After it happened book 9.., p.19
After It Happened (Book 9): Home, page 19
part #9 of After It Happened Series
“What do you mean it didn’t work?” snapped the same voice Dan had heard earlier. He didn’t catch the reply because it was given softly, as though the man he heard was known for punishing people who angered him.
“Well try again,” the same voice snarled.
Dan gestured behind him for the others to bunch up, turning to whisper his instructions when they were huddled as close to him as they could get.
“No time to be clever about it,” he said. “We go in hard but stay out of sight of the building if possible; don’t want whoever they’ve got cornered to take any shots at us.”
He checked the chamber on his carbine out of obsessive habit like it was his personal nervous tick, gestured for Ash to stay and reinforced the order with a wide-eyed stare to tell the dog he really meant it, then stood and moved.
Two men went down to his rapid trigger pulls on semi-automatic as he twitched his barrel from left to right. Three others dove for cover as Mitch stepped out to Dan’s left and engaged another group on the corner of the opposite outbuilding. Neil appeared close to Dan’s right shoulder and squeezed off a short burst at the corner where he’d seen two of them go to ground. He wasn’t trying to hit anyone but discourage them from reappearing and taking a shot at them in the open.
They moved forwards, stepping over two still bodies to occupy the position their enemy had felt safe in only seconds before. Mitch kept his rifle trained on the place where he’d engaged the last threat.
“Two down,” Dan said.
“One down,” Mitch answered.
“Two in cover my side,” Neil added, gasping for breath at the exertion and the adrenaline, no doubt forcing his blood pressure up a little higher than was safe for a man of his age and size.
“Mitch, hold,” Dan ordered. “Neil on me.” He moved without waiting for acknowledgment, rounding the corner low and fast with his weapon already up and bullets spitting from the barrel. His head followed, ducking back out of sight and relying on the mental snapshot his mind took to tell him that the two who went that way at least had the good sense to keep moving. Dan rose, stalking along the building line to be rewarded with a head poking around the edge ahead of him. He knew what would come next, and stepped wide to his right to open up the angle and take both him and Neil out of the firing line he guessed his adversary would choose.
He was right again, and was greeted with the awkward sight of someone trying to blind-fire a bullpup rifle around the corner without presenting their body as a target. Dan’s chosen angle gave him a sight of the man’s left shoulder as he twisted his wrists awkwardly to reach the trigger grip and drilled him with three shots to drop him, screaming. By the time he reached the corner he looked down to see the last spurts of blood gushing from a small wound in the man’s neck where it met the collar of his sweatshirt. His eyes were wide and his fingers fluttered like he was trying to type out his last words.
A flash of movement ahead showed another figure fleeing around the corner, but he didn’t follow in case the pursuit took him in sight of the house, where he guessed desperate people were trapped and defending themselves.
A bullet fired accidentally killed just as effectively as a well-aimed one, and he wasn’t quite ready to die.
Gunfire erupted again in disciplined bursts, telling Dan that Mitch was engaging someone back where they had joined the fight. He turned to see Neil already lumbering back around the corner ahead of him.
“Another one down,” Mitch reported after a rapid glance to make sure it was his friends approaching and not the enemy.
“Same around the back,” Dan answered, stopping his next words as a new sound echoed around the yard. An engine started, revving loudly before the gearbox crunched as first gear was selected and tyres bit into gravel. A vehicle shot into sight, passing by them to show a wide-eyed man with a shiny, shaved head driving recklessly towards the blocked road where the shot-up Land Rover sat obstructing his escape. The vehicle went out of sight again behind bushes as the sounds changed and the gears crunched again as reverse was selected.
It shot past them again, this time going backwards with a mechanical whine as the speed cried out for another gear before it slewed a weak attempt at a J-turn. Dan raised his weapon to take aim at the driver as he scrabbled desperately for a forward gear just as dust and a spray of stone chips erupted from the wall of the building above his head. Ducking down instinctively, he switched his aim to three men who were running for the vehicle, one of them firing on automatic from the hip as he sidestepped.
The two with him threw themselves inside but the one covering their escape hung on a few seconds to fully expend his magazine before turning to flee, but by then it was too late. The vehicle took off, making him run a few desperate and awkward steps as he tried to keep pace with it until he gave up and was left standing in the open with nowhere to hide.
He turned, raising the weapon again at Dan but in his panic, he must have forgotten that he’d just emptied it to little effect. The trigger clicked onto nothing and he froze, unsure if he should run or try to reload. He chose the first option, sprinting out of sight in the direction of the blocked road.
Where Ash waited.
“Go!” Dan roared. “Get him!”
Growling and barking erupted behind the hedgerow obscuring their view just as the fleeing man managed to reverse his course and run screaming back into sight again, this time holding nothing as he must have abandoned the rifle to allow him the use of his hands to achieve the best possible speed. He pumped his limbs like his life depended on it, managing a fast run which would outpace any human pursuit. He wasn’t being chased by a human, however, and when Ash came into sight the conclusion was obvious to everyone watching except the man who still thought he could outrun the dog.
Ash dug deep, back paws reaching far past his front ones as he stretched his body for the best speed he could manage, much as his target did. He appeared to hinge in the middle as he ran hard, not reaching his full speed and still under hard acceleration as he checked his footing and leapt through the air the last few paces to take the man just below his right elbow.
The dog’s body weight dragged the running man down with a shriek of fear and agony. He snarled and tugged, barking without unclamping his massive, powerful jaws until Dan arrived to pull his dog back and shout for him to leave it.
The man clutched at the limb, blood showing at his fingers but the sleeves of his clothing hiding the real damage Ash had done. He howled in a high-pitched wail and rocked back and forth on his back as he fought to control his body under the intense fear and pain he experienced. Dan’s boot landed on his chest and he froze, looking up along the short barrel of the black carbine, past the attachments on the rail and into the scarred face of the man at the controlling end of it.
“Don’t!” a voice yelled from the house. “We need him alive!”
The man who had shouted emerged from the back door and put his head down to run towards them, favouring one leg as though he carried an injury he was well accustomed to. Dan removed his boot and lowered his carbine on its sling as he turned away, muttering to Ash for the dog to watch the prisoner. The man running towards him slowed ten paces away, standing up tall and coming to a stop before his feet compelled him forwards again. The two men walked towards each other, gathering pace until they almost ran before they met in a clash of armoured torsos in an embrace so heartfelt that the emotion radiated out from them.
“Still alive, you old fucker,” Dan muttered, fighting the lump in his throat.
“I am,” Steve answered, “thanks to you. Again.”
SITREP
The seven men swept the settlement to make sure they were alone and safe. The tall, fit and good-looking young man who stayed suspiciously close to Steve’s side and eyed Dan warily reported that another vehicle load of the enemy had fled from the side of the building he was covering shortly before Steve cried out to stop the prisoner being dispatched.
Mitch went back with Neil to fetch Jimmy and their gear as Steve made the introductions.
“This is George,” he said, indicating the young man who would’ve been a good fit for Leah had she not already made herself spoken for. Dan checked him out, deciding that his French son-in-law would run rings around him. “Iain,” Steve went on. Dan nodded a greeting to a short man who had a look of easy efficiency about him. “And Andy.” The last man sat smoking with shaking hands and didn’t look up to acknowledge him, no doubt suffering massively from his first real fight.
“This is Dan,” Steve finished, seeing both Iain and George open their eyes wide as though they’d been presented to a living god.
“Wait, the Dan?” George muttered to Steve. “As in, Dan Dan?”
“As in Dan and Ash, Dan,” Dan told him with a smile, snapping his fingers for the German shepherd to step up. His tail wagged, thumping out a steady rhythm against Dan’s leg as he put his head down and let out a series of small whimpers on recognising a man he hadn’t seen for most of his life. He approached Steve, his body language almost apologetic as the older man knelt down for the dog to come to him. Ash slumped into him, trying to climb onto his lap despite being bigger than the puppy he acted like, knocking him down onto his backside where he whimpered louder and licked Steve’s face as he climbed on top of him to drive all the air out of the man’s lungs.
“Okay, boy,” Steve said, “okay, enough now!” They laughed to see how the dog, still with blood marking his grey fur, acted like a baby when it came to the reunion. Steve managed to extricate himself and stand, making the dog issue a playful growl and jump up to take hold of Steve’s hand in his mouth gently.
“Got a few more grey hairs around your chops,” Steve said as he played along.
“Shh,” Dan told him. “He hasn’t realised he’s getting old yet, so don’t tell him.”
“I was talking to you,” Steve shot back with a smirk.
“Says you,” Neil cut in with a chuckle as he returned under the burden of two packs. “What are you now, sixty-five?”
“I’m two years older than you,” Steve answered, “and there’s a saying about people in glass houses coming to mind…”
“Yep,” Neil answered, rubbing his belly thoughtfully after he’d unzipped the tactical vest to relieve the pressure. “They shouldn’t have showers.”
Mitch and Jimmy arrived with Neil, both being introduced by Steve and greeting the three new men, one of whom would only have been a boy when they’d left the country.
Dan nodded his head for Steve to walk away from the group with him as Neil began to entertain them with a story about their leader they likely hadn’t heard before.
“What the hell’s going on?” Dan asked him. “You said you’d had an attack, then we get nothing? No other transmissions!”
“I’m really glad you came,” Steve said, meaning every word. “This has all come from nowhere, and we’re not exactly prepared for it, you know?” The former pilot filled the former policeman in on current events, working backwards to the time he’d first come across the man behind the attacks.
“He was a kid back then, but he was a savage little bastard I should’ve put against a wall and shot when I had the chance,” Steve spat.
“That’s not your way,” Dan said, softening the guilt he felt by reminding him that he had a code. Dan had one too, but his was a little more hazy around the edges when it came to the categories of ‘us’ and ‘them’. His earlier decision about letting two of them go immediately haunted him.
“Still,” Steve said, “people are dying now because I didn’t deal with a threat when I had the chance.” He seemed to deflate a little, as though the stress of it all was a burden he’d never asked for.
“Hindsight bias is a bitch,” Dan said as he reached for the Velcro pouch holding his cigarettes out of habit. Steve said nothing, letting the silence hang as he watched the familiar gestures of a man he hadn’t seen in the better part of a decade act in just the way he remembered. The way he struck the flint of the disposable lighter with his right thumb, the way his scarred left hand cupped around the end of the cigarette to shield it from the light breeze that still carried a fine spray of rain with it. He watched as Dan leaned his head back to blow the smoke upwards as he always did around others – a small courtesy and one that was probably as automatic as lighting the smoke – and sighed.
“Zero mileage in blaming yourself for this,” he told the older man. “You aren’t to blame for someone else’s actions; you only have a responsibility for your own now.”
Steve nodded, not fulfilled or reassured by the words of his friend, but satisfied that the logic was shared.
“So what do you know about him?” Dan asked.
“Goran? Not much. Cruel bastard who favours a knife, and from what we can gather he’s come back into the region with a force of about fifty. Scratch off six from here—”
“—and one back up the road with three others disarmed and sent packing west,” Dan cut in. Steve’s gaze lingered on him, as though he wanted to offer an opinion on Dan letting hostile people leave with their lives.
“Leaves him still with over forty. I’ve got that many, minus a few now,” he added with an angry, forlorn glance at the shot-up Land Rover, “but we’re spread out over a big area trying to warn all the smaller settlements. Lots have gone to the town but a few stayed behind. We…we also found a few after they did.”
Dan sat on a low wall as he listened to Steve’s monotone report on what they’d found. He wasn’t surprised, as it was much the same as he’d found not long after leaving The Wash, but it still sickened him to know it was a widespread tactic.
“Any demands made?” Dan asked. “Any indication of what he wants? What it’ll take to make him go away?”
Steve didn’t answer at first, simply looked at his friend who suddenly seemed so much older than he remembered him to be. He recognised what it was then; in that moment he saw Dan for who he was and not who he’d had to be when they knew each other. It was the weariness of long years in conflict that had aged Dan, but the years spent at peace in comfort and safety which had made him change.
“The Dan I knew,” Steve said carefully, “would be more interested in how to kill the bastard and every single one of his followers.”
“Trust me. The Dan you knew is still there; he just learned a few new ways to deal with things.”
“Like killing everyone who threatened your home?” Steve asked with a hint of ice in his words. Dan ground out the cigarette with the toe of his boot on the ground and raised his head to look up at Steve. He knew what he was getting at, because they’d discussed the events of the previous summer and what Dan had done when pirates showed up off their coast.
“No,” he said in a measured tone, “that one’s still very much in the playbook. I was going more along the lines of figuring out what he wants first.”
“Ah, the whole ‘understand your enemy’ thing?”
“If you know your enemy and know yourself…” Dan started, stopping not because he didn’t want to sound like a know-it-all but because he’d genuinely forgotten the rest of the quote. The Art of War wasn’t exactly light reading, and finding a French language copy of the book had kept him going for over a year during the rare times he could sit down for long enough to read.
“Whatever,” Steve said. “No. He hasn’t made any demands, hasn’t said what he wants, he just keeps killing people. I rather suspect he wants my seat and the infrastructure we’ve built, which would make him a damn sight worse than Richards was.”
“So we resort to plan A,” Dan said as he stood with a groan and a crack of a knee joint. “We kill the bastard and every one of his followers we can lay our hands on.”
TOO LATE
The damaged Land Rover was still serviceable, but cleaning out the interior was a messy job none of them wanted to perform. Dan, not knowing any of the deceased occupants, offered to do it to take away the emotional stress Steve’s people would feel. Mitch helped him, and the bodies were forced inside their sleeping bags with difficulty to be returned to town for a proper burial.
Neil, thinking ahead as he often did when he wasn’t cracking jokes or consuming something, brought a small stack of towels from the house to put inside the truck and save their clothes from absorbing the sticky blood left behind.
“One more place to hit,” Steve said to Dan as he spread a map out on the drop-down tailgate of his vehicle. “I just hope we get there before them.”
Dan looked at his watch, titling his left wrist outwards to show the face before he looked up at the sky. “You happy moving in the dark?” he asked.
Steve wasn’t, going by the look on his face, but that look also managed to convey the total lack of choice they had in the matter.
“How far is this next place?”
“An hour, tops.”
“Maybe hunker down there for the night if we can?” Dan asked him, leaving a lot of things unsaid.
Steve nodded, no doubt running a lot of those same things through his mind.
“Agreed,” he finally said. “If it’s safe, otherwise I don’t see an alternative.”
Dan held his hands wide and gave a small smile to concede. “Hey, it’s your patch, mate.”
Dan settled himself behind the wheel of the Defender, sliding his unclipped carbine onto the dash but forgetting to remove the shotgun protruding from over his right shoulder. He swore gently, not quite under his breath, and groaned as he stepped back down to ground level and reached up to remove the brute of a gun.
“Still carrying that thing?” Steve asked him, earning a confused look from George, the tall young man who followed him around as though he’d absorb some precious snippet of knowledge if he stayed close enough.
