Fail State, page 29
part #2 of End of Days Series
The alleyway fed into loading docks at the back of the retail strip. Beyond the unsealed back lane which serviced the bays behind the shops, the recently ploughed fields of Mullen Park lay under the dancing, eldritch light of molotov cocktail fires along the Wall. Muzzle flashes and small explosions traced the arc of the battle out there where the attackers seemed to be having a harder time breaking through and overwhelming the dug-in defenders.
“Least that’s holding,” Muller grunted as they turned left and hurried through the shadows back up towards the Seattle end of town.
“Wolfendens’s guys trained those fire teams,” Dale said.
He sounded like he approved.
He also sounded happier and maybe even content, now that he had something to do.
Even though it was taking him back into danger and away from the possibility of escape.
Jonas kept his mouth shut and concentrated on not tripping in the dark.
The uproar of battle out on Main was terrifying.
When you thought that every gunshot you heard could end your life, and there were hundreds of them, maybe thousands of rounds a second… well, it was better not to think about it.
Especially now he had to figure out what to do about Tomi and her dumbass friends unleashing a bitchkrieg on his getaway plans. Jonas gripped Leo’s big-ass gun closer to his chest. He could just turn the thing on Muller now. Cut him down. Dale too, if he had to.
But chances were, he’d be dead a few minutes later when some asshole biker shot him in the face.
Or one of those redneck technicals ran him down in Main Street, just for fun.
No, he had to survive the next five minutes before he could think about tomorrow or the day after. All he knew for sure was that he was done with this place.
They made the rear of the shuttered fudge shop. Climbed a wooden staircase to the roof, a flat expanse of tar paper, windscoops and a brick chimney. The wooden facade overlooking the street would afford them no real protection against high powered gun fire, but it did mask their approach to the edge of the roofline. All three men dropped to their bellies and snaked across the rough, sticky tar paper. Wooden beams of doubtful stamina flexed and creaked beneath their weight.
“Jesus Christ,” Jonas muttered, imagining himself falling through.
A short burst of random gunfire crashed through the thin boards of the building’s prow, reducing a carved wooden cornice to hot splinters and dust. A couple of seconds later and it would have killed Jonas and Muller for sure. The Sheriff kept crawling forward. Jonas stopped, but only for a moment. Dale came up beside him, punched him on the arm and said quietly, “Come on.”
“You pissed yourself yet,” Jonas asked, more derisively than he’d intended.
Dale just laughed.
“Oh I did that soon as they blew the gate. Shit myself too.”
Jonas realised with a grimace that he wasn’t lying. He could smell the guy’s stool.
The clamour and din of battle had not abated. The attackers must have fully infiltrated the town by now, but the good folk of Silverton were still standing to their guns. Still hammering back at the intruders.
Jonas found himself crouched low, almost curled into a foetal position at the edge of the roofline, behind a mere foot or so of flimsy, peeling clapboard shot through with ragged bullet holes.
Dale, lying on his back, produced a small handheld mirror and raised it briefly to scope out the scene below.
Jonas couldn’t see anything in the compact reflector and Juntii did not hold it aloft for more than a second or so. But that was all he needed.
“Directly below us,” he said. His voice was low, rather than whispering.
“They got some support. I’ll take the ones on foot and the Ford Ranger with the two-gun mount. You guys concentrate your fire on the Toyota. Jonas, you rake ‘em. Sheriff, you should pick off the driver. Stop ‘em redeploying to bring those guns to bear on us. I think you got a good shot into the cabin. Just unload on that sucker then switch to clean up. Count of three.”
“Count of three,” Muller confirmed.
Jonas didn’t have time to object or equivocate.
Dale counted out, “One-two-three…”
And they were up, all of them drawing down on the vehicles below.
It was a hellish scene. The store front of the Red Apple had been chewed into scrap metal and debris. Smoke and flames poured out of the wreckage, but also the occasional gunshot. Jonas was surprised and even a little freaked out to see at least a dozen fighters on foot, surrounding the pick-ups, supporting them, like infantry alongside tanks in a war movie.
Dale’s assault rifle clattered and spat bright fire right next his face, almost blinding him.
Muller squeezed off shots from his service pistol with a businesslike rhythm, an almost metronomic pulse, before holstering the hand weapon and swinging his shotgun to bear.
Jonas squeezed the trigger of the FN and cursed when nothing happened.
He frantically sought out the sector Leo had shown him, flicked it so hard he almost tore off a finger nail, and swept the muzzle back down to bring his target into the sights.
He pulled the trigger and his heart leapt as the weapon roared in his hands, jerking up in his grip. He’d set the selector to auto and the first burst mostly missed as the kickback pulled his aim astray. By the time Jonas had re-centered his sights on the rear tray of the Toyota, Muller had killed at least two of the men fighting in back, and Dale had reduced the other vehicle to a broken meat wagon.
Jonas fired again.
This time the big NATO standard rounds hit the pick-up like a steel tsunami, tearing apart vehicle and humans in a terrifying squall of violence.
He squeezed the trigger once, twice, and it was done. Smoke and flames poured from the engine block. Nothing moved in the rear tray.
The foot soldiers had already scattered, and Dale was chasing them with fire. Muller’s shotgun boomed and clicked as he worked the rack. Boomed and clicked.
Silverton’s surviving militia emerged from hiding up and down Main Street, engaging the foe.
It looked, just a for a second, as though they might even win.
A single shot cracked behind them. Another followed quickly and Muller slumped with a grunt. Jonas looked at him, stupidly. Dale spun and fired at the man who had come up the staircase behind them. He cried out as the short burst stitched him up, tumbling back into the night and landing somewhere below with a crash.
Jonas and Dale both crouched low again, remembering how exposed they were.
Dale moved quickly to check Muller.
The big man was writhing and groaning.
Jonas was shocked. Firstly at how close he’d come to getting nailed. But also at how much relief he felt to see the sheriff cut down like this.
If they got through the night he was going to have answer some hard questions about what he’d been planning to do with the cars and supplies at Rausch’s place.
“Looks bad,” Dale said. “One round straight through the vest. Edge of the plates. One under the armpit. Be lots of damage and bleeding in there.”
“Go get the doc, or one of the interns,” Jonas said, without thinking. “I’ll stay here. Look after him. Make sure you let me know when you’re coming back up. I’m gonna shoot anyone who comes up those stairs without warning me.”
“Okay,” Dale said. “I won’t be long.”
He hurried off, bent low.
Jonas crouched where he could keep an eye out for any further sneak attackers coming up on to the roof.
“Fuck it hurts,” Muller breathed.
“You had a bullet proof vest,” Jonas said.
“Bullet… resistant,” Muller croaked. “Not the same,” he groaned.
“No,” Jonas said. His mind was racing.
Part of him hoped that Muller would bleed out before Dale got back.
Part of him didn’t want to be left alone up here. The fighting still raged below.
He took Muller’s shotgun and laid it down where he could snatch the weapon up if needed. The sheriff tried to fumble for extra shells. Jonas took them from him. Muller’s fingers were trembling and sticky with his own blood.
“That shit… at the gate, what was that?” he asked, his voice, weak, and panting.
“Just Tomi and the cheerleaders freaking out,” Jonas lied. “Keep still.”
“Lot of… people.”
“Lot of idiots,” Jonas ventured. He thought he heard the distinctive hammering of Dale’s weapon down in the street blow.
“You… you planning to go?” Muller asked.
He spoke so softly that Jonas had to lean in to hear him.
“Not planning anything, no,” he answered.
And he wasn’t.
He didn’t plan to kill Dave Muller. There was no premeditation when he placed his own big, strong hand over the sheriff’s mouth, pinching off his nostrils between thumb and forefinger.
He knew what he was doing as the dying man started to jerk and buck about under his grip. But it wasn’t planned. He understood the consequences of leaning in the man’s upper body with all of his own considerable mass and strength, driving the last few gasps of air out of him, chocking off the man’s airways so that Muller could not breathe. Jonas was just sort of… reacting.
He was simply in the moment. Doing what had to be done.
And then it was done. Surprisingly quickly. And Muller was dead. And Jonas Murdoch was free to move on again.
Afterword
Fail State is finished, but our heroes’ adventures are not. If you’d like to hang out with the gang in the ruins of a post-apocalyptic world, they will all be back in American Kill Switch.
Well… all of them except for the ones who get killed. Sorry about that.
If you’d like a heads up, and a big discount on the next instalments, you can get both by joining my bookclub/internet dive bar. Just hit up either link below.
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There’s plenty of free stuff waiting there. Or, go via my blog…
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Thanks,
JB.
Copyright © John Birmingham 2020
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John Birmingham, Fail State
