by A. R. Shaw
Chapter Twenty-Four
Holding his wife closer than he’d ever had before, his two young sons hugging his legs, Walt had to ask, knowing their taking of the bunker was not over yet, “Alyssa, what happened outside? It looks like there was a battle.” He held her away, witnessing her tear-streaked face. She was terrified still as she wiped away the tears streaming down her cheeks.
“We were…uh…attacked after you left. They tried to get inside. Dillon sent three of ours out, and no…one came back. They’re still out there, watching us.”
Looking around, he saw Alyssa’s assistant wave to him, surrounded by at least ten other children, some as young as infants, others preteens. He ruffled his sons’ hairs, each standing at his side, both clinging to him. Returning his attention back to his wife, he still hadn’t told her what had taken place. She was shell shocked as it was and shaking like a leaf. “Listen to me. You and the children stay here. You’ve been safe down here so far. Keep the door locked, just like you did before, baby. Only let me in. Are there plenty of rations in here for you and the children just in case you have to stay awhile?”
She nodded. “Don’t leave, Walt. Please stay with us.” It was a refrained beg. She didn’t raise her voice, but he knew she was scared to death.
Pulling her close again, he whispered into her ear, knowing his own emotion would betray him. “Alyssa, just a little longer, sweetheart. I promise you I’m coming back. You’re a strong woman; you can do this.”
She pulled away and took a deep breath. Alyssa was a strong woman. She was just terrified and had to do the protecting for too long in the worst of conditions. He couldn’t be more proud of her, but it also killed him that she had to be that strong there without him.
Before he could change his mind, he kissed her forehead and pulled away. “I love you,” he said, his voice rattled with the sentiment. “See you soon,” he said and stepped outside the door again where Yeager and two others waited with somber expressions. He didn’t care if they’d seen him at his most vulnerable. He closed the metal door and stood there until she latched the inside.
Looking at Yeager, he said, “Can you stay here? Guard the door?”
Yeager shook his head. He stood over a foot taller than Walt. A tall young man who’d not yet filled out to his full growth, but when he did, he was sure to be an imposing man. “No, sir. Bishop needs me up top. There’s not enough to spare, but we can lock the doors on our way up.”
Walt nodded. He knew that was the truth. They were thin on men as it was and needed every single one to fight what he knew was coming. “Let’s get up there.”
Moments later they passed the hallway, where the bodies of his old comrades had fallen. The bodies were gone, and someone was mopping up the blood. “Hey, we don’t have time for that now,” Walt barked. “Where’s Bishop?”
“He’s near the entrance.”
They continued and ran into the last man carrying the body of a woman he recognized by the purple sweater she’d worn. Bile rose in his throat. She’d been a fighter. Not a docile woman by any means but a fighter all the same. Not that he liked her much, though he was sorry she had to go this way.
“Walt!” Bishop yelled.
“Yeah?”
“Everything okay with yours?”
“Yeah, but we’ve got trouble.”
“The mess outside?”
Walt nodded grimly. “Looks like they ran into trouble in the early morning hours. My wife says it was the locals trying to get in for supplies. We’ve got to get the Osprey secured and repair the doors fast.”
That’s when they heard the snowmobiles outside. There was no plan; they just moved, and by the time they reached the surface doorway, the first shots were fired.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Just as Bishop surfaced, his eyes fixed on the scene before him. At least twenty snowmobiles, with two men each, rode in, firing on them. The Osprey was the prize or hostage, it seemed. He watched the one man guarding fall just outside the plane’s entranceway.
“No!” he yelled. There were too many of them. Bullets kept ricocheting off the metal doorway, causing him to snap it closed once more.
“Walt, is there another exit? We can’t let them destroy the damn thing. We have to get the others back here.”
“Yes, follow me.”
“Yeager, you’re with us. Grab your gear.”
“Right behind you.” Seldom was Yeager ever without his gear.
“Two of you stay…the rest come with us. Throw off shots every now and then, keep them busy, and don’t get killed.”
Walt was already on the run, down through tunnels. Bishop had no other choice but to absolutely trust the man. He ran to catch up with him, with the others behind him and shots ringing out more in the distance. They had to save the Osprey…the rest of the residents would be lost to them otherwise.
Running down three flights of stairs and through a maze of darkened corridors, Bishop was about to shout where Walt was leading them, when he found they were suddenly climbing what seemed to look like a ship’s ladder. The metal stairs led straight up to a ceiling hatch. This place was remarkable.
“Where does this come out?”
“To the east about, say, a block away from the Osprey.”
“Okay, Yeager, you’re up.”
Once said, Yeager was already handing him grenades out of his pack. Bishop gave three to Walt and took another three for himself.
“That kid comes in handy.”
“That he does.”
“You pull the pin…aim away from the aircraft if I were you,” Yeager said as he demonstrated.
“No shit,” Walt said and stuffed them into his coat pocket.
“When we get out there, spread out! Don’t be a target!” Bishop yelled out to everyone. “Let’s go.”
Walt opened the hatch and peeked up ahead. Snow and ice sprinkled down through the opening. Bishop followed him up the ladder, noticing the blood-stained hemline of his jeans. The stains would get worse before this day was through, he suspected.
His eyes met the dim landscape, and the shots fired were all around them, but at least they had yet to detect their position. They crowded around the Osprey, and at least ten more were encroaching on the entrance to the bunker. The few men he’d left there were doing their best to sustain the fire and gave back all they could from their narrow opening.
They had the element of surprise, and with the aid of Yeager’s awesome tricks, they just might gain the upper hand given their twentyish men of a micro army to their small army of around what looked like fifty men on twenty-five snowmobiles.
The drumbeat in Bishop’s head rang out again, always as before when the murdering needed to happen. To Bishop it was a primal thrumming, one that now and yet again was a part of this scene as many trials before. Without consideration, he sprung out of the hole, Yeager with him, while Walt fled west, taking the long end around the back of the group. The other men followed his lead. Bishop and Yeager led up the center back and placed a few well-marked explosives. “There.” Bishop pointed for Yeager. A cluster of snowmobiles were parked to the east, their owners on foot stalking the entrance, and well enough away from the Osprey to save it from damage.
While Bishop fired on the group heading to the bunker, Yeager reached into his backpack and pulled out a satchel-charge unit, tossing it into the cluster of snowmobiles as he ran.
Bishop never saw the explosion, though he felt the heat and the pressure wave behind him. Yeager passed him up as they ran firing on the group of men going for the bunker door. That kid could run. They had to stop them, and if Yeager was running like hell, he briefly worried where the next explosion was coming from. Damn, thank God he’s on our side.
A few turned in their direction as the detonation ignited; what fuel remained in the snowmobile tanks set off a secondary explosion, though just as remarkable. Shrapnel rained from the sky. The group split up after the initial shock. Many ran toward them, firing. Then suddenly Yea
ger fell to the ground. Bishop feared the worst, but he had not the time to check on him, because he was now taking fire from a few very pissed-off locals.
“Bishop!”
It was Yeager. “Down!”
Immediately dropping to the ground, Bishop landed and just barely covered his head when another explosion rocked the ground, spilling him backward. This time what rained down was not metal or pieces of exploded snowmobiles.
Bishop peeked out from underneath his arm at the kid lying still twenty paces from him. “You shit! A warning…next time!” he yelled but knew Yeager couldn’t hear him. Instead, he hoped his menacing stare would suffice.
Yeager’s brown eyes looked back at him, a slight smirk lifted at the corner of his mouth. Bishop shook his head. Scary little fucker.
Though when he did look up, the few survivors of the local army who were left were scattering, while Walt and his men fired on them. Some made it to their snowmobiles, and others dropped to the ground and would remain there for days to come. The wailing of the not-yet-dead began as familiar as times past, a heightened wail that faded in time. Bishop had learned to ignore the piercing screams to only have them revisit him in his nightmares where they belonged. This was one of those moments that he’d encounter again in the dark of night, a minute realization to him now, yet there it was.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Huddling in the corner of a dark underground corridor with the children, Maeve was tired of waiting and worrying. It seemed that that was all she was doing anymore: waiting for Bishop to return from the next battle, while she stayed remote and terrified with frightened children looking up to her with questions she could not answer. A few explosions had rocked the whole complex. They were freezing there in the stairwell, and Louna’s labored breathing was becoming shallower.
The child needed the moist warm air of a humidifier, and never before did she long for Jax’s help like now. He’d know what to do with her all those times before. “Louna, calm down, please,” she urged.
She was beginning to panic, and the dry cold air wasn’t helping.
“Mom!” Ben yelled when Louna started flailing her arms. She could not pull air into her constricted lungs.
“Help!” Maeve screamed out. “Help us!” she shouted again as she laid Louna down on the hard ground.
“Do something, Mom!” Ben yelled again.
“Louna, stop, baby. Breath with me,” Maeve said, placing both of her hands on each side of Louna’s terrified face. “Breathe in…breathe out…breathe in…”
Louna tried but could not fight the panic that had already overtaken her instincts to survive. Her lips turned a bluish, and then before Maeve knew what was happening, Louna became unconscious. “Louna!” She shook her slight shoulders. “Louna!”
Running on the steps came to her subconscious. Someone was coming. Her son was screaming her name, but suddenly the only thing she could see was Louna’s lifeless body before her.
“No…! No!” She shook her again, staring at her in disbelief, when someone wrenched her by the shoulders out of the way.
A female voice yelled loudly, “What’s going on here?”
Then the blond woman was hovering over the girl. Ripping open her coat, she placed her ear to Louna’s chest, pushing on her small chest with her hands and clearing her airway and then breathing into the girl and returning to her chest again.
Ben was suddenly in Maeve’s arms, crying. They watched as the woman tried to save her. Then the woman got to her feet, her back to Maeve, and turned around slowly.
“Let’s get her in the greenhouse,” she said.
“Is she…breathing?” Maeve asked.
“Yes, but weak and shallow,” the other woman said as she lifted the girl in her arms and began to run with her. Maeve and Ben followed.
“Oh my God, thank you!”
“I’m a nurse,” she said as she led them two flights down and knocked on a metal door. “It’s Alyssa…let me in.”
The door creaked open, and another woman with short brown hair and glasses stood there. “Who’s this?” she asked.
“I…don’t know, but she’s barely breathing. Let’s get her inside near the humidifier.”
Maeve and Ben followed her inside, and the other woman slammed the heavy door back into place and locked it.
To Maeve it sounded like the cell door in a jail, but if it kept out the dangers, she didn’t mind.
Inside, there were children gawking at them from the corners with frightened looks on their faces—all different ages. The woman with the glasses walked past her and picked up a baby who just started to whine, its bottom lip quivering in alarm before a wailing.
“What is this place?” Maeve asked as she noticed the greenery, low lights, and the humid air. She followed Alyssa to the far end, passing rows of plants, their root system in a liquid solution. To her it looked like lettuce, but she wasn’t sure. There were other plants too, but she’d lost interest.
“Let’s move this stuff out of the way,” Alyssa said to Maeve.
She found herself clearing stacks of evergreen plastic planting containers from a flat surface with a swipe of her arm.
Alyssa laid Louna down, pressing her ear to her chest again.
“Carmen, is there any way we can get to medical supplies? I need a stethoscope and albuterol.”
The woman called Carmen cleared her throat and said, “You weren’t supposed to leave the room, as it was. We don’t even know them. Where’d they come from?”
“She’s a child, Carmen!” Alyssa yelled.
“Please,” Maeve said. “Tell me where it is; I’ll go and get it.”
“It’ll take too long. I don’t like the color of her lips. I’ll go. She needs oxygen.”
Maeve had the impression Alyssa didn’t allow others to push her around. She liked her already.
“Stay with her. When her chest stops rising, do chest compressions.” She showed Maeve where to place her fingers. “Keep it going until I get back. It’ll take me several minutes.” She ran for the door and then stopped.
“Carmen,” she said, turning around, casting her an angry look, “keep it to yourself.”
Maeve looked at the other woman. She didn’t look happy and had the impression she and Alyssa were not the best of friends.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
After checking the body count, taking care of the wounded, and the bonus of capturing two prisoners in the battle, Bishop thought they’d gotten off rather easily.
“What do we do with them?” Yeager asked while holding a younger prisoner hostage, who knelt on the ground before him with his hands crossed over the back of his head as the wind blew in rapid gusts.
“Get him off the ground, Yeager. His knees will freeze to the surface. Take them in for questioning.”
Yeager sidekicked the younger man. “Up.”
Walt said, “We need to find out where they’re from. With those resources, they’ll be back.”
“Did you guys have problems with them before?”
Walt nodded. “They did, but I wasn’t involved. The security service took care of things like that.”
“Well, we are the security service now,” Bishop had to yell over the wind as they followed Yeager and the prisoners back to the bunker through the now side-drifting snow. By the time they reached the door, they could barely make out the Osprey in the distance because of the blowing snow.
“Good thing the battle’s over,” Walt said as he shook off accumulating ice from his gear. “We’ll bring these guys to a holding cell this way and question them.”
“I’ll be right back then. I’ll check on Maeve and the kids,” Bishop said as he followed them down the stairs to where he’d left his new family only to find that the space was empty. “Maeve?” he yelled.
Then a blond woman came running up the stairs, and Walt seemed to recognize her. “Alyssa. Why aren’t you in the greenhouse?”
She stopped suddenly, her eyes wary of the strangers. “It
’s okay. They’re with me,” Walt said.
“Where are all the others? Who are these people?” she questioned.
Bishop’s eyes went to her sidearm. So far she hadn’t seemed inclined to pull it.
“I’ll explain later. Please go back to the greenhouse,” Walt said.
Still not knowing where Maeve and the children were, Bishop asked, “Have you seen a woman with two children?”
She lifted a heavy red nylon bag. “That’s where I’m going now. The little girl stopped breathing. I got her going again, but I need to get back to her.”
Panic filled Bishop. “Bring me to her, please.”
Again her eyes went to Walt as she stood frozen in place.
“Alyssa, I trust this man with your life. It’s okay. I’ll be back in there as soon as I’m done.”
She nodded and took off down the concrete stairs, her boots cladding rapidly. Bishop had to scramble to keep up with her.
When they met up at the solid metal door, she shifted the heavy red bag to one side of her hip. He offered to take it for her, but she didn’t even acknowledge him there. Raising her right fist, she pounded on the door. “It’s me, open the door!” she yelled in a demanding tone.
Bishop tightened his grip on his sidearm. Maeve and the kids were behind that lock. Tense but silent moments went by. Alyssa let out a frustrated breath, fist poised above the metal again. And then came the metal-against-metal screech of a lock lever being pulled.
Alyssa let out a breath she’d apparently been holding. Did she think there was a chance the person on the other side wouldn’t open the door?
“Bishop!” Maeve called out.
He saw her at the end of a plant row…warm humid air hit him in the face. After living in a frozen environment, it was the oddest of sensations to be in a room that reminded him of the tropics. Low lights lit the room, but beyond Maeve he saw Louna lying as still as a lifeless doll on a tabletop, Ben standing at her side, his small hand encircling hers.
There were others too, in the room, at the other corner. Bishop acknowledged them but didn’t really see them. His mind acknowledged their presence and assessed no threat there. Instead, his whole attention was aimed at his family, and the youngest one was in terrible danger.