As I laid in the tree line facing down from a ridge to a very large group of bandits, I heard a distant buzzing that was slowly becoming more clear. I couldn’t quite make it out at first as to what it was. The sound of the bandits shenanigans from down below trumped the sound off in the distance. So I laid there and waited to see if it got any louder. Sure enough, after about fifteen minutes the sound was loud enough to be right over my head. The bandits did not seem to hear the sound above or make any notion of looking up into the sky or gesturing towards it. With the way the buzzing is now, it almost sounds like whatever it is might be doing circles around where the bandits are. So like normal, curiosity got the better of me. I brought my rifle up to my chest and low crawled out from the treeline to just before the ridge I was laying on dropped off. I had been laying in this tree line for almost half an hour, in this time I made no attempt to survey the area, much less try and find out how far away I was from them. I just looked down at them trying to figure out what they had been doing and who they were.
I put down my rifle next to me then brought my bag from behind me and sat it down in front of my face, almost like a pillow. I picked up my rifle and brought it up to my shoulder, laying the barrel on top of the bag. I brought out my note pad, pen and cartridge pouch from the side pocket of my bag. I took the range through my scope from where I was to the farthest bandit. I was 195 yards from the bandit group. To be honest, it seemed like I was around 400 yards away. But I guess being at an elevated angle made everything seem a little bit farther away. Anyways, from the looks of how they are set up indicate that they have been there for at least one weeks time, maybe less. I got lucky today, there was very little wind blowing at all. I had to make no changes on my rifle to be able to hit my farthest target. I only had to use the mil dots a slight amount. I got everything set up and ready to go in just a few minutes, I knew the bandits weren’t going anywhere any time soon. By this time I had been laying on the ridge for almost an hour.
As I loaded three cartridges into my rifle and another in the barrel, my conscience started to haul off and act up on me. Thoughts of; “Isn’t there a way you can avoid this?”, “What would dad say?”, “These people are harmless”, “Who gave you the right to call them bandits?”. This entire time that I have been alone, I never once have had to kill anyone. I had never seen anyone. I stayed hidden and in the woods. This is how I was able to avoid conflict. But they where in my way and that was the only way to get where I needed to go. Meanwhile the bandits shenanigans got a little bit louder and now the sound of the buzzing was starting to fade away. Whatever it was, it didn’t seem to interfere with what was happening on the ground. I soon realized that I had no choice in the matter and that the only way to handle this was to go through them. So with the make shift oil can suppressor on the end of my rifle, I took my first shot. I had been an avid shooter before all this happened, shooting teams and all. My first target was this big bulky guy who was standing by the end of the road taking a leak. A subtle “THUMP” was let out and within a second the man was struck square in the back and fell to the ground, no one was the wiser. At this point I did not wait for anyone to notice. I lifted the bolt on my rifle and pulled back, the hot cartridge flung out the side as I pushed another one into the chamber. One by one I took out the bandits from farthest to closest. I had just let off the sixth round and as soon as it hit one of the bandits, the man a few feet in front of him turned around and saw him fall. By now I had taken out the outer rim of bandits and all that was left was the main group. All huddled around a fire in tents and broken down cars in about a 20 foot diameter. The man that saw the fellow behind him fall walked over to his body and bent over to see what was wrong. I put my seventh round right through the back of his skull and watched his brains, or what was left, splatter all over his dead friend. Close call, way to close for comfort.
I had to figure out how I was going to get the rest of them without drawing to much attention to myself. Then, all of a sudden, the buzzing came back from a distance, this time it had an additional sound. A whistle came along with it and it was coming in fast, I mean faster than the wind. There was this loud thunderous boom and a flash of light. I covered my eyes as fast as I could. When the ringing in my ears stopped, I looked up to where the bandits where. Key word, where. Now engraved into the ground was a hole about the size of a dump truck. I was paralyzed by fear, for I did not know what in gods name just happened. The voices in the back of my head where all screaming “GET UP!”, “RUN!” and “HIDE!”. So after a few seconds I high tailed it back into the tree line and hid. The buzzing sound was a lot louder than ever before. It sounded almost fifty feet from the ground. All I could see was a giant grey figure roaming around in circles with a strange object attached to the bottom of it. Standing only a mere fifteen feet away from open ground, I heard the buzzing come to a slow creep when all of a sudden a wooden crate hit the ground. The buzzing started to get quieter as I saw the giant grey object go higher into the sky and pull off. After about five minutes I walked out onto the ridge and looked at the crate. There was no markings on the crate. It opened with ease and sitting directly on top was a note with only a few words. “Channel six if you please.”, under the note sat a military grade radio on top of a pile of hay. I figured I owed whoever saved my life this, so I turned on the radio and switched to channel six. With in a few seconds a voice came over the radio. “My name is Sphinx, from here on out, I am your guardian angel.”
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Around the block and on the bus. 