by Ryan, L. T.
With a yell, he pulled his arms apart from one another with every ounce of strength he could muster. The zip tie held firm. He had to take another approach. Simple pulling wasn’t working. Sean pressed his arms together then jerked them apart. He repeated the move five times, after which he managed to slide his wrist free.
Sean placed his numb hands on the seat backs and pulled himself up. He twisted and turned until in a position to move Barton. It might be easier now with all the water that had flooded in. Lightning flashed and Sean realized that while the bed of the truck was sinking, the cab still remained a few inches above the water line. He hooked his hands underneath Barton and pushed him up enough to free his leg.
Another bright light filled the cab. It lasted long enough for Sean to see that there were only three others in there with him.
Phil had managed to escape.
Sean rolled over and pulled himself through the jagged rear opening, suffering additional cuts in the process. Water slipped into the cab from the bed. It had the putrid smell of raw sewage. The remains of humans. He figured they must be close to Raleigh, but had no idea what waterway laid claim to the truck.
Free of the cab, Sean sucked in a final lungful of air and dived down. He fought against the current, lengthening his body and holding his arms wide. Last thing he wanted was to become trapped under the weight of the truck in a spot where he had no idea how deep it was. With his leg extended down, he couldn’t touch the bottom. He remained there as long as he could before surfacing for more air.
He penetrated the surface and heard a roaring thunder crack. Only there was no lightening. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a muzzle blast.
Phil.
“Bastard,” Sean yelled.
Another shot tore past.
Sean gulped and dove back down. The water was cold and rough. It pulled him deeper into the middle of the torrent. He had no idea what obstacles blocked his path. Could be anything from rocks to abandoned vehicles. After all, the water was only this high because of the substantial rainfall that had occurred in the past hour or two. How far past its banks had it expanded?
He surfaced again and heard Phil yelling from the shore.
“You’re not getting away, Ryder. I won’t let you take the easy way out, either.”
The water didn’t seem that bad a place to be at the moment.
Then his movement stopped. The side of his head felt as though it had been hit with a golf club. The current pressed him against the obstacle. The storm lit the night and he determined he was pinned against the side of a bus.
He reached over the top in search of something to grab hold of, but his fingers slipped off. The surface was too slick to climb with nothing other than force of will. Using his foot, he felt along the side of the vehicle, hoping a window had remained open. But the results were the same. There was no way to climb up.
So he decided to roll against the side. The bus spanned the river and to the right, the side they’d crashed from, it appeared to reach shore. At least close enough he could drag his body through the mud to get out of the river.
That was also where Phil lurked. Maybe the man had given up and left Sean for dead. Or maybe he remained, watching and stalking, waiting for Sean to pull off the impossible and get back to land with only one leg and shredded arms.
Then Phil could serve vengeance.
Sean rolled to the right, turning around so the cold water rushed against his chest and face. Then he spun again. The current forced his torso into the bus. He rested a few seconds and did it again. And again. Each time moving him closer and closer to shore.
Finally, his foot touched the ground. A few seconds later, he was able to plant and drive forward, clutching at the bus with his numb fingertips. The water level dropped below his waist. Sean fell to the ground. The frigid river rushed over his body, his head. He didn’t care. He dragged himself along the ground until he resurfaced on shore.
“Ryder!”
The shout came from maybe fifty feet away. Sean stared down the riverbank and thought he could make out the shape of Phil walking toward his position.
The woods were only a few feet away. He forced himself up and did a sort of knee-hop while pulling himself along the ground. The wind gusted relentlessly. It felt like ice against his soaked clothing and damp skin and hair.
He looked to his right, toward Phil, in time to see the man fire in Sean’s direction. Sean lunged forward and flopped onto his stomach.
“Got you, you son of a bitch,” Phil called out.
Sean crawled into the woods and pulled himself up on a thin tree. With his arms wrapped around the trunk, he felt the power of the storm as the tree doubled over.
The continued lightning allowed Sean to keep tabs on Phil’s position. It might give him away, too, so he decided to move deeper into the woods. It wasn’t an easy task. Dropping to the ground was dangerous now. It left him with no ability to dodge. At least on his foot, he could dive to the side, or lunge at his attacker. He hopped from tree to tree, reaching out and steadying himself, then pulling forward.
He looked back.
Phil was there.
Standing at the wood’s edge.
The man lifted his rifle, aimed and fired.
Bark exploded next to Sean’s head. Toothpick sized shards implanted themselves into his skin. He didn’t know which he feared more, dying or surviving and dealing with infections to his wounds.
Either Phil knew where Sean was, or it had been a lucky damn shot.
“Come in and get me,” Sean shouted.
Phil responded by firing again. The bullet slammed into the tree Sean took cover behind. Felt like it hit right behind his chest.
He lunged to the right, reaching for a branch to help propel him forward. But his foot got caught on a root or branch on the ground. Whatever it had been, it disrupted his balance enough to send him careening to the forest floor.
Phil laughed as he stepped into the woods. He wove through the trees like a slalom skier, cutting sharp, moving toward Sean.
Sean couldn’t make out the man’s eyes, but he knew they were aimed at him. As was the rifle.
Phil stopped a few feet away. “I so wanted to put you on trial in front of my people. Let those twisted, desperate minds come up with your punishment. It would have been far greater than anything I could think of. Better than just shooting you in the head.”
Sean felt around for anything he could use as a weapon. He found a few twigs, but nothing more than kindling for a fire. They’d prove useless against a man Phil’s size.
“I’ve got eight shots left,” Phil said. “I can do this quickly, or make you feel the pain that the people I swore to protect felt. It is up to you, Ryder. Tell me you caused it, and it’ll go quick.”
Sean knew Phil had no intention of killing him quickly. Even in this moment, when the best thing for Phil to do was leave and find the other trucks before they passed, he would waste every possible second extending Sean’s life, making sure every moment was filled with pain.
“Fuck you,” Sean said.
From close by, a shrill yell interrupted the sounds of the storm Sean had grown accustomed to.
Phil lowered his rifle and turned toward the noise.
Another scream came from behind them. And yet another even closer, from the river.
Instead of thinking of a way out of it, Sean laughed. Fitting, he figured, that an afflicted had taken his leg. And now that he was stranded without his prosthetic, an afflicted would end his life without him being able to put up a real fight.
He saw the first faint trace of glowing eyes approach. Two sets from behind. Another afflicted stumbled from the shadows to the right.
“There,” Phil muttered, hurrying to aim the M4. He depressed the trigger, sending a single shot into the darkness.
An afflicted screamed louder than Sean had ever heard. He wouldn’t doubt that his ears began to bleed after hearing the sound.
Then they all joined in. A shr
ill chorus of death.
Phil backed away, his head swinging wildly from side to side. He shifted the rifle then fired. Again and again he did so. Five, six, seven times. Only one more shot left.
Sean counted half a dozen afflicted. They staggered past him. Ignored him. All focused on Phil. Then they moved with furious purpose as though they were large prey cats, terrifyingly fast. They pounced on Phil. The man never got off the eighth shot.
Phil’s screams quickly faded to cries and then gave way to the grunts and groans of feasting afflicted. They fought over Phil’s remains. Two or three would throw another off. That one would jump back on, inciting another fight.
Sean scooted away from the massacre. He pulled himself behind a tree and got to his foot.
The afflicted didn’t notice. Or they didn’t care. Maybe he looked like weak prey, and they’d get to him once Phil was picked to the bone.
Sean had no intentions of hanging around to find out.
He hopped and lunged from tree to tree, scanning the ground for anything that could help. After a few minutes, he found a broken branch that didn’t crumble under his weight. He stuck it under his left arm and used it as a crutch. It dug into his skin and burned like hell. But it also allowed him to stagger his way through the woods and create some distance between him and the pack of afflicted.
The howling wind died down. The hammering rain eased up. The thunder and lightning all but vanished, now just tiny cracks in the distance. Above, the dark clouds thinned, and for a few moments, the moon came out. Was it the eye of the storm? Or just a break between bands? Was the worst yet to come?
Sean considered both, trying to determine how strong the winds had been. He hadn’t realized how incompetent he was about such things without the news or a weather forecast to tell him. He’d prepared for the day when the world would end. Had educated himself in the ways of using nature to forecast. But this fell into a realm beyond the scope of survival training.
This was real.
He entered a clearing where the wet grass glinted in the moonlight. There was a small house in the middle. Looked to contain a single room. Maybe two. Woods surrounded the structure. No road or driveway led in or out.
Sean moved as fast as he could on the makeshift crutch, resisting the urge to call out. He reached the door and grabbed the knob. It turned freely. The door opened and dry, stale air rushed past.
He took two steps in, let the door close and leaned back against it to secure the latch.
“Hello?”
Nobody answered.
He called out again. Still no answer.
Moonlight filtered in. The cabin wasn’t anything more than a box with a wood burning stove and a hole in the floor to piss in. There was no stink of human waste. No sign of someone inhabiting it. The place probably hadn’t been used in years.
Sean crossed the room and dropped the branch. Then he fell onto a pile of blankets and faded off to sleep as the wind picked up and battered the side of the exterior, the rain pelted the roof, and the thunder rattled the foundation.
Chapter 29
Sand grated Turk’s throat as he swallowed. It lined his teeth, lips and gums. The insides of his cheeks. He coughed, but that seemed to make it worse.
He opened his eyes and found himself surrounded in a sea of light brown. Better than the actual ocean, he figured, which is where he last remembered being.
Turk rolled onto his back. The blinding sky sent a dull ache through his eyes and into his brain. He blinked a few times. Light gray clouds raced by. The winds and rains had died down. A gentle spray fell over him every thirty seconds or so. Waves roared and crashed nearby.
The events of the previous night filtered in like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. Struggling in the water. Pounded by waves. He was on a surfboard. Men fired rifles at him. He scaled the wall of the fort.
Why?
What had he been doing out there?
The side of his head ached.
He noticed he was alone only in some scenes. In others, he had a partner. No, not a partner. He’d rescued someone.
The memories slammed into him with a psychic force strong enough he felt it in the form of a wave of pain that traveled through his spine and shot off on every connected nerve.
He tried to jolt upright, but only made it halfway before his ribs burned. Turk dropped back onto the sand.
“Rhea?” he said.
Surf battered the shore beyond the dunes. A few seagulls rode the air currents and called out.
But Rhea didn’t answer.
He yelled for her again.
She had been with him when they rode the breaker to shore. Had she not made it? How could he go back to Rob and Rose and tell them he let their little sister die?
Turk made a second attempt at sitting up, managing to ignore the pain long enough to get past the stiff muscles that clenched his ribs. The pain lingered, fairly intense. Maybe a broken rib or two. Perhaps bruised. Not enough to keep him down. He shifted his legs and clawed at the high dune wall as he scampered to the top of it and got a view of the Atlantic.
The beach was gone. The churning water came up to the base of the dune. But the worst had passed. In time, the surge would retreat. What bones would it drag up with it?
He scanned the shallows for a boat or anything he could use as one. For a moment, the thought popped into his head that he should give up hope of ever finding a vessel that could make the journey. And with no way to communicate with Tim Lindley and Turtle Cay, he had to accept that he and his family were stuck.
If they had made it through the storm.
That was one thing he couldn’t allow himself to compromise on. Any thought of his family perishing would ruin him. He’d lose his will to push forward.
“Glad to see you’re up.”
Turk spun and slid down the dune, arms ready to lash out at a possible assailant.
Instead, he saw Rhea standing there, a look of shock on her face. She flinched back as she brought something up in defense.
“Shit, sorry.” Turk eased back. “That an oar?”
She let go with one hand and covered her heart. “Thought you were gonna kill me.”
“I was.” He smiled. “We’re cool now. Where’d you find that?”
“Over on the other side of the spit.” She extended the oar out and Turk took hold. “There’s a kayak to go with it.”
She held the oar firm enough Turk used it for support to pull himself up.
“Why don’t you lead the way?”
A few minutes later, they were back at the dune, kayak in tow. They climbed to the top and stared out over the churning water.
“Not gonna be easy,” Turk said.
Rhea nodded.
“Gotta get past the fort, which means we need to head out into the ocean.”
“Yeah.”
“And we gotta clear those jetties.”
“Okay.”
“You think you can handle this?”
She slid down the opposite side of the dune and stepped into the water. “Let’s go.”
Turk dragged the kayak over the sand mound and into the ocean. Rhea positioned herself on top, while he towed them into the breakers. Five minutes later, they were more than a hundred yards off shore. Not far enough, though. They could still see the beach. The men at the fort had a vessel with an engine. If they spotted Turk and Rhea, the pair was dead.
So they paddled further and further, until the beach was out of sight.
“You comfortable out here?” he asked.
She looked back and nodded. Her paddle dipped into the water. Turk matched it with his own stroke. The waves rolled beneath them like gentle humps. There was little risk of tipping, but Turk still felt uncomfortable. He had no idea of the woman’s skill level, and doubted she’d tell him if she was scared.
“It’s about a mile,” he said. “Then we can start toward shore.”
Turk used the glowing orb behind the clouds to keep his heading fixed. There was bound to
be drift. But it wasn’t like there would be trouble figuring out which way to go. So he eased up a bit once he was certain they had passed the jetties.
As the minutes slipped by, the sun burned through the clouds. Sweat beaded on Turk’s forehead and coated his body. The thick humidity worked against him, depleting his body. He had no fluids to refill it with.
“Something’s been bothering me,” he said.
She turned back toward him. “What?”
“Why didn’t you see them coming? The guys that took you. How’d you miss them coming to shore. Should’ve been plenty of time to run off behind the dunes.”
“They weren’t a threat,” Rhea said. “We’d dealt with them a couple times. By no means did I think they were saints or anything, but they hadn’t given us trouble. Rob had bartered with them a few times. I thought they were going to drop something off with me, or pass along a message.”
“So what happened?”
“Bastard hit me in the stomach and they dragged me away.”
“Happened fast, huh?”
She shrugged. “Guess so. Don’t remember it clearly. Blocked it, I guess.”
“So Rob had dealings with them then?”
“Yeah.”
“Of what kind of nature?”
“They kept me out of that—by the way, I never got your name.”
“You hit your head, too? I told you already. Turk.”
“Your parents hate you?”
“What? Get out of here.”
“So what’s Turk stand for?”
“Charles Turksen. Folks called me Chuck. SEAL instructors called me Turk. It stuck.”
“That explains it,” she said.
“What?” he said.
“You’re a SEAL. That’s how you pulled all this off.”
He glanced around. Ocean spanned in all directions. “We ain’t out of this yet. As far as I know, those guys still have a damn boat with a motor and they might be out looking for us.”
“They’ll go after Rob and Rose.”
He considered this. Given the new information, Rob had a history with the people at the fort. They had to have known Rhea was his sister. Once it was discovered she was missing, the beach cottage was the first place they’d look. So why send him? Did they think with his background, Turk could neutralize the threat?