What was staring back at me sent a chill so severe within me that I cringed, dropping again to my knees. At least twenty guns pointed in my direction, some with scopes and all with a man attached to them. The whir was getting louder again too, and soon it hovered directly overhead. Less than two thousand yards away, I knew there was no way to get the boys loaded into the car and escape. Rolly was hopping and leaping up and into the air, in an attempt to catch or snatch the drone above us. Then a crack sounded within him, his body bending in two layers, legs outstretched and upon themselves, as he flew back behind me. Then I heard the shot of the rifle, with a muffled echo resounding through the desert.
I turned to run back the way we came, grabbing Rolly at the nape, and dropping him a few feet short of the boys, who were still sleeping on the quilt. I rousted the boys and told them we had to get inside right now. Important, emergency, and scary were the words I used to expedite their movements. As soon as they had entered through the west doorway, I threw the quilt in after them. Grabbing Rolly one more time, I ran around to the trunk of the car. Ducking below the trunk line, I fumbled for the keys but finally pressed one into the keyhole and twisted, raising the trunk enough to throw Rolly inside. Then grabbing the case of dynamite and a knapsack full of ammo, I crawled backwards and into the plant through the north doorway.
Once back inside, I told the boys to follow me as I ascended the meatal stairs one more time. I looked back out through the window and saw several people heading our way. But this several only amounted to around ten or so, none-the-less all carrying rifles. I leaned the 30-30 against the window sill and dropped the other cases a foot away. Taking both boys by an arm, I led them towards the generators and showed them where to hide. Telling them to not move or make a sound, I ran back to the window, to see the advancement nearing eight or nine hundred yards from the building. I remembered I wasted a shot with the cactus earlier, so I knew I had seven bullets left. Looking around me for something to encourage me for the onslaught that may unfold, I saw the forty caliber at the base of the stairwell. I rolled across the planks to the edge of the second floor loft, and grabbed hold of the floor and let myself back down onto the concrete below. I grabbed the automatic rifle and skipped back up the stairs two at a time. Peering through the window again, they were now six or seven hundred yards away, and then a piece of the brick broke away from the sill where a bullet had just sped by.
Most of the runners coming in our direction were towards the south end and I found myself moving in that direction also. Reaching the other window with the forty cal in hand, I trained it upon them, dropping four of them before they could even take cover. Now no one was moving any longer, but here came that damn drone again.
namkcorb 