James Tarr - Dogsoldiers

With a groan Renny got to his knees and crawled past the men, leaving Sarah’s rifle, empty Glock still in hand. He found Weasel backed up into a corner, panting rapidly. His hands were grasping.

Renny grabbed the MP5 and dragged it over to Weasel, who clutched it to his chest. His face was pale.

“Where the fuck did those guys come from?” Weasel gasped.

Renny looked over his shoulder at the bodies, then past them down the hallway. “The church, I think.”

Weasel blinked. “So did we get all of them?”

Renny nodded. “I think so.”

Weasel coughed. “Finally,” he sighed. “Fucking Detroit, seriously, I hate this city,” he said softly with a smile, and died.

Renny closed his eyes and said a little prayer for the man, then said another for himself. Then he fought to stand up, a girlish whine escaping from his mouth. He looked down. He’d been hit again, the rifle bullet going right underneath his vest. Afraid of what he’d find, he reached down and carefully felt around. There was an exit wound in his back, just above his hip bone. His hand came away slick with blood. Dripping with it.

He stood there, breathing slowly and shallowly, as every breath hurt. Renny looked from Weasel to the four soldiers sprawled in a pile, then, very carefully, walked into the corridor and stepped past the dead men. He’d gone twenty feet before he realized his Glock was still in his hand, slide locked back. He didn’t have the energy or the inclination to reload it, and just stuck it in the holster across his chest as is.

Pushing out the door into the alley, stepping over the bodies of the two Tabs he and Weasel had killed earlier, he half-expected to die in a hail of gunfire, but they had, in fact, seemed to have killed all the men pursuing them. Every step pain, Renny made his way to their Growler. His door was still hanging open. His pack was on the floor, and he stared at it for a long time. Could he lift it? Put it on?

“Do it,” he growled at himself. “Do it.”

Both bullet wounds he’d suffered were soft tissue injuries. No support structures—bones, ligaments, etc.—had been hit. No muscles had been severed, just punctured. So, physically, he could pick up the pack. It would just hurt. A lot. He stared at it, working hard to come up with excuses as to why he couldn’t, or shouldn’t. Renny looked across the vehicle at the steering wheel. He supposed he could simply drive away. He just… didn’t feel like it. He’d had enough running for one day.

His yell turned into a sharp scream as he lifted the pack, but he got the straps over his shoulders. Then he reached for his rifle. He wasn’t sure how long it took him to gather his pack and rifle—it could have been thirty seconds or three minutes. Between the pain and the blood loss he was finding it hard to focus.

Rifle in both hands he turned and looked up. His eyes moved back and forth, then he nodded. He slowly made his way back into the building, through the corridors toward the front of the place. The small lobby looked out on a small park across the street that, strangely enough, seemed well maintained.

Renny admired the bushes and trimmed grass across the street for a while, then turned and shuffled to the elevators. While the commercial building seemed uninhabited, the power was on. God Bless the Blue Zone. He pressed the UP button, and if he hadn’t been so tired he would have looked surprised when the elevator doors opened right in front of him with a cheery ping.

Mark fired at a dashing soldier and the man fell to the sidewalk, grabbing his leg and shouting. Two other soldiers darted from nearby cover and grabbed the man, some thirty yards distant from the McDonald’s. Ed braced his Geissele against the window frame, ignoring the intense shooting from the other Tabs providing covering fire, flipped the selector forward, and emptied the magazine at the three men as the two tried to pull the third to safety. The two men standing fell down, and only one got back up, crawling out of sight behind a car wash, his shoulder soaking red. The soldier with the leg injury reached a shaky arm out to him, beseeching, and Mark fired again. The man’s arm dropped and he was still.

“Reloading!” Ed shouted, ducking down. He stuffed a fresh mag into his gun, slapped the bolt release, then looked down at his chest. Two mags left. Plus the one in the gun. Well, at least they weren’t going to die for a lack of shooting back. They’d been giving the Tabs hell for ten minutes and had killed at least five, maybe ten, but there were still more out there. “Jason!” he shouted. “Keep an eye on that drive-thru!” He didn’t want another repeat of earlier.

“Yeah,” the kid shouted back from behind the counter.

“How you doing for ammo?” Ed shouted at Mark. The big man checked, then held up two fingers. Ed nodded.

Suddenly there was an explosion from the rear of the building, followed by shouting and shooting. Ed pushed off from the wall and charged into the kitchen, which was hazy with smoke. He didn’t see Jason at first, just the bright rectangle of sunlight where the rear door used to be. A silhouette appeared in the doorway and Ed dumped half his magazine on full-auto into the soldier. The man let out a strangled cry and staggered away. Ed reached the doorway and took cover to one side. He peered out and saw the soldier crawling across the gravel just outside the door.

Ed shot him four times in his back just below his vest, then turned. At first, all he saw were bodies in camouflage fatigues. Then he saw Jason, on the floor underneath one of the men. Ed heaved the corpse off the boy, who was covered in blood, but his eyes were open and blinking.

“Jason! Jason!”

“I’m okay!” Jason shouted. “But I can’t hear, it’s just ringing. They blew the door with a grenade.”

Ed laughed and pulled him to his feet, then waved him toward the dining area. He took up a spot near the door and quickpeeked. He couldn’t see anyone, but their position was getting infinitely more precarious. The Tabs were closer and trying to surround them. He jogged back to the front, the pain in his foot a distant annoyance. “Things are getting spicy!” he called to Mark.

“Good,” Mark shot back. The bandage around his thigh was heavy with blood. “I was getting bored.” His head jerked up at a hissing crack down the street, and he looked at Ed. It was a suppressed rifle… but none of the Tabs had been using suppressors.

Ed lunged toward the wall and peeked out just as another mild crack echoed down the street, then a third. A soldier fell bonelessly across the sidewalk, obviously dead. Ed had time to blink, then there was a volley of loud booming shots that rolled up and down the street like thunder. The Tab with the shoulder injury who’d crawled to safety suddenly appeared, backpedaling across the sidewalk and into the street. Another loud boom and he dropped, missing his helmet and half his head.

“The fuck?” Mark wondered.

Ed didn’t have to wonder. He knew. He recognized the sound of that rifle, and when Early stepped out from behind the car wash and waved at them Ed wasn’t surprised at all.

Mark blinked. “So it appears we’re not going to die in a McDonald’s.” He looked from Ed to Jason and back. “To be honest, I’m not sure how I feel about that.”

Parker had made two calls to Lydia, but they’d gone unanswered. She worked right downtown in the Cadillac Place building, and that’s exactly where the guerrillas had attacked. He wouldn’t say he was worried, not yet, but he was very definitely concerned. However, he had far more pressing concerns on his mind right now, and did not have the manpower to send anyone to check on her.

“I’m going up,” he announced, staring at the screens of his operations center.