by Payne, T. L.
The members of the group who didn’t have children were taking turns toting the kids to give the weary parents some relief, but it wasn’t enough. They’d traveled less than two miles, and everyone was breathing through their mouths and having difficulty keeping up with Savanah. She had to have been as exhausted as the rest of them, but she was driven to keep moving. Isabella imagined that the weight of her new responsibilities as group leader propelled her.
Her right shoulder was hurting now. The little girl kept tripping over her own feet and yanking on Isabella’s arm. Isabella picked the girl up and placed the child on her right hip. She didn’t protest, slowly lowering her head onto Isabella’s shoulder and in seconds, her head lolled and rolled back and forth with each step Isabella took.
The pain in Isabella’s shoulder moved up to her neck and down her back. Her legs were heavy, and each step was labored. She was quickly running out of steam. Pessimism dragged her emotions down into a dark place. The reality of the situation was overwhelming, and the hopelessness of their chance of making it made it that much more difficult to keep putting one foot in front of another. She felt the sweet child’s warm breath on her neck and felt a pang of guilt. She couldn’t give up already. The children needed her. The parents needed her. Will and Cayden needed her to be strong.
This is a mind game, Izzy, she could hear Jaz saying. They’d been workout partners. Jaz had helped her to push through the pain many times.
It’s won or lost in your head, girly.
Oh, how she missed the fiery girl now. Isabella doubted she’d ever see Jaz or Gus again. She’d never know if Jaz’s baby was a girl or boy.
Get out of your head, Izzy.
Jaz was right. The game is played in the mind. She was no quitter. She’d push on harder and faster. Will and Cayden would meet them at the barn. They’d all rest there and then move north to safety.
Pete will lead us to Texarkana. We can do this. It won’t be easy, but we can make it—all of us. We’ll make it to safety.
No surrender, Izzy.
Thirteen
Will
Will spotted Pete heading towards them as he and Walker reached the Bertrands’ barn. “No! No! He should be leading the group away right now. What is he thinking?” The only thing holding him upright was Walker’s arm around his waist. His energy was spent, and his legs weak beneath him. His heart was still racing as adrenaline coursed through his body from the fight with the Chinese soldier. How could he push on? He was nothing but a burden to them at this point. At that moment, Will could understand how the Bertrands felt.
Maybe I should stay with them.
“Pete and the others must have heard the shot,” Walker said.
“There’s no time. He should have headed in the other direction.”
“The rest of the group will be on the road already. You can guarantee that Pete and Jason would’ve made sure of that as soon as they heard the weapon being fired,” Walker said, shifting to take more of Will’s weight upon himself.
“What happened?” Pete called from across the open field.
Jason and then Rob came into view behind him.
“Enemy soldier,” Walker called back. “We need to double-time it out of here.”
Pete cursed loudly and continued toward them.
Will was trying his best to walk on his own and not lean so heavily on Walker who he could feel slowing. None of them were in any condition to be carrying one another. Will dug deep within himself, trying to find the strength to move his legs faster, but came up empty. His thighs felt like wet noodles.
He looked past Jason and drew in a deep breath. “Cayden! Dammit! What are you doing? You should be with Isabella and Savanah on the road getting the hell out of here.”
“I had to find you.”
This was all wrong. Nothing was going to plan. Everything Will had done to try to ensure his son’s safety was failing. He was failing.
Jason rushed toward Will and took him from Walker with Pete on the other side. They moved quickly back across the field toward Sugar Cove Road. Will kept looking back to make sure that Cayden and Walker were able to keep up. They had to stay together.
As they passed Savanah’s farm, Will was relieved to see that everyone had left already. Since he couldn’t see them on the road, that meant that they’d crossed the field near Sugar Hill and were on their way to the rally point. There were weapons, supplies, and food at the barn. They’d set up sandbags and created firing positions to defend the place. There was a safe place fortified with steel panels for the children to hide. All they had to do was make it to the barn and wait.
“We’re going to cut through the Johnsons’ place. It will save us twenty minutes,” Pete said. “You have to watch for booby traps. Old man Johnson used to make moonshine, and he was a paranoid old cuss.”
“I’m all for saving steps,” Will said as Jason and Pete led him down the Johnsons’ gravel drive.
Pete stopped abruptly. It took Jason a second to realize and halt himself, causing him to jerk Will’s injured shoulder. Excruciating pain shot through him, bringing with it a new wave of nausea. Pete slid out from under Will and pulled his rifle to his cheek. He scanned an area near a weathered and leaning shed.
“What is it?” Will asked.
“I saw movement.”
“It’s probably just a cat. Mrs. Johnson had tons of barn cats. The untamed ones have been hard to catch. Will shuddered at the thought of what people had had to resort to in the face of starvation.
“No. This was much bigger than a cat. It moved back into the shadows of the shed. Wait here. I’m going to go check it out.”
“I got your back,” Rob said, falling in behind Pete. The two men slowly crept across the lawn toward the junk-strewn shed one hundred feet from the back door of the Johnsons’ home. An equally weather-beaten wooden barn was to their right, surrounded by now unoccupied corrals and pens. The weeds had all but taken them over.
Walker and Cayden slid in to assist Will, and Jason joined Rob and Pete. “We should take care of those wounds while they go check things out,” Walker said.
Will stared back at him. “Wounds?”
“You’re injured, Dad.” Cayden pointed to Will’s shoulder and his eyes followed his son’s finger. Indeed, his left shoulder was soaked in blood. He followed the trail down his arm, where more gashes told the story of his struggle to gain control of the soldier’s knife. Will felt a wave of nausea at the sight and choked back the bile rising in his throat. He wasn’t normally so queasy at the sight of blood. Maybe he’d lost more than it appeared.
Walker pulled him toward a porch along the western side of the Johnsons’ Acadian style house. He lowered him onto one of the steps made of native cypress, dropped his pack, and was about to grab the medkit when they heard shouting.
“Hands in the air. Let me see your hands,” Pete was yelling.
Will’s mind immediately assumed more Chinese soldiers. He stiffened and reached for the knife in his pocket, all while pulling Cayden close to him. He was not going to let them get close to his son.
“My hands are up. They’re up, man,” a male voice said in perfect English. There wasn’t even a hint of Chinese in its tone. Will’s shoulders relaxed, and he loosened his grip on Cayden’s neck. The man wasn’t Chinese. He was American.
“What are you doing here? What do you want?” Pete asked the man.
“I got shot. I’m shot, man. We were chasing down two enemy combatants and got into a firefight when we caught up with them. I took a bullet to my left leg.”
“Two?” Pete asked. “Where are they?”
“I don’t know. When my team and I got close, they started firing. I took a round and crawled in here. My team took off after them. I heard screaming shortly after they took off, but no shots were fired.”
“The booby traps,” Jason said. Pete nodded.
“Should we check it out?” Jason asked.
“They’re heavily armed. We need to avoid trou
ble if at all possible,” Pete replied, staring off toward the back of the Johnsons’ property.
“You’re sure it was only two enemy soldiers?” Jason asked.
“No. I only saw the two, but there were a shit ton of rounds coming at us. We were holding off a unit of enemy combatants back on the highway. A small team of them broke through our defenses near the crossroads and took out some of our guys. We set off to stop them from flanking the rest of our unit.”
“So there’s a team now?” Pete asked.
“There was a team. We took out all but two—maybe three.”
Will stood on wobbly legs and took a step toward the shed and the men. Walker caught him by the arm before he fell, and he and Cayden helped Will over there.
The soldier was just a kid, really. He looked barely old enough to shave, yet he wore their country’s uniform and had been injured in battle defending her. He was thin and dirty, and blood oozed from a wound in his left calf. Will spotted another wound near his neck. Walker dropped his pack to the ground next to the kid and pulled the medkit from its pouch. Pete continued to question him as Walker cleaned his wounds and bandaged them the best he could.
“How did the Chinese get this far into the country?” Jason asked, standing over the kid with his rifle still at the low ready position.
“We just don’t have enough ammo—or warm bodies. We’ve lost a lot of soldiers. Some left to get their families the hell away from here. Some died from sickness. My sergeant was convinced that the Chinese were using biological weapons on us as men started falling like flies. It could have been biologicals. I don’t know. When we got the order recalling us to Fort Polk, we were all relieved. Until we realized that we were not being replaced—but retreating and giving the enemy ground—US ground. It’s still unfathomable.” The kid shook his head. “If we’d only been able to get resupplied, we could have held them off and pushed them back into the gulf.”
“What’s the plan now?” Jason asked.
“Plan? I don’t think the brass has one. The Chinese are on our heels. Even if we were able to make it back to base and get resupplied, we’d be fighting them there within a day.”
“How many?” Will asked.
“A shit ton,” the kid said, his expression grim. “A battalion, at least. We heard that another was moving up Highway 87 toward Shreveport to cut off our resupply from Texarkana.”
“Are there troops in Texarkana?” Will asked.
“That’s the rear operating base for Fort Hood’s command. They are reinforcing the refugee shelter. It’s all screwed up. Nothing is being done according to regulation. I’m not even sure who the hell is in command anymore. There have been very limited communications.”
“That’s messed up,” Pete said, rubbing his salt and pepper goatee.
“Why Texarkana? What's strategic about there that the military would set up a command center there?”
“The rail lines and Red River Army Depot. Also, it’s close to the Red River,” the soldier replied.
Pete bobbed his head and then glanced back at Will. “I can see that. You guys live around here?” the kid asked.
“We live along this road,” Jason said.
“I’d be getting my family out of here if I were you.”
“We are. They’re on their way to Shreveport and then Texarkana though,” Pete said.
“Shit!” the kid cursed.
“We have to stop them,” Will said.
“Where else are we going to go, Will?” Pete said, turning to face him.
“I don’t know, but it’s not safe now.”
“Nowhere is safe, man. The Chinese are coming in like locusts, and there is very little we can do to stop them. All we can hope for is to slow them down and allow residents time to evacuate north.”
“North Arkansas? Or north, as in Canada?” Will asked.
“Canada is under the control of the Russians, so that’s out,” the kid said flatly.
Will’s heart leaped into his throat. “Russians?”
“Yeah. It was a coordinated attack. The Russians, North Koreans, Iran, and China worked together to pull this off. How else would they have taken down the most powerful country on Earth?”
All Will’s optimism about finding a safe place to stay and survive this mess evaporated in an instant. How could they possibly survive this? He reached out and pulled Cayden close. Melanie’s voice whispered in his ear. While there is breath in your body, protect our son.
“We’ll find a place—somewhere,” he whispered. He wouldn’t give up. They would never surrender.
Fourteen
Will
Will’s mind raced as they left the young soldier back at Johnsons’ farm and hurried to catch up with their families as they pushed north to escape the advancing enemy. No longer was he under the illusion that they could quietly make their way to the safety of the refugee camp in Texarkana. Gone was the idea that they could take their time finding a place in which the group could set up a new camp of their own in the woods of Arkansas and live off the land. He could see how foolish the plan was now. Even without the advancing army, living off the land was nearly impossible. How could they possibly feed forty people by roughing it in the woods and hunting? What a fool he’d been to think they could. He’d trusted Pete and believed that whatever skills were necessary for survival could be taught before leaving Texarkana. What alternative had there been? He’d needed to hold on to any shred of hope.
What hope could he find now?
If the young American soldier was right, the middle of the country would soon fall under communist China’s rule. They’d be forced into work camps, barely fed, and tortured. Was that their fate? How could this have happened? If they hadn’t been so busy killing each other off and fighting over what little resources they had, the average American citizen would have been a mighty force against the Chinese.
It wasn’t like there was a shortage of guns and ammunition around. There were still plenty of weapons and though ammunition was a problem, crates and boxes full were likely sat in warehouses and on trucks somewhere out there. But that did them no good right now.
“We need to fight back,” Jason said, breaking the silence that the group had fallen into on their trek. “We’re retreating when we should be standing our ground and fighting.”
Rob stopped in front of them and turned back. “We have families. What do you want to do? Put children on the front lines with sticks and slingshots?”
“We can’t protect them by running either. It’s only a matter of time before they control everything. Do you want to see your little ones in some concentration camp learning Chinese?”
“Would they be fed?” Rob’s stare was hard. Will couldn’t believe he’d even consider it.
“They may not want children. They may only want able-bodied workers,” Will replied coldly.
Rob’s mouth parted as if he was going to speak, and then he turned to look away. “What are we supposed to do? We aren’t soldiers. We don’t have weapons for war. We barely have enough bullets to hunt, let alone fight an army.” He choked on the last part as if he were about to break into tears.
“We’ll have to use guerrilla tactics,” Pete said, pulling his rifle closer to his chest and allowing it to rest in the crook of his arms. “We’ll have to set ambushes and use what we can find to slow them down—take out as many as we can.” A smile tugged at the corners of Pete’s mouth. Will had learned that Pete had been practicing for something like this for years and hoped he wasn’t itching for a fight just to prove something.
“We have to form our own army,” Jason said. “We have to convince people that they must fight—or die.”
“Maybe we should join with the regular military. I bet they’d give us weapons,” Cayden said.
Will considered it for a moment. They’d no doubt be recruiting. The kid soldier had said they’d lost a lot of men and lacked warm bodies to do the fighting, but they didn’t have supplies or ammunition.
Will shifted his weight onto his left foot and faced Jason. “Are you thinking about Tank and the others back in Vincent?”
Jason nodded. “And Valson and the folks of Sugar Hill.”
Will bristled at the mention of Valson, recalling with vivid detail the scene when Jason’s family had held him hostage. “You’ve seen him then?” Will asked.
“I know where he’s holed up. He could convince Sugar Hill to join us.”
“Why would they?"
“Because they have families in there to protect too. We have a common enemy.”
“What about our families?” Will asked. “Savanah’s is no longer safe. The enemy is crawling all over there by now.”
“We could stay at the rally point near Perkins for a week at least. We have enough supplies. We could head to Leesville and cut off the advancing Chinese—find a way to stop them. When it’s safe, we can have our families push on to the next rally point near there. The grocery store at Roseville would do for a few weeks—maybe even a month. There’s good deer hunting within ten or fifteen miles of there. If we got a few of them, we could hold out there while we pick off as many of the enemy as possible.”
“You talking Red Dawn-type tactics?” Will asked. He’d seen the original movie with Patrick Swayze. A ragtag bunch of kids taking on the Russian army made for good fiction, but the Chinese carried real weapons, and it didn’t end that well for Patrick Swayze’s character in the end anyway.
“It could work,” Pete said.
Will tried to picture how it could succeed. In the end, he determined that they didn’t really have a choice.
Will and the others reached the barn that acted as their first rally point just before sunset. The group was there and safe for the moment. The relief Will felt at seeing Isabella’s smiling face was palpable. Savanah looked like she’d aged a decade in the few hours since he’d last seen her as she stroked her braids and paced as Keegan ran to greet Jason. She should have been relieved to see them, but her stress level remained high. After a long hug and kiss, he pointed to his sister. “Is she okay, Izzy?”