The Pit (The Bugging Out Series Book 4)

by Noah Mann

  He steadied himself with one hand on the end of the bed and brought the knife over my face, aiming its blade down at my mouth.

  “Then, when you are monster, I throw you overboard,” he said, laughing wetly next. “And then I wait for your woman to come to cabin.”

  Elaine...

  She wasn’t here, and, based upon what Kuratov had just let on, she hadn’t been. Why, I didn’t know. But I was grateful. For the moment.

  “She will know me,” Kuratov said, leering, a gurgle at the back of his voice. “Then I will cut like you.”

  He held the power over me. But I couldn’t let that be. I had to change the dynamic. Still coming out of the fog he’d knocked into me, I had to think, and act, quickly. Before Elaine did show up.

  “You lost,” I said.

  Kuratov’s smile twisted.

  “We beat your men at Mary Island, and we slaughtered them in Skagway.”

  “Keep talking, American. It will make more the sweet when I tear your tongue out.”

  One thing I knew from the almost intimate proximity Kuratov had allowed between us was that I’d been right. He was not well. The sickly smell of his breath, and the wet hoarseness of his voice spoke to some infection. The heat bleeding off the man as he leaned over me screamed fever. And the way he was supporting himself with one hand against the end of the bed. He was favoring one side, and protecting the other. Shielding it.

  Just as Schiavo had after being shot.

  Kuratov was wounded, on his left side. His energy was low. His mind numbed. Only his exceptional training and will had allowed him to take me down so easily. Had he been functioning at full capacity, I was certain that my time on this earth would be severely limited.

  It might still be, but I was not going without a fight. And, even then, if I had to go, I wanted to take him with me.

  “Your men were weak,” I said. “Untrained Americans beat them.”

  The twisted smile folded in on itself until his mouth turned to something almost animalistic, teeth bared under curled lips. His anger was building to fury.

  “By American women,” I said, twisting the metaphorical knife.

  Using his fury he drew the knife back, readying to plunge it into my face. That was the moment, at the instant his arm was highest, that I drove my right knee upward, as hard and as fast as I could, slamming it into his ribcage on the left side.

  “Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!”

  He screamed and stabbed downward with the knife, his body spasming in pain. The blade missed my face, and my head, skimming off the edge of the mattress just beyond. I rolled as he coughed, spitting blood, and scrambled to my feet, arms still bound awkwardly behind.

  “Arrgghhh,” Kuratov grunted, pulling himself up with one hand, the knife firmly gripped in the other.

  I backed toward the open balcony door. Kuratov stepped clear of the bed and tossed the knife aside, reaching with his good hand behind his back. To me that meant he had a gun there. And once he had that in hand, my part in this lopsided duel would be over.

  As his hand came back from out of view I charged at him, lowering my shoulder. The pistol, small and black, came up, his aim adjusting to my lowered profile. He squeezed a round off. The shot cracked sharp and painful at the nonexistent range between us. I felt a hot spear of fire drag across my back and heard the glass balcony door explode behind. Before he could correct his aim and fire a follow up shot, my shoulder slammed into his midsection, throwing him back against the wall separating the bathroom from the cabin. I felt a rush of air as the breath was knocked out of him.

  But he wasn’t down, or out. He tossed an elbow against my head, missing and connecting with my neck. For an instant my vision flashed white, and when it cleared I saw the pistol again swinging my way. Another shot, at this range, and he could not miss.

  I dove this time, hurling my body toward his injured side, and as I did I felt something slip behind my back. The makeshift bindings he’d quickly crafted had loosened on my right arm. Driving my shoulder into him again, the sleeves which had locked my hands and arms together came fully loose and I reached for the pistol. He fired again, this shot not grazing me this time, but missing wide, burying itself in the room’s dresser in a shower of splintered wood.

  With one hand I grabbed the wrist of his gun hand and, with the other, I powered a fist into his injured side, a wet splash covering my hand with blood as it made contact. But as I pulled back to strike again, Kuratov swept his left leg fast across mine, knocking my feet from under me. I lost my grip on his gun hand and tumbled backward to the floor, landing between the bed and the dresser.

  And that was it.

  Kuratov straightened, his body in agony as he stepped away from the bathroom wall and stood just beyond my feet, the cabin door behind him. There was no move I could make in this position. No strike to stop him from where I lay. My only hope was that the sound of the shots would have been noticed, bringing an armed response and keeping Elaine from suffering the fate I was about to.

  “American,” Kuratov said, gasping, blood trickling from his mouth. “Loser.”

  He brought the pistol up. I watched it rise, and as I did I saw something. Just behind him. At the very bottom of the cabin door where light bled in from the hall beyond. Through the slender space where I saw two dark spots. Shadows that blocked the light.

  Someone was standing right outside the door.

  “FIRE!”

  I shouted the command at the top of my lungs, an instant of confusion at my outburst flashing on Kuratov’s face just before the wooden door behind him exploded inward, a hole the size of a dinner plate appearing in it. The front of the Russian’s dark shirt turned instantly darker as it was shredded by tiny projectiles punching through his midsection. Before his body folded in half and collapsed, spine and ribs shattered, a pulpy spray erupted from the exit would that the double ought buckshot had made, covering me and the balcony curtains with bits of the Russian’s insides.

  I scooted back, away from Kuratov, his dead hand still holding the small pistol, a gush of blood spreading under his unnaturally bent form. Just behind, the cabin door, nearly obliterated by the shotgun blast, swung slowly inward, bent hinges screaming. As it came to a stop against the wall I saw a familiar face just outside, shiny Winchester pump smoking in his hands.

  “Are you all right?” Martin asked, stepping into the cabin, his shotty trained on Kuratov’s lifeless body.

  With some effort I came to a sitting position against the dresser, then lifted myself up.

  “How did you...”

  I was grateful but confused as to how Martin had ended up outside my cabin at just the right moment to save my life. He reached out and helped me up, guiding me past the dead Russian to a spot near the door. In the hall I could hear voices rising in the near distance and a rush of footsteps racing our way.

  “Elaine wanted to check on Grace and Krista after Angela...after Captain Schiavo was finished with us. I walked her there. She wanted to let you know where she was, so I said I’d find you and bring you by.”

  Enderson and Westin had been wrong. Thankfully so. Elaine hadn’t been returning to our cabin. If anything this day was to be ascribed to divine intervention, I would think it that.

  “You’re bleeding,” Martin said. “Your back.”

  “A graze,” I said. “I think.”

  He helped me out into the hallway as Schiavo and her men neared. Westin and Lorenzen stepped past, M4s up and ready as they stepped into the cabin.

  “Looks like a minor wound,” Martin told Hart as he approached and opened his med kit.

  I looked to Martin, pure gratitude in my gaze.

  “Saying thank you isn’t enough,” I said.

  “I’m glad I heard you,” Martin told me. “I was going to kick the door. That would have been too late.”

  Lorenzen came out and looked to Schiavo.

  “It’s Kuratov,” the sergeant reported. “Dead.”

  Schiavo took a moment to pro
cess the sudden and violent end to something we hadn’t expected when beginning our journey home. After a moment she looked to the man who’d saved the day. And my life.

  “That was a gutsy move, Martin.”

  He didn’t dispute her characterization of his blind shot. But he also wasn’t eager to elicit any accolades.

  “Let’s keep this between us,” he said. “All right? I just helped out where I could. Fair enough?”

  He was humble. And he was human. It seemed that all Martin Jay wanted at that moment was to move on. To continue home. In peace.

  “Fair enough,” Schiavo agreed.

  “A pretty good graze,” Hart said after checking my back.

  “Get him a fresh cabin and get him bandaged up,” Schiavo said.

  * * *

  Ten minutes later I was in that new cabin, one deck up, our belongings transferred by Enderson and Westin just as Elaine arrived, rushing in after learning of what had happened.

  “Are you okay?” she asked me, only ten percent frantic.

  “No hard hugs for a few days,” Hart suggested. “I’ll have Doc Allen give my patch job a proper look in a bit.”

  Elaine put her arms gingerly around my neck and held me, firm but not tight.

  “You okay now?” Schiavo asked from the doorway as Hart packed his med kit and stepped past her.

  I nodded.

  “Good work,” she said, then reached in and pulled the door shut.

  Elaine eased back and let her gaze play all over my face. Over every inch of it. Every wrinkle. Every dark stain of dried blood.

  “I’m going to run some water and get a cloth and clean you up,” she said. “Then I’m going to lock that door and keep you in here with me until we’re home.”

  “We’ll have to eat,” I reminded her.

  “We’ll order room service,” she said.

  “Might be a long wait.”

  “That’s fine with me,” she said, then kissed me softly as the cool ocean breeze spilled into our cabin.

  Fifty Two

  The crew used a trio of lifeboats to shuttle us to shore in a process that took three hours. At the end of that time only Martin, Elaine, and I remained aboard the Northwest Majesty. Schiavo stood by as our personal gear was loaded on the last boat for the final trip.

  “To say this was pleasant would be wrong,” Schiavo said. “But I’m glad we came through it together.”

  Elaine gave her a hug, then I did the same, her own arms circling me with gentle consideration for my slight wound.

  Then she looked to Martin.

  “It was a real pleasure to meet you, Martin.”

  “The pleasure was mine, Angela. Entirely mine.”

  In another time, in the world as it was, a promise might be made to visit once again. But this was not that world, nor that time. Separations were almost exclusively permanent in this emptied out civilization we’d been cast into.

  “I’ll miss you,” Martin said.

  I could see that Captain Angela Schiavo wanted to say the same. Wanted to do more than offer words. But the position she held, and the reality of the situation, dictated that the end which was dealt to her, and to Martin, should not be prolonged.

  “Goodbye all,” Schiavo said. “I wish you the best.”

  We boarded the lifeboat and it was lowered one more time into the slightly choppy waters a half mile off Bandon’s coastline. Its pilot sped us toward the harbor we’d departed from, the three of us looking back toward the ship that had carried us home. Dozens of those who still had days to go before reaching their own towns lined the rail on the upper decks and waved. Elaine and I put our hands in the air and returned the goodbye gestures.

  Martin did not. He did nothing but stare through the open side door at the spot we’d been lowered from. The spot where Schiavo, where Angela, stood staring right back at him as we moved farther and farther away.

  * * *

  Ten minutes later we stood on the dock in Bandon’s harbor and watched the lifeboat skim across the water back toward the Northwest Majesty. Soon she would sail southward and be gone from this place, from our presence, for good.

  Martin turned away from the ocean and looked to the entirety of Bandon’s population, all standing along the dock and the parking lot near the harbor. He paused for a moment, then looked to me, and to Neil, and to Elaine, before facing those he’d tried to shepherd through difficult times. Now, he hoped, there was some good to be found.

  “According to our friends who traveled to Cheyenne,” Martin began, “There might be something worth seeing up at the cemetery.”

  Some hopeful, expectant glances volleyed about amongst the crowd, but no one moved. Then, after a moment, the mass of people began to steps aside, parting, leaving a pathway open for Martin to move. To lead them where we all wanted to go.

  Fifty Three

  Martin walked just ahead of us, chosen to be the first, four hundred and eight pairs of eyes looking past him. Scanning the way ahead up the trail to the cemetery. Just before he reached the low crest that blocked its view from the shore he stopped. Frozen in his tracks. His gaze angling down to the dirt path at his feet.

  It was not only dirt. Something else was there. Sprouting up through the grey topsoil. Groping toward freedom and air and sunlight. Something green.

  A weed.

  Martin crouched and reached to the small miracle and touched it gently. A breath caught in his throat as emotion surged. He looked behind, to those who’d followed him along the path. His eyes glistened as his gaze met mine.

  He rose and continued on, the mass of people behind walking around the lovely green weed, eyeing it with wonder. With hope.

  “It worked,” Neil said just behind me, an expression of welcome surprise about him. “It actually worked.”

  I didn’t want to echo his sentiment. Not yet. But when we reached the crest of the path and looked fully upon the cemetery grounds, I knew. I knew that he was right. I knew that we’d succeeded.

  Green...

  It was lovely and real. There was grass and there were plants and there were trees. Flowers bloomed low, their colorful petals opened to soak in the sun.

  “This is impossible,” Elaine said as our fellow residents rushed past. “It’s too fast.”

  “The good professor turned the blight on itself,” Neil said. “He engineered its ability to destroy quickly into growth that happens just as quickly.”

  We’d considered that before. But the theory seemed more than proven here. There was no other explanation. Trees we’d planted a month before as seeds were now hip high. And, beyond that, there were more of them.

  “We didn’t plant anything over there,” Elaine said, pointing toward the road that bordered the cemetery to the east.

  We hadn’t. Yet the carpet of grass that had sprouted from the few seeds we’d plunged into the earth between the headstones had crept that way. Life had spread. And was continuing to do so. Seeds spawned by the new plants had been carried on ocean breezes across the landscape.

  Martin crossed the greening expanse, next to trees that seemed too perfect to be real. He let his hand rub across fat green leaves and brought his fingers to his nose to sample the scent.

  “Apple,” he said, looking to where Elaine and I trailed him a few feet behind. “I remember that smell.”

  A lot of sense memories were being stimulated, I suspected. Smell. Sight. And soon, hopefully, taste.

  Martin continued on. I knew where he was going.

  “Let’s give him some time,” I told Elaine.

  She stopped next to me and we stood and watched Martin cross the newly green earth to where Micah was buried. He stood there, looking down upon his son’s grave, and he began to weep.

  “Let’s go,” I said.

  Elaine and I rejoined the others across the cemetery, Neil coming toward us from the crowd.

  “I was talking to Hal Robertson,” my friend said. “He thinks the troops that disarmed everyone stored the weapons
in the old Ford dealership. We’ll have to check it out and organize a redistribution.”

  I thought for a moment on what he’d shared.

  “In a day or two,” I said, my response both tired and distant.

  Neil picked up on my odd demeanor, but he didn’t push the issue. He simply accepted my suggestion with a nod and turned, heading off to where Grace and Krista waited.

  “You okay?” Elaine asked me.

  I looked to her and I wanted to smile, but, at that very moment, I couldn’t.

  “Let’s go,” I told her.

  She took my hand and we walked through the crowd and out of the cemetery, heading home.

  Fifty Four

  I woke to the feel of Elaine against my back, her left arm draped over me. Holding me close.

  “Good morning,” she said, her breath sweet and soft against the nape of my neck.

  “What time is it?”

  I rolled toward her, onto my back, and she propped herself up on one elbow, face hovering just above mine.

  “Six, maybe six thirty,” she guessed.

  Guesses were all we had at the moment. No one had gone out to the spot on the Coquille where the hydro generator had once been driven by the steady current. A current which sometimes pushed as much debris through the submerged turbine as water. In our absence it had likely been clogged by bits of old, rotting wood that tumbled hourly into the waterway upstream. The backup solar panels were doing nothing of the sort, it appeared. Some damage to the lines that brought their harvested energy to town was probable. It would take time, a day or two, I imagined, before the juice would flow again to the implements of life. Implements that had survived the blight far better than their owners or creators. Refrigerators. Lamps. Saws. Drills. Pumps. Fans. Clocks.

  We’d be back where we were, but not where we all wanted to be. That would take far longer. I’d be dust by then.

  Some things, though, the intangibles, might never be the same. Connections. Relationships.

  Friendships.

  “Go talk to him,” Elaine said, reading me, much like the friend she was referencing had the entire time we’d known each other.