Chapter 16
Guard Platoon-D, under Lieutenant Murphy, was in charge of searching for the missing children in the north section of town. Murphy was glad that they were down to the last couple of homes to check. Sadly, they were disappointed to find that an older man had frozen to death in his shanty. Most of the shanties were abandoned and people were stuffed in front of fireplaces. Not this guy. He was too pigheaded to get help with anything, so he died of hypothermia.
"Lieutenant!"
"Yea, Sergeant."
"There is a pair of kid-sized tracks going due north up the road."
"Take your squad and follow them. Bring them back. Good work. Everyone else, let's head back to H.Q.."
Murmurs were heard through Platoon-D's troops. Some were relieved to be able to go home, while others disappointed that they had to suffer in the miserable cold at least awhile longer.
Sergeant Benson thought that at least his squad would not have to go the full three miles if he could catch the children. Some of the men suggested that they jog to try and catch the children a little quicker.
The squad kept up the pace. The men were about a mile up the road.
"Sergeant! There they are!"
Benson called out to the children, "Halt! Stop!"
Angela and Hunter stopped and turned around.
"Hold it right there, kids!"
Angela and Hunter stood there waiting for the squad.
Sgt. Benson said, "You kids caused a lot of trouble. What are you doing out here?"
"Looking for Hexmen," Hunter said.
Benson was confused by the answer. "You're done looking now, you're coming back to see Phil Crawford.
"Crap," Angela said.
"Crap is right," Benson said, breathing heavily after the jog in his heavy clothes with his rifle. "Let's go, kids."
Angela realized that these guys were tired. The first moment no one was looking she took off running to the north. Hunter didn't even see her leave.
One of the privates said, "Hey. Where'd she. . . awww come on."
Sergeant Benson turned around, "Well! You let her get away, now go get her!"
The Private chased her a ways up the road he wasn't getting any closer, but he saw that she stopped. Now he was catching up.
"Okay, you done runnin' now?"
Angela held her finger over her mouth, then pointed down on the road.
The Private said, "Oooh Noo."
It was almost dark but for as far as they could see in the light, there were hundreds of tracks all running in the same direction across the road at a right angle to their path and into a woodlot that ran alongside the road.
The Private quietly said, "Run."
Angela and the Private both took off together. A couple of spears flew out from the woods at them. Misses. Then some arrows. An arrow hit Angela in the back. She kept on running. The Private was hit in the calf by an arrow and fell to the road.
Angela turned toward the screaming Private, Hundreds of Hexmen rushed out of the woods towards her. She resumed her escape. "Help! Help! God help me!"
One of the Hexmen ran a spear into the injured Private's chest.
A Hexman leader shouted, "No guns! No guns!" He did not want to draw attention.
It was too late. Sgt. Benson and his squad heard the commotion and commenced fire. Some of the Hexmen dropped.
The Hexman leader commanded, "Fire! Fire everything!"
Hexmen started firing and hit two of the Squad members.
Pull back! Benson ordered. They all started running south.
A couple of the faster ones were catching up to Angela.
Sergeant Benson turned and fired from a prone position while his men were escaping. He was hitting some of the faster Hexmen.
One particularly nasty Hexman grabbed Angela by the arm. She spun around and buried her pocket knife blade into his wrist. She withdrew the bloody blade and resumed running.
The Hexman held his cut wide-open wrist and was screaming in fear and pain.
Benson kept low and was hitting the Hexmen. The rest of the Hexmen stopped rushing forward. Benson told Angela to keep going. He had effectively single-handedly pinned them down, but there were so many that there were scores of them running alongside the road on both sides. They were outflanking Benson, and moving in towards him.
Then a salvo of semi-automatic gunfire erupted from the rest of Platoon-D who came to the rescue. Angela came running by them with the arrow sticking out of her back.
The Hexmen gathered themselves into a defensive line and were firing back. Platoon-D was pinned down.
Back at the rally point in town, all of the other platoons were still there waiting for Platoon-D and cussing out Angela in absentia.
Ella was standing near Jayden listening to all of the idle chatter. "Hey listen!"
They all got quiet. You could barely hear it.
Jayden said, "That sounds like World War Four going on over there! Everyone! Entire Guard Company! On me! On me!"
The entire Company suddenly was moving toward the battle.
Jayden said, "Ella! Go tell Anderson!"
The Company ran past Hunter who was not far from town. Then they five minutes later they ran past Angela who was running crazy fast toward town. Angela was no longer the priority.
The Guard got to the battle to relive Platoon-D. It was difficult to make out friend from foe in the dark. Not much more shooting took place. When it did, the shooting was generally at point blank range. Preston Martin was able to surprise a Hexman by plunging his combat knife into him. The encirclement of Platoon-D by the Hexmen was broken.
Before the Confederation Garrison got to the battle, the Hexmen had already broken off. They were ducking back into the woodlot.
Amy's face turned ghastly white when Angela came into the House with an arrow sticking out of her back. Amy almost passed out. "Ph. . .Phil."
Phil came into the room. "What the hell!? We gotta get you over to the clinic!"
The clinic was always opened by Dr. Williams whenever the rally bell tolled. The candles were already lit.
"Whoa! What in Devil's name?!" Dr. Aliyah Williams studied the arrow into her back. "Is this hurting you at all."
"Not much."
The Doctor touched the shaft of the arrow.
"Oww!" Angela said, and squirmed.
Dr. Williams said, "It doesn't seem to be bleeding much. I'm going to try and cut around it and see what we got. What about your arm here?"
"That's not my blood."
"Hmmm. . .Is that a fact?"
Dr. Williams started to cut around the arrow and the arrow fell on the floor. "That was pretty easy."
"Let's get this coat off so I can take a look." She took the coat off and lifted up the numerous layers of clothes. "Sorry, I know it's cold in here." The inspection revealing a small bloody scratch. "Well, at the risk of being called a 'band-aid station', I'm going to put on a band aid on it." She put on the band aid. "You're good to go."