The North (#wattys2016)

Chapter 18

Sergeant Green always told me that no soldier in their right mind goes looking for trouble. If anything, they like to avoid conflict as much as possible. Killing fellow human beings isn’t something that comes naturally to even the best-trained infantryman. All my tactical manuals taught me that the role of the infantry is to close with and destroy the enemy, but they didn’t say squat about the end of the freaking world. Conventional rules of engagement ended on Day Zero and all I could think about were the two little girls, killed by some twisted individuals who’d decided to mete out their own kind of justice. A harsh, bloody set of laws that mirrored the harsh and bloody new world that we all were living in. I didn’t know who the hell the Eden tribe might be or what their fighting strength consisted of, but I did know one thing: those two little girls and their parents were murdered in cold blood.

I stormed through the entrance to the barn and doubled back to the carriers with Sid Toomey in tow. Cruze and Mel Dixon were standing atop their APC keeping a watchful eye on our surroundings.

“Prep for battle!” I barked, as I climbed up the side of my APC.

Cruze threw me a firm nod and then gestured for Melanie to climb into the turret as she slid into her crew commander hatch.

I slipped on my headset, ignoring the rumbling from our engine. Doug Manybears gave me a worried look as he glanced at me over his shoulder.

I spun around in my seat to see Sid drop down into the turret. He cocked both machine guns as Dawson pulled out a case of M69 fragmentation grenades. She gently removed four of them from their containers and flipped off the safety clips. I reached over and she handed me two grenades which I dropped into the waist pockets of my combat jacket. Taking a deep breath, I adjusted the squelch on my radio and then stood up in my hatch.

“Ark Two stand by for orders,” I said amid a haze of static.

I glanced down at the map. Dinsmore was no more than 7km away from our current location. The gravel road heading in and out of town was wide enough to accommodate two APC’s abreast, but I didn’t want to present too obvious a target as we approached the village’s outskirts. Infantry Section and Platoon in Battle said that for mechanized small party raids, the proper thing to do would be to use one carrier to draw the enemy’s fire while the other carrier provided supporting fire from the flank. According to the contour lines on my map, there were no natural high features from which Cruze or I could act as supporting fire, so the best option would be to do a combat run right through the center of the village, drawing their fire and identifying their strengths before doing a full-blown assault.

I gave my head a hard shake as the anger in the pit of my stomach bubbled away like an unwatched pot of boiling water. I needed to stay focused; our goal had originally been to scrounge for diesel and supplies. We hadn’t counted on running into a stronghold of road warrior wannabes, and we’d already seen that the Eden tribe weren’t the kind of people who’d be prepared to sit down and negotiate. I wasn’t crazy about getting into a firefight, but six people had been murdered and I’d be damned if I was going to lose one of our team to those assholes.

I squeezed my handset and said, “Okay listen up. Ark One will proceed to Dinsmore with Ark Two staying three vehicle lengths to the rear. We’ll be hatches down on my command, over!”

The radio hissed loudly. “Ark Two, Roger, over.”

“If you’re wondering why we’ve gone full-blown tactical it’s because a family of four were shot dead inside that barn. They were put to death just like the pair lashed to the cattle fence back at Highway Two. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out the kind of people we’re dealing with. I don’t want to get into a fight with anyone, but we’re here and we’ve all been trained. We’ll head into town with the goal of keeping ourselves protected. We will not fire the first shot – I say again, we will draw their fire. Over.”