moment of practical pride over the queasiness of what she had just done. When it comes to protecting your family, she thought, you do what you have to do.
***
The sun was on the verge of disappearing behind us when Dad held up his hand. We stopped and dropped into the leaf-bare bushes. We were about seventy yards short of the road. Arturo had just returned to the scene and was doing a fine job of blasting the station wagon around the field in front of the camp, spraying mud and sod as he went. Just for added confusion, he was randomly firing out the driver’s side window. Unfortunately, even an ex-Marine would have trouble hitting anything with the car spinning and lurching through the lumpy grass. Even better, a shadowy band of shapes was approaching up the hill from the bridge. They were being relatively cautious, but they were not following any of the tactics that Arturo had painstakingly taught all of us. The used no real cover; they simply huffed and puffed up the steep slope carrying a motley assemblage of guns and blades and garden tools. The leader was obvious. He stood tall and continually waved his band forward. When he had a clear line of sight on Eugene’s camp, he yelled a wordless battle cry and started running across the open grass. His ragged band of cannibals roared in response and joined the charge. Idiots.
Thanks to our earlier escapades, Eugene’s men were alert and ready to fight. They may not have made all the connections, but Arturo was immediately pegged for a distraction rather than a threat. The men who were firing on him turned and ran to better locations in order to take shots at the cannibals in full charge. That left Arturo free to stop the car and use it for cover. We saw his rifle barrel slide across the hood and join the chorus of barking weapons. Thanks to the man-eating swarm, Arturo was dropping Eugene’s men with ease. Unfortunately for the cannibals, Eugene’s men were armed with appropriate equipment for the fight. Most of them had no trouble killing the attackers.
Cannibals died rapidly under a hail of NATO rounds. I almost felt sorry for them. We were in a terrible position to keep them alive. We wanted them alive long enough to thin Eugene’s camp down to something we could handle, but they were doing a poor job of it. The cannibals were directly between our position and the mass of Eugene’s fighters. Arturo, on the other hand, was doing a good job of leveling the playing field, but the remaining baker’s dozen of cannibals were not enough. Dad gave us a “follow me” wave and ran out to the ditch on our side of the road. He dove in and set up to fire. Kirk followed him step for step, but I took a few more seconds to do the mental math before I ran out of the bushes. We were spotted, no thanks to me.
It was my first time under direct massed gunfire, and I’ll be honest. I froze. I could almost feel the air splitting as bullets hissed by overhead. All I could do was bury my face in the muddy ditch and whimper. Each crack of Kirk and Dad’s rifle made me jump as if I had been hit. After what seemed like minutes, Kirk kicked me in the shoulder, and that was enough to snap me out of my locked state. I looked up, saw that the situation was almost exactly the same as it was when I dove into the ditch, and aimed my rifle. Snap! Kick. Aim.
It was like the stupid dance we had at school. All the boys stood along the wall, terrified of all the little girls standing around the punch bowl, waiting for us to grow a pair. Finally, the PE teacher herded us over and paired us up by main force of will, and we began to dance. Four bars of Taylor Swift later, that dancing thing wasn’t so bad.
So – I fell into a rhythm of aiming and firing, just far enough away to make the whole process just as impersonal as a dance full of kids waiting for puberty to hit with hormonal power. I honestly don’t know how well I did, but I guess collectively we did well enough, because the next thing
***
The sun was on the verge of disappearing behind us when Dad held up his hand. We stopped and dropped into the leaf-bare bushes. We were about seventy yards short of the road. Arturo had just returned to the scene and was doing a fine job of blasting the station wagon around the field in front of the camp, spraying mud and sod as he went. Just for added confusion, he was randomly firing out the driver’s side window. Unfortunately, even an ex-Marine would have trouble hitting anything with the car spinning and lurching through the lumpy grass. Even better, a shadowy band of shapes was approaching up the hill from the bridge. They were being relatively cautious, but they were not following any of the tactics that Arturo had painstakingly taught all of us. The used no real cover; they simply huffed and puffed up the steep slope carrying a motley assemblage of guns and blades and garden tools. The leader was obvious. He stood tall and continually waved his band forward. When he had a clear line of sight on Eugene’s camp, he yelled a wordless battle cry and started running across the open grass. His ragged band of cannibals roared in response and joined the charge. Idiots.
Thanks to our earlier escapades, Eugene’s men were alert and ready to fight. They may not have made all the connections, but Arturo was immediately pegged for a distraction rather than a threat. The men who were firing on him turned and ran to better locations in order to take shots at the cannibals in full charge. That left Arturo free to stop the car and use it for cover. We saw his rifle barrel slide across the hood and join the chorus of barking weapons. Thanks to the man-eating swarm, Arturo was dropping Eugene’s men with ease. Unfortunately for the cannibals, Eugene’s men were armed with appropriate equipment for the fight. Most of them had no trouble killing the attackers.
Cannibals died rapidly under a hail of NATO rounds. I almost felt sorry for them. We were in a terrible position to keep them alive. We wanted them alive long enough to thin Eugene’s camp down to something we could handle, but they were doing a poor job of it. The cannibals were directly between our position and the mass of Eugene’s fighters. Arturo, on the other hand, was doing a good job of leveling the playing field, but the remaining baker’s dozen of cannibals were not enough. Dad gave us a “follow me” wave and ran out to the ditch on our side of the road. He dove in and set up to fire. Kirk followed him step for step, but I took a few more seconds to do the mental math before I ran out of the bushes. We were spotted, no thanks to me.
It was my first time under direct massed gunfire, and I’ll be honest. I froze. I could almost feel the air splitting as bullets hissed by overhead. All I could do was bury my face in the muddy ditch and whimper. Each crack of Kirk and Dad’s rifle made me jump as if I had been hit. After what seemed like minutes, Kirk kicked me in the shoulder, and that was enough to snap me out of my locked state. I looked up, saw that the situation was almost exactly the same as it was when I dove into the ditch, and aimed my rifle. Snap! Kick. Aim.
It was like the stupid dance we had at school. All the boys stood along the wall, terrified of all the little girls standing around the punch bowl, waiting for us to grow a pair. Finally, the PE teacher herded us over and paired us up by main force of will, and we began to dance. Four bars of Taylor Swift later, that dancing thing wasn’t so bad.
So – I fell into a rhythm of aiming and firing, just far enough away to make the whole process just as impersonal as a dance full of kids waiting for puberty to hit with hormonal power. I honestly don’t know how well I did, but I guess collectively we did well enough, because the next thing
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