrying the RPG, while Bart wore a backpack that held three grenades.
“I’ll tell you one thing,” Mack added. “I underestimated the size of that building, even after seeing it from the road.”
We retreated into the trees a bit and moved westward until we were more centrally positioned. There were two main buildings, remember, this flatter-looking one and the taller one at the southwest corner of the campus. Eventually, Mack stopped again. It was a good thing, too, because I was ready to point my rifle at Slick Ed and fire away. If I cooked his arms and legs, they might taste pretty good.
“All right,” Mack said. “Let’s spread out and put fifteen yards between each of us. Then we’ll approach the tree line. I want every one of you to scan the perimeter of the building and look for movement. Watch for legs moving below those trailers, for movement on the roof. Look for any surface feature up there that doesn’t belong. We’ll do this for a minute or so and then regroup.”
From what I remember, our movements weren’t that loud, and we were at least three hundred yards from the building. In fact, as we spread into the new formation, I was fed up with all the careful preparation. I didn’t understand why we wouldn’t storm the building then, in the daylight, and force the guards to show themselves. I wondered why we even called them “guards.” We were talking about a handful of forklift drivers probably armed with hunting rifles and pistols and maybe a consumer-grade AR.
“All right,” Mack said. “I see a—”
You never imagine the sound of a bullet from the terminus of its journey, not unless you’re a soldier, which I certainly am not. So the brief and powerful whistle that coincided with the crack of a gunshot did not register at first as a recognizable event. Only when I heard fierce and frightened curses, only when I turned and saw a body convulsing on the ground, did I realize what had happened. That’s when I heard a second bullet and saw, not thirty feet from me, a spray of blood as Aaron’s head jerked sideways with the force of deadly impact. For a moment he just teetered there, a sickening grin on his face, while blood poured out of his nose and a chunk of cranial bone fell away from his ear. Something about that bone fragment finally registered as DANGER in my brain. I dropped to the ground and made myself flat.