William Weber - Surviving America's Collapse

Hearing it erased all the doubts in John’s mind. It was Cain and he’d returned to settle the score.

“Your friend Bill Kelsaw was very helpful in divulging your location once we provided the proper incentives.”

Cain thought he was being cute, but John couldn’t help but imagine poor Bill tied up, being slowly tortured to reveal what he knew. The image, even if it wasn’t real, made him all the more determined.

“I don’t have a beef with anyone other than you, John,” Cain shouted. “Come out and give yourself up and I’ll let your family live. You’ve got my word on that.” He paused and spat on the ground. “You also have three minutes to decide.”

John turned to find everyone in the cabin looking at him, each with a different expression. Acute fear on his children’s faces. Confusion and curiosity on Tim’s face as he wondered whether John would comply. For a moment John wondered the same thing himself. What if Cain was telling the truth? Was a gun battle worth risking the lives of his family? What if he could trade his life for theirs? Let Cain settle the score and be done with it.

Then John spotted the stubborn scowl on Diane’s face he’d seen so many times throughout their marriage.

“The rat’s lying through his teeth,” she growled. “And you know it.”

She was right. He did.

“Cain’s lied, manipulated and tried to terrorize us from the first second we met him.”

“Don’t do it, Dad,” Gregory said tearfully.

“If I don’t go out there, they’ll attack us for sure,” John said. “Some of you might get hurt or killed.”

Tim came over and put a hand on John’s shoulder. “Let the bastards try.”

The three minutes came and went. Finally Cain called out from somewhere beyond view. “So what’s your answer, John?”

“Show yourself and find out, you coward,” John shouted through the loophole.

Through the narrow opening in the cabin wall, he spotted men scurrying up the path.

John slowed his breathing, took careful aim and squeezed the trigger. The cabin exploded with deafening sound as John fired at the approaching men. Shooting a man in real life wasn’t like in those fancy Hollywood movies. They didn’t fly ten feet back. A man hit by a high-caliber bullet usually fell where he stood. Nothing dramatic, nothing fancy. That was what happened to the first two John hit. They dropped to the ground and stopped moving. More came up behind them, firing wildly as they made their way forward.

Rounds struck the cabin wall, the larger ones passing through and rattling a row of pans hanging in the kitchen.

John emptied his magazine, released it, popped in another and continued firing. A handful of Cain’s men were circling around to John’s right.

“You got a few coming your way,” he called to Diane who was covering the eastern section with a deer rifle. She fired and then worked the bolt before firing again. Bullets slammed through the cabin, thudding into the sandbags.

There were still men firing at them from the tree line. It appeared as though the booby-traps they’d set had taken out a few of Cain’s thugs, but others pushed on and settled at the forest’s edge. They were preparing to open up with AK-47s when John peppered their position. Dirt and leaves kicked in the air as rounds landed all about them. One of the men was struck through the eye and slumped forward. The other pushed himself back and out of view.

Out came another empty magazine. Behind him, Gregory was crouched low to the ground, pulling 5.56 rounds out of the box and feeding them into the empty polymer mags. This was the benefit of having four positions manned by two people each. If one was hit, there was an immediate replacement and in the meantime, the backup could keep a supply of fresh mags coming.

Course, they couldn’t go on shooting indefinitely. At some point they would run out, which was why John was trying to conserve as much as he could.

“How many on your end Diane?” John called out.

“I hit three, but two others were moving too fast. Tim should see them any second.”

“Got ’em,” Tim replied as he opened fire.

He burned through a mag in a matter of seconds.

“Make every shot count, Tim,” John shouted over the barrage. “We could be here all night.”

Then John caught a terrifying sight. Two of Cain’s men were in the open, lighting Molotov cocktails and preparing to throw them at the cabin. If they succeeded, it would quickly be the end of everyone inside. The place would go up like a tinder box.

John peered through his ACOG Scope and laid off three quick rounds. Except he wasn’t aiming for the men, he was aiming for the Molotov cocktail. A second later, the sound of shattering glass was followed by the two men screaming as the bottle exploded and doused them in flames.

More shots continued to ring out from each of the loopholes as Cain’s men tried to surround the cabin, searching for a weak point in their defenses.

John was in the process of loading a fresh mag when the sound of bullets slamming through the southern wall made him turn. Tim slumped forward. Without enough sandbags, a round had passed through the cabin wall and hit him.

Kay screamed and moved to grab hold of her husband.

“Take my rifle,” Diane told her. “And keep firing.”

Diane had the most medical knowledge of anyone there and it only made sense for her to be the one to assess Tim’s wounds.

For her part, Natalie took hold of her father’s AR and continued to return fire.

Grabbing Tim by the shirt, Diane pulled him flat on his back and out of harm’s way. She then rifled through his clothes, searching for the entry wound. “Where’re you hit?”

Tim shook his head. “I don’t know.” Soldiers with adrenaline pumping through their veins during combat often didn’t know where they’d been shot.

After searching for a few seconds, Diane found the wounds. Tim had been shot twice. Once in the right arm and once in the abdomen. There were also bits of wood sticking out of his flesh that must have splintered off from the rounds punching through the cabin wall. While Diane used QuikClot and dressed the wound, the others continued fighting back.

“How many are down?” John ordered. “I need each of you to report back.”

“Five over here,” Brandon called out from the western wall.

“Three,” Kay replied in a quivering voice.

“Three for me too,” Tim said quietly.

That made eleven and John had taken out seven more which brought the total to eighteen. Predictably John hadn’t seen Cain show his face once during the attack. He was probably waiting to swoop in when all the heavy lifting was done so he could execute John himself.

“Emma, take over for Kay, will you.” Kay wasn’t doing them any good, trying to soldier on while her husband lay wounded nearby.

“Okay, Dad.”

The attacks from outside began to die down. Then John spotted two men running along the tree line to his left. But they weren’t heading toward him. They appeared to be running away. John took careful aim and dropped them both.

Those two made twenty and with Cain twenty-one. He was confident that most of the attackers were now either dead or gravely wounded. All except for Cain.

“I’m going outside,” John said to protests from those around him.

The safe play would have been to stay inside, but allowing Cain to get away would only push the danger further down the line. Plus, not only did Cain know where they were, but he now had a good idea of their defenses. The next time around he’d be better prepared and surely do far more damage.

John rose, stuffed fresh mags into his chest rig, seated his S&W into his drop-leg holster and grabbed his AR.