by James Sperl
“We need to go!” he blared.
Cesare shot out a calming hand and gripped Jon's forearm before turning to the group.
“He's right! We can't stay! The cars are our only option.” He released Jon, relinquishing back control. “So how do we get to them?”
Jon opened his mouth to speak, but the deafening crack from an overhead fire-ravaged timber forced it shut. The house was in full protest now. Wood groaned and popped, sizzles and hisses from vented gasses and escaping water vapor adding to the already disharmonious sounds that accompanied total destruction.
“We're going now!” Jon scuttled to the front door and put a hand on the knob. The rest of the group fumbled their way over to him, eyes like salad plates. “On three, I'll pull open the door and lay down a line of fire. Stay low, and get in the cars as fast as humanly possible. Cesare, do you have your keys?”
Cesare patted himself then froze in relief when he cupped something in his right pocket. “I'm good.”
“Get them in your hand. Sean?” Jon said, fishing a key fob from his pocket and tossing it to his husband. “You're driving.”
Sean caught the keys wearing a dubious expression. “Me? But...but I don't know if that's...I mean, are you sure—”
“Sean!” Jon said curtly. “We don't have time for this! You're driving! I need to be able to fire from the passenger seat if need be.” Two more shots punched into the house, causing everyone to duck. Jon singled out Clarissa, Valentina, and Rachel. “Valentina, you're with us. Rachel, Clarissa, you're with Cesare.” He bore into the group. “Stay low and move fast, and we can make it out of here.” He inhaled deeply, the breath a centering commitment for what he was about to attempt. He adjusted his grip on the knob.
“Ready? One...two...THREE!”
CHAPTER 29
Jon yanked open the door and charged onto the porch, his weapon trained in front of him. He immediately drew a bead on a man wearing a mud-brown hoodie and a white bandanna repurposed as a face mask. The man attempted to light the tattered end of a cocktail rag with an uncooperative lighter. Jon squeezed the trigger. The person rocked as he took a hit to the shoulder. It exploded in a jet of blood, the person pirouetting to the ground in agony.
Jon turned to the group inside the house. “Go! Go! Go!”
He swiveled like a pendulum as the group exited, his arm locked and his focus fine-tuned to locate one person and one person only: Travis. He wanted more than anything to come across his smug, murderous face and send him a bullet courtesy of the young woman who smoldered in the driveway. But Travis was apparently as wily as he was brazen—Jon didn't see him anywhere.
Cesare loped onto the porch nearly carrying Elenora. Clarissa locked elbows with one of Elenora's arms to help speed her progress. Rachel, Valentina, Sean, and Evan moved as a slow-moving pod. Progress was dismal; their collective, hesitant foot shuffles came in direct opposition to Jon's directive to haul ass. As if to punctuate the urgency, a string of shots peppered the back wall.
“Let's move!” Jon howled. He reached for Sean's arm and pulled him along. “You've got to go faster!”
But rather than advance, Sean recoiled, and it wasn't until Jon saw the ember of light reflected in his partner's eye that he understood why.
A cocktail wobbled through the air from an unknown assailant and shattered over the roof of the farthest car. Globs of fire shot out in a fireworks-like explosion, drenching the first car in a blanket of fire and sending scattered vines of ignited fuel onto the second, rendering both equally useless.
Jon spun and found the culprit. He fired two fury-driven shots at the ski-masked individual but missed both times. The person veered wildly from side-to-side until he found cover behind the chicken coop.
Helplessness and frustration washed over Jon like a wave. They couldn't go back inside, and now the only two means of escape had been reduced to flaming heaps of scrap metal. Venturing out into the open would be suicide, but if they remained on the porch the blaze that roared from both ends would consume them.
“What do we do?” Valentina screamed. “Where do we go?!”
Jon glanced at the people that had entrusted him with leadership and found eyes full to the brim with trauma and fear. They sought guidance, a viable solution that would whisk them away from this living Hell on earth, but he didn't know what to tell them. It never went over well when you informed people they might very well die.
Feeling emboldened by the lack of shots coming from the porch, several of the attackers emerged from their hiding places. They sensed it too: the end was drawing near, and the advantage looked to be in their favor. But Jon wasn't about to go down without a fight.
Two black-hooded men charged the house, each launching a bottle with a full-armed hurl. Fortunately for Jon and the others, their aim was sloppy; the bottles fell short of the two burning vehicles. Jon took advantage of the men's clumsy post-throw momentum—both stumbled to keep from pitching face first into the dirt—and unloaded his final two shots. The first obliterated the knee cap of a lanky fellow with an awkward stride and brought him to the ground. Jon wasted the last round, however, firing at the second man before he had a clear line of sight; the man escaped and ducked for shelter around the side of the house.
A long-haired blond girl, who made no attempt to hide her identity, sprinted toward the house from the left. She had an already lit cocktail in her hand. Jon wheeled around and fired, but the gun clicked emptily.
“Shit!”
Releasing the empty magazine into his palm, Jon dug in his pocket for ammunition. He produced four rounds and guided them into the magazine with nimble-fingered precision. The magazine held more, but Jon abandoned groping about for others in the interest of expediency. They had no time to waste.
Palm-slapping the magazine back into the gun, he racked the slide, raised the weapon, and fired. The girl dodged as if she could see the bullet coming. Jon followed with another pull of the trigger; still, she advanced. Running at full speed, the girl didn't slow in the slightest, as she skated past the porch and underhand pitched the bottle over the flaming cars. The cocktail curled into the section of the stairs where it met the porch and detonated.
Jon ducked and instinctively shielded his family with his body. The ensuing pulse of heat and fire licked their way up the railing. Flames clawed for the eaves overhead, creating a pulsating scrim of fiery death in the open space between.
Bounding back to his feet, Jon tracked the girl as she scampered off. He fired again. The first shot went wild, but the next and final one found a home and clipped her forearm. The girl twisted as she tripped up, but she kept moving. Jon targeted her for a finishing shot, but the gun only clicked. The girl glanced over her shoulder, a smug look of victory etched into her acne-scarred face.
“Jon!” Clarissa yelled, grabbing his wrist. “What do we do?”
Jon tore himself away from the girl. He eyed Clarissa and the others, their pitiful expressions catapulting him back to the now: they needed to escape. He looked from them to the burning stairs; the fire crept steadily along the treads, devouring wood at an unsettling pace.
“Clarissa!” he said, dropping to a knee. “Didn't you say Andrew had a truck?”
Again, Clarissa blossomed with hope. “Yes! Yes, it's in the shed!”
Jon sighted the rust-brown shed across Andrew's property. It was easily seventy, eighty yards away.
“That's our ticket out!” he shouted above the din. “We've got to make a break for it!”
Wood crackled and snapped. Smoke whipped in smothering eddies, dark gray tufts fed by continuous plumes of exhaust from the front door.
Jon glanced into the yard and discovered two people skulking toward the corner of the house. He raced to reload the Colt, fingering the remaining rounds in his pocket—only three were left. At the same time, the rest of the group peered disconsolately at the expanse of land between themselves and the shed.
“We've got to get over there?” Evan whimpered. “We'll ne
ver make it!”
“No, no, no,” Rachel said through blubbery tears. “There's got to be another way. I'm not going out there!”
“The truck is all we've got!” Jon barked. “We're going to burn to death if we stay here. It's our only chance.” He took Clarissa by the wrist. “Clarissa, does Andrew have the keys to the truck too?”
“No!” she said, shaking her head emphatically. “No, Andrew put them in a coffee can just inside the shed door so anyone could get to them!”
“Okay.” Jon flashed a look into the yard—more thugs emerged and prowled in fearless approach. He passed his eyes over everyone on the porch. “We can't wait. We've got to do this now!”
Sean craned his neck to peer at the assailants beyond the burning vehicles. He returned to Jon, shaking his head adamantly.
“This is a bad idea, Jon. I love you, but this is going to get us killed.”
“Yeah, Jon,” Cesare said struggling to keep it together. “That shed's far. My nonna will never make it.”
Elenora bristled with summoned courage. “Don't count me out just yet.”
Jon's blood began to boil, and it had nothing to do with the fire that surrounded him.
“What do you all want from me?” he cried. “I don't have a plan! This isn't my house. I'm not the one who geared up for the end of the world! I'm making this up as I go along!” He cast a glance at the increasing number of Travis's gang, who filtered into the yard from hidden places. “And right now the only option we have is in that shed.” An overhead beam popped fiercely, causing everyone to flinch. A wave of fire rolled over the porch ceiling, carried along by a morning gust of pine-rich air. “We're losing time talking about this! The house is coming down. Our cars are gone. Our only chance to escape—our only chance—is that truck. We need to move!”
“But how're we going to make it over there, Jon?” Sean spat in a burst of fear and urgency. “What do you have, three, four shots left? How's that going to hold off, what...” He peeked into the yard and quick-tallied the people creeping there. “...seven people. It's suicide. We'll be mowed down.”
Jon bit his lip and ground his teeth. What did everyone want him to say? He was as terrified of the situation as they were. Getting shot at and pinned down by fire was not his idea of a good time. He got it. Their fears weren't unfounded. Exposing themselves would only lead to mass extermination. It would be a turkey shoot. Even as he thought this a salvo of shots peppered the porch and ruptured the remaining windows on the cars that had not yet succumbed to the stress of fire. It was a subtle reminder that the scale of firepower remained woefully unbalanced in Travis's favor.
Everyone hugged the ground, and as they did, Jon took stock of the diminishing island of wood upon which he and the others took refuge. In moments, flames would lap over them. That or they would be forced out into the open and used for target practice. Neither scenario could be allowed to happen.
A third option hatched in his mind.
“Okay, okay!” he said, throwing a glance toward the shed. “I'll get the truck. You just be ready to move your asses when I pull up!”
Evan leaped toward his father. “Dad, no!”
“It's the only way, Ev. Someone's got to go, and I'm the only one with the means to fend those guys off.” As if reminding himself, Jon checked the chamber to make sure a round had been loaded.
“Then I'm going too!” Evan said.
Somehow, Jon managed to smile—his emotions were in turmoil. Not sixty seconds ago, his son had vehemently protested trying to make it to the shed. Now he wanted to accompany his father on what would likely be an even more dangerous attempt. Crossing open land by himself would effectively draw the eyes—and guns—of Travis and his entire crew. Jon couldn't conceive of a scenario where his only son figured into that.
“You're staying here,” Jon said to Evan.
“No, I'm not,” Evan shot back defiantly.
“Yes, you are.” He moved Evan back beside Sean. “And I don't want to hear another wo—”
“Time's running out, little pigs!”
Jon straightened at the amplified voice that came from the yard. He looked at Clarissa and witnessed her exchange one level of fear for another. Shifting slightly, he angled for a view between the smoldering cars. Just as he thought: Travis.
He stood dead center of the drive a stone's throw away from the porch, megaphone in hand. Jon took a better look at him. Even without the benefit of a one-on-one conversation with him, Jon could tell Travis didn't fit the usual profile of a sociopath. The guy was in shape, good-looking—really good-looking in fact—and judging by the number of people willing to commit homicide on his behalf, Jon supposed he oozed charisma by the gallon. For reasons he couldn't quite put his finger on, what would have otherwise been considered desirable qualities made Travis even more frightening.
Jon struggled to see through the curtain of fire. It obscured his view, but he was able to see enough to witness Travis's people form a loose semicircle behind their leader. Jon couldn't decide what unsettled him more: having a mob of bloodthirsty hooligans glare maliciously at him in anticipation, or acknowledge that his plan to make a break for the shed had been officially thwarted.
“What to do, what to do?” Travis said in a singsong voice. “Do you burn to a crisp in defiance, or do you take your chances and face the music out here? It's a tough call. Glad I don't have to make it.”
Jon scuttled across the deck and pressed himself up against the porch column at the top of the stairs. Constructed from the same durable stone as the walls of the house, the column provided just enough of a shield from the fire that raged on the other side of it. But it could only do so much against the heat.
“Get down!” he hissed at the others, though they had already scampered back to position themselves behind the other column base and a portion of the wide cedar balusters, which rimmed the porch.
“Don't you see now how all of this could have been avoided?” Travis taunted. “If you'd only allowed us to stay, we'd be sipping beers together on that porch rather than burning it to the ground.”
Clarissa shot up bolt straight on her knees. “You would have killed us, you sick son of a bitch, and you know it!” she belted. “Just like you did with the Railleys!” Valentina pulled her back to the floor.
“The Railleys...” Travis pretended to think about this. “Hmmm. Oh, right. Neighbors, yes? Well, they weren't very nice to us either. And you see what that got them.”
Clarissa inhaled a double-barreled lungful of breath. “I know that it takes a special type of coward to murder an elderly couple!” she bellowed through the fire. “Just like it does to kill women and children.”
“Children?” Travis said, genuine surprise in his voice. “You have children up there with you? Well, well, well. Let me be the first among my clan to say congratulations. I had no idea you'd adopted.” The young men and women surrounding Travis chuckled stupidly. “I, of course, tease. Even so, you picked a terrible time to bring kids into this. I hope their parents kissed them goodbye.”
In a flash, Travis raised the semi-automatic pistol he clutched in his other hand and opened fire. His cronies followed suit, unleashing a bullet-storm of gunfire on the porch.
Jon shrank back even further and watched with crippling helplessness as the seven other people stranded on the porch with him scurried for cover.
Gunshots hammered the home. Fragments of stone and chunks of splintered timber exploded onto the porch from the front wall. Bullets pinged and ricocheted, and Jon wondered how soon someone would get hit by a bouncing round. He could almost taste the gunpowder on his tongue.
Cesare enveloped his grandmother and hugged her flat against the base. Sean and Evan hunkered down behind him, with Clarissa, Rachel, and Valentina lying prone alongside them, their arms and hands crossed over their heads protectively.
All Jon needed was one clear shot. If he could put Travis down, the others might crumble under the lack of leadership. But the barrage of
gunfire was too much. If he even so much as stuck his head above the horizon line of the cars, it would get reduced to a bloody, pulpy stalk.
Someone cried out. Then so did someone else.
Seconds later, the bullets that had been riddling the house in an unceasing barrage suddenly stopped—yet the shots continued. Another person yelled out in pain. Jon took the opportunity to check on his friends.
“Everyone all right?”
Tepid nods and half-hearted “yeah”s came back to him in a terrified jumble.
Jon nodded. “Nobody move.” Confirming no shots fired in his direction, he popped up his head over the cars.
Travis and his crew still engaged in a firefight—only not with Jon. Three of his men lay on the ground, two motionless, one writhing in what Jon hoped was excruciating pain. The rest faced away from the house and fired wildly into the woods.
Clarissa eased up beside Cesare to get a view into the yard. Her face dropped at the sight of the downed assailants. “It's Andrew,” she said.
Better late than never, Jon thought. Taking advantage of the distraction, he rose to his full height and aimed the Colt at Travis and fired. The bullet missed him, but it managed to sink into the gut of the blond girl from only moments ago. She went down like a sack of flour and clawed at her bleeding belly.
Travis's people spun and whirled in confused uncertainty, firing with ammunition-wasting abandon. They had no idea who or how many people shot at them.
Jon aimed again. Just as he pulled the trigger, a slouchy man in mechanic's coveralls stumbled into the shot's path. The bullet grazed his neck. Blood spurted from the wound, the man cupping his hand to it and fleeing down the driveway.
Travis shot him in the back. The man crumpled into the gravelly dirt like a thrown puppet.
The moment was just the distraction Andrew needed.