ANOTHER DayZ Short Story: The Bambi Rescue Crew Part 2: Socialism and Wild Animals

[applejaxc 2500]

This is part two. Make sure you read part one first.

The bambi, scared little bugger that he was, ran outside before he could be stopped. Bowie met me at the door. We ran out and around the corner quickly. I see a man running out the back of the store. The van stopped...they've seen him. Going ho-

"Wait! Keep your safety on. Let us deal with this, Pocket."

Roger. Our little deer friend just jumped behind a dumpster. he appears unarmed.

"Alright."

Bowie and I came to the back of the Home Depot and hit at the corner. I peaked around slowly. The SUV, originally black, was striped in greens and browns and blacks. Frankly I didn't think it'd blend into the broad side of a tree any better than I could. The windows had metal bars bolted over them, with gun-ports protruding. A not-very-friendly rifle barrel stuck out the rear right window, aimed at the dumpster. The passenger got out, a thin man in a black trench coat, holding a Kalashnikov.

I looked at Bowie, and he looked at me. "I don't think we can win this one..." he mumbled.

"We can't let the guy die... can we? That car can easily hold ten people, and there's only three people to fight it. And even then, we'd be lucky if the guy we're trying to save didn't freak out and shoot us in the back."

"Aye... what the hell?" Bowie's face transformed into an expression of awe and wonder. I looked over my shoulder and saw K-Bar walking along the roof of the other end of the Home-Depot, holding a fireman's axe in one hand and an Uzi in the other. "Those guys don't stand a chance."

The First Socialist Partyman took a step towards the dumpster. "Come on friend. We will not hurt you. Are you hungry? Is that why you are here? We have food."

A little head poked out from behind the dumpster. "I..."

Some car doors slammed. Three more people got out of the SUV. They were similarly armed and dressed. I felt a bit bad, their uniforming being a heavy jacket in the middle of summer. "...d-do you have g-good food?"

"Oh yes. We have good food. Why don't you come out of there?" The ringleader and his henchmen walked closer to the dumpster. "We promise we're friendly. We've even got room in our car for you."

I wished the bambi had listened to me when I said that, instead of wasting our time and bullets running outside like an idiot. What made the man in the big trench coat holding a big gun anymore friendly looking than me?!

He crawled out from behind the dumpster and smiled weakly. He looked like he hadn't eaten in at least two days. His smiled fell when the kalashnikov was raised, and pointed at his chest. "Now take your clothes off. We don't want any bullet holes in our stuff."

K-Bar dropped from the roof onto the dumpster, bringing his axe down with all the momentum gravity would give him. It landed in the leader's shoulder, nearly severing his arm. A burst from the Uzi in the chest finished him. Probably scared out of their lacky witts, the three others scattered and ran from cover. One took another burst in the calf and collapsed behind a rusted car. I looked at Bowie, and told him to go around and take the man on the far side. He moved without hesitation. I pulled the slide back on my Glock and popped around the corner in time for a third burst to catch and kill No-Calf.

K-Bar jumped off the dumpster and dove behind it. The car gunner opened fire, loud and rhythmic. I stayed out of the gunner's sight, hoping the dumpster and its trash could stop a bullet.

I heard the distinctive bang! of a slug, and the usual scream that accompanied it. It's timing couldn't have been worse; I snuck up right behind asshole #3 before Bowie fired. In surprise, he whirled around to see what had made the noise, looking right at me. Instead of the stealthy, knife-in-the-neck-because-I'm-awesome kill I was going for, I tripped and landed on my back. I wasted six bullets firing blindly before a seventh, eighth, and ninth killed him. "Dammit!"

K-Bar, pinned as he was, wasn't going anywhere. I couldn't see Bowie around the car, which could still be full of gunmen. I quickly reloaded and looped my way behind the car, weaving between the rotted and rusted cars in the back parking lot. I found a tire-iron and threw it as hard as I could at the car's back windshield. The glass shattered, surprising the gunner as much as me. The driver's door opened, and I raised my pistol, expecting to die at the hands of a Soviet rifle, when I heard the bang!-click-bang! of a shotgun's action being cycled and fired.

I joined Bowie at the side of the car when the shooting finally settled down. "You alright?" he asked. I nodded quickly and checked the back windshield. A slug went through the driver's headrest, and another into the gunner. "These fucking Socialists, man. They've got everything," Bowie complained. "I mean, look in here. That machinegun alone would buy us three week's surf and board back at Haven. Eh... go check on K-Bar."

I sighed and nodded again. The dumpster was full of bullet holes. Trash fluttered about in the easy breeze. "You alr-what the hell are you doing?"

The Home-Depot bandi was pushed against the dumpster, being punched in the stomach by the muscle-bound K-Bar.. "Dude, whoa whoa, what the fuck are you doing?"

"This" punch "prick" punch "almost" punch "got" punch "me" punch "killed!" The man fell to his knees, coughing and crying. K-Bar kicked him in the stomach. "Asshole."

"It wasn't his... well, yeah I guess it was his fault. But c'mon man, we're not them." I pointed to the van, and the bodies. "Let him be! It was your choice to jump down."

K-Bar shoot his head and raised his Uzi. "It doesn't have to be this way, man. C'mon." The Uzi went from the crying man to me. The look in K-Bar's eyes... it scared the hell out of me. "Go away, Jaxc. Let me do this."

"No." I raised my pistol. The tiny block of plastic felt like a paperweight compared to the submachine gun in K-Bar's. "We're heroes, dammit. We save people."

"Fuc-" bang!

The last death that day was K-Bar's, with Bowie's last slug. It wasn't a happy day, but we'd killed some bandits and saved a survivor.

At the end of the day, can you ask for anything more than your humanity, and a can of beans?

The Bambi Rescue Crew -1.

[Element47 2481]

nice, easy read. detailed, descriptive writing. i dont like you much, Applej. but i'll be damned if i dont give beans where they are due.

one lil thing irked me - the premise is that the gang is a major player in the region, terrorizing the area. for this, the patrol your protagonists faced seemed too unorganized and noobish. i would have expected them to be more of a challenge. a heavily armed sqaud scared of a single axe-wielding dumpster-jumping maniac? he probably wouldnt have lived to raise his smg after that axe swing.

but overall, i liked it.

Edited April 12, 2013 by e47

[applejaxc 2500]

nice, easy read. detailed, descriptive writing. i dont like you much, Applej. but i'll be damned if i dont give beans where they are due.

one lil thing irked me - the premise is that the gang is a major player in the region, terrorizing the area. for this, the patrol your protagonists faced seemed too unorganized and noobish. i would have expected them to be more of a challenge. a heavily armed sqaud scared of a single axe-wielding dumpster-jumping maniac? he probably wouldnt have lived to raise his smg after that axe swing.

but overall, i liked it.

The First Socialist Party is a pseudo-militaristic organization that, in my story, doesn't have a large foothold in America (Radcliff is in Kentucky, I think); these goons are shadows of the real FSP members in Europe, who (in my version of DayZ) toppled the Yugoslavian government and caused extreme border violence for the Czech Republic a year before the zombie apocalypse became the apocalypse.

Think of it like... Let's say you're in elementary school again. The kid that sits next to you, his parents are super democratic. The kid on the other side has super republican parents. Every day, they argue about have and have-not systems of government. Keep in mind that they're about 10 years old and can't tell red from blue anyway.

So one day you finally get fed up and ask, "Give me three reasons why you support so-and-so candidate." They'll stare at you like idiots for the next half-hour because they don't know what they're talking about.

That's kind of how the American FSP members are. In retrospect, I should have fleshed out the FSP in a story precluding their use in others.