by Olah, Jeff
Lucas gripped Ava’s hand even tighter, but he didn’t respond. Let them show their hand first, there was an assumed strength in silence. At least that’s what Ava’s father had told him. Now he just hoped he wasn’t about to let him down.
The thin man nodded. “So, that would be a yes.”
Again Lucas just glared at the man.
“Okay then, first things first. I want you to take the radio out of your pocket, real slow like. Then I want you to toss it backwards over your shoulder, and not like a little girl.” He glanced for a moment at Ava. “No offense, I’m sure you have a great throwing arm.”
Under his breath Lucas said, “You have no idea.”
The thin man then looked at his friends, offering a slight chuckle before turning back to Lucas. “If the radio doesn’t land somewhere in those bushes, if you don’t throw it quite far enough, if I can still see it from here, well then I’m going to have to express my disappointment.”
Lucas cut his eyes at the man. “What do you want, I thought our communities had an agreement?”
The man pulled his jacket to the side, revealing the handle of what looked like a nine millimeter pistol, maybe a forty-five, he wasn’t sure. “And by disappointed, I mean really disappointed. But lucky for you those bushes aren’t more than fifteen feet from where you’re standing. You should easily be able to make the throw.”
“Why are you doing this? We aren’t out here bothering you, we haven’t crossed into—”
The man let his jacket slide back over his weapon and held up his hand. “It’s obvious you know who we are, and given that fact, you also know the answer to your last question, well maybe.”
Lucas considered going a different direction, but thought better than to lead with a threat that included his friends. He needed to go through the steps he was taught. “But we haven’t done anything wrong.”
“Listen kid, you might think you know who we are and for the most part you’re probably right. However …” The thin man looked back toward the men over his shoulder, “There are a few things that have changed in the last few weeks, things that you and your people aren’t yet aware of, things that are going to come clear for you real fast.”
“But …”
The thin man shook his head, looked to Ava, and then finally back to Lucas. “Okay, let’s get rid of that radio.”
Lucas slowly released Ava’s hand and reached into his back pocket. Again, under his breath he said, “When I throw the radio, I want you to turn and run into the trees.”
Ava was crying now. There was no sound, no heaving of the chest, just fast tears rolling from the corners of her eyes. “I can’t.”
He wanted to say more, wanted to try to convince her that these men weren’t going to hurt her, that they had absolutely no reason to, that they would take out their frustrations on him, not her. But he figured she knew that and that was why she couldn’t run. For his well-being, not for hers.
“Okay.” Lucas pulled the radio from his pocket and held it out for the men to see. There were so many things he wanted to say, but knew it wouldn’t matter. There would be a day that he and the thin man would again meet, and on that day the man with the weird neck tattoo would realize his mistake.
Lucas tossed the radio back over his right shoulder and closed his eyes. It probably appeared to the men that he had given up, but that couldn’t have been further from the truth. He listened as the stillness of the morning allowed him to hear the rustling of the branches and the hollow thud as the radio tumbled end over into the low-lying sagebrush.
“Good.” The thin man said. “Now I’m going to need you to do me a quick favor and pull up your shirt. Spin around once for me.”
Lucas knew what they were looking for and quickly complied. “You don’t have to do this.”
The man didn’t acknowledge Lucas’s comment. “Okay, you’re not going to like this next part, but you are going to get through it. I just need you to step away from the girl and let her go.”
Something had gone wrong, something big. He couldn’t imagine why they were doing this and was beginning to wonder if his friends back at Harbor Crest were also in trouble. Lucas shook his head. He could feel his heart beating against his shirt. “I can’t.”
“You don’t really have a choice son.”
He took in a breath, his chest and his arms now shaking. “You can’t do this, you’re going to have to kill me.”
The thin man turned to his friends. “Wow, okay. This kid’s serious.”
While the men were focused on what they intended to do to him, he quickly dipped his chin and turned ever so slightly to Ava. And with his voice still low he said, “Go now, run!”
Ava looked up at him, her face wet with tears and her eyes puffy and red. She mouthed the words I love you, and then turned toward the trees and did exactly what he’d asked.
For a moment, all three men opposite him looked at one another in disbelief. The tall thin man out in front was the first to react. He pointed past Lucas and shouted, “WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR, GO GET HER!”
Lucas stepped away from the side of the road and reached for the shorter, faster man on the left. He was only able to get his hand on the man’s shirt for a brief second before the man chopped at his arm and continued on.
“Not a smart move son.” The thin man took the pistol from his waistband and moved quickly to Lucas.
“Please, let her go. I’ll do whatever—”
The man grabbed Lucas by the upper arm and pulled him in close. They were nearly the same height, almost nose to nose. The man maybe had him by an inch. He looked down into Lucas’s eyes, shook his head, and cocked back his right arm. “When you wake up and finally get back to that place you call home, let them know that things have changed, that they are no longer in charge, and that our agreement has officially been invalidated.”
Lucas only saw it coming when it was too late. The man slammed the pistol into the left side of his head, and all at once the world went black.
5
Mason sat in the fourth-floor control room between Travis and Owen Mercer. The room was small, appeared to have been encased in concrete. Ten feet from front to back and another fifteen feet from end to end. There was a long bank of one-foot square lockers along the back wall, freshly painted a neutral grey and bolted to the black and white checkerboard linoleum floor.
Owen’s wife Natalie paced at the back of the room glancing every few seconds toward the row of six monitors at the front of the room. It was quiet and warm, the air stale and the tension immeasurable.
Natalie leaned in between the chairs and glared at the monitor second from the right. “Are you absolutely sure?”
Travis looked around the room, finally landing on Natalie. She hadn’t said much over the last half hour, but now seemed primed to explode. “Randy is out tracking them now. If they’re still out there, he’ll find them.”
Mason winced as Travis’s last statement washed over the room. Moving only his eyes, he swept between Owen and Natalie. And wanting to avoid the awkward back and forth that was sure to come, he leaned back in his chair and rolled the stiffness from his neck. “He’ll find them, he always does.”
Natalie turned to Owen, drilling a hole in the side of his head with her stare. “Why?”
The room went quiet.
And when her husband didn’t respond, or even look her way, she continued, “Why were they out there? Why would they think it was okay to go by themselves? What exactly did Lucas say?”
Again Owen, as well as the others, remained quiet.
“Please tell me you didn’t know about this; please tell me you weren’t the one who—”
Owen, who hadn’t said more than a few words since walking into the room and slumping into a seat, cut his wife short. “You aren’t actually asking me that, are you?”
She looked to the others for support, but then turned back to Owen. “I don’t know what to think. Our daughter is out there somewhere and the only thin
g we know for sure is that a black Tesla stopped them out on the road.”
She paused, peering at the screen in front of Mason. “Wait, look. It’s them.”
Mason slid forward in his chair and reached for the mouse. He paused the playback and began to nod. The image was a bit grainy and the black and white video wasn’t perfect, but it confirmed what they all already knew.
“So,” Mason said, “we at least have a starting point.”
Owen stood and moved away from his chair.
Natalie met him at the door. “I’m going too.”
Mason studied the image a moment longer and then turned to Travis. “Canyon Road?”
Travis nodded. “Probably the best way in and out, but we gotta be careful not to give away our position once we hit the highway. Don’t want them to know we’re coming if they’ve already—”
Natalie opened the door and now stood in the hall. “Mason?”
He also stood. “Yeah, I’m going out on foot. I’ll radio back once I get there.”
Natalie looked around her husband at him. “You’re not going out there by yourself; that doesn’t make any sense. Why don’t you take Ethan, he can—”
“His back is out again, he’s not going anywhere for a few days. And if I need any help, I’ll radio Randy.”
Travis pushed away from his chair and powered down the monitors. “The generators are running on fumes. We better get this done quick or it’s gonna be a long night.”
“Okay,” Mason said. “Let’s send Harper and Bryce from the west gate and Griffin from the East. Have them stay off the road until they cross over Canyon and then wait for me there. If they come across any of Lincoln’s people, have them fall back and jump on the radio with a location.”
Travis nodded and started toward the door. “Sounds good, hit me up when you get to the highway.”
Owen stepped away from his wife, his eyes focused on Mason. “That’s it? That’s all the resources we can spare? That’s all you think my daughter is worth, that’s all you think of Lucas? After everything he’s done for this place?”
Mason knew what his friend wanted to hear, what he needed to hear, but there just wasn’t time. If he was going to go out there and bring Ava back, every second he wasted debating his plan was another chance that wouldn’t happen.
“We don’t know what this is yet, and I’m assuming you and Natalie are going out there to look for them. Lincoln and his people will be expecting that, hell, he's probably expecting that we’ll send every able-bodied adult out there too. And if that’s what he’s expecting, then he may have something else planned. We have to be sure we’re covered here at home as well.”
Owen reached down and grabbed his wife’s hand. “I get that, but she’s only nineteen. She’s still my little girl.”
Mason stepped forward and rested one hand on Owen’s shoulder and one on Natalie’s. “We’re going to do this the right way. No one is going to get hurt, least of all Ava. I absolutely promise you that. Lincoln doesn’t want trouble, this isn’t like him.”
Owen reached out to shake Mason’s hand as the two-way radio on the desk fired to life. “Hello … Travis … anyone?”
Lucas sounded winded, but at the same time a bit slow, like he’d just woken from a long night’s sleep.
Mason reached for his chair and slid it away from the long countertop desk. He clutched the radio and keyed the mic. “Lucas, where are you?”
“Mason?”
“Yes, where are you?”
There was a pause and then Lucas was back. “Go to Alpha channel, they may be listening.”
Owen quickly switched to channel eight and again keyed the mic. “Damn it Lucas, where the hell are you?”
“The main road, a mile past that trail we used to take Zeus on.”
“Okay,” he said, “you and Ava stay back away from the road; we’ll come to you.”
Another long pause and then Lucas was back, his voice different, without any life. “Ava’s not here … I think they might have her.”
6
Ava felt like she had been running for hours. Her calves were cramping, her right hip felt like it was falling out of its socket, and her lungs were on fire. She hadn’t seen the men for a few minutes and her plan seemed to be working. Run for as long as she could and then get low and hide until she could breathe.
Rinse and repeat.
But now she thought she might be losing it, that dehydration may be setting in. She had stopped sweating at least ten minutes before, her head was pounding, and she felt like she needed to sleep.
And then there were the voices. At first she thought it was the men attempting to draw her out, but then she was starting to picture her parents. Her mother shouting her name and her father telling her they were coming for her.
Ava squatted to the ground, tucked her legs into her chest, and tried to make herself invisible behind the low shrub as she fought to catch her breath.
“AVA!”
It was there again, the voice that sounded like her mother. It was further away now, sounded like it was moving in the opposite direction.
“AVA, PLEASE BABY!”
Ava closed her eyes and tried to imagine where the voice was coming from. It seemed real, maybe it was, but she had no plans of calling out. The men that had been chasing her were out there as well, probably closer. And if they were, there was a chance that they’d get to her before she got to her parents.
A chance she wasn’t willing to take.
Ten, nine, eight …
She was going to run again.
Seven, six, five …
This time she would go left and then in a straight line.
Four, three, two …
Hopefully run into the highway somewhere close to the trail.
One …
She sucked in a quick breath, filled her lungs, and took a quick scan of the area to her left.
Her heart felt like it might stall out as the air rushed from her lungs. She instinctively took a step back, her legs going weak, and her vision beginning to fade into a muted grey.
“Please …” Her voice came out slow and weak, like she just learned how to use it.
The thin man from the street put his index finger up near his mouth. “Do not scream.”
She was drifting now, the man fifteen feet away nothing but a dark shape against a lifeless world. “I can’t …”
As Ava continued to fall toward unconsciousness, the man spoke quickly and quietly to his friends. “Get her up, let’s go. We maybe have sixty seconds—they’re close.”
And then she was being lifted into the air and onto one of the men’s shoulders. He was thick, his shoulders wide, and his neck sweaty. He smelled of dirt and grass, his shirt scratchy against the side of her face.
“Is she out?”
The man carrying her spoke with a deep throaty voice. A pack a day smoker who could have worked in radio before the end of the world. He didn’t sound like the kind of man who would do this, but if the man who her family and friends called Lincoln was anything like they described, she thought she might be able to understand.
“I don’t know.”
The tall thin man came up beside them and pinched her in the fold between her upper arm and her back. And as much as she wanted to cry out, to throw her elbow back, she just continued to lay ragged over the thick man’s shoulder.
“Looks like it.”
“Poor thing was scared out of her mind.”
Her vision was still fading in and out, but the low hum in her ears had subsided, and the pain behind her temple wasn’t getting any worse. For the moment she was okay, but needed them to think otherwise.
“AVA.”
“AVA, WHERE ARE YOU SWEETHEART?”
Her mother and her father were out there. Not far, but not nearly close enough. She could call out, shout to them, hope that they would hear her, and that they had brought some of the others. She could fight the men, struggle, give her parents and whoever else was ou
t there a chance to find her. There were a thousand things running through her mind, although she couldn’t risk that these men wouldn’t hurt her family or her friends.
The time would come when they would make a mistake, so she needed to stay awake and alert.
“AVA … AVA.”
Their voices were fading, still moving in the other direction.
“We have to move.” The thin man sounded like he was just off the shoulder of the man carrying her. She thought she could smell his breath as he spoke.
“Yeah, why don’t you carry her?”
“Hey …” The thin man wasn’t responding, he was redirecting.
“What?” Another voice. Ava assumed it was the third man. He sounded like he was a few paces ahead, his footfalls crunching the dried leaves and pine needles with a heavier stride.
“Go to the car and get it open, be ready to move out.”
The man was already running as he replied, “Okay.”
Another five minutes and the stocky man carrying her sounded like he was going to have a heart attack. He was within seconds of hyperventilating, each one of his steps more unstable than the one before.
“Let’s go, you’ve made it this far. Don’t die before—”
The thin man’s voice dropped away and the man carrying her stopped walking. There were a few seconds where the sound of the wind in the trees was the only thing that existed. And then what she’d been expecting, what she’d feared was coming, had finally arrived.
She fought the instinct not to tense her body even though her right leg had fallen asleep at least five minutes before. She calmed her breathing and counted on the men protecting her from the horde she estimated to be at least a dozen or more.
“Stay back,” the thin man said. “I’ll draw them over to that stream we passed and then catch up at the car.”
The man carrying her nodded, but didn’t say a word. She could feel his head moving against her side