by Sam Sisavath
“I was hoping we’d get there today.”
“Me too,” Milly said.
“But you know where to go?” Claire asked. “Even without a map?”
Gaby nodded. “Once we hit I-10, we turn right, then left on Salvani. After that, it’s a straight drive down south.”
She glanced at Claire, then at Donna and Milly in the backseat, and hoped she had been convincing enough. They looked satisfied, so she probably had been.
The truth was, without a map, she was just guessing. She had traveled from Texas to Louisiana with Will and Lara, but she had never taken the wheel during any part of the drive. She even spent most of that trip asleep in the backseat (with Josh). Even during the helicopter ride with Jen, she was just a passenger, and she slept through most of that, too.
But it seemed like a pretty straightforward trip. Hopefully.
“I can’t wait for a hot shower,” Donna said wistfully. She took a sip from a bottle of water and made a face. “And cold water. With ice. That would probably be the best thing ever.”
“It’s not bad,” Gaby said. “The soft bed and your own room is a close number three and four.”
“I’ve never stayed in a hotel before,” Claire said. “Is it a nice hotel?”
“The parts that are finished are.”
“How unfinished is it?” Donna asked.
“You’ll hardly notice.”
“She’ll notice,” Claire said. “She complains about everything.”
“I only complain about you,” Donna said.
Claire smirked. “See?”
They went back and forth for a few more minutes, but by then Gaby had automatically tuned them out. She found it easy to do after the tenth time they started in on each other. Not that she ever thought about telling them to stop. She just assumed this was their way of coping, the same reason Danny joked his way through a firefight. It was their natural response, their sanctuary.
She couldn’t help but share Donna’s enthusiasm. How long had it been since she tasted cold water? Or stood under a hot shower? Had it really been weeks since she laid down on her own soft bed? God, she missed that the most.
Thinking about all the comforts waiting for her back on the island only made her long to see signs of the I-10 highway in the distance. Any sign at all. It would be hard to miss: a tall concrete structure rising up from the flat landscape she had been traveling for the last—how long had it been?
Gaby glanced at her watch. 9:15 A.M.
Had they only been on the road for less than forty minutes? Of course, she had only been driving at forty miles per hour. The slow speed was a combination of not being entirely confident in her driving skills and a wariness of what lay ahead. She had very little experience driving, but even more so when it came to these big trucks—
Sunlight reflected off something metallic in the road, and her left leg went down on the brake before she realized what it was: a barricade, consisting of two vehicles parked across the lanes and spilling onto the shoulders on both sides. It wasn’t an accident; she could tell that much even from a distance. The cars had been parked on purpose to block the road.
Claire saw it, too, and immediately stopped her back and forth with Donna.
“What?” Donna said. Then she, too, saw it. “Oh no, that can’t be good.”
Gaby slowly eased her foot off the gas pedal until the truck was moving at a snail’s pace. Claire had already picked up her rifle and put it in her lap.
“Power up your window,” Gaby said. Claire did, and Gaby did hers at the same time. “Girls,” Gaby said, looking up at the rearview mirror, “move behind the seats. Milly, get on the floor. Stay hidden.”
Donna moved behind Gaby while Milly did as she was told. She was small enough that she was able to sink all the way down to the floor on her bent knees until she was hidden completely behind Claire.
Gaby checked to make sure her rifle was still leaning against her seat, the stock resting on Claire’s side so it wouldn’t accidentally fall and become tangled with her feet while she was busy with the gas and brake.
Outside, the vehicles took the shape of a white four-door sedan and a beat-up red truck. Both cars looked like they had seen plenty of use; the sedan’s paint was peeling and its windows were rolled down. The truck’s windows were down too, and both looked empty.
Looked empty, anyway.
Gaby knew better. Cars didn’t stop in the middle of nowhere and park themselves nose to bumper. Certainly not out here, with only the spread-out land and farmhouses (including one that was burning somewhere behind them) resembling civilization. She guessed they were either halfway to the I-10 by now, or pretty close.
God, she hoped they were almost there.
The Chevy was thirty yards from the obstruction when Gaby came to a complete stop. She kept both hands on the steering wheel because if she had to jam down on the gas pedal, the truck was going to shoot forward like a rocket. When that happened, it was going to fight her with everything it had, which was a hell of a lot.
She did what Will taught her and turned the options in front of her over in her head.
There were a few that she could think of right away. The sedan and truck were no match for the larger Chevy, and she could probably power her way right through them without suffering too much damage. But there would be some damage, and she wasn’t sure if she wanted to risk that. At least, not yet. Not as long as she had other options.
Which were…?
The ditches, she knew from earlier, were too deep to drive across. That seemed to be the entire point of positioning the two cars across the road in the first place. Even if they couldn’t completely overlap the shoulders, enough of them did that it left little space for her to maneuver the wide truck around without ramming the bumper on one car or the front hood on the other. So she would have to go down the ditch and come up on the other side if she wanted to avoid impacting the vehicles entirely. Was the Silverado powerful enough to pull that off? She had no idea.
She could retreat. That was the third option. She didn’t particularly like it, but it was there. Going backward meant heading in the wrong direction, though. Home was up ahead, not behind her. So that was out of the question.
“Gaby?” Donna said. She was pressed so tightly against the seat that Gaby heard her even though she was whispering. “What are we going to do?”
“We can ram them,” Claire said.
“Ram them?” Donna said. “You’re crazy.”
“Why not? I bet we could.”
It had been less than thirty seconds since she had stepped on the brake. In that time, the highway remained empty except for their vehicle and the two in front of them. She expected a head, followed by a weapon, to appear behind one of the cars at any second, signaling that this was an ambush as she (knew) feared. The Silverado’s raised seat gave her a good view of her surroundings, but at the moment she couldn’t see anything to indicate this wasn’t just some freak accident.
Yeah, right. And I’m on a Sunday drive in the park with some kids.
She waited, but nothing happened.
There were no heads, no weapons, and no signs that someone was hiding behind the vehicles. Or around them. There were just two dead cars that shouldn’t be there but were and an empty field to the right and left of her.
Up ahead was I-10…
Maybe she was overthinking this. Or maybe someone had set up an ambush here a while ago but gave up when they didn’t find any takers. That was possible, too. You could only wait so long until you got tired and moved on. Maybe those vehicles were actually dead.
Maybe. So many maybes.
It was starting to get hot inside the truck with the windows rolled up, and Gaby glanced down at the AC controller when she caught a flicker of movement in the rearview mirror.
A man, cradling a rifle, was sneaking up on them from behind—
“Get down!” Gaby shouted, at the same time shoving the gear into reverse and slamming her foot down on t
he gas pedal. The truck lurched backward with such awkward force that Gaby was thrown forward into the steering wheel and had to hold on with everything she had.
The Silverado’s tires screamed as it reversed. Or was that more of a shrill? She swore she could also smell rubber burning, but that could have just been something her frenzied mind was making up on the spot.
She felt rather than heard the THUMP! as the truck rammed into the figure behind them and she glimpsed something flying through the air, flashing across her side mirror. It was big and dark and seemed to be failing wildly, and it was there one split-second and gone the next.
Keep going! Don’t stop! Don’t stop!
She didn’t stop and she kept going, pushing back against the seat while gripping the steering wheel with all her might. A dark black lump flashed by to her left, lying on the road (I guess he landed), just as a flurry of movement tore her eyes away to a second man emerging out of the ditch to her left. She didn’t get a good look at his face—the truck was moving too fast—but he was definitely wearing slacks and a T-shirt, so he wasn’t one of Josh’s people. Not that it mattered at the moment. The shotgun clutched in his hands was what was important.
Then Claire screamed her name.
Gaby snapped a look in the girl’s direction and saw a third figure climbing—lumbering, really, because the man was huge and moved with great difficulty—out of the ditch to their right. The AR-15 looked like a toy in his hands. The man stopped and took aim and opened fire.
“Stay down!” Gaby screamed.
She kept her hands tight around the steering wheel even as the truck continued to reverse, the sound of peeling tires now lost in the string of shotgun blasts pounding the air, joining the AR-15 as it pelted the truck. She hoped and prayed she was going in a straight line back down Route 13 even as the front windshield shattered and glass shards zip-zip-zipped around her head. In another second, the entire windshield seemed to disintegrate until there was nothing left.
“Gaby!” Claire shouted. “Watch out—”
Before the girl could finish, the ground gave out under them and they were going down. Then her view out of the rectangular hole that used to be the windshield changed positions and she found herself staring up at the cloudless sky, bright sun hitting her full in the face. Without the glass to protect her, the full force of the heat was overwhelming and she had to blink even as the sound of the truck’s rear tires spinning fruitlessly against the ground forced its way into her senses. She still had her foot pressed down on the gas pedal, though she wasn’t sure why because they didn’t seem to be moving at all.
They were upended, with the truck’s bumper resting on the bottom of the ditch and the tires fighting for purchase against the dirt wall. She looked to her right and saw Claire clinging to her seat, hands over her head, dazed and confused.
Gaby pulled her foot off the gas pedal and reached for the M4 lying across her and Claire’s seats just as the driver side door was yanked open with a loud squeal of metal grinding against metal. The man had to be immensely strong because opening a door upward took a hell of a lot of strength, and yet he had done it almost effortlessly.
She gave up on the rifle and went for her Glock instead.
The large man with the AR-15 was trying to pull her out with one hand even while he kept the door pried open with one bulging shoulder. Trying? No. He was succeeding. Meaty fingers dug into her flesh, and she couldn’t have fought him even if she wanted to. He was so much stronger that she didn’t think he was even exerting any force whatsoever as he yanked her toward the open door.
She twisted in her seat and saw his eyes go wide at the sight of the gun in her right fist. He opened his mouth to say something—maybe to ask her not to shoot—but before he could get a word out she shot him in the chest, the discharge deafening in the tight confines of the vehicle.
Behind her, either Donna or Milly began screaming. By the shrill noise, she guessed it was probably Milly. Gaby had been wondering when the girl would finally let it all out. She guessed this was as good a time as any.
The big man—who was probably shorter than her, though he made up for it with width and at least one hundred pounds—let go of her arm before stumbling back, looking more stunned than hurt. The door slammed back down, but Gaby could still see him through the cracked driver side window. The man’s rifle was slung over his shoulder and he was clawing for it. He looked confused, as if he couldn’t quite figure out where the rifle was, or remember how to breathe.
She shot him a second time in the chest, shattering the driver side window in the process.
“Aim for center mass,” Will always said. “The biggest part of the body is your best target. Only delusional idiots aim for the head in a gunfight.”
The man crumpled to the bottom of the ditch on his stomach.
She was about to leap out of her seat (Get out of the car! It’s a death trap! Get out of it now!), when she heard glass shattering behind her, from across the front seat, and Claire screaming. Gaby twisted back in that direction. She hadn’t gotten completely around when she saw a familiar face, the same shade of red hair, leaning in Claire’s suddenly open passenger side window with a shotgun in his hands.
But she was still halfway around when the man ruthlessly shoved the barrel of his weapon against Claire’s cheek, then glared at her from behind the girl’s head. “Go ahead, see if I don’t blow this little girl’s head open like a melon before you get that gun all the way around.”
Gaby froze.
Harrison.
She stared at him, then at Claire, fastened to her seat as if she was glued to it, too afraid to even move. There was a big bump in the girl’s forehead where she had slammed into the dashboard because she wasn’t wearing her seatbelt. For the first time since she had met her, Gaby saw very real fear in the thirteen-year-old’s eyes.
“It’s okay, Claire,” Gaby said. “Everything will be okay.”
“Don’t lie to the girl,” Harrison said. “It’s unbecoming.”
Gaby gripped the Glock. It was still pointed in the wrong direction—at her steering wheel—but it wouldn’t have taken much to swing it sixty more degrees, lift it slightly, and shoot Harrison on the other side of Claire. Of course, that would require better aim than she had proven herself capable of with a handgun. And he was standing right behind Claire, using her small head as a shield.
The crying continued in the backseat. Gaby couldn’t be sure if it was still just Milly or if Donna had joined in.
Options. What were her options?
Will said there were always options. She just had to see them.
So what were her options now?
She couldn’t see them. God help her, she couldn’t see any of them.
“Don’t make me say it again,” Harrison said. “Put down the gun or I’m going to splash this little girl’s brains all over you. You know I’ll do it.”
“Yeah,” Gaby said. “I know you’ll do it.”
“So what are you waiting for?”
She threw the Glock out her window. “Don’t hurt her.”
Harrison kept the shotgun pressed into Claire’s cheek with one hand and reached down with the other. He brought the hand back up and tossed something to her.
Gaby looked down at a pair of steel handcuffs in her lap.
“Put one around your right wrist and the other around the steering wheel,” Harrison said.
“Why?”
“Because I said so.”
Options? What are my options?
None. I don’t see any.
God help me, I don’t see any…
She picked up the handcuffs and did as he instructed. The metal bit into her wrist and she instantly regretted it. “Now what?”
“You’re going to sit tight,” Harrison said.
He snatched up Claire’s rifle and tossed it into the ditch. Then he grabbed her M4, which had slid into Claire’s side of the truck, and stepped backward before disappearing completely from her
field of vision. She heard him moving around the ditch, climbing up and then scrambling over to the other side, though she couldn’t see him because the truck was pointing up at the sky at the moment.
She looked into the backseat, at the weapons that Darren and his friend had brought with them. There, an AR-15, lying between Donna and Milly—“Donna, the rifle, hurry.”
Donna stared back at her as if she couldn’t understand what she was saying.
“The rifle!” Gaby said, just loud enough to get through to her.
She could hear Harrison moving around the truck, reaching the other side…
“Give me the rifle!” Gaby said again, louder this time.
Donna finally understood and reached for the rifle. She picked it up by the barrel and was holding it out to Gaby when the back passenger window exploded and showered the teenager and Milly with glass shards. Both girls screamed and the rifle fell. The girls threw their arms over their heads while Milly sank even lower into the floor behind Claire’s seat. Gaby couldn’t tell if they were hurt or just terrified, but she saw fresh blood on the upholstery in the backseat.
The loud, unmistakable sound of a shotgun being racked filled the air, then Harrison was standing next to her on the other side of her shattered window. “Nice try,” he said, then hit her in the face with the stock of his weapon.
Gaby actually heard her nose breaking, then tasted blood in her mouth as her head laid back against the comfortable headrest. She tried to shut off her senses. She wanted to go to sleep, but the sun was still beating down on her and she was able to open her eyes just in time to see Harrison pulling open the door with some effort.
He reached in and unlocked the handcuff around the steering wheel. He grabbed her by the arm and pulled her out of the truck roughly, throwing her down into the ditch. She landed on top of the short but large man she had shot earlier and scrambled to get away.
She was straightening up when Harrison hit her in the gut with a balled fist. She doubled over from the pain before falling back down to her knees in the grass. Thick blood dripped down around her in clumpy streams.