by Justin Bell
Just what Rhonda had hoped.
As their taillights faded into darkness, she turned towards the family.
“Stay low and move quiet. Downtown is about three miles south, that’s where we’re heading, okay? We’ve got a few minutes before they realize they lost us, so we need to try to move quick.”
“Mom, what’s going on? I don’t like this. It’s dark and cold out here,” Winnie said, staying down in a crouch as Max and Brad pulled away and started down the trees.
“Winnie, honey, I need you to be strong,” Rhonda said, walking low towards her daughter and placing her palms on her shoulders. “We are going to get through this. We are going to survive this. Just keep your eyes ahead and keep running.”
Winnie drew in some ragged, staggered breaths. “I don’t know if I can do this.”
“You can. You will. You have to.”
Winnie nodded, blinked hard, and nodded again.
“We’re going to get downtown, we’re going to find a car, and we’re going to head east towards home. We’re going to go home and figure out what to do next, okay? Easy as that.”
“Easy as that.”
“Tonight you’ll be sleeping in your bed. Maybe there will even be Wi-Fi.”
Winnie chuckled and snorted.
“We love you, honey,” Phil said, moving in and squeezing her into an embrace. He held her close for a few long seconds, then let her go. “Go. Catch up to your brother. Keep Brad safe.”
Winnie nodded, turned, and ran through the trees. Rhonda started after her, but Phil placed a palm on her arm.
“Rhonda.”
“Phil, we don’t have time for this right now.”
“You need to make some time,” Phil hissed. “You killed someone. You may have just killed two more people by backing your damn car over them. You’re toting around a duffel bag full of stuff that I don’t know about from somewhere in your parents’ basement.”
“It’s a long story, Phil, and we do not have time for long stories right now.”
“Rhonda, enough. I’m holding us both here until you spill it.”
Rhonda looked down at the grass, then back up at Phil. “We can’t let the kids get too far. Follow me and we’ll talk as we go.”
Phil nodded and the two of them started off through the trees, running softly, weaving between tree trunks and hopping over large stumps.
“I told you I came up here with my family a lot when I was younger,” Rhonda started.
“Right.”
“Well, my parents…they had interesting political views. They were very much into the Second Amendment.”
“Yeah, so am I. What’s your point?”
“No…you don’t understand. They believed that the American government was on the verge of collapse and that we were on the brink of the end of civilization. They stockpiled weapons and armor for what they saw as the inevitable downturn of capitalism and the destruction of civilized behavior. This whole hill is full of separatists and American Militia.”
“Militia? Like those people on Ruby Ridge?”
Rhonda ducked under a stray, straggling branch, then looped around a trunk, Phil close on her heels. She could just barely make out the movement of their kids ahead of them, feet crashing through branches and dried leaves.
“Yeah, kind of like Ruby Ridge.”
“For crying out loud, Rhonda.”
“When I was growing up, I was more or less indoctrinated. I fired my first weapon when I was four years old and fired them constantly until I turned eighteen.”
“What happened at eighteen?”
“I decided to go to college. I left home. I never came back here again.”
Phil stumbled over a root growing out of the loose dirt at his feet, and he almost lost his balance. Rhonda shifted and helped him stay upright, but he barked his knee on the large black bag slung over her shoulder.
“Ow!” he shouted, stumbling some more. “What’s in there?”
“What do you think?”
Making sure Phil was upright, she hurried off into the woods again and Phil kept close behind.
“So they just let you go?”
“More or less. They tried to talk me into staying many times, but I was their daughter and they loved me in spite of their views on society.”
“So they had a weapons stockpile in the basement. That’s why you went down there once you heard about the explosions. Why you retrieved that bag. Is it full of guns?”
“No. There’s first aid kits, flashlights, and some body armor, too.”
Phil shook his head as he ducked under another branch, then winced as a second branch grabbed his face and tore a small bit of skin off his cheek.
The bag slammed off her hip as she ran and she stumbled a bit herself, shifting and moving around a thick tree ahead of her.
“Do you see the kids?” Rhonda asked.
Phil squinted through the darkness, looking for the telltale shapes moving through the trees ahead. “I think so,” he said. “So what was this crazy militia group called?”
“The West Plains Militia or something like that. Honestly, I’ve tried very hard over the past twenty years to forget they ever existed, Phil.”
“Well, call me crazy, but I’m glad you were raised the way you were. We probably wouldn’t have survived today without it.”
We still may not, Rhonda thought but did not say it aloud. Her parents had been tightknit with the Cavendish family when she was growing up and had warned her many times not to cross them. Their family was huge, angry, and influential in small town Brisbee, and they had a lot of friends with a lot of guns.
Rhonda had managed to kill one of them and piss the other one off, which was not in her or her family’s best interests. This was something she was trying hard to forget as she pressed through the trees, twisting and using her shoulder to push through branches and narrow trunks as she ran. Phil was right behind her doing the same thing, keeping their eyes fixed on the moving shadows of their children ahead.
“How do you think Max is holding up?” Phil asked as he caught up to his wife.
“I don’t know. He seems remarkably okay. He’s never been one to wear his emotions on his sleeve, Phil, you know that.”
“You know he saved my bacon at the grocery store earlier.”
Rhonda looked back as she moved over a fallen tree, taking care to not trip. “When?”
“When that fat guy was going to thump me. Max cranked him in the face with a can of beans.”
Rhonda stifled a guffaw as she ran. “He’s some kid, huh?”
The two veered right, keeping behind the kids, lagging behind on purpose to keep them within view.
“What are we going to do, Phil?” Rhonda asked as they ran. “What is going on? What does this all mean?”
Phil sighed. “I don’t know. I just…I don’t know.”
They continued in silence for a few moments until Phil reached out and clutched his wife’s shoulder.
“Let me take the bag. It’s heavy. You need a break.”
Rhonda smiled and nodded, extending her arm and her husband pulled the strap off, then looped it up over his own shoulder, letting the bag rest diagonally against his back. They both took off again but went a little faster this time, trying to catch back up to the kids. The world was silent, only the scant chirping of crickets and the rustling of leaves under foot. It was spring, but even in spring the ground was coated in foliage.
Squinting through the trees, it was difficult to make out the shapes and sounds as they moved, even with an almost full moon in the sky, unsheltered by clouds. A large, dark shape emerged ahead, long, but squat, drowning out the trees in the immediate area.
“I think that’s a house,” Rhonda whispered. “Slow down, Max and Brad! Winnie come back with me!” The kids all eased up their pace and Phil picked up his, the whole family collecting into a small group. Rhonda dropped down in a crouch and the others followed her lead, duck walking through the forest towards the st
ructure up ahead. It was indeed a house, and Rhonda thought she knew who’s house it was.
“Phil, drop that bag,” she whispered, and he complied.
She dropped and unzipped the long, bulging bag and withdrew a long, metal mag light, thumbing the rubber on button and shining down towards the structure. Good old Cavendish family, always prepared with fresh batteries. She couldn’t help but think how similar they and her parents were, though the comparison made her feel a little queasy inside.
There were no lights on anywhere in the house and she could see no vehicles in the driveway as she slowly walked the white light back and forth along the gravel surface. A clutch of thick trees near her blocked her view somewhat, but she leaned around and peered through the narrow vegetation, looking all throughout the driveway.
Turning towards Phil, she lowered the light slightly, but as it passed by his eyes, she saw them widen, his mouth opening in a silent curse. Rhonda followed his glare, twisting around to look at the road. It was then that she’d realized she’d heard the dull noise of crunching gravel. The persistent background din of cars coming up the road, but her brain still struggled to rationalize the danger they were in, and she’d ignored it. Ignored it all the way up until she couldn’t…until it was already too late.
Four pairs of headlights tore up the gravel road, tires crunching loose dirt as they bobbed up and down, angling from the road into the driveway. Before Rhonda could move, the high beams splashed across her, fully exposing her leaning out from behind the trees.
“No!” she whispered. Turning towards her family she extended a finger towards the back of the house. “Run! Run now! Head to town and don’t look back, I’ll have to hold them off!”
“Mom, no!” screamed Winnie.
“We’re not leaving!” Phil barked.
“Trust me on this!” Rhonda replied in her hushed, throaty whisper. “Please. Trust me. Run. I can handle myself and I’ll meet you in town.”
Phil squared his shoulders and drew in a breath, firming his jaw. “Rhonda, don’t do this. I know I haven’t been the best husband or father over the years, but it’s time for me to change that. Let me help you. I want to help you.”
Rhonda stepped towards him, placing a hand on his shoulder. “You can help me by making sure the kids are safe. That’s the most important thing to me right now.”
Phil opened his mouth to protest but closed it again, lowering his gaze. She was right. Of course she was.
Max took a step towards her, but Rhonda waved him off, tears starting to sting her vision. “Please, Maxie. Please. Just listen to your mother for once. All of you.”
In the driveway car doors creaked and slammed and feet started pounding gravel.
“Who’s there?” a voice echoed in the darkness and scattered flashlights illuminated from the group of shadows emerging by the driveway.
Phil turned towards his kids. “Your mom can handle this. If she has to protect us, too, this won’t end well.”
“I can’t—” Winnie started to say.
“Go!” Phil barked, barely keeping his voice under an actual shout. He pressed a hand to Winnie’s back and eased her along, and she broke into a stumbling gallop, running off into the woods behind Max and Bradley, just ahead of Phil. For one last time, Phil turned and looked at Rhonda, who was fishing around in the canvas bag. She looked up at him and mouthed ‘thank you’, then going deeper into the bag, found what she was looking for. When she looked up again, Phil was gone, an invisible shroud against the darkness.
Rhonda looked at the approaching flashlights, sitting back on her heels, trying to ignore the hammering slam of her heart in her chest as it rocketed like a machine gun, threatening to burst from her rib cage.
“We saw you out there!” shouted the voice again. “You’re on our property, little girl! Come out while you can, we have every right to shoot you!”
She knew they did. And she knew they would, without hesitation.
Her family was gone—safe for the moment, but it was up to her to keep them that way, even if it meant her own life. She didn’t want to die out in these cold woods, but one out-of-practice woman against what looked to be four cars full of gunmen was not good odds.
She waited for a moment, her hand still in the duffel bag, trying to steady her nerves and steady her heart.
It was now or never.
***
“This is your last chance!” the voice shouted, and Rhonda could see one of the flashlights bob as the voice echoed. She remained huddled and pinned behind the trees, her hand inside the bag, waiting for the right time. No matter what she did, she wasn’t able to calm her heart and her palms were slick with sweat, but if she sat here much longer, they’d be on top of her, and it wouldn’t matter how calm she was; she’d be tree food.
Calmly, Rhonda removed her hand from the bag, her fingers clamped around the body of a SIG Sauer 522 semi-automatic rifle. Her parents had upgraded from the AR-15’s she’d used when she was younger, and the SIG felt heavy, but comfortable, in her hand. A pile of magazines rattled around in the bag as well and she pulled up the weapon, disengaged the safety, and shouldered it, slinking just around one of the thick tree trunks. The voice echoed in her ears. She thought it was the same man who had come to her window.
Ahead of her, through the trees, she saw at least six scattered blobs of flashlights, some casting wide, white light over the house and yard, others turning towards her and illuminating the trees around her. She stayed hugged close to the three thickest trees, her SIG pressed tight to the wood and clutched in her hands. It was long and heavy, a solid, comfortable weight in her grasp and she moved it with the motion of one of the lights, tracking the person behind it.
One of the lights broke away and started moving towards the rear of the house where her family had run, and Rhonda knew she couldn’t wait any longer. Swiveling her hips, she tracked this last blob of light, centered the barrel on the darkened shape behind it, and fired.
The weapon barked a swift and sharp shout, the bright muzzle flash illuminating the area around her. The default “bird cage” flash suppressor muffled the light from the weapon somewhat, but in the darkness it still clearly showed her position. Her tight hands managed the kickback, keeping the weapon even and trained on her target, and as she followed up with two more quick shots. The light shifted, then tumbled away.
“They’re in the trees!” someone shouted and immediately a stuttering series of cracks rebounded from the driveway just as Rhonda pulled back behind the trio of trees. She could hear the low whistle of passing bullets and felt two thuds of rounds hitting the trees she was huddled behind. She extended around the other end, quickly located a cluster of lights, three of them all pressed close together, and fired three more times into the group. One of the lights exploded in a flash and spray of glass, a muffled shout signaling at least one impact, and the other two lights sprang away. More gunfire returned and Rhonda lowered herself towards the ground, firing again and again.
Pulling back behind the tree as return fire peppered the ground and trunk she was hiding behind, Rhonda counted how many times she’d fired to herself. The magazine had a twenty-five round capacity and she’d fired at least thirteen times. Most of the shots coming back at her sounded like pistol fire, which eased her mind somewhat, as the SIG had an effective range of 140 meters, which was far longer than a typical pistol. And it was far more accurate.
Would that really matter if there were twelve of them and only one of her? She didn’t want to think about that too much. A series of swift pops snapped her out of it and the tree thrashed as bullets crashed into it, hacking away at chunks of bark.
She came back around and fired, punching the trigger back several times. She heard two clear impacts of bullet on metal as she struck the cars in the driveway, then she adjusted aim, tracking another moving light globe and fired four times. Like others before it, the globe twitched oddly, then flew away, whether flung from a tumbling hand or dropped so the shooter co
uld avoid detection.
Rhonda emptied the magazine towards the house, ducking away as more shots were returned, then reached down to the canvas bag and removed another magazine, swiftly swapping out the empty. She tossed it away so it wouldn’t be mistaken for a full one later on.
Later on? How long did she anticipate holding this position? Would she have a choice how long she could hold? She figured they were still about three miles from town through the woods, which might take Phil and the kids over an hour to cross.
Could she even hope to last a half hour? How long had it been so far, three minutes? This would be the longest half hour of her life.
Three more rounds cracked into the tree behind her and a large chunk of one of them blasted apart, spraying her with rough, dried wood. Standing up, she swung her weapon around and fired again, at least half a dozen times, but couldn’t tell if she’d hit anything. They’d all discarded their flashlights and though the cars behind them sat idling with headlights on, splashed across her position, she was having trouble seeing the shapes moving in front of them though she knew they were there. Thin trees were scattered between her and the driveway, but they were barely more than sticks stuck into the ground and weren’t suitable for cover. That was good for her at the moment, but it meant she couldn’t really advance. She was pretty much stuck where she was, and her only option was to hold her ground.
A staccato chatter broke through her thoughts, a rapid trio of pops, and the three trees behind her jerked with the impact.
It was a semi-automatic rifle. She thought it sounded like the same kind of AR her family had owned so many years ago. Not good. It chattered again, and a bullet sang as it ricocheted off a large rock embedded in the ground to her right, chased by two more, kicking up clumps of loose dirt.
Rhonda tried to track where the sound came from and squeezed off a handful of shots herself, the echoing bangs mixing with the scattered bursts of return fire. The tree trunk exploded within inches of her face, sending sharp shards of broken bark raking across her skin. She winced and pulled away, pain lacing through the soft flesh of her cheeks.