Here's part two of three. This is the first thing that I've written in first person and I'm not happy with how it's turned out, but I'm going to post parts one through three as-written regardless. Further installments, if I publish, will be in 3rd person again like my older stories.
The attack came two days after Lena, Clara and Dahlia had left to fetch the livestock. Nearly thirty men, armed with makeshift spears, old store-bought sledgehammers, or splitting axes.
I think I was the only one who was surprised.
I was woken up by Marisol, who was wearing a homemade armored vest and carrying another. 'Put this on, Marin, we're under attack,' she announced with eerie calm. She threw the vest onto my bed covers, 'get dressed and stay quiet. Get your doctor bag ready.'
She waited until I was out of bed, rubbing warmth into my arms, 'Also, Mika is useless in a fight, so she's your orderly if you need to haul someone back here.'
Mika was Janice's 'girlfriend' and the sort of person that before everything went to shit, I would have described as a 'sweet kid.' She wasn't actually a kid and she was pleasant to everyone and smiled all of the time, even when she thought she was alone. I had seen her jump at spiders and mice, though, even in the short time that I'd been here, so I can't imagine her handling violence well.
'Okay, you seem especially blasé about this,' I replied while standing up and pulling on my jeans.
'Jan has been tracking them for weeks. They were unable to draw any fire the last three days, even after she dropped a 2 liter bottle full of gas on them.'
'Does that mean that they're out of bullets?'
'Looks like.'
'So you're going to ambush them as they move through'
'Yeah. Really the only way.'
I went downstairs and Mika was there looking terrified. She was younger than almost everyone here, maybe nineteen. She'd been having pretty bad morning sickness, but the rule was 'don't use a pregnancy test unless absolutely necessary,' and it wasn't. Everyone was pretty sure she was knocked up, but she was looking especially green this morning.
'Okay, Mika, do you think you can help me evacuate anyone who gets hurt?'
'Y-yeah. I can.'
'Okay so this is the plan. If someone is so badly hurt that we think moving or shifting them will make it worse, then we will stabilize them, then move them back here. If they're just cut or shot or bruised, we will help them move or we will load them into the garden cart and bring them back here.'
'That sounds easy.'
'Hopefully.'
Marisol left and we sat and listened to the radio. We heard a few distant small explosions and scattered gunfire. There was very little talk on the radio, only Jamie occasionally calling out locations, until the call came.
'Marin, we have two over here at sixteen, non life-threatening and another that's in a bad way. No rush but come see what you can do,' Marisol spoke evenly over the radio, with a tinge of anger in her voice.
Mika looked as if to barf in terror. I tried to get her into 'job mode' by having her grab the garden cart and follow me. We hiked through the dark towards a section of woods past House 16. Two women from our village, Barb and Allison, were slumped against a patio fence. The far end of the fence was smoldering. On the ground was their housemate Carmen, who had a dark rag pressed to the outside of her left thigh. Next to her were two men, one bound and screaming into a rag as Marisol put pressure on his arms and stomach. Another was unbound but lying still, his left side a mangled, bloody mess. He was taking shallow breaths.
Marisol looked up at me, 'that asshole kept fighting after we'd shot him twice. Barb tossed a pair of nail bombs at his feet.'
Barb nodded solemnly, tears in her eyes. 'I had to. I'm so sorry.'
'Nothing to be done, Barb, it was him or us at that point.'
The radio chirped and Jamie's voice called out, 'All hostiles down or captured. We are clear.'
'What do I do if there's nothing to be done? He's almost bled out and even if we had any stored blood, it's too late. He's just running on residual angry.'
As if in response, the man let out an aggressive growl. Allison started, Barb just stared.
'I can't sit and watch him die. Can I please put him down?' Barb asked.
Marisol nodded. Barb staggered over and leaned in, quickly driving a knife into his head through his jaw. She let out one more quiet sob and then clapped me on the shoulder, 'sorry, it's not that I don't have faith in you, I just think about the cost of saving him versus how many of us, especially with babies on the way.'
I smiled at her and gave her a little hug. It was starting to feel more natural, the casual intimacy of women. 'You're okay. You'll always be okay.'
She laughed and kneeled down next to Mika, who had taken over pressure on Carmen's leg.
Carmen had a slash on her outer thigh where it looked like several small sharp objects (probably nails, on a bat or board) were shoved in and then dragged along. I tossed Mika a container of saline and we lifted the bandage. I jabbed Carmen with some painkillers and after a thirty count then I showed Mika how to flush the wound. We packed it and put a bandage on it, then loaded her into the garden cart.
'Take her to their house, let Allison help you get her into where she's sleeping, then bring me back the cart.'
Mika nodded at the gagged and bound wounded man, 'for him?'
'We'll see.'
Marisol and I stared at him.
'What do you do with ones you capture?'
'We don't know.'
'You've never taken captives before?'
'Nope. Up until tonight, it was kill-or-be-killed. The twins convinced me to bring capture gear, otherwise this would be an afterthought.'
'You would've just shot them?'
'God I hope that isn't true, but probably.'
'None of ours dead?'
'None. We surprised the shit out of them.'
Another of the younger women, a tall, muscular lady called Brandie, came over with two men attached to hand trucks. She was pushing one and pulling the other, her obviously altered muscle mass allowing her to manhandle them over to us. Brandie was probably the 'loudest' of all of us, boisterous and outgoing in a fun way. I hadn't let her into my panties yet, but she was pretty damned funny and lately that had been getting me damp downstairs.
'Prisoners, Marisol,' she announced and gave the group of us a cocky, crooked smile.
'Not hurt?'
'Not on the outside.'
Both men howled into their gags in rage while Brandie laughed at them.
'Where are we keeping them,' I asked?
'No idea. I guess we need some cells. You wouldn't my chance know how to weld, would you?'
