Chapter 7

Nothing was going right. All day I'd felt like an alien in my own life. It was like I didn't belong here. When I held my children they seemed like imaginary playmates, instead of my own flesh and blood. Each time I kissed one of the girls, it was like I was doing it for the last time.

As we were all having a late lunch together, Millie said, "Brian, it's like you are lost, dear. What's wrong and how can we help?"

As I was about to answer, I glanced at the big clock on our kitchen wall. The time changed to three-twenty-four, just as I looked at it.

That sent a chill down my spine...

... and then all hell broke loose...

... again.

The front door blew in off its hardened steel casement, just as we heard the explosion. Smoke quickly filled the downstairs. I grabbed Millicent and James, motioned for Colleen to grab David, and we raced them to the safe room, upstairs.

With Colleen, Millie, Winnie, and the children safe inside the protected suite, I opened a hidden closet door and took out my AA-12 shotgun, slammed in a 32-round drum, then grabbed three slings, pre-filled with drums of the most lethal shotgun shells available. I threw them over my shoulder, and went to face my enemies. As an afterthought, I grabbed two nine millimeter handguns, and some extra clips. If those bastards wanted a gun battle, I'd take it straight to them.

The smoke worsened as I carefully negotiated the front stairs. Listening for the sound of mobsters over the cacophony of sounding alarms, I crawled down towards the front door. Along the way I had to navigate around two of our front door guards, whose ravaged bodies were blown in from the ruined front doors.

It frightened me to see no one protecting the front of our home. We always had sufficient personnel for this type intrusion. For it to be this bad, someone inside our organization had to have given us up.

When I found them...

Jack had to be out there somewhere, and I needed to figure out how to meet up with him. As I dashed through a gap in the fire blazing at our entryway, I scooted left to stay out of direct the line of fire, and rolled into a low spot to set up and defend our home.

Finally they came. Two sets of four, armed to the teeth, rushed the front door. Without thinking about it, I opened on them, firing at heads in case of flack jackets. My shotgun took three down with two shots, and I re-aimed and kept firing automatic bursts, pausing only to seat another drum. Despite the low recoil from this military grade shotgun, my bad shoulder ached as the shotgun spewed its lethal hell. That wasn't going to stop me, and pretty soon all eight were, at least, injured bad enough to take them out of the play.

The air around me was suddenly alive with concrete shards caused by gunshots coming from my left. I tracked the shotgun that way and opened up. I could hear two people screaming and figured that would give the rest something to think about. Hoping to wound more of them, I concentrated on putting rounds into the driveway where the screaming came from. If I ran out of shotgun shells, I still had two handguns and then I'd take the fight to them with both hands.

When I stopped to reload, I caught a movement from the right corner of the house and waited.

They weren't very organized. Hearing the cacophony from my shotgun and seeing ten, or so, of their mates out of action would reduce their confidence. From the sound of it, I got the impression they were arguing over what to do, and not coming to a consensus.

Jack showed up and started to pour a steady stream of rounds into their hiding spot, chasing them out, and sending them right at me. As they charged away from his lethal rain, I opened up again and took three down instantly. The remainder turned back and ran right into Jack's automatic fire.

Those five were out of it.

Even though it wasn't hot, the sweat was running down my neck, back, and face. I kept wiping it away before it got in my eyes and cut off my sight.

When I swung back to deal with those who were in the driveway bushes, I noticed two bodies and no shooters. We had broken their assault. For the moment it was over.

I sat down and reloaded, ready for more, but intuitively I knew it was over this time. They lost and we won...