by Payne, T. L.
“That’s a long story,” Rank said.
As they approached the next roadblock, Lugnut dismounted. “Rank, give me a hand.”
Ryan covered them as Rank and Lugnut shoved cars and trucks from the roadway, clearing a path for them to pass. After everyone was through, Rank started to push one of the cars back into place.
“Don’t bother,” Lugnut said. “I don’t think there’s anyone living here.”
As they passed the headquarters building, Rank was thinking the same thing. No one came to see who was riding down their main street. Lugnut galloped ahead, disappearing at a bend in the road. Even though it seemed the base was deserted, Rank kept his head on a swivel.
Rank could see the plane on the tarmac as they approached the airport. He was sure the runways had been empty the last time he’d passed by there. This had to be Stephens’s plane.
Rank chortled. “Is there really a cargo plane on the runway?”
“Sure enough. Stephens was telling the truth,” Ryan said.
By the time they pulled into the airport, Rank was wound tight. Everything that plane represented was almost too much for him to take in. Was a real recovery possible? Could they get back some of what they lost as a nation? What a difference this could make in the lives of the survivors.
Soldiers stopped them two hundred yards from the plane. Rank stood staring at the C-130 cargo plane with his mouth open. “It’s all true. There really is a functioning military and legitimate government officials running things down there?”
“There is,” Stephens said as she dismounted her horse.
“Well, I’ll be damned. I never dreamed it could be possible.”
He counted a dozen soldiers milling around the area behind the checkpoint. The rear ramp was down. The cargo area was filled with pallets of rations and military equipment. There was probably more ammunition in one ammo can than Rank had seen in months. “Lug, there’s your .50 cal.,” he said, pointing to the weapon mounted on top of a Humvee.
“Where’s the cargo, Stephens?” an approaching colonel asked. He looked pissed. Stephens didn’t seem to care.
“We were ambushed. Twice. My team was killed. The gold was stolen,” Stephens said as she passed him. “Get a team together. We know where it is.”
“Who the hell are these civilians?” the officer barked as he chased after her.
“Civilians?” Rank raised his eyebrows. “I don’t think I’ve ever been called that before.”
“They’re Marines, Sharp,” Stephens called back over her shoulder. Sharp twisted and looked back at them. “And they’re going to help us get that cargo,” Stephens continued.
Sharp put his hands on his hips and stared at Rank, Lugnut, and Ryan. “ZZ Top has joined the Marines.”
Rank and Lugnut stood around jawing with two privates while Stephens and Sharp prepared their team. Rank was interested in finding out what life was like down in Texas and what type of missions they’d been on since the lights went out. Private First Class Sims was just about to tell them about a mission out in Arizona when Stephens poked her head out of the hangar.
“Rank, Lugnut, Ryan, come inside and get your gear.”
Rank felt like a kid in a candy store standing in front of crates filled with quality military gear and more ammunition than he’d seen since leaving the Marines. They’d come ready. Rank traded his damaged plate carrier for a new one.
“You’ve seen battle?” a freckled-faced private asked.
“Every day has been a battle since the lights went out.” Rank ran his finger over the indentation in the center of the plate carrier. “Where were you when the shit hit the fan?”
“Afghanistan,” the kid said.
“Were they hit?”
“We were evacuated by the 5th Fleet out of Manama, Bahrain, just before they bombed the shit out of Iran and China.”
“You jarheads ready?” Sharp asked as he walked past.
Rank leaned in close to Lugnut. “I think we’ve been promoted.”
Stephens, Lugnut, Ryan, and Rank headed toward one of the four Humvees. The look on Hogan’s face when Stephens told him he was staying to guard the plane was exactly what Rank had expected. He was relieved. Not as much as Collins, but he certainly appeared to be the coward Rank believed him to be.
“You think I could man the .50 cal.?” Lugnut asked the private as they climbed into the vehicle.
Chapter 17
Raymondville
Texas County, Missouri
July 15th
Maddie’s butt and legs were sore from too much time in the saddle. In the heat, she was consuming as much water as she could, which made them stop frequently to empty her bladder. She was tired and ready to get home. She missed her bed. And she missed Emma.
They were trying not to push the horses too hard. They may need them if they couldn’t find fresh horses. Trotting around a sharp bend in the rode, Maddie brought her horse to a stop and stared down at two terrified children standing in the middle of the road.
Gene, Aims, and Harding jumped from their horses and fanned out.
“Where are your parents?” Maddie asked the children as she jumped from her saddle.
The kids said nothing. They just stood there staring at the rifle in Maddie’s hands.
Maddie threw the rifle over her back and bent down. “I’m not going to hurt you. I need to know where your parents are?”
The little girl peeked at her from behind the boy. Her bright blue eyes filled with tears.
“Maddie, get off the road,” Gene called.
Maddie reached out to grab the boy, but he backed up, knocking the girl to the ground. When she began crying, he turned. Maddie grabbed them both by the arms and rushed them to an old, abandoned pickup truck on the side of the road.
“Let me go!” the boy yelled. The girl had begun crying.
“Shut them up, Maddie. They’re going to get us all killed,” Gene called out from his concealed position behind the truck.
Maddie grabbed the boy by both arms. “Listen, kid. We aren’t going to hurt you. We just don’t want to get ambushed. Okay? If you tell us where your parents are…”
“They’re dead. Everyone is dead,” the boy spat.
Maddie released her grip on him and straightened.
“What are you doing out here on the road, all alone?”
As she stared down at him, she noticed tiny droplets of blood covering his stained yellow shirt. She glanced over to the girl. She had splatters of blood on her dress and face.
“What happened?” Maddie asked, pointing to his shirt.
He looked down and ran his hand over the fabric. When he glanced up, his eyes were filled with tears. Maddie’s heart broke for him. She knew what it was like to lose a parent. She fought back the memory.
“We were attacked by men with guns,” the boy said.
Maddie leaned in to examine him closer. “Were you hurt?”
The girl stepped from behind him. She pushed strands of hair from her face. It was hard to tell what was blood splatter and what were freckles.
“Are you hurt?” Maddie asked her.
“Harmony shot the bad man,” Dillon said. “It’s his blood.”
Maddie felt as if she’d been punched in the stomach. Bile rose into her throat as she ran to the edge of the ditch and heaved. The boy’s words echoed in her brain. Larry’s words echoed in her brain.
Slave traders. Sex traffickers. They’d taken Harmony. Zach? Where’s my brother?
“Where?” Gene asked, stepping out from the back of the truck.
The boy backed up.
Maddie wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and turned. Aims was mounting his horse.
“Harmony is our friend. We want to help her. Where did this happen? Where were you attacked?”
The boy grabbed his sister and picked her up. Maddie knelt over and placed a gentle hand on boy’s shoulder. “What’s your name?”
“Dillon,” he whispered.
&nbs
p; “Dillon. Harmony is my sister. She was with my brother, Zach, and some of my friends. If they’re in trouble, we need to go and find them. Can you help me?”
Dillon nodded.
Maddie forced a smile.
“Great. Now, did you come from that direction?” She pointed north.
He nodded again.
“Was it on this road? Did you have to turn from another road to get here?”
He furrowed his brow. “We didn’t turn anywhere.”
“How long ago was this?”
“I don’t know.”
This was going much too slow. Her brother could be bleeding to death. She didn’t have time for this.
“Was it this morning?”
“No. It was a few hours ago, maybe. We hid for a while and waited for the bad men to leave.”
Maddie’s gut clenched. She knew she had to ask, but she wasn’t ready for the answer. “Who was hurt?”
“Some of the bad men and Lady G,” Dillon said.
A momentary relief washed over her. “When you left, where were Zach, Harmony, and the others who were with them?”
“In the wagon?”
Maddie glanced over the Gene. “Harmony would not have left without knowing the children were safe.”
Gene nodded. “Where were the bad men when Harmony and Zach left in the wagon?”
“They were driving it.”
Maddie dropped to her knees. Her head was spinning. She struggled to control her breathing. She hadn’t had a panic attack in months. Get a grip, Maddie. This won’t help Zach. She felt Gene’s hand on her arm, pulling her to her feet.
“We have to follow them,” he said. “Aims. Harding. Let’s go. Zach and Harmony have been taken. I don’t know about the others. We have to track their wagon.”
Gene pulled on her arm. She resisted.
“The kids. We can’t just leave them,” Maddie whispered.
“How are we going to track your brother and get them back while hauling two kids, Maddie?”
She stared into Gene’s eyes. She knew the older, grizzled man was hardened by all they’d been through, but he couldn’t be that hard. “I don’t know, but we can’t just abandon them.”
“Shit. Okay. Come here, kid,” Gene said. “You get the girl, Maddie.”
As they headed down the road, Maddie realized she had never ridden with a squirming kid before. Her horse wasn’t thrilled by the idea, either. Maddie had to keep pulling its mane from between the little girl's fingers.
“There,” the boy yelled, pointing to a spot ahead of them.
Maddie stood over the woman. She’d been shot in the back, likely while running away. Maddie knelt and felt for a pulse. She was gone. Maddie felt her arm and then rolled her over and felt her cheek. She was still warmish. They might not be that far behind the men who took her brother.
“I’ve searched the area. I didn’t find anyone else,” Aims said, riding up to them.
“They obviously went north. With the wagon, they would want to stay on the main roads. The gravel roads are too rutted to move very fast,” Maddie said.
“I’m not so sure. They’re arrogant. They don’t know that anyone is following them,” Harding said. Maddie stared into his big, black eyes. His dark hair was now mostly white. He’d aged years in the last nine months. Harding, as the regional director for FEMA’s Region Five, had carried an enormous burden. Being exiled hadn’t seemed to ease things in his life.
“You’re right. So, how many roads branch off this one?” Maddie asked.
“If they take a gravel or dirt road, I’ll be able to spot the wagon quickly. We got the shoes for one of the horses from that new blacksmith in town. He put special shoes on those two draft horses. His shoes have a divot right near the toe. I was going to take them back after Zach got back from Eminence,” Gene said.
Maddie turned to Dillon. “Were all my friends in the wagon when they pulled away?”
“It was just Zach and Harmony in the back of the wagon. I didn’t see Maria after the men took her away.”
“Maria,” Maddie whispered under her breath. She’d never considered that she might never see her again. She seemed so indestructible.
Maddie twisted to face him. “Were any of them bleeding?”
Dillon looked down at his sister. “They all were.”
The sound of the hooves on the pavement echoed through the hollow as Maddie, Aims, Harding, and Gene rushed to reach her brother and the others before they disappeared.
“What’s your name?” Maddie asked the girl.
She said nothing.
“Her name is Chloe,” Dillon yelled.
The little girl had obviously never been on a horse. If she had, she’d never ridden as fast as Maddie was pushing her horse. Her head banged into Maddie's chest as she tried to hold on to the saddle’s horn. Maddie reached around her waist and held on to her to keep her from bouncing off. Gene stopped and lowered Dillon to the ground before sliding off his horse. Dillon held onto the reins as Gene studied the ground. The dirt at the edge of the blacktopped highway was dry. It hadn’t rained in the area for weeks. Maddie was concerned that he wouldn’t be able to see anything.
“They went east toward Montauk,” Gene said, moving back to his horse.
“Are you sure?” Aims asked. “Maybe we should split up and…”
Gene climbed back into his saddle and held his hand out to Dillon to pull him up. “I’m certain. Let’s go.”
Maddie rode as fast as she could with the child, but she still fell farther and farther behind the others. At times, she lost them as they raced around sharp bends in the road. She was becoming concerned that she may just lose them all together until she came around the curve and saw Gene off his horse, checking the shoulder of the road at a junction ahead.
“Anything, Gene?” Maddie asked as she rode up.
“They didn’t turn off. We can’t be far behind them, though,” he said.
“Really? How do you know that?”
He held up his left index finger. “The poop’s still warm.”
“Gross,” Dillon said.
Chloe giggled and looked back at Maddie. “He has poopie on his hand.”
Maddie tried to smile, but her concern for Zach, Harmony, and the others dampened her sense of humor.
After riding another hour, Maddie was growing increasingly more anxious. What if they were on the wrong path? What if their abductors had doubled back and went south or north?
Maddie didn’t have to wait long for her answer. Just before a sharp curve, Gene came to an abrupt stop. He turned in his saddle and made a gesture with his hand for her, Aims, and Harding to stop and dismount. He held one finger to his lips.
“Chloe. I’m going to need you to be very, very quiet, okay?” Maddie asked. “We’re going to get off the horse and go rest behind that tree.”
Maddie dismounted and then reached for the girl, who slid down the side of the horse into Maddie’s arms. With the horse’s reins in one hand and Chloe resting on her hip, Maddie hurried through the saplings along the shoulder of the road. To Maddie’s great relief, Chloe stayed quiet. Maddie placed Chloe on the ground beside the tree and crawled forward on her hands and knees to see where the others were. Aims lowered Dillon to the ground and pointed to where Maddie had left Chloe.
“Aims,” Maddie whispered, but he couldn’t hear her. She was afraid to speak any louder. As Dillon approached his sister, Maddie turned and said, “Sit by your sister and make sure she stays quiet. I’m going to try to get a better look.”
Maddie crawled to the clearing just before the ditch and pulled her rifle to her cheek. She scanned the gravel road that branched off to the right but didn’t see them there. She turned right and left and caught movement in the trees on her left about twenty feet from her position. She stiffened and studied the area. What she thought were people was actually the tails of Aims, Harding, and Gene’s horses so she moved forward into the ditch and scanned back to her right. Maddie eased up le
vel with the pavement and tried to get a view of the road that the others had disappeared down. She hated not knowing what was going on. She understood that it had been her decision to bring the children with them, but she hadn’t thought about the fact that she’d be the one left behind to babysit while they caught up with her brother’s abductors.
As she scanned the trees lining the dirt road, she spotted something out of place, but she couldn’t quite be sure what she was seeing. She leaned forward with her elbow on the blacktop to steady the rifle.
“Put your hands up,” a voice called. “Get them in the air or we’ll shoot.”
Chapter 18
Dent County, Missouri
July 16th
The rope binding her hands burned her wrists as Maddie tried in vain to pull her hands free. As she tried to change position to get better leverage, she hit her head on the side of the wooden box she’d been stuffed into.
“They won’t let you out until you calm down,” said a female voice that was barely audible through the crate.
“Where are we?” Maddie asked.
“It don’t matter none. We’re not getting out of here,” the young woman replied.
Maddie couldn’t accept that answer. “Are we in a house?”
“No, but I told you. It don’t matter. There’s no windows, and there are guards at the doors.”
A place with no windows—likely not a house, Maddie thought. What structures lacked windows? They hadn’t traveled far from where she’d been taken, so it was likely a barn or maybe a garage.