The councilwoman nodded. “Could you take Chauncey and go a street over, then run ahead? I don’t want to get caught by surprise.”
Matt glanced at the retired teacher, who sighed. “I’m too old for running,” he complained. But he took off at a jog for the nearest intersection as Matt hurried to catch up to him. They went fast, outpacing the Aspen Hill residents coming along the street behind them, and before too long they were on the next street running along it, peering anxiously through the yards and across gaps towards the street they’d just left. They made it three blocks without seeing anyone.
He almost missed it, passing along a plank fence running beside the sidewalk they were on. But one of the planks was missing and Matt slowed to peer through it, only to stop dead with ice trickling down his spine.
The yard he was looking into was fenced in on all sides, and along the fence on the opposite side four men were hiding, guns ready.
Razor had been bluffing with his talk of regrouping at the stream south of town. He’d planned to make it look like he was running to lure the residents of Aspen Hill into an ambush. Beside him Chauncey looked through the fence and saw what he saw, then groaned. “Radios,” he muttered. “I knew we should’ve passed out radios before we left! But we didn’t even have enough time to bring extra ammunition for our guns!”
Matt ignored him. He had no idea how close behind him Catherine and her group was. They could be walking into the trap even now. He shoved Chauncey. “Go around the block and see if you can find Catherine.”
Without waiting for a response, or even for the older man to recover his balance, Matt threw back his head and yelled at the top of his lungs. “AMBUSH! Razor’s leading you into an ambush!”
Through the gap in the fence he saw the four thugs curse and whirl towards him. Matt shoved Chauncey’s .45 into the hole and began firing at them, sending them all ducking for cover even though he missed spectacularly.
The retired teacher was still standing next to him. “For the love of-could you have found a way to warn them without giving away our position?” Without waiting for a response he finally bolted for the intersection back the way they’d come to do as Matt had asked. Or maybe just to get away.
Matt turned and ran the other way. Razor had the right idea with flanking, and if everyone’s attention was on Catherine’s group coming up the street, or where Matt had been shouting the next street over, then he might be able to catch someone by surprise. He reached the end of the block, where the fence continued sharply at a 90 degree angle to follow the intersecting sidewalk, and pelted around the corner with his .45 ready to bring to bear on the first target he saw.
In time to see Razor, not three feet away, raise his small caliber pistol to aim at Matt’s face and pull the trigger.
In the eternity that followed Matt heard a click instead of a bang, and in the brief moment where they both stared at each other in surprise he desperately lifted his .45 to shoot the gang leader point blank. He managed to get one shot off, hitting Razor in the hip, before the psycho knocked his .45 out of his hands. With a feral grin the gang leader yanked the straight razor out of his pocket, not even seeming to feel the gunshot he’d just taken, and slashed at him.
Matt fell backwards and time seemed to slow around him as he frantically scrabbled in his coat pocket with his free hand to pull out the bear spray. He probably should’ve reached for the Glock in his waistband instead, but the bear spray was an old familiar habit and in that panicked moment his first instinct.
Razor dove for him, slashing again, and in desperation Matt kicked with both feet and held the man back just long enough to aim the spray and shoot.
A searing pain along his leg told him Razor had got in a cut, but his spray hit home and the gang leader howled and fell off to the side, his weapon flying out of his hands. Matt dropped the spray and went after the shaving razor, even as Razor blindly caught at his legs and pulled Matt down on top of him. The smaller man flailed at him blindly, tearing Matt’s skin with his fingernails, while Matt stretched for all he was worth until his fingers closed around the razor’s handle.
He hunched and twisted, and as Razor stared at him through bloodshot eyes Matt plunged the man’s namesake into his throat.
The gang leader let him go and began thrashing and gurgling in his death throes. Matt scrambled away, not quite believing what had just happened, and went after his .45. His fingers had just closed around the grip when he heard a scream from farther down the street.
“Razor’s dead! They got him!”
Matt heard some yells and cursing from the other side of the fence he stood beside, farther down near the street ahead, then the four members of Razor’s gang he’d seen earlier vaulted over it and fled south down the street, outright running in panic. Without their leader it looked as if the fight was over.
Relieved, he dragged himself to his feet with his pistol clutched in his hand and limped along the sidewalk to follow the thugs and make sure they didn’t stop running until they were well out of town.
He was almost to the street when a knot of Aspen Hill residents burst past him, Catherine in front. The councilwoman whirled towards him, lifting her weapon, and Matt froze, expecting to be the target of friendly fire for the second time in less than fifteen minutes. Luckily she recognized him and stopped. Then her eyes widened as she looked past him to where Razor lay.
“It’s true, he’s dead!” she called, lowering her weapon and rushing towards Matt. She dropped into a crouch, tearing off the sleeve of her shirt to wrap around the deep cut Razor had made just above his knee, and called over her shoulder. “Someone go get Terry and tell him we have wounded, including his brother-in-law! The rest of you keep chasing those monsters out of our town!”
Chapter Eight
Aftermath
The fighting that started so brutally had a grim ending. Some of Razor’s thugs ended up running after their leader died, others got surrounded and fought until the very end or surrendered. More skulked from house to house looting and committing atrocities and then vanished through the outskirts of town when a group was assembled to flush them out.
All in all 31 refugees were killed and 11 wounded, while 7 had been taken prisoner and were being held in the back of the storehouse until the rest of the town could be completely secured and they could be transferred over to the cells beneath the town hall.
Among the townspeople the numbers were nearly reversed, with 26 injured, 14 killed, and dozens unaccounted for who had likely fled the town to escape the fighting. Matt was saddened to learn that three women hadn’t been as fortunate as Sam and Alice, and a dozen more would’ve faced the same fate if their attackers had found the time during the chaos. A small group of teenaged girls had been kidnapped, tied and gagged and kept under guard by a few members of Razor’s gang who ended up running away after his death. If the thugs could be said to have any saving grace, it was that in spite of their barbarity at the very least they’d left the terrified girls unharmed when they fled.
Another sad loss that struck the town hard were the newlyweds Andrew and Kristy Metford, married only a few weeks before the Gulf refineries attack. The town’s defenders going door to door to make sure everyone was all right found the young couple on the couch in their living room, their house one of the first the looters visited. It looked as if neither one had even realized there was any danger until members of Razor’s gang broke through the door and murdered them in cold blood before going on to loot the house.