Kate waited until the riders were gone before speaking. “We wait here until the coast is clear and then head back to get our bikes.”
“Our bikes?” they echoed in unison.
“I’ve got an idea!”
Chapter 50
Kate barely slept, the sound of the militia combing the hillside carried on for hours. She guessed it was at least three in the morning before they called it a night and headed back to base. Daylight was going to be a whole different story. She had no illusion that Bob would be back with a far larger force. Not only did they want her, she realized, but whoever had taken that shot had equipment way beyond the capability of anything in Boise. Whether a loner or an advance party for a larger force, she didn’t know. Whatever the case, she had little time to wait and find out. Ava’s fever was worsening by the hour.
Thirty minutes after she had heard the last sounds of the militia, she roused her family, a family that had grown in the last two weeks and hours. Her heart had broken as Zach had told of the last vision of his father, waving him away. Knowing they would never see each other again. The vision of Tim waving goodbye to them before leaving on his deployment rushed before her. It was as clear as though it had been that morning. She would never forget it, forever hold on to it, the love for her and his children, clear in his eyes. He hadn’t wanted to leave them, but he was a man of honor, a man of duty. A hero, her hero. She stood up as the thoughts rushed through her head. She had to save the kids, for Tim, if nothing else. He’d given his life for their future, just as Zach’s parents had for him, and she was damned well sure it wasn’t going to be in vain.
“Okay, we’ve got three hours until sun up. Let’s go.”
“Where?”
“Home for whatever we can carry, and then as far from here as we can manage.”
“And Ava?” asked Sophie.
“What about Ava?”
“Where is she going to go?”
“With us of course!”
“Mom, she can’t even walk, never mind cycle.”
“We’ll work something out,” said Kate, not really sure what yet, but knew they had to do something. There was no way she would leave her daughter behind.
They worked their way back to the estate. Kate in front, her weapon at the ready while Sophie and Zach supported Ava as best they could. Danny and Hank brought up the rear. Kate halted them at the edge of the trail.
“Wait here, I’ll check it’s clear.”
Kate left them hidden at the side of the trail and worked her way north. She wanted to make a slight detour on the way back to their house. It was hard to work out where she was exactly, but finally found what she was after. She circled around back and entered through the back door. She stumbled over the lounge furniture before tripping over an item in the hallway. She fell and landed in a wet pool. She knew what it was without having to look. The blood of Zach’s parents. She felt their bodies beneath her, discarded in the hallway. She thanked God she had come here on her own. It was no place for a son to be, or a sight for him to witness, even if the darkness did spare her the gory details. The amount of blood was telling her more than she needed to know. It had not been a quick and painless death. Both hearts had pumped until there was no blood left to pump.
Kate stood and stumbled her way towards the kitchen. Listening for even the slightest sound to suggest she wasn’t alone. She pulled the curtains closed and flicked her lighter, closing her eyes and opening them carefully to accustom her eyes to the brightness after the dark. She stopped herself looking back and walked towards the door that led from the kitchen to the garage. The lighter burned at her finger as she held the flame alight far longer than it had ever been engineered for. She spotted the bike and released the flame, much to her finger’s relief.
Five minutes later she was back at the trail, handing Zach his bike.
“My parents…” he asked as she approached them.
She took him in her arms in answer. “It was quick, very quick,” she lied.
Sophie stepped forward and took him from her mother, rocking him gently. From his reaction, he had clearly hung on to the hope they were still alive.
“Wait here,” instructed Kate once again. Disappearing into the night. Danny was having none of it. He wanted to be with his mom, and with Sophie and Zach distracted and Ava all but unconscious had his opportunity and took it, following quietly after her with Hank in tow.
Kate edged her way along the street. She could just make out the outline of their house. She ducked behind a bush, as a shadow passed behind the window of the house opposite. Just as she had expected, they were waiting for her.
The question was how many and how long did she have before the main force returned. She worked her way quietly into the neighbor’s back garden, the one adjacent to that where she had seen the shadow. Six horses chewed on the grass in the next garden. Six men, too many. She didn’t stand a chance against six. She turned to leave before being spotted.
A rustle had her rolling and drawing her pistol.
“Mom,” came a panicked whisper.
It was Danny. She relaxed and tensed at the same time. She needed to get him away from the danger.
“Where are we going?” asked Danny as his mother led him and Hank back towards the trail.
“There are too many,” she said.
“Why not just take the five we need?”
Kate couldn’t see the quizzical look on his face, but she certainly felt the stupidity on her own. She didn’t need the bikes, they were no use in any event for Ava. But the horses, they were perfect, better than anything they could have found in the house. Would they guard their horses, or were they so confident in themselves that they wouldn’t concern themselves with the horses and what happened just across the road at her house? From what she had experienced, they hadn’t lacked confidence. They weren’t concerned about anyone daring to steal their horses.
“Wait here!” she instructed. “And I mean it, wait here!”
Kate worked her way along the back of the house, keeping her body as tight to the property as she could. Just in case anyone was looking out over the back gardens. A gate between the gardens allowed easy access for the neighbors and on this instance, Kate to get to the horses. Unfortunately, the gate was human-size and not built for the horses. There was not going to be an easy way to sneak them away. Her presence caused more than a few whinnies and neighs from the horses and it seemed too many for one of the militia men. The door of the house opened. Kate froze against the wall as the militia man hushed the horses. Ironically, he was worried they would frighten Kate away. The door closed as the horses settled despite Kate’s presence. She worked her way back to the gate and back into the other garden. She had to widen the gap, but could make no noise doing it.
A hand clamped over her mouth, stifling her scream.
Chapter 51
Alex and Nick worked their way through the woods. They had a plan. A plan they had already worked out many days earlier for just such an eventuality. Alex had messaged that they were extracting. There was little left for them to report on in any event. Boise was lost both to disease and a tyrannical ruler with an iron grip and an endless supply of food and clean water. There was only so much they could stomach as soldiers. Their job was to protect and defend, not watch the slow and tragic death of innocent people while doing nothing.
The biggest surprise was that it had been Alex that broke. He had been the stronger of the two, or at least Nick had always thought so. It seemed he had just been better at suppressing his despair at what they were witnessing. The soap opera of Warm Springs Mesa had been a needed distraction for them both and the fall of that, the one shining example of goodness, was just too much. Nick should have realized when Alex didn’t move after Sean And Lonnie’s visit that Alex was wavering, but Alex had managed to bullshit a reason to stay beyond the fact he needed to.
Their plan was simple. Night was their friend. They would make their way to the militia base and unde
r cover of darkness, take two horses and ride the hell out of town. If they could take Sean and Lonnie with them all the better but if not, so be it. They had information and equipment that would compromise everything they had spent the last two weeks suffering for.
“They keep trying to call us!” said Alex, the satellite phone vibrating in his pack.
“Should we just switch it off?” asked Nick.
“Or we could just drop it and leave it here?”
“We might need it for an extraction should the shit hit the fan though.”
They stopped walking. “I should answer it.”
“They’ll order us to stay!”
“Maybe not, we know too much and we’re being hunted.” The phone stopped buzzing. “Damn, missed it,” smiled Alex.
The phone began to buzz again. He ripped his pack off of his back and extracted the phone, its screen lighting up their faces.
Alex hit accept and put the phone to his ear. He immediately knelt, pulling Nick with him and looked behind, flicking to thermal image. Ten faint blobs glowed off in the distance. They were being tracked.
He ended the call and replaced the phone in his pack.
“We’ve got a drone tracking us. They spotted the tracking party and wanted to alert us. Whoever they are, they’re good, they’re tracking us through woods in the pitch dark. We are most definitely blown, so the extraction is approved. Even though we’re on our own, since obviously, no intervention can be offered without exposing capabilities.”
“What about the trackers?”
“We’re free to engage or outrun as we see appropriate.”
“What, are they… a half mile behind?” guessed Nick. “We have three miles to the target. Any shots may spoil our escape plan.”
Alex checked his watch. They had at least three hours before the first hint of daylight. “Speed up and hopefully lose them, or play with them.”
“Bit of both?”
“Like it,” replied Alex and both spun away into the woods. They’d double back and start causing mayhem with their trackers, using their night vision equipment to its full advantage. They hadn’t thought for a second anyone would have been tracking them and had made no attempt to cover their tracks. With knowledge came advantage, they went stealthy, and their trackers weren’t going to know what hit them.
***
Bob had taken half the men back to base. A small contingent had been left to watch the woman’s house in case she returned. Another was sent into the hills to try and find the shooter. A Native American who was said to know the hills better than any man alive led the hunt for the shooter. Patwin, ‘Pat’ to all who knew him, was a member of the local Shoshoni tribe, born and raised in the hills. He could, they said, track a man blindfolded through the woods in a storm. He had been raised as his father before him, and many, many fathers before his, to be at home in the wilds. At one with the nature surrounding them, appreciating the wonder that the spirit gods had created. The slightest inconsistency in his woods stood out to him like an inappropriate apostrophe would to a an English professor.
Bob had heard tales of the legendary ability of the Indians to track, but in the dead of night through woods, he was not so sure. He planned to return at first light with an army of men and hunt down whoever it was who had killed his man and his horse, for which they would hang.
“There are two,” announced Patwin as he found the shooters’ hide. The men around him mumbled their skepticism. They could barely see their hands in front of their faces, and yet Pat was following a trail left by two men at least an hour or so earlier.
As they reached the woods and Pat sensed they were gaining ground, he ordered all lights to be doused and chatter to end. The men, he assured them, were only a half mile or so ahead. With no light and nothing like Pat’s ability, the nine men behind him had to put one arm on the shoulder of the man in front, hoping that the man in the lead could not only keep up with Pat, but ensure that any obstacles in their way were avoided.
Pat stopped abruptly. The man behind him stopped in time but the others, concertinaed into one another barely keeping their feet. The last man in the line coughed as he stopped, a spray of liquid hitting the man in front of him on the back of the head.
“Hey!” he whispered loudly in annoyance. “That’s disgusting!” The last man didn’t respond, his body just fell against the annoyed man, liquid pulsing from his cut throat.
Pat, at the front, grinned as the knife buried itself in his stomach and cut upward, gutting him from navel to throat. There was little else he could do, other than appreciate the skill of the men they were tracking who had proven they were more than worthy of him. His last breath would be in the woods that he loved so dearly, a fitting end to a life he had grown tired of since the rise of the militia. He had never liked the militia, nor he was sure did they like him. Racists, rapists, and killers, they had press-ganged him into service the previous week with little choice, when a drinking acquaintance had mentioned his tracking abilities. Their behavior was unworthy of him and the thought that the men he had so little respect for were about to die a terrifying death left him some comfort, but none more so than knowing he would soon join his wife’s spirit in the land of the wolf and coyote.
***
Alex slit the second to last man’s throat and ducked back behind a tree. Two men down. He knew Nick would take out the man at the front His stealth skills were legendary and with the benefit of vision versus those without, it was as unfair a fight as you would ever see.
As predicted, the men panicked, the woods alit with a blaze of gunfire. The men shooting wildly into the dark and each other, whilst Nick and Alex took shelter behind the trees. Screams of pain followed the shooting. Screams that Nick and Alex were only too happy to quell. They had wanted and needed to issue some payback for the atrocities they had witnessed over the previous two weeks. They darted in and out of the trackers, slicing and cutting silently. Those that lived until the final blows almost died of fright before being mercifully slain by their invisible attackers.
“We need to get a move on,” said Alex, realizing how much time had passed. Their plan required darkness to cover their tracks.
Chapter 52
“Don’t move!” said the voice behind her.
Kate did exactly that, trying desperately to see that Danny was not in any danger. There was no way she could have seen him in the darkness, but it didn’t stop her trying. An irregular dark shape filled her field of vision, and a muffled snarl accompanied it. Hank. He crashed into them both. Old and overweight, it was his only real move, particularly as Danny had been clever enough to leave the tie around his muzzle to keep him quiet. Kate and the man crashed to the ground under his onslaught as he took them both by surprise. Whimpering as he landed, he stood unsteadily, ready to pounce once again, or at least try, should the need arise.
Kate rolled first, her agility beating the larger man. She pressed her pistol into the base of the man’s neck.
“Don’t shoot,” he said quietly. “I’m not militia!”
“So who the hell are you?”
“That I can’t say, but let’s just say it was my colleagues that saved your life earlier.”
“Army?”
“I really can’t say and you don’t have time to keep asking. You need to get those horses and get the hell out of here before daybreak.”
Before she could respond, the fence began to creak and through the darkness she could have sworn pieces of wooden boarding were moving.
“That’s Lonnie, I’m Sean. We’re going to help you, so please take that pistol out of my neck.”
The rapid fire of weapons from the hills above could not have come at a worse time.
“Lonnie?” a shout came from the house before all hell broke loose. Lanterns lit up the scene and exposed Lonnie mid-removal of a fence board. Fortunately, they had not spotted Kate, Sean, and Hank on the other side of the fence.
The militia men were apparently not the most trusting
and didn’t wait for the relatively new recruit, Lonnie, to respond. Whatever he was doing, they didn’t like it. A three short burst ended Lonnie’s fence dismantling and had Sean spinning out from under Kate and swinging his AR-15 into action. There was no doubt from his move that he knew what he was doing. Kate grabbed Hank by the collar and yanked him towards her and out of harm’s way, or at least from view.
Sean fired off a burst before racing into the next garden. An ‘oomph’ suggested he had hit what he had shot at. More bursts of gunfire followed.
“Mom?”
“Danny, stay where you are,” called Kate, her pistol leveled at the gate. The lantern that the first man had held was still lighting up next door’s garden. The horses barely flinched, such was their familiarization with gunshots over the previous two weeks.
Kate heard footsteps behind the fence, someone had come back out of the house. Heavy and clumsy, they were not Sean’s footsteps. Kate readied herself.
“It’s me, Sean,” called Sean before coming into view.
He stumbled unsteadily, checking Lonnie for a pulse, as he came through the gate. There clearly was none as he stumbled on towards Kate. She caught him as he fell, cradling his fall, unable to bear his weight. Her hand was soaked where she held him, blood flowing from a wound in his back.
“It’s safe…” he managed before his eyes closed.
Kate held him for a few more seconds as his final breath came and went. She had no idea who the man was, but he had just given his life, as had his friend, to save her and her family. She called Danny to her and hugged him so tight he winced.
“Right. Let’s get the hell out of here!” she said, steel in her voice. Now, she was pissed.
Chapter 53
The panicked shooting from above reverberated through the stillness of the night. Sounds that before the outage would have been lost in the white noise of the city, lingered on, the sound waves bouncing from hill to hill, building to building, their volume reducing with each bounce, but still greater than the almost negligible background noise of the deadened night.
TRIAL: A Post Apocalyptic/Dystopian Thriller Page 21