After It Happened (Book 3): Society Read online

  Good boy.

  "Now" he said again "which one of us would you like to talk to?"

  He decided to talk to Dan, who told Ash to sit.

  "Billy gave us the orders, his 'dog' told him everything about you" he said in between gasps of pain.

  "From the beginning" said Dan patiently "who is Billy and how did his dog tell him about us"

  "We found him around Christmas. Wanted us to come and kill someone for him" he said.

  "Who?" Dan asked impatiently, fearing the answer.

  "You" he said, smiling through gritted teeth.

  Dan turned to Steve in horror as the truth dawned on him.

  "Kyle. He's coming for the house" he said.

  He considered putting two bullets in the wounded man's head, but he would have to wait.

  "Cedric!" He bawled, running over to the rest of them.

  "Radio the house, tell them this was a diversion. Lock this place down and give those sawn offs out" he turned and ran to the discovery.

  "And tie this piece of shit up, Ash wants another word with him later" he yelled as he climbed behind the wheel. He reversed at speed, dumping the laughing man on his back painfully.

  RAIDERS

  Pete heard them first.

  "Get yourself up there, lad" he said to James, pointing to a higher patch of ground ahead to his left.

  "Stay behind the big tree, and only come out shooting if I shout for you”

  James was white with terror but fought to control his breathing and find his courage. He nodded and ran, carrying a shotgun and cartridge bag.

  Pete settled down on a large tree stump to look down the scope. He saw the two vehicles approaching, and rested the reticule of his scope on the driver of the lead car.

  He 1agonized over whether he should shoot or not. Everything told him that these people were coming to take what they had built. Wait, he told himself. Wait.

  ~

  Neil had worked fast. With Rich helping the GPMG was sat ready and proud in front of the house in the bed of the truck. Nobody would risk driving straight up to it.

  That made him pause. If they wouldn't come here, they would go somewhere else.

  Somewhere undefended.

  He yelled inside for Ian. Jimmy poked his head out to say he wasn't there.

  "Can you grab the keys to one of the lorries?" he shouted back. He told him what he wanted and Jimmy didn't hesitate.

  ~

  Leah lay flat in sniper pose; right leg cocked at an angle to allow her diaphragm to move without affecting her shot. She had taken a G36, which she had fitted with a bipod and scope for distance shooting. Nobody else used the guns, so they were effectively hers. She lined three magazines up by her left hand and felt for them as she looked through the optic, ready to reload without looking what she was doing. Ninety rounds ready to go, and she would make them count.

  She scanned the scope up and down the driveway, waiting, as Neil called up to her to stay hidden until he fired first. She yelled that she understood.

  ~

  Rich knelt behind a large oak tree. He was scared. Terrified in fact, but the carbine felt good in his hands. He looked through the holographic sight, checking the approach road. He was to the left of the house, closest to the ones who had gone to cover the rear access track. A fact he was acutely aware of when a single gunshot echoed through the trees from where they were.

  They had put all their best guns up front, leaving two civilians with hunting weapons to defend the rear.

  ~

  Pete waited for the car to reach the narrowest part of the track with mud either side before he fired, putting a bullet in the driver's head. The car stopped, causing a pile up behind as the other couldn't get past. The driver of the rear car tried the mud to the side and bogged down as Pete hoped he would. He racked the bolt slowly on his rifle, lined up again and shot the second driver in the neck, seeing him flinch and grab at the wound which now sprayed blood over the inside of the windscreen.

  They realised that their element of surprise was lost, and they started to get out. They pointed in his direction, and began to fan out. He slid the bolt with a smooth, practiced action to load another bullet into the chamber and vowed to take as many of these bastards as he could before they got him.

  ~

  Lexi lay flat on top of a metal grain silo on the farm. Joe was below her somewhere, eyes on the road. She saw the three cars drive into sight. They didn't come to the farm, but sped down the hill to the main house. She didn’t have time to get a shot off, and had to make a choice.

  "JOE!" She shouted.

  "I'm here, what do you see?"

  "Three cars heading fast for the house. I'll stay here, you move up to cut off the drive. Don't go in sight of the house, you'll get shot by ours"

  "Moving" was the only reply she heard.

  ~

  When Rich heard the second shot, he knew he had to do something. He shouted for Neil's attention but he couldn't hear him.

  "NIKKI!" He shouted, using the abbreviated Nikita nickname as he usually did. He saw her scope swing towards him. He gave her three exaggerated hand movements; pointing to himself, then to the woods behind him, then a change of hand movement. He was telling her he was moving to flank the rear attack. Leah understood. She gave one flash on the torch attached to her weapon in acknowledgement.

  "Go" she said to herself "go get them".

  ~

  The three cars raced along the drive. Four hundred metres from the house. At three hundred metres, Jimmy did what Neil had asked him to; he drove the lorry forward and left around the ornate turning circle, exposing Neil with his legs braced wide and his hands on the machine gun.

  ~

  Pete fired a whole magazine, killing three for the five bullets. He only had one magazine for the gun so he had to load single rounds into the breach. It was quicker than trying to reload the mag. They were getting closer. He wasn't going to take them all down before they got to him.

  Twice more he fired, missing with one shot. He thought of his girls, and a tear pricked the corner of one eye.

  “Bastards” He growled. “Bastards”.

  He lined up on another, this time close enough to see the features of his face. He fell before Pete fired, his legs dropping like someone had switched his power off. They had. The twin reports of a double-tap from a gun with a different sound reached his ears, and he knew that he had been saved.

  ~

  Rich ran a lung bursting sprint through the ancient woodland thick with gnarled tree roots. He had almost a quarter of a mile to cover on bad ground. In his day he would have covered that in less than three minutes.

  He ran, slipping twice and scrabbling to his feet to continue as he counted more shots from ahead and to his right. He was blowing hard, but he knew there had to be more in the tank. He paused, finding where Pete had stopped the vehicles by killing two drivers. The cars were abandoned, the occupants gone forward on foot. The foliage was too thick to see into the distance, but the steady rhythm of gunshots still came only now it was mixed with the staccato sound of return fire from something smaller firing automatic bursts. He turned to his left again and ran as hard as he could for two hundred metres to gain the high ground. He steadied his breath, checked his weapon and crept down towards the road, scanning.

  Movement ahead, he raised the gun in a fluid motion and instinctively fired twice into the middle of the body in front of him. He moved forward, willing himself to go on despite his fear.

  Movement to his right. Two of them. He dropped one knee and aimed, firing twice more into each shape. He forced himself to his feet, to keep moving.

  He was lost in himself; a machine designed to kill the enemy quicker than they could kill him. His weapon drills were slick and spoke of long hours of practice he feared he had forgotten. He was alive, he was angry, and they would be sorry.

  ~

  “NOW!” Neil screamed.

  Jimmy gunned the engine of the small lorry, making it jo
lt forward to unveil the heavy machine gun mounted in the bed of the truck.

  Neil opened up on the lead vehicle, heavy bullets punching through metal and plastic easily. At that distance it was butchery. The front vehicle swerved off the road into a fence where it stopped dead against a tree, exposing the second car in line to the murderous fire.

  ~

  Leah took careful aim on the windscreen of the tail end vehicle. As soon as Neil began to fire she put four rounds in quick succession straight where the driver's centre mass would be.

  The car lost control and slammed into the rear of the second vehicle which had ground to a halt. Leah scanned along the wreckage, searching for a target. A rear door opened on the last car on the side away from her, a tentative head popped into view and looked forward to where it thought the danger was.

  “Over here” she whispered to herself, like in the film she shouldn’t have watched about the alien who killed all the soldiers in the jungle.

  She fired, immediately searching for a new target.

  Neil fired only occasional bursts now, as she scanned for movement.

  They were hiding in the dead ground on the other side of the vehicles. Rich would have been there, but he had gone to ambush the ones attacking Pete. She waited for a break in the firing and bawled Neil's name as loudly as she could.

  "What?" He shouted back.

  "Fire under two" she shouted. They had to be forced from cover before they had a chance to reorganise and fire back.

  "What?" He yelled again.

  "FIRE. UNDER. THE. SECOND. CAR!" She screamed, carefully pronouncing each word. They heard her, and started to move.

  Neil sent three bursts under the car, splaying two of the attackers out on the ground and making another two run for the nearest cover of the tree line.

  She lined up on the first one, judging his speed and fired just in front of him. She fired a second and third bullet into him as he hit the ground.

  The other one was gone.

  ~

  Joe had thrown himself into the bushes to cut the corner between the farm and the road. He now lay flat, catching his breath.

  He heard the undergrowth being trampled and the sound was fast approaching him. He knelt up, rifle scanning the bushes ahead. Too big to be a dog, not even Ash, and no farm animals were anywhere near this woodland. The noise was coming fast, desperate sounds escaping the runner as they blindly fled the heavy firing coming from the house.

  Then movement to his right. He turned instinctively and fired a short burst. He was rewarded with the thump of a person hitting the ground.

  ~

  Dan nearly had his heavy vehicle on two wheels as he drove as hard as he could. He tore down the driveway with Steve bouncing off the window as he swapped his rifle for the carbine.

  He slowed to a stop when he saw a wrecked convoy despoiling their home. He got out, and he and Steve went along each side of the vehicles in tandem. Six dead. He ran the last three hundred metres to the house, forgetting about his Land Rover and the dog sat guarding it. Neil met him there, shouting for Rich who was nowhere to be found.

  Leah had climbed down from her perch and was running over.

  "He heard Pete open up and ran back through the woods to help" she shouted over them.

  Neil and Dan glanced at each other. Dan suddenly realised he needed his car and his dog and turned to see Steve driving it towards him, pressed up to the driver’s window to be as far away from Ash as he could get. As he pulled up he saw Ash was 'smiling' at him to show off his teeth.

  Dan wasn't in the mood for a possessive dog and shouted at him to leave Steve be. He threw himself behind the wheel and Leah jumped in the back with a reproved Ash. He drove as fast as he could again, cutting out the road and using the grass as the direct route to the track behind their home. He stopped behind a large tree stump which had been Pete's chosen firing position.

  He was hit.

  Dan yelled at Steve to deal with him, pointing Leah to the high ground on his left as he stalked forward with his weapon up and his dog at his heel.

  A low, short whistle sounded to his right. He turned to see Rich, covered in leaf mould and with mud on his face, kneeling in the bushes with his gun up and scanning.

  Dan crouched by his side.

  "Report" he said in a low voice.

  "Vehicle ambush, driver killed. Second vehicle tried to go round, driver also killed. Rest went on foot. I hit them from the bushes to the side, took out four. All dead. Pete killed four including the drivers." He said bluntly, giving each succinct sentence like it was a bullet point. It sounded professional.

  "Any outstanding?" He asked.

  "Unsure, vehicles empty when I saw" he said back, still sweeping the rifle side to side.

  "With me then. Friendlies to the rear and left flank, and don't shoot my fucking dog"

  Rich smiled out of the corner of his mouth. It was a grim smile, but it told Dan that he was still connected to the real world, no matter how unreal it had just become.

  The three of them stalked forward, Dan and Ash moved, then covered Rich as he leapfrogged. The scene of the ambush Rich pulled on them was gruesome. Four bodies lay quite close to each other, all with neatly grouped pairs of bullet holes in their chests. Dan reckoned he must have fallen on these unsuspecting bastards like a fury.

  They got to the vehicles and found nobody alive.

  "Find'em!" He said to Ash, pointing him ahead. If any stragglers had got away they wouldn't be going far. Ash put his nose to the ground and sniffed around, twice being sent ahead to cast for a scent. Nothing.

  They turned and jogged back to Pete's position, as Dan called out to Leah not to shoot them. She brought James back with her. He was dazed, but had it seemed that something had snapped inside him when he heard Pete cry out.

  He poured shotgun rounds towards the sounds of enemy gunfire as fast as he could making them pause. Rich descended on them immediately afterwards, after they closed up to discuss what to do.

  Pete didn't seem badly hurt, but he had a pair of bullets in the fleshy part of his shoulder where it met the upper arm. Leah pulled a clotting field dressing from her vest and replaced the slightly less effective hand of Steve's. She wound it tight, telling Pete to keep pressing on it.

  "Get him in the truck, I'll take him to Kate" Dan said. He wanted to leave a guard down there, and didn't want it to be the terribly damaged Royal Marine or his teenage protégée.

  "Steve, can you hold down here for a while?" He asked. Steve retrieved his big rifle and nodded. Pete was lifted into the back seat, relegating the dog to the boot much to his annoyance.

  "I'll bleed on your seats, lad. I can walk" Pete moaned typically as one of the ‘don’t want to cause a fuss’ generation.

  "It's leather. It'll wipe clean" Dan replied.

  He looked behind him in the mirror as he drove the short distance. He saw an old alcoholic poacher having gunshot wounds treated by a heavily armed teenage girl as a concerned dog with a blood soaked muzzle licked his sweating head and whimpered.

  Pete was receiving so much attention he could barely open one of his hip flasks.

  He glanced to his side where Rich had opened the passenger window to rest his rifle out. He was half turned, as if expecting a contact at any moment.

  "Rich" he said "tell me where you are"

  Without taking his eyes off the landscape he replied "Not Afghan. Or Iraq or Belfast. But right now just as bloody dangerous. I'm good Boss, seriously." He knew exactly what Dan meant.

  They pulled up at the front of the house and Dan yelled for Kate. Pete was making a huge racket, telling everyone he was fine and that he could walk. He tried, but ended up more carried upright than walking.

  He took his dignity intact into medical, although that dignity was still holding a hip flask as though his life depended on it. As Kate walked out Leah gave her a casualty-style history just as she had taught her.

  "Male, sixties, GSW times two, upper right arm and shoul
der. No exit wound. Field dressing with coagulant applied less than five ago" Kate thanked her, as though receiving a verbal trauma report from a teenager with a machine gun was perfectly normal.

  "I'm fifty-eight, you little shit!" yelled Pete, half in jest, as he was led away inside.

  WHAT THE HELL JUST HAPPENED?

  Dan called everyone together. He told Jimmy and Neil what he wanted, and left them to it. He warned them to be careful as Steve, Lexi and Joe were still deployed. He told Leah she was with him, and asked Rich to get on the radio and tell the gardens he was on his way back and that they had repelled an attack on the house.

  "Tell them I'm coming to talk to Ash's chew toy" he added nastily.

  Rich knew he was being benched now that the state of emergency was over, and he took it gracefully. He felt proud of himself. He felt useful for the first time since his life was changed by a crude roadside firebomb.

  Marie burst from the main doors carrying a shotgun and demanding to know what was going on. He tried the 'not now' tactic and nearly lost his head as she bit it off.

  "Tell me what happened!" She said, somewhat close to his face and showing a dangerous look in her eyes; a mixture of fear and rage.

  "The gardens were attacked by three people with sawn offs. Steve killed one, Cedric another and Ash ripped the last one half to pieces. He's still alive for now but I will be having a chat with him very soon"

  She absorbed this quickly, knowing that she would get the full details from everyone in turn.

  "And?" She said

  "And it was a diversion. They were coming here which they did in two convoys, front and rear. Pete stopped the rear convoy but took a couple in the shoulder. James fired at them enough to confuse them into bunching up, then Rich hit them from the side. You can see what happened there" he said, indicating the smoking ruins of three Swiss cheese like vehicles in the near distance behind him.