Evergreen (Book 4): Nuclear Summer

by Cox, Matthew S.

  Besides, these guys tried to kidnap Madison. They deserved to scream.

  One advantage of having a bow, she didn’t appear to rank as high on the threat level as the other militia who carried rifles; the four invaders armed with guns didn’t lob any bullets in her direction. Of course, those bastards also had taken up covered positions too far away for her to reach using an arrow.

  Amid the clank of a bullet skimming off metal, Marcie fell to the road, gasping in pain and clutching her right shoulder.

  “Marce!” shouted Darnell.

  “I’m fine. Just winged me.” Marcie lifted her hand to look under it. “Yeah. Not too bad.”

  Six men all jumped out of cover behind dead cars at once and charged.

  Harper popped up and fired an arrow at the first man she spotted. It hit lower than she aimed, burrowing into his chest near the base of his ribcage. He slowed from charge to stagger, but kept coming. She pulled another arrow, loading as fast as she could despite her hands shaking from the unfamiliarity of using a compound bow in a life-or-death situation.

  Darnell nailed one of the enemy rifleman in the forehead and racked the bolt of his hunting rifle. Leigh leaned around the back end of a sedan, firing her AK rapidly at the charging men, dropping three of them and destroying a fourth man’s right knee before her magazine ran out. Harper aimed at a guy running toward them waving a legit medieval claymore over his head. Two invaders got close enough to the militia position for Ken to fire his handgun. A man wielding a fireman’s axe took two .45 slugs to the chest and dropped like a sack of topsoil.

  Harper narrowed her eyes, furious at these people for the mental torment they’d forced on Mila—not to mention trying to kidnap her sister—and let another arrow fly.

  Her shot nearly went up the claymore man’s nose. At less than twenty yards, Harper could reliably hit a spot the size of a half-dollar coin. The back end of the arrow jutted out from the front of his face, a few inches poked out the back of his skull. He collapsed to the road in an instant, no sound or fanfare.

  Leigh hammered a fresh magazine in, but stayed hidden behind the car’s rear wheel as the three remaining invaders using rifles all focused on her position. That gave Darnell a clear shot to take out one more.

  “They’re freakin’ crazy!” shouted Ken. “Who runs at people with guns?”

  Harper leaned around the back end of her cover, another arrow loaded. The count of dead in the road appeared to be edging past a dozen at this point. The remaining invaders had all ducked down into cover, only a few peeked out at them. Both remaining rifleman also stayed out of sight, hiding behind cars at roughly 180 yards. While she might be able to get an arrow to fly that far, she’d be firing upward at such an angle that hitting an individual person would be basically impossible.

  The little trees in the dirt strip along the side of the road moved.

  Cliff sprang out into a charge, pouncing on the closer rifleman and re-enacting the shower scene from Psycho.

  “Harp!” shouted Leigh. “Your right!”

  She swiveled, locking stares with a ‘tribal’ trying to sneak up on her. He’d made it to about twenty feet, creeping around behind the opposite side of the Coldwell Banker sign. The man rushed at her the instant she noticed him. Harper hastily aimed and loosed an arrow, hitting him high on the left shoulder. It didn’t slow him down; he ran in, swinging a hatchet at her face. She thrust the bow up in a two-handed grip, blocking the tiny axe under the head. The surprisingly powerful impact sent a jolt down the bones of her forearms, but sheer desperation gave her the strength to keep the edge away from her forehead. That, and maybe the arrow sticking out of his shoulder weakened him. Snarling, she rammed her knee into his groin. He faltered, staggering back a step. Harper grabbed the .45 off her belt, pointed it at him, and pulled the trigger.

  Nothing happened.

  He grinned, and lunged, grabbing her by the throat and shoving her against the pickup truck. “Bad time for a misfire, sweetie.” The man raised the hatchet.

  She thumbed the safety off, put the gun under his chin, and fired. A geyser of nastiness flew out the top of his head as he collapsed over backward. “Forgot the damn safety.” I shouldn’t forget that. I’m freaking out. Stupid.

  “Clear!” shouted Cliff… a second before he shot a guy attempting to run and jump over the guardrail away from him.

  The corpse landed out of sight, below the road level.

  He shot a guy trying to run… Harper frowned. Screw it. They tried to kidnap Maddie. Roaches deserve better treatment.

  Harper put the safety back on and holstered the .45 before walking out from behind the pickup and staring at the guy face down next to the giant sword. I just shot a dude carrying a big ass sword with a freakin’ bow. When did we go this far back in time? For a moment, she felt like a character in a medieval fantasy video game, using arrows and swords. She cringed at the thought of trying to pull the arrow out of a person’s head, but decided to do it anyway. Any arrow she could re-use was a good arrow. The Mossberg made for a far more effective defense weapon, but it wouldn’t last forever.

  Yeah… this will work once I get used to it. She crouched by the dead guy, set the bow on the road, and struggled to pull the aluminum shaft out of the man’s skull. Despite bleeding from the shoulder, Marcie joined the other militia in moving forward to clear and check the bodies. Evidently, she hadn’t been hit too badly.

  “What possessed you to go old school?” asked Cliff, startling her from how quietly he’d approached.

  “Uhh. Just had it in my hand when the alarm went off. Didn’t really think much about it.” She stepped on the guy’s head and pulled. “Damn this is stuck pretty good.”

  “Suction.”

  “Yeah, it sucks all right.” She grabbed the arrow in both hands, pulling on it while stepping on the guy’s cheek to hold his head down. “You know what’s really bugging me?”

  “Killing a dude with an arrow?”

  “Sorta, but not really.” She stopped pulling to rest a breath. “Killing this guy bothered me less than you killing that chicken for dinner.”

  Cliff laughed. “Not that silly, really. I mean, you vegans are kinda nuts, but it does make a little bit of sense. That chicken didn’t try to kill you. This dude did.”

  “Grr. I’m not a vegan.” Harper yanked the arrow out in one hard pull. “Ooh. Not even bent. Don’t have to be vegan not to want to see an animal be killed. Ate it, didn’t I?”

  “True.” He set his hands on his hips, glancing off down the road to watch the search of bodies.

  “Same guys from the airplane?” asked Harper.

  “No, they were dead.”

  She frowned. “Really. Who’s got the dad jokes?”

  Cliff laughed. “I know what you meant. Yeah, looks like the same sort of clothing. Must have been a revenge raid.”

  She wiped the blood from the arrow on the guy’s shirt, then put it back in her belt quiver. “You think Mila should’ve executed them all instead of letting two guys run away?’

  “Nah. That would’ve been cold-blooded. She’s just a kid.”

  Harper nodded. “Yeah. Not her fault they attacked us.”

  “You okay?” Cliff lifted her chin with one finger. “Little bruise on your neck there.”

  She offered a blasé shrug. “I don’t think I’ll ever be ‘okay’ again unless someone rewinds time so the war didn’t happen. But…” Harper smiled, thinking of Logan. “I’m coping.”

  “Good.” Cliff kicked the dead guy. “You’re more than coping, hon. You’re surviving.”

  “I’m being melodramatic, too.” She chuckled, heading over to the guy who tried to ambush her and recovering that arrow. “It’s not really okay that getting into a gunfight—or whatever you call it when a bow is involved—doesn’t faze me anymore. Killing two guys before dinner shouldn’t be routine for a girl my age. But, it is. And here I am. And, well, I guess it was bound to happen.”

  He raised an eyebrow. “What
was bound to happen?”

  “Another raid. More shooting.” She folded her arms. “I dared to be happy the other day.”

  “You are kidding, right?”

  She smiled. “Yeah. Just making a bad joke. Can’t let you have all the glory.”

  “Oh, one quick thing.” Cliff picked up the hatchet. “Block this like you did a moment ago.”

  As he slow-motion chopped at her, Harper raised the compound bow in a two-handed grip almost in the manner of a quarterstaff. The hatchet shaft hit the bow an inch beneath the head.

  “See how the blade has hooked over?”

  “Yeah.”

  “That can work for you or against you. The guy could try to take your bow.” He pulled on the hatchet, demonstrating how an attacker could rip it right out of her grasp. “But you could have used that against him, especially after introducing your knee to his balls. Pivot to the left and push with both arms, you’ll yank the axe right out of his hand.”

  Harper pretend rammed her knee into Cliff’s groin. As he fake doubled over, she wrenched the hatchet from his grip, trapping the head with the bow and shoving it away.

  “Good. We can work on that a bit more later if you want.”

  “Wow, you really are turning into Dad. Even a near death experience becomes a lesson.”

  Cliff patted her on the back. “Near death experiences are lessons. The trick is paying attention to what almost happened.”

  Darnell jogged up to them. “Looks like twenty-seven. All men. Definitely some kind of organized group. No modern clothes. Most of them have prison tats. Maybe more former inmates or something, wanted to get rid of the orange jumpsuits.”

  “Could be, someone’s rolled into Kittredge.” Cliff spat to the side. “We should check that out in case there are any more surprises waiting.”

  “Yeah. My thinkin’ exactly.” Darnell shook his head. “Think there’s more?”

  “Possibly. These guys don’t look like geniuses. Maybe they all came after us at once.” Cliff glanced at Harper. “You want to come along or sit back here and make sure no more of them get into town?”

  She shrugged. “Whatever you think is better.”

  “Go grab the cannon and head on back. We’ll take a walk.” Cliff winked.

  “’Kay.” Harper hurried off up the road, heading home.

  Going on a combat patrol with her new father felt entirely way too exciting not to be a little unsettling.

  Yeah, I’m no longer normal. Most girls want to go shopping with their dads, not go door kicking.

  13

  Combat Patrol

  Harper walked down the road, clutching the Mossberg tight.

  Too tight.

  She hadn’t been that nervous even the first time she competed in front of an audience. No matter how badly she did in the competition, paper targets and clay pigeons didn’t shoot back. Sure, she’d been on scavenging missions before, highly aware of the risk that people might attack them at any minute. However, following Cliff, Darnell, Deacon, Sadie, Ken, and Eddie Sanchez toward Kittredge differed from every other ‘mission’ she’d yet done for the militia in one critical way: this time, combat wasn’t a risk—it was a certainty.

  The militia went to Kittredge with the intention of clearing out whatever remained of the gang that attacked Evergreen. Based on what the kids said about being put to work, they also expected to find prisoners. Searching for people held against their will, more than retaliation, motivated them to go.

  Anxiety churned in Harper’s stomach. Going on this raid—she could think of no other word for it—felt too much like revenge. Those sons of bitches tried to kidnap Madison, Jonathan, Lorelei, and the other kids. Why did she even cling to Dad’s Mossberg if not to use it to protect her family? Running headlong into certain danger isn’t what an eighteen-year-old voted sweetest in her class should be doing, but dammit… she wanted to.

  Being on the aggressor side of a gunfight felt wrong even if the people they intended to attack deserved it. She had no idea what it would look or feel like. Where to go, what to do… all of it blurred around in her head in a nauseating, fatal what-if scenario.

  Maybe if I think of this like a video game or a range. Target pops up, shoot it. They’re not people. They’re monsters.

  She swallowed on a dry throat.

  Cliff walked at her side in a strange sort of posture, legs slightly bent. He didn’t make much noise, his eyes shifting side to side in a constant search for threats. It honestly scared her a little since no trace of ‘dad’ remained in his expression. He’d switched on some sort of Terminator mode. Deacon, the giant ex-convict bank robber, carried a pump shotgun that looked like a toy in his meaty hands. The fire axe he had when they first saw him in the Walmart hung over his shoulder in a handmade sheath. Even that looked like a ‘small stick’ compared to him.

  Sanchez carried an AK-47, Sadie had a legit M-16, Darnell brought a scoped rifle with a handgun for backup, and the others all carried AR-15s. Except for their lack of uniforms, Harper kinda felt like part of a military patrol walking in formation down a highway into enemy territory.

  “If it hits the fan,” said Cliff in a low voice, “stay down and watch our flank.”

  She swallowed dry again. “I’m scared, but I can do this. They tried to hurt the kids.”

  Cliff nodded once. “Scared is normal. I’d be worried if you weren’t. Only the real psychos wouldn’t be scared going into a kill zone.”

  “Right.”

  He glanced at her, a little of his normal personality showing under the soldier veneer. “Didn’t mean to imply you were overly scared or a kid. You’ve got a short range weapon. No point in you exposing yourself to fire when the engagement’s going on past forty or fifty yards. Keep an eye out for idiots coming up behind us.”

  “Okay.” She half turned to the right, scanning the pine trees and grass on the side of the road.

  As they approached a curve in the road, where it went around an enormous rock the size of a small hill, Harper stared down a long driveway on the right at a blue house that looked abandoned, no signs of activity. Still, she kept the shotgun trained in that direction until the huge boulder got in the way. A small creek ran around the rock in a stone-lined ditch that paralleled the road.

  The wreckage of the crashed jetliner came into view past the end of the curve. Harper blinked in awe. She’d expected an airplane crash to be… different, more like a scattering of tiny pieces. Other than broken wings and collapsed landing gear, this plane didn’t look too badly damaged. The fuselage, for the most part, appeared whole. Two deflated yellow escape chutes hung from doors on the side to her left. The plane had come to a halt at the edge of the road, crumpling the metal guardrail and nearly sliding into the creek.

  The militia filed around it on the left, everyone falling extra silent.

  Char blackening covered the road behind the plane, all the way to a side street appropriately called ‘Troublesome Gulch Road’ by a surviving street sign. They continued ahead past several houses, cutting south and fanning out to go past a little playground, fallen telephone poles, and loose wires. Despite knowing that none would have any power in them, Harper still held her breath, frightened of touching downed wires.

  They reached a road heading south, and followed it into the heart of Kittredge’s residential neighborhood. Many of the houses here had bullet holes and broken windows. Over the eerie silence, the distant angry shouts of a man floated from farther south.

  When they reached what appeared to be the southernmost row of houses, Cliff held up a hand indicating stop. Men in the distance berated someone for going too slow. Other men laughed. Cliff patted Darnell on the arm and pointed at a stepped hill beyond the houses. He nodded, ducked low, and climbed a series of stone retaining walls separated by short swaths of gravel before scurrying into a cluster of pine trees at the top.

  The others waited in silence, listening to the distant men verbally abuse someone and laugh about it.

&nb
sp; Darnell came back a few minutes later, his expression grim. Everyone gathered around him.

  “The farm’s just over this hill. Split in two areas. Bunch of goats in a valley on the right. Planting area’s kinda small… to the left. They got a couple contractor trailers set up that look like holding cells, chains and padlocks on the doors. But they open now.” Darnell took a knee and sketched in the dirt. “Three guys armed with bats and stuff near the goats, plus two men who look like forced laborers. Another six armed men by the farm area. One’s got an AR-15, the other a pump shottie. The rest all got knives, swords, or shit like that.”

  Cliff nodded. “Okay. Civilians?”

  “Yeah. Bunch of them. Six or seven, plus two little girls.”

  Harper bit her lip. The other militia stifled grumbles.

  “How bad is it?” whispered Sadie.

  “Them kids is sittin’ by the trailers. Don’t look hurt or nothin’, just sad and frightened. The laborers all got leg irons like a prison chain gang. Two of ’em are wearing uniforms, maybe cops or correction officers.”

  Cliff spat to the side. “Harper was right. Ex cons.”

  “What did they do to the kids?” whispered Harper.

  “Can’t tell from here.” Darnell shrugged. “They’re just sittin’ there by the trailer. Don’t look like they’re hurt.”

  “They tried to kidnap Maddie and the others, and put them to work,” said Harper. “They’re keeping slaves. We need to help those people.”

  Everyone nodded.

  “Do you think the bad guys will surrender?” Harper fidgeted. “Do we really have to run in there and mow them all down?”

  Cliff sighed. “They ran at us with axes and crowbars and shit while we had rifles. Pretty sure they don’t give a damn about survival. And, what would we do? Drag them back to Evergreen and put ’em in jail? Send them on their way so they attack us a couple days from now?”