across the grounds from somewhere out of view. After those died away, all that could be heard was the crackling of the growing building fire, and the high-pitched whine in Allen’s ears from firing the rifle without hearing protection. He called to Danny, but the youth still had his head buried in his arms where he sat on the ground, and gave no indication that he had heard his father’s hail.
The wind briefly settled, allowing the smoke to rise vertically, slowly clearing the courtyard. Allen saw two bodies lying on the stoop outside of Lynn Donner’s ground floor building D apartment.
“Good for her,” Allen thought, as he changed to a full magazine, tossing the nearly spent one into the dump pouch on the back of the vest.
John saw him from across the miasma still hanging in the air, shouting as he stood up, “We get ‘em all?”
“I don’t know,” Allen replied thickly. “Keep an eye out for anyone else.” He scanned the shadows patterning the buildings, whispering to himself, “What a dumbass.”
Lynn came out of her apartment, her three children clinging to her sun dress. All of them were carrying bundle sacks of clothing and food. The heat of the fires, set upon both sides of her apartment, chased them hurriedly away. Allen could now make sense of what he was seeing; the marauders could not get in, so instead, they tried to burn her out.
“Go that way!” Allen called, pointing north for Lynn.
Lynn just responded by gathering her children around her and turning to head towards John’s position.
“Look out!” Derek warned, in a high, frightened pitch. He was looking to Allen’s right, and was struggling to line up his rifle at whatever had scared the masculinity from his voice.
Allen dropped to his knees as he spun right to face whatever threat had appeared. Four thugs, all in various stages of undress, stumbled out of his apartment door. Danny started scampering, crawling around the far corner in an attempt to get away from the teenagers. One particularly ugly thug spotted Allen first. With a mouthful of yellowed and twisted teeth below the wide nostrils of his brutish nose, the snarling, snaggle-toothed thug let his pants drop around his ankles, trying to bring to bear the AK-47 that he was holding. He had nearly managed to get the rifle aimed, albeit in an off-balanced shooting position.
Allen immediately understood why the repulsive thug had his pants unbuckled. Snarling right back at the rapist, he started shooting. Subconsciously aimed, his first three bullets hammered into the man’s pelvic and groin area. The brutes face contorted in pain as his knees wobbled before giving out. The next three shots stitched their way up from the stomach to the chest, the last completely shearing off the right superior pulmonary vein. Death came for the man after four more fluttering beats of his scalped heart.
Derek’s scoped rifle finally barked. The last gangster to make his way out through mud room door started clawing at his flabby chest, as his body pitched forward, in a strange reflex, his leading foot lifted, flailing as it missed a nonexistent step. Landing straight on his round face from a height of six feet, his fleshy jowls made a bone-grinding smack as they impacted with the concrete walk.
The remaining two thugs now had had their attentions divided. The one closest to Allen started firing wildly. His arm trailed out behind him, as he tried to dash back into the apartment, a Hi-Point .380 pistol blazing away. The one further away, and by far the biggest of the lot, turned and sprinted for the wood line, moving at an incredible pace given his size.
A bullet burned through the top of Allen’s left forearm, the round expending the last of its energy into the doubled-up magazines on his vest. Adrenaline kept the pain and shock of the freshly seared skin and bruised ribs at bay. Somehow managing to keep his grip on the rifle, Allen quickly leveled it back off. Leading the thug before he started firing, Allen managed to hit the man once in his right thigh as he made an ungainly dive across the threshold.
“No fucking way,” Allen promised, with tight lips.
All of Allen’s focus went into getting his frozen-in-place legs moving again. Even Derek’s next rifle report slapping across the courtyard barely registered as he gave chase. Stopping his momentum by slamming into the left side of the doorway, he did not have to look far for his quarry. A