James Tarr - Dogsoldiers

He braced against the door frame and fired two shots at a distant running soldier, then his bolt locked back on an empty magazine. He moved back behind cover reflexively. With a grunt he dropped the magazine and reached down to his chest for a fresh one—and saw it was the last one left. He shoved it into place, hit the bolt release on his Geissele, then backed into the building and dumped his pack on the floor, then knelt next to it. He had several loaded thirty-round magazines—four, five? he couldn’t remember—in the top of his pack. And if he needed them that meant he’d already gone through ten magazines since entering Nakatomi that morning. Had it been just that morning? It felt like weeks ago. He grabbed the magazines and stuffed them into the pouches on his chest, then thought to look around. To his surprise he discovered he was in the lobby of a McDonald’s restaurant. He realized he could smell the grease from the French fries. Maybe it had soaked into the walls.

“I’m whipped,” Mark wheezed. Running hadn’t done his fractured ribs any good, and he pulled his blood-soaked shorts up his left thigh. There was a bullet wound in his leg. The bullet had gone in the back and out the front, on the outside of his leg. Both entry and exit wounds were bleeding steadily but there was no spurting, which meant it hadn’t hit an artery. And he was able to walk on it, which meant it hadn’t hit his femur.

Ed nodded. He could barely walk in a straight line, much less run any further. He was pretty sure he’d broken his foot about a quarter mile back jumping onto a pile of broken bricks. “Making a… stand here,” he panted. “You need to bandage that up.”

Jason fired again as counterpoint. The side of his head was covered in blood from a near miss that had embedded chunks of brick in his scalp.

“How… many… mags you got?” Mark panted. “Last one’s in… my gun.”

Ed slid a magazine over to him. He coughed, and spit a wad of vomitous phlegm on the floor. “Jason, how many mags you got left?”

The boy pulled back behind the wall and checked the pouches on his chest. “One… one and a half. Plus… five, no, six in my pack.” Rifles cracked down the street and they could hear bullets hitting the bricks outside.

Ed gestured as he got back to his feet. “Give Mark two. We’re taking a stand.” He gestured at the restaurant around them. “This is the Alamo.”

“You get that fucking reference, kid?” Mark growled.

Jason gulped, and nodded. He shrugged his pack off and set it on the floor.

“You’ve got two good legs,” Ed told Jason. “You grab what you need out of it but leave your pack, pretty sure you can outrun the Tabs, get out of here, live to fight another day.”

Jason blinked and frowned. “And leave you?”

“We’re not running anywhere.”

Jason was visibly angry at the suggestion. “Fuck that,” he nearly shouted. He stared at Ed. “And fuck you, for making it. Sir.”

“That’s the spirit,” Mark said. “You stay there, keep an eye, I’ll grab the mags,” he said, crawling across the floor. Jason edged out, fired a shot, then ducked back.

“Make your shots count, because we’re not getting any more ammo,” Ed said. He kept low and moved to the far side of the restaurant, every step agony. It felt like someone was shoving a red-hot knife into the top of his foot. He peered out the window frames which hadn’t held glass in nearly a decade. He blinked his burning eyes and focused on the street signs at the nearby corner, then referenced his mental map of the city. Holy shit, no wonder they were exhausted, the Tabs had chased them for three miles. Three miles of short sprints, wearing armor and a pack, shooting and moving and trying not to die. He was somewhat shocked he hadn’t had a heart attack. Ed ducked back down and a quick volley of incoming fire chewed into the walls around him.

Ed pointed. “Check the back door,” he told Mark. “See if it’s even there.”

Mark finished stuffing magazines into his chest pouches and got to his feet with a grunt. He swayed, almost blacking out, then headed behind the counter into the kitchen. Ed stared at the counter and would have snorted if he’d had the energy. It was lined with the self-serve computerized ordering kiosks that had replaced every human cashier in every fast-food restaurant when the government raised the minimum wage to $20 an hour, costing tens of thousands of people their jobs. Anyone who was economically literate foresaw that happening, but then again economically literate people knew socialism was only good for spreading misery and death. Although, he supposed, they could be economically literate and just plain evil.

“Stick those mags on your body,” Ed told Jason, and nodded at his pack which was sitting beside him with its top open. “And drink some water, we’re all dehydrated.”

“They’re getting closer…” the boy warned. He couldn’t believe how calm Ed was.

“They close enough to throw grenades? No? Good. Then drink some water.” He grabbed a bottle of Gatorade out of his pack, courtesy of Uncle Charlie, and downed half of it in one swallow. Then he threw it to Jason. “Here.”

“There’s a door. Won’t hold for long, but it’s there,” Mark said, limping back into the lobby.

Ed tossed him an unopened bottle of Gatorade. “Drink that and properly pack and wrap that wound before you bleed out. I’ll take the eye,” he told Jason, limping up to take his place. He edged his eye out past the metal window frame and bricks, then pulled back. “‘Bout a hundred yards out,” he announced calmly. “Both sides of the street. I count… nine? At least, maybe more coming up behind those businesses in the alleys.” He squatted down before peeking out again from a different spot, jerked his rifle to his shoulder, and fired a shot at a soldier sprinting for cover about eighty yards out, but missed. He pulled back before he ate an incoming bullet. “Find some cover to shoot from, see if you can start tagging them. If they had any forty-millimeters we’d already be eating them, so it looks like this is just rifle on rifle. Tabs never could shoot for shit, but remember we don’t have ammo to waste. Find targets of opportunity.”

Mark moved to the far side of the dining area, so one grenade wouldn’t kill them all, and dug a bandage out of his pack. “They never should have gotten rid of those apple turnovers,” he said wistfully, staring back at the kitchen as he wrapped his crimson thigh.

Ed looked back and forth between the dark McDonald’s kitchen and Mark. “That’s what you’re thinking about?”

“Best dessert in the history of fast food,” Mark said. “And don’t get me started on their French fries. When they stopped frying them in beef fat America became a darker place.” He looked at Jason. “Kid, you just don’t know.”

Ed wiped a sleeve across his sweaty forehead. “Just how fat were you before the war?”

Weasel almost shot Renny as he rounded a corner and saw him standing just inside the back door of the building. He opened his mouth but the older man shushed him with a hand wave and pointed outside. Immediately outside the door was the alley which ran along the back of the building. Weasel edged close and looked out at an angle. The building across the alley had its cinderblock wall painted black. It ended maybe twenty feet to the left. Weasel still didn’t see anything… but then he heard something. Past the corner, out of sight.

He raised his MP5 and stepped back from the door. Renny had Sarah’s suppressed SBR in his hands and he moved back silently, raising the weapon. The two men were ten feet back, hugging the walls, when the two Tab soldiers they’d heard whispering decided to make their move.