Against the Grain Read online

  And then there were the guns, oh so many guns. Again though, I came by it honestly. Shooting was my golf. It was my hobby. I generally didn’t collect for the value of the guns, I collected to learn and to shoot. I liked pushing myself to be more accurate, or faster, or able to transition better… it was fun for me. Sure I concentrated on military style stuff, but I had a few trap shotguns and a couple dedicated hunting rifles… even a black powder musket, but these days none of those saw as much time as my “working guns.” Those were the AK’s, the M1, or any of the other various high capacity “assault rifles”.

  After eating, bathing and brushing my teeth I nearly felt human again. The rest of the evening was spent half-heartedly unpacking, cleaning, and restocking my pack. Later that night I sat out on a blanket in front of the wood stove, sipping from my small allotment of scotch, and listening to the fire crackle. I was remembering what it was like to relax indoors. From the amount of time I spent in the woods, I was relaxed out there too, but it wasn’t the same as having a roof and four walls. I never had the same issue that guys coming back from Vietnam had had with not being able to sleep indoors or on a bed after being out in the bush and sleeping on the ground for so long.

  All in all I had a decent little setup for myself. I slept on a nice couch, read by solar lights at night and stayed pretty comfortable. The trick was not letting anyone know how comfortable I was.

  I was a hermit and I liked it that way, even knowing that seclusion was unsustainable. It would have been the easiest thing in the world to just sit back and watch the destruction, but I couldn’t make it on my own either. That was the selfish part of why I did what I did for the families around me. I didn’t believe I needed the psychological side of human interaction, but it did give me something to do. I had a few skills and a bit of a background so if I could help my friends and their families, and they could cook a better meal than me, why not? They really were some of the best friends I had before the collapse, but with the way everything went down, keeping my distance kind of fell into place too.

  Chapter 7

  For the next two days I did next to nothing besides rest and eat. After a while though, it was time to start living again. I brought up water, organized the house a little, went though the Saiga and support gear it would need, and otherwise stayed busy close to the house.

  After two more days had passed, I reloaded my bags and gear and set off for a hike. It had been about two months since the last of the snow had melted off, and after a long five months of wet and cold seasonal weather, I relished an early summer sun’s warming effect, for as long as it was available.

  I made my way to a nice spot not close to anything or anyone and set up my makeshift target range to wring out the new Saiga. The scope was dialed in, the iron sights worked as well as any AK type iron sights worked, and the magazines fed well. It was really just getting me used to the gun. My finger got used to the trigger and after a good amount of repetitions, I was getting a good natural feel for snapping the stock quickly to my shoulder. My time between shots and multiple targets was slower than I wanted it to be, but that would just come with time. It was going to be a lot of dry fire practice though as I did not have a ton of 308 ammo to burn through.

  After the range session I hiked back and camped near a spot closer to my intended path. I had dropped off a bag with some heavier stuff at that spot earlier in the day, before I’d started shooting. My plans were to stop by the Harris’s again to see how Megan was adjusting with everyone, and then hunt my way back towards my own place again and maybe beyond.

  Wild game was at a premium these days after everything had been so over hunted in the last few years and I was ready for some fresh meat to add to my dehydrated and canned food. The few vegetables I had tried to plant out in the open had not done well, so earlier in the spring I had fenced in a bit of a garden plot off of my ponds, hoping to let the water work in and keep what animals there were left, out. Those plants were doing okay, but they were not yet ready to harvest. Thankfully the gardens at the ranch were in much better shape than my own.

  I spent the night next to a boulder the size of a van in the middle of a field of trees. Where it had come from was always a thing of legend to me. Every other rock that we grew out here was an ugly, dusty, crumbly type of basalt. This one was a big lone granite boulder in the middle of it all. I’m sure that geologically it had been dropped off in this spot thousands of years ago by the floods that shaped this half of the continent, but it was still a single pillar of mystery and neat landmark for me. I was up early with the sun the next morning, eager to pack my few things and make it to the Ranch for breakfast. I had less than two easy miles to go and even as I was covering the last expanse of forest, I was still in no hurry… until I heard the first gun shots that is.

  I had been walking for about forty minutes or so and I was getting close when the first shot rang out. It gave me pause, but we’d had coyotes, raccoons, and the occasional skunk that had each tried to raid the chicken coops, so it wasn’t too uncommon. The next four in quick succession were uncommon though. I tore off my pack and stripped it down, stuffing the essentials, like the first aid kit and extra magazines in every available pocket. The hand held radio was the last thing to come out of my pack.

  “Ranch, Scout One, Sitrep? Over,” I radioed out, using our regular call signs.

  There was no response. I waited and tried again, still no answer. Either no one was listening, or they couldn’t hear me. I was sure I was in range of the stupid little FRS radio and didn’t want to waste the time to pull out the larger CB, so I got moving instead.

  More shots.

  I tried once more on the radio then shoved it in a pants pocket. I didn’t know what was happening or where, and if things were shaping up like they sounded, I might need both of my hands free in a very short amount of time. I also didn’t want to be overheard talking aloud by someone close by, especially if I was talking to no one at all on the other end of the radio.

  I slowed my not yet frantic pace as I came over the last rise that hid the main house. Nick and his father-in-law David were in the back yard still pulling their boots and jackets on, and Megan, Sue, and Breanne were all trying to figure out what was going on as they wrangled the two kids back inside.

  When I got closer I could see Breanne’s older brother Paul leaning against a corner of the house, breathing heavily and pointing, trying to relay something to the others. I called out and held my radio up over my head for them to see. Sue disappeared inside and then finally her voice spoke to me over the little FRS.

  “Paul was out feeding his chickens and saw some people across his yard. They shot at him and he ran here.”

  “How many?” I asked quickly.

  “Four... he thinks.”

  “Is Michelle still there? Is there anyone still at their house?”

  “No, everyone but Jake and Julie were here for breakfast,” Sue replied. I could tell she was scared, but she was holding up well to the stress, I had to give her that.

  “Get Nick up here with me and get Bre and Drew moving across the road. You stay on the radio. Dave and Paul stay with you at the house… and get those kids in the basement!” I directed into the radio.

  Soon I saw Sue’s head come back out from the doorway and everyone started moving. Paul and his wife Michelle’s house was on the far end of the three houses, less than a half mile away, Sue and David’s sat in the middle, then down the road just a few hundred yards sat the old farm house that Andrew and Cary now “owned” with their friends Julie and Jake.

  I’d try to get more information out of Nick once he caught up to me. We needed to know if the people Paul had seen followed him or stopped at his house. I also wanted to know if anyone on my side had any radios... or were even armed. What a cluster this was turning out to be.

  Another shot rang out.

  They were a lot closer than half a mile, that much was for sure. Nick hadn’t yet caught up to me but I had to start moving. Pic
king my way through the trees and rocks, I was going slow and stopping to listen every few feet. I felt plenty of urgency, but moving fast was not a great technique when you knew someone was out hunting you, and you want to see them before they see you.

  More firing broke out in our direction, this time it was a different sound than before; higher pitched and faster. At least two guns, I thought to myself. They were close, but I still hadn’t spotted anyone yet. They were shooting at something though, and from the sounds of it, the actual house was now their intended target. I could hear the slap of the bullets hitting the wood siding.

  To my right and in front of me I finally spotted was what I was looking for; a flash of movement. Two people down in the middle of the draw that led to the side of the house. More movement, this time up nearly level with me on the side of the hill I was traversing.

  I keyed in on the single one up here with me. It was one guy wearing a green jacket, he had a scoped hunting type rifle, and if he knew what he was doing, he was doing a poor job of over-watch on his buddy’s movements. Well maybe not so poor, he saw me about the same time I caught sight of him. That long, scoped gun came up incredibly fast in my direction.

  I all but dove into a prone position, slamming the stock of my gun not quite perfectly into my shoulder. He was too close to find quickly in the magnified scope so I looked under it to the iron sights beneath. I made a small shift and the front sight post was on his chest. Smoothly pressing the trigger, the first retaliatory shot was on its way.

  Oh damn, big mistake. I hadn’t yet had time to screw on the suppressor or shove any ear protection in. My ears ringing painfully, I rode out the recoil. My finger let the trigger come back just enough to reset as I waited for the sights to come back down on his outline. I knew it was much less than a second between shots, but in the moment, it felt like it was taking forever.

  The trigger broke again under my finger’s pressure and I watched him slump over, staying on his outline just long enough to make sure he was not getting back up, then I was up and moving again, off in my original direction. I glanced backwards and still didn’t see Nick anywhere. I figured he must be hunkered down and I couldn’t really blame him, it sure would have been nice to have the support of someone who knew what the hell they were doing out here with me though.

  “One down, two more in the flat, moving towards the house,” I spoke into the radio. I don’t know if anyone besides Sue was listening, but some info out there was better than none.

  More movement suddenly caught my eye. Breanne was coming up on the other side of the hill across from me. There were still two more invaders in between us, going towards the house. I tried to get my scope on a target, but with all the trees, bushes, and little hills, I couldn’t get a good angle on them.

  Doubling back around a large uprooted tree stump, I worked towards the duo, trying to stay in their blind spot. One guy started cracking off shots in the direction of the house again with something that looked like an AK. I couldn’t tell exactly what it was from this distance, and it really didn’t matter in the scheme of things, whatever it was, he had a lot of rounds available and he wasn’t shy about using them.

  The two finally stopped in what I’m sure they thought was a great spot, and it was, for me. I lined up the scope on the first shooter’s back. The cross hairs bounced heavily in between his shoulder blades, betraying my heavy breathing. I took one big gulp of air in, and let it out slowly, trying to slow my heart rate at the same time. I was in darn good physical shape, but that shape was for hauling loads long distances. I hadn’t done this short, dynamic, quick sprinting stuff in a long time and my body was not primed for it.

  While I was breathing heavy from physical exertion, I also filed something else away in my mind to address later. I wasn’t feeling the typical charge of adrenaline like I used to. I naturally tried to stay away from the two way shooting ranges, but this was not my first time by a long shot. While bad on its own, it wasn’t so much what I was or wasn’t feeling; it was that I wasn’t feeling at all. For now I could chalk it up to confidence, or having been in this position before, but when I thought about it, I wondered what about this situation gave me confidence? I was delving into a very scary, dangerous, and ultimately reckless mindset that I had seen before. It didn’t end well then either.

  The shot cracked from my 308 and both the men disappeared from my view, only to reward me with a sudden barrage of rounds coming my way from their position. I did a simple side step to put a large rock outcropping in between us. I needed to move or I would get pinned down here. Where the hell was anyone else to back me up?

  “Sue, does anyone else have a radio out here?” I spoke into the handheld.

  “What?!” came the static-y reply.

  Oh for fucks sake. I all but rolled my eyes at my luck.

  Time to go. I wanted to extend the distance and hope for a nice scope shot, but this asshole was going to have to stop peppering the entire area around me first. I really wished he would quit wasting those rounds; I was going to want those after I killed him and took his stuff.

  A pause, probably a reload, it was good enough for me. Throwing myself forward I made it a few steps before more shots rang out. Slower this time, and I wasn’t hearing the sonic crack pass by me like before.

  I made it to the next rise in the ground and pulled my gun back onto the target… silence. Not a perfect set up, but I could get a shot from here if I saw a good target. Nothing moved and there was no more shooting.

  “Got him!”

  I heard the yell from across the hill. I moved around to see Breanne coming from the other direction with her SKS still up on the spot the two guys had been. She had taken the initiative to get closer to them while their attention had been focused on me. She probably didn’t know just how dangerous that was, but it was also probably one of the only ways this thing was going to get resolved.

  “Stay back, keep your gun up but let ‘em bleed out!” I yelled back to her.

  I wasn’t actually sure they were down and out for good, and I didn’t think we should find out the hard way. It would be nice to get one alive and talking, then again, if they could talk, they could fight. Plus we still had one or more of the guys Paul had seen at his house who we hadn’t heard from yet.

  I took the opportunity to switch magazines in my gun to a full one. After scanning the whole area again, I started working my way carefully back towards the first guy I had shot. I finally caught sight of Nick moving around, and motioned him to come join me.

  We came up slowly. The guy’s breathing was fast and shallow. I had Nick move the dropped hunting rifle out of the guy’s reach while I kept my gun on him. I really wanted to take one of these guys alive and find out just how many of them there were and what they were trying to do, but it wasn’t going to come from this guy. I wasn’t completely a heartless bastard; I could tell the guy was in a lot of pain. He had to be, one of my rounds had blown off the lower portion of his face. I drew my pistol and fired one more single round into what was left of his skull. He wasn’t going to give us any information anyway.

  Okay, maybe I was a heartless bastard.

  I directed Nick to stay up here and watch for anyone else we hadn’t seen yet, and then moved closer to the house to check on everyone there.

  “Are you okay? Everyone alright?” I yelled to Megan who was looking out from the far side of the house. She was shielding Maddie, protecting her with the only thing she had, her body, and trying to keep her from running out to her parents here in the woods with me.

  “We’re good,” she called back.

  “Get Paul up here,” I yelled back again, having basically given up on using the radios.

  Paul was nowhere to be seen. Hopefully he was still hiding Nick and Breanne’s son in the basement from the gun fire.

  As I neared the spot the last two had fallen, I signaled Breanne to cover them with her SKS, and for Andrew to keep looking in the other direction so we wouldn’t get surprised i
f there were more out here.

  When I finally got a good look, I knew right away that these guys were toast. There were just the two of them, one maybe in his younger twenties, the other middle aged. The older of the two was dressed in some type of hunting camouflaged pattern pants and had on an unzipped jacket; the other was in dirty blue jeans and a sweatshirt. No backpacks, two long guns lying on the ground, and lots of blood. I didn’t exactly autopsy the situation but I could guess that I had caught the one with one big hole coming out the front of his lower neck, and Breanne had taken the other with her three shots across his body. Good for her… and bad for us; we needed information.

  Paul was just coming up to the area so I had Breanne go up to watch over the area with Andrew. Before she went, I noticed her face was grim and steady. It was her first time using a gun against another person and now she was the only other one here who had done so besides me. Now was not the time to deal with the personal and emotional part of it though.

  The stench of copper blood and burnt sulfur cordite still hung heavily in the air, refusing to dissipate from the little hollow when Paul walked up. He looked a little worse for wear when he came up in the middle of me searching their bodies. The human body holds about one and a half gallons of blood, and when you die from blood loss, it means that the majority of that blood is now outside the body.

  Finding nothing useful besides their weapons, I turned to him.

  “How many did you see at your house?”

  “Four... I think.” His face was more of a gray color then his typical pasty white, maybe with a little green mixed in.

  “You think?”

  “They were close together and behind the bushes in my yard. Once they started shooting, I got the hell out of there.”