The world was engulfed in flames. Fire moved like a living creature, consuming everything around me. The heat was unbearable, my exposed skin was burning. My mind swam through incoherent thoughts as my lungs pumped poison gases into my brain.
Not like this. I can’t go down like this.
The fingernails of one hand tore off trying to pull myself up the wall to reach the doorway. It was only about a dozen feet, but it seemed a million miles away.
Calm the **** down. Hold your breath and ****** climb.
I flicked open my Benchmade and stabbed it into the planks high above my head. Driven with the strength of desperation, the blade stuck deep. It wouldn’t hold very much weight. I only had one chance. With my clothing burning, driven by adrenalin, I pulled on the knife while I jumped, boots scrambling for purchase, bloody fingers tearing at the boards above. The remaining cartridges in my AR began to cook off, sounding like firecrackers inside the conflagration.
Somehow I found purchase, dangling by my fingertips. I was half way there. **** it hurts. I jerked the knife out, raised it overhead as I began to slip, and slammed it home again. The next few seconds were a blur of pain, tearing muscles, and fire, always the fire. Somehow I reached the jagged broken top step, got one hand onto it and pulled myself upwards. By a miracle, it held.
I crawled onto the kitchen floor. Black smoke billowed through the doorway over me, filling the room. Face on the ground, I opened my mouth and inhaled. I immediately began to hack and cough. Violent spasms that were like vomiting pain.
“Lorenzo!” someone shouted. Hands grabbed me by the straps on my armor and pulled me across the kitchen. Black combat boots stomped ahead of me. Reaper. “Holy ****! You’re on fire!” He whipped off his giant coat and covered me with it, beating at my back and legs.
Finally I rolled over and gasped. Precious air filling my lungs. He had pulled me outside of the burning mess hall. It took a moment for my head to quit spinning.
Jill was staring down at me, her hands on the side of my face. She was saying something.
“I’m okay,” I rasped, trying to sit up. Pain like electric current moved through my limbs.
“You know ****-all about okay.” She pushed me back down. “Hold still. You’re injured.”
Pain was replaced with anger. Anger was replaced with rage. I grabbed her arm. “Where’s Eddie?” I snapped.
“I don’t know,” she cried. “You’re hurting me.”
I immediately let go. “Sorry.” I left a soot-black, blood-stained, hand print on her arm. “Help me up.” I ordered. Jill and Reaper both took an elbow and helped me stand. I found my Camelbak drinking straw and sucked greedily at the super heated water. The water was a welcome relief going down my scorched throat. After a few seconds, I had to stop and puke it and a bunch of soot up, then I went back to drinking. They both wore looks of shock as they studied me. I had to look pretty bad.
“**** it. I’ll live,” I wheezed, sounding like a ten pack a day smoker. “Status?”
“Bob’s pinned down. Somebody got back on that machine gun. Nightcrawler saw Gordon. He went that way.” Reaper pointed back towards the garage. “We haven’t seen Eddie.”
I patted my side. At least I had stuck with my training and reholstered my STI even while standing inside a fire ball. I pulled the gun now and let it dangle at my side.
“Quit staring. Let’s go help my brother.”
###########
Reaper was in front now as we hurried back towards the garage, trying to stay in the shadows as much as possible. We could see a stream of tracers flying from the side of the garage up into the hillside where we had left Bob. I stumbled along, one arm over Jill’s shoulder as she kept me upright. The mess hall was burning bright and the flames had spread to the surrounding buildings. The camp was coming down.
I avoided taking a mental inventory of my injuries. Nothing seemed to be bleeding very fast.
We all instinctively ducked as we were suddenly illuminated by car headlights. Somebody had gotten past us and made it back to the vehicles. There was a sudden roar from a powerful engine, and one of the Suburbans sprayed gravel as it turned around and tore away from us.
That’s when I saw Nightcrawler emerge from one of the buildings on the other side of the horseshoe. He walked right into the middle of the road, oblivious to danger. He snapped his FAL to his shoulder and fired at the Suburban. Bullets sparked off of the big vehicle as it tore across the desert. The rear window shattered, but then it was down into a gully and gone from view, the taillights fading in the road dust.
Nightcrawler stood there, the bolt locked back on his empty rifle. He unconsciously dropped the magazine, and then reached for his chest. His hand moved about for a moment looking for a spare magazine that wasn’t there. Unconsciously he lowered his hand, resafed the FAL and let it hang from its sling. He stared after the fading Suburban.
“GOORDON!” he screamed, louder than any human voice should have been able to, his voice finally breaking, trailing off into a hoarse whisper. The word was so filled with rage, with hate, with violence, that it stunned even me.
“****.” Reaper whispered in awe.
Another burst of machine gun fire tore into the hillside. All of us flinched in that direction.
Bob.
I was running now, the others right behind me. Nightcrawler saw us, drew his pistol, and followed. My .45 was at the high ready as I moved around the corner of the garage.
The Russian PK was braced over the hood of a sedan. A giant white shape was manning the gun, firing short controlled bursts into a single patch of rocks where my brother had gotten pinned down.
It was the Fat Man. The back of his white suit was shredded from my grenade. Blood ran from nearly a dozen bullet wounds from Jill. He was one tough son of a *****. I could feel the others behind me, four of us in a row now. I settled my front sight on him and fired, still walking forward.
He grunted, the PK raising off the hood of the sedan. I fired again. Nightcrawler’s .45 bucked off to the side. The Fat Man began to turn, surprisingly enough, a strange smile on his face even as our bullets struck home. Jill was shooting the Sig now, cranking off shots as fast as she could pull the trigger. I kept shooting, but impossibly the Fat Man stayed on his feet as bullets puckered into his bloated frame. Reaper’s buckshot rocked him slightly, sending the PK’s muzzle into the dirt. I kept firing, front sight tracking back down, now I was shooting for his head. A .45 went through his cheek, he spit teeth, but stayed upright. Still closing, Reaper hit him again, the buckshot in a tighter pattern now, taking the Fat Man’s knee cap off.
His ponderous weight hit the hood, sliding inevitably towards the earth, leaving a trail behind him. He was reaching into his coat, somehow, finding the strength to go for his gun. Nightcrawler started to reload. Jill fired her last shots into his neck. He was still smiling a toothless death head’s grin, one eye missing now. I was at slide lock as the Fat Man hit the ground.
“******* die already!” Reaper shouted, stepping on the Fat Man’s arm, pinning the gun, extending the stubby 12 gauge toward that nebulous smile...
BOOM BOOM
Point blank range.
It wasn’t pretty.
Reaper stepped back and wiped his arm across his splattered face. “He ain’t coming back now.”
“Kind of puts those arguments about stopping power in perspective,” I said as I slammed a fresh magazine home. “Get Bob on the radio.”
“He says he’s okay.” Reaper answered immediately. “And—“
“Down!” Nightcrawler shouted. He was closest to Jill, and shoved her aside. I hit the deck as another Sedan tore past us, muzzle flashes strobing out the open window, bullets whizzing past us. I saw Eddie’s face illuminated for a brief instant. He must have gotten into the car while we were distracted by the Fat Man. I shot at the fleeing car as it bounced down the road and then out of sight.
“Everybody okay?” I shouted.
“I think so,” answered Jill from the ground. Nightcrawler grunted in the affirmative.
“Reaper?”
No answer.
I scrambled over to my friend. He was on his back next to the headless body of the Fat Man.
“Reaper?”
###########
To be continued...
\m/
