Ray Gorham - Daunting Days of Winter

Guarded community!

Do not approach after dark, with weapons,

or in groups larger than three.

Violators will be considered hostile

.

Similar signs were posted on the bridge, on the far east end of town along the river, and south of the Shipley Ranch, facing the old gravel road coming down from the mountains.

David ran back towards the trench. He looked through the sights of the gun and found the truck hood that hung between two trees in the backyard of the militia house. With limited communication, if the lookout couldn’t give a warning in person, their signal in the event of an emergency was to shoot the hood hanging in the yard. David had made this shot many times during training and knew that the hood rang like a bell, audible all the way to the far end of the community. He’d also been reminded many times that when he shot it, there would be fifty-three militia members running his direction, ready to fight.

David swore under his breath and lowered his gun, all thoughts of Amy long fled. He heard a sound, maybe voices, and froze in place, terrified that people were coming up across the top of the ridge. He waited, straining to hear anything that was out of place, but heard nothing. He ran down towards the militia house, crouching low and carefully avoiding making any loud noises.

He’d taken this path dozens of times and knew it well, but it had never been this dark, and never under this kind of stress. Part way down the hill the trail led south, away from the road, so David cut north, off trail, towards the road. It was dark in the trees, but his eyes had adjusted enough to the moonlight for him to be able to jog, dodging branches and rocks as he ran. His heart raced, both from the running and from the fear that what he’d seen was something threatening.

A thick cluster of trees lay ahead, and he slowed to push through it, sliding through the branches as silently as possible. He was almost through the trees when his left foot fell out from under him. David clutched for branches as he began to fall, realizing, to his horror, that he had emerged through the trees at the top of a fifty-foot cliff, a sheer drop to the rocks and boulders below.

He grabbed desperately for the branches, branches that scraped at his face as he fell, his left foot sliding over the edge, his right leg still on top. His momentum carried him forward and downward, and he gasped, panic stricken, as rocks and pinecones tumbled down the cliff, bouncing with echoing cracks off the boulders below.

As he continued his slow motion slide over the precipice, his right hand grasped a fat tree root curled tightly around a weathered rock, and his right leg wedged between a tree trunk and a small boulder, bringing his fall to a halt but still leaving him dangling precariously over the edge. He let out a deep breath and opened his eyes as sharp pains shot through his right leg. Terrified, he held tight for a second, then used the root to carefully pull himself back up, finally rolling back over the edge into the trees, with sweat rolling in cold beads down his forehead.

He groped in the darkness for his rifle, which he’d dropped near the edge. His right hand bumped against the barrel, and he snatched it up with hands shaking so hard from the near fall that he could hardly get his finger on the trigger. He edged back towards the cliff top, this time much more carefully and slowly. From this new vantage point, he could see the militia house to his right and the road down below, and he watched the road, searching for movement.

Something shifted in the trees below, and he leaned forward, tense, only to see a deer scamper off towards the river. David waited and watched for what seemed like an eternity. His rapidly beating heart had slowed, but his bruised leg throbbed, and the chill of the winter night was beginning to work its way through his thick, sweat-soaked jacket. He shifted side to side on still shaking legs and swung his arms back and forth to get the blood flowing. Finally convinced that it had been a false alarm, David was about to retrace his steps back to the top of the hill when he definitely saw movement by the river. Looking harder, he saw spotted two figures crouched low and trotting towards the bridge. He scanned the road directly below and saw two more figures moving stealthily towards the militia house with what appeared to be weapons in their hands.

David brought the AK47 to his shoulder and turned to shoot the truck hood to warn the others and bring the rest of the militia to help. The words his dad had said to him the first night he went up the hill echoed in his head. “You’ve got our lives in your hands, Son. Don’t let us down.”

The hood had been hung so that it was directly facing the nest at the top of the hill. Now that he had run back towards the house, however, his angle to the target was considerably different, shrinking the target size in half, despite his being closer to it. He looked down at the road. The men there had paused in a ditch to talk; he couldn’t see the men by the river. David took aim at the hood and pulled the trigger.

The perfect silence of the late evening exploded with the gunshot, the sound ringing so loudly he was sure the dead would rise from their graves, but there was no ringing warning from the truck hood and how far the sound of the shot had carried he didn’t know. David fired again, aware that the sound and the flash would alert the men crouching in the ditch below him that he was there. Again there was no ringing of the hood.

“Dammit!” David whispered. He glanced at the window of the house where he knew a guard was posted and saw movement and a rifle sticking out. At least they’re on alert, he thought. He aimed again, noticed a flash from the rifle at the window, then rocks and pine needles exploded in the dirt just behind him as the pop of the weapon reached his ears. “Damn! Damn! Damn!” he exclaimed to himself, realizing he was taking friendly fire, and that the sound of weapons this far away wouldn’t be enough to rouse the community.

David scrambled ten feet further up hill, saw another flash from the window, and heard the bullet hit a tree close to where he had knelt just seconds before. Once again he took aim and pulled the trigger, and once again he missed his mark. Another flash from the window of the house was followed, almost immediately, by a flash from the side of the house. One of the shots hit a few feet above David, but the other zipped by close enough for him to hear it whistle past before bouncing off a nearby rock.

David dropped to his stomach and edged forward to look over the cliff. The men hiding in the ditch appeared to be looking up at him, then they started crawling out of the ditch, back in the direction they had come from. David realized the gunfire was scaring the intruders off before anyone in the community found out about them, and with his luck, he’d be killed by his own militia before he could alert them.

Adrenaline coursed through his body, making his hands shake again. He again took aim, but this time at the figures on the road, who were much closer than the hood and seemed to fill the scope of his weapon. Another shot sounded from the house, with the bullet crashing through the branches above his head. David took the forward shape in his sights and began to put pressure on the trigger, then paused. His mind raced. That was a real person down there, someone who felt pain, someone who had a life and a family. David had killed countless aliens, Nazis, zombies, and gangsters on his Xbox, but this wasn’t a video game. This time they were real.

Another shot rang from the house, and the bullet struck below him on the cliff. With hands still shaking, David looked through his gun sight, aiming dead center on the man’s chest, and pulled the trigger. The gun roared, but he was used to the sound, and it no longer fazed him. He quickly recovered from the kick and drew the sights back on the men now scrambling back to the ditch. Calmer, he pulled the trigger again and saw his target fall while thinking to himself, “I’ve just shot a living person.” It didn’t seem real.