Recoil

5

People crashed into each other as they fled in blind panic. A couple of kids ran with their arms outstretched, hands flapping, no tension in the wrists. I didn’t know if they were LRA, Sam’s kids or the Nuka mob. They trampled over the bodies piling up across the killing ground and kept running.

I fired another burst. The barrel sizzled in the rain.

I squeezed again. Nothing.

Stoppage!

Still holding the belt of link in my left hand, butt in the shoulder, I pulled back on the cocking handle. There was no time for proper stoppage drills. I just squeezed the trigger again and the working parts travelled forward, taking the handle with them, spraying out the mud that had been drawn into the feed tray by the dirty link.

I only got off another couple of rounds before it happened again.

I pulled back the working parts once more and fired, my target still anything that moved and carried.

My ears were ringing, but I could hear the clink of empty cases as they tumbled on to each other in the mud.

The LRA were definitely moving back, but I carried on firing. The last of the link disappeared into the gun, then the working parts went forward and stayed there.

Out of ammo.

I pulled back to recock, dropped the weapon off the shoulder, squeezed the two lugs on the sides of the top cover with my right thumb and forefinger and pushed it up. It was second nature: I’d been doing these drills since I was sixteen.

I pulled one of the lengths of mud-drenched link from round my neck. Gripping it about five rounds down from the end, with the link showing on top, I flicked it over the back of my hand, then over and on to the feed tray. I shoved it just a couple of millimetres to the right until it stopped against the steel lip, slammed down the top cover and hammered it with a clenched fist to make sure the lugs were locked.

I got back into the fire position and fired another burst or two at the last few retreating figures.

Targets were moving out of my arc. Time to move. Thirty seconds and as many paces later, back in the mud and slamming the weapon into my shoulder, I fired a long burst. Tracer arced lazily into the beaten zone.

Fucking hell, I couldn’t believe it.

Another stoppage.

I brought the weapon down, cleared the shit once more as best I could, and used up the rest of the link. As I reloaded, I watched and listened as the last of the LRA left the valley. Their firing stopped abruptly, and seconds later they were in the dead ground at either side of the valley mouth, probably regrouping to work out what the fuck had happened.

I sank on to my chest and lay there, arms draped over the butt, chin on my hands, gasping for breath as the barrel hissed and steamed.

My ears still rang, but I could hear the cries and groans of the injured and dying.

Then there was a loud gasp of collective panic and bodies were running towards the river; miners, women, even some of the old men from Nuka, flapping so much they’d turned into headless chickens. All they wanted to do was flee, and they didn’t stop to work out that they were just seconds behind the LRA.

There was nothing I could do about it.

If they got through, good for them.

But I didn’t give much for their chances.