The Persistence of Memory: America Under Attack

Part Twenty

Uncle Hank's House, Elgin SC.

The night vision goggles weren't what I had expected. The first problem I had was they were bulky, and felt like they were going to slide off of my head as I ran. They didn't. The second, and much more serious problem, was the world as seen in low-light looked more like a television show than reality. There was no sense of three-dimensional space.

Mark and I sprinted down the sloping backyard towards the trees. It was only about a thirty yard sprint, but my inexperience with the goggles slowed me down. I stumbled through the tree line as bits of pine bark exploded near my head. Mark dropped to a crouch and returned fire while I recovered. I took cover behind a tree and looked for the people who were shooting at us.

Three fired at us from positions around a truck by the garage while three more ran for the trees to flank us. I fired at the leader of the three who were running. They were dressed like soldiers, in camouflage uniforms with backpacks, M-16 rifles, and night-vision gear like mine. I chalked up their diminutive appearance as an artifact of the goggles until one them yelled.

"Watch the back of the house!" His voice sounded strange, but I had no time make sense of it.

That was Uncle Hank's cue to join the fight. His weapon flashed in the dark as he squeezed off one round at a time. One of the attackers fell.

"Fox!" Uncle Hank yelled. "I'm red-high. You're green."

"Roger!" Mark yelled. He stood up and ran past me, saying, "Stay close."

I fired once more to cover Uncle Hank, then followed Mark through the trees to the paintball course. We came out of the woods in the boulder field surrounding the small square structure that the green team used as its base. The red team had an identical structure about two hundred yards away through another stretch of trees and a similar boulder field.

We crouched behind one of the taller rocks sticking up from the ground, and Mark translated Uncle Hank's cryptic message into a plan.

Mark leaned around the edge of our boulder and fired. He ran and dived behind another rock about 10 yards away, drawing the enemy's fire. While he kept their attention, I ran in a crouch from cover to cover until I reached the small structure that Green team used as a headquarters.

Mark made another sprint to the rusted Volkswagen Beetle and jumped into the open trunk. The enemies' bullets thunked into the thin metal skin of the trunk lid as Mark pulled it closed. It didn't look good for Mark, but I stuck to the plan and held my fire.

I heard more shots come from the house, and could barely make out the figure of Uncle Hank shooting down from the roof. After a brief, but intense exchange, the shooting stopped.

Mark called in the silence. "I'm out, Hank! It's up to you! Hank?"

"Hank's dead," one of the attackers called out. "You are next, you filthy Ted! Stand up and walk over here and I'll make it quick."

The voice was high-pitched. It sounded like a kid, but that made no sense. It could have been a woman. Part of my mind recoiled at the idea of shooting at a woman or a child, but I quelled the thought by remembering how Susan had paid the price of my hesitance.

Peering through a baseball-sized hole in the wall, I watched three of the shooters come out from the trees into the boulder field. They moved like they knew what they were doing, scanning the area with weapons up as they moved. One of them stopped about ten yards from the car where Mark was hiding and fired several bursts at the trunk lid. I had a great line of fire on him, but I resisted the urge to shoot and waited for the signal.