having to tell them to do so. From between the door and body of the truck, he fired aimlessly at first, just trying to get the men to choose a different course of action. Allen was actually surprised to see the one on the left drop his pistol to clutch at his neck, trying to staunch the flow of blood starting to pour out.
The three assailants sprinted for cover behind the large brown bus that Allen’s group had just made lunch in. As they struggled to gain a foothold on the loose gravel, Allen took careful aim. He centered the red dot aperture of the rifle’s ACOG on the man in the lead, furthest to the right, and put two well-placed shots into his chest. Not waiting to watch the first man drop, Allen shifted his aim to the man in the middle, firing three more rapid shots, striking him in the right arm and side. The third man, still holding his neck, dove over the two kicking bodies of his friends, landing just out of sight behind the rear of the bus.
As Allen’s tunnel vision fell away, he saw that the gunshots had drawn the attention of several more people, who were now heading down the clouded gravel lane in his direction. As he stared down the row, watching more and more people join the crowd from between the RVs, he fired two warning shots over their heads, which made most of them dive away, scrambling to find cover.
Allen turned to move around the back of the truck, hoping he could still help Jason. The Brown brother’s truck was seventy-five yards away now and still rolling. Derek’s hand was stuck out the driver’s side window, firing a pistol at some unseen threat further down and to the right. As Allen rounded the truck to the passenger side, Jason had already tossed his rifle onto the floorboards and was struggling to join it inside the idling truck.
Jason saw him coming around, screeching out, “What the fuck are you doing? Get in the damn truck!”
Allen reversed course immediately, slipping and sliding to get back around the truck and into his seat, shooting blindly over the door as he went. Bullets plinked and dinged into the body panels. One smashed a spider web into the windshield and completely blew out the rear window of the truck.
Jason had managed to get in, and he was now kneeling on the floorboards with his torso tipped over the passenger seat, the door beside him still hung open.
A large rock thudded onto the truck’s hood. Allen shifted into reverse and gunned the engine.
“PHOOM!” an AGM-114R “Romeo” Hellfire II missile rocked the ground just thirty yards in front of Allen’s truck. Where it had landed and detonated was almost exactly where Allen’s truck had been parked just moments before. Evidently, the missile, fired from a MQ-9 Reaper UAV, had locked onto the warm outline of the lunchtime bus, and not the cooled truck.
Most of the pursuers were obliterated in the initial detonation, mainly by the integrated blast fragmentation sleeve of the warhead. Those who didn’t die immediately were hurled forcibly to the ground as the shock wave blasted blazing hot wreckage off in every direction. Rocks, torn traces of soft tissue, and flaming chunks of RVs rained down on Allen’s truck as he raced backward. Caused by one of the larger shards of flying shrapnel, a large gash had opened up across the top of the aluminum cap.
As the dinged and scraped truck exited the cloud of swirling dust and debris, the Brown’s truck was nowhere to be found within the mirrors. Allen stood on the brakes when he came to the end of the row, reflexively jumping at the sound of Jason’s door slamming shut from the violent stop. Ahead of him, people ran in all directions, none of them certain about where to go next, or which way would lead to safety.
Allen turned to the right to make his way back out the open gate and onto the surface streets. Time seemed to slow as Daniel drove past another long aisle on his way out of the lot. His eye caught the spiraling movement of a missile in the hazy, smoke-streaked sky. The mere seconds that he had a clear line of sight down the row of RV’s was more than enough to see the carnage the explosive-tipped rocket inflicted.
The missile’s spiraling flight straightened as it zipped to the ground, landing directly in the center