No More Fear: Part Twelve

*****Hopefully two parts in one week makes up a little for the long waits! Please share your comments. Enjoy!*****

I dreamt I was a child again, running though a sprinkler on my parents’ luscious green lawn. My father must have spent dozens of hours a week out there, making sure not a blade of grass was out of place or a weed was in sight. I could feel the cool water gently splashing my face as my laughing brother ran directly through the refreshing spray.
Rolling thunder on the horizon woke me from my sleep. Rain drops pattered on the roof around me. My face was damp and water ran down my forehead and into my eyes as I sat up. I wiped my face with a hand and blinked a few times. The sky was pale gray, covered in thick clouds. It was morning already. I looked at my watch. Five twenty-eight. I got up and gathered my gear. I gently prodded my brother’s side with a toe and announced, “Get up. It’s raining. Gotta move inside or you’re gonna get soaked in a few minutes.”
Zach groaned and rolled over onto his back. Raindrops buffeted his face. “Hey,” he groaned at the rain. I headed over to where Ellie was sleeping and crouched down next t he head, placing a hand gently on her shoulder.
“Ellie,” I whispered, “Hey. Ellie.” I gave her a gentle shake. She took a deep breath and opened her eyes, blinking the sleep away. “Grab your stuff and head inside. It’s raining.”
I woke Mark and the two soldiers and they helped me cover everything in tarps to keep the rain out. One last look around and we all headed downstairs to spend a dreary day indoors. We ate breakfast in silence. The store felt more like a dungeon and less like a safe haven every day. Cabin fever was starting to set in. Zach smiled less and less. I felt more hopeless every hour. Mark’s attitude hadn’t changed much, and I couldn’t really tell how all this time being stuck here was effecting Ellie. She was her same quiet self.
There wasn’t much we could do, so we didn’t do much of anything. The two privates spent a couple hours browsing through the store, checking for anything they could use. Zach, Mark and I played cards for a few hours while Ellie sat a few aisles away in a plush display couch strewn with pillows, reading a book.
At noon we gathered for lunch. I ate mechanically. So did everyone else. Open a can, spoon in the can, spoon to mouth, chew. Do it again. Can, spoon, chew. I knew it wasn’t good, how things were deteriorating, but I simply didn’t feel like talking about it, or talking at all for that matter. I think that’s probably how everyone felt.
Shortly after we’d all finished eating, Skinner reminded us that we should take inventory of all the items in the Hummer. Mark, Zach and I volunteered to give him a hand, thankful to have something to do that would pass the time. Ellie said something about finishing the book she was reading and headed off alone. Gomez said nothing, just stayed sitting where he was when we all got up. I expect everyone noticed how he just stared into the shadows, but none of us said anything to him as we all turned to leave. We headed for the warehouse.
On the way we checked our weapons. The warehouse was quiet, but the dark was dangerous and we were cautious. None of us felt like dying like the sergeant, bleeding out on the cold concrete in a writhing heap. Mark got ready to unblock the doors and we took positions facing the door. Skinner racked the bolt of his M-16 and nodded. Mark opened the doors and we had a staring contest with the dark for about a minute, listening to the silence. We brought flashlights to bear, paired up and spread out. Both groups headed for the generator room. Mark fired up the generator and let it warm up for a few minutes. Then he flipped on the breaker switches and filled the warehouse with glorious and abundant light, which brought a smile to all our faces.
“Let’s do a quick sweep,” Mark suggested. We all headed out and found nothing. We met back at the Hummer. This was the first time we’d seen it in good light. It was painted in a desert camouflage pattern. My mouth fell open when I saw its condition. Aside from the front end damage and broken headlight, there were three spider-web bullet holes in the front windshield, which was splashed thickly with blood. The hood and front end were covered in thick, dark red gore. An arm was wedged in the front grille. Blood splattered the quarter-panels where the tires had flung it as they spun. There was a partial outline on the concrete around the Hummer where the blood had dripped off of the body during the night. Under the vehicle, hanging from various locations, were parts of two more arms and an entire leg. The privates had pulled the corpse that I had shot out from under the Hummer and laid it next to the sergeant last night. Both were covered in green army tarps.
“Ain’t she a bute?” Skinner said flatly, “I had to blast a couple through the window that were trying to climb up the hood at me. Gomez can’t shoot for his life. Good thing Sarge was on that fifty and not him.”
The hummer wasn’t sporting any armor at all. Aside from the large gun mounted on the roof, there were two long whip antennas folded down close to the roof. The bed was covered by a thick canvas roof. Skinner opened the canvas, rolled it up, secured it with two straps and opened the bed door. Inside were numerous OD green ammo containers, green rocket tubes, medical satchels and a crate marked “M67”.
Skinner began handing supplies to each of us and we, in turn, brought everything to an open space in the warehouse and set each type of item in its own pile. When the bed was empty, Skinner opened the side door and retrieved two more M-16A2’s and an M249 SAW. He pointed down to a heap of gear near the door and said to me, “Grab that stuff, will you pal?” I bent down and grabbed it and then realized it was all of the dead sergeant’s gear. The vest was stained with his blood near the where the wound had been. It was loaded with rifle and pistol mag pouches, grenade pouches and other pouches that I didn’t know the purpose for. There were two drop-leg pouches. One held a Berretta M9 identical to Ellie’s and the other held more grenades and magazines. The Velcro name and rank patches had been removed from the vest, which was now without an owner.
Mark had procured a clipboard and pencil and began taking down inventory as the rest of us counted. We had plenty of medical supplies, more than six people would ever need. Several thousand rounds for the rifles in pre-loaded magazines. We had the SAW and over eight hundred rounds of linked ammo for that. The M249 and the M-16’s used the same ammunition, so if we needed to both weapons could draw from the same pool of ammunition. The M249 could actually use the rifle’s magazines, but with a greater risk of a failure to feed because of its higher cycle rate. If we ran out of pre-loaded mags, we’d have to de-link the belts of ammo and reload some magazines. We all agreed we’d cross that bridge if we came to it. The fifty cal had nearly a thousand rounds left. The crate marked “M67” was full of thirty fragmentation grenades. Skinner informed us that they were ineffective and dead weight. Same with the five rocket tubes. On the plus side, one of the medical satchels held two pairs of night vision goggles, or NVG’s as Skinner called them, and spare batteries. There was even an unopened crate of loaded M9 magazines, though somewhat to my disappointment, they were full metal jacket, not jacketed hollow points like I was carrying. The hollow points produced much more devastating results on soft targets. Oh well, that just meant I’d have to really concentrate on my shot placement once if I had to switch to the FMJ rounds.
A couple hours had passed while we were counting everything. I felt my stomach rumble. I glanced at my watch. Only three thirty and I was hungry again already. “I’m gonna grab a snack. Anyone else want anything?” I asked the group. Zach and Skinner both said they weren’t hungry, but could use a drink of water. Mark said he could go for a bite.
“I’ll come with you.”
“Zach, you wanna help me get started cleaning these rifles?” Skinner asked.
“Sure. You’ll have to tell me what to do. I’ve never taken one apart before.”
“Back in a few minutes,” I said, and Mark and I headed out to the store, chit-chatting as we went, both in higher spirits after finding out how well supplied we actually were. We passed through the doors and back into the dimly lit store. My eyes slowly adjusted to the darkness as we proceeded down the main corridor.
I heard a commotion a several aisles away, and I stopped talking mid-sentence. It sounded like shuffling feet, but they moved too quickly to be a zombie. Mark heard it too, and put up an arm to stop me as he listened intently. Ellie’s voice echoed off the walls of the store, shattering the silence, “Get your hands off me you pig!”
I heard someone grunt in pain and a glass bottle clatter on the floor. Mark and I rushed to the source of the noises to find Gomez and Ellie illuminated by a column of light from one of the skylights. Gomez had his back against the wall and was staring down the barrel of the Berretta Ellie held inches from his nose, his hands frozen up next to his head in a pleading gesture. I immediately noticed that the hammer on the weapon was back and Ellie’s finger was wrapped tight around the trigger. The bright red dot near the hammer on the pistol’s slide was clearly visible. The weapon was hot. A dozen empty bottles were scattered on the floor around the soldier. A drop of blood ran from one of his nostrils and dripped off his chin, dotting his filthy olive drab undershirt. Mark stepped quickly over to Ellie and gently placed a hand on her shoulder from behind, but made no other move to interfere. Ellie was shaking with rage. Her fierce blue eyes were ice cold, locked on her would-be assailant. She breathed quickly through barred teeth, jaw set.
“Easy girl,” Mark said calmly, “It ain’t worth it.” Ellie continued to stand there, unmoving. After what seemed like an eternity, she relaxed, almost unnoticeably, and then she hissed through her teeth without taking her eyes off the man, words dripping with venom, “If this creep even so much as looks at me the wrong way again, I will blow his head off without a second thought.”
She held her ground for a few more long seconds. Finally, she brought her thumb up and slowly eased the hammer down without taking the gun off the disgraced soldier, as if she hoped it would somehow go off anyway. She quickly cocked her arm back and landed a heavy backhanded pistol whip to the soldier’s right cheek, rolling the man’s head to the side and leaving a long gash across his cheek. He stumbled, catching himself with a hand before he hit the floor. Ellie turned and brushed past Mark and walked quickly away without so much as a backwards glance. Gomez got to his feet as quickly as his intoxicated state of mind would let him, and took one step in Ellie’s direction before Mark, who stood at least a head and neck taller than the private, snagged him by the throat with his right hand and dragged him stumbling back to the wall and pinned him there with one hand.
“Don’t you think you’ve had enough partner?” Mark asked. Gomez tried to take a swing at Mark with his right hand, but the punch was slow and sloppy and Mark easily plucked it out of the air, grabbing the other man’s wrist. Mark tightened his grip on the man’s throat and, without much noticeable exertion, lifted the private several inches off the ground, sliding him slowly up the wall so that their eyes met. Mark brought his face in so close to Gomez’s that their noses were almost touching. Gomez’s face quickly began turning red.
“Now listen here partner, and listen good. If it was up to me I woulda let Ellie air out your brains like she wanted to, but fortunately for you we need every gun we’ve got to give us a chance to get outta this place alive. But you ever take a swing at me again and I’ll drop you so fast it’ll make your head spin. We all on the same page now?” Of course Gomez couldn’t answer. I’d guess he could barely breathe. He was starting to struggle, reaching his hands up to pull futilely at Mark’s hand clamped around his neck. Mark held him up a few more seconds to let his words sink in, then let him back down, but didn’t release his vice grip on the other man’s throat. Mark reached down with his left hand and unholstered the service pistol the soldier wore on a drop-leg rig on his right thigh. Mark stuffed the gun into his own waistband and then reached around behind the soldier to the six-inch combat knife strapped horizontally to the soldier’s belt and pulled it free.
“Now you get to work and toss the rest of this booze over the edge,” Mark instructed the soldier, “We got no use for it here. Everyone needs to be their sharpest at all times.” Almost as an afterthought he added, “Shouldn’t be drinkin’ warm beer anyway. Ought to be a crime.” Mark finally released Gomez, wiped his hand on the man’s shirt, turned and headed back to his own work. Zach jogged down the aisle, slowing and glancing at Mark as they passed each other. Zach stopped a few feet from me and took in the scene, glancing at the disgraced soldier, whose face was still dripping blood as he panted for air.
“I heard yelling,” Zach said. He paused, as Gomez slid down the wall to sit on the floor, “What the heck did I miss?”
“Ellie almost blew Gomez’s brains out. Mark stopped her,” I said flatly. What was happening here? Were we all bound to go insane an kill each other if we didn’t get out of here? Things were getting worse much faster than I had anticipated.