Sakura limped to the front, picked up the REC-7, and fell into the driver's seat. She gunned the gas, headed straight for the bank lobby. Another RPG washed harmlessly over the roof. Matt waited for the next rifle shot to ping off their armor and popped the door as Sakura returned fire. He leapt out the back of the vehicle, using the door to swing around, and hit the ground running.
He fired his sidearm into the plate glass storefront, then switched to the combat shotgun as he ran through the open space. Whispers urged him to eat the unfamiliar men behind the counter, about to pop up and open fire with semiautomatic rifles. He embraced the unwelcome teeth chewing at his sanity, half-pulled the trigger to acquire range to the counter, then lifted the weapon an inch and fired. The microgrenade passed over the counter and exploded downward.
The whispers cackled at a man's agonized shrieking.
Matt shouldered through the door and took the stairs three at a time, following his weapon around the corners. A rifle fired again as he kicked in the door to find a room full of filing cabinets and dusty stacks of paper. Bullets chipped brick just outside the window.
A silhouette, red and orange in the infrared, took cover next to the window, a long black tube in his hand.
Matt ran forward and put his shoulder down, slamming into the cabinets with full force. The first cabinet caved in, and the entire stack shifted with titanic force. Two men cried out, more alarmed than pained, and Matt let the shotgun hang in favor of drawing his pistol and a titanium alloy combat knife.
The knife left his hand and punched right through the grenadier's face, pinning his leaking head to the brick wall.
"Humans for Humanity!" the unseen man cried.
Matt fired as he stood. A hole appeared in his assailant's forehead, and a small object fell from his hands, a baleful red light blinking. Eyes wide, Matt leapt over the demolished furniture and smashed through the window in one fluid motion. The whispers cooed in disappointment as his leap carried him halfway across the street.
The world turned white, deafening, a sea of pain and vertigo. He hit something, brittle and cutting and not hard enough to stop his fall. Burnt hair and gasoline filled his nostrils as he tore off his helmet with a blackened hand.
Casey's Hair and Nails. He lay amid shattered shelving and hair care products across the street from the bank, clothes on fire, battered and broken and unable to move. He opened his mouth to cry out, but no words came. He couldn't lift his head, couldn't even turn it.
Brown cowboy boots and tight blue jeans crossed his vision, skinny jeans on skinny, athletic legs. He hoped they weren't there to kill him. The whispers tittered in anticipation.
White mist blinded him, cold and choking. White turned to black.
* * *
Monica stumbled through the snow, freezing, Adam clutched to her chest. She couldn't feel her fingers, and wished she couldn't feel her toes, the relentless cold an agony worse than childbirth. Hot ache hobbled every shuffling step, and the world closed in to just moving.
Right foot. Left foot. Right foot.
She followed the stream downhill, the water's happy babble a taunt and a dare. Water meant civilization. Civilization meant people. Her father's lessons came back to her, down to town, down to town, she just never imagined the cold.
Left foot. Right foot. Left foot.
She tried not to bawl. She'd lost Ted in the chaos, and the pathetic yelp of pain minutes later had been too far away to risk. She could only hope he'd made it back home, and she'd find him on the deck when she got there.
Right foot. Left foot. Right foot.
She kissed her son, so calm, too calm, his baby brown eyes taking in the scenery as if nothing in the world could be amiss.
Left foot. Right foot. Left—
Bright new pain shot up her leg, and she fell. The snow caught her, soft and warm. Adam squirmed next to her, murmuring. She had to get up, had to get her son to safety. Had to pick him back up, carry him.
She blinked, and an angel sat next to her, a shimmering man in flowing white, with wings of cruel ice and a halo of the dawn. He stroked her cheek, whispered to her, silver words that flowed across her synapses with the promise of freedom from worry, from pain.
"No." She put her palms on the ground, through the biting cold, and pushed. She made it a few inches, and the weight of her life bore her down. She spit out the snow and swore and snarled.
But his promises enveloped her with warmth, soothing away the aches and pains and worry. Move, yes. Save your son, yes. But first, you need rest.
Rest. Just for a moment.
Take in the warmth.
Rest.
She closed her eyes.
And slept.
* * *
Everything hurt, and itched. And hurt.
Bright green eyes, young and pretty, stared down at Matt from a smiling face just a little too made up.
"Hey, Mister Rowley. How you feeling?"
He tried to smile but coughed instead, a wracking, suffocating mix of phlegm and blood that filled his nose and slithered down his throat.
Casey put a cool, damp cloth on his forehead, dabbing at his skin with too much care. It came away pink. "Shhh . . . . Shhh . . . . Your partner, that oriental girl, Miss Blossom? She said to stay still. Said you'd be hungry, wouldn't feel too good with all that healing to do. You hungry?"
A gaping chasm snarled and gnashed where his stomach should be. He nodded, tried again to speak. This time it came out, a rasping, almost human sound. "Yes, thank you."
She helped him sit up, then disappeared around the corner. He wore a terrycloth robe, light peach and frayed, and nothing else. His hands and right leg itched, a few red spots the last vestiges of his burns. His neck tingled, and when he turned to one side pins and needles shot down his whole body. The air bit with vinegar and bleach tinged with mildew and harsher smells, and in the low light his ultraviolet vision took in the details.
A mop bucket sat in the corner, next to shelves upon shelves of jugs and bottles.
He squinted against the pounding in his skull. "Where am I?"
She came back in with a sheet pan loaded with tater tots, and a bottle of ketchup. "My storeroom. Sorry, not a lot of options what with the place all burned up."
"It'll work." He plucked a searing hot tot off the pan and put it in his mouth, chewed once and swallowed. Three more went in next, then a handful already mashed between his fingers. He swallowed long enough to ask for water, then shoved another handful in his mouth with just enough ketchup for lubrication.
He chugged the water she brought him, and the next two glasses as well.
"Where's Sakura?"
Casey shrugged. "Miss Blossom went out with Pastor Joe and that creepy old guy who always stands in front of the flag pole with his uniform on."
He lay back, limbs tingling, restless and unable to do more until his vertebrae healed.
"I need my phone."
She pouted. "Won't matter. Cell service is down."
"Can you get me my goddamn phone?"
She put her fists on her hips. "You blaspheme, I'm going to put you and your phone outside in the melt. Now hold on."
She fished through his half-burnt clothes and produced his cell. He logged in with his thumbprint and scowled at the zero bars.
"Told you."
"Have they said when they expect power back?"
"They?"
"The news? The radio?"
She shrugged again. "All I've got's digital. Don't work for nothing when the power's out."
He sighed. "Can you get me some more food? Something with protein?"
She looked around the storeroom, eyes wide. "Uh, I got some energy bars?"
"That would be great."
* * *
Fully clothed in hand-me-downs, Matt opened the door when Sakura returned an hour later, three men in tow. Pastor Joe, forty-something with sandy brown hair and bright blue eyes, stood with Jed Callaway, the semi-retired handyman sporting an AR-15 in matte
black.
Cory Wilcox ran his hand over his bald head and looked from Sakura to Matt with a face twisted with worry, his eyes bloodshot over heavy, blue-black bags. "Hey, Matt. Good to see you looking better."
Matt shook his hand, and they stepped inside. "Sorry about the store."
Cory threw up his hands. "I'm more worried about my brother. He went off to get your wife at our old cabin—the one back behind the Walker place?—but that was last night. Ain't heard nothing since."
He looked at Sakura. "You know what we're up against?"
"I pulled IDs from the dead, but with the net down, no Janet."
Matt looked up on the hill, where a tower stood, the red light on top not blinking for the first time in twenty years. "What do you think the chances are that cell interruption isn't storm-related?"
Jed patted his AR. "What's say we take your partner up and see what's what?"
Cory shook his head, a slow, deliberate motion. "No. I got to find my brother."
"Who else we got?" Matt asked.
"Well," Cory said. "Pastor Joe and old man Finster are outside. Everyone else is sticking close to home, you know what I'm saying?"
Matt picked up his helmet. "Sakura, take Jed, Joe, and Old Man Finster up to that tower. See if you can't get us some comms. Cory and I are going hunting."
* * *
Sakura popped four Advil into her mouth, cracked them with her teeth and washed the bitter mess down with a handful of snow. "Old Man" Finster—nobody had used his first name, even on introductions—eyed her askance as they walked to Jed's pickup. A grizzled farmer-type in stained Carhartts and a John Deere cap, she couldn't place his age between sixty and four hundred.
"Tastes bad, works faster."
He grunted in acknowledgment and hoisted himself over the tailgate, spry enough at any age.
Jed and the pastor got in the cab, and they rolled out toward the logging roads that led up to the cellular tower. As they climbed, the smell from the fire tainted the air, and grew paradoxically stronger than it had been in town.
Finster spat brown-yellow juice into the snow. "You one of them things, like Rowley?"
"No." She nodded at his weapon, a beautiful .35 caliber Marlin 336. "You are a good hunter?"
He spit again. "Best shot between the Blue Ridge and the Mississippi. I can take a deer at three-fifty without—"
"You ever shoot a man?"
He pulled up his sleeve to reveal a red one surrounded by a blue triangle. "Battle of Huế. Took more than my share, and a bayonet to the leg for my trouble. You?"
"Yes."
He waited for more.
"Jed, the Pastor. Have they?"
"Jed flew an Apache in Enduring Freedom. Joe, now, I don't think Joe's ever done nothing like that."
Sakura sighed, slid to the front of the bed, and knocked on the window. Joe slid it open.
"Yes?"
"We stop a half-mile back. You two guard the truck, cover us in case of snipers or retreat. Finster and I approach on foot. Clear?"
In the rear-view mirror, Jed frowned. "You've got a bad limp. I'm figuring that—"
"No. This is not negotiation, not a video game. You will guard the truck, we will advance. When we stop, don't slam the doors. You will wait for us and cover our escape if necessary. Understand?"
They nodded.
She pulled back and sat in the truck bed, the stitches in her thigh throbbing.
They stopped next to a pile of huge logs, enormous trees stripped of branches and stacked several meters high. Old Man Finster slid out of the back, then helped Sakura down. "You sure you're up for this, missy?"
"Yes."
Jed and Joe got out, weapons in hand, while Sakura unzipped her black duffel. Jed let out a low whistle as she pulled the REC-7 from the bag to compliment the Beretta M9 at her hip. His eyes bugged out when she extracted the bandoleer of grenades and slipped it over her shoulder.
"Holy shit! Sorry, Reverend."
The pastor stood dumb-struck as she put on her combat helmet. She dropped the mirrored visor, hiding her face from the world and the world from the murder in her eyes, and triggered the piezoelectrics to turn the mirror into a matte black finish. Joe continued staring, jaw slack.
She stepped up and grabbed his rifle. He tried to tug it away so she slapped him, hard enough to knock his head sideways, and wrest the gun from his grip. He stumbled and grabbed his cheek, tears brimming. "You are a liability. Jed will take your weapon and you will stay in the truck." She turned to Jed. "You will keep the keys so that he doesn't panic and drive away. Get atop those logs and cover us."
She ignored Joe's hurt look as he clambered into the truck, but muttered gratitude in Japanese when he didn't slam the door. "Let's go."
She picked her way straight toward the tower, around boulders and scrubby pine, grinding her teeth through every electric jolt of pain from her leg. The slippery ground took too much concentration and put too much pressure on her thigh. Finster moved through the snow with effortless silence, in slow, methodical steps.
He held up a fist, then cupped his hand to his ear.
The wind carried the jarring, indistinct sound of American 70s rock, reinforcing Sakura's first impression: however well equipped, however fanatical, these men were not professional soldiers. She nodded to show that she'd heard, then indicated via hand-signal to leapfrog forward under mutual cover.
They crested the rise on knees and elbows. The tower sat on a concrete slab capped with snow, a small maintenance shed at its base, door ajar. In front of it two men sat in a massive pickup with an elevated suspension. Smoke drifted up from cracked windows, tinging the crisp winter air with tobacco and marijuana.
Sakura held up a fist, waited, and watched, her Friend or Foe identifier trying to resolve hostile shapes. A few minutes later, light glinted on the hill behind the truck, and the HUD outlined a shape in double red triangles. She zoomed in, noted the scope lens that had caught her eye as the software highlighted the front of the rifle pointing toward the road. As she looked away, the target remained lit up in double triangles.
She pointed to her eyes and then to the target.
"I see him," Finster said through military hand signals. "Stay here and wait for my signal."
He disappeared behind her.
* * *
The M-ATV churned through the mud and slush at thirty miles an hour, the turbodiesel engine slowing not one whisker as they transitioned from hard pack to muddy field and back. Cory clutched his harness with both hands, rifle stowed in the netting behind his seat. They followed the ATV tracks—at least five of them—through the fields, past Aaron Walker's tree farm, toward the Wilcox brothers' tiny hunting shack.
"Do you think he's okay?" Cory asked.
Matt didn't reply. The suicide bomb trap in the bait shop gave him no confidence whatsoever that these people would behave in a rational manner, and his throat closed every time he thought of his wife and son.
"Matt?"
Matt snarled. "We'll find out when we get there."
They approached the shack from the southwest, taking advantage of the tree line to minimize their exposure. The enormous vehicle did not allow for stealth, only concealment.
Three shapes sprawled in the snow, camo coats hiding their identities.
A grating, keening screech erupted from Cory's throat, louder and louder as they drew up next to the bodies. Cory fumbled for the door handle without even undoing his harness. Matt grabbed his shoulder and put the M-ATV in park. Cory turned to him with wide eyes, breathing too hard, his sweaty face drained of color, slapping ineffectually at Matt's hands to get him to let go.
Matt took a steadying breath. "You can't just run out there. This could be a trap."
Cory fumbled with the harness, fat and panic turning his hands clumsy.
Matt's fingers clenched, digging into Cory's shoulder. "I need you to acknowledge that you heard me."
After another moment's fumbling, Cory stopped, breathed in,
and gasped out a response. "I hear you. Okay. I hear you. What do we do?"
Matt spelled it out the best he could.
"We don't know who's out there. They set a trap for me in town, they could have done it again. What I need you to do is stay inside until I give you the all-clear. Got it?"
He interpreted Cory's wide-eyed stare as a lack of comprehension.
"Do you understand me?"
Cory shuddered, squeezed his eyes shut. "Yeah. I got it. Stay here."
"Okay. And pick up your weapon. Get ready to return fire if someone starts shooting. But don't shoot anyone else unless they're shooting at us. Can you do that?"
His head jiggled up and down.
"Do it." Matt popped his harness, hefted the AA-12, and opened the door. The whispers remained silent. He hesitated; he'd grown accustomed to their return far too fast, but found it hard not to trust them.
He stepped down into the snow, next to Chris Wilcox's body. Cory's brother stared with dead eyes into the sky, his mouth open in silent shock. Matt knelt and put his fingers to Chris's neck, feeling for a pulse he knew he wouldn't find.
Judging by her hair, the gray, curly-haired body next to him had to be Sandy Miller, arms spread wide, face a ruined mess of meat and bone.
Ted chuffed. Despite the danger, Matt's heart skipped an elated beat as his clumsy, bumbling hound dog sat up from his place of rest behind the hood of Kevin Bartell's parka.
"Ted, settle."
The dog lay down with a whine and a plaintive look at Kevin.
Bartell lay dusted in snow, head to the side, face just visible around the faux-fur lining, no signs of trauma visible. Matt scanned the trees for any sign of movement, then moved next to the body and nudged Kevin with his boot. Kevin groaned, but didn't open his eyes, even when Ted licked his nose.
"Ted, truck." Matt stepped back to the M-ATV, dog at his heels. Ted hopped in as Matt opened the side door and pulled the first aid kit off the wall.
Cory stared at Matt with bloodshot, haggard eyes. "He's gone, isn't he?"
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