William Weber - Surviving America's Collapse

“Only I use the Barrett,” Frank said. “That’s my only condition. What do ya say?”

John smiled. “How do you feel about heights?”

Evening came and with it gunfire. John was in the house with Diane and the kids when the sounds stopped them dead. They’d been preparing dinner using the Heartland Wood Cookstove, warming stew that had once been frozen, but that Diane had canned after the deep freeze lost power. The spoon was nearly in John’s mouth when he jumped up and headed for the front door.

He hadn’t heard the fog horn go off, which meant the shots were either far away or Willow Creek had already been overrun. The S&W was always with him now, along with the AR-15. John peeked out the windows beside the front door before opening it.

Gregory was right behind him.

“Son, you can’t come with me. Stay here and keep an eye on your mother and sister, would you?”

The disappointment on Gregory’s face was tangible. He wanted nothing more than to follow his father into danger.

“Get the Ruger out of the pod downstairs. There’s a box of shells beside it.”

“Okay, Dad.”

John raced across his lawn, catching frightened faces staring back at him from darkened houses. More loud gunfire echoed as he reached the barricade near Pine Grove. Two recruits were there, one down low out of sight, the other peering out with the nightvision goggles John had equipped them with earlier.

“See anything?” John asked.

“No, sir. I heard screaming before. Sounded like a woman.”

“Oh, God help them. Stay alert.”

“Will do.”

He made his way east, toward the tree stand. With some effort, John climbed the wooden ladder until he reached the platform. Frank was there, peering through the nightvision scope mounted on the rail of his Barrett M107.

“I’m guessing if you’d seen anything, you would have sounded the horn.”

“Damn right,” Frank said. “There’s some kind of battle going on. If you ask me it’s coming from a few streets over. Say Taliluna, although it could be as far south as Cherokee Boulevard.”

John moved to the south side of the tree stand and peered off in that direction. The stand itself wasn’t taller than Rose’s house and for good reason. They didn’t want to become a target for any crackerjack with a scoped rifle. The flip side was that it made seeing anything outside of Willow Creek Drive nearly impossible. More gunfire now and John caught flashes lighting up nearby houses.

“That’s definitely getting closer. Looks like Glenfield Street.”

“You might be right. Think it’s got something to do with that black pickup we saw skulking around today?” Frank asked.

John kept staring. “It might. Wouldn’t want to jump to any conclusions though. We need to be ready in case all this is an elaborate attempt to distract us from something else.”

“Like an attack?”

“Maybe. They’ve driven by and seen how we’re set up. It wouldn’t take a genius to figure on hitting us where we least expect it.”

“Through our backyards.”

“Exactly. If I was them, I’d hop a fence and take out the defenders from behind. That’s why we need you to keep an eye out on our flanks as well. Let the people at the barricades worry about a frontal assault. I’ll send another deputy up to help out.” John started climbing down the ladder. “And keep that horn handy.”

“Hold up, John,” Frank shouted after him. “I got something here you should see.”

John climbed back up and followed the tip of Frank’s finger. The sight tightened his gut into knots at once. Something was on fire. Looked from here like a house. And without firemen to put it out, who knew how far it would spread. Now there was a new terrifying threat to keep them up at night.

The gunfire wasn’t stopping and neither was the shouting. It was low at first, but now it was getting louder. John wanted to block his ears. The cries. The sound reminded him of Kosovo and the ethnic cleansing he’d seen there when his unit had been sent to secure the elections in that shattered country.

“Sounds like a slaughter,” Frank said. “Maybe we should go help.”

“Help who?”

“Not sure.”

“That’s the problem,” John said. “I know it’s hard to hear something like this, but charging in guns blazing when we don’t know what the situation is will usually lead to lots of innocent casualties. If you’re lucky you kill bad guys, but we’re just as likely to kill people on the wrong side.”

Frank grew quiet.

“Stay focused and keep an eye on that fire if you can, especially if it begins spreading this way.”

John climbed down and made his way to the second barricade by the park. The other recruits had since scrambled from their houses. The base of the tree stand was the assembly point if no other sign of danger was visible and Peter addressed them there. It appeared he was ordering them to fan out and watch the perimeter.

Given the volume of fire John was hearing, he couldn’t help but wonder if they had enough deputies. Perhaps everyone should have a gun and be trained how to use it? On the surface it sounded like a no-brainer, but it also created a whole other set of issues. You needed lots of bullets for a shooter to become proficient. Bullets they didn’t have. It also meant an increase in the chances of friendly fire. Lots of half-trained people running around with guns in the dark was an accident waiting to happen.

The two recruits manning the eastern barricade looked scared to death. They hadn’t seen the elephant yet. That was the way soldiers during the Civil War had described facing battle for the first time. Those were the moments where you found out what the man next to you was really made of. Sometimes the biggest, meanest-looking guy with the craziest tattoos went all to pieces at the first sign of gunfire. More often than not, it was the unassuming, wiry guy on your left who kept his emotions in check and carried out his mission.

It was difficult for anyone to trade a soft cushy life for a muddy trench. That wasn’t a surprise. For John, the biggest shock was that he’d stayed behind and jumped into the trench along with them.

John came awake with a start. Weak light trailing in through his living-room windows said it was five, maybe six in the morning. If that were true, it meant he hadn’t slept more than a couple of hours. The gunshots had stopped not long before he’d gone to grab some much-needed shuteye, half expecting to be woken from a dead sleep by a blaring fog horn. The alarm hadn’t come.

The nerve-wracking events from last night were still playing in John’s mind as he stepped into his boots and left the house. The second security detail was on shift. Frank must have also left to rest, since one of the recruits was up in the tree stand. John climbed the ladder and when he reached the top greeted the recruit. They were using a deer rifle. On the platform was Frank’s Barrett M107.

“He doesn’t want any of us using it,” the recruit said.

“Maybe that’s for the better. Takes some real training to use a beast like that.” John surveyed both barricades. “Anything to report since I left?”

“No, sir. Those fires have died down.”

John went to the south end of the platform and scanned the area just past the line of roofs on Willow Creek. Thin black smoke continued to rise, which meant the embers were still smoldering, but the worst of the fire was over. He guessed two, maybe three houses on Midland Street had completely burned to the ground. He would wait a few hours and make sure there wasn’t a resumption of gunfire before sending out a team of three recruits to investigate.