Dark Streets chapter 2: Gravity and Fate
The grenade landed softly atop the door-ramp. I feel my body lose pressure and my grip give on my shot gun, drawing tight on the sling as gravity took its toll, as the grenade rolled down next to my boots. I accepted this as my cruel gruesome fate, and I closed my eyes out in the dark.
He grabbed me pulling me straight off the ground and through the door of a apartment, splintering and cracking wood as he did. The feeling of anxiety was gone now, filled with adrenaline and anger towards my self for almost letting something worse than being ripped to part by my friends and family happen to me. Wow, this world had really gone to shit, in the flip of a switch. I hit the ground, shoulder first with a satisfying slap as the hardwood bruised my upper arm. My friend went flying over me behind the bed and landed in a low crouch with pistol ready.
Boom, it sang like a banshee from the depths of hell. Throwing a thick layer of dust and shrapnel into the air, cleaving wood and flesh alike, looking at the door after the small piece of hell had been unleashed the slight feeling of shock slips in and it all goes black .
The noise from the engines running and the off and on gun fire from on top the HUMMVEES, kept the illusion that I was safe in my mind. “Hey Neil, you get those charges set yet?” I heard the XO call out from behind me.
“Yeah place is rigged to blow boss.” I replied as pulled the hood over my head, as the rain poured down.
Light poured in through the fluorescent lights above me, and my head throbbed and my eyes burned, “wow what a shitty way to wake up”, I thought to my self as I started to cough in the dust that settled on me. My friend was above me already. Pushing my self up as I saw him prying the weapons and gear off three dead men, weapons and all, “What the fuck are you doing?”, I yelped, in fear and in disgust.
“I didn’t want to die, did you?” My friend responded calmly as he unlatched and lifted the collapsed helmet off one of the men, “Shit, this one isn’t to pretty!” He said as a pool of blood and chunks of skull poured out of the helmet
My stomach clenched and reared back into the business of making acid, this feeling was all too common these last couple of days. “I think I’m going to puke man”, I managed to say as I choked on my own bile and stomach juices. Staggering as if I was drunk to the stairway, already feeling the puke working its way up through the throat, I threw my torso onto the guard rail as I let it go, and all I had left to remember it was the dry tongue and the horrible aftertaste. Walking back while I dug into my pockets looking for something to get the vile scent off my throat, I asked simply, “So, now what?” trying to play it cool.
“We leave.”
“All right folks round it up we leaving this area!” the XO called out as he banged on the roof of his HMMVEE. About twelve heavily armed men, all of them my friends climbed up on the three trucks all with the look of blood lust in their eyes, but if you looked at their posture they looked like tired boys. I climbed in after, settling in the steel bucket seat, as rain poured into the cab through the top hatch as the gun on top the truck roared to life. Raining its destruction on nearby walkers and to the building behind them, ripping the masonry to chunks, we started our engines and started to speed into the rainy horizon.
“When do we hit the explosives?” I managed to say to the XO, over the constant gun fire.
“When we get further into the city.” He chuckled.
The gleam of the mat black hand guards on the rifle gleamed, as he hefted it into the ready stance. I saw him click off the safety and fire a trio of rounds into the wall across the hall. It rang clear and true almost deafening me. “You think you could use this?” he asked me as he let the rifle slide down his shoulder, pulling tight on his sling.
“I could try.” I interjected
Unslinging the rifle as he motioned me over, “All you have to do is pull back on this, flip this to full or semi and when you run outa’ rounds you press this button. Grab a fresh mag and slam it home, then just pull back on the bolt again.” He said as he showed me the hand steps, “Got it?”
“Sure why not.”
“Fire a mag into that wall” he motioned to the South wall, and went back to pillaging through the dead men.
I shouldered the rifle, what at the time felt like an awkward cannon, I squeezed the trigger. It felt like hell as I squeezed the first burst of full metal jackets into the wall, unleashing carnage. Ripping and shredding the dry wall to useless pieces of material. I squeezed again but I was only met with the click of dry firing the weapon. “Uhh, what do I do again?”
“The button.”
“Oh yeah.” I said remembering, pushing the button and watching the matt black magazine fall to the ground, bouncing off the tile and landing in the pile of hot brass casings. “Yeah I got this down.”
“Good, we leave now. But before we do anything we have to get rid of these corpses.”
“What, why the hell would we need to do that.”
“They patrol this area, we can’t let them know they are fighting living people, come on help me get these guys out of the balcony.”
“Sure, whatever man these times make people do weird shit.”
“Tell me about it. On three lift his legs.” He motioned as he grabbed his hands, “Three!”
Taking a left on Webb Avenue past the apartments, the job was over I was going home in a couple hours I made my quick twenty grand. When he hit us, It was the guy from Bravo team, Johnson I think his name was. He slammed hard against the window of the truck, splattering his face on the top of the truck spraying the gunner in blood.
“Every one out! Out now!” The XO called out over the radio as he pulled him self out of the window of the HUMMVEE. “I want that building empty of all life and all exits covered, move it!”
I Knew this was going to be a even longer contract then I wanted, and I probably wouldn’t even get paid extra. “Shit, this May is going to suck more than last October.”