The Battle: Alone: Book 4

by Darrell Maloney

  “Damn it!”

  Swain turned on his heels and stormed out of the kitchen.

  Jessika looked at Lindsey. Her face was easy to read. Swain was going to be a bear today. They’d best stay away from him as much as possible.

  Chapter 41

  Swain went to the southeast corner of the house to find Davis holding up a window blind and watching the yard outside.

  Thank God! At least one of his men knew how to follow instructions. He’d been told to guard the back porch during the hours of darkness, but to retreat indoors just before sunrise so he couldn’t be picked off by a sniper after the sun came up.

  “Good morning, sir.”

  “Good morning, Davis. You mean your relief hasn’t come on yet?”

  “No, sir. Not yet.”

  For the second time in less than a minute, Swain muttered the words, “Damn it!” And for the second time in a minute he stormed off, determined to kick some ass.

  He took the stairs two at a time, which was pretty impressive for a junkie who was high as a kite.

  Normally he’d have knocked on Holliday’s door, but not today. Not in the state of mind he was in. He just didn’t feel so inclined.

  Instead, he stormed in ready to roll Holliday out of bed and to threaten to shoot him for malingering.

  Then he saw the blood covered sheets and Holliday’s lifeless body, slumped face first into his pillow. For a brief moment it didn’t register. How in the hell could he be dead, and what was with all the blood?”

  Then he noticed the shattered window pane.

  He rushed out of the room and went directly to Garcia’s room next door, already knowing what he’d find there. And sure enough, Garcia’s cold and stiff body, crumpled on the floor, told him he was dealing with much more than a few snipers who could only find their targets in the light of day.

  And even in his drugged up state, he felt something he seldom felt and didn’t like.

  He felt genuine fear.

  He went back downstairs and called to Davis, “Hold your position for now. Your relief’s not coming. They’re both dead.”

  In the kitchen, Lindsey and Jessika heard his words as well, and looked at each other.

  Jessika whispered, “Do you really think it’s your father?”

  Lindsey nodded her head yes.

  “Wow,” Jessika replied. “Just… wow!”

  Swain went to the northwest corner of the house, expecting to find Thomas there. But Thomas was nowhere in sight, and the front of the house as well as the north and west sides were unguarded.

  “Where the hell is Thomas?”

  There was no answer.

  Swain flattened himself against the wall next to the front door and opened it. He yelled out, “Thomas, are you out there?”

  Again, no answer.

  “Shit!”

  He closed the door again, and locked it. As though whoever was out there killing his men would be deterred from kicking it in.

  In a loud voice he yelled to the entire house, “Has anyone seen Thomas?”

  Still no answer.

  But his yelling did wake Sarah, who appeared at the top of the stairs to the basement, and through sleepy eyes surveyed the situation.

  It was easy to see the panic on Swain’s face.

  “What’s going on?”

  “I think you know damn well what’s going on, bitch! I think you’ve been feeding them information. Tell everyone in the basement I want them up here. Two minutes. I’ll personally shoot anyone who’s late.”

  Sarah quickly retreated down the stairs to wake the others up.

  They were hurriedly herded up and gathered in the den, everyone careful not to sit on the couch still stained with McDonough’s blood.

  Swain told Garcia to stand on one end of the room, rifle ready, and Davis on the other end.

  “If we come under attack, the hostages die first,” he told them. Somebody in this room has been tipping them off and telling them where our guys were. I just know it. I can feel it in my bones.”

  He went directly to Sarah and looked her in the eyes.

  “Was it you? Were you the disloyal one? After everything I’ve done to treat you right? Have you finally stabbed me in the back?”

  “No one has been disloyal to you. Your paranoia is starting to mess with your mind.”

  “Don’t talk back to me. It’s not too late to start treating you like the others.”

  He paced back and forth for several minutes, then had an epiphany.

  He pointed to Lindsey and to Sarah.

  “You two. We’ll find out how loyal you are. I want you two to go outside and start unloading that black Explorer that Snyder drove into the yard. I could see there was some kind of cargo in the back. Bring it all in. If anybody’s going to be shot for going outside, it’ll be you and not us.”

  Lindsey and Sarah stood. By now they were sure they knew who was responsible for the carnage outside. And they were confident that they wouldn’t be targets.

  And getting a chance to look inside the Explorer would answer the burning question in their minds once and for all: was it Dave, come to rescue them?

  As they walked toward the front door, something flashed in Sarah’s mind. What if it wasn’t Dave’s SUV? What if it was just a coincidence that the vehicle Snyder had managed to steal and drive to the farm just resembled Dave’s? Then what?

  As quickly as she’d had the thought, though, she dismissed it.

  Lindsey was right. Sarah was a “glass is half empty” kind of person. She made a mental note to work on that.

  Sarah opened the door and stood, a sitting duck if there ever was one, in the door frame. There were no shots.

  She went out onto the front porch, and Lindsey started to follow her.

  “Wait!” Swain yelled. “Just a reminder, if either of you try to run the rest of your family members will die.”

  Chapter 42

  Lindsey gasped at the sight of Snyder’s lifeless eyes, fully open and staring off into space as houseflies swarmed in and around the bloody mess that once was his head.

  “Just don’t look at him,” her mom advised. “Focus on the stuff we need to carry back into the house.”

  But that wouldn’t be so easy. Much of the provisions in the back seat were covered in blood and brain matter.

  Swain, still cowering like a frightened child inside the house, was well out of earshot.

  “I’ll tell you what,” Sarah told her daughter. “You get the stuff out of the back of the car. I’ll take the things out of the back seat. And if you see anything with your father’s name on it, leave it behind.”

  One of the first things both women saw were two very large glass jars full of granola bars, trail mix and beef jerky. They immediately recognized them as the jars Sarah had once purchased in mass quantity at a garage sale. Dave had made fun of her for buying something so frivolous, and Sarah had maintained that they would come in handy for something, someday.

  Lindsey remembered them because she’d helped her mom carry them into the attic in San Antonio three years before, where they seemingly would sit and gather dust until the end of time.

  Or maybe not.

  When Dave began his journey to San Antonio, he took the jars and filled them with provisions, which he’d planned to drop in secret caches every ten miles along the way. His thinking was that after he rescued his family, they might lose their vehicle, either to theft or mechanical breakdown. If that were to happen, and if they had to make their way back home on horseback or on foot, the food caches would make the trip infinitely easier.

  He’d had two jars left over. And they provided the confirmation Sarah and Lindsey needed that this was, indeed, Dave’s vehicle.

  The series of attacks confirmed that he was indeed there to rescue them.

  And since there were only three bad guys left: Swain, Garcia and Davis, he was very close to completing his task.

  Of course, Dave didn’t know that. Dave never did learn how
many men were in the house. He didn’t know whether he’d wiped them all out, or there were twenty or more left to do battle with him.

  The women made several trips from the Explorer to the house, carrying bottles of water and provisions. But they left several things behind.

  Dave’s backup survival knife. Two loaded magazines for his AR-15 rifle. Two extra racks loaded with bolts for Dave’s crossbow.

  No sense beefing up Swain’s already well-stocked arsenal of weapons and ammunition. And besides, if Dave needed it, Sarah wanted him to continue to have access to it.

  There was a slight risk that Swain would go out to the Explorer to check their work, would see that they’d left behind valuable resources for their rescuers, and go ballistic.

  But Sarah had seen the fear in Swain’s eyes. He just knew, in his paranoid mind, that to step outside was to sign his own death warrant. That somewhere out there watching was a sniper, laying behind a long-range rifle. And that inside that rifle was a bullet which had Swain’s name on it.

  For all Sarah knew, for all she hoped, Swain was right this time.

  In any event, there was very little chance he’d go outside and risk it.

  When they were down to their last load, Sarah picked up Dave’s journal from between the front seats and tucked it into the back of her jeans, then covered it with her blouse.

  She’d taken just a few seconds to leaf through it to see what it was. When she saw that it was Dave’s personal diary that he’d used to document his journey from San Antonio to Kansas City, it warmed her heart.

  She couldn’t wait to read it, and to share it with Lindsey. But before she shared it, she needed to make sure it wasn’t too personal.

  Chapter 43

  While his wife and daughter were unloading his supplies and carrying them into the farm house, Dave was stirring in the tunnel.

  He was warm and dry inside the sleeping bag, but he needed to get up and put his wet clothing back on.

  It wasn’t that he wanted to. Actually, it was the last thing he wanted to do. But he didn’t want to set out for the next phase of his mission with wet clothing. It would hamper his movements and make him miserable at a time when he’d have to focus entirely on the mission at hand. Not on how bad his armpits and groin were chafing from his being soaking wet.

  The tunnel was too damp to help. The only thing that would dry his clothing was his own body heat. So his plan was simple.

  He’d crawl out of the cozy bag, put the wet clothing back on his body, and go for one final recon mission while he dried. He was fairly certain he wouldn’t see anything he didn’t expect to see. Which was pretty much nothing at all. He’d sent them all to ground in the farmhouse, and it was very unlikely any of them would show their faces outside again.

  But on the off chance he was wrong, or if they had replacements coming in, he’d need to know that. And he needed something to do while his clothes were drying anyway.

  They’d dry a lot faster outside, in the woods, than in the tunnel.

  He’d slept fitfully, knowing that this could well be his last day of operations. If all went well, by the end of the day he’d know exactly how many of the enemy he was dealing with. And if the numbers weren’t stacked too highly against him, would eliminate them all.

  If there were too many to contend with, he’d continue on with his present course of action: finding targets of opportunity and taking them out one at a time.

  By ten a.m. he was at the tree-line, directly across from the front porch of the house a couple of hundred yards away. He focused his Bushnell binoculars first on the porch itself, then on the shrubbery beside it.

  Directly below the ivy covered trellis he could see a man’s lower leg protruding from a thick shrub.

  That confirmed his suspicion that the bad guys were too afraid to go outside. If they had, they’d have done a security check around the house and would have discovered the body. They’d have either disposed of it, or at least dragged it far away from the house. In another day or so, it would start to smell. Three days from now the smell would start to permeate the house. In five days the stench would become unbearable. Surely they knew that. The fact the body hadn’t been moved, or even discovered, meant that they were frightened and were holed up in the house.

  It wasn’t where Dave wanted them, necessarily.

  But at least he knew where they all were.

  And despite Swain’s contention that ground is easier to defend than to take, Dave was determined. He had a plan and he was gutsy enough to carry it out.

  Even if it meant walking right into the demon’s lair.

  He scanned the area around the Explorer. The hatchback was inexplicably left open. He wondered why.

  He’d expected it to be ransacked. And it appeared to have been. Most of the plastic bags full of provisions had been removed from the back, and his fishing rod was gone.

  He was sorry he hadn’t been around to see the vehicle being emptied. The men who’d taken his family hostage were almost certainly too cowardly to have done it themselves. They probably had the hostages do it, and aimed rifles on them through the windows to make sure they didn’t run. He might have been able to catch a glimpse of little Beth or Lindsey as they carted the bags of goods into the house.

  God, he missed his girls. He couldn’t wait to hold them and wipe the tears of joy from their eyes. The end was in reach now, and he’d done well. But now wasn’t the time to get sloppy. He’d come too far, gotten too close. He was so close to them now he could almost reach out and touch them.

  He had to keep his wits about him. This was too important to blow at the last moment. He suddenly remembered another thing Master Sergeant Holliman had taught him in the Corps.

  “Confidence can be a wonderful thing. It spurs you to act. It gets things done. But overconfidence, on the other hand, can be the devil in disguise. It can encourage you to be rash. To move too quickly. To get yourself or your men killed.”

  He’d keep his wits, and his cool. He’d continue to move methodically, even as his first impulse was to run to them and scoop them up in his arms.

  He’d do this thing right.

  His clothing was dry now. He was getting ready to leave, to make his way back to the tunnel, to begin the next phase of his operation.

  But something caught his eye.

  Something in the back of the Explorer.

  But he couldn’t quite make it out, not without changing position.

  He made his way about twenty yards to the east, where the shrubbery between himself and the house wasn’t quite as thick. Didn’t hamper his view quite as much.

  Then he raised the Bushnells to his eyes again.

  And smiled.

  That’s why the vehicle’s hatchback was left raised. It wasn’t done out of carelessness, or because someone simply forget to lower it. It was left that way on purpose.

  So whoever had emptied the vehicle could leave him a message.

  Inside the back of the Explorer, one rack of his crossbow bolts was leaning up against the back of the rear seat, facing toward the open hatch. Stuck to the bolt’s tip was a single sheet of paper, torn from his journal and hanging limply.

  On the paper, probably drawn with the sharpie Dave always kept clipped to the front of his journal, was a large heart.

  They knew. His family knew he was out there and was coming for them. And suddenly Dave couldn’t help it. He began to cry.

  Chapter 44

  “Is this it?”

  Swain wasn’t happy with the booty his hostages had unloaded from the Explorer.

  “All Snyder brought with him was a couple of jars of food and some fishing gear?”

  He eyed Sarah suspiciously.

  “Are you sure you’re not trying to pull something on me? Did you leave the good stuff out there so you could go back and get it later?”

  He was getting paranoid again, and that wasn’t a good thing.

  “That’s all that was out there, sir. You can go and see
for yourself if you want.”

  Sarah was taking a risk, but not a great one. If Swain had gone outside and found her message to Dave he’d have been furious. But he wasn’t going out, she was sure of it. He was certain now that the snipers were gunning for him specifically. That they probably had their weapons trained on the front door of the house at this very moment, just itching for him to stick his head through. No, he’d almost certainly stay inside where it was safe.

  She asked him, “What exactly did you think was out there, Mr. Swain?”

  “Hell, I don’t know. He drove into the yard firing his gun into the air, and whooping and hollering like a madman. I figured he must have come back with something really good, to announce himself with such fanfare. I figured he robbed some bank or something, and was coming back with a load of gold or silver coins or something.”

  He kicked one of the glass jars and sent it flying across the room.

  Sarah stifled a smile, but Swain couldn’t hide the wince on his face. In his stupor he’d forgotten he was barefoot, and stubbed his toe against the heavy glass jar.

  “Sir, maybe he was making a spectacle of himself about the vehicle itself. I mean, that’s a prize worth much more than any silver or gold. How many vehicles have you seen running since the power went out?”

  He pondered her suggestion.

  She did have a point.

  “And we didn’t get shot at while we were unloading it. Not even once. That may be because we were women. But if they’re out there trying to wipe us all out, then they’re heartless enough to shoot women and children. But they didn’t.”

  “What are you trying to say, Sarah?”

  “I’m suggesting the possibility that they may have given up. That it may be over. That they may have decided you’re too strong. That it’s not worth the effort. That there are other farms in the area that are easier to take than this one. And that maybe they’ve moved on to a softer target.”

  He pondered her new suggestion.