by Bowman, Dave
She sighed.
Her knees were killing her. She would sleep on the couch tonight.
She trudged over to the sofa and collapsed. For a moment, she lay there with her eyes open. Her eyes fell on the family photographs hung on the wall. It was too dark to make out the figures, but she had looked at the pictures so many times, she knew them well.
Just as her eyelids were getting heavy, she heard a noise out in the driveway.
Must be that raccoon again, she thought as she drifted off.
But the sound of crunching gravel reached her once more. Her eyes flew open.
Henry!
Springing up to her feet, she grabbed the flashlight from the coffee table. Myra ran to the front door and threw it open.
He's finally come home!
She beamed the light down the long path leading to the house.
But it wasn't Henry. She could see that at once.
Her heart sank.
It was two people on bicycles.
A jolt of fear flashed through her.
Was she about to be attacked?
She watched the two figures approach a moment more while she considered reaching for Henry's rifle behind her.
But something made her stop in her tracks.
The first rider was a girl.
“Grandma!”
Katie.
Myra's face opened into a smile. It was her granddaughter. And lagging behind her, Myra's son.
Myra ran out onto the front porch and down the steps. She met Katie several yards down the driveway, nearly tackling the teenager off her bicycle.
“Katie! It's you!” Myra wrapped her granddaughter up in her arms.
Myra was bursting with joy. What a surprise! She held the girl tight in her arms. She had never been so happy to see her granddaughter. And Brody, too! What luck!
She looked down the driveway to watch him approach. He was struggling up the hill.
But it was more than just fatigue that was hampering him.
Suddenly, the fear that had filled her moments before returned in a sickening wave.
Something was terribly wrong with her son.
25
Billy and the two other men led Jack back out onto the street.
“Where are they taking the others?” Jack asked, twisting around. He watched as Naomi and Brent were led off in a different direction once they got to the street. Jack was being taken back in the direction of the interstate, but the others were heading farther into the city.
“Don't worry your pretty little head about that,” Billy said as he yanked on Jack's arm harder.
Jack looked back at them once more before he was led down a separate block. Naomi and Brent, also still in cuffs, were being pushed up the street. Jack had hoped to get a glimpse of which house they were being taken into, but his guards pushed him forward out of view of his friends.
Jack felt his stomach churn. His chest was hollow.
How could he escape? How could he help the others?
There wasn't anything he could do.
The four of them turned right on a street that ran parallel with the interstate. They walked in silence, the only noise their shoes scraping the pavement – especially Billy, who dragged his feet more than the others.
Jack did his best to pay attention to the route they took. He made mental notes of landmarks they passed, squinting in the mid-day sun. But it was difficult to pay attention. Jack's mind was racing as he walked, trying to come up with a plan.
The men made a lot of turns through the neighborhood. It was probably intentional to disorient their prisoner.
Finally, they turned off the road and cut through the xeriscaped yard of a cheap motel.
“Welcome to C Block,” Billy said with a grin as they crossed the driveway and swung open the glass door of the front entrance.
They pushed Jack inside the building. It was so dark that he couldn't see a thing at first. He could only smell the stale, rotten air. He instantly recoiled at the stench – it smelled of sweat, blood, decaying food. And perhaps rotting human bodies.
Then his eyes adjusted.
The first thing he noticed were the blood stains on the floor. Everywhere, the fake wood floor was covered in the wine red stains of blood. Some effort had been made to mop up the blood – apparently there had been a lot of it – but the stains remained.
A few people milled about, barely looking up when Jack and the others walked in. To the right, a man nailed up some plywood over the broken glass of the window. As an improvised bandage, he wore a shirt wrapped around his head that was soaked through with blood.
To the left, a giant wall of a man stood in an ill-fitting police uniform that was much too small for him. He held an AR-15 in his hands and wore a revolver tucked in his waistband. He glared at Jack pointedly.
There was a middle-aged woman with long, pointed fingernails who sat behind the front desk. She yawned as she bent over a handwritten list, adding and scratching out items on the lined piece of paper. She frowned at Jack, then returned to her work.
The guards watched her for a moment, waiting. Billy cleared his throat.
Finally, she slammed her pen down and sighed. She looked up at the men who had brought Jack over.
“Another one?” she asked, annoyed.
Billy nodded with his mouth open.
“Number?”
Billy removed the slip of paper from his pocket, unfolded it slowly, then read it aloud.
“It's 154C.”
Jack was amazed. They had organized all this in just four days?
They had their own bureaucracy?
The woman wrote down the information on another sheet of paper, looked Jack up and down, then scribbled some other notes. Finally, she slammed her palm down on the bell that rested on the desk.
“Go ahead,” she instructed, then returned to her list.
At the far end of the lobby, a door opened and another large man stepped out. This one was wearing a security guard uniform that was three inches too short for his arms and legs, and was stained with blood and grease. He held a shotgun.
He crossed over to Jack. This one didn't smile like Billy and Oscar. This one wore a scowl across his filthy, scarred face. His eyes were dilated, his eyebrows pointing inward in a frown. He moved slowly, drilling holes in Jack's face with his stare.
“I'll take him from here, boys,” he sneered.
Billy and the others let Jack go as the new guy took hold of him.
“So long, sweetheart,” Billy cooed before they slipped out the front door, slamming it shut.
The man with the security guard uniform and the scarred face wasted no time. He grabbed Jack and pushed him toward the door. Opening it wide, he shoved Jack inside without a word.
Jack stood before a long, dark hall. The air in the new space was even more putrid. Every door was closed, and Jack heard movement and muffled voices behind some of them.
“154C,” the man grumbled. “Welcome home.”
The man forced Jack up two sets of stairs at gunpoint. The barrel of his gun bore into Jack's rib cage.
On the third floor, he gave Jack a push through the open door. They walked down the hall toward a room near the end. The man took a large key chain from his pocket, then looked through the keys to find the one to unlock the door.
He kicked the door open, then pushed Jack inside the room. At first glance, it looked like any cheap motel room – dingy and claustrophobic. A large bed was against the wall to the right. It was stripped of linens. A smaller bed stood in the corner to the left. The carpeted floor was damp and covered in blood stains.
While the light from the hall lit up the dark room, Jack immediately scanned the room for any way to escape. The window had been covered by a panel of plywood nailed securely into the wall. There was no bathroom. No air conditioning vent. No door or separate entrance except for the one he had been pushed inside.
They had turned the hotel into a prison. And Jack was their newest prisoner.
Jack stood in the room as the man closed the door behind him. The man clicked on a flashlight.
“What's all th–”
Jack was interrupted by a boot kicking the air from his lungs. The man delivered a swift kick to the middle of Jack's back.
He felt it in his ribs.
Jack spun around to face him. The man looked at Jack, waiting for any move he might make.
“Let me go now and I won't come back to kill you when I get out of here,” Jack said.
The man kept his face expressionless as he stared at Jack for a moment. Finally, he brought his shotgun up and swung it against the side of Jack's head.
Everything began to swirl. Jack felt like he was swimming. His vision was fading in and out.
The man raised his gun again, bringing the butt of it against Jack's head once more.
The room went dark, and Jack fell in a heap onto the soggy carpet.
26
After they had exhausted themselves trying to push the Porsche out of the ditch, Annie and Charlotte finally gave up.
“We'll have to wait until the morning,” Annie said, defeated. “Maybe we can find some farmer around here who can help push us out.”
Charlotte groaned. “I guess that means we're sleeping in this little car?”
Annie looked at the Porsche. There was only enough room to lower the seat backs a bit. “I guess so. It won't be comfortable, but I'm so tired, I could almost sleep standing up.”
“But is it safe?” Charlotte asked, looking around. “I know there's no one out here right now. But someone could pass by here and see us. This Porsche seems to attract a lot of attention.”
“Yeah, and we can't exactly drive off and get away from them this time.” Annie ran a hand through her curly hair. She was disappointed she wouldn't be sleeping in that bed just yet. “But what else can we do? We have to sleep somewhere.”
Charlotte nodded. There was no other choice but to spend the rest of the night in the car, stuck in a ditch.
Annie would have liked to have slept later, but the sun wouldn't let her.
When she finally accepted that the bright light wouldn't let her sleep anymore, she got up and left the vehicle. At least she had gotten a few hours.
Outside, everything was just the same as it had been last night.
The semi was still sprawled across the road, and the Porsche was still hopelessly stuck.
Annie looked at the semi again. The cab was still empty. The driver must have abandoned it the other day after it had quit running. She wondered if if he had been one of the people they had passed walking on the road just outside Austin yesterday.
Or one of the dead bodies.
Charlotte woke and crawled out of the car as well, yawning and rubbing her eyes. Annie looked at her. Charlotte's normally tidy blonde hair had become a tangled mess. But then, neither of them had had time to concern themselves with appearances.
They had a granola bar each and opened a bottle of apple juice to share. The juice came in a fancy glass bottle – they had taken it from Dan's pantry.
Charlotte rolled up her sleeves. “I don't know about you, but I feel like I could move a mountain after that hearty breakfast and restful night's sleep,” she said sarcastically. “You want to give this another shot?”
Annie nodded silently and set the bottle of apple juice down in the weeds. She put the car in neutral, then walked to stand beside Charlotte at the rear of the vehicle. Annie clapped her hands together once. “Let's do this.”
They pushed with all of their might. They tried rocking the car. They tried standing in different spots to push at different angles. Nothing worked.
Already, the sun was hot. Annie wiped the line of sweat beading up on her forehead and slumped on the ground. She took another swig of the apple juice.
“We've got to figure this out.”
Charlotte sat in the passenger seat and took the bottle when Annie passed it to her. “Should we start walking toward Loretta?”
Annie swallowed the lump in her throat. She was riddled with tension. She wanted to get off that highway – immediately. But it seemed almost impossible to get to anywhere safe. Maybe nowhere was safe. Maybe even the house in Loretta had been taken over by vandals or squatters. Maybe –
Annie squeezed her eyes shut. She couldn't give in to the fear. Her mind could spiral downward in worry if she let it.
“It's still about 150 miles to the ranch house,” she said wearily. “It would take us days.”
Charlotte nodded. “The longer we're out here walking, the more chance there is to run into trouble.”
Annie stared at her arms, which were draped over her bent knees. It looked like she was already getting a sunburn. “Do you think we should try walking to a house and asking for help?”
“Maybe,” Charlotte said, considering it. “It might be dangerous, though.” She sighed. “Nothing's safe anymore.”
They sat there for several minutes. Neither said a word. They were at a loss. Should they leave the car and risk losing it? Should they knock on the first door they saw and risk a run-in with someone violent? Or should they walk to Loretta and risk running into trouble on the road?
Annie didn't like the odds.
Finally, the silence was broken by the sound of scuffling feet on the highway.
Someone was coming.
Annie felt her muscles clench. She looked up toward the road.
He was already right next to them before they heard him. A thin man of around thirty, he looked harmless enough. Annie relaxed a little.
He was dressed in jeans, a button-down shirt, and boots. He wore a cowboy hat. He flashed them a big grin as he sauntered to a stop on the road nearby.
“Looks like you ladies could use some help,” he said in a slow Texas drawl.
Annie breathed a sigh of relief. She didn't have to go looking for help after all. Help had come to her.
“We sure could.” Annie looked from the car back to him. “The ground's so wet the tires just sank in.”
“Yep,” he said, crossing his arms over his chest as he studied the Porsche. “They'll do that. Especially on this clay soil.”
“Do you live around here?” Annie asked.
He nodded and looked at her. “I live about a mile east of here. The name's Harvey.”
Charlotte took a step forward, shielding her eyes from the sun. “I'm Charlotte, and she's Annie.”
The man reached forward and shook their hands. “Pleased to meet you. Yeah, I'm just heading over to my folks' place. They've got a farm a ways down. Lots of people on foot these days.” He glanced at the Porsche.
“Well, we'd be happy to give you a ride if you could help us get out of this ditch,” Charlotte said.
“Be happy to.” He took a couple of steps toward the car and whistled. “Looks like you got yourself stuck pretty good.” He took his hat off and ran a hand through his blond hair. “No worries, though. I'll get you back on the road in no time. We're always getting vehicles stuck down on the farm.”
“Oh, thank you so much,” Charlotte said, beaming. “You have no idea how long we've been trying to push ourselves out of this ditch.”
He smiled again and walked toward the rear of the car. “All right, let's get it out then. Annie? You come stand on this side of me and push on the left. And Charlotte, you'll be on the right.”
Annie began to walk toward the place he had indicated by working her way downhill toward the bottom of the ditch. She exchanged a smile with Charlotte.
She was so happy that he had come along. Finally, they would get out of there. They'd had a stroke of bad luck last night, but now things would be okay. They'd get back on the road and make it to Loretta in no time.
But something was wrong.
She knew it a split second before she felt his hands on her.
Out of nowhere, she felt him grabbing her.
His hand clamped tight around her forearm, and swung her around to the side. His other hand was on he
r back. He pushed her so hard that the breath was knocked out of her.
She fell down into the ditch, landing heavily on her hip and knees.
She had one thought: why had she trusted him?
Before she could look up, she heard him struggling with Charlotte. Annie looked up to see Charlotte just dodging his grasp, her blonde hair flying. She lunged to the side toward the open passenger's door and reached for the gun that was resting on the seat.
Annie watched from the ground, paralyzed.
She didn't know what to do. She knew Charlotte couldn't handle a gun. Annie feared friendly fire if she approached.
But most of all, she feared what Harvey might do.
Charlotte pointed the .22 at the man with her hands shaking visibly. Her posture was all wrong.
She was clearly uncomfortable with the firearm.
“Get back!” she screamed.
But he just grinned and took a step forward. Charlotte was the one who took a step backward.
Annie's chest contracted. It wasn't going well.
“I don't think you know how to use that, do you?” Harvey said.
Annie was panicking from her place on the ground. Her eyes flicked from Charlotte to Harvey and back to the ground, searching for anything she could use.
She had to do something.
This was about to quickly get out of hand.
“I will shoot you!” Charlotte said, whimpering. “I'll do it if you come any closer!”
Annie's gaze fell on the glass apple juice bottle.
Yes, the bottle.
She had to reach it.
It was out of her grasp up by the car. She scuttled ahead in the weeds, stretching out her arm to the bottle.
Above her, there was more commotion. Just as Annie's hand wrapped around the neck of the bottle, she looked up.
Harvey had tackled Charlotte, knocking her arms off to the side as she fought against him.
They struggled for a second, then he wrenched the gun out of her hands.
Annie's heart was pounding. She pushed herself to her feet, inching toward Harvey's back where he stood facing Charlotte.