Jake kept his young family isolated from the outside world while his three namesakes grew older. The only human contact and interaction came from Jake and Ella. Ella was their only source of nourishment and pleasure. She suffered through years of continual abuse from Jake and his sons until her breast milk dried up. Soon afterward, Jake strangled her in a fit of rage, right in front of the boys. That was four years ago when Jake One was sixteen. He hated his father for that most of all. Jake had taken away his mother, his sole source of physical and emotional gratification.
“We go tomorrow night,” says Jake.
“Why not tonight?” Jake One asks, “You said we’d would go tonight.”
“Well, I changed my mind just in case they are expecting us.” He stares a virtual hole in Jake One’s forehead as he says the words ‘expecting us.’
Does he know? Jake One can only wonder.
December 12
With each passing hour, Alex, Diego and Matias grow a little more tired, weary and surprised that no attack has come. They remain on high alert straight through the wee hours of the morning until the first glimmer of Dawn. Still, nothing happens. Not a sound, not even a scratch from something small enough to scramble unnoticed through the brush.
“I was sure it would be last night,” says Alex, shaking his head in disappointment as he, Matias and Diego descend the hillside. It means at least one more night away from their families, another night without the warmth of their women or the love of their children.
“Me, too,” says Diego, aiming his gun at an imaginary spot on the ridge and firing an imaginary shot, mimicking the sound of it with his voice. “Our families need us, too, hombre.”
When they reach the lake, they realize the only other person who is awake, much to Alex’s dismay, is Deuce.
“What are you doing here? I told you to stay with Mom.”
“Sorry Dad. I got bored. I thought I could help you.”
Alex glares at him. “We’re not playing computer games here, Deuce. This is serious business, nothing fun about it.”
“I know, I know. Just give me something to do,” pleads Deuce.
“Go wake up the other men and have them meet us at the campfire.” Alex heads for Rachel’s shelter while Deuce goes off to alert the others. Alex awakens Hannibal with a shake.
“Meet us at the campfire.”
Deuce awakens Sam Hayden, Ankur, Donnie and Eric. He checks Meg’s shelter as an afterthought, expecting it to be empty, surprised to find a strange man inside with Samson.
“Wake up, we’re meeting at the campfire.” Deuce shoves him and repeats the message several times until Marcus opens his eyes.
“Oh, hi, whoever you are, I’m Marcus. Looks like I did three days’ work for nothing,” he grumbles as he stands, brushes his long black hair out of his face with his long fingers and sleepily follows Deuce outside into the early morning air.
Deuce has no idea what he’s complaining about.
The men gather around the charred remains of last night’s campfire. Marcus is still grumbling, the first to voice doubt about an attack.
“I don’t think they’re coming now or ever. That little run-in you and your girlfriend had is getting blown way out of proportion.”
“Believe me, Marcus. I hope they never come. Unlike you, I was face-to-face with them and they made my skin crawl. Everything about them was pure evil. I’ve never had that feeling about anyone in my life, even when I lived in New York City. We have to take them seriously. We can’t drop our guard now.”
“Just saying,” counters Marcus. “You could be wrong about them and all this work we’ve been doing has been nothing but a big waste of time.”
“You don’t want to be part of it? Fine. Go live somewhere else,” says Alex.
Diego glares at Marcus. “We wouldn’t want you to waste your precious time.”
Marcus realizes he needs to distance himself from them. In his haste, he trips over Samson. Samson snarls at him. In a huff, Marcus turns his back on them, marches back to Meg’s shelter and disappears inside.
“What a tool,” hisses Donnie.
“So you’ve said,” says Eric.
“Anyone else think we’re wasting out time?” Hannibal scans their faces.
“I’d rather be safe than sorry,” says Sam. “Why not put it to a vote?”
“All in favor of staying the course raise your hands.” Alex raises his hand without hesitation. Hannibal follows. One by one, Deuce, Matias, Diego, Donnie, Eric, Ankur and Sam all raise their hands, too.
“Eight in favor and one against, so we stay the course.”
After Dark, Alex, Matias and Diego find different hideouts higher up toward the ridge and a little further north than the previous night. They are careful to avoid the booby traps. Even Samson sniffs his way around the traps, identifying the unique scent of each survivor who dug the trap or placed the camouflage.
There is no cloud cover tonight. The sky is dotted instead with a million stars. The night watchmen are grateful for their improved visibility, but anxious about the enemy’s improved visibility. They take extra care to conceal themselves against the hill without losing a clear view of the ridge above and the beach below.
The increased visibility has forced a slight change in plans. Alex announces he will only fire the flare gun after they’ve captured the M-16, as an added measure of safety for the others.
Unlike previous nights, the remaining survivors stay in the shelters awake and alert. Satin spends the night in Meg’s shelter clutching a badly beat-up stuffed teddy bear the girls unearthed during one of their many field trips.
Everyone is on high alert, except Marcus, who cocoons himself in an old blanket and sleeps soundly under a rocky outcrop out in the open.
The Emerald Bay survivors have stockpiled rocks and spears at strategic locations around their community. They’ve sharpened their spear tips. They have mentally mapped every one of their traps. Hannibal can feel his adrenaline pumping a little harder with each passing hour, knowing that Alex’s signal might come at any moment.
Alex, Diego and Matias hope that the booby traps will trip up and startle the attackers long enough for Diego to get a clear shot at the one with the assault rifle. Once the night guards have the M-16 safely in their own hands, Alex will fire the flare to light up the hill and the beach below.
Despite his outer calm, Diego is filled with a quiet, tightly controlled inner rage. He is bent on making Jake pay for everything he has personally lost, his parents, in-laws and the nightmarish conditions the rest of the survivors have been forced to live with. After all, someone has to pay. It might as well be this devil man and his delinquent offspring, whom Diego has never personally laid eyes on. It doesn’t matter. This will be his chance to defend his family and regain some control over his life, dignity and self-respect.
More than previous nights, the tension in the compound has suddenly turned palpable. It’s as if, through their collective consciousness, they can feel the terrible specter of multiple threats approaching them in the starlit darkness.
It is well after Dark when Jake awakens his three sons. “It is time, boys.”
Within minutes they are dressed, armed and waiting just outside their cave. The stars provide just enough light for Jake to check the thirty-shot banana clip on the M-16. Finding it full, he clicks it back into place, unlocks the safety and chambers the first round, all with the ease of someone who has had many years’ experience. Jake Three’s weapon of choice is his spear, a weapon first used for hunting four hundred thousand years ago, and the most battle-tested weapon in human history. Jake Three knows from experience that the spear has great thrusting power and can be thrown long distances to take down most medium-to-large-sized prey.
“You ready?”
Jakes One and Two check their weapons one last time. Jake One examines the bow. Jake Two carries a spear in one hand, a large serrated hunting knife in the other. He tucks the knife into a small animal-skin quiver on his
waistband, tests his spear tip with his finger.
“Ready.”
“Time to go,” says Jake.
Jake and his youngest son follow the ridge route, while Jakes One and Two head downhill toward Lake Tahoe. Nearly three miles of uneven terrain separate them from Emerald Bay North and their target.
It takes them an hour to get there. Since the ridge is mostly unobstructed, Jake and Jake Three arrive first. Crouching low around the fallen trees and rocks, Jake Three leads his father to the spot where the ridge directly overlooks the compound. He points toward Satin’s shelter, which is more than halfway down the hill and much closer to the lake. They study the terrain between them and their target. There is no straight, easy path. They will have to zigzag around boulders, fallen trees and patches of thick underbrush most of the way downhill, and they will have to do it with great stealth in total silence.
They must capture Satin alive or she will be little use to them. Dead, she might provide enough meat for a week. Alive, she can serve most of their other needs for many years. They want her fresh and alive. They lick their chops like hungry wolves and fix their eyes on Satin’s shelter.
“Look for traps,” whispers Jake as he takes the first steps from the ridge and starts down the hill. Jake Three follows him a short step behind.
They are too far away to hear Samson’s low guttural growl, but Alex is right there as the shepherd’s ears perk straight up. Alex pets Samson gently to calm him and whispers, “Easy, boy.” Samson lifts his head, opens his eyes wide and stares at a spot high on the hill. Alex alerts Diego and Matias with hand signals.
Jakes One and Two, meanwhile, have reached the northern end of the compound and hide among the boulders waiting for Jake and Jake Three to show up with their bounty.
Jake and his youngest son move together with almost inhuman stealth and make it easily past the first wave of traps. They pause briefly then continue their advance another twenty or thirty feet without incident, watching the ground intently just ahead of them. They pause again and advance another twenty feet.
How are they missing the traps? Alex wonders. How have they made it this far without stepping on a single one of the dozens of randomly spaced traps up near the ridge? Either they are incredibly lucky and beating the odds, or they are somehow able to spot telltale signs revealing the trap locations.
Alex has them in his sights as they continue relentlessly advancing down the hill, getting closer and closer to their night guard positions. Diego and Matias watch them close the gap, too.
Then, in the very next instant, all hell breaks loose. Samson growls, scrambles to his feet and breaks free from Alex’s grasp. He launches himself toward the intruders. Surprised and distracted by the attacking dog, Jake’s leading right foot sinks suddenly into a trap hole that’s been dug more than a foot deep. The sudden jolt from the trap stops him in his tracks and causes Jake Three to slam into him from behind. As the two men pitch forward, Jake tries to break his fall with his hands and drops the M-16. Samson bolts toward Jake barking wildly.
Diego watches Jake, his son and the M-16 go down. He stands and takes careful aim, but Jake, floundering, is about to regain his balance. Diego’s first shot shatters the relative silence, echoes sharply through the mountains and across the lake and hits Jake in the shoulder. Diego’s second shot hits Jake Three in the right temple, killing him instantly.
Diego and Matias break from cover and race toward Jake, who is holding his bloody shoulder with one hand and reaching for the M-16 with the other just as they arrive. Samson attacks first, going for Jake’s throat. Jake manages to fend off Samson with one hand and get his free hand on the trigger of the M-16. He manages to squeeze off one shot that hits Samson’s hind leg and topples the shepherd with a pained whimper. Jake swings the M-16 toward Diego and grins at him, an evil, maniacal, toothless grin. Without hesitation, Diego puts his last two bullets in Jake’s head from close range, execution style.
A moment later, Matias grabs the M-16 and holds it up where Alex can see it. Alex fires the flare gun to alert the others, while racing to Samson’s side. The bullet has ripped cleanly through Samson’s hind leg. He’s losing blood and in bad shape. Alex quickly scoops a handful of dirt and packs it over the entry and exit points of the bullet wound then tears off Jake Three’s bloodstained shirt, rips off a sleeve and uses it as a bandage directly over the wound. He makes a tourniquet from the other sleeve, ties it tightly on Samson’s leg hoping to stem the bleeding.
“Hang in there, buddy.” Alex tosses his spear to Matias and lifts the dog in his arms. Together they head down the hill, careful to avoid the remaining traps.
When Alex reaches the bottom, he carries Samson into Meg’s shelter and lays him down next to the girls’ bed, Samson’s favorite place to sleep when Deuce is not around. He feels Samson’s body go limp as he lays him down. As he turns to leave, he almost slams into Marcus, who has moved into Meg’s shelter to avoid the battle he never thought would happen. Alex, expecting to find Satin, is not happy to see Marcus in her place.
“Does this look like something we imagined? It’s a gunshot wound from an M-16 assault rifle, Marcus.”
“I…I’m sorry, man,” Marcus stammers.
“The good news is we got two of them,” says Alex. “Where the hell’s Satin?”
“She was here but she bugged out when she heard the gunshots,” says Marcus.
Alex immediately leaves the shelter and heads for the northern end of the beach where he meets Matias and takes back his spear. The usually peaceful beach scene has quickly turned into controlled chaos.
The five gunshots have flushed Jakes One and Two out of hiding. They advance confidently along the beach with their weapons ready, expecting Jake and their youngest brother to appear any moment carrying a hogtied woman. Instead, they are greeted by a line of angry survivors, men and women hurling stones at them, repeated salvos from eight different directions.
Jakes One and Two dodge most of the projectiles, but it is next to impossible to avoid all of them. They take shots to their arms and legs. Jake One manages to shoot his first arrow at the advancing line, narrowly missing Ankur. Still dodging rocks and stones, Jake One quickly loads a second arrow from his quiver.
“Donnie! Deuce” Eric points to Jake One and raises three fingers.
The three boys wind up in perfect unison and nail the oldest son with blistering headshots. Jake One stops cold and drops to his knees, a surprised, confused look on his face. Then he keels over face first into the sand.
Jake Two deflects the stones with his hands and his spear, but keeps charging forward. Alex lines him up and hurls his spear as hard as he can, without losing control, straight at the boy’s chest. With a dull thud, the spear finds its mark and Jake Two crumples in a heap. Alex’s spear passes straight through Jake Two’s heart and out his back, the spear point and bloody shaft protruding grotesquely from the wound.
The rest of the survivors press forward only to realize that Jake Two is dead. Jake One is unconscious but still alive as everyone closes in around him. Hannibal grabs him by his shoulders, tries shaking him back to consciousness while Matias holds the spear gun to the boy’s throat for insurance. Hannibal shakes him repeatedly as Satin, Julia and Rachel close in for a better look.
“He’s still alive.” Hannibal kneels on the ground, shakes the boy again.
Groggy from the double concussion, Jake One struggles to open his eyes.
“Your father is dead. Your brothers are dead,” says Hannibal menacingly, adding, “One wrong move and you’re dead, too.”
Jake One shows no emotion. He just stares blankly at Hannibal.
“He made us do it,” whines Jake One. “I’m glad he’s dead.” He glances at his brother, now a twisted shape half-kneeling on the ground with a spear through his chest. Jake One’s eyes fill with tears.
“This wasn’t his fault.” Jake One glares at Hannibal.
“Any other family members we should know about?” Hannibal
ignores the boy’s comment.
“Only Mama, she died a few years ago.” Jake One winces with the severe throbbing pain in his head. He has two walnut-sized knots where the stones landed, one on his right temple, one on his left cheek close to his eye.
“How did she die?” asks Hannibal. He expects to hear that the poor woman suffered from yellow fever or got killed by a bad fall, a mountain lion or black bear attack.
“We had to put her down,” says Jake One, struggling to get to his knees. He says it the same way a normal person would say that they ‘put down’ a sick dog or cat. He says it so naturally and matter-of-factly, as if the answer should be painfully obvious to them. The shocked looks on the survivors’ faces tell him otherwise.
“You killed your own mother?” asks Hannibal incredulously, hoping to hear that the woman was terminally ill and in a great deal of pain, and that the four Jakes did the humanitarian thing by ending her suffering. He knows that’s not likely the case.
“Her milk dried up. She couldn’t serve us no more. We couldn’t play with her no more. Daddy said she was an evil bitch who needed killing.”
Hannibal presses his spear tip against One’s chest. “Why did you really come here?”
“To get us a new mama,” says Jake One.
Satin, who has been watching and listening quietly, suddenly pushes her way past the others. She squats so she’s at eye level with Jake One. Protectively, Hannibal presses the spear point a little harder into his chest, just inches from his heart.
The slightest grin creases Jake One’s mouth as he eyes Satin’s heaving breasts through her tunic. Satin might as well be stark naked.
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