by Tom Abrahams
They were underfed and always fighting off disease. But Rudy was good with horses and, as he reminded Lou, they managed to keep the horses strong enough to ride.
She hoped the horses were ready for what was coming. This was no drill. It was not a test. It was a real emergency.
And there wasn’t much time.
They’d planned for it. Even before she was late and worried and biting her nails to the quick, they’d planned. Living in rural Texas was an exercise in the defense of life and property.
Dallas, God bless him, was a problem solver. Where she was rash and swimming in sarcasm, he was calm and levelheaded. They were a good team. Like Rudy and Norma, they complemented each other, the perfect balance of strengths and weaknesses. The ideal mix of ideas and world views.
When she’d told him, choking back tears, that she was pregnant, he’d met the challenge as a problem to solve.
The baby was coming. There was no use worrying about it, he’d told her. Something about serenity and change and acceptance. She’d only half-listened, her mind drifting to the dark side, the what-ifs, and the could-bes.
Lord, grant me the strength…
Dallas insisted they’d meet the challenge. Instead of letting fear paralyze them, they should act. They’d survived the Scourge, the Cartel, the Dwellers, the Llano River Clan, and being friends with Marcus Battle. They’d survive this. So would their baby.
Lou moved through the main house, setting in motion the things they’d readied but hoped never to use. She pictured Rudy doing the same in dry storage as she stepped out the back door. She used the pine railing to descend the porch and walked diagonally across the dirt to her house.
As much as she focused on the tasks at hand, and how little time she had to complete them, her mind drifted to her husband. It had been a week since he’d left.
Had he made it to Virginia? Had he found Marcus? Would Marcus help? Of course Marcus would help. Wouldn’t he?
Dallas hadn’t wanted to leave. His plan didn’t call for that. Lou had insisted. If they were going to stay together as a family and find that safe place, that refuge they’d heard about in whispers, they’d need help.
They couldn’t travel the yellow brick road to Oz without Dorothy.
Now she wished she hadn’t sent her husband north of the wall and all the way to Virginia. She wished she could click her heels and he’d be home, beside her, helping her keep their family together.
Lou moved through the narrow hallway of her modest home. Using the wall for balance, she found her way to her bedroom. In the closet, behind the hanging clothes, were two backpacks. One was large; one was small. She grabbed both, heaving one over a shoulder and carrying the other by its strap. The weight of the pack on her shoulder played with her equilibrium, but she managed to wind her way back through the house to David’s bedroom.
There’s no way this works.
She reached inside the door, turned the lock in the handle, and closed it. Lou tugged the handle on the outside, trying it, testing it. It didn’t budge. She headed out to the meeting place in the barn.
David and Norma were there waiting. The horses were saddled. They were restless.
Norma met Lou as soon as she entered the space, taking the smaller backpack from Lou’s hand. A weak smile flickered across her face. “You okay?” she asked. “You look terrible.”
“Thanks,” said Lou. She pulled her shoulders back to stretch. “I can always count on your candor.”
Norma’s smile broadened, then evaporated. “I’ve gotta go. You stay here unless and until you hear the alarm.”
Lou nodded, and Norma walked over to David. The boy was sitting on a wooden stool in front of the smaller of the two horses. It nickered at him. He seemed oblivious to the danger at hand. Either that or he was consciously avoiding it.
“David,” said Norma, “let me put this on your back, okay?”
The boy nodded. As Norma approached, he extended his arms out so he could slide the straps over them, then gripped the straps and shrugged the pack onto his back.
“I hope this works,” said Lou.
“You and me both,” said Norma.
CHAPTER 7
APRIL 17, 2054, 11:40 AM
SCOURGE +21 YEARS, 7 MONTHS
BAIRD, TEXAS
Rudy sat in a chair on the front porch. Norma was next to him, knitting. They exchanged glances as the men on horses stopped in their yard and the leader dismounted.
“We should have primed the booby traps,” Norma said under her breath. “Damn the consequences.”
“Too late now,” said Rudy.
They’d decided not to set the traps because killing or maiming one group of soldiers would only beget a larger one. Violence was their last option.
“Howdy,” said the soldier. “I’m Sergeant Bowden. I’m with the Population Guard.”
“I’m Rudy. This is my wife, Norma.”
Rudy looked past the sergeant to his men. Two of them had their rifles pulled to their shoulders, the barrels aimed at the porch.
Bowden took the glove off his right hand, plucking at the fingers one at a time until the heavy suede came free. He held it in his still-gloved left hand and approached the steps. “Can I come up?”
Rudy nodded, glancing again at the armed horsemen. His face brightened and he motioned for the sergeant to join him on the porch. “Of course. What can we do for you? We don’t see much of you around here.”
Bowden, a tall, thick man with a strong jaw and smallish ears, climbed the steps one at a time, his boots thumping on the pine slats. The man looked and moved like a pre-Scourge Greco-Roman wrestler. Rudy remembered watching wrestling during the Olympics. He missed the Olympics.
The sergeant extended his hand, and Rudy took it without standing. They shook. The man’s grip was viselike. The fingers were muscular. Rudy didn’t know fingers had muscles like that.
“Ma’am,” said Bowden, briefly turning his attention to Norma.
She faked a smile but kept knitting. Knit one, purl two.
“Is there a reason you’ve got those soldiers aiming their rifles at us?” asked Rudy, his voice still pleasant enough. “You’re on my land. If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were being hostile. You’re not being hostile, are you, Sergeant Bowden?”
The sergeant took off his other glove and tucked both of them in the wide width of his belt. He scratched his temple, his eyes narrowing. “Do I have a reason to be hostile?”
Rudy laughed. “I’m an old man sitting on my porch. I’ve got bad hips and occasional gout in my big toe. My wife suffers from arthritis in her fingers. Knitting isn’t the fun it once was, but it passes the time. That’s all we’re doing, Sergeant. We’re passing time.”
Bowden stiffened, studying both of them. He glanced at the front door, then at Norma and her hands, then Rudy in his chair.
“You can lower the weapons,” he said without looking back at his men. “For now.”
Bowden pivoted, his boot heels grinding on the pine, stepping deliberately past Norma toward the corner of the porch. He leaned on the railing, looking along the southern face of the house and toward the three buildings to the east. He drummed his fingers on the railing, glanced back at his men, then spun on his heels and stalked back toward Rudy and Norma.
Rudy’s mouth was dry, his heart pounding in his chest. The blood thumped at his temples. He hoped the sergeant couldn’t see the throbbing blood vessels betraying his nerves. He reached over and put his hand on Norma’s arm, feeling the flex of her muscles as she knitted. He rubbed a sweaty thumb on her soft, crepe-textured skin.
“What are those three buildings over there?” asked Bowden.
“They came with the place,” said Rudy. “We use one for dry storage, one’s a barn, one’s a guesthouse.”
“We don’t ever have guests,” said Norma. “Present company excluded.”
“Mind if we take a look around?”
Rudy chuckled. He stopped rubbing Norma’s arm
but kept his hand there. “Do we have a choice?”
“Not really,” said Bowden.
“Then go ahead,” said Rudy. “You need me to show you the place?”
“No, thanks.”
Bowden faced his men and made several motions with his hands. The men dismounted and made their way toward the house. Two of them stayed in the yard, their weapons aimed at the ground, but their attention squarely on Rudy and Norma.
The air was still, almost suffocating now. A wind chime at the edge of the porch trilled softly, moving infinitesimally despite the lack of breeze.
The other six marched up onto the porch and followed Bowden into the house. From their seats outside, Rudy and Norma could hear the men’s heavy boots and their lack of care. Pots clanged; heavy furniture scraped against the floor with protesting squeals; doors opened and slammed shut.
As heavy steps clomped up the stairs to the second floor, the front door opened again and Bowden stepped onto the porch. His hands were behind his back.
“Find what you’re looking for?” asked Rudy.
“Now see,” said Bowden, rubbing the back of his neck, “what’s interesting to me is that neither of you asked why we were here. Neither of you thought it was odd that my team, who looks for multi-children families, made a point to travel all the way out here to your sprawling estate.”
“We were being polite,” said Rudy.
“Where’s the child?”
Rudy frowned. A chill ran along his spine and pimpled his skin. He resisted the magnetic urge to look at his wife. Instead he played dumb and worked hard not to let the sudden explosion of nerves spark in his voice. “What child?” he asked as dispassionately as possible.
The chime clanged once, a melodic ding accentuating the question like the signal of a correct answer on a television game show half a century earlier.
Bowden pulled his hands from behind his back. In one of them was a wooden toy, a little horse on wheels. He held it out in front of him, inches from Rudy’s face, and shook it.
Rudy’s eyes fell to the toy. He’d helped Lou make it for David. She’d carved the crude shapes with a knife and then whittled it to a recognizable Trojan pony. He’d fitted the axles and hammered the wheels into place. It had been a Christmas gift. Rudy remembered the joy radiating on David’s face when he’d seen it under what passed for a tree in the living room.
There wasn’t much joy in this world. It was difficult for children to be children. Lou knew that as well or better than anyone, forced to become a fierce survivalist at such a young age. She wanted something better for her son.
“Let’s make him a toy,” she’d said to Dallas. He’d suggested the horse, and Lou had gotten to work. She was so proud of it.
In the hand of Sergeant Bowden, it was anything but a gift. It was everything but a toy. It was an instrument, a harbinger of the violence to come.
Rudy reached into the small of his back and withdrew his pistol. As he leveled it, he slid his hand to the trigger and pulled. A loud blast cracked across the open space of their land like thunder, and Bowden dropped the horse. It rattled against the wood decking.
The sergeant staggered back, clutching his gut. He’d hardly had time to find the source of the blooming dark red expanse on his uniform when a second shot hit him center mass. An expression that combined both confusion and anger washed across his suddenly pale face. He dropped to a knee, managing only a squeak before he fell face forward onto the porch. His body slapped against the wood, the percussion vibrating in the soles of Rudy’s boots.
Norma was on her feet and moving toward the front of the deck like a stalker, a gun in her hand. It was up; it was aimed. A trio of shots from the pistol sounded like firecrackers. Another pop, one with more volume and bass, came from Rudy’s right. Shards of pine exploded from the bannister to his left, spraying Norma with debris. It barely missed her.
Although all of this happened within seconds—parts of seconds, milliseconds—the world slowed around Rudy. He focused and spun around, his back to the house. One of the guards left in the yard was on the ground on his back, his legs twitching, his blood leaching onto the dry, cracked earth and staining it wine colored. The second had his rifle up, smoke curling from the end of the barrel. Norma returned fire. Neither hit the man. Rudy shifted his aim and fired another two rounds. The man’s body jerked awkwardly. He pivoted, the rifle now raised at Rudy. Norma fired a shot that ended him.
Rudy called out to her, above the echo of the gunfire, “You okay?”
Norma nodded. While there was worry etched into her expression, Rudy recognized something else too. Resolve. Beneath the fear there was strength, the strength of a woman who’d stood in the middle of the street with a radio at her hip, ready to face an oncoming horde of marauders. There was the resilience of a kidnapping victim who never gave up hope or lost faith. Rudy wanted to grab her, hold her, promise her they would get through this. There wasn’t time.
“Stick to the plan,” he said. “I’ll catch up.”
Norma nodded and blew him a kiss. Eyes wide, jaw set, she bolted. When she reached the edge of the porch closest to the barn, Norma swiped at the aluminum wind chime hanging from a loop screwed into the fascia. The cacophony of chimes cut through the still air like the proverbial bull pushing its way through a china shop. As if the gunfire wasn’t alarm enough, the chimes would tell Lou what to do next.
A loud bang snapped Rudy’s attention to the man in the doorway. He spun in time to see one of the guards at the threshold, the screen door swinging back toward him. He stood there, a look of confusion on his pinched face. Rudy fired another shot. And another. Two quick pops and twin holes dotted the guard’s brow.
He didn’t move at all at first. Then the life drained from his eyes. He collapsed into a heap in the doorway as though someone had magically yanked his skeleton from his body. His rifle clattered to the deck.
Rudy dropped to the deck, reached for the rifle, and dragged it across the wood.
Heavy footsteps pounded toward him. Angry voices. Calls for vengeance.
Rudy shouldered the weapon. The house was dark from here. Vague shapes shifted inside. Flashes of light. Gunfire. Something hard smacked him in the side as he applied pressure to the trigger.
The rifle punched against him with the shot. Another punch hit his bicep.
The thick ache of blunt force gave way to searing heat and pain. He was hit. At least twice. Adrenaline surging, Rudy fired again. Again.
Cries of pain. Grunts. Cursing. More shots. More flashes. Another solid hit to his arm.
Rudy dropped the rifle. The bodies in the doorway, which now numbered four, made it tough for him to see inside the house. There were two more guards, if he remembered correctly. If he could count. The pain sizzled in his body. It pulsated, clouding his thoughts.
Rudy tried lifting his right arm but couldn’t. He tightened his left hand into a fist and flexed his wrist. His left was fine. He picked up his pistol and aimed it at the dark opening to his house. He had to buy Norma more time. Lou and her children had to escape.
He extended the gun. It rattled in his trembling hand. He stepped forward, ignoring the tug of agony at his side and in his right arm. Another step and he realized his right leg, near the hip, was heavy, like someone had dipped it in lead.
He managed to climb over the lifeless, still-warm bodies in the doorway and steady himself in the foyer. Sweat drained into his eyes, swamped his armpits, and painted the back of his neck. A chill ran down his spine and he shuddered. He moved past the stairs and deeper into the house.
“I’m coming for you!” he shouted into his house. Upstairs he heard skittering. At least one of the men was on the second floor.
“All your buddies are dead!” he called. “We’ve got you outnumbered now. We’re thinning the population the old-fashioned way.”
His voice hung in the air. The house was otherwise unnaturally quiet. Rudy stood against the wall that led toward the rear of the house, using i
t to stay upright. So much pain radiated through his body he couldn’t tell where the actual injuries were. He gritted his teeth.
A creak from the other room, maybe the parlor, caught his attention, and he held his breath. It was a loose floorboard he was suddenly glad he never fixed. The entry to the parlor was to his left, a wide open doorway framed by chipped but elegant crown molding.
The parlor was on the other side of the wall against which Rudy leaned. He thought about firing through the wall into the parlor. The walls were plaster. It would eat the small pistol round. Rudy pressed his back against the wall, its cool texture chilling his sweat-drenched shirt.
If he knew where they were, they knew where he was. Somebody would have to make a move.
Rudy clenched his teeth, tightening his jaw against the tsunami-like waves of pain that threatened to drown him in agony. His adrenaline could only do so much to stem the tide.
He took a deep breath through his flared nostrils and sank to the floor. The bend of his knees and waist forced tears from his eyes, and he suppressed the urge to scream.
He steadied himself on the floor, twisting onto his side, extending the pistol toward the parlor opening. His finger was sweaty on the trigger.
“Where are you?” he called out, his voice more of a croak than he’d expected. The position of his body and the weakness flooding him were taking their toll. “I’m coming for you. Better you end this now.”
Another creak from the parlor. Another. The second was decidedly closer to the hallway. The man was taking the bait.
Rudy stayed low, willing himself as flat as he could keep himself while on his side with his left arm extended. His arm trembled with exhaustion, and the gun was heavy. It was so heavy. Each beat of his heart sent rivers of mind-altering pain through his core and outward to his fingers and toes.