Free THEM (Season 1): Episode 3 by M.D. Massey

on the wall. I could already see some muzzle flashes and hear the sounds of gunfire from various points around the perimeter.
    Those fools didn’t know it, but they were shooting at ghosts. Before I left, I’d instructed Bobby and Gabby to use some old BDUs we’d found in the airfield supply room and turn them into scarecrows. They probably had a half dozen set up in the tree line around the wall, giving the militiamen something to shoot at while they ran around howling in the night. Assured of the fact that the troops would be occupied for a brief time, I started scanning the compound for my target. Sure enough, it didn’t take long before I spotted the colonel, barking orders in front of one of the quonset huts at the center of the facilities.
    I ran forward and ducked to cover behind the CHUs, peeking around the corner to be sure I had the right range and a clear line to the colonel. Then, I pulled the pin on a frag grenade and let it fly. The explosion sounded off a few seconds later, and as I surveyed the aftereffects, I could see the fat bastard rolling around on the ground, bloodied and crying for help. I decided to finish the job, and took a bead on him with my HK.
    Just as I was about to pull the trigger, I heard a loud voice sound off behind me. “Hey, what the hell are you doing? The wolves are out there!”
    I turned around to see Ratcliff yelling at me from about thirty feet away. Shit . “I just thought I saw one get inside the wall—false alarm.” I cursed my bad luck, and hoped to hell that that Colonel Klink would bleed out before the night was up.
    Then, I ran to where Ratcliff was waiting on me and followed him to the wall. Just as he was climbing up, I slipped my arm around his neck and placed him in a rear-naked choke, applying pressure with my biceps and forearm to the sides of his neck. He struggled, but only for about eight or ten seconds; I released the pressure just a few seconds past the point where his body went limp. Once I’d checked him for a pulse, I set him down gently against the perimeter wall, laying him on his side so he wouldn’t choke or hurt himself when he came to.
    “Sorry, Ratcliff,” I whispered to his still form. When the smoke cleared tomorrow and they figured out what’d happened, I hoped he’d appreciate the fact that I didn’t just kill him and dump his body in the latrine.
    After I’d made sure Ratcliff would wake up with nothing more than a pissed-off disposition, I grabbed my gear from where I’d stashed it earlier and sprinted to an area of the wall that was still unmanned. Checking right and left to make sure no one was watching, I climbed up and slipped off the side, rapidly disappearing into the night. As I entered the relative safety of the tree line, I allowed myself just a moment’s worry about what tomorrow would bring, once these jokers figured out they’d been had. I held a slim hope that they’d think I was killed and carried off in the attack, but with Carter still alive, I doubted the chances of that happening.
    - - -

[9 ]

DIE
    I caught up to Gabby, Bobby, and the doc at a previously agreed-upon rendezvous point about halfway to the Facility. Then, I handed Bobby my ruck and instructed them to stick to a blacktop road until they got back to the Facility and to wait for me there. Once I had them headed back to the Facility, I backtracked to the militia compound in order to throw them off our trail. From what I’d gathered, they didn’t have a competent tracker in the bunch, but I didn’t want to take any chances that they’d find us later on.
    With their commander down and out, I suspected the militia would be in a state of disarray and confusion for a while. Leakey had been too stupid to appoint junior officers, relying on the sergeant major to handle the day-to-day execution of his orders. Without a clear succession in the chain of command, they’d likely be operationally crippled until someone stepped up to take the reins. I suspected