“See?” Rachel said.
Betty shuddered at the sight of the bruised and battered face before her. She reached up to touch the swelling, then drew her hand back. “What the hell happened?”
Rachel removed the duffel bag from her shoulder. “It was just a normal day at the supermarket.”
Rachel stood where the hallway led to the laundry room. Betty shone a flashlight on her.
“I’ve got two boxes of Wheaties and shredded wheat. I’m going to send one box in each direction. Each one of you can take a small handful and chew it slowly. Miss Betty and I are going to make some very watery soup for everyone, and we’ll have the same thing for breakfast.”
She passed the boxes to the waiting hands of children and made her way over to Betty. “I’ve got a box and a half of Pop-Tarts for dessert. I admit I ate half a box myself.”
“Bitch,” Betty said.
They both laughed.
“Let’s go upstairs and see what we can make out of these soups,” Rachel said.
“It isn’t safe up there,” Betty said. “Helicopters have been flying over us since yesterday, and troop trucks have been driving by all day. Someone was pounding on both doors a few minutes ago, and one of those things looked inside.”
Rachel clasped her shoulder. “I know. I saw it all from the barn.”
“How long were you in there?”
“I’ll tell you everything upstairs.”
“There’s something else. The phone has been ringing since yesterday. I finally unplugged the jack from the wall.”
Rachel didn’t like the sound of that.
“. . . I knew the creek came through this property, but I didn’t know which way the current moved until right before I jumped in.”
“Jesus,” Betty said, as they began the arduous task of pouring soup into bowls, cups, and Tupperware.
Only a third of the kids could eat at a time, and then Rachel and Betty had to rinse the dishes before they could make the Kool-Aid and serve it.
“The water was freezing. I didn’t dare climb out, though, because I was afraid the MacNeils would use dogs to track me. The water was maybe three feet deep, five feet in some spots, but the current was fast. Since I spent an hour driving, I climbed out after an hour. It was a miscalculation. I still had a long way to walk.”
“You’re lucky you didn’t freeze to death.”
“I probably would have, but I was wearing my running suit under my insulated uniform. My feet and hands froze, and I lost my other contact. I got out when I saw a windmill and followed it to a barn, where I used my emergency flare to heat the concrete floor. I took off my clothes and basically cooked them, then put them back on. It took longer for the boots, but the flare did the trick. As soon as I was dry and dressed, I slept on the warm floor.
“It was cold when I woke up, but I could only travel at night, so I had to wait for the sun to set. I heard the helicopters all day. I made it pretty close to where we are before the sun rose again. I wanted to come inside so badly, but I couldn’t take the chance with all those choppers and trucks in the area. When the sun set, I made it as far as our barn before the activity increased, so I stayed put. When I saw that MacNeil looking in the windows, I thought I was going to have to take him out, but I’m glad I didn’t. That would have been the end of us.”
“Thank you for coming back,” Betty said. “I know you didn’t have to.”
“You may eat those words.” Rachel looked at her watch. “It’s after nine. It will be 10:30 by the time we get them all fed.”
“And then what?”
“I have a bad feeling we’re due for some fireworks.”
At 10:30, Rachel pulled Barry aside. “We’re leaving you down here with the kids. If anyone wakes up, handle it. We’ll be upstairs, keeping watch. If anything happens outside, you know we hear it too. No matter what, keep these kids down here. Do you understand?”
Barry nodded.
Rachel hugged him. “You’re a good kid.”
“Miss Betty says I’m a man even without my bar mitzvah.”
Rachel smiled. “She’s right. Keep that gun handy.”
In the living room, Rachel pulled the rifle out from beneath the sofa and handed it to Betty.
“I’ve never shot a gun before,” Betty said.
“It probably won’t matter.”
They went up to the second floor, and Rachel retrieved the rifle from underneath the bed in the Erbert boy’s bedroom. “I have only one spare clip for the M16A.”
Betty took her hand. “I’m scared.”
Rachel squeezed her hand. “So am I. We’d be crazy if we weren’t.”
“In one hour, we’ll be the only ones left on earth. Everyone else will be possessed. Maybe that makes us the freaks.”
Rachel put her rifle on the windowsill. “I can’t accept that. We’ll never be the freaks. Those MacNeils are stealing our bodies; that makes them nothing but thieves. We have to hang on to who we are with every second we have.”
Betty sniffled. “Is it fair to put the kids through this?”
“What should we do? Shoot them all? Burn the house down with them in the basement? We’ve fought this hard for a year now. What’s a little while longer?”
Betty sniffled harder. “We’re going to be the last women on earth, and we don’t even have a last man to fight over.”
“Life is simpler that way. We’ll always have each other’s back.”
“I’m sorry but I wish Ron were here.”
“That’s okay. I can think of a few people I’d rather have standing by me now too.”
They laughed.
“Get to your post,” Rachel said.
Betty went to the den, which afforded her a view of the barn and the property out back, and Rachel pulled up a chair so she could observe the front yard and the road.
I wish I had my contacts, she thought.
At 11:30, she heard the dull droning of a helicopter, which grew into a roar. The helicopter flew over the house, making so much noise that Rachel heard nothing else.
When it grew quieter, Betty shouted, “Oh, my God!”
Rachel hurried into the den, where Betty stood with the blind pulled back. Even before she reached the window, Rachel saw the lights of the helicopter descending behind the barn.
“They’re coming,” Betty said.
“No, they’re already here.”
Sixty-four
Rachel ran to the window next to Betty and raised her blind halfway. “Open your window a foot,” she said. Then she threw the locks on her window and raised it.
Betty raised her window as well. Rachel peeked outside but saw nothing.
The helicopter’s engine whirred to a stop, and the lights coming from behind the barn dimmed.
“Wait here,” Rachel said. She rushed downstairs to the basement and turned on her flashlight.
Barry already stood and several other children stirred.
“The MacNeils are here,” she said in a quiet voice. “You’re going to hear shooting—a lot of it. If anyone is able to sleep through it, let them. Tell whoever wakes up what’s happening. No one can come upstairs or go outside. We’ll hold them off for as long as we can. If you want to do something useful, pray.”
Hopefully that would distract them. She ran back upstairs.
“I think I see one,” Betty said.
Rachel crouched beside her. “Where?”
“At the corner of the barn.”
“Which corner?”
“The front left one.”
“Then there’s another one at the front right corner.” Rachel moved to her own window. Narrowing her eyes, she noticed three shapes crawling along the lawn. “Go down to the kitchen and throw all of the light switches on the panel by the door. I want that light over the back porch on.”
“But they’ll know we’re here.”
“They already know we’re here. Now get down there and throw those switches.”
Silhouetted, Betty didn
’t move. “Can I take my rifle with me?”
“If it makes you feel better, sure. But you won’t be using it down there.”
Betty hurried out of the room with her rifle, and Rachel heard her footsteps on the stairs.
Rachel raised her scoped rifle to the window and waited. She had decided to use the hunting rifle first, saving the M16A for the greater numbers she knew would come. She thought she saw four shapes on the ground now, and they were almost halfway to the house.
The porch light came on, illuminating the yard, and all four figures crawled on their bellies, clutching their machine guns.
The sons of bitches are wearing sunglasses.
When the MacNeils reacted to the sudden light, Rachel opened fire. Her first shot missed. But she adjusted her aim, and the second struck her target above his shoulder, and she imagined it drilling through his chest. Her third shot struck a man’s leg, and her fourth tore into his back.
Before she could fire a fifth shot, machine-gun fire blazed from the barn. She ducked below the window, which shattered, broken glass raining down on her, and rolled to the space between the windows. With faint light shining through, she saw Betty running down the hall. “Get down!”
Betty dove for the floor, and Rachel swung her rifle out the other window, where she saw the fourth soldier run for the house. She raised the stock of the rifle to her shoulder and squeezed the trigger. The man fell to his knees, a red hole in his chest, and pitched forward. She ducked just as machine-gun fire tore into the walls of the room, shredding books.
Betty covered her head with both hands and screamed.
Rachel crawled over to her. “Get back into the bedroom.”
The gunfire stopped.
Betty turned and crawled into the hall, and Rachel followed.
The helicopter’s engine fired up again.
Betty made it into the bedroom. When Rachel reached it, she turned around and saw the helicopter rising above the barn. She kicked the door shut and rolled away from the doorway.
Betty crawled toward the windows and looked outside. “Rachel . . .”
What now? Rachel crawled over to the window and looked out as a troop transport truck pulled over in the front yard and soldiers leapt out. The helicopter grew louder.
“Downstairs!” Rachel said. Snatching her M16A, she opened the door and they ran into the hall and downstairs.
“Why are we going down here now?” Betty said.
“Because they think we’re upstairs. We need to keep surprise on our side for as long we can. That’s the only way we can hold them off.”
The living room windows glowed with light from the helicopter, and Rachel threw herself against the wall. Machine guns roared and the windows exploded. She hit the floor and Betty joined her.
This isn’t working, she thought. “Get downstairs with the kids.”
“I thought we were going to fight them?”
“I can’t fight them and worry about you. You’ve done everything you can up here. Get downstairs and try to keep them calm.”
Betty crawled across the floor and Rachel climbed the stairs. In the hallway, she kicked open the door to the master bedroom and ran to a window, which she shattered with the stock of the M16A. Unlike the Special Forces freaks, the soldiers below showed their red eyes with pride. With a dozen of them taking position around trees and bushes on the front lawn, she raised the M16A to her shoulder, fired a burst at the helicopter’s glass-enclosed cockpit, then dropped to the floor.
Gunfire chewed through the walls, shattering the other windows, and she crawled to the door. Before she reached the hall, she heard metal slamming against metal, and a thunderous explosion shook the night. She glanced over her shoulder at an orange fireball that filled the view outside the window and concluded that the helicopter had crashed into the transport truck.
Halfway down the stairs, Rachel saw the front door open and two soldiers with red eyes enter, silhouetted by the burning wreckages outside. She fired a volley at the silhouettes, which danced in a circle before toppling to the front porch, and then she slammed the door.
Footsteps filled the kitchen, and she raced to its threshold, dropped to one knee, and fired a burst at the possessed soldiers coming through. They screamed, choked on blood, and fell back gasping. She ran to the door, looked at the approaching enemies, and strafed them, taking grim satisfaction in the holes that riddled their bodies. Then she shut the door, locked it, and flipped off the outside lights.
Rachel crawled across the dining-room floor to a side window, which she unlocked and raised. Climbing outside, she dropped onto cold grass and ran to the porch.
The soldiers scurried in disarray around the helicopter and truck burning in the street, which provided all the illumination Rachel needed. From behind the bushes, she fired at three soldiers, dropping them all.
The M16A ran out of ammo, and she wormed her way backward as return fire shook the bushes and chipped the porch. Behind the concrete corner of the house, she ejected the ammo clip and replaced it with the last one she had.
Better make this count.
Standing, she whipped around the corner and opened fire. Continuing to shoot, she ran around the porch and climbed the steps backward. She twisted from side to side, spreading the love. Mindful to avoid the bodies she had left on the porch, she took cautious steps backward. She felt invincible—chosen.
Then she ran out of ammo again.
Spinning, Rachel opened the door and dove inside. No sooner had she landed on the carpet than return fire reduced the door to broken wood. She tossed her M16A aside and crawled over broken glass to the sofa, ignoring the cuts to her flesh. She made her way into the hall to the basement door, opened it, and dropped onto the stairs, shutting the door behind her.
She flipped on the light and staggered down. “It’s me!”
When she reached the bottom of the stairs, gasping for breath, she saw Betty aiming her rifle straight at her, the kids behind her, including Barry, who held his .22 at his side.
Rachel grinned. “Attagirl.”
“Is it safe to have the lights on now?”
“We need to see them the way they see us.”
The sound of a helicopter grew deafening, and the children stared at her with fear and acceptance in their eyes.
Reinforcements, Rachel thought. “We sure showed them.”
Then the house exploded.
Lying facedown on the floor, Rachel recalled the ceiling caving in. Now she heard coughing and crying and smelled burning wood.
“Take your gas masks out of your life kits.” Fumbling at her side, she removed her gas mask and put it on. Cold air blew the smoke out of her face, and when she rolled over onto her back, she saw the night sky, framed by the burning remains of the house. “Betty?”
“She’s hurt!”
Groaning, Rachel rose. The kitchen floor had collapsed, and the refrigerator now lay on top of Betty. The children she saw appeared to be okay.
“Stand back.” Crouching, she grabbed the refrigerator and rolled it onto the coffee table. She kneeled beside Betty. “How bad is it?”
Betty grimaced. “I think my back’s broken. My hip for sure.”
Damn it. “Why didn’t you move out of the way?”
Betty’s gaze shifted. Turning, Rachel saw a little boy with wavy brown hair. Betty had knocked him out of the way of the falling refrigerator.
“Can you handle it if I carry you?”
“I don’t know.”
“The good news is that missile blew the house to pieces, so we don’t have to worry about most of the debris. The bad news is, what’s left is going to fall on us. If we don’t go up those stairs now, we won’t be able to.”
“What about the MacNeils?”
“We always knew this was our Judgment Day. We can go face our demons or burn to death in our own private hell right here.”
Betty looked around at the kids, all of them wearing gas masks. “Help me up.”
“Now
you’re talking.” She glanced at Barry. “Give me a hand.”
He ran to their side.
“I wish I had some aspirin for you,” Rachel said.
“So do I.”
Rachel took out Betty’s gas mask and put it over her head. Then she pulled Betty upright and Betty screamed herself hoarse. Facing each other, they had no choice but to look into each other’s eyes.
“You look better with that mask on,” Betty said.
“Have you got her, Barry?”
“Yes.”
Grabbing one of Betty’s wrists, Rachel draped Betty’s arm over her shoulder and Betty cried out.
“Give me her other arm,” Rachel said.
Barry positioned Betty’s arm over Rachel’s shoulder.
Rachel faced the kids. “We’re going up two by two. Hold each other’s hands. Don’t touch anything upstairs. Be brave. I love you all.”
Rachel pulled Betty high onto her back, ignored her scream, and staggered onto the stairs. With each step, she felt like she was carrying an enormous burden, her cross to bear. Betty said something, but she couldn’t hear her through the mask.
When she reached the top of the stairs, the door fell over at her touch and ashes blew in every direction. The walls of the house had fallen down, leaving only a few arches standing with dark smoke swirling around them.
“Here we go,” Rachel said.
The back door was closer, but the kitchen floor had collapsed, leaving a chasm that included their hiding place. Timber burned and thick smoke billowed. She turned left instead, following the route that she knew would lead them to the front door . . . which no longer existed.
The living-room floor sloped down like a roof. Rachel slipped and fell and Betty screamed again. Rachel was determined to get everyone out of the burning house alive. She stumbled out of the flames and smoke and into the cold night air.
After a few steps, she dropped to one knee, and Barry helped lower Betty to the ground. With great effort, Rachel stood. The house burned behind her, and the truck and helicopter continued to burn in the street ahead. Two more helicopters approached in the far distance, their searchlights sweeping the field across the street, and three troop transport trucks pulled over just short of the burning wrecks.
The Julian Year Page 40