The first few feet were slippery, but he eventually got the hang of it. He half crab walked, half slid on his butt over the rocks that had been blown out of the mountain to make the road and lot above. As he approached the tree line, he felt less ashamed for having pissed himself. I made it. I made it down the hill and I’m going to make it out of here. And when they report this shit on the news, I’ll be all like––
He didn’t see the thin wire extending across the space in between two boulders on either side of him. He heard a faint pinging and a tinkle of metal, then felt a second’s heat from the grenades that scorched and blasted him and dashed his splintered remains against the rocks before sending them raining down into the evergreens below.
#
1657 hrs
Dressing in her own clothes gave Lyn the feeling that she’d finally regained a semblance of control over her life––even if it was an illusion. In reality, she was still trapped in a diner. Changing her clothes in the bathroom gave her the same amount of control over her life as a condemned prisoner ordering his last meal. It wouldn’t make any difference how she looked when the bullet that took her life finally found her.
She looked at the green peasant frock that hung loosely over skinny jeans emphasizing a little too well how skinny she really was. She pulled on her boots and finally buckled the wide belt around her waist. This is who I am. Carefully sliding the gun into her belt, she looked into the mirror and said, “This is who I’ve become.”
Washing her face wasn’t as painful as seeing what Beau had done to her once narrow, straight nose. She scrubbed at the skin under her eyes until she realized that they were black from bruising, not filth. She parted her fingers and looked at the gun in her belt, wondering whether she’d feel a bullet rip through her skull before her brains gave out and she could just go to sleep. She doubted there would be any difference if the bullet came from Joanie’s gun or her own. Leaning against the sink, trying to banish the thought of calling it right there in the bathroom, an image of the void, its blackness, its emptiness, its nothing filled her mind with promises of no more pain, no more fear, just nothing. Her vision blurred as tears welled up and spilled down her cheeks. She caressed the gun butt.
That’s it. Take it, an unfamiliar voice in her head told her. She wiped her tears and looked into the mirror at the high, narrow window over her shoulder. The beast’s black eyes stared back through. Its breath fogged the glass. It spoke. Take the gun and end it. Come be with me and free everyone else. Why punish all these people for your failure?
“My failure? I didn’t start this. It’s not my fault.”
Everything that has happened today is your fault, the beast said. You summoned me to free yourself. To escape this life of banality and want. So be free. Be nothing. It is what you are already.
“I’m something. I’m me.”
Nothing. The beast glared through the window. Lyn squinted shut her eyes, pressing her palms against them, but the image of the monster wouldn’t go away. It remained, black eyes leering, accusing her of being everything she was: alone, inert, and afraid to free herself.
She pulled the pistol out of her waistband and spun around, aiming at the window––aiming at nothing but sunlight and trees on the other side of the glass. Her own voice echoed in her head, accusing her of not only being weak, but now, crazy. It was one thing to daydream about life being a fantasy tale; it was something else entirely to populate that life with monsters creeping in the woods, staring back from the mirror. She took her sketchbook out of her messenger bag and held it like a counter-weight against the gun in her other hand. The scale naturally tipped in favor of the gun.
She sat down solidly on the closed lid of the toilet and wept softly, holding the cool barrel of the gun flat against her forehead. The blast outside shook the window above the toilet and she screamed. And then she screamed some more. She screamed until she was hoarse.
And then she breathed.
Still alive. I’m still alive. She thought of the monster at the window. I’m alive and you can’t have me.
Abandoning her uniform in a pink and stained red pile on the floor, she got up, grabbed her bag, and walked out to see who was left.
She made her way along the narrow hallway hesitantly, and peeked around the corner. Despite the sound of the blast, nothing had changed. It was still a disaster––quiet and dark, except for the few spears of light shining through the holes Joanie had shot in the blinds. She stood surveying the scene, breathing. Whatever it was that blew up, it happened in the back. The thought unnerved her. The back room was their last refuge––except, she only knew of defensible positions from what she’d seen in the movies. Joanie knew of them from experience and training. Lyn bet she also knew how to penetrate them. “Penetrate” sounded like the right verb in her head.
She stepped around the corner and slipped behind the lunch counter thinking she could drop down for cover if anything happened. On her way to the swinging doors, Lyn hesitated in front of Carol’s wife’s body. Carol said she left her purse under her table. Which one was it? Table three? Lyn walked cautiously into the dining room, shoes crunching in the broken glass, and squatted down to look under the table where she thought she’d seated the women. There was only one purse. Must be hers. She grabbed it and dumped the mess of unorganized junk on the floor. Batting away everything that didn’t matter to her––lipstick, wallet, a paperback book by someone named Christa Faust with a naked woman holding a gun on the cover––she found what she was looking for: a set of keys and a cell phone. She stuffed the keys in her messenger bag and checked the phone for a signal. Nothing. But the text message icon was green. Maybe her signal came and went like Beau’s. She stashed the phone and looked for the other woman’s bag in the chairs. I bet you’re the kind of woman who carries a wallet in her back pocket. Lyn returned to the lunch counter.
Carol had gently laid out her girlfriend––What was her name? Sylvia!––with her hands folded on her chest next to the gaping exit wound just above her heart. Lyn bent down, plunging her hands into Sylvia’s front pockets. Today was a day of firsts. She’d never seen a dead person before––not even at a funeral––and now here she was violating one by rifling through her pockets. I’m sorry. I’d bet you’d be doing the same in my position. Lyn pulled a small cell phone out of the woman’s pocket. Voila! It had a slide out keyboard. She popped it open and the screen came to life. Another green envelope.
And a single bar.
Lyn immediately sent a text message to her mother again. Lyn here. New phone. Did u get other text? R cops on their way?? She hit send and watched the little animated envelope grow wings and fly into cartoon clouds. She only had to wait for a second before getting the reply. What is going on up there? Called the sheriff’s office. They said they’d ‘check it out.’
“God damn it! What the fuck does ‘check it out’ mean, Mom?” She composed herself quickly, realizing that she probably only had this one chance and no time for temper tantrums. She stood up and took a picture of Sylvia’s corpse with the camera in the telephone, making sure to get the woman’s wound in frame. The flash made the blood covering her chest and mouth stand out starkly against her pale skin and blond hair. Lyn hit reply and added All Contacts including Facebook and Google Plus to the list of recipients. In the Comments field she typed: We need the police at Your Mountain Home Kitchen in Mercy Lake Idaho RIGHT FUCKING NOW!!! Unlike last time, Lyn didn’t hesitate to hit the send icon. She imagined that she probably sent a bunch of people more than a few nightmares, enormous therapy bills, and a maybe heart attack or two, but she didn’t have any choice. People needed to know. And she needed to get word out before she lost signal on this phone, too.
“I’m sorry, but you just helped us more than anyone else in this place, including me.” She gently smoothed the hair from the dead woman’s forehead. “You probably saved Carol, too. I bet that would have meant something to you.” She leaned down and kissed Sylvia’s sticky red cheek.
She stood up, aiming for the kitchen. Out of the corner of her eye, she thought she caught a glimpse of a large silhouette in the late day sun, standing near the entrance. A pain in her chest shot into the left side of her neck as one of the bodies bracing the front door open spasmed. They’re dead. They’ve got to be dead. I saw that man’s head get…
The corpse jerked again like the body of an antelope being torn at by a hungry lion. And then it was pulled out the door and vanished. Frozen in place, Lyn waited for the beast to come back for the second body. She rubbed at her eyes with her fists. It’s not real it’s not real it’s not real. Pulling her hands away, she looked at the doorway. It was still propped open. The two dead bodies hadn’t moved since Joanie executed them. “You’re not real, fucker.”
An anguished howl echoed off the mountain.
#
Bryce was certain that it was the sound of the shot killing him when he heard the shed latch clatter shut behind him. Leonard gave him an excited shove and together they slid around the shed without hyperventilating or being ventilated. On the other side, the men paused to exchange a quick glance. Leonard smiled and Bryce couldn’t help but chuckle. The situation was taking a toll on more than their bodies. Give it a little more time and we’ll be laughing like hyenas and scratching at the bugs crawling under our skins. If Joanie doesn’t kill us, we’ll be too crazy to appreciate making it. “All right. We’ve got cover now. I’m going in through the rear exit to see what happened. You can follow me or hang around in the lot.”
“If it’s all the same, I think we’ve got a better chance if we stick together,” Leonard said.
“My thought exactly. Let’s go.” Bryce pulled his gun from its holster and pushed off of the wall. He jogged around to the back lot, skidding to a stop when he saw Beau lying facedown on the ground. “Jesus!” He ran up and flipped him over. Blood had pooled in the gravel and coated half his face. The top of his head was lacerated, but he was breathing. His heart was beating.
“What the fuck happened to Beau?” Leonard asked.
“I don’t know. Help me get him over there.” Together, the men dragged Beau toward the wall and lay him down gently. “Stay here and try to wake him up. I’m going inside.”
Leonard saluted with two fingers like a boy scout. On any other day Bryce would have wondered if he was being mocked. Today, it seemed sincere.
He padded back to the door and tried to open it. Locked. Standing to the side, like before, he banged on the door with the butt of his gun. No answer. He did it again. “Is it you, Deputy Douglas?” Hunter asked.
“Yeah, is everything all right in there?”
“No. Is everything okay out there?” The kid pushed open the door and Bryce slipped through it quickly, his gun held up by his face, scanning the room for a threat.
“What happened in here? What was that sound?”
“Nothing happened in here. It came from outside when Luis ran away.”
“Luis left? Where did he go?”
Hunter pointed out the door. “He said he was headed down the rock slide thing.”
“The scree slope?” Bryce ran outside toward the edge of the lot. Looking down, he could see what was left of Luis. All over. A breeze pushed the stench of burned flesh and Luis’ blown-open bowels up into his face. He resisted the urge to vomit. She’s mined the woods around the restaurant. There are fucking land mines out there! As promised, his mind threatened to snap. Pull it together. You might not have seen worse, but it can’t get any worse than it is. This is as bad as things get, he lied to himself.
He turned around and headed over to Leonard. “He waking up?”
“No. No yet.”
“Let’s get him inside.”
#
Lyn pushed through the doors holding up Sylvia’s telephone triumphantly. “I got through! I sent for help.” She smiled, not knowing she wore the dead woman’s blood on her freshly cleaned mouth, looking more deranged than before.
“Whose phone is that?” Daniel asked.
“It’s…” Lyn looked over at Carol lying on her side next to Neil who was stroking her red hair. The woman lifted her face from the doctor’s good leg and looked. “I went through your purse, Carol. Sorry.”
“It’s not mine. That’s Syl’s,” she whispered.
“It saved us. I got messages out to my mom and everybody. They’ll call the police and then they’ll come and get us out of here.” Carol held her hand out for the phone. Lyn regretted not deleting the picture from the gallery and sent messages folders. “I sent for the police,” she whispered. The phone buzzed in her hand. She looked at it and saw that ten new messages had appeared in the in box in the last two minutes. Sending the picture had definitely gotten a response.
“Please, can I have it back?” Carol said. She crawled around from beside Neil into the middle of the room. Lyn met her half way and handed the cellular to her.
“I’m so sorry,” she said. Carol took the phone and began pushing buttons. Her mouth dropped open; her face grew pale.
“What did you do?” Neil said.
“I sent for help.”
Bryce banged on the door again from outside and Lyn silently thanked him for breaking the spell. Hunter ran over and let him in. Leonard followed behind carrying Beau like a sleeping child.
“Leonard!” Lyn shouted.
“Take it easy Lyn,” Bryce shouted. “It’s okay. He was hiding… laying low in the propane shed. It’s all okay.”
Although nothing was actually okay, she was relieved to see Leonard. He made her lunch and sometimes dinner at the diner. He walked her to her car in the winter when the sun went down early. Although they weren’t that close, he was the closest thing she had to a friend in Your Mountain Home Kitchen. He was back and he held Beau like he was there to help. The big man set the little man down gently on the floor next to Neil.
“Could you take a look at him?” Bryce asked before turning to Lyn. “And can I have a word with you?” He grabbed her elbow and led her down the hall. Lyn resisted as they got close to the swinging doors. “What is going on?” he hissed. “I asked you to try to make a call, but everyone in there looks scared shitless of you. There was shooting and then Luis ran off and blew himself up on the side of the mountain.”
“Blew himself up?”
“And to be honest, looking at you scares the shit out of me! I need to know I wasn’t wrong when I decided to trust you.”
Lyn’s head swam with the memories of the afternoon. When she’d first come to work she was just some skinny girl who wanted to move to the big city and draw for a living. Now she was a hallucinating, crazed, gun-wielding woman who took pictures of corpses. She seized up for a moment, stiffening, and then relaxing onto Bryce’s shoulder. “You can trust me,” she said softly.
“I want to believe you.”
She looked into his face and tried her best to give him a not-crazy stare. She guessed that she looked slightly less insane than she had a minute ago because he didn’t argue when she said, “Believe me. I’m fine.”
“Okay then.” Bryce looked down the hall into the mirror in the corner. Everyone in the back was watching them. “We need to come up with a plan to get out of here. No waiting. Right now.”
“But I got through. Sylvia’s phone works and I texted everyone. They’re coming.”
“Not soon enough.” He stared into her face and his expression changed from that of a scared person to a cop’s. He’s reading me. He doesn’t trust me.
“Joanie’s wired this place to blow. There’s C4 or something like it in a box wedged beneath the tank outside. When she gets tired of waiting to shoot us, she’s going to push a button and blow this place apart.” Lyn opened her mouth to protest, but Bryce interrupted her. “I’m not kidding. You may have called in the cavalry, but we got to get out of here or else they’ll have nothing to save but our teeth for dental identification. Are you receiving this?”
“What do we tell them?”
“T
he truth. Once we have a plan, they get the truth.” He let go of Lyn’s arm and she stepped back hugging herself and rubbing where his thumb had dug into her bicep.
“So, how do we escape?”
“I was hoping you’d come up with something.” Lyn felt a crushing terror that must have shown in her face. Bryce pulled her to him with his good arm. “It’s okay. I’ll come up with something.”
They walked out to where Neil was weakly tending to Beau with Hunter and Leonard’s help. It wasn’t an encouraging sight. Although Neil’s bleeding had stopped, he looked like he couldn’t carry on much longer. Somehow, he managed to care for Beau.
“How is he?” Bryce asked.
“He’s alert and responsive, but he’s dizzy and can’t recall what happened before getting hit in the head with the door. He’s most likely got a concussion, but I can’t determine if he has a skull fracture or internal bleeding while I’m sitting here. We’ve got to get him to a hospital.”
“I think I have an idea,” Bryce said.
#
10 October 2009 –– 0910 hrs –– Frankfurt, Germany
Errol felt Joanie’s hand twitch. He didn’t send for the nurse or even get up from his seat. Despite the coma, she twitched from time to time. She’d slept for almost a month and he didn’t expect her to wake up any time soon. So when she croaked his name, he almost fell out of his wheelchair.
#
12 October 2009 –– 1154 hrs
“Are you headed back?” Joanie asked. Errol shook his head and patted his hip.
“This got me a purple heart and a ticket home. Doctors say I’ll never dance again.” Joanie didn’t ask if he’d ever danced before and the joke died quietly. “I’ve been putting off catching the ride home until you woke up, but I think I’ve overstayed my welcome. The U.S. Government doesn’t like feeding airmen who can’t work or fight.”
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