Compound Fracture

by Franklin Horton

  “Get out of your head, Robert,” he chastised himself. Speaking out loud carried more authority. “Get out of your head!” It was a command this time and it spurred him into action. He had to move. Activity would pull him back to where he needed to be. He had to do something.

  He returned to his vehicle and turned the ignition on, staring at the gauges. There was fuel, though not nearly enough. He didn’t want to think about it. He couldn’t allow himself to get bogged down like that again. He couldn’t worry about fuel, family, or his fate. He needed to find Sonyea. That was the immediate task. If he continued to stand here pondering life, the security detail would eventually catch up with him. He’d be killed or captured and it would truly be over then.

  He retook the driver’s seat and started the engine. The headlights burst to life. He decided to use them for a while to make driving easier. He’d put some distance between him and his pursuers so he wasn’t too concerned about them now. The headlights would allow him to make better time. He hit the gas and crept forward, paying attention to follow the trail beat into the grass by the fleeing Razer.

  As he picked up speed, he immediately felt better. It was much better to be doing something than to stand there feeling sorry for himself. For him, activity freed the mind and relaxed the soul.

  From out of nowhere, a thought entered his mind and he stomped on the brakes, sliding to a stop in the grass. He yanked on the parking brake and jumped from the cab, pulling his flashlight from his pocket.

  He ran back in the direction he’d come from, veering off into the weeds. He scanned frantically, searching with his light, and then he saw it. He couldn’t help but smile. It was the jerry can of fuel he’d removed from the Razer sitting there like a gift. He’d intended to add it to the tank before they parked the Razer but he’d forgotten about it when he moved the machine, failing to notice the can in the waist high grass. He picked it up, ecstatic to find it still full. He could have hugged it.

  He returned to the side-by-side and killed the engine. He carefully poured all five gallons into the vehicle’s fuel tank, then secured the can in the cargo bed. When he got back in and restarted the engine, the LED gauge rose to full.

  Sometimes in the darkest, most despairing moments, life tosses you a bone. Providence graces you with a nod and a smile. Perhaps this blessing was intended to string him along until the next dark moment, but he’d gladly take it. He floored the gas and shot forward in the dark. While Jeff had a good head start and a faster vehicle, Robert was determined. This was his mission and he would not stop until he found them.

  31

  Sonyea stirred to consciousness and pitched forward to vomit between her feet. When she looked up, the sky was gray around them. It was perhaps early morning but she wasn’t sure. Her head was splitting and she felt dehydrated. With all the blows she’d taken to her head, she’d have never been allowed to remain unconscious if she was in the care of people who cared about her. As it was, she was in the care of a pathetic younger man who apparently had something to prove to the world.

  When she was done, she spat out the window, wanting to wipe her mouth but unable to raise a hand high enough. She cocked her head to the side, scraping her mouth against the coarse webbing of her body armor. It didn’t help. She threw a harsh glance at her captor. She had trouble focusing, but he appeared torn between sympathy and joining her in throwing up.

  “I’ve got to get out of here,” he said, gagging as a wave of nausea hit him.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, sounding anything but. “Maybe you shouldn’t have hit me so hard. I’ve probably got a concussion. You’ll be lucky if I survive the trip.”

  Sonyea felt weak. Putting those words together into a sentence required a tremendous amount of effort. She may well have a concussion but she didn’t feel like she was in imminent danger. She’d probably live, or at least survive this to die in some other equally disturbing fashion.

  Jeff shoved open the plastic driver’s side door. He wasn’t two steps from the vehicle when he began spewing acidic vomit onto his shoes. He stood hunched over, hands on his knees, strings of gelatinous fluid hanging all the way to the ground.

  Sonyea felt no sympathy. In fact, if she could get to the ESEE Izula hanging around her neck, and if she could get free from her handcuffs, she’d plant that knife in his back with very little hesitation. Right now, though, the knife was buried beneath her body armor where it did her no good at all. That was a lesson for the future.

  “Excuse me for not holding your hair back, asshole,” she growled. “Guess you have a weak stomach.”

  He didn’t respond, which told her he was still in distress. That was good. She couldn’t strike back but making him miserable gave her a small degree of satisfaction. She could tell he was emotionally unstable and that his stomach wasn’t the only weak thing about him. If she could create an opportunity for herself, she could probably take him. She needed to be more certain of her chances next time. She didn’t need another beating. If she lashed out again, he needed to die.

  “I guess it’s a good thing I didn’t actually throw up on you,” she said. “That would be gross. Imagine it. Vomit in your lap, on your neck, your hair. Maybe even on your face if it spewed out hard enough.”

  The sound of more vomit hitting the ground made her smile. Mission accomplished, but smiling hurt in a dozen different ways.

  “Shut up!” he barked. “I’ll hurt you!”

  “You’ve already hurt me, Jeffrey. You hurt me any worse and you might kill me. What will you have then? Nothing. Of course, there are ways to beat people and make them hurt without endangering them. You obviously don’t know how to do that. You’re an amateur here. You’re in over your head. You need to just let me go and cut your losses.”

  She decided to use Jeffrey, wondering if the name might harken back to his childhood. Maybe it was a name that authority figures used with him, or what he was called when he was in trouble. It couldn’t hurt.

  Talking so much had made her lip split open again. It had to be from one of his punches. There was a burning sensation. The handcuffs rattled as she went to touch her lip but her movement was restrained before she made it. She touched her dry tongue against it instead.

  “Stop talking or I’ll hurt you worse. Right now, I don’t care if you make it or not. All I want is to stop throwing up.”

  She decided it might be wise to stop there and not push him any further in that direction. She changed tactics. “Why don’t you get us both some water? I think that would settle our stomachs. I’m pretty sure I have some Pepto Bismol in my pack. It would help.”

  Jeff straightened up, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. He wandered in a circle, sucking in deep breaths, trying to steady himself. “This is your people’s fault. If you’d just left like we asked you to, this would all be over now. I wouldn’t be out here in the middle of nowhere puking my guts out in the weeds like a sick dog.”

  “That’s ridiculous, Jeffrey. That’s like criminals getting mad when a robbery goes wrong. I think it shows low intelligence on the part of the criminal, this idea that people should just roll over and agree to be victimized. Besides, I don’t even live at the compound. I’m merely a visitor caught in the crossfire. I’m the one who should be mad. So if you want to look at it that way, we’re both victims here.”

  Jeff made a grunt of some sort, then went to the back of the vehicle and started digging around in the supplies she and Robert brought with them. He appeared at her door with a bottle of water and extended it to her.

  She turned her wrists to him, nodding at the cuffs. “Could you?”

  He shook his head. “I’m not letting you go. I don’t trust you.”

  “Just take one off and fasten it to the grab handle,” she said. “If you just free one it would help. I could drink on my own.”

  Jeff pulled her pistol from his waistband. He put it against her head, then fished the handcuff key from his pocket. “Anything funny and I pull the trigge
r. Got it?”

  She looked him in the eye, not expecting this level of callousness. It made him seem less amateurish, but perhaps it was only fear talking. “I won’t try anything.”

  He extended the key, placed it in the keyhole, and turned it. She tugged on her wrist and the cuff fell free. While he placed the key back in his pocket, she locked the free cuff around the passenger grab handle and ratcheted it closed.

  She gestured to her work. “Good enough?”

  Jeff grabbed the cuff and tugged. When he was satisfied, he picked up the water bottle and handed it over. She sucked it down greedily, gasping for air when she pulled it away. Jeff rinsed his mouth out, then drank sparingly, not yet sure he could keep it down.

  “You should let me go, Jeffrey. Just leave my pack with me. You don’t have to take me anywhere. Just let me go.”

  Jeff took another sip of his water. “Can’t do it.”

  “If you don’t, something bad is going to happen, Jeffrey. You’ll get back to the compound and Arthur’s people will kill you. Or Robert will catch up with us first and he’ll kill you.”

  Jeff huffed. “Robert is not hurting anyone. My guess is that idiot is chained up to a tree right now, just like he left me.”

  “You seem awful sure of yourself.”

  Jeff shook his head like she just wasn’t getting it, like she’d missed something so obvious. “It was a trap. I set it up before you guys caught me with the radio. He walked right into it. They were waiting on him.”

  “You what?”

  “I. Set. Him. Up.”

  Sonyea shook her head. She was having trouble believing it. Jeff didn’t seem capable of hatching some complicated plan. “What about me? If you had this big plan in place, then why are we out here in the middle of nowhere?”

  “That wasn’t part of the plan,” Jeff admitted. “I improvised.”

  “Oh, you improvised,” Sonyea said, nodding, eyes wide. “Got it.”

  Jeff appeared insulted. “I have my own plan and you don’t need to know everything.”

  “That’s fine. I feel much more comfortable knowing you have a plan.”

  Jeff’s lips tightened. “We need to get back on the road.” He marched around the back of the vehicle and climbed back into his seat.

  “What about this?” Sonyea asked, gesturing to the puddle of vomit on the floor.

  Jeff scowled and looked around the vehicle. He saw Sonyea’s sweatshirt in the back. He leaned over and shoved the sweatshirt in the vomit, swabbing it around the floor, and then leaving it laying there. “That’ll soak it up.”

  “Appreciate that.”

  He smiled at her. “No problem.” He turned the key and started the engine.

  “Jeff…”

  He sagged as if losing patience. “What!”

  “If you let me out now, I won’t have to kill you.”

  Jeff spun on her and she could see in his eyes that he was considering hitting her again. He turned his burning gaze back to the windshield and accelerated into the gloomy morning.

  The drive was miserable. Besides how bad she felt physically, Jeff was a poor navigator, having paid little attention to the route they took when he was in the passenger seat. He tried reading the map but was from a generation raised on GPS and voice navigation so he was unfamiliar with the basics of route-finding with a map. Every time he consulted the map he became frustrated and ended up crumpling it up with a few choice words.

  At first, Sonyea struggled with whether she should help him or not. If she didn’t, or if she intentionally misdirected him, they could find themselves caught in some roadblock where she’d be unable to defend herself or even escape. She decided her best chance, if Jeff was intent on returning to his father at the compound, was to guide him there to the best of her ability and hope that Arthur’s men could rescue her.

  However, familiarity with the route gave no assurances that they would get there in one piece. Jeff was turning out to be a pretty poor driver. Sonyea had no idea how he managed in a car but he’d clearly had no off-highway experience before. He evidently did not understand the basics of crossing a tree branch, negotiating steep grades, or getting the vehicle unstuck. Several times she found herself having to talk him through maneuvers. He became very volatile at those moments, having apparent issues with people telling him how to do things.

  It was like the navigation issue; she didn’t like doing it, but what choice did she have? If he got them stuck out here, they were both in trouble.

  They crossed a public road near the Georgia state line, easing off the pavement and through a creek before continuing their trek through the woods. Heavily travelled this close to a public access point, the forest road was wide and well-maintained. Jeff was comfortable here and accelerated to faster than his customary speed. Sonyea watched him out of the corner of her eye, noting that he actually seemed to be enjoying himself. Then the vehicle lurched, the engine sputtered, and the Razer decelerated rapidly.

  Jeff raised his hands from the steering wheel, staring at the gauges as if trying to determine what magical force propelling the vehicle had failed them.

  Sonyea shook her head. “Fuel, Jeffrey. We’re out of gas.”

  “Gas?” he echoed, panicked. “We have gas, right?”

  “There are cans in the rack, Jeffrey. You’ll have to check them.”

  He set the brake, climbed out of the vehicle, and unfastened the first jerry can from the rack. When he picked it up, he froze. He replaced it, then went to the next can. He shook it in the rack. The can clattered within the confines of its steel rack, also empty. “They’re empty!”

  “We must have used it all on the way out,” Sonyea said. “I don’t remember how many times we filled up.”

  Jeff roared in frustration and slung the gas can as far as he could. It went about twenty feet before impacting a tree with a hollow thud.

  Sonyea shook her head. “You might as well go get that. If we find gas we won’t have anything to put it in without cans.”

  “How are we supposed to get there now?”

  “You’re in charge of this mission, Jeffrey. You said you have a plan. The details are up to you.”

  Jeff’s face turned red and he stabbed an angry finger at Sonyea. “I’ve about had it with that Jeffrey crap! You need to lay off!”

  “Let me see the map.”

  “Get it yourself.”

  “I can’t reach it, Jeffrey…Jeff.”

  Jeff stalked to the vehicle, snatched up the crumpled map, and threw it at Sonyea. It bounced off the side of her face. It wasn’t painful but irritating. She cut him a look before attempting to unfold the map.

  “This would be easier with two hands,” she said.

  “This would all be easier with you dead!” Jeff spat back. “Keep that in mind.”

  She awkwardly unfolded the map with her teeth and free hand. When she had it mostly unfolded, she smoothed it across her lap and began searching it, using her finger as a cursor. “This is the road we just crossed.”

  Sonyea laid her finger along the scale of the map, then estimated the distance from the compound. “I bet we’re only about seventeen or eighteen miles from the compound. In these mountains it might take a day and a half to get there on foot. If we put in a good effort the rest of the day, we could be there by lunch tomorrow.”

  Jeff came to the door and stared in at Sonyea. She pointed at the map.

  “See?”

  Jeff grabbed the map and balled it up in his fist. When it fell to the ground, he kicked it, sending it sailing into the weeds. “I don’t want to walk! We’ve got a perfectly good vehicle there. It just needs gas.”

  Sonyea sighed loudly. “It’s not going to be that easy to find gas. We’re in a remote area. If you find vehicles on the road we just crossed, it’s likely they’ve already had the gas siphoned from them. You could spend all afternoon looking for gas or we could spend the afternoon making progress toward the compound. You could see your dad tomorrow.”

&nbs
p; The mention of his dad stopped him in his tracks. Was that really what he wanted? He’d come all this way to prove something to his dad, but that wasn’t the same as being excited to see him. The knot in his gut reminded him of how much anxiety was provoked by being around his father. If anything excited him, it was the idea of proving his dad wrong, showing him that he was capable and not the worthless loser his dad always portrayed him to be. He was starting to wish there was some way to prove that to his father without actually having to confront him, but he couldn’t think of one. He was too far in now. There was no backing up.

  “What’s it going to be?” Sonyea asked. “Either way, we need to do something. Sitting here isn’t an option.”

  Jeff took both hands and pressed on his forehead, then ran them through his hair. “What do we need to walk to the compound?”

  “Well, I need to be unhooked from this vehicle, first of all. I’ll need my pack. You’ll need something for carrying gear. We’ll need food and water. That’s probably it.”

  Jeff looked at the sky. “It looks like it’s going to rain. What do we do then?”

  Sonyea looked at him like he was an idiot. “We get wet.”

  “Do you have a raincoat?”

  She nodded.

  “Do you have two?”

  “Hell no. Why would I carry two?”

  “Do we stop if it rains?”

  “No. There’s a tarp in there. You can make a poncho out of it if you need to.”

  “Show me what to get.”

  “You’ll have to let me out of here,” Sonyea said. “I can’t do it from here.”

  “I’ll have to cuff your hands back together.”

  Sonyea hesitated. When he’d freed one of her hands to drink the water earlier, it had given her the ability to draw her neck knife. With her hands cuffed, she couldn’t get a hand behind her body armor to reach it. With him behind the vehicle, rifling through the gear like a scavenging bear, she pulled the short ESEE knife from its sheath and tucked it in the tourniquet pouch on her belt. He’d already searched her earlier and she felt he was unlikely to do it again. With the knife there, she could reach it if she had to. She hoped it didn’t come to that. She didn’t like this kid, but murdering him was something she hoped to avoid.