"Go, babe," I said. "Kyla and I will be fine."
Erica put on a fake smile for me, trying to show me she wasn't as worried as she was, and then they peeled away up the driveway leaving Kyla and I behind.
"Erica wasn't wrong," Kyla said. "She just feels powerless in these situations or else she would handle things better. She's a doer, not a waiter."
"I feel like if we find a way to fix that, we're planning on this shit happening more and not less," I said.
"It wasn't a suggestion to give her tactical training, Harri," Kyla said. "I think Erica with proper training would be more trouble than we could get into ourselves."
I could only imagine how a pissed-off Erica with jiu-jitsu or krav maga training would deal with assholes out in the normal world. Then again, it was entirely possible there wouldn't be a normal world left pretty soon.
Kyla and I started jogging, and I could tell Kyla was keeping an eye on me and my leg. It ached every time I put weight on it, but it was a dull pain instead of a sharp one so I was able to mostly ignore it. We headed east, prioritizing the crews and where there were potentially more of the looters over the threat to the supply drop-off. I tried to pick up the pace as we veered off of the main gravel driveway and into one of the cut swathes that the crews were making, but as soon as I went from a light jog to a run the pain got sharper and I backed off.
"There's a vehicle coming," Kyla said, and I looked up and heard the rumble of a diesel engine coming from ahead of us.
We moved off of the cut line, stepping into the foliage of the forest, and we both tensed as we raised our rifles. The truck that came around the turn about thirty yards from us looked for all the world like a construction rig loaded down with tools and supplies, and I would have assumed it was someone trying to get to safety if the truck wasn't also flying a full-sized confederate flag from the roof of its cab.
"You gotta be shitting me," I mumbled.
"Let them go?" Kyla asked.
"You heard the Captain," I said, my finger tightening on the trigger. "But you don't need to do it if you don't want."
Kyla's answer was opening fire, and I quickly joined her. We peppered the truck as it sped by us, but it didn't lose control or slow down in the slightest. We pivoted as it burned by and kept firing, and I heard a shout and saw a flash of red in the open bed of the truck.
It disappeared around another bend.
"Shit," I said. I wasn't exactly used to shooting at a fast-moving target like that.
"We hit someone," Kyla said.
"Yeah, I saw," I said. "Won't be useful to us unless they bring him to a hospital, or they dump him out the back and we can ID him."
"What now?" Kyla asked. "Follow them?"
I shook my head, looking back up the way they had come from. "There's still another one out here somewhere."
We pushed on after reloading since we had both used most of a magazine on the speeding truck. A couple of minutes later we rounded a bend and saw that we'd reached the end of the cut we'd been following. There was a big log-hauling truck a dozen paces from where the crew had been clearing trees, and an excavator with a claw on the end of its big arm that would load the logs onto the truck. There were also several men in high-viz vests and helmets buzzing around in a clump. As we got closer I realized they were working to try and help two crewmen who were on the ground and wounded.
"What's the situation?" I asked loudly as we approached.
Several of the men jumped, but when they saw it was Kyla and I in our Sheriff vests they calmed down. "We got attacked by those fucking assholes," one of the men said, an older guy with a scruffy goatee. "We heard the shit on the radios, then they came tearing down here. There were four of 'em and they were armed with shotguns and rifles. Gaz tried to tell them off and got hit with birdshot that's torn up his arm and side pretty bad, then Lukas tried to jump one of 'em and he might lose his fucking leg. They made us load all of our tools and equipment into their truck and took off a couple minutes ago."
"We saw them. Hit one, too," Kyla said, and that brought some nods from the men.
I did a quick survey of the damage - the thing about working on a site full of construction workers was that everyone was trained in safety and emergency situations. Working with heavy machinery required it. And while gunshot wounds might not have been covered in the heavy workplace safety and first aid training plenty of the guys on the crew had, they were doing their best to keep the wounded stable.
"I already called for medics on my radio in the truck," said a younger guy. He had the vest but wasn't wearing a helmet so I assumed he was the driver.
"Gaz should live, but I'm worried about Lukas," said the older guy. "He went into shock and he needs treatment fast."
"Can you get the truck around to bring him to camp?" I asked.
"Not with any kind of speed," the driver said. "It's a whole process to back my way out of these lanes until they get connected."
"Fuck, alright," I grunted. "Radio in again and tell whoever answers that this cut lane is clear and that the Shariff cleared it himself."
"Thanks," the older guy grunted and nodded, shooing the driver back to the truck to do so.
"What's the last thing you guys heard on the radio about-" Gunshots cut me off.
"North-east," Kyla said, pointing in the direction. We were already in the easternmost third of the land, and I took a moment to try and remember the latest planned roadmap.
"It's got to be the access road on the border," I said. I hadn't thought they'd started cutting it yet, but I wasn't exactly up to date on everything all of the crews were accomplishing. The planned access road was supposed to be for utility work only since the compound would have backup power and water generation from the river that fed into the Nehalem. That river was partially fed by the spring I loved so much.
Kyla and I took off, heading into the bush due North first since there was an old hiking trail we could use to skip around a couple of the rockier areas. That brought us above where the shots had come from and we had to come back down South as we pushed east through a copse of evergreens until we stopped when we heard voices.
It was tough to hear what they were saying at first, but it was clear they were angry. I went to my belly near the edge of the evergreens and crawled under the last branches to peek out at the clearing ahead, trying to keep my hiss of pain from my leg quiet enough that Kyla didn't hear.
The work crew had been cutting the utility access road just like I'd thought, though at the moment it seemed more like a single lane than what would probably be needed later. They had an excavator like the last crew, but no logging truck - instead the clearing crew had been pushing everything to the side of their path, and it would get cleaned up by another crew sometime in the future. That left logs and debris mounded on either side of the path, making it difficult for me to see what was going on.
"Stay here," I whispered to Kyla and motioned that I was going to crawl closer to listen. She frowned but nodded. I put my time doing army PE drills to use and crawled my way through the brush to the mound. It sucked for my forearms as they scraped rock and dirt and rough vegetation, but it sucked even more for my leg as it ached like hell with every bump it took.
At the mound, I was able to peek over a log.
There was another pickup truck, and while this one wasn't flying a confederate flag it definitely had the same dinged-up look to it. It also happened to have three men dressed in rough camo and holding rifles standing next to it while they overlooked a crew of six workers. The workers all had their hands up and were on their knees.
"Tell us what this place is for!" shouted one of the scruffy men at a worker who was pulled out from the rest of the group. The white helmet on the ground nearby told me he was likely in charge of the crew.
"Dude, what the fuck?" he grunted, keeping his eyes down like he thought that might stop the trio from doing anything. "I told you, it's a housing project."
"That's total bullshit," the tallest of the raiders said. "There's no way this is just some housing thing. In the middle of this fake-ass pandemic? What are they building here during the cover-up?"
"Naw, man," the third one said. "Maybe it
is
housing, but it's for like... aliens. Or for the aristocrats of some invading army once they take over the country."
"Is that it?" the first one demanded. "Are you assholes building shit to hide aliens or enemies of the state?"
"Dude, if that were even true, do you think I would know?" the foreman said. "We're just clearing trees for a road."
"He knows more than he's saying," the second guy said.
"Maybe we should shoot one of these guys, make them take us serious like," the third one suggested.
Well, that sent my plan to try and find a natural opening out the window. I slipped back down the mound a bit and started crawling to my left, hoping to put the excavator between me and the firearms. My leg was killing me now, but I shunted that feeling into my gritting teeth and held it there. I didn't have time to think about it.
The guys argued back and forth a bit more. Two of them sounded reluctant to just shoot someone in cold blood, which was good. It meant I had a chance to possibly diffuse the situation. Once I was a good way along I peeked over the edge of the mound again and saw that I'd gone far enough, and I slipped over and got up into a crouch as I adjusted my grip on the M4 and rolled my neck to get myself focused. Creeping around the side of the excavator, I took a quick peek.
