Matthew Mark - Dark Days Rough Roads

They had built a rack to suspend people from. They would use this to keep the person’s hands tied over their heads and their feet barely touching the ground. There was blood on one of the chairs and on the floor. The worst part was a man still hanging from one side of the rack. It looked like he had been dead for a few days already.

Chuck looked at Roger, “I know that guy.”

“Who is it Chuck?”

Chuck looked pissed. “That’s the chief of police. He went missing the second day of the outage. No one knew what the hell happened to him. We all thought maybe he bugged out. He and the sheriff never got along. I guess we know now what happened to him. Seems like the chief wasn’t going to put up with any BS and they decided he was a liability.”

Roger keyed his mic and told everyone what they had found. This re-ignited the rage that the people had for the militia. They went back into the first building and made their way over to the west side of it. They went out and Haliday’s team provided cover while Chuck’s team made it to the back of another building. This was going to be the last easy building to clear.

Mark had heard the shots being fired over at the north east corner and knew something was wrong. He called and confirmed that there was a problem. “Ok, Brad,” he said, “We need to get over there and see what’s going on.” He called on the radio and told everyone to keep checking their rear. Roger and Brad took off. Rob stayed to make sure everyone got up to the emplacements.

Roger got one team at a time moved up toward the three buildings. They got all three manned without any problems. They spent a few minutes arranging them to make it a bit safer. The next piece of the puzzle would be to get the other two positions emptied out. They had a couple of parlor tricks left to do this. He called a couple more guys up to his position. They came up and each brought a couple of large plastic toolboxes with them.

Over the next 30 minutes they made two more trips with more supplies and ammo. They were almost ready to make the assault on the two positions. They had to wait for Chuck to enter the other building and clear it first. Chuck was there at the back. They blew the door, tossed in and then blew the tannerite can. As soon as they entered the building more shots were fired.

Roger and his team got down low. They waited until the firing stopped. Haliday ran over to the building and crouched down low. He yelled into the door. “Chuck, what’s the status?” he asked.

Chuck’s voice came back, “We’re clear. We have one wounded and we took out one militia.” Haliday entered the building. Inside was a woman lying there dead and Chuck’s man who was hit in the hip.

Haliday walked over to him and checked him out. Chuck had put a pressure bandage on his hip. “How bad?” Haliday asked. Chuck said he would be ok, but wouldn’t be able to move. “We can’t get him out of here for at least another hour,” Roger said. He looked at the guy; “Can you make it until then?”

“Ya, sure, it just hurts.”

Haliday grabbed a bottle out of his pocket and handed him a vicodin. “Take this. It’ll help.”

Haliday told Chuck he was heading back to the other building to get ready. Once he got there, they looked out and saw the target. Haliday asked the guys if they were ready and both nodded. They would be launching a small assault from two buildings, his and the one Chuck was in. Haliday clicked his mic. “We go on my word. Everyone ready, three, two, one, go.”

Mark and Brad had gone slow and came up across the street from the brickyard. They saw a truck over in the yard. “I wonder if that’s their truck?” he said.

Brad said, “Yep, that’s where we got the tractor and it wasn’t there before.” Mark and Brad checked the woods around the brickyard. They spotted some movement and kept their eyes on it.

Mark told Brad he was going to low crawl up into a better position. Brad kept watch as Mark moved forward. Mark was about 25 yards closer to the people now and he watched too. He heard some shots fired from the compound area and saw these people fire back. They weren’t wearing the Russian camo and he wasn’t sure who they were. He was wondering if they were good guys or bad.

He motioned for Brad to crawl up. Brad moved up slowly, very slowly. Mark could tell he wasn’t used to this. He looked over at Brad and pointed the people out. Brad looked at them and then back at Mark and shook his head no. These were definitely not part of Rob’s group. He told Brad he was moving over to line himself up better.

While he was moving the pair fired once again toward the compound. He heard the guy say he got one. “Good job, sweetie,” he heard.

This was a couple, he thought. He moved back toward Brad. “It’s a man and a woman, I’m going to go further east and come through the brickyard. You come along to a point and then provide me some cover. We can’t get them from here. I need to take a clean shot and can’t get one right now.”

They moved east and then found a place to cross. “You stay here. Brad. I’ll cross over and check it out. I’ll signal you when I want you to cross. Mark crossed over into the brickyard and made his way toward the couple. He peeked around a pallet of bricks and spotted two small children hunkered down behind them. He looked across at Brad and signaled him to back off a bit.

Over toward the main gate, some of the guys took pot shots at the militia positions. They were not able to effectively do anything. They tried to light the gel fuel. They tried bows and arrows and aiming high hoping the arrows would drop on the guys, but nothing was working. One of the guys took a shot at a vehicle and ruptured the gas tank. Everyone else just looked at each other.

They started shooting the vehicles themselves and were trying to puncture as many of the fuel tanks as they could. The militia pushed the vehicles in place but did not empty the tanks out. Gas was now flowing along the entire line of vehicles that the militia relied on for protection and cover at the front of the admin building.

Once a couple of tanks were punctured and the militia caught on to what was happening they fired toward the townspeople. They unleashed over 1,000 rounds to try and stop them. The militia had hit a man and woman who were injured and another man was killed. The people lit some fireworks and aimed them toward the vehicle barricade. Finally one struck gas and within minutes they all started to burn.

After about 10 minutes, the line of cars was so engulfed in flames you could hardly see through all of the smoke. The militia was able to pull back toward some secondary defensive positions rather safely. Only one man sustained a hit while making the moves, and it was just an injury that left him bleeding, but still able to fight. The townspeople took the opportunity to gather up any of their own wounded and get them to safety.

Haliday’s team popped the door open at the same time Chuck’s team did. The team members with the AR’s laid down prone while the men with shotguns took different stances. One kneeled and one stood, both using the thin hangar wall along the door jambs as cover. They instantly started firing toward their assigned militia positions.

The folks on the east and west sides fired as well. Haliday watched one man take off toward the center of the building complex and tried to lead his fire on him. Before he could fire on him though the concrete next to him shattered causing him to roll for cover. The two men with him continued to fire and eliminated the threat that fired on Haliday. The militia member running made it to another position, but this one was out of their view.

Chuck’s team didn’t have such good luck. As soon as they opened to fire, they took hits immediately. Chuck fired away, but one of the guys had his shotgun jam on him, and as he tried to eject the shell he was hit twice and went down. Chuck continued to fire as the other man pulled the injured guy out of the way. He returned to help Chuck. The snipers still didn’t have any shots on this militia position and couldn’t help Chuck’s team.