R. Ruggiero - Brushfire Plague

He almost felt bad as he sighted his rifle onto on the rear passenger. Easy pickings. This might work against some defenseless people, but you guys chose the wrong neighborhood. The man’s chest quickly filled his sights, racing closer. At about twenty-five yards, Cooper squeezed the trigger. The deep ‘boom’ of his rifle was followed quickly by the sharp ‘pop-pop-pop’ of a three-round burst from Dranko’s M16.

The strong recoil of the hard-hitting .308 cartridge punched Cooper in the shoulder. He remained focused on his target. The leather clad man’s chest exploded as he was lifted off the back of the bike. The pistols dropped from his hands as he grasped at his chest. For a split second, he hung in mid-air as the motorcycle thundered onward without him. His body slammed into the ground. He remained frozen in this awkward sitting position for a long moment. Then, his torso fell lazily to one side.

The driver fared no better. Dranko’s three round burst hit home, crisscrossing the man’s chest in making the upward stroke of half of an “X.” He slid off the motorbike, which raced onward for ten yards or so, without a rider. Then it crashed, flipping end over end, spurting gravel and then dirt, before coming to rest in Mrs. Patterson’s rose garden. The driver attempted to crawl away, spraying a fine shower of blood with each tortured breath. He had landed just a few feet away from where Cooper was crouched behind the tree and was futilely trying to get away.

Cooper took a few steps until he stood over the crippled driver. The Mohawk-haired biker who was so fearsome a few moments ago now begged for his mother in a voice that belonged to a child, gurgling blood as he did so.

“You don’t deserve the mercy of a bullet, but you’ll get it.” Cooper pointed the barrel at the man’s head and fired. His head exploded in a mass of bone, blood, and skin, dirtying Cooper’s boot. Scowling, he wiped it clean on the man’s pant leg.

Dranko was at his side. Cooper re-focused on the still raging firefight further up their street. Sporadic fusillades were punctuated by long seconds of silence. The gunfire told them both sides had settled in behind cover and were at a rough stalemate. Best we could hope for, with untrained guards on the line.

They resumed their fast, but steady run towards the battle.

“Damn stalemate,” panted Dranko.

“Yeah, isn’t it great?”

“Whatd’ya mean?”

“We get to be the SWAT team and break the bastards down!”

Dranko shook his head in wonderment at his friend’s cavalier attitude. Cooper responded with a reproachful smirk at his friend’s negativity.

When they came into view of the gunfight, they both instinctively took cover behind a Toyota Tundra pickup parked in someone’s driveway. At the top of the street, they could see Mark and Leroy Johnson to their left, crouched behind a battered old pickup truck that made up one-half of their hasty barricade. Miguel Aguilar was lying on the ground, shooting at their enemies from underneath a Buick sedan. His eldest son who was in his twenties, Antonio, lay in the street, sprawled out, riddled with several bullet wounds. Damn it, not his son! He pushed any thought of Jake from his mind.

A fury of gunfire erupted from the white house that lay opposite their barricaded position. The attackers must have retreated to it after the first shots were fired. A man lay face down in the yard, two red circles in the back of the white t-shirt he wore. Cooper saw a pistol-grip shotgun lying next to him.

Mark and Leroy ducked further behind the pickup and Miguel hastily scrabbled back, away from the front of the Buick. Both Mark and Leroy were armed with shotguns, while Miguel was shooting a bolt-action hunting rifle. Taking note, Cooper yelled to Dranko, “Cover me!”

Without hesitation, he began laying down deliberate fire intended to keep their opponents’ heads down; rather than trying to hit them. Dranko smiled to himself as he fired short, three-round bursts at the house. The sound was distinctive. The enemy would know they were facing at least one machine gun now. Mark, Leroy, and Miguel all glanced back at Dranko as soon as he began firing. Panicked fear quickly transformed into bravado and rapid hand waving and hooting once they saw Dranko’s face behind the M16.

Cooper ran forward and to his far right. He landed with a humph behind a cement stoop, scraping a knee raw. Now, he had the angle he wanted. He took cover and used the stoop as a rifle rest. He caught Dranko’s eye with rapid hand movements and signaled to him to stop firing with rapid brushes of his hand across his throat.

After several seconds of silence, activity resumed in the house. Cooper saw a flutter of a curtain and the glint of a rifle barrel. Cooper carefully sighted his rifle on where he thought the man was hiding behind the window. He fired two shots in rapid succession, pulling the trigger twice as fast as he could. The bullets made two neat holes in the side of the house. Cooper was rewarded by seeing the rifle barrel swing violently to the right and away from the window. He knew he’d hit the man on the other side.

“Welcome to the .308 boys, turning cover into concealment for fifty years,” he muttered to himself, a mischievous grin on his face. “Wood and drywall ain’t no match for it!”

A sharp report from a large caliber handgun in a window on the second floor drew Cooper’s attention. Mark fired back at the window with his 12 gauge. He was a split-second too late. The shooter had already sought cover behind the wall. Cooper guessed he had crouched behind the left side of the window, as most right hand shooters would naturally do. He fired three shots in a neat triangle pattern against the wall just to the left of the window and then waited. Seconds ticked past, but they seemed like hours.

Cooper flinched as a shotgun blast shredded the last remaining window in the Buick. A billow of smoke drifting outward from behind a green Subaru revealed another foe in the driveway that led to the house the others had taken refuge in.

The second story window came to life as the shooter fired again. Leroy screamed in pain, dropped his shotgun, and grabbed his right shoulder. Mark pulled him closer to the pickup and began applying direct pressure to the wound.

Must be left-handed. This time, Cooper repeated the triangle pattern on the right side of the window. He was rewarded by the strained cry of a man who has just realized he’s been shot. The man’s cry of pain quickly shifted to a plaintive whine, “God! Help me please! I promise I’ll do good!”

Cooper turned toward the shot gunner behind the Subaru. Someone beat me to it. He saw upturned black boots to the right of the front tire. Euphoric, Leroy jumped up, pumping his one good arm up and down.

“Yeah, we got them bastards!”

Cooper was shouting, “No” as movement from the house drew his eye. He saw a barrel emerge from a window and he frantically swung his own rifle towards it.

Too late. In slow motion, he watched a shiny stainless steel pistol barrel aim at Leroy. He could see the hammer draw back as the trigger was pulled. The revolver spat flame and thunder. He didn’t have to look to know the worst. A second later, with his rifle on target, he fired two shots quickly and watched the man’s body thrown backward into the room, disappearing from view.

Reluctantly, he looked back towards the barricade. Leroy lay splayed out on the ground, arms and legs outstretched at awkward angles. A neat bullet hole was in the middle of his chest. His eyes stared blankly at the sky filled with gathering clouds.

Miguel ran from his cover to Antonio’s side, yelling “Noooo!” in a gut-wrenching wail.

Two dead. That is all that he could think about as they cleaned up the mess of this attack. With, the gunfire gone, neighbors cautiously emerged from their homes and filed into the street. Miguel knelt at his dead son’s head, clutching it in his arms and crying out for God’s mercy. Miguel’s wife, Isabella, had died a few days ago from the illness. His daughter, Irina, had joined her father in mourning.