Nathan Jones - First Winter

Brandon waved his gun to indicate for the refugees to get going. “Yes you didn’t know, you’ve already told us. That doesn’t change the fact that you can’t be here. You’re too close to Aspen Hill, you need to move now.”

“Why?” the refugee shouted, going from petulant to angry himself in a flash. “We’re just sitting here around a fire trying not to starve and freeze to death! You’re already keeping us out of your town and not giving us anything, why do you have to harass us way out here?”

The patrol leader sighed, anger giving way to weariness. “Look, you can just as easily camp a mile north of here, outside our patrol range. Then we wouldn’t have—”

Brandon’s words cut off in a grunt, followed by a terrible gurgling sound. Deb turned and saw in blank horror that he had an arrow buried in his neck and was slumping to his knees, rifle clattering to the ground as he lifted his hands towards the wound in stunned incomprehension.

Feeling a sort of numb disbelief, she turned away from the fire towards the nearby copse where the arrow had come from. To her shock she saw over two dozen men with crude weapons like baseball bats, golf clubs, and metal pipes with tape handles had burst from hiding places and were closing the distance towards her patrol, already more than halfway to them.

Screaming a warning to her three remaining companions, she lifted her AK-47 and snapped off a shot. A man went down clutching his stomach, adding his own screams to the confusion. Deb started to aim for a man carrying a baseball bat who’d nearly reached her, but he swung and managed to hit the end of her rifle, knocking it out of her hands.

Somehow she was able to duck away from the bat’s backswing as the man stumbled past, diving for her dropped weapon. Around her she heard a few brief spats of gunfire, quickly followed by thuds and screams as her patrol was overwhelmed and beaten to the ground. And the original four men at the fire had also joined the fray as soon as her and her companions’ backs were turned.

It had been a trap, and they’d literally walked right up to it.

Before Deb could reach her gun a solid kick to her side knocked her away. She curled up around the agonizing injury, thoughts of going for her weapon momentarily forgotten in a haze of pain as more kicks followed to her thighs, hips, butt, lower back, and finally a vicious one to her crotch from behind.

That last one made her involuntarily flip over onto her back still huddled in a ball, tearing a cry of pain from between her clenched teeth. She looked up dazedly to see the man with the bat looming over her. He’d been happy to kick and stomp on her with his boot, but now he hesitated in bringing the bat down on her head.

Not from any kindness or unwillingness to seriously hurt her, of course; he was leering down at her with the same expression the blockheads who’d taken her prisoner had worn. The look she’d seen far too often during those nightmarish first days in their hands, which she remembered only as a horrific blur she did her best to avoid thinking about.

He wanted her relatively unharmed for his own sickening reasons.

But his moment of hesitation was all she needed. The other bandits were still swarming around the rest of her patrol mates, swinging their brutal weapons long past the point of being necessary to the accompaniment of noises she didn’t want to think about. Another horrific event that would feature in her nightmares if she survived this.

And if she wanted to do that then this would be her one and only chance, since once they’d played out their aggression on the bodies of her friends they’d turn their attention on her for other malevolent desires.

Her attacker shifted the bat to one hand, reaching for her with the other. “Don’t struggle, and maybe you’ll—”

Deb drew her pistol from its concealed holster behind the waistband of her jeans, disguising the motion with the all too sincere cringing she was doing. Before the man even realized what was happening she shot him in the face point-blank.

The result wasn’t pretty, although she barely noticed since she’d already started moving, rolling away as he fell on top of her. She yanked her legs free of his dead weight and stumbled to her feet, eyes searching for the only enemy currently holding a ranged weapon: the man with the crossbow who’d shot Brandon. She fired at him until he went down, too.

Then she turned and bolted, her sprint fueled by wild terror and desperation at what awaited her if she was too slow. Guilt churned in her gut at leaving her patrol mates behind to the bandits, but she knew there was nothing she could do for them now. At least by the smallest mercy their deaths had been fairly quick.

Behind her she heard shouts and howls as the nearest bandits tore after her in close pursuit. She stumbled and nearly fell, and by sheer luck at that exact moment a thrown chunk of rock passed just over her head, missing her by inches. In an instant she regained her balance and started sprinting again, pushing for every ounce of speed.

Part of her wanted to turn and unload the rest of her magazine at her pursuers to slow them down, but the rational part of her brain clawing for control through her panic knew that would be counterproductive. Even if she took down half of them the rest would swarm her before she could get away again, and after the fight she’d put up they’d make her suffer even worse for it.

She desperately wanted to live, but she’d fight with everything she had to avoid going through that hell again. Never again.

All she could do was keep sprinting flat out, listening to the snarls and pants seemingly right in her ear from her closest pursuers, and hope she was faster than them. Her lungs burned, her throat was raw, her legs felt rubbery and she stumbled more and more often, but somehow the expected hands grasping at her pack or weight tackling her from behind never came.

If there was one thing going for her it was that the men chasing her were weak from hunger. They didn’t have the strength to keep up their pursuit for long, and she was able to outpace them. The noise from right behind faded until she was sure she had a lead of at least ten feet, and she risked a glance over her shoulder to see that the bandits had finally come to a panting halt.

The danger wasn’t over then, unfortunately, since some of the bandits had been smart enough to strip the weapons from her fellow defenders rather than chasing her on foot. She could hear the crack of gunfire from behind her, and she added a few zigs and zags as she kept staggering in the direction of Aspen Hill and safety. From training she knew a moving target was incredibly difficult to hit at any range, and she doubted any of those men had serious training with firearms. But at the same time her patrol had been carrying M16s and AK-47s and she could hear the bandits unloading entire magazines at her. She even heard the alarming whine of a few shots passing far too close.

But finally, practically on her hands and knees for the few final feet, she made it up and over a rise, and with it between her and the shots coming from behind she finally felt safe enough to slow for a moment.

Sobbing, both from sucking in desperate lungfuls of air as well as from grief for her friends and shock at what she’d just narrowly escaped, she yanked at the radio clipped to her belt until it came free, raising it with a hand shaking so hard she nearly smashed it into her teeth. “Trev, my team’s been attacked!”

Matt jumped slightly as Trev, who’d been walking along beside him, suddenly made a strangled noise and stumbled over to lean against the nearest house, face ashen as he talked quickly into his headset.

Whatever his friend was hearing had to be on the defender channel. Matt was currently on the town channel waiting for word from Gutierrez, who’d gone to round up the hunters who kept insisting on going out so he could have a word with them.