Chapter 11: Combat Healer
Monday, March 27th 1:11 PM
Natural Bridges State Beach
Santa Cruz, California
After diverting down California Avenue and through the Circles onto Delaware Avenue to avoid a band of armed men that Joe had spotted, his group ran into another problem.
A numerous, ramshackle band of young men and boys armed with rough-hewn spears of Eucalyptus jogged to intercept them from the UCSC Genomics Institute—one of the few buildings that remained mostly intact. One among the approaching mob called out authoritatively for Joe and his group to lay down their weapons.
A few of the young men carried firearms, but since they hadn’t aimed or shot, Joe and Mike also held their fire.
“I don’t like it, Master Guns. Most of ‘em are kids.” Joe glared at the approaching crowd.
“They turn those weapons against us, and they’re enemy combatants. Simple as that,” Mike replied.
“Yeah, I know,” Joe grudgingly agreed.
Mike nodded sharply to the south, so Joe detoured into what was left of Natural Bridges State Park to move his people around.
The mob gave chase, and before long they were cut off by a second, mixed group of spear-wielding young men and women arriving from the direction of the beach. Joe raised a fist to signal his group to stop, as they’d been surrounded on all sides. The ramshackle group of youths and children maintained a distance of ten meters while desperation shone in their eyes.
Grudgingly, Joe retrieved his Glock from its holster but kept it pointed toward the ground while he raised his voice.
“United States Marine Corps! We’re passing through. You either clear out of our way and let us leave, or lay down your weapons so we can talk! Threaten a single member of my team, and we will defend ourselves with deadly force!”
As Joe’s words echoed off the scorched husk of the UCSC building, several wide-eyed youths backed away until their leader raised his hand and they all paused, looking uneasy.
A tense moment followed while Joe and Mike brought their firearms almost to a ready position, releasing the safety as they chose their targets. From the corner of his eye, Joe spotted Michael and Rihelah settling into one of the unassuming combat stances he’d taught them. But Joy, Sio and Emmanuel shrank away and huddled, showing fear.
Joe set his jaw when he saw the arrogant middle-aged leader of the opposing force grinning and edging forward. He could tell the man thought he had sensed weakness.
Fuck. Joe’s muscles tensed up. I hate taking civilian lives.
“Take out the men! They’ll steal everything from us! Don’t harm the women! For a better future!” the leader brayed, his eyes wild as he leveled his assault rifle at Joe.
A couple of shots rang out before the hostile group yelled, “For a better future!”
Simultaneously, Joe and Mike returned fire, and took evasive action.
Joe felt a sharp pain stab through his left shoulder and knew he’d been shot, but he kept his focus enough to send two rounds into the leader’s chest as he continued moving to make himself a hard target.
Emmanuel fell screaming into the mud with a hole through his left knee.
The leader stood for a split second with a shocked expression, looked down at his bloodied shirt, then fell backward with a gurgling scream, firing his weapon defiantly around himself. The poorly-aimed shots found two of the dying man’s allies, knocking them out of the fight.
A bullet grazed Michael’s shoulder and Joe heard him grunt, but Michael stuck by Rihelah as the pair moved to engage a group of spear-wielding kids.
Their enemies’ lack of experience allowed Mike and Joe to maintain space around themselves, and the quick, accurate shots they took from such close range against the enemy gunmen almost always found their targets.
After sending seven enemy shooters to the ground with fifteen bullets, Joe swore under his breath when he heard a telltale click. He’d run out of ammo.
As the disorganized mob closed in around him, Joe dropped his pistol to catch a spear thrust at his face. He wrenched the tip of the sharpened branch upward, drawing its wide-eyed wielder in close. Joe slammed a hard right elbow into the scrawny man’s solar plexus, sending him to the ground.
Luckily for Joe and Mike, who appeared to have become the primary targets, their attackers had little combat ability and even less understanding of teamwork—getting in each other’s way more often than not.
Joe reached up to heal his shoulder, dodging left to barely avoid the spear-thrust of a short, early-twenties man with a greasy orange goatee. The man’s mouth fell open and he lost focus when he spotted the otherworldly light of Joe’s healing.
A hard chop from Joe’s left hand knocked the bedazzled opponent’s spear free before he stepped past his attacker’s guard, shoulder-checking him hard enough to send the little man sprawling. The man reached for a nearby pistol, but Joe stomped on his hand, feeling the bones crunch. He kicked the firearm away, then felt a sudden, itchy pain when a spear pierced his backside.
Joe rounded on the young woman who’d stabbed him, feeling the wooden tip tearing free from his wound.
The tallish girl wore a triumphant expression, winding up to strike again with her blood-coated spear. Her eyes widened when Joe caught the weapon and yanked it from her hands, then swept her feet as he dodged beneath a high spear-thrust from his right and struck that young woman’s head with the broadside of his pilfered spear.
While Joe healed his ass, he saw Mike moving like water. His mentor deftly parried two spears with the barrel of his rifle. Then he charged, knocking both kids prone on his way to engage another.
As their comrades fell, screaming in pain, Joe could sense that the remaining youths were losing their morale.
Most of the young women and some men holding spears backed away after they saw their comrades falling rapidly around them as their foes still stood. Joe was relieved to see around forty civilians fleeing from danger, but more than twenty remained facing them, wearing wrathful glares.
Two youths reached for guns dropped by those who’d been put down. But Mike’s wary eye and surgical precision sent them screaming into the mud, clutching at brand-new, ragged holes through their hands. Mike dropped an empty magazine from his SR-25 and grabbed another from his belt.
Joe faced off against two more youths—a man and a woman. His peripheral vision caught sight of a spear piercing Joy’s right side. Already bloodied and covered in cuts, Joy screamed loud enough to distort Joe’s eardrums, briefly incapacitating those nearby with her tremendous sound pressure.
Some held their ears, stupefied while Joy’s long arms erupted in a flurry to rake savagely at the eyes of the young woman who’d stabbed her—eliciting a second source of screaming.
Joe used the distraction to strike and incapacitate the two teens he faced.
A wiry young man slipped in from behind and speared Joe through the back of his right thigh, but a backhanded counterattack from Joe laid him out cold.
Two others skidded to a halt after seeing that man fall, dropping their spears as they turned to flee.
Mike struck a young man’s face with the butt of his rifle before kicking another away and shooting another who lunged for a firearm. Two spears pierced Mike’s abdomen when a pair of young men rushed him from either side while Mike was fending off a third.
With a shout of fury, Mike spun himself and disarmed his attackers before stepping in to strike one’s throat, leaving him gasping for air as he collapsed. The other man’s eyes widened as he lost confidence and fled. Mike dropped to one knee immediately afterward.
Siobhán displayed excellent agility and stamina as she ran around near Michael and Rihelah, dodging spears and assisting when she could. Which wasn’t much, as she seemed to have zero fighting experience despite her athleticism. But so far, she seemed to have avoided serious injury from what Joe could tell. He suspected it was partly because she wasn’t trying to fight, and she was his group’s smallest and least-threatening member.
Most surprising for Joe were Michael and Rihelah, his two protégés. They managed to subdue a group of nine spear-wielders and come away relatively unscathed. Granted, their opponents were largely children, but Joe knew numbers could easily prove lethal, even if a mob lacked skill. All that was required was the desire to harm.
The morale of their foes began to crack when Joe put another three down with decisive movements and heavy fists. The remainder fled when he and Mike advanced with terrifyingly cold and calm demeanor despite their bleeding wounds.
Joe laid a hand on Mike. Golden light shone around his mentor and Joe nodded, moving to assist Joy as Mike’s jaw dropped open in surprise.
“Uncle Joe… You actually—you weren’t…” Rihelah stammered.
“Have I ever bullshitted you, Najiblet? Stay focused. We’re still surrounded by potential threats. Gather up the firearms.” Joe shot her a half-smile while healing his wounds on the way to assist Emmanuel and the dying and wounded of the opposing side.
Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
Then Joe saw Siobhán stagger and fall to her knees. He rushed over to find her blood-soaked hands clutching at a spear-tip that had broken off at an angle, with a long splinter protruding from just below her sternum. Her mouth was wide open as she strained for breath.
Fuck! It’s in her lung!
Joe grabbed hold of the piece of wood, yanked it free with one hand, and healed her with his other.
Siobhán gasped, then clawed at Joe’s hand as her wound knit. She held him there until her panicked expression gave way to a half-smile of shock. Then she seemed to realize that Joe’s enormous hand was firmly cupping her left breast and she turned abruptly away from him with a high, “Eep!”
Joe moved away as she did, chuckling lightly at her squeamishness while he focused on locating more wounded in need of help.
“Master Guns, will you restrain their wounded? I need to heal them ASAP.”
Joe’s words grabbed Mike’s attention, and he hustled to assist.
Michael and Rihelah gathered and emptied eleven guns, piling them and their ammo separately near Siobhán, who’d offered to help.
Mike ran around securing the hands of fallen enemies with his zip ties before Joe healed them.
Some of their enemies who had fled stood well away, watching everything happen in stunned silence.
Emmanuel sat stupefied, repeatedly bending his healed knee in open-mouthed wonder until Joe spoke to him. “Hey. I need you with us. Keep your eyes open and alert us if anyone comes close again.”
Blinking a few times, Emmanuel gathered his wits at last and nodded quickly while he stood.
A few minutes later, Mike secured the surviving wounded and Joe stabilized them.
With a bitter frown toward those he hadn’t been able to save, Joe recovered his Glock, frowning at the loss of his second magazine. During the melee, the rest of his ammo had been knocked to the mud from its holster on his belt, and it was nowhere to be seen.
Sighing, Joe felt much more drained than he’d anticipated.
I feel so out of shape. Out of ammo, too.
You shitting me? Joe blinked in surprise as a tingling warmth spread through his body, washing away his fatigue.
“Fourteen dead, and five of them were kids…” Mike said bitterly as he finished reloading his rifle and shook his head.
“Didn’t have to be this way.” Joe frowned at the sky.
He took off his camouflage windbreaker and grimaced at the twin tears through its back. Fuck. This jacket was comfortable.
Joe moved over to Mike and whispered in his ear.
“You serious?” Mike raised his eyebrows.
Joe nodded.
“Glad you’re on our side,” Mike remarked.
Another sizable group of teens approached, but this time their empty hands were raised. Contrary to the savage expressions they wore before the melee, most of what Joe witnessed now was a ragtag group of high school and college kids with eyes radiating fear and discomfort.
Shit. Something’s wrong.
But what made Joe narrow his eyes was the trio of tall young men at the back of that group, whose hands were hidden behind the kids in front of them. They wore sad expressions, but their eyes shone with thinly-veiled contempt and excitement.
“Don’t try it, kids. Too many have died already.” Joe rested his hand atop his empty, holstered weapon.
One of the men abruptly raised his hands in the air, and the other two followed suit. A second later, small-caliber rifle fire rang out from the direction of the burned Monarch butterfly grove. A bullet struck Joe in his right shoulder, and panicked screams erupted around him.
Joe grunted, healing himself as he found traction on a relatively dry patch of ground and accelerated with inhuman speed toward the shooter, surprising even himself.
A wicked smile bloomed across the rifleman’s face as a puff of smoke exited his barrel. A second round struck Joe in the chest, causing him to stagger and nearly lose his footing. He coughed up some blood, but healed himself again as he continued running.
Pistol and rifle fire sounded from behind Joe, and he scowled.
The gunman’s vicious grin gave way to a look of abject fear as he fought with an apparent jam in his rifle’s bolt. Joe bore down on that man’s position like a charging Rhinoceros.
Less than three seconds after combat began, Joe had crossed what felt like a considerable distance to reach the shooter. The man panicked and dropped his rifle to dive sideways out of Joe’s path, but Joe corrected his own trajectory and leaped to intercept.
With a mighty heave, Joe slammed his left foot into the man’s chest. He felt and heard ribs crushing as the man’s fearful voice was silenced and his body folded in half, as it accelerated with the force behind Joe’s boot.
Joe felt the new power recover inside him as he tumbled out of control, arcing through the air toward the muddy bog behind the shooter’s position. More shots rang out from above as he splashed into the mud, then slid and rolled to a stop against the opposite bank of the quagmire.
After righting himself, wiping the mud from his face, and clawing his way up the embankment to run back, Joe found Mike laying with his rifle aimed toward the UCSC building near the writhing bodies of Siobhán, Joy, Michael, Emmanuel and Rihelah. All of them were bleeding—even Mike.
The group who’d approached just before the shooting began had scattered, with most of the kids cowering on the ground or running away, but Mike had killed the three men who signaled for the attack.
When Joe slid to a stop to lay hands on his fallen friends, a reedy baritone voice called out contemptuously from the direction of the UCSC building, “You’re fucking dead, big man! Gonna shoot you all as many times as it takes!”
“Stay down,” Mike hissed after another volley of bullets smacked into and ricocheted off the mud around them.
Joe crawled prone among his stricken friends to heal them as quickly as he could.
One round had passed through the lower-right portion of Rihelah’s chest, and Michael was hit in both legs. A bullet had also grazed Michael’s right cheek.
Joy had been stabbed, with another spear protruding through her left calf, but she hadn’t been shot. Joe pulled it out and healed her before reaching Emmanuel. He had four gunshot wounds in his legs and groin, and Siobhán had been hit three times in her abdomen.
Siobhán panicked and sat up at the sight of Joe after she was healed.
“No,” Joe pushed her back down. “It’s not safe yet!”
She trembled and nodded sideways at him.
The shooter continued making noise until Mike squeezed a single round off.
The laughing and the shooting stopped, replaced by swearing. Two more bullets whizzed by to their left before a third struck Siobhán’s leg and she screamed in pain. Joe healed her again, blinking in disbelief when he saw the bullet squeeze itself out from where it had entered before the wound closed.
He crawled to Mike, who’d been shot multiple times through his legs. Joe laid a hand lightly against Mike’s shoulder, feeling another chunk of his inner power leave him while his friend’s wounds knit.
Mike looked surprised, but kept his eyes glued to their targets, and whispered, “Holy shit, Schimpf!”
Bullets continued smacking into the mud around them, and Joe saw red.
“Cover me, Master Guns. I’m about to get stupid.”
Grabbing a discarded spear, Joe took off like a human cannonball toward the UCSC building while the others regained their feet.
“Schimpf! Three targets remain active! Everyone else stay the fuck down,” Mike yelled.
Two heads popped up from behind a cement road-work barricade in the UCSC building’s parking lot. A man with sandy blond hair grinned wickedly at Joe while aiming his rifle toward him. Another shot sounded behind Joe. Blood sprayed the blond man’s face from his black-haired partner, who took a bullet in the head.
One down.
“Fuck!” Joe heard fear creeping into the reedy voice that almost seemed to come from the burned-out building as he neared his target’s position. A horrid reek of sewage and death wrinkled Joe’s nose as he continued to run.
Joe was already there by the time that blond head popped up again. He leaped to clear the barricade, then slammed the long, rough spear down through the left side of the shocked man’s torso as he sailed overhead, feeling the wooden shaft bend and shudder in his hand as it stabbed through tissue and splintered against bone.
A ragged scream followed behind Joe as his momentum carried him beyond his impaled foe.
Two down. Now, where’s the third?
Returning as quickly as he could to the shooter’s side, Joe kicked the weapons away and went to ground beside the stricken man, grabbing him by his blond hair.
“Where is he? I know there’s one more shooter! Talk now, if you want to live,” Joe told the trembling man, whose only response was to cough a bit of blood onto Joe’s chest.
Three quick rifle shots sounded from the building’s entrance, and Joe felt a stinging pain erupt across the outside of his right cheek.
Oh, fuck off! Joe threw the blond man out from behind the barricade like a sack of potatoes.
While repositioning himself to find cover away from the enemy who’d just shot at him, Joe healed the wound in his cheek and felt more of his inner power drain away.
The man he’d tossed aside shuddered one final time, and Joe felt some swirling energy recover inside of him.
It recharges when… I kill people? What the hell kind of healing power is this?
Joe pinched the bridge of his nose in frustration.