Chapter Three: American Heroes

Mike's eyes popped open. He had heard something but he wasn't sure exactly what. As his mind awakened, he listened closely. At first all he heard was Ryan's soft breathing. But then he picked up something else. A soft footstep. Then another. Maybe it's a deer. He silently crept over to the window and peeked out. What he saw turned his blood to ice. A Russian soldier was just outside, advancing slowly on the barn. He could barely make the man out in the hazy dawn. Frozen, Mike watched the man signal to his comrades who appeared out of the fog, heading for the barn door. Shit!

"Ryan, Jacob!" Mike whispered, "guys, they're here!" His friends reached for their weapons. A loud banging sound make his heart skip a beat. The barn door rattled as they tried to force it open.

"Now what?" Ryan said, his eyes darted all over the place, searching desperately for another way out. But there wasn't one. They were trapped. The Russians would kill all of them. Mike crept down the ladder, hiding behind an ATV. He took aim at the door. He was going to shoot as many of them as he could before they got him. He looked behind him as Ryan ducked behind a tractor. Jacob was gone.

Suddenly, the door swung upward. Mike saw two Russian soldiers step inside. He took aim and pulled the trigger. The AK jumped in his hands. The soldier fell in his tracks. He fired another burst. He heard swearing in Russian as the soldiers dropped out of sight. Mike saw one of them toss something inside, a cylindrical object.

"Close your eyes!" A blinding flash filled the barn, a deafening bang followed. Dazed, Mike was deaf and blind even though his eyes had been closed. His world rang and rang. He felt strong hands grab him and drag him out of the barn. Two more soldiers had grabbed Ryan, who resisted but he was no match for the soldiers.

Mike and Ryan were dragged out into the backyard. The soldiers held them motionless. Mike fought but the men simply tightened their grips. A Russian officer stepped forward, staring at them with contempt. Mike stared back. The man smiled coldly.

"They're little boys! Is this all they have to fight us with?" The officer laughed. He reached out and stroked Mike's cheek. He shuddered.

"Don't touch him!" Ryan shouted. The officer smirked. In a flash, he punched Ryan in the face. Mike struggled as hard as he could but the soldiers held him in a vise grip. They would pay for this!

"Americans seem to have no problem with murdering children!" Said the Russian officer. He rounded on Mike again. "Let's kill a couple of theirs. Your poor mothers will miss you. Just as Russian mothers are now missing their own children. Children you murdered!"

Their hands were tied behind their backs. Mike and Ryan were stood up against the barn door. The soldiers stood in a line, rifles at the ready. Strangely Mike felt completely calm. He wasn't afraid of dying. He wasn't afraid of anything. Ryan glared at the soldiers, fighting the rope binding his hands. Where the hell is Jacob? Did they already kill him?

"Any final words for your mothers?" The officer said laughing.

"Go to hell!" Mike shouted. The officer raised his arm. Mike shut his eyes tight. He thought of Mom and Dad, of Benny. I want Mom!

A shot rang out. Mike tensed every muscle in his body. The pain never came. Slowly, Mike opened his eyes. Another shot rang out. Another. The Russian officer was dead and so were two of his men. A third fired off a burst into the wheat field. Another shot rang out and the man fell to the ground. What? How?

Jacob stood up in the middle of the field. A pleased smile on his face. He quickly rushed over to where his friends were standing and began to untie them.

"You sneaky son of a bitch!" Ryan laughed.

"How did you do that without them seeing you?" Mike asked. Jacob smiled and handed Mike his AK back.

"The advantage of being small," Jacob said, "people only see me if I want them to."

Mike was about to respond when gunfire exploded from the road. Another group of Russians were running their way. The boys ran into the field. Bullets cracked and popped all around them. Jacob tripped but quickly got back up. Mike pointed to the tree line. The boys ran zigzag style to throw off their aim, ducking into the thick woods, dropping into a ditch. No pursuit came. Mike held his breath and listened. No footsteps. No gunfire.

"I think we lost them," Mike said. Jacob nodded and slowly stood up, swaying back and forth like he was drunk. "Bro, you okay?"

"I-I-don't feel very good." Mike's eyes widened as he noticed blood covering the front of Jacob's shirt. Jacob collapsed to the ground, face white as a sheet.

"Oh shit, dude!" Ryan said. He rushed over and pressed on Jacob's chest, trying to stanch the blood flow. But more of it kept coming. Mike hurriedly rifled through the backpack, looking for anything they could use as a bandage. Nothing. Damn it! What do I do? Blood oozed from Jacob's mouth and his face grew whiter. He shivered.

"Guys...you're my...best...best...friends..." Jacob's eyes glazed over and slowly closed. He stopped breathing and lay perfectly still. For a very long moment Ryan and Mike just sat there, staring at their friend. Mike searched for a pulse. None. He tried CPR but it was very clear that Jacob was gone. Mike sat numbly, unable to process what happened. Jacob couldn't be dead. This kind of thing wasn't supposed to happen!

"Mike, dude, we gotta go," Ryan whispered, "they'll keep looking for us. We gotta go now."

Mike stared at him. "We can't leave him here."

"We'll come back for him, okay?' Ryan said, "come back and bury him. Right now we have to leave."

Mike barely remembered the walk out of the forest. The whole rest of the day seemed like a bad dream. But he couldn't wake up. His best friend in the whole world was gone. Just gone. What was he supposed to feel? He didn't feel a thing. It's all the stress, it'll hit me later on.

By evening, Mike and Jacob were walking along a dirt road, hiding in the woods a lot to avoid Russian vehicles. It looked like another night in the woods was very likely when he once again heard the sound of a vehicle approaching. More than one it sounded like. He and Ryan flattened themselves in the ditch, hugging the wet ground. The vehicles stopped. Soldiers got out. Mike readied his AK.

"It's all right boys, we're Americans!" A voice said. Mike slowly looked up. Half a dozen American soldiers stood over them. They helped Mike and Ryan out of the ditch. A man with friendly blue eyes wearing sergeant's stripes shook their hands.

"Sergeant Elias Rayburn, 29th Infantry Division," he said, "what are you boys doing out here in the middle of a damn war?"

Mike introduced himself and Ryan. He was relieved beyond words. At least he and Ryan were safe now, in the hands of the military. They spilled the whole story to the soldiers, including about Jacob's death. Sergeant Rayburn squeezed Mike's shoulder.

"It'll be okay, son, we'll recover his body and see to a burial. Right now, we've got to get you guys to the evac site a few klicks from here. Your folks are probably worried sick right now." Mike and Ryan hopped into the Humvee and were driven away.

"What's going on out there, sergeant?" Ryan asked, "are we winning?"

"We've driven Ivan back to DC, holding the line but I don't know for how long," Rayburn said with a sigh. "Don't worry kids, we'll kick the Russians all the way back to Moscow if we have to."

The Humvees reached the evac point at what used to be the Riverside Shopping Mall but was now surrounded by heavily armed soldiers, snipers on the roof and machine gun nests at all the entrance points. Helicopters and jets roared over head. Lines of worried civilians waited for the next helicopters out of the area. Even over the noise of panicked voices and helicopter rotors, Mike tensed as he heard the distant booms and thuds of heavy weapons fire. Ivan was coming.

Sergeant Rayburn hustled Mike and Ryan inside the mall and up to the roof just as an enormous CH-47 Chinook settled down to land, the aircraft was nearly the size of Mike's house. The doors flung open and soldiers began shouting orders to the civilians, loading them into the chopper. Rayburn grabbed Mike by the arm. "Give me your names and numbers, I'll make sure they get forwarded so your folks can find you."

Mike and Ryan told him and he hustled them into the chopper just as the door swung shut again. The pilots took off right away. Mike looked out the window as the mall fell away beneath them. In the distance he saw red flashes lighting up the night. A fresh fireball plumed into existence behind the trees. I hope those people get out.

"Hey!" Mike called, "where are we going?" The pilot glanced back at him.

"Upstate New York!" he shouted over the rotor noise, "away from Ivan."

Mike settled back on the hard bench next to Ryan. His friend smiled in relief and Mike smiled back sadly. All he could think about was Jacob still laying in the woods all alone. Why did it have to be Jacob? Why? Mike, Ryan and Jacob had been best friends since they could talk. They'd gotten into loads of trouble and had even more fun together. It's not fair! Ryan patted Mike's back and he nodded. I just want Mom.

"Holy shit!" The pilot hollered. Mike looked up just as a blinding light filled the interior of the chopper. He shut his eyes. It was like looking at the sun. He blinked hard. The engines stopped. Inside the Chinook it was deathly silent. The pilots shouted instructions to each other. Mike's stomach dropped. They were falling. What in the hell?

"What's happening?" Ryan shouted. People began yelling and screaming. The Chinook plummeted from the sky like a stone. Mike watched the ground rush up to meet them.

"Mayday! Mayday! Mayday! Echo 2-1 is going down!" The pilot screamed. The chopper filled with screaming and praying. Then it all went silent and black.

Mike's head throbbed. His entire body hurt. He forced open his eyes and shut them again. The light was too bright. He could hardly move. He could hear voices and footsteps. More voices. Hands touched him. Mike opened his eyes again. He was staring at a white ceiling. The kind with those little squares. He was lying on a bed of some kind. How odd. I was in a Chinook, how am I here?

"Doctor, he's awake," a familiar voice said. Mike turned his head. The effort was nearly enough to make him sick to his stomach. Ryan appeared in his field of view. He smiled in relief, one arm wrapped in a sling.

"Yo Mikey," Ryan said, "bout time you woke up, you lazy ass." A woman walked over to him, smiling warmly. She wore a doctor's coat over her Army uniform. She looked beyond tired.

"Hi Mike," she said, "I need you lay still, honey. You may have a concussion, okay?" The doctor started examining him. Mike took a deep breath. Then another.

"What am I doing here?" the doctor shined a light in Mike's eyes. He blinked.

"You remember the Chinook?" Ryan asked, "the crash?"

Mike nodded, though he almost threw up from doing so.

"You have a concussion and a fractured wrist from that crash," the doctor said, "you're friend here broke his arm. You both got extremely lucky. Only five people survived including you guys."

"There was a light...a flash"

"Fox News says it was an EMP," Ryan said, "electromagnetic pulse, or something. A nuke went off in the upper atmosphere-"

"A nuke?" Mike exclaimed. Ryan patted his friend's shoulder.

"It's okay, they said it was some kind of malfunction that launched it, I think," Ryan said. Mike laid back on the cot.

"How long?" Mike asked.

"Two days, bro," Ryan said, "I was so worried you'd never wake up. We're at a field hospital in New York."

"Did we win?" Mike was afraid to hear the answer. How many more people had died?

"That EMP thing kicked Ivan's ass!" Ryan said, "it took out his aircraft and heavy weapons. We pushed 'em all the way to New York City."

"Good!" Mike smiled as relief filled his whole body. It was going to be okay now. All he needed was to find Mom and Dad and Benny. The next few days were a blur. Mike slept a lot. The doctor said he was getting better every day. Ryan never left his side, helping him out of the cot on day three. Mike was still weak but he could manage to walk around the room and down the hallway.

Fox News reported that the Russian forces had been pushed out of New York City and were in full retreat. The enemy's commanding general had committed suicide rather than surrender. A note by his body simply read 'for Zakhaev!' For all intents and purposes, the war was over.

Just as Mike was eating some soup, Mom and Dad walked in. They all embraced and cried in relief. Ryan ran to hug his own parents, flashing Mike a thumbs-up sign. Everything was going to be all right now. It was over. Mom touched the bandage wrapped around Mike's head. He winced.

"What happened?" she said. Mike smiled and shrugged.

"It's okay, I've had worse," Mike said. A sharp barking sound made Mike's heart stop. He knew that bark. Benny ran over to him, barking wagging his tail happily. Mike carefully bent down to pet him. The dog looked none the worse for wear.

"The Army found him yesterday," Dad said, "he was hiding inside an empty house." Mike laughed as Benny licked him right in the face. It really was going to be all right now.

They ended up staying in a replacement house a few towns over until their own house was rebuilt. Mike and Ryan stuck together like brothers during that time, not wanting to be too far apart from each other. Jacob was buried in a beautiful ceremony complete with a gun volley salute and a folded American flag. He was an American hero now. Mike Ryan and Jacob were awarded the ROTC heroism medal by Sergeant Rayburn and the commander of the Virginia National Guard.