Welcome to River City, pt. 3
The trio of cops groaned, and watched as their new team leader bolted across an open field with tiny explosions kicking up the grass all around him. He sprint until every muscle in his legs screamed to make him stop, his lungs were about to burst when he saw Prodic’s body and he skidded across the wet grass and scrambled to check if he were all right. Nearly lifeless eyes shuttered open and a smile tried to form on his lips. He tried to speak, but only dribbled blood instead.
“I need you to help me any way you can, Prod. I need to carry you the hell out of here, so please tell me your wife kept you on that diet.”
He coughed, “Ain’t no thang, Corporal.”
His body went limp as he hung against Stines’ shoulder. “I got him; he’s hanging on but just barely.”
“Gotcha brother,” Rochester’s voice came over the short radio. “I got lights in the distance; the Recovery Patrol is nearing our position.”
“Give me some cover; we need to get him to medical.”
An explosion of gunfire erupted on the mobile mortar group that had the River City cops pinned down. Hopefully they’d keep their heads down long enough so that Stines and Prodic could get out unscathed. His body resisted the extra weight that Prodic’s body put against him, but Stines pushed on, one foot in front of the other speed walking as best as he could with the extra weight against him. Every few seconds a gunshot would ring out, but the team was doing good to keep their heads down so the bullets came nowhere near.
He stopped to rest against a thick enough tree that might give them an additional ounce of protection, Stines panted, his body ached, and his radio screamed, “Situation just got a hell of a lot worse, boss man!”
The howling began again, “Oh god damn.” He reached down and made sure there was a round chambered in the forty-five caliber and held it tight in his right hand. His shooting would be crap with Prodic against him like this but, it was better than nothing. The roid-junkie jocks were out and looking for blood, and ever since the NCAA banned them from all sports, there was nothing keeping them in line anymore. “This day is officially fucked.”
The rattle of Rochester’s machine gun wasn’t far off, but it wasn’t pointed at the mortar team that was getting ready to lob another volley. The situation suddenly became more precarious when a bullet sent grass into his face, they were getting far too close and Stines and Prodic were too exposed to for comfort. He could see the lights now, but there weren’t moving anywhere, “Some recovery patrol.” He pushed his body far past its comfort zone and the Oldsmobile was a sight for sore eyes when he finally was able to put Prodic’s body down.
“Sitrep?”
“The Jocks are having fun with the recovery patrol,” Rochester spoke up, as he applied another bandage. “Apparently we’re back up for them now.”
“Fucking wonderful,” Stines muttered. “What about our wounded?”
“Well we got two choices, we can sit here until daylight and Prodic will probably bleed out far before then, or we can take on the jocks.”
“Well, aren’t we the lucky ducks?”
Stines looked back and Smith shut his mouth immediately. He nodded to respond that he sympathized with what the guy was feeling; the night was just full of disappointment in that regard. “Robbie,” Prodic struggled past his lips with a very labored breath. “I’m holding you back just go on, I’ll be fine; even take out a couple of those sons of bitches before I bite it.”
“Talk like that again, and I’ll make sure you don’t get workman’s comp out of this.” Stines stifled the conversation. “Smith, I need you to carry Prodic, Blitz you take point and we’ll bob and weave our asses to the recovery patrol and recover their sorry asses.”
“Sounds like a plan,” Blitz spoke up as the whistling returned overhead. “They’re sighting in, we better move.”
“Head west; we’ll use the smoke to cover us, that way at least they’ll be wasting ammo.”
The stocky built black man lead the way as the tired and injured patrol team followed fairly close behind, keeping an eye on their sectors as they would any other time, and keeping Smith in the center as he carried his lover over his shoulders. They kept quiet, inching their way from car to wall, taking whatever cover they could find and trying like hell to avoid the Jocks and their roid rage. The lights were in perfect view now, and the patrol team could see their would-be rescuers trying like hell to fight off a band of athletes hopped up on something far worse than PCP.
They would take a gunshot to the chest and laugh it off. If video of the similar situation never touched the internet, the NCAA would never revoke River City University’s charter, and the government would’ve halted 90% of their funding either, but that was neither here nor there. There was little other than a headshot that would empty their bodies of enough blood to stall these guys, but just the same they would probably recover from a direct shot to anything but the medulla in a matter of weeks anyway. Stines and Blitz kept their rifles at the ready, Rochester did his best to hold his automatic rifle against his wounded shoulder, “Keep it close boys, we’re an easier meal to them right now.”
They each nodded and closed the circle around Smith and Prodic. “Headshots,” Blitz reminded, “Nothing else counts.”
Their ammunition was far too low for a sustained fight, and everyone knew it. At best they might have had ten rounds apiece, and unless this was just a gaggle of three drugged up pole-vaulters, they would do well to avoid these dimwitted college junkies.
Stines ordered the team without a word to stop and take cover against a parked vehicle, long disabled by the night’s festivities. “The recovery group has them on the ropes, we’re pretty good here if we take it slow. With them distracted if we move one by one they might not notice us.”
“What about Smith?”
“We’re sending him first.” Stines replied in kind, “we’re better suited to defend him and Prodic from here.”
Blitz took a hand off his rifle and traded weapons with Rochester, “I’m better suited to use this than you are.”
“Treat her better than your wife, man. I want her back.”
“She doesn’t talk back; this baby will only do what I tell her.” Blitz smiled and showed off the missing teeth that the dentist had yet to fix due to problems with their deductible at home. Felicia was a mean one, she’d take a punch or two, but Blitz never forgot to expect one back.
Rochester laughed a little and took up the M-4, and sighted in to the Jock that was pile driving another one on the roof of a car barely 50 yards away. “These fools.” He whispered, “They’re like monkeys, only retarded.”
Stines tried not to laugh, but sometimes it was the only thing that kept him sane, “quiet, let’s get the job done and make fun of the bastards that scare us shitless.”
“Right, sure thing boss.”
Smith adjusted the mostly limp body over his shoulders, and just like Robbie Stines told him, he kept it slow. Stepping through the smoke that the Recovery Patrol dropped in order to give them an edge and hide from the Jocks as best they could. The plan worked for the first few minutes until the monkey man on the car caught sight of the movement in his peripheral vision. He howled like a baboon and the others chirped speaking a language only they could understand and stopped in their tracks. Staring down the patrol team’s positions, Stines yelled, “High tail it Smith, they have you!”
There was nothing his body could say that would stop him now, with the weight of Prodic pushing against his shoulders, Smith ran with all his might. He only needed to make it a few more meters before relative safety was all around him. Sirens in the distance told him that more reinforcements were on their way and it gave him even more hope that they would get out of this almost unscathed.
Gunshots rang out, and Stines shouted, “Rochester, go!”
He bolted past the two youngest members of his team and started laying down a course of fire that distracted the Jocks from the easier targets. Bullet after bullet impacted the lead monkey’s chest, he screamed out but the projectiles never came close to stopping him. Rochester looked back and saw that Smith was in a near dead sprint, “Go man, go!” He leapt over his car, slamming home the bayonet over the barrel of his rifle and sank the blade through the monkey man’s throat, severing three-quarters of his head and the medulla oblongata that kept his body moving. Totally exposed now, but with one of the Jocks down, Rochester swore an epitaph of expletives as three others descended upon him. Tearing his body limb from limb in retribution for their fallen leader. “Rock!” Stines called out, “What the fuck man!”
Blitz and Stines had nothing to say to one another, they both shot their last bullet long ago and followed Rochester’s example and slid their bayonets over their rifles and took off running. Stines was already exhausted but the adrenaline refused to stop flowing. He threw the buttstock of his rifle outward, keeping both hands firmly gripped by striking one of the roid Jocks in the jaw and breaking the mandible from its hold on the skull. He kept running, Blitz — true to his namesake — was gone like the flash of light that they once called him from his high school running back days. He picked up the pistol from his thigh laying down a volley of fire.
Eye juice spattered all over Stines as a bullet found its way through the skull of one of the jocks. He bobbed and weaved around them, all in a familiar movement through their football training. It was of little use, Stines was surrounded, and Blitz was running out of ammunition for the forty-five, he foolishly brought only three magazines. Stines followed suit, using the bayonet and the butt of his rifle as his only weapons, he battered and beat his way through a line of Jocks that should have surround him.
He was still exhausted, his body was wearing down he could start to feel the weakness begin to consume him. Stines still moved forward, he wasn’t running as fast as he might have if he hadn’t taken the time to carry Prodic back to the line, but that was the line of his new job, since Williams left it to him in his dying breath. Stines gritted his teeth together and beat back the last of the Jocks that stood in his way, shoving the blade of his bayonet into the man’s solar plexus. It was something that hurt him, finally something that hurt the Jocks!
Stines pulled the blade out, stepping on the Jock’s face and crushing his nose while he bled out under Stines foot. Pulling the rifle back to his hands and up to his chest, his body burned and the Recovery patrol vehicle was in sight now, a rush passed through him and it almost felt like hope. “Come on, Robbie!” A familiar voice rang out from the armored vehicle. “Get your ass in gear!”
He didn’t look back, if they were screaming the situation was bad enough that he didn’t want to know and he pushed his body passed its limits and dropped the rifle. His legs gave out from under him, but he never hit the pavement. The gunshots faded as Robbie Stines passed out and went limp against Blitz. The entire armored patrol and their reinforcements were lighting up the near army of unstoppable seven time sugar bowl champions that would never stop. All seemed hopeless now, as Robbie came and went from consciousness and finally when he felt the cold metal floor of the armored vehicle. “Go, damn it, go!”
They could hear the pounding on the sides of the armor, but even these juiced up assholes would never pound through it. This was army grade armor, every since they solved their IED problem, the mechanized Army became something to fear again, they only hoped the Police force in River City could be like them some day. But Blitz shook Stines out of unconsciousness, “Mother fucker, I don’t want your job. If you die on me so help me god, I quit!”