James Tarr - Dogsoldiers

“What?” Weasel’s hearing was mostly blown out from shooting underneath the Growler. Everything was ringing.

“Growler!” Renny shouted.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” Weasel spat. He already had the Growler at an unsafe speed whipping through the debris-filled streets of the city. “See if you can grab her rifle, yours is useless in this car.” Weasel quickly glanced at Renny and caught the man’s eye. “Nice work with that Glock,” he told the man. “You saved our asses.”

Renny just grunted as he bent over the seats and tried to figure out how to unhook Sarah’s suppressed carbine from the sling around her body.

They’d made it to the railroad tracks, used them to cross the freeway, and jogged nearly a mile northwest. They’d moved out of the commercial zone and into a residential area with abundant tree cover and very few houses left standing, so Ed thought they were in the clear. Then he heard the roar of multiple engines. Ahead and behind them.

“Contact front!” Early yelled as a Growler stopped in the intersection ahead of them, a four-way stop in the middle of a neighborhood half-consumed by nature. The Growler was up-armored. From the sound of the other vehicles coming up behind them they were trying to box in the dogsoldiers. Early took cover behind a brick porch and began firing, his big rifle barking loudly. He’d fired ten well-aimed rounds before the soldiers inside the vehicle realized what he was doing. By the time the driver threw the vehicle into reverse Early had shredded the two tires facing him, and he moved his sights upward. Armored windows degraded from UV light, and this late in the war sometimes they got lucky. None of Early’s bullets penetrated the driver’s door window, but he got the Growler to reverse out of sight as fast as it had arrived.

Jason saw Tabs on foot behind them, the soldiers having bailed from pursuing Growlers. The camouflage-clad men were utilizing the half-collapsed homes for cover as they moved up. Using the brick corner of a house for protection he fired at them when he could see them, but they kept darting from cover to cover.

“Come on, move!” Ed shouted at him, grabbing at his arm. “We can’t stand and fight.” He fired as Jason ran past him. They were outnumbered, facing at least three vehicles by the sound of it, plus who knew how many Tabs on foot. The only chance they had was to keep running and gunning, and hopefully break contact.

Early and Mark were on the far side of the street, running north. One would stop and fire at targets of opportunity as the other darted for the next cover—house, tree, car, whatever would stop a bullet. Seattle was somewhere ahead of them, out of sight.

Jason was kneeling behind a pile of bricks that used to be a porch as Ed ran past him. Jason fired left and right, at enemy soldiers moving through houses and behind them through the overgrown yards. He heard another Growler—it seemed to be on the next street over, paralleling them.

On the north side of the few houses still left standing on the block were overgrown lots that had been vacant for decades. Early and Mark ran blindly into a patch of urban forest, hearing the Tabs firing perhaps a hundred yards behind them. They put on as much speed as they could, trying to increase distance, branches and leaves whipping their faces.

Ed glanced up into the sky, gasping for breath. The Tabs must have a drone up there, and were calling out their movements. But there had to be some transmission delay from the drone operator to the troops on the ground. As he Ed ran up to Jason, who was crouched against a small apartment building using a rusty Pontiac for cover, he didn’t go flying by him as usual. He grabbed Jason’s shoulder and pointed. The two of them ran behind the apartment building, across a completely overgrown alley, and into the narrow gap between two houses.

As they neared the front of the houses the sound of the Growler paralleling them grew loud. Ed peered around the corner and through a wildly overgrown privet bush caught glimpses of the Growler in the middle of the street sixty feet away, rolling straight toward them.

Ed frantically motioned to Jason and flattened his back against the side of the house. Jason pulled back against the opposite house, maybe six feet away. Ed’s eyes shot upward. There was a narrow slot of sky above him, but he didn’t see the drone, and even if it was up there they were in deep shadow.

“Grenade!” Ed hissed at Jason, pointing, then waved his hand. “I’m gonna do a thing, stay with me.” Jason grabbed the grenade hanging off the front of his webgear and tossed it over. Ed caught it, pulled the pin while keeping the lever depressed, and looked around the side of the house again. Then he spun out, let the lever fly, and tossed the grenade underhand.

It arced lazily through the air, bounced off the curb, then rolled out into the middle of the street, eight feet in front of the moving Growler. The engine block was directly over the grenade as it detonated, and the front of the vehicle jumped a foot from the blast. Ed charged out, Jason right on his heels.

As Ed tore across the lawn he saw the silhouettes of the men in the vehicle. They were stunned by the blast, but moving. The driver opened his door, retching, smoke pouring out. Ed shoved the muzzle of his rifle into the vehicle and emptied an entire magazine on full auto. Blood sprayed him in the face. Jason was beside him, firing into the back seat as fast as he could pull the trigger, not aware he was shouting. Then both men ducked reflexively as bullets whizzed by their heads. They looked and there were Tabs on foot at the end of the block south of them.

“Move!” Ed barked, and they ran back between the houses.

It was a good thing Weasel was already deaf from shooting underneath the car, because between the roaring diesel engine and the flat tire at the right rear going FLAPFLAPFLAP and Sarah shooting out the back window and the pursuing Tabs firing at them the noise was deafening.

“Are you firing blanks?” Weasel shouted.

“Fuck you, Gopher,” Sarah shot back as she dropped a spent magazine and reached for a fresh one. She was still a little groggy from the rollover, but the adrenaline seemed to be clearing that up quickly. “One of them’s armored.” And two Tabs were hanging from the open back windows of the other unarmored Growler, firing wildly at them. Weasel had to keep the vehicle swerving constantly to avoid the incoming fire.

“Go for the tires.”

“No shit.” She slapped the bolt release and got back up on her knees, aiming out the back window, which had mostly been blown out. She fired twice, the ejected cases bouncing off the ceiling and landing on the back seat, which was layered with spent cases. The Growler bounced angrily and she lost her balance. Then she was back up in the window, firing.

Weasel had taken so many corners he had no idea where he was. He’d been heading into a neighborhood when a second Growler had shown up and smashed into them, and he’d had to cut across a vacant lot, the vehicle bouncing so hard he hit his head on the roof. Now there were skyscrapers out the windshield and tall commercial buildings flying by to either side, which meant he was heading back toward downtown—the exact wrong fucking direction. He peered at the green and white street signs sliding by. Shit, was he on Woodward? How the hell did that happen?

Incoming fire thudded against their Growler. The other rear tire blew with a loud bang. “Fuck!” Weasel shouted in response. The vehicle slowed down even though he didn’t let off the accelerator.

“Sarah, you gotta make something happen!” he shouted. There was no response.

Renny, braced against the door and dash, looked over his shoulder. Sarah had tumbled up against one of the back doors, a dull look on her face, a hole in the middle of her forehead. “She’s down,” Renny told Weasel, his voice flat.