Original Work The Unwelcome Sign

Still patiently waiting for more. Especially after a tease about a gun fight.

Whynot

 

Sadie and I got up at 5am and worked on getting ready for our trip. I pulled buckets of water out of the cistern for washing while Sadie whipped up breakfast. The M4s were given a going over, with a quick function check and then loaded, cocked and locked and hung muzzle down by their slings on coat rack pegs in the hall way.
After scarfing down the eggs that Sadie made us, we went through our packs together, verifying the contents, and reminding ourselves of where everything was. In the past I've put together 'Go bags' and put what I thought would be useful in them, and a month later I couldn't remember what was in them or where in the pack they were.
We've standardized quite a bit, so our packs are very similar. The same things in the same places minimizes confusion in confusing situations.
John Bianchi, who was a policeman before he started the famous Bianchi holster company has a 'law', “One gun, One place, All the time”. There is a lot of wisdom there and I apply it not only to my pistol, but all of the things I carry on a day to day basis. The same things go in the same pockets, every day.
Sadie and I were ready a bit early and went out in the yard to wait for Juice and Stan. It was a gorgeous day, with that early morning cool that is so refreshing, before the heat of the day. The dogs were play fighting, running around with reckless abandon chasing each other and then wrestling when one caught the other.
“Such a nice day. It's easy to forget all the trouble we've had this past week.”
“It surely is. Be nice if we could just stay right here and ignore the rest of the world.”
“Unfortunately the world won't ignore us. We've already had Carol darkening our door.” Sadie stopped talking as we both heard a vehicle approaching. Juice's Toyota Tacoma came around the corner and pulled up in front of our Jeeps. Stan jumped out of the back and reached back into the bed, pulling out his Mossberg 500 and a backpack.
Juice got out and joined Stan as he walked up to us. “I picked up this hitchhiker on the way down here.” Juice pointed his thumb at Stan and smiled.
“That's a dangerous practice, dude.”
“I know, but I couldn't help myself, he has great legs.”
Stan in shorts, struck a couple of ridiculous 'sexy' poses to show off said legs. We all busted out in some much needed laughter.
I let them into the gate, Leslie staying in cab of the pickup. Loco and Rudi gave both Juice and Stan a good going over. Both being owners of multiple dogs, there was much sniffing of shoes and legs as they received skritches and scratches. Doggy heaven.

“Make yourself at home. Here's one of our radios, we'll leave the other with Sandy on our way out. I've got them on marine channel 18. There's stuff to drink in the fridge, help yourself. We should be back before noon.”
“Your fridge is working?”
“Well, our freezer is running off of solar. We're freezing gallon jugs of water and putting it in the fridge. Kinda like a large cooler.”
“That's cool. We've got then generator, but I'm not sure what we're going to do when we run out of fuel.”
“I'd like to brainstorm will you guys at some point about things like that, when we get a chance. Anyway, you ready to roll Juice?”
“Let's hit it. Maybe we'll get lucky and pickup another cute hitchhiker.”

 

We saddled up and hit the road, Juice in the lead. Driving by Macie's we noticed her car wasn't there. Neither was either of the Quinn's cars. Their son, Jacob, a somewhat gangly fifteen year old, was in the yard, practicing archery.
“I'm surprised Ellie let him have a weapon.” I remarked.
“Probably a result of reading 'The Hunger Games”. She probably thinks its harmless, and encourages him to read.”
We waved when he looked our way and he nodded at us, his hands busy with an arrow nocked on the string.

Coming up on Carol's house, there were two people sitting in chairs on either side of the front door. I guess they got tired of standing. I couldn't tell if they were armed, or if so, with what, but they were obviously providing security. They watched as we drove by. I waved. They didn't. I looked back in the mirror once we were past and saw one of them get up and enter the house.

Detective Johns was in his yard as we drove by, he didn't return our waves either, but just stared after us. He started walking towards Carol's house.

Uh, oh. . .

“Hey Stan, you there?” I released the transmit button and listened for a few seconds before trying again. After the second try, Stan came back.
“Yeah Zed, what's up?”
I told him about the reaction our leaving the neighborhood had on Johns and the security guys.
“I'm worried they may come by and try to go in the house to see what we have. They don't know you are there. I just wanted to give you a heads up.”

The knoll that hides our house from the neighborhood, also hides the neighborhood from our house. You don't know anyone is coming up the drive until they turn the corner, at which point they are only fifty yards away. I told Stan about the lookout spot that Sadie and I had discovered the day before.
“There are binoculars hanging by the door. If you want to see what's going on, you can go watch the neighborhood from there. If you want to stay by the house, that's cool, the bathroom and bedroom provide good views of the drive to the corner and would be good places to shoot from. Your call. Sorry for the mess.”
“No worries, I'll handle it. Thanks for the heads up.”
“Yeah man. Hey, we're at your place. I'll let Sandy know what's going on and you can call her in a couple of minutes. I'm out.”
“Catch you later. Good luck with your move.”

 

The trip to Doctor Shoemacher's community was quiet. We only passed a couple of cars, and they didn't seem to want to have anything to do with us. There was little activity at most houses. I guess people were just holed up inside. We passed a couple of people who were out in their yards, tending their plants.

“You smell that?” Sadie, like most women, has a sensitive nose.
“No...oh..smoke?”
“Yes, smoke. And not the clean smell of wood smoke.”
She was right, this was more like garbage burning. Not just wood, but plastic and rubber.
“Maybe someone is burning their trash, the government hasn't been picking it up.”
“Maybe.” But she didn't sound convinced. Trust a woman's instincts. As we drove through an ess curve and could see the area where the Doctor lived, we could see three distinct columns of smoke rising. We couldn't see the base of the furthest two, but the one closest to us was from a house.
Juices' brake lights came on and he pulled the truck over to the side of the road before entering the neighborhood. Pulling in behind him, I parked and Sadie and I grabbed our rifles and went forward to talk.

“That doesn't look good.” Juice was looking at the burning house.
“Nope. Not good at all” I confirmed. Just then we heard a dozen or so shots from inside the community.
“Better and better. How do you want to handle this?” Juice looked at me.
I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “It's tough. We don't know what's going on in there. Hey Leslie, give the Doc a shout on the radio, see if he's listening.”
“Doctor Shoemacher are you there? Can you hear me? Leslie repeated the call a couple of times.
“Give him a chance to answer and keep calling every ten seconds or so.”
“Do we drive on in there?” Juice asked
“That doesn't seem safe to me.” opined Sadie.
“I'm not sure yet. If we drive in we can move faster, both in and out, but are much more obvious. If we walk in it will take longer but we can be quieter and use cover to approach unseen.”
“And what do we do with the vehicles? Leave them unattended? Leave one person to watch them?”
“Good point Juice, good point. I think we do both. Drive in and..”
“This is Dave Shoemacher, who just called? Who's there? Zed? Juice?” Fear obvious in his voice.
I reached for the radio and Leslie handled it to me. “Hey Doc, Zed here. You Ok?”
“I'm being attached, I need help now!”
“Are you hurt?”
“No, no, I'm not hurt.”
“Ok, good. How many people are attacking you?”
“I don't know”
“Think. How many have you seen? How many guns fired from how many different places?”
He paused for a moment. Good. I'd broken into his fear response and given him a chance to stop and catch his breath.
“I guess maybe half a dozen or so.”
“What are they armed with? Pistols or long guns?”
“I only saw one rifle, looked like an AK. Four or five with pistols.”
“Good. Now where are they in relation to your house?”
“They are all on the street, in front. Well all except the one I shot.”
“You got one?”
“They were all together coming up my yard towards my house after leaving the house across the street. I was watching from the living room window. I told them to stop but they wouldn't. I warned them three times. Then I remembered what you told me about not setting limits I wouldn't enforce, so I started shooting. One dropped right there, the others ran back to the street and started shooting back at me.”
“Are they moving?”
“No, just hunkered down. One or another will pop up and fire some shots at the house and jump back down.”
“Ok, we'll be there in a minute. Anything else I should know?”
“I don't know. Oh, they're all wearing red.”
“Alright. That's helpful. Hang tight. Be careful of returning their fire because we'll be out there. See you soon”

 

“Well, you all heard that. Sounds like a local group of Bloods. Stupid, no tactics. Not terribly well armed. I say we drive to street one over from his, park there if it looks OK, leave Leslie to watch the vehicles. Go through the across the street neighbor's house and come up behind the gangbangers. When we get closer we can modify the plan, but right now I want to sneak up and back shoot them before they know we're there. Make sense? Opinions? Questions?” I looked each of them in the eyes for a moment.
“Nope, works for me” agreed Juice. Sadie just nodded.
“I'm going to keep the radio, so we can coordinate with the Doc. Follow me, I'll lead us in.”
We drove into the neighborhood, passing Doc Shoemacher's street and pulling into the next one parallel to it. We got to the house directly across from his and pulled over to the curb. The lot the house was on spanned the distance from street to the other, with only the one house on it. The house had obviously been looted. The door stood open and various household items littered the yard.

We all got out and gathered at Juice's truck. “Rather than go through the yard, let's go in the house. It looks empty, and looted, but I want to make sure. I don't want it behind us and we don't know if anyone is inside. And we can use it for cover.”
“What about me? Where should I be?” Leslie asked.
“Come on into the house with us. You can see the vehicles from there and keep an eye on them. You'll have better cover in the house. Cool?”
He nodded and seemed relieved to not be out on the street by himself.
“Ready?”
I was pleased to see that I didn't need to remind them to do chamber checks. They all tapped mags, pulled bolts and hit forward assists. I lead off to the house.

 

Every twenty or thirty seconds we would hear a gunshot from the other side of the house. “You still Ok in there Doc?” I radioed.
“Yes, so far.”
“It'll be happening soon.”
“OK”
Our group was gathered at the open door to the house. “Sadie and I will clear the rooms to the left, Juice and Leslie, you take the right. Watch your muzzles in these tight areas. We've done this before, take it slow because bullets hurt more than airsoft.”
Leslie gave a curt nod, Juice looked grim, Sadie just said, “Let's do it.”
I led off, slicing the pie on the corners, making sure the rooms were clear, hating the center fed rooms as I always did.
Nothing on the first floor. The random shots continued. Leslie peeked out a window looking out at the Doc's house.
“Whatcha see?”
“I can see Doc's house pretty well. There are three cars on the street in front of it. There are four guys with guns. Wait, a fifth guy just stood up he's going to..”
“Boom”
“...shoot. He's got a shotgun. He forgot to pump it.”
“Ok, we need to clear upstairs.”
Clearing upstairs sure beats clearing going down. Muzzles between us and the threat area, we moved up the stairs. There were three doors off the hall, two on the left, one on the right.
“Same as before, we've got the left.”
The smell of large quantities of blood is unmistakable, so I wasn't looking forward to actually looking in the bedroom that I was coming up on. My second slice of the pie, looking into the room showed a onsey covered foot on the floor. I took another slice and could see the rest of the small body of what was once a toddler, still clenching a favored toy in it's little fist, despite the back of it's skull being very obviously crushed in.
I saw Juice and Leslie hadn't quite made it to the door on the right.
“STOP!” They froze in their tracks and looked at me, surprised that I made so much noise.
“Don't let Leslie in the rooms.” throwing caution to the wind, I entered the rooms one after the other, quickly, while they waited for me in the hall way. No threats. Other than to my sanity. Sick bastards.

 

“What is it?” Juice asked. Sadie looked at me in understanding.
“Dead bodies in all of these rooms. No reason for all of you to look at them. Give me a minute.”
I went back into the rooms and covered the bodies with blankets. It was easy to cover the small forms of the two dead children. The woman tied to the bed was a bit more challenging, then there was the man, tied to a chair, facing the bed. I left them all where they were as we didn't have the time to deal with the bodies properly.
I joined them back in the hall.
“The family has been killed. I've covered the bodies so you don't have to see them in your dreams. The master bedroom goes all the way from front to back. Leslie, if you go to the front and open the window, you can see our vehicles. Sadie, take the window in the bathroom, you should be able to see Doc's house. You're both in the same room so you can communicate.”
“Where are you going to be?” Sadie asked, worried.
“Not sure yet, give me a minute.”
I looked out of the window that would Sadie's position and looked at the scene. I saw the three cars mentioned by Leslie. There were three gangbangers behind the SUV in the front to my left, and two each behind the other two sedans. Seven total. The middle guy at the SUV had an AK as did the end guy at the back of the second sedan. One fellow had a pump shotgun. From what Leslie said, probably with an empty shell in the chamber. Everyone else had a pistol in his hand. I mentally numbered them 1-7 from left to right. As I watched number 3 rose up and shot his pistol over the roof of the SUV at the Doc's house, and then crouched back down.
The beginnings of a plan formed in my head. I told the group what I had seen.

 

“There are seven of them and four of us. We are in a much better position, and better trained than them. They've all probably shot at other people and been shot at before, which is a bit of an advantage for them.
We'll get in position at these upstairs windows, pick a target, and wait to all shoot at the same time. We will only have the advantage of surprise once. Let's make full use of it.”
“How will we know when to shoot?” asked Leslie
“I'm going to radio the Doc to fire a round at the gangbangers. That's our cue. When all of us are on target, I'll make the call. Do your best to stay on target for the few moments it will take me to call and for the Doc to shoot.”
“Then move on to other targets?” this from Juice
“Yes. Move to another target quickly. Don't dick around. Put a couple in your guy fast and then find another. Violence of action. Don't hesitate, don't gawk. Shoot and keep shooting until there aren't anymore targets. Questions?”
“Where do you want us?” again from Juice.
“Sadie and me on this left hand window. You and Leslie on the right. Start at the ends and work your way to the middle. Ready?”
We got into our places. Luckily the windows were already open, so we didn't have to worry about making any noise. We were looking out over the back yard, the bad guys about 75 yards away. Fairly easy shots for our AR s.
“Doc, you there? If so, press the microphone twice. Don't talk.” I said quietly.
I got two hisses as he responded.
“Ok, things are about to go noisy. You are going to start. I want you to fire a shot or two at the gangbangers. That's our signal. Stay down until you here otherwise. Understood?”
Two more hisses.
“Give it ten seconds then shoot.” That gave me enough time to put the radio down and take a bead on the leftmost guy. Sadie would take the guy with the AK. I couldn't see Juice or Leslie in the other room so I didn't know who was going to shoot whom.
I was keeping the red dot of my Aimpoint sight between the shoulder blades on the first guy, making little corrections as he moved. Right on time Doc fired a double tap out the window. My guy picked just that time to stand up. As I was finishing the last bit of trigger pull. Instead of the upper back, my round took him in the pelvis. He dropped like a sack.
Everyone fired at once. I tracked my red dot to the right, saw Sadie's target down, and on to the third guy. My rifle went off just after her's and down went number three.
These guys were used to being shot at, so they didn't freeze up as most people would have. The two behind the middle car scrambled around behind the other side of it to get away from our bullets.
Shotgun man stood up, aimed at our house and pulled the trigger. Guess what he forgot? He didn't have time to run the pump before Sadie put a bullet in his head.
A red mist and he dropped from sight.
I scanned the scene and counted three bodies. Plus shotgun man on the other side of the cars.
“Stay here” I told Sadie as I backed away from the window and ran to the other room. Juice and Leslie were on either side of the window, rifles at a low ready, looking for targets.
“You guys alright?”
“Yeah, we're good. Leslie got the one on the left, I hit the one on the right. He fell so I looked for other targets. When I looked again, he was gone.”
“He the one with the AK?”
“Yeah. And I don't see it laying there”
“Shit”
“How'd you do?”
“We got three. One is on the far side of the car, and I think he is unhurt. I hit my first man but he's gone now too. Look, you can see a blood smear on the pavement.”
“Looks like he dragged himself around behind the car. Didn't one of your guys have an AK?”
“Yeah” I looked for it. It should have been with the second gangbanger, the one Sadie shot. I didn't see it.
“Shit.”
“Think the Doc's got a shot?”
I ran back to where I left the radio.
“You OK Sweetie?”
“Yes Sweetie. You?”
“I'm good. Keep an eye out. We still have one unhurt and two wounded and possibly still dangerous. They have the two AKs.”
I picked up the radio. “You Ok Doc? You can talk now.”
“I'm good. What's going on out there?”
I gave him a quick rundown.
“Take a quick peek, tell me what you see”
“I see two guys. One in by the middle car. He seems OK. The one by the front car isn't moving well. He's got a rifle.”
“You don't see a third?”
“No...”
Shit.
“I'm going to fire a couple of shots in a few seconds, when I do, I want you to try shooting the man with the rifle. That's a twenty yard shot for you. Take your time and work the trigger. Stop shooting and duck back down if either of them turn towards you.”
“I'll do my best.”
“Remember, it's all about the trigger. Wait for my shot.”
I ran back over to the other room. They continued to watch out the window while I talked to them.
“Doc is going to try and hit the guy with the rifle. He's behind the engine block of that SUV so we can't tag him from here. When I start shooting, I want you two to light up the middle car. Work your way back and forth, you might get a bullet through.”
They both nodded, without taking their eyes off the cars in front of them. I ran back to Sadie. My thighs were really starting to complain about all the crouched running. I told her what was about to happen.
“What do you want me to do?”
“Keep an eye out to the right. We're still missing one guy. He may move when we start shooting at his friends. He's over there somewhere, and he has a rifle.”

 

I figured to distract the guy the Doc was targeting so I put a round into the sheet metal of the hood of the SUV. I counted to 2 and put one in the fender. I couldn't see him, but my rounds had to be fairly close. I finished my third shot and heard a shot from Doc's house. Then two more. I looked to the middle car. Juice and Leslie were tearing it up. I picked up the radio again.
“How'd ya do, Doc?”
“I GOT HIM!” Doc yelled. I could almost hear him without the radio.
“Good! What about the other guy, by the middle car? Can you see him?”
There was a pause. I could see Doc cautiously peeking around the side of the window frame. I love it when lessons stick.
“He's laying there, not moving. I can't tell if he's injured or not. I can see the bullets going through the car, but they don't seem to be hitting him.”
“You got a shot?”
“Yeah, I think so.”
“Take it”
I flinched involuntarily as the concrete window frame a foot in front of my face spalled, sending fragments into my face. My sunglasses took the brunt, I was more startled than hurt. The the sound of several shots registered on my senses.
“Shooter to the right!” I yelled. “Stay back from the windows!”
“Did you see where that came from?” I asked Sadie
“Not exactly, but I think over by the next house.”
“Stay back and keep an eye on the cars.”
I made another trip to the other room. Walkie talkies sure would be handy.
“You guys OK?”
“I think we found our missing gangbanger” Juice grinned at me.
“Ya think?” I grinned back.
“You know you're bleeding, right?”
I wiped my hand across my face and looked at it. The stinging the rubbing caused told me I had some scratches on my left cheek. Little blood came away with my hand.
“Doc got the one in front of the SUV. You guys haven't seemed to have hit your man. He was about to take a shot when our missing gangbanger busted some caps at us.”
“Did he take the shot?”
“Don't know. I'll go ask. Be careful around the windows.”
Back with Sadie. “You know, you could just keep that with you.” She said as I picked the radio back up. I gave her a stupid grin and shrugged.
“Doc. You there?”
“I'm here. I was about to shoot when someone shot from my left.”
“We'll deal with him in a minute. Let's try again. Wait for my shot.”
Standing as far back in the room as I could and still see the car, I did the shoot, count to two, shoot thing again. This time at the middle car. I heard Doc shoot several times and we both stopped. We were answered by half a dozen shots hitting around the window I had been shooting from.
“I've got him!” said Juice from the other room.
“I got him!” came over the radio.
I pulled the radio out of my cargo pocket as I went back in to see what Juice was talking about.
“What's up Doc?”
“Like I've only heard that a million times, Zed. I hit the guy a couple of times. He isn't moving.”
“Nice work, Doc. Top off and keep down. We got one more out there.”
“Thanks Zed.”
“So whatcha got? I looked at Juice. He was standing in the middle of the room.
“Come over here.”
When I joined him, I noticed he was looking at a mirror on a dresser. From where he stood, the mirror reflected a view across the street to the house next to the Doc's.
“He's behind the concrete steps to the front door. I saw him pop out to shoot and then pop back.”
“Nice!” I took a moment to run some numbers in my head.
“I'm going to run out the back, around a couple of houses and flank him. Keep an eye on him. If he moves, shoot to keep him pinned in place. I should be about two to three minutes. You'll know when I get there.” I grinned at him.
The thought of leaving Sadie was a fleeting one. She'd be pissed if I went by myself.
“Come on Sweetie, watch my back while we flank this guy.”
“Give me a second” I watched as she grabbed a spare mag for the AR, put it next to the one in the gun, forming an 'ell' shape, hit the mag release, pull the partially expended mag, rotate her wrist and pop in the fresh one. She put the partial in her cargo pocket, and did a systems check. Tap and tug the mag, pull the both, look for brass, hit the forward assist to make sure the round was seated. Close the dust cover and checked the safety was 'On'.
I did the same as we moved down the stairs and out the back door. In the yard we hung a left, past the first house, past the second and then down the side of it. We slowed down to a slow walk. A quick check showed Sadie walking backwards, watching the way we came.
I stopped as I neared the last corner. I sliced the pie like on any other corner until I finally got a look at our guy. Still hunkered behind the stairs, looking at the house we had just vacated.
I went prone and eased out just enough to get a shot on him. He was about 100 yards away. Seeing I had the time, I took a couple of calming breaths and worked into my natural point of aim. Putting the red dot of the T-1 right on his left ear hole. One last breath, let half out and worked the trigger. The rifle recoiled in my shoulder, I picked up the sight and let the trigger reset.
The gangbanger hadn't moved, but his head was a bit deformed.
“Got him” I told Sadie. “let's go check them out.”
“Why don't we put another shot in them before we get closer?”
“You're such a practical girl!”
“That's why you love me.”
“You give me lot's of reasons.”
I put another round into each of the bodies that I could see. None of them moved. I did another tactical reload, the two partial mags heavy in my cargo pocket.
“Ready?”
“Yes Sweetie”
We left the cover of the corner of the house. I approached the last guy and stood where Juice could see me in the mirror and waved. He came to the window.
“Keep an eye on us, we'll check them out.”
Pulling the radio out, “Doc, I think we got them all, we are checking bodies now. Keep an eye out. We'll be in front of your house in a moment.”
“Will do” came over the radio.
“Keep watching my back, while I check the bodies.” I told Sadie as I bent over the last guy I shot. I pulled his AK clear, safed it and slung it over my back. I checked his belt and was rewarded with a Glock 23.
I wanted to control the guns quickly. We could do a more detailed search of the bodies after.

 

And it gets better and better....

 

Outstanding story!

 

Keep up the great work, Zen! Can't wait to read more!

 

Zen, you out there? How about another chapter?

 

Zen?
(tink tink tink on the screen...) you in there?

 

Hey Zen, you out there??

 

More more more

 

Just letting you know, Zen, that we are still thinking of you...but do understand that sometimes life intrudes on net time. However you are travelling...I hope all's well in your part of the world.

 

Zen,

You alive out there? Would love some more of the story.

Whynot