American Apocalypse IV - Heartland Chapter 9a

We were crouched there in the kitchen when someone shot a short three round burst through the door I planned on going through. I thought about sending Thursday through the door first as a bullet sponge then I laughed. Hell, that's why I got paid the big bucks. I was getting ready to tell Thursday to lay flat on the floor with the boy when he signaled me to look at the opposite wall. I looked. I saw a wall. So?  He pointed at me and the kid to cover our eyes. I don't know what the boy did but I peaked. Thursday reared back and tossed his hammer at the wall he had pointed at. The wall blew out like it had been hit by a cannon. I was impressed. I grabbed the kid by the collar and raced towards the hole making a mental note to myself to get a hammer like that. Maybe two.

The world we found as we ran out of the diner wasn't the same one that had been there when we had stopped by for lunch.  I had never been in the eye of a tornado but this was what I would expect it to look like. The sun was gone. The wind howled somewhere not far off and the clouds were black, fat and low. I doubt if we had more than a 100 yard ceiling at this point. The temperature had dropped too. It felt good. It felt right. It felt like killing time.

Nobody was outside, at least on this side. We had had come out into a parking lot. To my right was an alley that the backdoor of the kitchen opened on. I had two choices: Move away from the enemy who was around the corner or engage. I let go of Zanes collar by shoving him hard into the asphalt of the parking lot, pulled my sword, and screamed "Freya!" without breaking stride.

On my left was Thursday. I took a quick look at him just before we turned the diner corner. His face was red, veins stood out like snakes on his neck, he screamed something I lost in the wind and roar of my fury and desire to cut some fucking heads off. There were four of them. They looked at us and freaked. That was a mistake. A fatal one. We ran into them like a pair of wolves ripping into a flock of sheep. Their only advantage was distance. We were breathing in their faces before they could get their act together. I didn't break stride. I hit the one to my right using the sword as a lance. It hit him dead center and ripped through every thing he was wearing, his guts and then punched its way out the back just below his shoulder blades. I forgot to shoot the guy on my left. Instead I slashed at his face as I went past with the barrel of the Ruger. It wasn't a clean hit. He was wearing a helmet and he took it half on it and half in his face. I did get the pleasure of seeing his nose explode.

I was past my two, trying to slow down and spin around so I could come back for more. It took me all of a second at most but I was too late. I got turned around in time to see Thursday shatter the soldier I had just run past helmet and his brains inside it. At his feet were three soldier boys who wouldn't be getting an open coffin send off to the next world. Their heads were nothing but seedless watermelon.

The kid came bolting around the corner. I noticed his knees were bleeding through his pants and one knee was torn. Asphalt is unforgiving but so was the world we were in. He didn't pause to gawk or talk. He grabbed a rifle off the ground and pulled the watermelon heads spare magazine in about three blinks of an eye. Which was good because we were running again.