Chapter 23

Two weeks, four days (18 days) after Doomsday,
July 24, 2013
Unincorporated Community of Ottoman
Lancaster County, Virginia

“Here they come ... rather brazenly, too. Then again, they don’t have an angel warning them about us, at least I hope not. That’s a big-ass caravan headed our way, at any rate. Lots of private as well as official police and SWAT vehicles. A small army, or at least a warband of sorts. They have no shortage of manpower ... and firepower, for that matter. Let’s not get cocky now,” I observed as we caught the enemy out in the open.

“Ready to begin sniping in just a few yards, boss,” Ryan assured me now.

“They spent days gathering this force, even while we set up to face them. This could well get nasty in a hurry, folks. Just bear that in mind. You ready, Ryan?” I asked Autumn’s stepdad.

“Damn straight! Boys and girls, let’s pick ‘em off!” Ryan urged his fellow snipers as they opened fire on the posse.

It was evident that the deputies were thrown off by all of us, as were the deputized civilians. It was a hastily gathered militia or whatever, mustered by a regime in power for less than a month. The speed with which many of these warlords had grabbed territory was also their weakness. It might be impressive, but it often required undue haste and real gaps in their consolidation of power and control. In many cases, as shown with the Nazis in Frederick, it was largely bluff at this stage. Most of these factions lacked the entrenchment that they hoped to obtain as of yet.

On the other hand ... the Sheriff of Lancaster County had a strong power base from the outset, and he looked more than ready to exploit it. Much like the midshipmen and Marines in the old Maryland state capital, Annapolis, this was a faction likely to have more than threats at its disposal to intimidate opposition as well as resistance. The militia might have been mobilized in a rush, but the deputies were clearly professionals and looked the part. The SWAT teams in particular looked more than prepared to fight. They just never expected an ambush from a ragtag band of refugees.

They definitely never anticipated that we might have snipers, yet here they were. Their reaction was to hurl smoke grenades at us and try to advance under the cover of said smoke. It wasn’t the worst plan in the world per se, but it initiated the next phase of our own plan of action. We hurled Molotov cocktails at the foe, since these didn’t require much accuracy to blow up parts of the caravan. Till in particular enjoyed casting those at the enemy, as did Sardha, Becca, and Raquel.

The screams of burning enemy combatants filled the air with as much pollution as the smoke. Of course, this caused a furious Sheriff to order patrols to seek us out and destroy us on the spot. Small units of just three or four men went on their missions to find us and eradicate us, not that we were about to let that happen. If the Sheriff wanted to let us pick off his forces piecemeal, well, so much the better for us. He was obviously desperate to locate and then eliminate us, but that wasn’t going to be so easy to pull off for him.

“Sending three-man squads into a smoke-filled countryside seems remarkably stupid to me, but then he still thinks that we’re dumb enough to wait for him. Let’s teach him a very harsh lesson now, shall we?” I whispered to Hannah just before we pounced and garroted a couple of militiamen.

Several more garrotings had the desired effect. The deputies stopped coming at us for a moment there. They had lost no small number of troops to ambushes and garrotes. That was the trouble with walking around in the fucking smoke and haze. One couldn’t see us even if one squinted for it. The same cover that halted our snipers also protected our troops from theirs and allowed us to sneak up on them.

The enemy got smarter now, though, bringing out the gas masks and canisters of tear gas to try to flush us out. We had planned for this, too, on a more limited scale, but still some got affected by the gas and had to pull back to the rear for treatment. They also brought out their water cannons, which did some harm, but not too much yet. It knocked a couple of our guys off their feet, however, including Stacy, due to the sheer force of the rapid stream.

It was still a bit confusing until the smoke dissipated and we began picking off the foe in larger numbers. It turned quickly into a full-on firefight at this point, both sides relying very heavily on our small arms fire. That was when we lost six men and two women killed in action by enemy machine gun rounds.