Steven Konkoly - Event Horizon

EVENT +75:31

Limerick, Maine

Kate fidgeted, trying to find a comfortable position lying on the wet tile floor. Razor-sharp pieces of porcelain and glass dug into her knees and thighs, rendering the effort pointless. At least the fragments hadn’t spilled the entire length of the mudroom. Her elbows rested in a thick puddle spreading from the entryway into the mudroom. She braced her rifle against the doorframe, using the wooden trim to shield her left shoulder and part of her face from the mudroom door. This was the best she could do to protect herself, and judging by the holes in the trim above her head, it wasn’t much. Oh yes—sandbags protected her feet.

Wonderful.

All compounded by the fact that she had no idea what had happened in the kitchen. She heard a ton of shooting, then nothing. Her radio was somewhere in the sitting room, detached from the earpiece that still dangled from her ear.

It didn’t matter at this point. She had a job to do. A shadow slightly darkened the mudroom. Bullets penetrated the door, concentrated on the door handle and deadbolt, and slammed into the wooden shoe storage rack attached to the wall. A few bullets ricocheted in random directions, but most of them plowed into the same one-foot-by-one-foot section of the shoe rack, giving her a solid idea where the shooter was standing. She aimed at the wall to the left of the mudroom door and fired several projectiles through the drywall and siding, hearing a muffled scream from the porch outside.

A fusillade of bullets tore through the mudroom, forcing her to press into the doorframe as glass, drywall and wood showered the tile floor. A figure rushed in front of the obliterated door, rapidly firing his rifle at shoulder height into the mudroom. She placed the holographic sight’s reticle center mass and fired as he kicked the door loose of the locking mechanisms. A second man wasted no time following the door in, proficiently advancing and firing through the mudroom door and kitchen entryway. Kate’s rifle killed him before he realized his mistake.

A cylindrical gray object glanced off the door and bounced on the tile, rolling in her direction. She had no idea what it was and had no intention of finding out. All she knew was that when people threw things during a gunfight, they usually exploded. She scrambled to her feet and sprinted through the kitchen doorway, colliding with Alex.

Four bullet holes dimpled the right side of the refrigerator in a tight pattern facing the mudroom. Alex depressed the bolt release button, chambering a round from a fresh magazine, and switched hands in anticipation of firing onto the porch from a position on the right side of the kitchen doorway. Kate burst through the opening as he arrived, knocking him into the broken pantry door, which crashed to the floor.

“Grenade!” she yelled, yanking him toward the sandbags.

Alex stumbled for a few steps, gaining his balance in time to push Kate over the side of the safe box onto the Walkers. As soon as she disappeared, he dove behind the sandbags and waited for the explosion. A few seconds later, when the house didn’t shake, Alex clambered to the corner of the safe box and aimed at the mudroom. Thick, red smoke poured into the house, followed by several .223 bullets fired from men positioned around the doorframe. He fired back, but his hastily delivered bullets failed to find targets. Focused semiautomatic fire forced Alex to stick his rifle around the sandbag corner and fire Jihadi style for the first time in his life. He emptied the magazine and scurried around the other side of the box, reloading as he approached the far end of the kitchen island.

The mudroom fusillade continued as Alex checked the kitchen island corner and confirmed that he was screened from the mudroom doorway by the refrigerator. He edged along the stainless-steel appliance, plotting his next move. He could stick his rifle past the refrigerator and blast away, hoping that the shock of the unexpected, close-up blasts sparked a panicked retreat, but then what? Charge into the mudroom? He had no idea how many men waited for him. As the scarlet smoke intensified, he decided to wait for the marines—if the enormous detonation he’d heard a few minutes ago hadn’t taken them out of the picture. He just hoped Kate and the Walkers stayed in the safe box. A dark cylindrical object arced past the refrigerator, on a trajectory that flushed his decision down the proverbial toilet.

If the grenade landed in the safe box, Kate and Ed’s family would panic, jumping right into the sights of several militia guns. Alex lurched past the refrigerator, pressing the trigger twice before slamming into the pantry shelves. Dropping to the floor, he aimed up at the right side of the doorway and fired at a dark red mass behind a protruding barrel. A foot stepped into the kitchen, and Alex shifted his rifle left, firing again into the opaque cloud. Confused voices and jumbled commands quickly turned into return fire. Alex felt a bullet connect with his upper right chest, knocking him flat on his back. Another grazed his left thigh. He brought the mangled HK416 over his chest and fired the rest of his magazine into the smoke.

EVENT +75:33

Limerick, Maine

Jeffrey Brown crouched at the tree line, ready to sprint to the house, when his radio crackled.

“Brown, we can’t break through the mudroom. Request permission to withdraw,” said a coughing voice over heavy gunfire.

Thick plumes of red smoke billowed out of the mudroom door, hitting the porch ceiling and dispersing over the roof into the stark blue sky. The idiots weren’t supposed to pull the pin on the smoke grenade.

“I’m on my way. How many men do you have left that can fight?”

“Two, including myself.”

“Copy. Pull back. Head north for the secondary extraction point,” he said and pressed the alternate frequency button. “Liberty Actual, this is Liberty Three, the breach failed. Heading to secondary extract.”

“Liberty Actual copies. Get as many out as you can. Pick up the thirty-cal on your way out. It’s in the trees directly across from the leftmost, ground-floor window.”

“Copy. I’m moving.”

Two men stumbled down the porch stairs, coughing as they stopped to pick up their wounded squad mate. Brown stepped into the tall grass beyond the trees, but the sound of diesel engines stopped him. He dropped into the brush and crawled back to the trees as a dark blur crashed through the metallic gate fifty feet to his right. Two angular gray tactical vehicles burst into the clearing and raced toward the house. Brown crawled faster as the turret-mounted machine guns chattered in tandem, trading off deadly bursts that killed the last of his men.

Punching through the foliage, he risked a glance back at the house. Marines dismounted from both vehicles, firing single shots into the corpses lying on the gravel. One of the vehicles backed up and drove across the front of the house, heading toward the barn. He swung his scoped AR-10 toward the clearing, wanting desperately to take a shot, but there was no point. Killing one of them was a death sentence, even if he targeted the turret gunners.

The former ranger slowly eased his way deeper into the forest. He should be dead with his men, but his choice of rifles bizarrely kept him alive. With Daniel Boone and that crazy-looking bitch raining accurate fire down on his men, the .308 caliber AR-10 quickly became their golden ticket to cross open ground. He’d survived for a reason—which started to crystalize as he reached a safe distance from the clearing.