Faith went to stand under her own power, but in the delay, Katherine helped her along, using a strong arm under Faith’s shoulder.
“I’m wondering who told him…or how he otherwise found out,” said Faith.
“Wait—you think he’s in on it?”
Faith shook her head. “No. That’s not what I meant, exactly. He’s just not the type to come knocking on the pastor’s front door in the middle of the day.”
“Maybe it was unlocked, and he just walked in.”
“Hal Wigfield was a very private person, Katherine. Since I’ve known him, he hasn’t once left his door unlocked. And I’ve visited with him at least once daily for prayer since meeting him last summer.”
“Hmm. This is like a mystery now. Should I go fetch Tony, then?” asked Kat, thumbing her chin. “I could bring him in, and we could question him. I’ll do that if you want, Mrs. G.”
Faith smiled grimly. “I think perhaps we should start by letting someone in the infirmary know about the pastor first, before his condition worsens, if you catch my meaning.”
Two men, both members of the church, entered through the open front door and strolled up to Faith and Katherine. They said nothing at first, but their shaken, urgent expressions were a premonition of something amiss.
Faith acknowledged them upon entry. “What’s the matter? Something wrong?”
Both men hesitated before the shorter, more rotund of the two spoke up. His cheeks were flushed and sweat rolled from his forehead onto his nose. “Sister Faith, I don’t know quite how to tell you this, but we have a problem. A big one. You should probably come with us.”
Katherine glowered, holding up a hand. “In case you haven’t noticed, we’re dealing with a pretty big one now, Eddie.” She pointed to the pastor’s body. “Is it more pressing than this?”
The other man spoke. “I’d assign both events the same level of importance, Katherine.” He reached for Faith’s hand. “Please, ma’am. Both of you, please, come with us.”
Katherine sprang in like a bodyguard, pushing his hand away. “Hold your horses there, man whose name I don’t know. Show some respect…we just lost our pastor today.”
“I’m aware of that, and I’m just as dismayed as you are about it. And my name is Marcus, by the way. We have met before.”
“Okay, Marcus,” Katherine said with a look of indifference. “If that is your real name, just…slow your roll. Mrs. G is the new pastor now.”
Faith and Katherine followed the two men outside Pastor Wigfield’s residence. It didn’t take long before Faith could detect the arid smell of smoke, burning plastic, and scorched wood.
The larger man pointed to the west, and both women tracked his gesture to a wide column of rolling black smoke erupting above the treetops over the visible horizon.
“What the hell is that?” Katherine reacted, her brow furrowing.
Faith put a hand on her friend’s forearm and turned to the men, apprehension amassing on her countenance and fear for the worst building in her eyes. “What’s this about, gentlemen? What’s burning?”
Both men hesitated again, passing on looks of dread to each other and then to Faith.
Katherine ran to the edge of the sidewalk. “It smells like a building’s on fire.”
Eddie, the larger of the two, swayed closer to Faith, a helpless look befalling him, appearing as though he were preparing himself to shed tears. “It’s not just any building. It’s the church.”
Chapter 23
“It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.”
—Charles Darwin
Mountains east of Purgitsville
Hampshire County, West Virginia
Wednesday, December 1st. Present day
Lauren frantically pushed herself deeper and deeper into the undulating forest due east of US Route 220, moving as quickly as she could under the weight of her gear. As the mountainous slope became steeper, her physical duress became more pronounced. But it was nothing compared to what she was feeling emotionally.
She could still hear gunshots chattering away in the distance behind her, mostly in short bursts, some rattling off in rapid succession, back to back, one pop right after another. After fifteen minutes of nonstop uphill sprinting, fueled by a mixture of distress and adrenaline, Lauren succumbed to exhaustion and collapsed, her knees landing first on the damp forest floor.
Lauren pulled her rifle’s sling up and over her neck and tossed her M4 into the leaves at her side, followed by her backpack. She then unfastened and removed the plate carrier, as it now only served to slow her down and obstruct her breathing. She spent the next few minutes regaining her composure and trying to get her panicked heartbeat to fall below redline, while her brain shifted into overdrive, attempting to piece together the puzzle of what had transpired today. Lauren tried desperately to calm down and make sense of things, but the harrowing broadcasts of muzzle blasts in the distance were an immense distraction.
Several minutes into her respite, the cracks of gunfire became less frequent and soon came to an abrupt halt, leaving only echoes to remain as they rebounded back and forth across the adjacent valleys.
Still on her knees, Lauren swiveled and scanned the vast expanse encircling her. She could clearly make out the ambient noises now, previously drowned out by gunfire, and she thought she could hear fast-paced footsteps trampling and sweeping through the fallen leaves and other ground cover not far away. She lingered a moment to see if they sounded like they were getting closer. They were.
Lauren went for her M4, but in her panic, she had tossed it too far away. On instinct, her hand went to the Glock 22 holstered on her thigh. Once the whooshing footfalls felt close enough, Lauren drew the weapon and spun around on her knees, her sight picture instantly locking on a human figure.
Her dominant eye focused on the Glock’s front sight as it superimposed the figure’s center mass, and Lauren pushed out a breath. Her finger slipped inside the trigger guard and pressed down on the slack of the weapon’s trigger safety until there wasn’t any slack to speak of. Just before squeezing the trigger, she allowed the front sight to distort from focus for a fraction of a second, something she did not normally do. When the blur dissipated, she identified her target: a very pale-faced, very teary-eyed, and very breathless Austin Brady.
Lauren abandoned her aim, moving her finger outside the trigger guard. “Austin? What the hell? Jesus Christ—I almost shot you!” She peered to what lay behind him in search of others, but didn’t see anyone.
The young man crumpled to the ground into a heap of panting, snorting, and heavy breathing. Sweat beaded on his forehead and mucus dripped from his nostrils. “I-I’m sorry. I-I didn’t know what else to do,” he said between gasps. “There was so much shooting and yelling…when I saw you run off into the woods, I followed you.”
“Did anyone follow you?”
Austin brought his hands to his face and balled them into fists. He cried out while thumping them to the ground one at a time. “I can’t…believe this. My dad…my dad is dead. My dad is dead! Why did they shoot him like that? Why?”
Lauren disregarded his cries and kept her eyes on the descending environment whence they had come, her Glock held tightly to her chest. She asked again, putting emphasis in her words. “Austin, listen to me carefully. Were you followed?”
“Shit! I don’t know! How the hell am I supposed to know that? Didn’t you hear me? They shot my dad and he’s dead! And I just ran away—just left him there—I couldn’t even do anything. I feel so stupid right now…my uncle Ricky is probably dead now, too.”
“I heard you, and I know what happened. I was standing right beside your dad when he was shot,” Lauren lamented, her eyes moving briefly to a small spattering of blood on her jacket, knowing it had landed there when Bo Brady had been fatally struck by a sniper’s bullet. “Now, do us both a favor and keep your damn voice down! The shooting stopped, and we ha
ve to assume they’ll be coming for us next. If they hear you crying and yelling and acting a fool, they’ll know right where we are.”
The young man sniffled and wiped his nose on his jacket sleeve. “I don’t care.”
Lauren’s voice turned bitter. “Do you want to die, Austin? Do you want to end up just like your dad? Just like the others did today? If that’s the case, tell me right now and I’ll handle it. I’ll put a round in your skull and leave your body for the coyotes—and save those other men coming for us the trouble.”
Austin took in a deep breath and blew into the leaves. “You wouldn’t shoot me…”
She stepped closer to him. “For being an obnoxious half-wit and giving up our position to the enemy? Are you sure about that?”
The young man covered his mouth and coughed a couple of times. His head turning sideways, he soon found Lauren’s steely glare. “No,” he muttered. “I don’t want to die.”
“I suggest you start caring, then.” She hesitated, taking the time to holster her sidearm and retrieve her M4 while allowing the young man a moment to gather himself. “Austin, look. I’m not trying to sound heartless, okay? I’m not that kind of person. I am very sorry about your dad.”
Austin continued to sob, but muffled the sounds by burying his face in the sleeves of his jacket. “What’s my mom supposed to do now? How am I going to tell her? How am I going to explain this to my sisters?”
“You’re the man of the house now,” said Lauren. “You’ll find a way.” She was anxious to leave, cognizant of how prudent it was to keep moving. Distance between themselves and the threat was an ally. Even so, she reluctantly remained static, allowing the young man to grieve for his fallen father.
Lauren thought hard about her friends, recalling her final glance at Fred’s demeanor and the dreadful looks Norman and Christian had on their faces just before making her escape. She spoke softly. “There’s nothing we can do to change what happened back there, Austin. I lost friends today, too—they were family to me. Norman…was John’s dad—he was one of my dad’s closest friends, I’ve known him since I was a child. Don’t doubt for a second that I’m not hurting just as badly as you are from all this. But enough shit has happened today, and I don’t know about you, but I do not want us to end up like them.”
“Who’s John?”
A pause. “My boyfriend.”
Austin rose to his elbows and displayed a pair of bloated, bloodshot eyes. “Okay, so what do we do, then?”
Lauren sniffled and wiped her nose, trying desperately to put the recent past behind her and concentrate solely on what lay ahead. She stood up, adjusted her rifle sling, and reached for her pack. “There’s only one thing we can do.”
“What? Go back and kill them all?” Austin asked, gesturing to Lauren’s rifle.
Lauren’s brows drew together. With no intention of wearing it again, she removed the spare rifle magazines from the discarded plate carrier and slid them into her hip pocket. “No. That would be pointless—practically suicide for us both. We’re way outnumbered and tremendously outgunned.” She slid her pack straps on her shoulders and made a few adjustments to her gear. Looking ahead and then back again, she said, “That fight is over for us. We’re going home.”
“Home? How? And then what?” Austin badgered. “What are we supposed to do when we get there? I mean if we get there.”
“We have to inform everyone what happened today,” she replied. “They need to know. I’ll assume responsibility for explaining things to Fred’s family, and then I’ll find some way of…” She trailed off, her words halting, her train of thought hitting a fork in the road. Dear God…how am I going to tell John about his dad? And Grace…how am I supposed to explain to her what happened to Christian? He’s the first person she’s loved in years—she’ll be demolished.
As her eyes welled up, Lauren could feel herself becoming rapidly overwhelmed by sorrow and despair, two emotions incapable of aiding her current predicament. She sighed, took in a deep breath, and tried willing them away, but she couldn’t stop herself from mulling over how John and Grace, quite possibly the two people she cherished most in the world, would take the news. She had to get home to them.
Austin huffed, seemingly irritated at Lauren’s lack of response to his question. “Do you have any clue how we’re supposed to get there, Miss Know-it-all? Home is like a hundred miles away from here. We don’t have a vehicle anymore—those people back there pretty much destroyed them.”
Lauren looked upward to the sky and found the sun’s position, though partially obscured by cloud cover. “No, we go on foot. There’s no choice in the matter. We have to walk home.”
“Yeah, sure we do. But which direction? Do you even know where we are right now? Because I sure as hell don’t.”
“I know we left from Moorefield, which is west of Wardensville. We drove about ten miles north of there before the ambush. That puts us northwest of home.” Lauren pointed to the hills beyond, through the barren treetops. “The sun and the mountains tell me that’s east. So we head in that direction for a while and watch for landmarks. Rivers, streams, mountains, roads—anything familiar that can help lead us back to the valley.”
Austin gradually rose to his feet, wiping some of the dirt and leaf debris from his jeans. “That seems like a lot of work to me. And we stand a good chance of getting lost. Instead of watching for roads, why don’t we just use them?”
“If we follow the roads, we chance getting ambushed again,” Lauren stated. “All things being equal, I’d rather take a chance on getting lost in the woods than wind up dead on the side of some gravel road, or worse.”
Austin converged on her, his mouth warped. He looked her up and down, sizing her up. “Have you done this before or something?”
“Have I done what before? Run from people trying to kill me? Or navigated through miles of unfamiliar wilderness?” Lauren shifted her stance and grimly half-smiled. “Believe it or not, I’m guilty as charged on both counts.” She started off at a meager pace in the direction she had indicated. “Let’s get going.”
While Lauren hiked along wordlessly through the forest, Austin’s behavior was decidedly the opposite. He mumbled incoherently, hummed, clicked his tongue, and at several points along the way, had even begun incessantly talking to himself. He rambled, posed questions to himself, and answered them like a child having a conversation with an imaginary friend.
The weight of the world had found its way upon Lauren’s already overburdened shoulders. The priority right now was finding her way home and getting there safely, but heartbreaking thoughts of what had happened since leaving, and intuitions of forthcoming events were distorting her focus. Austin’s vocalized internal dialogue was only making matters worse, and on top of everything else, the sky was beginning to darken, and the air was turning colder as the evening hours drew in. They were running out of daylight.
Lauren stopped in her tracks and turned to find Austin dillydallying many yards behind. “Hey, Austin, could you do me a favor?”
“Maybe. I mean, I guess. Like what?”
“Like shutting the hell up. I swear, you haven’t stopped talking to yourself or making some kind of commotion since we started our little voyage together. And it’s driving me up a wall.”
“Sorry,” he said solemnly. “I didn’t know you could hear me.”
“The whole world can hear you.”
“Look—I’m sorry, okay? I make up stories in my head and talk them out. I’ve done it ever since I was a kid. It’s the only thing keeping me from thinking about Dad and everything that happened, right now.”
“Well, it’s the only thing keeping me from thinking my way out of the mess we’re in—and it’s a pretty big damn mess. So if you’re going to do it, kindly do it with less volume. Or better yet, not at all.”
Austin quickly grew agitated. “Well, shit. I’m sorry. I didn’t know I was being such a burden to you. Maybe we should go our separate ways…I can find my own way ho
me, if you like.”
“That would be perfectly fine with me.” Lauren turned away swiftly, dismissing him. “See you there in a few days, then.”
Austin stood in place, practically dumbfounded at her response. “Oh, come on. You’re shittin’ me, right?”
“No, Austin. I’m definitely not shittin’ you.”
“Oh, really? ’Cause it seems to me, most girls would appreciate a man tagging along in case something dangerous jumped out at them or tried to eat them. I’m a hunter and I’ve lived in the woods all my life—they aren’t exactly safe, you know.”
Lauren’s voice crooned. “I’m well aware.”
“Fine. Go on, then! Be that way. Take on the whole world by yourself if you think you’re so tough.”
Lauren ignored him and trudged onward and away, not bothering to stop, wait, or even turn to see if he planned to rejoin her, though she surmised it highly likely that he would. A few minutes and many yards later, she could hear his clumsy footsteps drawing nearer.
“Hey, before you get too far…you got anything to munch on?” Austin asked. “I took off without mine, and all this walking we’re doing is making me real hungry.”
“And now, since you’re hungry, you want to be friends again. Is that right?”
“I was just joking with you back there. I didn’t mean anything by it.”
“Look, Austin. I have enough food in my pack to feed myself for at least three days, along with some emergency rations,” Lauren said. “It’s going to take all I have and then some just for me to make it back. If both of us depend on it, it will disappear a lot quicker.”
“Well, I don’t have anything,” Austin said, pulling out the insides of his front pockets. “Aren’t you going to share yours with me?”
Lauren sighed, not thrilled about being in a position to provide for someone unprepared, yet not seeing any other way around it. Her father’s lecture on helping others in need during a catastrophe came to mind. “It wouldn’t be rational for me to eat and watch you go hungry. I can share what I have with me, I suppose. But we’ll need to supplement our inventory along the way.”
We Won't Go Quietly: A Family's Struggle to Survive in a World Devolved (Book Three of the What's Left of My World Series) Page 28