The Complete Lee West Post-Apocalyptic Box Set, page 50
part #1 of The Complete Lee West Post-Apocalyptic Box Set Series
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Jerry ran along the line of bunkers, watching the entrance and barking orders at the group. Most of the primary shooters were police officers from Porter and Evansville, with the civilian volunteers filling in the spaces between the officers. Any able-bodied person without a weapon helped supply and manned the acid slingshots. Jane waited and watched the cars approaching. She had never been more scared in her life. Thoughts of Lea rose, which she pushed aside, needing to stay focused.
“You good?” said Sam.
“As good as I can be. Love you.”
“Love you too. We’ll be fine,” he said reassuringly.
She knew he had no way of knowing that, but loved him for trying to calm her.
“Ready! As soon as the men leave those vehicles, I want to hit them. Check your weapons and be ready for my order!”
The first cars started to pull up, rolling to a stop within range of their rifles.
“Wait until I give the signal!” said Jerry.
Jerry picked up his handheld and screamed into it, “Hit the lights! NOW!”
The entire area around the hospital lit up, exposing the waves of New Order men pulling up to the hospital. Jane’s apprehension grew as she realized how many heavily armed men they were fighting against.
“Die, you assholes!” shouted Mitch before repeatedly firing his rifle.
Bullet after bullet sailed through the sky, pinging off the hoods of the vehicles.
“MITCH! STOP SHOOTING! STOP SHOOTING!” screamed Jerry.
Mitch’s bullets hit the lead car, which veered behind an adjacent building. Jane feared that the premature gunfire had made the New Order realize they needed to take a different approach, but the cars kept coming. A few more seconds passed before they screeched to a halt in front of the hospital, a few cabin lights illuminating the vehicles’ occupants as the New Order men opened their doors.
“FIRE! ALL SHOOTERS! FIRE! FIRE!” said Jerry.
Jerry’s timing was nearly perfect. Jane concentrated her firepower on the two closest vehicles, the tight volley of bullets striking the men just as they were getting out of their cars. She managed to hit several of them as they fell over each other trying to find cover from the withering gunfire. Several moments later, having survived the initial wall of bullets and recovered from the surprise volley, the New Order thugs started to return fire.
Bullets whizzed past her head with an unmistakable snapping sound, rattling her nerves as she raised her body to return fire.
“I’m hit!” yelled someone to her right.
“Grab him! Move him back and continue fighting from his location!” yelled Jerry.
“Medic! We have two down on the east side!” another person yelled.
The civilians pulled the wounded out of the way before picking up their weapons and taking their places. Doctors and nurses ran between the injured, carrying away the most severely hurt.
Jane ignored the volume of incoming bullets and fired with all she had at the attacking New Order men. She hit a guy who tried to cross the distance to reach the emergency room entrance, followed by a second man attempting the sprint. She needed to keep them from the doors, or the hospital would fall. Their barricades couldn’t withstand this assault much longer.
“We need the acid! Start hitting them as they run to the building,” screamed Jerry to their archers.
A group of four men and a woman rolled the makeshift slingshots into place as officers closed around them for protective cover. The acid bottles were wheeled into place behind the archers. The team loaded and flung bottle after bottle of acid down onto the men beneath them.
Glass shattered everywhere on the ground below, spraying the caustic acid mixture onto the men as they ran toward the hospital. Tortured screams rose from the men hit by the firewater, their progress temporarily halted. For just a split second, she felt bad for them before she immediately remembered why they were trying to get into the hospital. Jane and the others kept firing, scoring fewer and fewer hits as the New Order army gunfire grew more accurate—keeping Jane down.
“We need help in the back! Sam and George! Fortify the rear! Archers, get to the back!” screamed Jerry.
A warm spray hit Jane’s face, momentarily confusing her. She looked up and saw Sam grabbing his side.
“Sam! Get down!”
He was hit, but she couldn’t tell where. She pulled him down and screamed for a medic. A smallish man ran to her side and quickly grabbed Sam, pulling him back from the bunker to safety. A civilian quickly took Sam’s weapon and resumed the fight in his place. Jane stood there stunned.
“Jane! Jane! SHOOT OR MOVE OUT OF THE WAY!” shouted Jerry, finally getting her attention.
She quickly spun around and reengaged in the fight. More New Order men and cars poured into the kill zone in front of her as both sides fought for control of the hospital.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Whitey and his men drove as fast as they could to join the attack. As they got closer, the sounds of pitched battle echoed through his car. Perfect. He knew the Boss had something planned for him, which was why Whitey planned to use the confusion of the battle to kill that sneaky asshole. He’d wait until just the right moment to shoot the man and take all the spoils.
“Speed up! We’re almost there!” he shouted to the man driving.
Two other cars trailed behind them, trying to keep up. Suddenly, the driver lost control of the vehicle and fishtailed wildly.
“What the fuck are you doing?” shouted Whitey.
“Something’s wrong! I can’t control the car!”
“Pull the fuck over and we’ll get in one of the other cars! Hurry up!”
The man did as directed. Once the lead vehicle stopped, so did the others. Whitey got out and was jogging back to one of the cars behind them when bullets started flying.
“We’re under attack!” he screamed to no one in particular.
Bullets struck the cars from all sides from unseen assailants. Darkness prevented him from seeing their attackers. A sharp pain seared through his knee, causing him to collapse onto the ground next to the vehicle. A second blunt pain hit him in the chest like a sledgehammer. He unloaded his weapon in a wild arc, trying to protect himself but unsure where to shoot. Instead of hitting his attackers, Whitey realized he’d just taken out two of his own men. He could hear groans as he sat immobile from pain. All of his ammunition had been wasted, and he sat unable to reload.
Soon the sound of live fire in their immediate vicinity died down. All Whitey could hear was the men fighting in the near distance at the hospital. He heard the crunching of heavy footfalls near him. Turning his head, he looked up, hopeful it was the cops, ready to render medical care. Instead, he looked into the cold eyes of the Boss.
“Who’d you expect? The tooth fairy?” said the Boss.
Whitey leaned over, trying to load his second magazine, but the pain in his chest and leg prevented him from reloading.
“Looks like this is the end of the road for you. But thanks for the weapons. Don’t know how we would’ve pulled this off without them,” said the Boss.
The last thing Whitey saw was a sly smile creeping across the Boss’s face.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Jane frantically patted all of her pockets for a spare rifle magazine. Finding none, she yelled, “I’m out! I need ammo!”
“I’m out too!” yelled Officer Wheeler.
“Me too!” yelled a civilian.
“Anyone who still has ammunition concentrate on the men running!” shouted Jerry, directing the shooters.
She knew Jerry was trying to slow them down. The New Order seemed to have an endless supply of men and weapons.
“We need more acid! They’re trying to bust through the barricades!” shouted another officer.
Jane locked eyes with Jerry, both of them coming to the same conclusion. She nodded and he issued the order.
“Anyone out of ammo, get upstairs! We need to start our retreat! If you’re out of the fight, then leave the area! NOW!” shouted Jerry.
Hesitant to leave, Jane knew Jerry was right. Anyone not fighting was just a liability. She quickly spun around and started to low crawl to the back staircase. Suddenly, the intensity of the fighting on the ground outside the hospital picked up. She could hear the New Order men screaming below her. The torrent of bullets flying through the air inside the hospital slowed down immensely. Risking her safety for just a moment, Jane peeked her head above the bunker and peered out.
A second line of cars pulled up behind the New Order vehicles. Some were streaming around back. Others were parked on the grass. The Porter Police Department had arrived. She could see her brave fellow officers fighting the New Order on the ground.
Chapter Forty
Charlie and a team of officers left Porter and raced to the hospital. They couldn’t empty Porter of its police presence because no information had been provided as to the location of the attack. For all he knew, the New Order planned to hit Doris’s house again or Porter. All three locations were vulnerable, so all three were alerted. He would have stayed put with the team guarding Porter; however, he knew the hospital would not last given their level of ammunition.
“Slow down! It could be an ambush!” he shouted to the driver.
The driver shined the high beams on the road, allowing him to see ahead more clearly.
“What the hell?” said the driver.
New Order men were dead on the ground next to their vehicles. The inside of the cars looked like someone had sprayed them with chunky red paint.
“What’s going on?” asked one of the guys in the back.
“Don’t know. Maybe Jane or Jerry placed a team in the forest to guard the entrance,” he said.
They drove slowly past the macabre scene and then picked up their pace to the fight unfolding in front of them.
“Herb and Jones, around back! The rest form a protective line on my car!” shouted Charlie into his radio.
Two vehicles went around the back side of the building while Charlie’s team lined up their vehicles trunk to engine and engaged in the fight. The New Order clearly didn’t expect a rear attack. Charlie’s team effectively and quickly sliced through their ranks.
***
Jane watched the unfolding battle on the ground for another split second. She needed to get upstairs with the others. She needed to get to Sam and make sure he was all right. On her way to the stairwell, she walked past Mitch Brady. The elderly man lay in an unnatural position on his back, his eyes staring at the ceiling. A thick dark pool of blood formed around his head. Jane could see a small black hole in the side of his temple. Looking closer, she noticed he had a full supply of ammunition and a rifle. He must have been shot early during the fighting.
She grabbed Mitch’s rifle and ammunition before sprinting back to her bunker to assess the situation. The scene on the ground had gone from confused to chaotic. The New Order men were sandwiched between the hospital and the line of police attacking them, but they had learned from their initial casualties and were now using the vehicles effectively to take cover. She also noticed that they had started to mass in a large group around the massive SUV that had originally led the New Order convoy. She didn’t like what she was seeing.
If this mass of New Order thugs made a simultaneous, coordinated move against the hospital, most of them would make it through the doors. The hospital’s defenders simply didn’t have enough ammunition to stop their assault.
Jane fired several bullets from Mitch’s rifle, to little effect, before she stopped. She couldn’t risk shooting into her fellow officers, who were closing the gap between the New Order and the distant line of police cars. Scanning the gang below for a way to help without endangering Charlie’s team, she noticed something unusual.
A tall man dressed in full tactical armor barked orders at the men around him in between firing long, fully automatic bursts at Charlie’s group. He was clearly the leader: now Jane’s sole target. She steadied her rifle against the windowsill and lined his body up, center mass, in her scope. On the exhale, she squeezed the trigger. The kick from Mitch’s rifle jarred her shoulder, and she tried to reacquire her target. The man appeared stunned but not stopped. He spun around and blanketed the hospital with a deadly burst of bullets before returning to engage the police on the ground.
Glancing at the SUV next to him, it suddenly came to her. She had the head of the New Order in her sights. Her excitement was quickly replaced by abject terror. One of the men next to the leader pulled a SWAT-issue portable battering ram out of the back of the SUV and lined up behind another guy carrying a ballistic shield. The leader patted the man holding the shield on the shoulder, and they started moving forward under the protection of the bullet-resistant shield. If they got into the hospital, the barricades would quickly fall to the battering ram.
“Jerry! We need to concentrate on that small group by the big SUV. He’s the head of the New Order! The one with the shield and battering ram!” she shouted to Jerry while reloading her rifle.
Jerry circled around and peered out the window. “Holy shit! Markus and Craig, support Jane! Now! We need concentrated firepower over here!” he shouted over the noise.
The two men joined Jane in the bunkers on each side of her. Together they pounded the men with round after round until the man holding the shield fell sideways, exposing the other two to their deadly gunfire. The leader grabbed the guy holding the battering ram like a hostage, trying to pull him close to absorb the bullets, but the volume of incoming fire was too intense. His human shield was instantly stripped away by the bullets, leaving him the sole focus of her fellow shooters’ remaining bullets.
The tall, body-armor-encased man was hit so many times, he appeared to be dancing as the bullets pushed and contorted his body. When he didn’t immediately go down, Jane centered her rifle sight on his head and fired a single shot, locking the rifle bolt back in the empty position. She glanced over her rifle, seeing that he was down, his helmet tumbling into the distance.
“They’ve breached the doors! EVERYONE UPSTAIRS NOW!” shouted Jerry. “UPSTAIRS NOW! JANE! JANE!”
Jane scrambled to her feet and ran to the stairwell door. She could hear the sound of men running up the west staircase, which came from the first floor.
“Jerry! Come on! We need to shut the doors!” she shouted to Jerry.
“Go! I’m just checking for survivors!”
Jerry ran from bunker to bunker, checking pulses, as the New Order men pounded on the stairwell door. She knew the locks and barricade would not last long. The door seemed to pulsate with every push from the New Order.
“He’s alive! Grab his feet!” shouted Jerry as he pulled a civilian off the floor.
Jane ran to Jerry, grabbing the injured man’s feet. The man groaned loudly. They ran quickly, carrying the man to the second stairwell as the New Order burst through the doors.
Jane ran through the stairwell doors as the civilians were closing it. She knew that a few seconds longer and they would have had no choice but to leave the three of them outside the protection of the doors. They quickly barricaded the doors with the pre-staged items and ran up the stairs.
Once on the third floor, they closed the stairwell door behind them, locked it, and barricaded the door. She knew it was only a matter of time before the New Order would make it through those doors too. At this point all she could do was put her faith in the men and women fighting on the ground.
Chapter Forty-One
Charlie stood back for a moment, watching the fighting unfolding in front of him. The officers and civilians in the hospital stopped fighting, which meant they were either out of ammunition or something had happened inside the building. Charlie worried it was the latter.
“Ryan, Feltzer, and Tucker! Come with me! We need to circle around the side of the building!”
The men ran crouched down along the safety of the police cars. At the end of the line of cars, they needed to make a short distance across the grass into the trees. Their run through the grass would be completely exposed.
“Ryan and I will provide protective cover while Feltzer and Tucker make a run for the tree line, there!” Charlie pointed.
Charlie and Ryan joined their fellow officers in firing on the New Order. The number of New Order men still in the fight had dropped dramatically; however, Charlie would not take any chances. Once Feltzer and Tucker were safely to the trees, Charlie and Ryan sprinted across the wet grass.
“Now what?” asked Ryan.
The four of them sat looking at the emergency room bay. All of the glass had been shot out of the windows, and the doors were broken through. It was obvious that the New Order men had made their way into the hospital.
“We need to get in there!” said Charlie.
Charlie knew that breaching the doors without a better assessment could be a death sentence. They had no idea what they faced inside the hospital. For all he knew, the New Order had set up a command post on the ground floor. Deciding they couldn’t risk running in without some more information, he called the hospital, unsure if they would or could answer.
“This is Charlie! Anyone from the hospital there? Hospital, come in! Anyone from the hospital come in! Over,” he shouted.
He attempted to contact the people on the inside a few more times without success, and then finally he heard the faint sound of Jane’s voice.
“Charlie! It’s Jane! We’re here! Come in!”
“Jane! My god! What’s happening inside there?”
“We’re barricaded up on the third floor, but need help! The New Order busted through the stairwell doors between the first and second floors! They’re pounding on the doors to the third floor! It’s only a matter of time before they get in.”
