He thought he might be able to pick out the faintest silhouette of his lover behind the blind. He staggered a couple of steps, staring into the black hole at the base of the house before pushing forward again, knowing he couldn’t afford to stop. Knowing that Joanie would be taking her shot at Carol any second. And after that…
The Lord is my strength and my shield; my heart trusts in him, and he helps me.
Carol dropped out of sight as he ran toward a pickup truck that would give him another second of cover before he had to race across the open highway. He saw a flash of light from behind the black screen. His breath disappeared in a sensation like being punched hard in the chest. He tried to draw air in but there was none around him and he was being pulled into the darkness.
He’d seen her and she had looked back and made her choice.
His legs went limp and he fell.
The shot echoed through the valley like a fresh peal of thunder.
He never heard it.
#
Carol hit the ground, gravel digging into her arms and face. She struggled to take a breath and couldn’t; dust choked her and got in her eyes. She pushed up, trying to stand again––wanting to give Bryce the longest diversion possible, but it wasn’t in her. Her body was too heavy.
I’m so sorry, Syl. I love you so much! She had wanted to grow old with the woman she’d married at Cambridge City Hall. Barring that, she was going to die young with her.
The weight of her body lightened and the pain receded. A tinge of hope tinctured the moment as she realized that she didn’t feel like she’d been shot. I’m just out of breath. This isn’t so bad. She got a small breath of air that smelled and tasted like the mountains––not the parking lot––actual pine and birch. The chilly late afternoon air cooled her tongue like fresh stream water. And then the pain came flooding back as a pair of hands clamped around her wrists and started to drag her through the grit.
She heard a rifle report. It sounded like a door slamming in Hell.
#
Hunter asked what they should do. He and Leonard looked to Neil for answers. Neil had none. Medical school had never prepared him for this. Leading a crisis team in the E.R. was nothing like leading a group of terrified people down a booby-trapped mountain rockslide. He’d only wanted to spend a week in the cabin with his son before returning the boy to his mom in Seattle––to spend a few days with a boy whose time with him was already too short.
“We’ll wait and see if Bryce’s plan works, I guess.”
“How will we know if it did?” Hunter asked.
Neil pulled his son closer. “I don’t know. My guess is we’ll find out sooner if it doesn’t.”
“How so?”
“The mountain will tell us,” Leonard said.
#
Beau slipped on the tacky, gore-covered rocks, but persisted. His head swam and his stomach threatened to rebel. He couldn’t remember most of the details of the last few hours, but he had the big picture well conceived: Get off the fucking mountain before the crazy bitch across the highway makes it your grave. Whatever they were discussing behind him didn’t matter. I’m done with their little committees. I’m getting out of here. Lyn’s accusation that he enjoyed torturing Joanie was still stinging. He knew the fireworks would push her, but he didn’t enjoy it. Every summer they drove his own father into seclusion in the basement, shivering and trying not to think about the jungle. The old man spent the last week of June and every Fourth of July drinking himself into oblivion in front of the plasma TV watching the quietest thing he could find: golf. Every pop, bang, and rocket-shriek buried him deeper in some claustrophobic Vietnamese tunnel, battling rats and Viet Cong with bottle after bottle of whiskey. Beau figured that Joanie would take the same self-destructive route. So much for expectations.
Beau planted a foot on a rock that felt steady and eased himself down a little more. It shifted beneath him as he put more weight on it. He slipped and fell, landing on his back on the apex of the boulder. Despite the pain and the dizziness, he forced himself to get up. He was far beyond the point where Luis had met his end. Yards past the black scorch and the red spatter. Almost home free.
Except he wasn’t.
The shifting stone had brought him face to face with a slender black wire extending across his path. He followed it with his eyes and found the surprise waiting for him at the end. It dawned on him why the others had been shouting.
Weighing his options––back up with the others or over the wire––he chose the latter. You can do this. Get on the other side of it and into the woods. Don’t let the bitch pen you in.
#
Lyn had never tackled anyone before. Carol broke most of her fall, but it still hurt. By instinct she’d stuck out her already lacerated palms to catch her weight, and spare Carol some of the force of their landing. The small jagged stones jabbed into the bandages and her arms immediately buckled from the pain. Carol’s elbow rammed into her guts and knocked the breath out of her. She rolled to her left, kicking with her heels and scrambling beside the truck. Carol lay still in the dirt, choking and puffing up dust. Lyn leaned down, grabbed her wrists with her aching hands, and pulled the woman into the space between the truck and a station wagon with Ontario plates. Carol rolled over and doubled up, sputtering and choking. Mud caked her face in streaks where she’d been crying.
“Are you okay?” Lyn gasped. “Can you talk?”
“What did you do?” The question crushed Lyn a little. It was the second time someone had asked her that and both times the answer was that she’d hurt a woman who had never done anything to her.
“I couldn’t let you do it. There are too many people dead already.” Lyn leaned against the Subaru and wondered if it was Carol and Sylvia’s. Carol rolled over and grabbed hold of Lyn’s hand. She said nothing while she lay there sobbing. Lyn wasn’t sure if she’d done the right thing or not.
Either way, this is it. I can’t drag her any further. If Bryce doesn’t get over there before Joanie sets off the bomb we’re all dead. She peeked around the car, looking for him along the path he’d have to take to get across the highway. He wasn’t there. She hoped that meant he was safely on the other side. A little further up she saw his boots sticking out from behind a car.
She lost hope.
“Oh God. He didn’t make it,” she said. Carol didn’t respond. She lay in the gravel fighting to catch her breath. “What do we do now?”
“Die,” Carol said.
Lyn tried to get Carol to look at her, but the woman lay curled up on her side. “I’m so sorry.”
“For what?”
“For Sylvia. For taking that picture. For everything. Everything is fucked and I don’t know what to do anymore.”
The sirens in the distance were growing louder. Carol said, “I understand why you did it. I can hear why you did it.”
“I’m still sorry.”
“I’m not going to forgive you.” The words made Lyn’s stomach knot a little. She wasn’t fishing for absolution––at least she didn’t think she had been. She decided that she didn’t need to press the issue further. In their present circumstances neither one of them was going to feel better by having a long conversation about it.
“We need to get out of here,” Lyn said.
“If we get up, she’ll shoot us.”
“If Bryce was right, when those emergency trucks get here that bomb goes off and it won’t matter if she wants to shoot us. Personally, I’d really rather not burn to death.”
“So go. I’m staying here.”
Lyn pleaded with Carol. “Come with me.”
“Why?”
“Because… Because Sylvia would have wanted you to live.”
“You didn’t know her.”
“Am I wrong? You said she would have taken that picture to save us. If she would have done that, I bet she would have wanted you to run for your life, too. But if you can honestly tell me that Sylvia would have wanted you to kill yourself instead, I�
��ll leave you here.”
Carol finally turned her face toward Lyn. “What’s your plan?”
“Joanie’s. We make a run for it and try to get behind her place. Hopefully, she hasn’t rigged her own house to go up, too, and it’ll be far enough away from an explosion and…”
“And what?”
“And I go in. I need to try to talk her down.”
“What if she doesn’t want to be talked down? What if she shoots you?”
Lyn patted the gun in her belt, but didn’t feel any of the confidence that gesture was meant to inspire. She tried to swallow but couldn’t for a long, panicked moment. The thought of facing down a trained killer made her want to shut down. She forced herself onto her haunches and held out a hand to Carol. “I’m going into the woods and around.”
“What do we do for a distraction?” Lyn spotted the fireworks mortar she’d dropped. It had rolled underneath Beau’s truck. She teased it forward with the tips of her fingers until she could get a good grip. She slinked backward with the prize in her hand and sat up. Tearing a long strip off of her blouse, she unscrewed the gas cap off the truck and stuffed the cloth in as far as she could. She dug out the lighter she’d intended to use on the mortar and lit the end of the cloth, tossing the mortar in the bed of the truck. “Think we can get some fireworks?”
“You’re out of your mind!”
“You coming?”
“I’m right behind you.”
“Run beside me or I’m not going.”
The women launched themselves out from cover and into the woods bordering the lot. Lyn slowed to look over her shoulder. The thing––Kreewatan––stood in the brush to the side of the restaurant, its lupine face leering at her.
A blast of hot wind from the gas tank explosion buffeted her face and a piece of hot shrapnel embedded in the tree next to her. The fireworks mortar went next with a screech and a deafening pop. The beast let loose a howl that would have rattled the windows of the café if they hadn’t been blown out already, and Lyn, for the first time since the siege began, felt true despair––like she’d seen how her life was about to end. Carol yanked her arm.
“Come on!”
#
1800 hrs
Joanie scanned the lot looking for more people. At this point, there was only one person left that she truly wanted to make certain died by her hand. But Beau didn’t come running out.
Hearing the faint sirens in the distance, she gave up on prolonging the standoff any further. For all she knew, Beau triggered the grenade she heard go off earlier, and he was already dead and gone. Now it was time to wait for the cavalry to arrive. And when they did, she’d show the whole world what it cost to have her home.
She looked one final time through the scope at the spot where she’d last seen Lyn. She didn’t want the girl to suffer. She spotted them dashing away from the parking lot into the woods. Run, Lyn. Run for it. I’ll let you go.
Taking aim on the woman sprinting beside her, she said, “Another person is about to die because of you, Adam. Was it worth it?”
Then the fireworks started and her mind shut down.
#
They dashed across the highway not looking to see if a truck would do Joanie’s job for her. It’d be an easier way out, Lyn thought. Despite their carelessness, the women made it across. They kept running through the woods to the rear of Joanie’s house.
Pausing at the back porch, gasping for air, Carol asked, “Are we going in?”
Lyn wanted to keep running all the way around the house, around to Bryce’s cruiser on the other side and simply drive away. She could intercept the other emergency vehicles and tell them not to come up. Warn them about Joanie’s trap. Then she thought of Neil and Hunter and Leonard and all the others on the side of the mountain. I can’t leave these people here to die.
“Let’s go,” she said.
Creeping up the steps as quietly as she could manage, Lyn tried the back door. It was unlocked. I guess Joanie didn’t expect anyone to make it past the parking lot. She unzipped her boots, slipped them off and set them next to the door before letting herself in. Carol followed suit, kicking off her shoes as well.
They padded through the house in their stocking feet. Lyn had no idea where they should go; she’d never been in the house before. Then she heard the screaming.
“Incoming! We’re taking indirect!”
It was coming from downstairs. Next to the stairway leading to the second floor, she found a panel push-door. Carol gasped and squeezed Lyn’s arm painfully. Glancing over her shoulder she saw the white dog lying beside the table in the breakfast nook. A pool of semi-congealed blood was spread like a cozy maroon blanket underneath it. Fucking hell. It’s just a couple of steps, Lynnea. Think small. The world is a little tiny thing and the end of this whole ordeal is only a couple of steps away. You just have to keep moving forward.
Turning toward the screams, she popped the door latch and carefully pulled it open, revealing a narrow set of uncarpeted stairs heading down. She pulled the gun from her belt and thanked her good fortune that it hadn’t fallen out in the woods.
With Carol hugging her arm tightly, they started down the stairs. Halfway down, the screaming tapered off. Joanie had gotten herself under control. They could hear her panting and sobbing, but she stopped screaming. Lyn couldn’t tell if that was a good or a bad thing. She continued down the stairs thankful that none of them creaked under their weight.
She hadn’t counted on the chirping “nightingale floor” in the hallway.
#
“Shit! Do you think she did it? Did she blow up the restaurant?” Hunter asked.
Leonard, perched uncomfortably on a wobbly boulder, considered the question. The explosion was followed by a familiar squeal and a loud bang. “No,” he said. “That’s Lyn’s Fourth of July rocket.”
“Plus something else. That wasn’t just a firework,” Neil said. They watched as some of the boulders shook and smaller rocks started to tumble down the slope. Leonard and Neil looked at each other and shared a thought. “I’m pretty sure when the diner goes, this rock slide is going to turn into an avalanche. We need to go back up. Head into the woods up top and hope for the best.” Neil looked at Leonard and Hunter for confirmation. They nodded.
Leonard stuck his pinkies in the corners of his mouth and whistled at the others, who were outpacing them down the mountain. Daniel and Raylynne hesitated, looking back. He jerked his thumb up to signal that they were headed back and waved for them to follow. Raylynne pulled at her boyfriend’s jersey. He half-shrugged and turned to follow.
“Let’s go,” Hunter said. “Either they’re right or we are. Someone’s got to make it home alive. Right?” Leonard nodded and hoped his face conveyed agreement with the sentiment rather than what he really thought.
The three of them started back up. As they neared the top of the slope, Leonard felt his stomach clench and his heart began to race. He stopped dead with Neil and stuck out a hand to hold back Hunter. From above it was invisible, but approaching from below it was right there for anyone to see: another black plastic box. This one was smaller than the toolbox in the shed, but he felt certain it was big enough to do the job.
“What’s that?” Hunter asked.
“It’s a bomb,” Leonard said. “She wants to start an avalanche.”
“Will it do that?”
“She seems to think it’s worth a try,” Neil said. “I don’t think we should wait to find out. Let’s go around.”
Hunter looked down the slope at the others. “What about them?”
“They’re almost to the bottom. They’ll be all right,” Leonard said, trying to convince himself more than the boy.
#
Lyn took a deep breath and stared at the door in front of her. The muffled sounds coming from the other side told her that opening this door was a final act. Opening it meant confronting Joanie. Probably getting shot and dying. Turning away meant she had a chance of escape. She and Carol c
ould run into the woods and let the police stop Joanie. Except they can’t. She’s going to blow everything up unless we… I stop her.
She remembered Neil, crouching under his table. He had asked Hunter what it was they did when they were able.
She whispered, “We help people.”
She couldn’t walk away and do nothing. She had to try.
If it’s locked, what do I do? I can’t break it down. She gently slid Carol’s hands off her arm and reached for the knob, hoping it would be locked, wishing for a reason to creep out of the house and leave in Bryce’s car. The latch clicked and the door silently swung open on its well-oiled hinges.
At the far end of the room, Joanie sat on the edge of a wooden platform pointing a pistol at them. Lyn regretted not searching Bryce’s cruiser first. He probably had a bulletproof vest in there. Lyn kept her own gun in hand, hanging at her side.
Joanie didn’t say a word as the women stepped into the room and let the door swing shut behind them. She sat, staring, brows knitted in confusion. Lyn thought she could see a hint of the kindness she’d shown on her infrequent visits to the restaurant. Unfortunately, that look was buried beneath more than a hint of the madness she expected to see in the face of a woman who’d just gone on a killing spree.
The room was Spartan: unpainted drywall and dusty concrete floors. Along one wall was a workbench. It was covered in the remains of whatever Joanie had used to set her remote control explosives: wires, clippers, black electrician’s tape, and a couple of spare batteries. Resting on the workbench nearest the shooter’s platform was something that resembled a piece of armor. Gray and sectioned into rectangular bars, it looked like a combination of a corset and a therapeutic brace and… something else. Lyn realized when she saw the wire emerging from the top what it really was.
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