Erupting Anarchy

Stevie sat crouched in a patch of undergrowth, rain dripping on her head despite the large oak tree above her. She was cold, wet, tired, and miserable. She found herself longing for the Red Gate church they’d left behind. The church hadn’t been all that—drafty, cold, moldy, and completely rotted out in some places—but at least it had a roof, and they’d been dry when it rained.

In the far distance, lightning flashed. She flinched, then scowled at her reaction. The storm and tornado that had wiped out Horseshoe Mound and had set her on this path of chaos and destruction would always live in her head rent-free. At least a little. But this rain was far from any real storm, and she and her men had nothing to worry about. At least in terms of the weather.

“What do we think?” Kelly, the woman crouched beside her, asked. She spoke quietly, not that anyone would be able to hear them over the sound of the rain.

Stevie peered through the darkness, watching the dark shadow of the building before them: Partridge and Griffin Munitions. Their end goal.

It had been a long march all the way up here to Wisconsin, but they had finally made it. Granted, with fewer people than she had anticipated, but that was one more reason to get what she needed here, return to Galena and River Rock, and make the Rileys pay. And anyone else who had helped them. The Galena militia and that dumb gun club came to mind.

Kelly waited patiently for Stevie to respond, brushing a damp lock of blond hair out of her face.

“Perimeter guards,” Stevie finally answered Kelly. “At least four of them. Maybe more on the other side.”

“Four’s not too many,” Kelly said, a touch of brightness in her voice.

Stevie shifted, and a drop of water slipped past the collar of her jacket and traced its cold, wet finger down her spine. She shivered. Kelly was right; four wasn’t too many. Not for them. But it was what she couldn’t see and didn’t know that made her hesitate.

After Matthew Riley had ambushed her people on the road, she’d found herself more paranoid and risk averse. It was dumb. No one was waiting here to catch them unawares. If anything, her group were the ones about to spring a surprise attack.

She hesitated. She knew if her mom were here, she’d scoff right in Stevie’s face, call her a coward. And maybe she was. But Harriet Baxter was dead, and this was Stevie’s chance. If they couldn’t take these munitions, everything would crumble around her.

Kelly glanced over at her, and Stevie shook her head. All these worries never helped anyone. It was time to move. Crap or get off the pot, as one of the older Horseshoe Mound guys used to say. If this plan didn’t work, she’d just have to try another, and another, until she got what she wanted. Persistence was her secret weapon.

“Split into two groups,” Stevie ordered. “One will approach from the left, the other from the right. We’ll flank them.” That way, too, if there were more patrols, they’d be covered. “Then reconvene at the front door. We’re going to blow her open.”

Kelly smiled and nodded, then scurried away to deliver Stevie’s orders. Kelly had stepped up as a sort of second in command since Tracker’s death. Stevie would have to keep an eye on her. She didn’t want Kelly getting presumptuous and thinking she could take control.

It took a few more moments of quiet contemplation in the dark before Stevie finally gave the signal. Her people charged forward as silently as possible. She joined the group heading left as it would be closer to the front entrance.

The perimeter guards saw them coming, even through the dark and the rain. The two in front of her group reacted quickly, one yelling out and the other raising their gun and shooting. But her people reacted just as quickly. With a few bursts of fire, the perimeter guards were dead. Stevie and her people raced to the front door, and a moment later, the other group joined them. They hadn’t lost anyone or sustained any injuries.

Turned out there were only four perimeter guards after all. Sloppy and dumb. These guards were protecting a whole building full of munitions. They should’ve used some of those munitions and more people to make sure it all stayed safe. It was like a starving man stashing his food instead of eating it.

Granted, her mom had once told her about how when people were literally suffering from starvation, stashing and concealing food was one of the side effects. So maybe it wasn’t an apt metaphor.

She shook her head. It didn’t matter. These were Tracker’s people here in the building. She expected more from them.

The front door was locked. Of course. She gave the order, and one of her explosives experts used their last grenade to blow it off its hinges.

It was dark inside, the way most buildings were nowadays, without electricity. But they’d all grown used to this sort of existence, and they were prepared to fight in low light. Luckily, they had a few working flashlights they’d strapped to the barrels of their guns. Those people led the way. It was a dangerous position. Yes, they illuminated the path for everyone behind them, but they were also easy targets.

Their lights swept the space in front of them, shining on boxes, crates, shelves. No people. Everything was still and quiet. A trap. It had to be.

Light exploded around them. For a brief moment, Stevie thought it was a literal explosion, that they had been caught unawares, but no. It was simply the overhead lights in the building turning on. The munitions plant had a working generator. How about that?

“Cover!” Stevie shouted.

Her people scattered as the sound of fire erupted around them.

Stevie ducked behind a large wooden crate. She heard the loud thunks of bullets striking its other side. Someone had tried to take her out. Did they know she was in charge, that she was the leader? Or were they simply shooting at anyone they could see?

She risked a glance over the crate. Her people were well-concealed, using their cover to take shots at the enemy before ducking down again. In front of and above her, Stevie spotted a figure on top of a shelving unit, aiming down at some of her people. She raised her gun and fired. The man crumpled, then fell off the shelf to land with a sick thud below on the concrete floor.

“Push them back!” Stevie yelled.

“Cover!” came the response, and there was a flurry of gunfire. She watched as a group of her people surged forward. She took advantage of the distraction to leap over her crate and dash for the shelving unit ahead of her.

To her right, movement. She turned and fired, barely slowing. Whoever had been trying to flank her dropped to the ground, dead.

Tracker had told her the munitions had only a small unit of guards left behind. She should have pressed him for more specifics. Was a small unit twenty people? Fifty? And how many had they taken out? Four outside, and she had dropped two in here.

In the end, it didn’t matter. They had to keep pushing forward if they wanted to take the building and its supplies for themselves.

“Again!” Stevie shouted.

After that, things became a blur of moving bodies, gunfire, screams, and continual pushes deeper into the building before taking cover once more. She’d never been in the military. She’d been too young before the Blackout, but her mom had, and had seen war. Sometimes she had told Stevie about it, and sometimes she had refused. One thing her mom had never explained was how sometimes battle, with all the exhilaration and anxiety, the terror and elation, could also feel repetitive. Cover, push forward, kill, cover. Rinse and repeat.

It was working. The enemies in the building couldn’t push them back. They couldn’t stop Stevie’s steady drive forward. Stevie and her people reached the other end of the building.

She couldn’t tell how long it had been. Maybe fifteen minutes? Maybe two hours? There was no telling, not during a fight like this. Time worked in its own fashion and at its own speed, and it didn’t matter in the end.

There were no more enemies on the floor of the warehouse, only dead bodies. They had cleared the space. Ahead of them stood a locked door.

“I saw at least three run in there,” a man called Bo said to her as she approached.

“Cowering away,” she sneered. “What do they think’s going to happen? What’s their end game? They can’t stay in there forever.”

Bo shrugged. “Maybe they’re hoping you might parley with them.”

Stevie snorted. “What could they possibly have to offer that I’d want? We already took their warehouse, and we’re about to take everything inside it.”

Stevie raised her gun and shot two quick pulses at the doorjamb to the left of the handle. Shooting directly at the handle itself rarely worked. The wood exploded, leaving a gaping hole where the locking mechanism had been, and she kicked the door in.

There were five people inside. All five of them stood against a back wall, hands raised in surrender.

Stevie blinked, then opened fire, killing every one of them. They were Tracker’s people, and they couldn’t be trusted.

Yes, some of her own people had once belonged to Tracker, too, but over the course of the long hike north under her command, everyone had finally fully committed to her and her cause. There were no more “Tracker’s people” and “Horseshoe Mound people.”

They were all Red Gate now, and it was Red Gate who took the Patridge and Griffin Munitions factory and warehouse. All the guns, the ammunition, the explosives and everything else inside belonged to her.

And she knew just what to do with it.