Josh managed a thin smile. “That is the plan, Dale.”
Creggan guffawed and clapped Josh on the shoulder. “That’s the spirit, Mr. Rennie. That, indeed, is the spirit.”
And with that, Creggan disappeared into the crowd, Randy following behind him. He was heading back to the steps of the town hall, ready to make his speeches.
Josh kept back. He didn’t want Donald recognizing him just yet as the three condemned souls were walked through the throng towards the town hall. Men were getting ready at the gallows, tugging on ropes and brushing down the steps up to the platform.
Josh looked at his watch, checked the time, and then reached into his pocket. Wrapping his fingers around the grenade.
“Welcome, welcome, welcome!” Creggan was in full-on carnival barker mode, whipping up the crowd for what was to come—or at least trying to. They were a tough gig tonight, and Josh could see that he knew it. “Why the long faces? Come on, people! This is for your own protection. Martha is spreading lies and sedition, Filly would infect you all, and Donald Jefferson—a man who hid his diseased wife from you, and refused to share the produce of his farm—is a man only concerned with his own survival. He doesn’t care if you survive or not. These three represent the dangers we all face here. Disease, selfishness, and sabotage. We cannot suffer them to live and expect to make a success of this town.”
No one argued, but no one cheered. Josh was being given a salutary lesson in mob dynamics here. He hadn’t realized before now how precarious things might be in Pickford once everyone in the town was gathered together. Randy and his men, up on the steps, looked shiftily around and licked their dry lips as if the notion had occurred to them, too—that if the crowd turned, there were enough of them to overrun them in a riot—and they hoped that the same idea didn’t occur to the crowd.
“I know things are tough,” Creggan continued, his eyes shining with self-belief. “But that also means we have to make tough decisions!”
Josh looked at his watch again. Then he hooked his finger through the ring at the top of the pin in the grenade.
There was a murmur of voices off to Josh’s left. Three women were talking in low voices to each other. Josh watched as one of them shook her head, and another in the middle shrugged, then raised her hand. “Mr. Creggan?”
Creggan wasn’t expecting a voice from the crowd, and he looked taken aback. “Yes, Beth? And, please… call me Dale.”
Beth, a strawberry-blond woman in her thirties who wore an old leather jacket, lowered her hand. “We’re grateful for everything you’ve done for us since the… plague came.”
There was a murmur of agreement in the crowd.
“But…” Beth swallowed. “Some of us think Martha… we think Martha was just upset about her husband. She wasn’t spreading… anything. She was just hurtin’.”
The murmur sounded again, along with a few nods.
Perhaps there was hope for a better Pickford after all. And if what Karel and Josh were planning was pulled off, they might just get that chance.
The crowd flinched as one when the first explosion came, and then a second, and then a third explosion boomed across the town. Creggan dove for cover as Randy and his men looked around wildly. Everyone was looking to where the explosion had come from. A huge blossom of fire was growing behind the police department, debris bursting up into the air.
With everyone else looking at that and Randy calling out orders, Josh pulled the pin from the grenade. If he’d picked his moment right, no one would see him throw the grenade in a high arc over the crowd, towards the town hall. The tinkle of glass as it broke through the window of Creggan’s office was almost indecipherable as the screams from the crowd filled the atmosphere, debris raining down around them.
The concussion from the explosion, seemingly right over the heads standing in front of the town hall, sent a wave of residents running away from the building. Glass and wood from the window were bursting out of the structure, raining down around Creggan and his men.
Josh drew his Glock and, as the crowd parted in front of him, he put two shots in Randy’s chest, and then one in his face.
Randy spun around so that he clattered into one of his guys. That guy staggered back, not just from the blow from Randy clattering into him, but also the two slugs from the Glock that smashed into his chest.
The other two of Creggan’s men who’d stood on the steps only had time to raise their guns before Josh downed them both.
Hauser had let go of the pole attached to Filly and was trying to crawl away from the gunfire. Josh didn’t fire at her. She wasn’t armed and she was trying to get away—she may have been the embodiment of evil in the town, but shooting down unarmed people would never feel justified. But judging by the looks Josh could see coming from the members of the crowd who’d hit the deck, and were witnessing what he was doing––they wouldn’t have similar qualms. Beth, in particular, was looking at him with wide-eyed awe, and a smile was playing on her lips. The town would take care of Hauser itself, Josh guessed.
And Donald was taking care of Creggan.
As the boom from the explosions had died down, Filly had fallen under one of the dead guards, Martha had thrown herself off the town hall steps and onto the sidewalk, and Donald had clunked Creggan in the face with his handcuffed fists. He was now kneeling on his chest, beating him with his cuffed hands and his fingers entwined to make a formidable club.
Creggan was trying desperately to fend off the blows, but Donald, old and beat-up as he was, was not to be deflected.
The clatter of horses’ hooves along the tarmac tore Josh’s eyes from Donald and Creggan. What was left of the crowd was parting again and running down the alleys between the buildings. A buckboard wagon with four horses in harness was barreling along the main street. Karel was urging the horses forward with vicious flicks of the reins, and as the wagon stormed on, she was reaching down and throwing out grenades—their pins pulled out with her teeth. A barrage of explosions behind her tore up chunks of asphalt and sent more people scattering. A man close to Josh on his side of the street raised a shotgun to point at the rushing wagon. Josh shot him in the hip, and with two other shots he hit him in the shoulder so that he and his Stetson went flipping over in a crazy cartwheel of arms, legs, and blood.
The wagon came to a halt at the steps of the town hall and Karel stood up from the buckboard and began firing shot bursts from an MP5 into the storefronts and windows of the buildings around her. It was covering fire, not meant to hit anyone in particular, but it sure kept heads out of sight.
“You know how to make an entrance!” Josh called up to Karel.
“Only way, baby! Only way!” she called back. “Get them in the back. Let’s get the hell out of here.”
As Josh reached Donald, he saw that Creggan was a bloody mess of smashed skull and lolling jaw. Donald was breathing hard. There was blood all the way up his arms, all over his chest, and his shoulders were trembling with oncoming tears.
Josh pulled him from the body, but Donald had no resistance left in him. “Come on, Don, we need to be gone and we need to be gone now. We’ll deal with the chains once we’re out of town.”
Donald had no words for a reply; he was used up. He didn’t stop Josh from guiding him to the back of the wagon and letting himself be rolled onto the platform, up to where Josh could see Gerry—captured again, and tied and gagged against the backboard. As Donald rolled in, Josh went back, pulled Filly from under the dead guard, and grabbed Martha by the hand to push and pull them both onto the back of the wagon.
“We don’t know how things are going to work out here. Maybe it’s going to go another way—but for now, you come with us.”
Filly and Martha nodded, climbing up into the back of the wagon. Josh followed them, looking back at the billows of flames from where the first explosion had lit up the sky. There were the bodies of those he had shot lying like broken things all around, and the townsfolk had flown off in a panic.
All
except Beth.
Josh thought to wave at her, but she was too busy kicking Hauser in the face.
16
Ten-Foot made everyone ride—even Storm. He’d told the boy that if he didn’t ride willingly, he’d be tied to the saddle and have to deal with it anyway. Storm had agreed to try at that point, even though Maxine could see the pain in his face as he climbed up. She’d have preferred to take him in the buggy, but Ten-Foot had vetoed this immediately, with a curt, “Too slow. We ride hard.”
They never saw the farm dog Bobby again, lost as he was to the streets of Cumberland. Although she was a little sad that he was no longer with them, Maxine thought it was probably for the best––for Bobby, at least. He might have a chance to survive on his own in the ruined city.
Three days out of Cumberland, Storm had told her that he was still improving and that Larry’s antibiotics were keeping the wound in his abdomen uninfected. Larry was having enough trouble riding himself, with only one useable hand, but Poppet kept her horse as close to him as she could in order to help. For her part, Maxine’s burns were almost healed. The palms of her hand were fully mobile, and all that remained of the injury to her cheek was a rough scab she washed around when they made camp each night.
Ten-Foot drove the Harbormen and their horses along at a killing pace. And at the end of the day, Maxine could see the horses were blowing hard and hadn’t had enough rest throughout the day. She knew they were traveling south to Jacksonville, Florida, the namesake of the town in Georgia where Josh had worked first as a cop and then as a probation officer, but she had no idea what they were going to find there. The thought of what awaited them was also tempered by the sense of what they had left behind in Cumberland. Ten-Foot hadn’t wanted to wait around to find Tally and Henry before they’d left. He was a man on a mission, and whatever that mission was, Maxine and Storm were enough of a prize for now.
At the pace they were being forced to take, Maxine estimated they would be back in the Deep South inside the next three weeks.
At night, Maxine and the others were chained together in a line while the Harbormen made camp and fires. Ten-Foot gave the orders and the red-uniformed men followed them without question. Either he had their respect through good captaincy and well-judged tactical decisions, or because of fear. Ten-Foot, Maxine observed, never needed to ask anyone to do anything twice. His men hopped to it, double-quick. He was young, yes, but he had a presence that Maxine couldn’t deny. The scars on his face created an atmosphere around him which was chill and iron-strong. His eyes burned darkly and his face glistened with a sheen that wasn’t sweat, more shining self-confidence. She’d not really known anything about the boy from Josh—apart from the fact that he was one of the young delinquents on the Sea-Hawk—but there was no way she could square that notion of a petty thief with a streak for street violence with this proto-man who had a commanding aspect, a deep sense of purpose, and a genius for threat.
It was like the switches that had been flicked in his head by the supernova—the ones that had sent so many people crazy—had turned him into something greater than he’d been before. He was thriving, too, and seemed to be enjoying every second of it.
Poppet and Maxine were made to cook most evenings, as the Harbormen—despite the fact that they included two tough-looking young women amongst their ranks—weren’t interested in going against too many gender stereotypes. And, to be honest, Maxine liked the distraction and the focus that took her out of the situation as it presented itself.
She could only guess at the fates of Tally, Josh, and her father back in West Virginia, and having something real and practical to do helped with keeping her anxiety levels down.
“Let’s see if we can find some hemlock or deadly nightshade for the salad,” Poppet had joked as they’d prepared the latest evening meal with their chained wrists and haltered ankles.
Maxine had smiled at that, impressed that, after all that had happened, Poppet could keep her sense of humor in the direst of circumstances. Perhaps she had been through so much in her life, so much rehearsal for disaster as the wife of a gangster, that it had prepared her well for the full performance of the Barnard’s supernova and its effects.
The dry-looking yellow birch trees around them on the outskirts of Eagle Rock, Virginia, on the banks of the James River, afforded some protection from the chill wind coming off the rocky heights above them. The horses sagged with their tiredness, but still clamored to get to the water’s edge to drink.
“What you two plannin’?”
Ten-Foot had appeared behind Poppet and Maxine. They hadn’t heard him approach and hadn’t noticed when he’d peeled away from his clutch of Harbormen. It appeared he could move silently when he wanted to.
Poppet indicated the single aluminum pot of simple stew they were preparing on the fire. The surface was scummy with mutton fat, potatoes rolling over in the bubbling surface. “We were just planning dessert,” she said, repeating her smile. “Would sir prefer Baked Alaska or profiteroles?”
Ten-Foot’s eyes narrowed at Poppet’s sarcasm. “Just get on with what you’re doing. If I see you whispering again, you’ll regret it. Understood?”
Maxine and Poppet nodded their acceptance. Maxine hadn’t noticed Ten-Foot looking at them at all when they’d whispered to each other—perhaps his senses had been given a super-boost, too. Ten-Foot reached down, picked up a spoon, and ladled a bit of the hot liquid into his mouth without pausing for it to cool. “Needs more salt.”
Maxine and Poppet finished preparing the meal in silence. Maxine looked across the camp to where Storm was chained to Larry. His face had more color, and although he wasn’t moving around as fluidly as he had been before he’d gotten ill in the first place, he was at least looking stronger.
Larry, on the other hand, looked like a ghost of himself. He wasn’t holding up in the same way that Poppet was. It was to be expected, she supposed. He was a man of senior years who had seen his wife attacked and left to die, and who was now nursing an almost crippled hand. Maxine had tried talking to him when the Harbormen had made camp thirty or so miles back the night before, but his answers had been monosyllabic and his voice had been empty. He looked like what he needed now more than anything was a hug. If it hadn’t been for the fact that he was still overseeing Storm’s recovery, Maxine wondered if the old surgeon might have just faded away into nothing already.
The Harbormen posted guards throughout the night. From what Maxine could pick up in what they and Ten-Foot said to each other, they were cognizant of roaming groups of people all along the route to Jacksonville. They’d encountered and fought them two or three times on their way out of Jacksonville, and had lost some of their numbers. As she looked out into the darkness, she was almost glad the Harbormen were taking the security of the camp seriously. Even if they were being held captive as prisoners of the Harbormaster by proxy, through the Harbormen, it was comforting that they would be doing everything to keep their prizes alive.
The fact they were being kept alive was, however, a double-edged sword. Why were they being left unmolested? What was the end point of this headlong rush south towards Florida? Maxine had to at least attempt to find out. She approached Ten-Foot once the meals had been handed out and pretty much consumed. “Can I speak with you?”
Ten-Foot was sitting cross-legged in the grass by the water’s edge, between the prisoners and the rest of the Harbormen. He was cleaning the plate of stew, which he had devoured with some gusto, with a white corner of bread. He wiped the back of his hand across his mouth. “What?”
Maxine got as close as she could with the chain holding her and crouched down into the grass. She could see that Storm and Poppet were looking at her. She hadn’t discussed with either of them what she was going to say to Ten-Foot, but the desire to at least try to get some more information from him and thus increase their chances of survival long term was worth any attempt. “Why are you taking us to Jacksonville? I don’t understand.”
Ten-Foo
t picked at a morsel of meat that was stuck between his teeth, using the nail of his index finger. Maxine saw the flash of gold in his mouth. “Yours is not to reason why; yours is just to do or die.”
“I realize we have nothing to bargain with, but please—for the sake of my son, who’s been through so much. Not just his operation, but cancer—I need to know if we’re going there to die… or what?”
Ten-Foot shrugged. “All I know is that he wants you. He wants you and your husband, and he wants you bad.”
“But why?”
Ten-Foot smiled a grin so broad and so bright that Maxine thought maybe it had dazzled her into confusion rather than just his words doing the job.
But as the world tilted beneath her, she realized that it had been the words. The words that had each one hit her mind like a claw hammer hitting a nail.
“I don’t rightly know, Mrs. Standing. But in less than two weeks, we’ll be in Jacksonville, and you can ask Mr. Gabriel Angel himself all the questions you want.”
Maxine couldn’t remember.
She wanted to remember, but she couldn’t. She’d woken up alone in a motel room. Her fingers were covered in blood, her knuckles hurt, and her face stung like it had been slapped a million times.
She couldn’t remember how she’d gotten there, and she couldn’t remember how long she’d been there. All she knew was that she felt she’d gone ten rounds with the heavyweight champion of the world, and then been kicked down some stairs as an afterthought.
She was dressed, but her blouse was undone. The blood on her hands extended down to her fingernails, and under them she could see, as she looked through streaming eyes, that there were little pieces of flesh.
Maxine checked her arms and her face to see if the stuff under her fingernails could have come from her own body, but there were no wounds that she could find.
Supernova EMP Series (Book 3): Bitter End Page 16