Against the Grain by Ian Daniels

when Paul walked up. He looked a little worse for wear when he came up in the middle of me searching their bodies. The human body holds about one and a half gallons of blood, and when you die from blood loss, it means that the majority of that blood is now outside the body.  
    Finding nothing useful besides their weapons, I turned to him.
    “How many did you see at your house?”
    “Four... I think.” His face was more of a gray color then his typical pasty white, maybe with a little green mixed in.
    “You think?”
    “They were close together and behind the bushes in my yard. Once they started shooting, I got the hell out of there.”  
    “Yeah I’d have done the same thing. Did you see any backpacks or anything else with them?” I questioned him again.
    “Sorry, I saw ‘em, they shot, I ran,” he managed.
    “Alright. Get back to the house and bring Nick and Breanne some radios back out here. Nick is up in that cluster of rocks over there,” I said, pointing out Nick’s hiding spot and handing him the now unloaded guns that the two dead guys had been using. “Here, take these to the house too.”  
    I did a once over of my own gear, making sure everything was still in its place, then I climbed the rest of the hill to where Breanne was crouched, and knelt down beside her.  
    “Okay this isn’t over yet. I’m going to go to Paul’s and see if I can find out if there is one more guy or not. He’s going to bring a radio up to you. I’ll call in and let you know what I find. Got it?”
    “You’re going alone?” Breanne asked me.
    “Yeah. You saved my ass with these two, but I’ll be alright alone on this one. If I call in though, move your butt to give me a hand.”
    “Alright, be care…”
    “I’m good to go,” I cut her off and started moving.
    I was not good to go. This was freaking stupid. I was basically waiting to walk into an ambush after all the noise we had just made, and I had no clue of how many, or where, any other bad guys might be. All this with virtually no discernible back up whatsoever… not a good plan.
    I took nearly a half hour to move the long way around and come to a spot where I could clearly see Paul and Michelle’s house. It was a nice little manufactured home with a deck, detached garage, chicken coop and a nice yard beyond that. It was a pretty nice little place, and a pain in the ass with way too many angles, corners, and hiding spots if I had to search and clear it on my own.  
    Laying down at the edge of the field on the side of the property about three hundred yards away from the house, I was using my scope to try and see if it was safe or not. I had chosen this side on purpose, the morning sun was still coming up over the top of me and anyone looking this way would have to battle the bright rays piercing their eyes.  
    The sound of a door slamming closed gave me a direction to look in. It was hard to pin point from where I was and as I was just zeroing in on the garage area, the shape of a man emerged.
    I never could figure out how when so many people were starving in the world today, that there were still fat people around. He seemed quite at ease, surveying the garage, waddling around through the little fenced yard. This group must have done this type of thing before and he guessed that all the shots were from his guys taking down the owner that they had surprised. That was one big ASSumption , I laughed to myself.
    The fat guy started to go toward the front door to the house and I decided that he was not going to be going inside. I lined up carefully and fired. The (finally!) suppressed shot flew right into and back out of his huge left butt cheek. I really hadn’t wanted to blow his femur apart, and got lucky on the very small difference in shot placement from this distance. Either way, this guy was going to be talking.
    Biggie tried to waddle-run away, but stumbled after just a few steps. I slowly moved back from where I had been laying and came around to