299 Days: The Visitors

Chapter 139 The Blur (May 14)

The blur was starting. Everything began blending together and Grant’s senses weren’t normal. Things were mushy, but he was in full control of his muscles. He was getting tunnel vision and his hearing was improving. He could hear all the driveway gravel crunching under his feet, almost as loud as his heavy breathing. He could feel his heart pounding. Things were starting to go into slow motion. He felt strong. He tasted that tingle on the end of his tongue again. That was adrenaline.

Grant looked around and saw Scotty and Wes pulling away from the group and taking the right flank. Grant and Bobby started peeling away and taking the left flank. Pow, Ryan, and Rich were heading straight into the front of the house.

There was a small wire fence around the front of the house to hold the dogs. There they were, barking like crazy. Two Rottweilers; vicious, snarling monsters with giant teeth. Grant’s vision was focusing on the teeth. They were a weapon and he was focusing on them. Don’t get tunnel vision, he told himself. Pow’s got the dogs covered, he thought. Go with Bobby and take the left flank, he told himself. He wanted to run over and take out the dogs, but realized that he would be shooting to his right, which was in the direction of Scotty and Wes, who were coming around the other way. No, execute the plan, he told himself. You and Bobby have the left flank, he told himself, now get going. Meet up with Scotty and Wes at the back door.

Boom! Grant heard several shots and heard the dogs yelping. There was a loud whimper followed by more shots, and then silence. Grant ran along the left side of the house and couldn’t see the others. He looked, and Bobby was right with him, running full speed and swiveling his head in all directions to check for threats. They were both looking in all the windows on their side of the house to see if a barrel of a gun was sticking out of one. So far, nothing.

Grant got to the back door first. Bobby was right behind him. Grant started sweeping the door with his AR. Bobby was sweeping the area around Grant, covering anyone trying to come up to him. A second later, Wes showed up on the other side of the house, with Scotty right behind him. Scotty starting sweeping 360 degrees around Wes like Bobby was doing with Grant.

Wes motioned to Grant that he would go through the back door. Wait. What if the back door was locked? How would they get in? Kick in the door? That was harder than it looked on TV. Grant had tried it once when a friend’s rental house was being demolished. He had tried to kick the door in and hurt his leg. Grant wished they’d brought a sledge hammer or a shotgun with rifled slugs for the hinges. Next time they would have one…

Suddenly, the back door flew open. It almost hit Wes, who reflexively pointed his AR toward the threat coming at him.

It was a little girl. A terrified, naked, bruised little girl. Maybe ten years old. She was screaming. Wes raised his AR away from her and got out of the way. She ran right past him. Out of habit, Grant pointed his AR at the “threat” and then realized that she wasn’t a threat and lowered his AR. She kept running.

Next through the door was a screaming woman, unarmed, with her clothes on. She ran right past Wes, too. Grant covered her and then Bobby started covering her. Bobby didn’t know if he was supposed to chase the girl and woman or let them keep running. No one seemed to know what to do.

By now, Wes was out of the way. He was off to a side. He waited to see if anyone else was coming out the back door. He looked terrifying with his AR aimed in position. Anyone running out the door and seeing Wes pointing that AR at them would think they were going to die. Good.

Suddenly, a man came running out the back door. Wes and Grant didn’t lower their ARs like they did with the girl and woman. This was different; a man was a threat. A girl or woman only might be a threat, but a man was a threat, for sure.

The man came through the door and saw Wes with the AR pointed right at him. He threw up his hands and fell down. His momentum from running, followed by his sudden hands going up had caused him to trip. Wes quickly stopped covering the man and went back to covering the back door. He knew from hours at the range with the Team that someone else would cover the man on the ground, and that is just what Grant did.

The man fell with his hands to his sides. He’d been through this before. Grant scanned him to see if he had a gun. The man had his clothes on, and his chest and waist were on the ground, so it was hard to be sure he wasn’t armed. Grant focused on the man’s hands. Tunnel vision. Don’t fall into tunnel vision, Grant told himself. He forced himself to look up and scan around. Was anyone running toward him? No. Just Bobby, who was now covering the man on the ground. All of this took about a second and a half.

Now that Bobby had the man covered, Grant didn’t have to. He swept around one more time to make sure no one was coming after him from some unexpected angle. They had constantly done this at the range. “Search and assess” they called it, which was scanning around the target before and after shooting. “Bad guys travel in packs,” Special Forces Ted used to say on the range. That’s what search and assess was for: making sure there weren’t other bad guys around. It was weird how all they’d practiced was now becoming automatic reflexes.

Grant thought about the girl and woman running around and wondered if they should be trying to capture them. He thought about it and…

A second man came running through the door. He was in his underwear. He ran right toward Wes and that terrifying AR. Seeing Wes’s AR, the man instantly turned around and started running back into the house.

Wes adjusted his stance like he was going to shoot. Then he realized the second man was seemingly unarmed and that he would be shooting him in the back. Wes hesitated. Grant started to cover the second man, but he was back in the house now, probably getting a gun.

Wes started to run into the house after him. “Goin’ in!” he yelled. Grant was scanning the area near Wes. Bobby was stomping on the first man’s hands and his ankles. No need to worry about that guy grabbing a gun or taking off now. Bobby started covering the backyard and back door—360 degrees—with sweeps of his AR.

Grant felt helpless watching Wes run into the house without him. He felt like he should follow Wes in. He didn’t know if it was a good idea, but he started running after him. Grant looked back and Bobby looked puzzled, like he was wondering if he should be following Grant, too. But Bobby knew that they couldn’t leave the left flank and entire backyard uncovered so he stayed put.

Hearing Wes yell, “Goin’ in,” Scotty knew that he needed to leave the right flank and cover the back door and as much of the right flank as possible. That had been the plan, so Scotty came around the corner. When Grant saw movement out of the corner of his eye, he jerked his AR over that way. He saw Scotty running around the corner and re-jerked his AR back toward the back door. Grant realized how easy it would be to shoot one of the good guys in this whole mushy, adrenaline, fast-moving blur – especially with his safety off, which he knew he wasn’t supposed to do. Grant was amazed at how clear his thoughts were on things like this.

Wes was inside by now and Grant went right behind him. The back door led to a kitchen, which was a mess. It looked like animals lived there.

Wes was leaving the kitchen and heading into the rest of the house. Grant heard some screaming in Wes’s direction. There was a woman screaming followed by a bunch of shots, and then Ryan and Pow yelling. Grant couldn’t make out what they were saying – the gun shots were extremely loud without the hearing protection they normally wore at the range – but the shouts from Ryan and Pow sounded commanding and scared at the same time.

By now, Grant was almost through the kitchen and was headed through the doorway to the rest of the house. He was sweeping the kitchen with his AR as he ran through it.

Suddenly, a screaming woman came right at him. She wasn’t armed—she was in her underwear so there was no place to hide a gun—but she was charging him. She was a skinny, drugged out tweaker. She looked about fifty years old, but was probably really about thirty. Her eyes were as big as saucers and she was screaming at the top of her lungs.

Grant didn’t know what to do. Shoot her? No. He couldn’t do that. She wasn’t armed. She was about ten feet from him, running right toward his AR that he had pointed at her chest. Grant didn’t know what to do. He really didn’t want to shoot her. These thoughts took a fraction of a second.

Now she was about six feet away. Then Grant did it.