by Harley Tate
Not a chance. He owed his sanity to that woman. Tracy gave him the strength to make the hard choices. Larkin had been forced to make them on his own.
Walter had a newfound appreciation for the man. “When did you join the army?”
“I enlisted as soon as I could. I had to get out of that town. After my first tour, I used the GI Bill to get my degree and became an officer. I would have stayed active duty if I hadn’t broken my back. Turns out they don’t want majors with fused vertebrae on the front lines.”
Walter nodded. The transition to National Guard made sense. So did Larkin’s take-no-prisoners attitude. “I’d be honored to have you stick around, Larkin. We could use you at the cabin.”
“You mean you can use my jaded lack of compassion?”
Walter smiled at the man. “Exactly.”
They shared a small laugh. “You really think they’ll take us all in?”
“I can make the case. No guarantees, but once Barry and Anne see what you can offer, I can’t imagine them saying no. They need protection. We all do.”
They lapsed into silence and Walter concentrated on the road. At least the conversation with Larkin distracted Walter from the snail’s pace. They were still fifteen miles from the turnout to the gravel road. Still so far from his wife and daughter.
He craned his neck toward the window to catch a glimpse of the load on the roof. The logs wobbled as they drove and the tarp flapped in the wind, but it all appeared secure. He leaned back up just as Larkin jerked upright.
“Walter! Stop! There’s something in the road.”
Walter pressed the brakes, but with the load on top, he couldn’t stop on a dime. Everything would fly off the top.
The car slowed as Walter squinted to make out what Larkin saw. The sun glinted off something on the asphalt and Walter swerved. The gear on the roof slid to the side and Lottie barked in the back seat.
Colt spoke up from the back, wide awake in an instant. “What’s going on?”
“Something in the road. Looked like metal. I think Walter dodged it.”
Walter glanced at the dash. A red warning light flashed. “Don’t celebrate yet.” He slowed the car to a stop on the side of the road. “Cover me.”
He opened the door to the car as Larkin did the same. The army major propped a rifle on the hood and surveyed the road. “Looks clear.”
Walter eased out and crouched beside the front left tire. The sound of whooshing air greeted him and the tire sagged before his eyes. Damn it. He eased around the front of the car and checked the other tire. Three gleaming bright nails stuck out of the tire as the rubber slumped against the road.
One flat they could manage. Two? Not possible. He pulled the handgun from his waist and crept back past the edge of the car. Larkin got out and eased to a shooting position behind the door.
It didn’t take long for Walter to find them. Strips of nails from an automatic nail gun sprawled across both lanes of the rural state road. Their tire tracks were the only disturbance. He rushed back to the car and clambered inside.
Colt spoke up before he could. “It’s an ambush, isn’t it?”
Walter nodded. “Strips of nails across the road. Whoever put them there hoped for a situation just like this.”
Dani shifted in the backseat. “Then where are they? Why aren’t they shooting?”
“They expected us to be going a hell of a lot faster.” Colt pointed at the curve up ahead. “Most people would be driving, what? Sixty miles an hour? Anyone who hit those nails at such a speed would lose control and slam into those trees before they could stop.”
Larkin agreed. “Whoever planted this expected to reap the rewards without getting their hands dirty. They could ransack the vehicle after everyone inside died.”
“What are we going to do?”
Walter glanced at Dani before turning to Colt. “We should give them exactly what they’re expecting.”
Chapter Ten
COLT
Northern California Forest
2:00 p.m.
Colt shoved a rock onto the gas pedal of the Camaro and leaned over to shift the car into drive. He ducked out of the way as the car took off on two flat tires and a whole lot of giddy-up. Thanks to the horsepower, it sped down the asphalt despite the drag from the flat rubber and slammed into the bank of trees with tremendous force.
The hood crumpled, glass shattered, and by the time it came to rest, nothing was left of the front of the vehicle. It would take whoever set the trap hours to discover no one was inside. And even if they did, the few bits of gear they staged in the back seat might distract them long enough for Colt and the rest of them to get far enough away to not be found.
He walked back to Dani and Lottie and tried to shake off his frustration. Ever since he left the University of Oregon campus, he hadn’t caught a break. Dani had been kidnapped and attacked and shot. Colt hadn’t fared much better.
Between the two of them, they’d killed more men than Colt wanted to count and left just as many to die in agony. The last few weeks had been as brutal as any he’d seen in combat, if not in intensity, than in emotional toll. There was something different about fighting civilians.
They weren’t there to kill you because that was their job. They just wanted to survive like everyone else. He forced a smile onto his face. “Ready to drag a bunch of gear twenty miles?”
Dani smirked. “Don’t think we have a choice.”
With their packs loaded up with as much as they could carry before the straps tore, the skid was reduced to a still heavy, but manageable load. Colt took the left and Larkin the right with Walter, Dani, and little Lottie leading the way. They planned to switch every mile.
The log dug into Colt’s shoulder as he adjusted his position. Every step took concentrated effort. After a quarter mile his back ached. After a half a mile, his bad knee threatened to buckle.
Larkin grunted beside him. “I’m too old for this.”
Colt snorted out a laugh. “Tell me about it. My knee’s about to give out.”
“My back’s not too happy, either,” Larkin groaned as he exhaled. “No one ever told me in the apocalypse I’d regret spinal fusion surgery.”
At their complaining, Walter left his position on patrol and took up the rear, easing a bit of the burden, but not nearly enough.
The end of the first mile, Colt set his side on the ground and shrugged off the pack. He collapsed onto the earth and winced as his knee popped. “We’ll never be able to do this for twenty miles.”
Larkin almost fell to the ground beside him, stretching out like a kid about to make a snow angel. “This is why men our age retire from the military.”
Walter crouched between them both. “You’re right. I miscalculated. The load is too heavy.”
Colt tilted his head. “Any bright ideas on what to do with it all?”
“We’ll have to hide it and come back for it later. One of the kids has a Jeep. If we can clear enough of a path through the woods, we can four-wheel here without getting on the main road.”
Walter stood up and surveyed the pile of supplies.
With a grunt, Colt forced himself up to sit. The prospect of not carrying the skid gave him a surge of energy. “We’ll have to dig another hole and bury it all.”
“It’s like I’m back in the Marine Corps and out on a training mission.”
Larkin sat up with a wince. “Right. Like you ever dug fighting holes as an officer.”
Walter grinned. “I never said I did, but I sure ordered extra military instruction a time or two.”
“Bastard. Enlisted guys had to hate you.”
“Yeah, but they were damn good with a shovel.”
Lottie yipped and all three men turned around. Dani stood a few feet away with the little dog in her arms. “You three are crazy, you know that?”
Colt rolled over and lifted a shovel from the skid. He held it out to her. “And exhausted. Guess who gets to dig first?”
5:30 p.m.
Scattering leaves and branches over it, Dani and Larkin blended the existing forest floor with the disturbed dirt until no one could tell the difference. Colt notched a mark in four neighboring trees and Walter made a note of their distance from the road and the direction toward the cabin.
It wasn’t perfect, but it was the best they could do given the circumstances.
They couldn’t risk marking a trail to find their way back in case someone else discovered it and followed it straight back to the cabin. Colt sipped some water from his canteen and chomped off a strip of jerky. At least they weren’t hungry or wet.
It could always be worse.
He glanced over at Dani. The girl hadn’t complained about taking the laboring oar for digging the hole or hiking with a pack that had to weigh half her body weight or more. She trudged along beside him in silence, eyes open and head scanning the forest ahead.
As long as they were on the move, Dani was the same: confident, prepared, ready to tackle anything. It was when they settled down that she grew restless and unhappy. There was something to be said for the nomad life.
It’s what Colt had wanted when he walked out of the University of Oregon and it’s what they had now. Maybe staying at the cabin Walter shared with another family wasn’t the best choice. Maybe he should take Dani and Lottie and keep moving.
A breeze blew Dani’s hair beside him and he shook off the doubts. Traveling by foot through the foothills was no life for a fifteen-year-old girl. They might survive the summer, but what would they do at the first sign of snow? How would they survive when the temperatures dropped below freezing and the animals went into hiding?
If she didn’t want to stay with Walter, then the only choice available was to find another town and carve out an existence among the dwindling few still clinging to their old ways of life. It wasn’t a future he wanted for Dani or himself.
Colt turned to catch sight of Larkin and Walter behind him. Twenty feet separated the two pairs of hikers, but they were as much of a unit as any he’d had in the military. He knew he could trust the three of them with his life. Larkin had proven himself time and again. Walter had saved Dani’s life.
They were good men. He would be honored to spend the rest of his days in their company.
“Colt?”
He spun back around at the tremor in Dani’s voice. “What?”
She pointed through a thicket. “Do you see that?”
Squinting, he searched the area. A scrap of orange. A hint of blue. Human activity. He motioned with his hand and Larkin hustled up. Colt dropped his voice to a whisper. “There’s something out there.”
“I’ll cover you.”
Colt eased his pack to the ground and loped into the thicker brush, navigating through ferns and fallen logs to a little clearing twenty yards away. Beer cans littered the area. A ripped-up sleeping bag covered in leaves was sprawled on the ground. Colt picked up a stick and poked at the orange nylon.
Bears lived in the vicinity, but the slices through the bag didn’t look like a vicious animal attack. Straight and long, with nary a jagged edge, they appeared manmade and from a damn sharp knife. He used the stick to flip the bag over.
The bottom was stained a dark brown and Colt recoiled. Blood. A ton of it.
He stood up with a jolt. Whoever had been camping here didn’t do so in peace. He looked around for any sign of the wounded person. With that much blood loss, could anyone even escape? If not, where was the body? Sucking in a breath, he smelled nothing but decaying debris and pine trees.
No stench of death. No hint of the atrocity committed in this little patch of forest. He hustled back to the group and met their waiting stares. “Someone was attacked here. No sign of a body.”
Walter inhaled. “We need to get home as quick as we can.”
Colt nodded. “The longer we’re out here, the riskier it gets.”
The setting sun cut through the leaves and lit Colt’s hands in an orange glow. “We don’t have much daylight left. Let’s make the most of it.”
As they hiked away from the remains of past violence, Colt glanced behind him. Whoever did that could be lurking just out of sight. Watching and waiting for a chance to strike.
Chapter Eleven
TRACY
Clifton Compound
10:00 a.m.
Tracy steeled herself for the job ahead. With the kids out on patrol and Anne checking the outbuildings, no one stood between her and Hampton Rhodes. She would find out all of his secrets and plans.
One way or another.
The splash of cold water on his face did nothing. Neither did the constant shaking of his shoulder or the slap across his face. She’d hit him too hard the night before.
No matter. If he didn’t wake the easy way, she’d go hard.
The needle sank into his finger like a knife into a ripe tomato; initial resistance, then smooth and steady. Blood welled on the man’s finger pad and his head jerked.
His eyes fluttered and Tracy widened her stance, legs apart, one hand braced on her knee. She sat no more than a foot away, face-to-face with the man who would lead her to her daughter.
She pressed on the bloody finger with the point of the needle and Hampton’s eyes popped all the way open. His pupils swelled before contracting and bringing her into focus. He glanced down at his finger and the blood dripping off his skin and tried to jerk his hand away. The paracord held him tight.
“What the hell are you doing?”
Tracy smiled. “Waking you up.”
He jerked against the ropes. “My head is killing me.”
“That’s because I slammed my pistol right about here.” Tracy reached out and thumped the swollen lump on the side of his head.
Hampton almost screamed. “You bitch!”
“Seemed only fair. You weren’t being the most forthcoming.”
“I didn’t know you would take me hostage.” He tugged on the ropes again. “What’s your problem?”
“I need information. Tell me about your group. Now.”
“I don’t have a group!”
“Liar.”
“I’m serious. It’s just me.”
“Last night you told a different story.”
He ran his tongue over his teeth and grimaced. “Last night I was high on oxy. I could have told you the sky was raining marshmallows and the trees were candy canes.”
Tracy stared at him. His pupils were dilated maybe more than normal and he trembled a bit as he sat in the chair, but fear could cause the same reaction. He could be lying about the drugs and the rest of his group. “Tell me where your group is hiding.”
Hampton threw himself back in the chair. “I don’t have a group.”
With swift precision, Tracy reached out with the needle and stabbed another one of his fingers.
He screamed, full-throated and terrified.
“Tell me where they are.”
“You’re crazy.”
She leaned close enough to see the flecks of brown in his blue eyes and the fear swelling his pupils. “Yes, I am. And I’m only getting started.”
Tracy stood up and walked into the kitchen. The drawer slid open with a long, steady screech.
Hampton jumped. “What are you doing?”
“Picking a knife.” She held up two. “Serrated or not?” She turned the two knives around in her hands, focusing on the dips and valleys of the longer blade. “I’m thinking serrated. It’ll hurt like a bitch when I carve up your face.”
Hampton lunged against the ropes, struggling so violently that the chair bounced up and down. He managed to scoot it back about a foot before Tracy closed the space between them and grabbed him by the shirt.
“Not so fast, pretty boy.
I’m about to see what’s underneath that beard.”
He blubbered at her, stammering as flecks of spittle coated the wiry hairs beneath his lips. “I told you the truth! There is no group!”
Tracy refused to back down. Her daughter was missing. Someone hurt her bad enough to leave a puddle of blood behind. Madison was out there, hurting and desperate to come home. What were the odds more than one group was out there, seeking to harm them?
No cries of innocence would dampen Tracy’s resolve. This man would tell her what she wanted to know or he would die right there in Anne Clifton’s kitchen.
Maybe it was the grim look of determination in her eyes or the way she advanced on him with the ten-inch bread knife, but at last, he cracked.
“Fine! Fine! I’ve got a group. But they’re not going to hurt anyone. I swear.”
Tracy leaned back. “Tell me everything.”
Hampton sucked in a breath of air and glanced up at the ceiling. “There’s five of us. We live in a cabin on the other side of the creek.”
Tracy lunged forward and grabbed a fistful of his beard. She brought the knife up and sliced at his hair, using the point of his chin as a guide. Hampton struggled in her grip, almost falling backward as she cut through the clump of matted tangles.
As he pulled away, blood bloomed on his chin. “Don’t lie to me again or next time, I won’t be so gentle.”
She tossed the handful of beard she’d hacked off his face to the floor. “Try again.”
Hampton snuffed up a nose full of snot and scowled. Gone was the fear and the innocent expression. In their place was hard, flinted anger and calculation. “That perfect ponytail and those trim little jeans fooled Eileen, but you’re tougher than you look.”
Tracy didn’t say a word. This was the real Hampton Rhodes. This was the monster lurking beneath the surface. Whoever Eileen was, she couldn’t be much better.
“When we first saw you in the forest, we thought you’d be an easy mark. You and that other woman.” He sneered at her. “What are you, a couple raising all those teenagers together?”