The End is Coming

Chapter Nineteen

His revolver, his CAR-15—along with his other gear—were too far away. Only the twin stainless Detonics pistols, these in the double Alessi rig across his back, and the six spare magazines in the Sparks Six-Pack on his trouser belt, Rourke ran into the night, squinting his eyes tight shut against the velvet blackness punctuated by bursts of gun-fire, counting to ten, opening his eyes, more ac-customed now to the darkness after the dim light of the bunker through which he had run. Both Detonics pistols came into his hands, his thumbs jacking back the hammers as his fists balled around them.

“Sarah! Sarah!”

Men on motorcycles filled the yard between the bunker beneath the burned-out farmhouse and the white-fenced corral, the house, the corral, and the shell of the burned barn making the points of a tri-angle. And the triangle seemed alive to him with movement, with gunfire, with shouts and curses and the revving of engines. Brigands—he lost count after he hit twelve, and there were at least three times that many, likely more, he gauged. Both pistols in his clenched fists discharged to-gether, two men on motorcycles—they were Brigands all—racing toward him across the yard. Both men fell, their bikes spinning out, Rourke jumping clear of the one to his left, firing a third round, killing a man on foot rushing him, the man with an assault rifle.

“Sarah!” He screamed the word into the night, not seeing his wife, not hearing a scream. His jaw set, the tendons in his neck something he could feel as they distended.

“Sarah!”

There was the boom of a .45 from his left and he wheeled toward it, firing a fourth round from his pistols at another of the Brigands. And then he saw her, a pistol visible in her hands in the glare of a motorcycle headlight, the biker bearing down on her, Rourke raising both pistols to shoot the man down, two bikers thrusting between him and the intended target.

Rourke fired both pistols again, nailing one biker only, then firing the pistol in his left hand twice more, killing the second man, the head al-most splitting under the double impact, visible as the ground was suddenly bathed in moonlight.

There were two rounds apiece in each gun, no time to reload, Sarah’s small pistol—about the size of his own Detonics guns, the gun he’d seen her wearing throughout the late afternoon and eve-ning—flashing fire twice before he could shoot, the Brigand biker’s body blown from the bike seat, the bike crashing into the glaring whiteness of the fence, splintering the wood there with a thunderlike cracking sound. He could see Sarah, stepping away, turning, punching the little .45 out in both hands. A man was rushing her from behind with an assault rifle.

Rourke’s pistols fired, her pistol fired, the Brig-and’s body twisting once, then again and again. Rourke broke into a run, firing out both pistols before he reached her, killing one more of the Brigands, wounding another as the man fell from his bike, clasping his left shoulder. Both pistols empty, Rourke rammed the one from his left hand into his belt, dumping the mag-azine for the right-hand gun, ramming a fresh one up the butt, his right thumb working down the slide stop as his left hand pocketed the empty mag-azine, Sarah shouting to him. “John! Behind you!”

Rourke wheeled, dropping, punching the Detonics out in his right fist, the boom of a .45 be-hind him, the riot shotgun-armed Brigand stum-bling, falling back as Rourke’s pistol fired then, the second impact high as the man’s body jackknifed, the neck exploding as the left side of it was blown away, blood spurting in a fine spray Rourke could see on the air.

He was up then, grabbing the riot shotgun from the dead man, upping the safety on the little Detonics, wheeling, working the riot shotgun’s trig-ger, the stubby-barreled pump’s twelve-gauge slug flaring in the moonlit darkness, the shot column disintegrating the face of a man rushing him. Rourke tromboned the shotgun, beside Sarah now, Sarah’s .45 booming once, a Brigand shot off his bike.

He looked at her—the spent magazine was fall-ing into her left hand, the spare magazine between her left thumb and forefinger, encircled by the digits, going up the butt of the pistol, then her hand twisting as the magazine was thumped into a locked position, her right thumb working down the slide stop. Rourke raised the riot shotgun, firing once, then again and again, three Brigand bikers going down, Sarah beside him shouting, “The bike!”

He jumped clear, the machine from the second man impacting against the fence, bursting through it. Her .45 fired once, then again and again, two bikers down.

Men were pouring from the bunker now, assault rifles and riot shotguns firing, the Brigand attack-ers falling back.

Rourke tromboned the pump—the shotgun was empty. He threw it down, grabbing for the parti-ally loaded Detonics.

He started forward, shouting to Sarah, “Stay here!”

“No!”

He looked at her, then started forward anyway, his wife beside him, their .45s like pulsing torches in the darkness, Brigand bikers falling as gunfire rained around them.

He heard Annie scream—it was her voice.

Rourke wheeled, reloading the Detonics as he moved, running now toward the bunker. A Brigand with an assault rifle, a bayonet fixed at the muzzle, Annie bare-legged in a long white T--shirt, hitting at the man with something.

Rourke raised the Detonics to fire, heard Sarah screaming, “Annie!”

Rourke had the Brigand’s head under the muz-zle of the Detonics. A tight shot, he started the squeeze. There was a burst of assault rifle fire, somehow muffled-sounding, the Brigand’s body crumpling, sagging, falling forward, the assault rifle discharg-ing into the ground, Annie screaming again. Rourke stopped.

Michael stood in the light of the bunker door-way, an M-16 in his hands, the dead Brigand at his feet. Rourke wheeled, fired out the Detonics pistol into two men coming up on the right, buttoning out the magazines from both pistols to the ground, reloading as he sidestepped toward his son and daughter, Sarah firing beside him.

“I’m empty,” she shouted.

Rourke handed her one of the twin Detonics pistols—their eyes met for an instant in the moon-light bathing the triangular piece of ground that made the farmyard.

“I was wrong—” He said it once, simply, as she took the pistol from him.

“So was I—”

There was a shouted curse, a rattle of assault ri-fle fire and the roar of motorcycle engines, Rourke half dropping into a crouch, Sarah to his right, both firing simultaneously as four Brigand bikers roared down on them—one man down, then another, then a third, both hands flying to his chest as the bike went out of control, then the fourth man, screaming as he skidded on his bike into the wreck of the barn, the motorcycle’s gas tank somehow igniting—an explosion, orange-tipped yellow flames with a black and yellow fire-ball belching upward into the night air at the center. Rourke reached down to one of the dead men— the one Michael had killed. A strap from his bin-oculars was tangled in the assault rifle—Rourke ripped it away. As he pried the left hand from the front handguard of the M-16, he noticed the little finger was missing—it looked like it had been shot away.

He picked Annie up into this arms—she held a policeman’s nightstick in her right hand and it fell to the ground as he crushed her against him.

He looked at his son. “Thank you—”