Fiction - Part XII - Berserker

The roar of a shotgun in close quarters deafened him even though he was in the basement. One dog was yelping, and Natog heard the dog retreat into the in-law apartment. The shotgun fired several more times, alternating with kicks and grunts. Grabbing his vest, he pulled it on and grabbed his M1A and the shotgun. Cautiously climbing the stairs he could hear someone working on the door with a tool. As Natog stuck his head around the corner, just enough to get an eyeball on to what was going on he heard someone try to open the front door, and gave it a few more kicks.

Natog just about jumped out of his skin when the door to the back started to be kicked in a few feet behind him. Natog lay there sweating and freaking out as they worked on the doors for a few minutes then stopped. He heard a whistle, then the crunch of people running on snow, then the roar of an engine with accompanying squealing tires. Cautiously, he made his way around the inside of the house. No one got in.

The door was smashed and had several holes blown through it near the doorknob. Natog gasped as he looked on the floor. Twisted in the braces holding the door up was Loki. Half of Loki’s head was missing. He evidently caught a slug as the attackers tried to blow open the door.

Hearing panting in the in-law apartment, Natog walked in to see Thor lying on his side in a pool of blood, his right leg dangling at an obscene angle from his wrecked shoulder. He was looking at Natog with sad eyes, and bubbles of blood were frothing from his mouth.

“My poor boy!” Natog collapsed onto his knees, pulling Thor close to him. Examining the wound revealed the slug had torn through Thor’s upper chest, his left lung was punctured, and most of the ribs on that side were shattered. Blood was everywhere. Thor’s shattered body would be unable to be healed, so all Natog could do for him was to provide the final mercy for him. Pulling his pistol from its holster Natog hugged Thor a final time, and then put a .45 caliber JHP through the back of his skull.

Returning to the top of the stairs, he recovered his shotgun and wondered what to do next. Squatting on top of the stairs, he began to cry, with heavy tears streaming down his face then dripping off his chin to spash on the threshold to his apartment.

He heard a car engine in the distance. Listening, he slung the M1A over his shoulder, and clutched the 12 gauge to his chest. As the car got closer, he wiped the tears away, and took cover. Natog could see car lights play across his yard and then shine intensely through the wrecked door. Raising the shotgun, he shouldered the weapon, with it’s barrel leveled at the ruined door. Something was punched through the glass, and the engine revved and tires squealed as the door exploded into kindling.

They say there are three kinds of anger. You can be “everyday” angry, anger in the heat of passion, and then there was angry enough to be enraged, a mindless slave to your psychotic anger.

There is actually a fourth level of anger, the Berserker. You gain the strength of the adrenaline, the pain resistance of the endorphins, but you mind is that of a predator. You become a killing machine. Natog became a Berserker this night.

The headlights were left on, providing a perfect backlight to see targets by. A large form filled the doorway and Natog put the bead of the shotgun on his chest and squeezed the trigger. He then quickly pumped the shotgun, tracking at waist height putting a slug or buckshot every eight inches along the wall where the next thug would be waiting. Six rounds later Natog dropped the shotgun and ducked behind the wall. Unslinging the rifle, he belly crawled towards the bedrooms, his mind a white fury.

As he crawled, automatic gunfire ripped through the house, as several assault rifles were emptied through the house. Natog could see the muzzle flash of two of them, one from the hallway, the other from outside the home by the door he just shot through. Natog crawled into the hallway beside the bathroom, and then turned around. He could hear several voices screaming and weapons being reloaded. It seemed like an eternity, but finally he could see the tactical lights shine as men entered his house. Counting to five, Natog fired several shots at waist height along the wall separating the kitchen from the outer hallway. Pulling the weapon down to ankle height, he fired about 10 more at ankle level across where the hallway would be. He shimmied back as he emptied the rifle randomly. Once empty he twisted and flopped into the guest bedroom, landing on his back. Bursts of gunfire erupted again through the house.

While the thugs were putting holes in his wallpaper, he popped out the empty mag, and slapped in a new one. He wouldn’t have much time as the house was small. Rolling up into a crouch, Natog quietly clicked in the stops that prevented the window from going up more than a few inches, and slid the window open, then tried to dive through it. He got most of the way out. He carried his mags on his belly, and they got hung up trying to get out. Twisting, he made it out the window, but landed on his head, flopping over to his side. He was wedged with his back to the foundation, and his belly into a bush he had for landscaping.

Thankfully, he didn’t break his fool neck and his rifle was still gripped by his right hand, lying along his body. Lifting it, he placed the muzzle along the sash between the two windows.
A tactial light lit up the night as someone yelled “Fuck! He’s getting away!

Like a praying mantis, Natog waited. Waited like cancer. Natog was a glacier, grinding the world with his slow will. In what seemed like minutes a muzzle, then a hand, then a head stuck out the window, as the figure swung left to search for Natog he swung the muzzle from where it was hidden, and put it under the thug’s chin. Squeezing the trigger the .308 kicked down hard, right into Natog’s neck, but the reward was a headless torso slumping down in the window.

Gunfire erupted from the room, and Natog was showered in debris as the bullets popped through the house wall. Natog coolly noted that the thug was panicking. Since Natog was below the interior floor, and had a cement wall at his back, he was quite safe for the moment. Looking around, he could see two figures walking towards a pickup truck on his front yard. One was leaning on the other heavily, and was obviously wounded in the leg. The truck was half on his lawn, with a thick rope trailing from the bumper to the remnants of his front door.

He could hear a racket going on inside the house still, but no gunfire. Disentangling himself from the shrub, he skirted the edge of the house, ducking around the far corner from the pickup. Using the shade provided from the corner of the house, he circled the huge forsythia bush separating his yard from his neighbors. Once around the bush, he had a clear arc of fire around his yard, but no cover. Quickly, felt around for a rock on the edge of the road. Grabbing a chunk of asphalt, he chucked it as hard as he could through the bedroom window 50 feet away.

The man with the wounded leg was allowed to slump unceremoniously behind the truck’s door as the other released him and spun bringing up his carbine. Another burst of gunfire echoed from the house, the muzzle flash visible from the living room. The thug by the truck started firing into the bedroom, as he could see where his buddy was firing. Natog calmly put the front post on the driver’s side window where the man’s chest would be and squeezed off two rounds. The effect was immediate, his carbine began to drop from his hands, as he slumped against the door. A third shot from Natog caught him in the top of the forehead.

Running as fast as he could, he rushed to the left, circling across the street. The thug with the wounded leg was screaming, not for anyone in particular, just a primal scream of rage and fear. He was on the other side of the pickup truck from Natog, so for the moment, he wasn’t a threat. Natog crouched across the street, at the base of a tree, using it for cover. Gulping air, but trying to do it quietly, Natog tried to steady himself. He was still filled with the while fury, and a cold thought entered his mind. He had to have no survivors, no witnesses. Natog did a quick tactical reload, dropping the half empty mag into a drop pouch on his vest. Sighting down the barrel of the M1A, he put the post on the chest of the wounded man trying to climb into the cab of the truck.

Before he pulled the trigger, he realized all shots would need to be through the front of the thugs, preferably with brass around them to show they were active participants. Without conscious thought he had assembled a profile on these thugs. Although they were trained, they were not combat veterans or SWAT. Likewise, other than the initial assault squad, they haven’t worked or trained together. These were all advantages for Natog.

Although he never received official training with firearms, the training to overcome the flight or fight reflexes and move under fire were honed across dozens of paintball fields. The proper use of cover was extremely important in paintball, and “slicing the pie” was second nature to him.

Illuminated perfectly by the trucks headlights, a thug in all black web gear bolted from his home, and crouch-walked to the front of the truck swinging his weapon wildly from side to side. Natog grabbed the quickest thing to throw, a loaded mag from his vest, and tossed it into the woods to the right. The thug walking from the house swung the weapon to where the mag landed and triggered the tactical light and a few rounds from his weapon. The front post was already on his chest, so Natog squeezed the trigger, pulled the post back onto his chest and fired again. The form crumpled face first before Natog could put a round into his head.

Rushing the truck, the man with the wounded leg by the truck was trying to pull a sidearm from his vest. Slowing his pace, he waited until the weapon was fully from the holster before firing two rounds into the thug’s chest followed by a third round into his left eye.

Using the door of the pickup for cover he did another tactical reload, dropping that mag into the drop pouch. Surveying the situation, there was another thug laid out by the entrance to his house. Keeping his rifle trained on the body he reached down with his left hand and verified the thug he just shot had no pulse. Picking up the weapon by the barrel, he tossed it in the back of the truck. He then did the same for the other thug by the pickup, tossing both his pistol and carbine in the back of the truck.

He then covered the thug by the door, and approached cautiously, keeping his weapon trained on the body. He quickly pulled the carbine off of the form and tossed it into a shrub on the side of the house. This one was still alive. Rolling him onto his back, Natog got his first clear look at the thug. The face was covered with a ski mask, but blood was bubbling from the mouth and nose holes. Roughly pulling the ski mask off, he saw it was one of the two officers from the other day. He coughed violently, with fresh blood coming from both his nose and mouth.

He was trying to say something, mouthing some words. “Who are you?” finally came out with a grimace of pain.

Looking down at the officer, Natog replied “For I am Shiva, the Destroyer of Worlds.”

Checking quickly, he saw that the rifle plate stopped both shotgun slugs, but at the expense of breaking almost all of the officer’s ribs. The blood and coughing meant at least one lung was punctured, and he was bleeding internally. He couldn’t last long, and wouldn’t be a threat. Getting up, Natog cleared his house quickly and efficiently.

He collected the empty magazine from the bedroom and dropped it into his pouch. He gathered the headless thug’s weapons and tossed them into the back of the truck. As he walked back into the house by the thug the man gave a shudder and wheezed his last breath into the January night.

Retrieving the shotgun, he stashed them it in his hidden cache along with his pistol, M1A and combat vest. His cache was a space between the sheetrock of the back of the laundry chute and the chimney that was impossible to find.

He was beginning to shake violently. The hormone cocktail of massive amounts of adrenaline and endorphins exacted a heavy toll when the high wore off. Feeling lightheaded, Natog went out front to get some air, and walked straight into a face full of muzzles for .01 seconds before being thrown violently to the ground and handcuffed. Shortly thereafter with cops screaming in his ear he puked his guts out.