Chapter 1

1st Day...

When they landed they landed with a propagandistic fury that would make Joseph Goebbels swell with delight. Their massive Dreadnaughts in our nations harbors crushing all that we loved. If you dared to look up all your eyes would see were thousands of paratroopers raining down upon you. When they landed they forced you to realize the reality of it, or so I have heard, I have yet to see any. They had hit us in Portland, Bar Harbor, Bath, as well as many other locations. By the end of the first week of the war the Soviet Union controlled the entire Maine coast. It was all a big show of force, that's all it was, a big impressive show of force. The terror came after, after the Dreadnaughts, after the Kirovs, after the show of force.

When they hit Monmouth there had been no slow moving Kirov's coming over the horizon, the sky never filled with paratroopers. Hell we didn't even have the pleasure being awake! They came at night, after we had fallen asleep. None of us wanted to sleep but eventually the body needs rest. My family and I had attempted to hide out in our basement as soon as we heard of the invasion. Taking pills we had managed to stay up for the past five days. We didn't want to be caught sleeping, but fate is full of irony. Not even the pills could keep us awake. We all drifted off on the sixth night of our basement stay, the same night Soviet tanks came crashing through the barricade the police, in desperation, had set up.

I awoke the next morning to the sounds of machine gun fire. With that my muscles involuntarily shot me out of the chair I had been sleeping in. I hate doing things involuntarily, as I am over six feet tall and our basements ceiling is only five feet. The pain was immense, but I still managed to get upstairs. Once again I heard the stutter of machine gun fire, I became very worried. I had seen many a good war movie and the sound of the AK-74 had become etched in my mind, that sound was the same sound I heard now, and this sure as hell was no movie. I ran to the nearest window and looked across the field towards my neighbors house. Soldiers wearing brown trench coats and gas masks were leading my neighbors out into their yard, suddenly the soldiers opened fire. My neighbors, two adults and two children, dropped down like rag dolls being thrown by a pouting child. Suddenly it hit me, where were my parents? I walked out of the room towards the hallway. I then heard some voices in Russian, I took a quick look into the hallway only to see five soldiers leading my parents out of the house. 

As soon as I looked away I heard the now familiar burst of AK-74's, I knew what had happened. By now I had forgotten about my head pains. In desperation I ran into the bathroom and climbed out the window. I landed on the ground with a thud. I ran around the corner of my home towards the tool shed, I kept my bike in there. I figured that if I could make the three miles into the center of town I might find some survivors. I quickly ran into the shed, I was about to mount myself on the bike seat when I heard footsteps coming towards the door. I tiptoed to the tool rack. There before me where wrenches, drills, and hammers of all types. Before I had always thought of them as mere tools, but today they were weapons. Weapons that would save my life. I grabbed my fathers cordless Milwalkee Sawzall. I was planning to carve this son of a gun like a Thanksgiving turkey. This one was gonna be for my parents.

I hid in the shadow as the door slid open, I let the commie bastard step in. At this point my rage meter was in the red. Red for the blood of any Soviet in site. As swiftly as possible I shut the door on the Russian and fired up the Sawzall, using it to tear down his back. He never had a chance to scream, I shoved grease soaked ball bearings in his mouth and forced it down his throat until it was lodged in nice and tight. I then took the Sawzall and made a nice little hammer and sickle in the back of his head, by this time he was definitely dead. I bent down and took the man's rifle and ammunition, as well as his ration pack...I figured I might need it later. Slowly I opened the shed door. Seeing no one I pulled the bike out, slung the rifle and Sawzall onto my back, and began my trek towards Monmouth Center. But first I decided to stop off at Jon Smith's house. Jon wasn't just my cousin, he was the biggest backwoods hick in town. This was a good thing too. Backwoods hicks tend to be nice fellows.

I had been to Jon's house many times before, but never had it taken me as long to get there as it did that first day. I had decided not to take the main road as I figured Soviet patrols would make mincemeat of me, so I started to ride through the wooded area beside the road. This was, I hoped, out of the sights of my new friends. Although I encountered less problems than I expected, I encountered them non the less. The first was my bike; it was a road bike and didn't fare to well off road. Soon all the tires were flat, having been punctured by the brush that littered the ground. My second problem, and definitely the worst of the two, was my encounter with some Red guard dogs and their trainer. As I approached a now abandoned farm house I saw them, two dogs and a soldier. He was dressed in the same garb as the others, brown trench coat and gas mask. I decided to take the dogs out from range. I inserted fresh rounds into my rifle and brought it to my shoulder. When I fired the force of the gun jerked me back;  although I had taken out the dogs my shoulder throbbed with pain, I had never fired a gun this powerful. But I had to put that all aside, the trainer was now charging at me. Once again I pulled the trigger, this time aiming for the brown jacket running at me. The gun clicked; I had emptied the entire clip into the dogs. Now that I look back my next action was pretty stupid. Instead of inserting a new clip I just pulled out the Sawzall. I was prepared to maul this guy, but it didn't start. The Sawzall's battery had been worn down and I didn't have a charger. I ran. It was all I could do; I had an angry and well trained military man running at me with a gun what else could I do? I ran until I neared Jon's house. 

Suddenly a loud shot rang out, I looked back, the Russian was dead. While running I had never gotten a good look at Jon's yard, well I got a good look now. There where dead bodies everywhere, all Russian. Then I turned towards the house, at first I had barley noticed it, but now at second glance I sat there stunned. To the left of Jon's home was a burning Soviet tank, an Apocolypse I think, I couldn't tell as it was heavily torched. Suddenly Jon yelled to me, for a minute I had forgotten where I was, as all I saw was destruction, it didn't seem like his house; but there Jon was standing behind me with rifle slung over his shoulder. Jon spoke, "Well Ryan, its good to see ya, how did you escape the Ruskie sons a bitches without a gun?"


"Well" I said... "I managed to make use of a saw, lets leave it at that."

Jon laughed, "Well would you like to come in? I have some MRE's and some boiling water inside."

I told Jon that food sounded pretty good, then he questioned as to whether or not MRE's were considered food. We got a good laugh out of that then went inside. Sitting down at his kitchen table I asked Jon what happened to the rest of his family. He said that they as with the many others had been gunned down, he had only managed to survive because of his knowledge of sniping. Soon the MRE's were done. We had just begun eating our meals when we heard footsteps outside. Jon tossed me a shotgun.

"Do you know how to use this?" ...Jon whispered.

"Yeah," I said, as I loaded the shotgun and headed towards the door. I never had a chance to open it. A tall man, another Russian, another soldier, busted down the door. Immediately me and Jon let lose our weapons on him, he was down like the Titanic. Almost instantaneously five more Red's appeared, we just reloaded and mowed them over. I could tell Jon had been over this routine many times before, as he just patched up the door and went back to eating his meal. I followed suite. After we finished our dehydrated excuse for a dinner I brought to Jon's attention my plan to head into town to search for survivors and form a band of guerillas. At first he was skeptical, but the realization that staying in this house was suicide soon changed his mind. It was settled. The next morning we would pack up some MRE's, weapons, and ammo and head off to find other "good ole' boys" as Jon put it. Not long after we had come to our decision the two of us declared that it was time to go to bed, but not before checking the trophy Jon had managed to take.

"Jon, how the hell did you destroy that tank?" I asked.

Lightheartedly Jon replied, "Just a few household cleaners in the proper amounts."

"Man... do you have anymore of that crap?"

"Yeah."

"Good," and with that I slipped into a deep sleep.

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