She jerked back from the window, too late. The man motioned to his companions and one jumped down and accompanied his superior to the front door.
Louise raced downstairs and into the kitchen, scooping up the hunting rifle and clicking a round into the chamber. There was a knock at the door. She slid into a crouch below the sightline of the kitchen window.
“We saw you, Miss Martin,” a voice shouted. “My name is Sergeant Sommers and I have orders to escort you back to Sheridan Base.”
Louise stayed silent, rifle clutched against her chest.
“We’ve got your daughter out here and she’s pretty scared,” the voice continued. “I promise, neither of you will be harmed, but you do have to come with me.”
Then after a few seconds
“Louise. You really don’t have a choice.”
With a silent curse, the woman put down the rifle and went to the door.
Emily was already seated in the back of the army jeep, flanked by two soldiers. She was crying. Sergeant Sommers and his companion took one arm each and escorted Louise towards the vehicle.
“You can’t do this,” the woman protested. “My daughter and I are civilians.”
“I’m sure the matter will be sorted out quickly.” The sergeant’s expression was impassive. “But we need to talk to you back at Sheridan.”
“What the hell is he up to?” Sommer’s companion indicated uphill.
At the top of the incline a youth was zigzagging back and forth across the street, from house to house. Each time he reached a residence he picked up a rock and launched it through the largest window of the dwelling.
“What the hell?” Sergeant Sommers unslung his rifle and stepped away from Louise.
“Hey, you!” he bellowed up the hill. “Stop that right now!”
Dan Salty ignored the warning, still speeding across the narrow road and back, launching missiles through windows. People began to run into the street, shouting angrily at the young vandal.
“Get into the jeep Ma’am the sergeant urged. “This minute.”
“Make me.” Louise tried to pull away from her captors.
“Private Buckmaster, get her into the vehicle.”
Buckmaster twisted Louise’s arm roughly behind her back and frog marched her towards the jeep. Emily saw what was happening and began to scream. The nearest soldier clasped a hand over the girl’s mouth.
“They’re not real troops!” Dan Salty yelled. “They’re kidnapping Louise Martin!”
All eyes turned towards the intruders. Louise’s neighbour, Bill Hahn, emerged from the house opposite, blinking in the bright sunlight. His wife bobbed around in the open doorway, clutching her apron.
“What the hell’s all the noise about?” Hahn spotted the soldiers and his eyes widened. “What’s going on Louise?”
Louise Martin took a deep breath.
“Help!” she shouted, taking Dan Salty’s tack. “They’re kidnapping me!”
Private Buckmaster yanked her arm so hard, the shout turned into a groan. The crowd gathering on the hill stopped suddenly, their attention now focussed completely on the disturbance below. Bill Hahn turned and darted back into the house, sweeping his wife out of the way.
“They’re not real soldiers,” Dan Salty yelled again. “They’re taking her. Do something!”
“That’s gotta be the other fugitive,” Sergeant Sommers grunted. “Anderson. Jordan. Get up there and apprehend him.”
The soldiers leapt from the vehicle and started up the incline, leaving Emily in the back, too afraid to move. The crowd surged down to meet them, bunching behind the boy.
The residents of Rattray had never seen Dan Salty or the uniformed men before, but they knew Louise Martin. She was a good neighbour with a lovely daughter. And because of the secrecy surrounding Sheridan Base, the town had no idea she worked there, for she was picked up each day in an unmarked van. They believed she was a nurse in El Paso.
Now armed men were trying to bundle her away. That couldn’t be right.
Bill Hahn emerged from his house, holding a shotgun. He pointed it at Sergeant Sommers.
“You let that woman go,” he stammered.
“You are interfering with the operations of the United States Army!” Sergeant Sommers roared back. “Lower that weapon right now, mister!”
The barrel of Bill Hahn’s gun trembled but he kept it pointed at the Sergeant.
“How do I know who you are? Since when did the U.S. military pull women and kids outta their houses?”
Seeing Hahn’s defiance the crowd began to move forward again. The soldiers running to meet them stopped and looked back, uncertainly.
Sergeant Sommers pulled Louise in front of him and swung up his weapon. He fired a long burst over Bill Hahn’s head, shattering the upper windows of his home and tearing chunks out of the guttering. Hahn’s wife gave a squeal and disappeared inside. The crowd on the hill shrank away, some of the women shrieking.
Dan Salty darted sideways, vaulted a garden fence and vanished between two houses. Private Jordan sprinted after him. Private Anderson was about to follow, but the crowd had begun moving downhill again in a menacing huddle. Some had picked up rocks from the dusty road. More doors were opening, below them this time, the occupants drawn from their houses by the sound of gunfire.
“Drop the weapon and go back inside!” the Sergeant screamed, sweat breaking out on his forehead.
After a few seconds, Bill Hahn let the shotgun fall and backed slowly into his house, hands above his head.
“Where are all these people coming from?” Private Buckmaster grunted. “Don’t anyone have jobs around here?”
“It’s that kinda town,” Louise smirked. “Lotta hunters though. Lotta guns.”
She was right. At least a half dozen of the men, up and down the hill had darted back into their dwellings and emerged with rifles. A couple of them even held handguns.
The mass of people uphill had almost reached Private Anderson. The soldier had unslung his own rifle and was holding it in front of him, unsure what to do next. Sergeant Sommers fired another burst into the air. This time the throng only moved back a few feet.
“This aint a crowd,” Buckmaster said apprehensively. “It’s a damned lynch mob.”
He wrenched Louise towards the jeep, but the woman caught her foot and fell forwards on her hands and knees.
“Anderson, fetch Jordan and get back to the vehicle!” Sommers bellowed up the hill. “We’ll come back for the boy.”
“Boy’s already here.”
The Sergeant swung round.
Dan Salty was standing in front of Bill Hahn’s house, the discarded shotgun in his hands.
“I’m quite capable of using this.” He stepped calmly out of the shadows and onto the sidewalk. “As you probably know.”
Ten year old Emily Walton goggled at the teenager, facing down the soldiers like some old time gunslinger. The Sergeant was less impressed.
“Don’t be stupid, kid. There’s four of us and we don’t have to take you alive.”
As if on cue, Private Jordan sprinted round the corner of Hahn’s house, skidding to a halt as he took in the unfolding situation.
Dan Salty kept walking towards the jeep. Behind him, Jordan raised his rifle and sighted on the boy’s back.
A sharp crack echoed in the dusty air. Jordan dropped the weapon and staggered back, clutching his hand. Uphill a wisp of smoke drifted from the barrel of a rifle, held by a kneeling man in a red checked shirt. He had already snapped another shell in the breech and was squinting through the sights again. Two or three other townspeople had taken up similar stances and the crowd parted to give them a better shot.
“You idiot,” Louise hissed at the sergeant. “Half the people in this town can fell a deer at three hundred yards. Lower your weapons before they kill you.”
The soldiers looked at their Commander, realising for the first time just how precarious their position had become.
“Dumb, fucking
rednecks.” The Sergeant dropped the gun and raised his hands. “Got no respect for authority.” After a pause, his men followed suit.
“Not your sort anyhow.” Louise picked up the fallen rifle.
“It’s all right,” she shouted to her neighbours. “Everything’s ok now!”
The mob stared at her, waiting for an explanation. Nobody seemed inclined to go back indoors.
“It really is OK!” Dan Salty lowered his shotgun. “Did anyone call the police?”
“I did.” Bill Hahn emerged from his house. “Nearest station’s in Hurricane, though, ‘bout thirty miles from here. Take ‘em a while to reach us.”
“Then can I get a couple of volunteers to tie these guys up?”
There was no shortage of offers.
Ten minutes later, Louise and her daughter stood beside Bill Hahn’s Ford Pickup, their belongings stored in the rear. The rest of the residents of Rattray had quietly dispersed, unwilling to act as witnesses when the police came. It was that kind of town.
“You positive about this Bill?” Louise asked.
“Police will be here soon,” the bearded man motioned to the soldiers tied up and blindfolded in the jeep. “I’m guessing they’re gonna find out that those are real military, ain’t they?”
Louise hesitated.
“They are.”
“That’s why you’re taking my car,” Hahn whispered. “To get a head start. We’ll all keep quiet about it.”
He regarded the empty street.
“You were always well liked here.”
The woman looked her neighbour in the eye. “Ain’t you gonna ask what I’ve done?”
“You’re a damned fine gal, Louise. That’s all I need to know.”
Louise turned to Dan Salty, standing silently beside her daughter. The girl was looking at her saviour in awe.
“Where are we going mom?” she asked plaintively.
“Well. I’m not sure.” The woman swallowed hard, and then made a supreme effort to be positive. “But wherever we go, it won’t be so bad. We’ll need to find somewhere out of the way. We’ll be like the Waltons on that old TV programme. Living in the middle of nowhere and trusting each other and growing cactus.”
“Cacti, Louise”
The woman walked over and put her hands on Dan’s shoulders.
“So? You gonna come along?”
“Really?”
“You risked your life to save us, honey. Even though I was gonna leave you behind.”
“Seemed like the right thing to do.”
“They say everyone deserves a second chance.” Louise steered the teenager away. “So, here’s yours.”
She lowered her voice to a whisper.
“My daughter is my life. You gotta promise me you’ll never do anything to harm her. In fact, you promise that you’ll keep her safe.” She leaned in close to his ear. “Whatever that may take.”
“I promise, Louise.” The teenager had tears of gratitude in his eyes.
“A man’s promise is the measure of his worth, son.” Her grip tightened on Dan’s shoulder until the teenager flinched. “You want to be the man in our family you gotta hold that sacred. If you give your word to us, you never break it.”
“I’ll never break it. I swear.”
“Then get in the truck.”
Dan Salty took Emily’s hand and together they climbed into the Ford.
Louise turned to Bill Hahn.
“I love you for what you’re doing, Bill.”
“I love you too, Louise. Whatever you’ve done.”
The woman put her arms round Bill Hahn and kissed him on the lips. Bill turned to see if his wife had witnessed the moment, but she was upstairs surveying the damage Sergeant Sommers had done to her house. He walked to the truck and smiled at Emily through the streaked glass.
“Bye, baby.”
Louise climbed into the driver’s seat of Hahn’s car and drove away, tears streaming down her face.
Emily Walton sat back on the couch and took a deep drag on her cigarette.
“I fell in love with Dan Salty the first moment I met him,” she said. “So busy looking at him I didn’t even wave goodbye to Bill Hahn.”
She exhaled slowly, a thin grey cloud enveloping her head.
“Mom didn’t tell me, not until years later, that Hahn was my father.”
The Diamondback Massacre
According to the United Nations' Millennium Ecosystem Assessment of 2005, another mass extinction is under way - the worst loss of species since the dinosaurs died out 65 million years ago.
17
Diamondback Trailer Park, Upper New York State
1985
Diamondback Trailer Park occupied an untidy forest clearing in the Adirondack Mountains, four thousand feet above sea level. Behind haphazard stacks of logs a barely visible dirt track dropped dizzily through the trees to join Interstate 40, but the closest concentration of people was the small town of Port Henry on the shore of Lake Champlain, a good twenty miles south.
The thirteen residents of the makeshift trailer park didn’t mind the seclusion. They preferred it that way. They were an odd mixture of social outcasts, for Diamondback was a place people went to forget their past, and where they hoped others would forget them.
The ‘Waltons’ had lived in a nearby log cabin for almost four years. Louise Walton tended bar in the Red Creek Saloon in Port Henry. Her son, Dan, did odd jobs - carpentry, wood chopping, painting – whatever needed seeing to. Louise’s youngest, Colin, was only a toddler and usually looked after by his sister, Emily.
Tonight, however, the family were celebrating - the next day was Emily’s sixteenth birthday. Since Dan had to work in the morning, they were having the party early.
Once the little one had been put to bed, Louise and Dan opened bottles of Coors and relaxed on the couch. Emily sat on the floor in front of the log fire, an untouched piece of birthday cake on her lap.
“So, honey,” Louise took a sip of her beer. “What’s your birthday wish?”
“Some new faces would be nice.”
“I could grow a moustache.” Dan Walton grinned at Louise, but the woman seemed engrossed in her beer.
“You know what I want, mom,” Emily said pensively.
“I haven’t forgotten.”
“What’s this, then?” Dan dragged a bowl of Cheez-its onto his lap. “You girls conspiring?”
“Sort of.”
“Where is everybody, anyhow?” Dan looked at his watch. “Where’s Billy and Kirby? Why isn’t Veronica here? He stuffed a handful of bright yellow squares into his mouth. “I even invited those butch women with the leather jackets that live in the green trailer.”
“They’re not coming.”
“What? None of them?” There was a prolonged silence while Dan chewed and swallowed. “Am I missing something here?”
“I uninvited everyone,” Louise said simply.
“That’s not very fair on the kid.”
“Don’t call me a kid.” Emily said. “I knew they weren’t coming.”
Dan raised his eyebrows. “You did?”
“When we first came here, mom promised to tell me everything,” Emily stirred the chocolate round the plate with her fork. She was too nervous to eat. “When I turned sixteen. It was a deal.”
“Everything?” Dan looked troubled.
“Figured you wouldn’t want an audience for that, honey.” Louise gave a half-hearted smile. “Guess I never really believed my little girl would grow up. But she’s old enough to trust with the truth, I reckon.”
“Mom said she’d tell me why we’re living in the middle of nowhere. Why we changed our name from Martin to Walton. Why I was taught at home rather than going to school.”
“Jeez,” Dan whistled. “You sure did make a lot of promises, Louise.”
“None I don’t intend to keep.” The woman curled her dark hair, now streaked with grey, uneasily round one finger. “And the girl’s been superhumanly patient, you
have to admit.”
“She even promised to tell me why you appeared in our lives.” Emily pointed her muddy fork at Dan.
Dan blinked rapidly. Louise kept her head down.
“You don’t like me in your life?” He sounded genuinely hurt.
“Course I do.” The teenager flushed. “Even though we don’t hang out any more – what with you out on jobs all the time.” She looked around disdainfully at the well-worn furniture. “Not that we actually spend any cash on this place.”
“I’m saving for your future, honey.”
“I know. And you both work real hard.” The girl stuck the fork dispiritedly back into her slice of chocolate cake. “It just don’t look like I have much of a future here.”
“That’s true.” Louise sipped thoughtfully at her drink. “But you’ll be free to leave soon enough.”
“Mom!” The girl looked horrified. “That’s not what I meant.”
“I mean, you’ll have a choice.” Louise set the bottle down and stood up. “But you have to know the facts first.” She glanced sideways at Dan.
“Whatever you say, Louise.”
“Dan and I are in hiding.” Louise looked straight at her daughter. “You know that much.”
“I didn’t think we moved here for the skiing.”
“We were both at a research facility called Sheridan Base in the Mohave Desert a few years ago.” Louise lit a cigarette and took a long drag. “I’m still not sure what kind of experiments they were doing, but one went terribly wrong.”
Emily held her breath.
“Everyone went crazy. Don’t ask me why, because I still got no idea. It was a mass frenzy… and…” the woman faltered.
“They began killing each other,” Dan finished her sentence.
“What?”
“The whole base turned homicidal.” Louise stared out of the window. Silver birch surrounded the cabin, filtering the moonlight. “Only, for some reason, Dan and I weren’t affected.”
The Kirkfallen Stopwatch Page 6