Regeneration (Mad Swine Book 3) (24 page)

Lifting her rifle again, Crystal
peered through the scope, watching intently as the group continued
forward. The silver haired man with the grizzly beard wore his long
hair pulled back and tied off with a red bandana. He wore a biker’s
black leather jacket, blue jeans and cowboy boots. Under his
unzipped coat, she could see he wore a Misfits concert T-shirt.

She consulted her watch. It was just
after four. So much for attacking under the cover of night. These
boys sure had some brass balls.

A moment later, as if by her command,
the first explosive went off, kicking dirt and sand twenty feet
into the air. The sound of the blast was quite deafening and
Crystal’s ears rung as chucks of dirt rained back down to the
ground.

“Son-of-a-bitch,” she said. Still
looking through the scope, she closed her eyes just as the second
explosion flashed and a moment later the boom came. She swore she
felt the concussion, even though she was two hundred yards
away.

As the next minutes ticked away in
resounding silence, Crystal looked through the scope for signs of
movement. Through the cloud of snow and dirt debris, she thought
she could detect movement, but she wasn’t sure. Suddenly, though,
she heard cries of pain, the moaning sound of the dying.

Randy’s team was waiting for her
signal to move in, but instead, she continued to watch through her
scope. Some of the cloudiness dissipated and she started to see the
carnage. Men and women lay dead or dying, some missing legs or
arms, while others held in their insides. Their screams were
horrible, now, as those who were unconscious woke to the pain. Part
of her wanted to end their misery, to shoot them in the head and
just end the suffering. The other part of her, though, pushed down
her feelings and bided time.

As the minutes ticked away, some of
the screams of pain and horror began to diminish as those that
remained alive succumbed to their wounds. Crystal focused her
attention on the brunette woman who was still alive. Both of her
legs were shredded by the blast and a piece of fence jutted out of
her left cheek. She kept trying to pull herself into a sitting
position but could not hold herself up. Her face contorted into a
mask of fear and pain. The veins on her neck stood out like cords
each time she screamed.

Crystal rubbed the pad of her finger
back and forth across the trigger. Her patience would soon pay off.
No sooner had she took her finger off the trigger, she spotted
movement beyond the dying woman and she swung her scope to focus on
the source. Two men, dressed in woodland camo were belly crawling
toward the woman. Either they were stupid enough to think the camo
would conceal them, or they were just brave.

“My money’s on stupid,” Crystal
said.

She sighted in on the second man, the
one furthest from the woman. He was thin, his cheeks looked like
they were sunken into the sides of his face. He wore a Cabela’s cap
pulled down over his greasy black hair. When he stopped crawling
and looked up at his companion, Crystal fired. A millisecond later,
his head snapped back, then fell forward. Blood spurted from his
neck in an arch and bubbled out between his dead lips.

Working the bolt, Crystal ejected the
spent casing and jacked another round into the chamber. Now she set
her sight on the other man. Mid-forties, overweight, Duck Dynasty
beard. He’d managed to make it within arm’s reach of the woman
before rolling away and trying to suck in his gut to get him closer
to the ground. She had no idea what he planned to do when he
reached the woman—perhaps console her, or maybe try to drag her to
safety—but that didn’t matter now. Lining up the crosshairs, she
took her bead, held her breath and then shot him in the
forehead.

Suddenly, before she could chamber
another round, a burst of gunfire hit the roof like a bunch of
angry bees. She ducked back behind the bag of feed she’d been using
as a rifle rest. A few more shots knicked off the roofline, none
close enough to her to really do any damage, but they knew where
she was now and she’d have to move. Policing up her gear, angry
she’d been discovered after drawing in only two, she rolled to the
edge of the roof and started down the ladder. Within minutes, she
would be in her next hide. Behind her, it sounded like all hell
broke loose.

* * *

After the first explosion, Randy and
his team took defilade in a reinforced position and watched as the
first group of 59er’s met their demise. He’d been in a firefight
before so he was no stranger to the killing, but he’d never
witnessed the carnage of an incendiary device. Later, he would
swear he heard a sucking sound just before the explosion, hell, he
even felt it suck at the air around him. Then suddenly, the hot
blast and concussion pushed back his face, sending him falling
backward onto his ass.

“Holy shit!” Don shouted. He was
right behind Randy and he, too, felt the heat.

The second explosion sent them all
down to the dirt. Someone yelled, “Incoming,” and no sooner clumps
of snow and dirt rained down on them. Just to the right of Randy, a
boot slammed down, charred and blackened, smoke steaming off the
destroyed leather. He quickly kicked it away, but he couldn’t help
wondering if there was a foot still in it.

If there is, I’m
going to puke
, Randy thought.

Thick smoke and particles of dirt
drifted toward them, making it difficult to see and breath. Rubbing
his eyes trying to clear them, Randy slid forward and poked his
head around the side of the truck. At first, he couldn’t see
anything through the veil of debris. He coughed and spat a thick
wad of phlegm onto the ground. It felt like he had sand in his
mouth.

Everything seemed suddenly too quiet
and he realized that his ears felt all stuffed, like they did when
he’d flown in an airplane. Either that or the explosion deafened
him. He hoped it was only temporary. Clearing his eyes again with
the back of his hands, he now saw the bodies, six or eight in his
immediate sight line, all torn up, limbs severed and lying
scattered on the ground.

He felt his stomach cinch and he
gagged, but thankfully, nothing came up.

“Randy, what’s going on over there?”
Don asked.

Looking back, he saw Don’s pale face
poking up from the hole. Behind him, Sarah and Ellie, the twin
sisters, were clenching their guns with white-knuckle ferocity.

“They’re all blown to shit.”

“Jesus Christ.”

“What did you say?”

“I said ‘Jesus Christ’, damn it.”

“Stay there, Don, you don’t want to
see this if you don’t have to.”

“I don’t have to.”

“What?”

“I don’t have to!” Don shouted.

Putting a hand over his forehead to
cover his eyes from the dust, he looked toward the main barn, about
one hundred yards away. Crystal lay prone, about midway on the
roof, her rifle propped on a bag of feed. It looked like she was
also assessing the damage. He continued to watch her for a minute,
expecting her to give him a signal to move in.

“What now?” Don asked, from behind,
making Randy jump.

“Jesus, Don, I told you to stay back
there.”

“Aren’t we supposed to move up to
intercept the next wave?”

“We’re waiting for a signal from
Crystal.”

“Gotcha.”

Leaning back against the truck, his
head jerked at the report of the rifle. He looked up at Crystal and
saw the slight movement of her chambering another round. As she set
up her next shot—he didn’t know how he knew that, but he did—Randy
looked again toward the graveyard of body parts right as the second
shot sounded. Just then, the world lit up again, bright flashes of
orange-red fire as the bastards returned fire at Crystal.

“Shit,” was all he said as he stood
and shouldered the AK-47 and started to return fire.

* * *

“My God,” Justin said as he watched
Randy, Don and the twins—Sarah and Ellie—fall under withering fire.
He closed his eyes for a moment, trying to hold back tears.

Looking through the scope on the
Mini-14, he got a bead on the middle-aged man in overalls that
massacred his friends with an M249 and put two shots through his
heart. Even as his body was falling, Justin shot the woman to his
left, then the man right behind her, with a rapid double tap to the
chest.

Boldly, the second wave of Alvin’s
army charged their lines. They had no discipline or organization.
They walked in groups of four or five, clustered together, firing
from the hip. From his hide atop the ranch quarters, Justin fired
into their numbers, punishing them, but they kept coming, as though
their numbers were infinite.

* * *

“Fire, fire, fire!” Sam shouted.
Standing, she fired a burst of rounds from her carbine. “Fire, God
damn it!”

Beside her, Kat shouted, “There are
friendlies out there!”

Grabbing the collar of her lover’s
coat, Sam said, “They’re gone, Kat, they’re fucking gone! Now fire
that weapon or we’re going to die!”

Rising from cover, Kat screamed, “Get
some, mother fuckers! Get some!” and emptied her magazine.

* * *

The middle was falling. Like
machines, they penetrated the first two lines of fighting
positions, although they suffered heavy casualties. Their superior
numbers and automatic weapons gave them an advantage, one that was
difficult to overcome.

After seeing his lines break, Matt
folded in his flanks, collapsed his defenses, and succeeded in
pushing them back. They regained some of the lost ground, and
eventually, the enemy retreated, but it was a short reprieve.

* * *

It was dark now and the night had
gotten colder. A preternatural silence blanketed the night, as the
stars blanketed the sky. Shivering, Wesley huddled closer to
Joshua, trying to keep warm. More than twenty minutes had passed
without gunfire.

“Do you think it’s over?” Joshua
asked.

“I don’t know,” Wesley said.

He’d been wanting to talk to someone,
any one of the adults, but he was too frightened to leave the hole.
They’d both huddled in the ground after the first explosion.
Wesley’s legs were starting to cramp and the cold wasn’t
helping.

“I have to pee,” Joshua said.

“Me, too.”

“Now is probably a good time,
right?”

“I think so.”

They remained in the hole, waiting
for the other one to make the first move. Finally, Joshua stood up
and almost lost his balance. “Whoa, my legs feel weird.”

Wesley stood now, grateful to finally
be able to stretch his legs. With his back to his friend, he
unzipped his pants and relieved himself, making sure to pee outside
of the hole. “That’s good,” he said.

“I’m surprised I didn’t drown in my
own piss,” Joshua said and they both laughed.

After a while, they both sat in the
hole again. It was a bit warmer in there and they felt safer out of
the line of sight.

“I want this to be over,” Joshua
said. He looked at Wesley, and tried to wipe away the tears in his
eyes. “I can’t take that shooting again. I swear, if they start
shooting again I’m going to go crazy.”

“I’m scared, too,” Wesley said.

They were silent again, embarrassed
by their fear.

“Do you hear that?” Joshua asked.

“Hear what?”

“Listen.”

Wesley cocked his head and
concentrated. At first he heard nothing but the night sounds, and
then he did hear something, like a train engine in the distance,
but growing closer, getting louder.

“What the hell is that?” Joshua
asked, his voice oozing fear.

“I don’t know,” Wesley said, just as
a pair of lights pierced the darkness.

Gunfire erupted again, as the engine
sound grew louder. Joshua covered his ears and squeezed his eye
shut. Wesley stood and looked on, frozen, as though the headlights
of the truck pinned him against the night.

It was big, like one of those
twenty-foot moving trucks. The damn thing was ploughing through the
lines, running down folks. The engine was screaming now as the
driver floored it, going for broke. Muzzle flashes, like camera
flashes, dizzying. Bullets puckering the windshield, some finding
their mark. Suddenly, the truck veered to the left, the driver
dead, losing control, but still moving fast.

Joshua screamed when the truck tore
into the barn. It sounded like another explosion. There were no
flames, at least not at first. Men and women converging on the
truck, firing through the rear door, no doubt expecting a swarm of
crazies to come pouring out. Slowly, they ceased fire. As Wesley
watched, he spotted Matt moving toward the truck, perhaps to throw
open the door, but stopped when the gunfire started again, and
someone screamed.

Although just a boy, Wesley realized
the truck was just a distraction, a decoy, a trick to get them
looking one way, while the mean men snuck up behind. He couldn’t
keep track of what was happening; the night was lit up like the
fourth of July. People were running and screaming and dying. He
wondered, for a moment, if he will die now.

Out of the night, a woman appeared,
he thought her name was Crystal.

“Come with me now,” she said,
breathlessly. “Come quickly.”

She threw down her gun—a black rifle
with a scope—and hauled Joshua out of the hole. Together they were
running, into the night, away from the fighting, away. Away.

* * *

Matt watched in horror as the truck
sped in his directions, its headlights like two lances, cutting
through the night. The sound of the engine was loud as the driver
slammed the pedal to the floor. The men and women in the fighting
positions toward the front opened fire on the vehicle, but it was
already roaring past them, loud as a freight train.