by Robert Brown
The cultists, Nick realized. They shot at this car to block the highway. They wanted to stop us from getting there in time. They want to distract the police, too.
Nick focused on the road. The car and the crowd were in the left lane, allowing little room for them to pass. A couple of the people standing there shouted at Carl and waved their hands.
He ignored them, cutting a little more to the left and ending up at an angle on the slope. The pickup’s tires spun a bit. Carl fishtailed but made it past.
Now it was Nick’s turn. Gritting his teeth, he took it slow. The car crept forward a few feet and Nick began to believe he would make it. Then his left wheels hit the rut left by Carl’s pickup and he slid. Nick turned the steering wheel but ended up overcompensating and spun out. He pointed up the slope, the tail of his car almost in the ditch. He hit the gas, ignoring the shouts of the people around the wreck, swerved, and got back parallel to the road.
Then he got stuck. His tires had rutted the loose earth of the ditch and they spun helplessly.
A thud to his rear bumper made him jerk around. Clayton had come up behind him with his pickup. Slowly but surely, he pushed Nick out of the rut and onto the highway. Wayne drove his car right behind them, making it look easy.
Nick didn’t have time to feel embarrassed. He floored it and shot down the highway.
Once again, Carl led the way. After a couple more miles, he took an exit. Nick recognized it as the one they had taken on a previous visit. He swore. Carl had told him there was a pull-off closer to the cave. Why hadn’t he taken them there? This was no time for caution. They had to charge directly against those sickos. They had Elaine!
But Nick didn’t know where the other pull-off was, so he had to follow, fuming and cursing.
In five minutes, they had made it. Carl parked his pickup. Nick parked next to him and leaped out. The others were just coming in.
“Why the hell did you lead us here?” he demanded.
He didn’t wait for a reply. He bolted down the path toward the cave.
After a few yards, Clayton caught up to him.
“Easy there, buddy. They’re liable to have guards out. We can’t just run in there, not if you want to save your kid.”
Nick sobbed and struggled, then realized his friend was right. The others gathered together.
“I know a back way,” Trisha said, gripping her .22 rifle. “I used to come down here a lot when I was younger and we had to keep out of sight. There’s a path that loops above the cave and then cuts down right beside it. They won’t be able to see us until we’re right on top of them.”
“Can you find it in the dark, honey?” Clayton asked.
“Always did before. Come on.”
It took all of Nick’s self-control to not grab her wrist and run off into the woods, screaming at her to hurry up. Instead, he stood right by Trisha, gun in his hand, and walked quickly down the darkened riverside path. The others stayed close, their guns drawn.
After about a hundred yards, Trisha paused and then cut left into the woods. The night was almost pitch black. No electric lights were within sight and there was no moon. However, none of them dared turn on a flashlight.
Nick realized they were on a faint path that climbed the ridge overlooking the river. He could just see the bare strip of earth that Trisha followed, so narrow that leaves brushed both sides of his face. They had to go single file.
Their progress felt agonizingly slow and noisy. Trisha had to watch her steps carefully, and occasionally had to stop to check that she was still on the path when they passed a rocky area barren of vegetation.
It didn’t help that the guys behind her kept tripping over roots or snapping trigs. They made far too much noise for Nick’s liking. He would have screamed at them for being idiots if he hadn’t been making as much noise as they were.
After a time, the path stopped climbing the ridge and cut along its slope. Nick had no idea how far they had come or how long they had been walking. He glanced out across the river—a dark ribbon faintly reflecting the starlight that filtered through the scattered clouds in the sky.
“How much farther?” he whispered.
“Shh, we’re almost there,” Trisha whispered back.
Please be right, he begged her silently. Please don’t get lost in the darkness.
A faint light glimmered ahead and a little down the slope. For the hundredth time, Nick checked that the safety on his pistol was off and that his finger was outside the trigger guard. Even now, Gus’s lessons came to mind. He had to do this right. One accidental shot warning the cultists of their approach would mean Elaine’s death.
Trisha stopped. Nick bumped into her. Someone else bumped into Nick from behind.
Nick put his mouth to Trisha’s ear and whispered as quietly as he could. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. The path cuts down here;” she whispered back, so softly he could barely hear her even though her mouth was an inch from his ear. “You have to be careful and not slip.”
Nick eased past her. He had to go first.
Just a few steps away, he saw the path turn and head downhill. As he took those few steps and came to where the path cut straight down the slope, he was surprised at how close they were to the cave. They stood right above and to the left of the entrance. The overhang hid the carving of the Thunderbird, but he could clearly see the level area in front of the cave where Carl had aimed his gun at those innocent teenagers.
The area was lit by flickering golden candlelight emanating from inside the cave. He saw no one. A voice sounded briefly from below, too soft for him to distinguish the words that it spoke. After a moment, they stopped.
A soft sound to his left made Nick turn. Trisha and Clayton had edged over so that they were right above the cave, on a rocky surface almost devoid of vegetation. They lay down, Trisha with her rifle and Clayton with his shotgun, ready to cover the cave’s single exit.
Suddenly, a wave of gratitude overcame Nick. This wasn’t their fight. It was no one’s fight but his own, but these people had come out there, alone and unsupported in the darkness, ready to fight and die to help him. And not just him, but their community. He knew of no one at the university who would have done this for him.
But now what? He could sense the others waiting for a sign from him. He wished he knew what to do. The cave seemed strangely silent. No more conversation came from below, although Nick heard the occasional soft sound or footstep.
This wasn’t a trap; he could sense it. If the cultists had figured out that the group had arrived, they would have awaited them in complete silence. If they had already started their ritual, he would be hearing chanting or—Nick shuddered to think—Elaine’s screams. He heard none of that.
He got the sense that not everyone from the cult had arrived yet.
Good, he decided. He’d go down there and kill all but one of them. He’d take one hostage and use him or her as a bargaining chip to get his daughter back.
A dim corner of his mind was shocked at his resolve. He had no doubt that he would kill for Elaine, and he knew with total certainty that if the cult had instead abducted the loved one of any of the men and women with him, he would not hesitate to kill in that case, either.
Nick put his finger inside his trigger guard and took a step downhill. Faintly, he heard the others move behind him.
Nick didn’t take a second step, as farther down the slope he saw a procession of lights moving up the path from the riverside. A low chanting rose in the still night air to mock him.
The red-robed figures ascended in single file. Behind the first figure came Elaine, stumbling and drenched from head to foot. Nick almost cried out, but he controlled himself and took a step back to get farther from the light. The figure behind Elaine had his hands around her neck, not strangling, just leading. And threatening.
Nick counted six hooded figures. As the procession made it to the flat area in front of the cave, two other robed figures emerged from the cave. The p
air raised their hands and the lead figure from the procession raised his in return.
“Has the sacrifice been cleansed in the river?” one asked.
“The sacrifice has been cleansed.”
Elaine stood pale and trembling. She looked confused and cold, but otherwise unhurt. Her clothing was neither torn nor missing.
No, Nick thought. That’s what they plan to do next.
“Then bring the sacrifice into the holy cave. Our sister in faith will stand guard while we prepare the sacrifice for death.”
One of the guys snickered.
Nick raised his gun, aware of the others, tense and waiting behind him. They wouldn’t make a move until he did.
He aimed at the lead figure of the procession.
Then paused. He couldn’t shoot.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
He couldn’t shoot because to do so would lead to a firefight that would almost certainly get Elaine killed. She was in the middle of the crowd, and if the fusillade coming from their position didn’t get her, one of the cultists was sure to.
Instead, he thought of a better plan.
Nick glanced behind him and saw his friends looking back at him. He couldn’t see their faces clearly, but he could almost hear the question in their eyes. He spread out his palm in a calming gesture, hoping they would see.
The procession began filing into the cave.
“What are you going to do?” Elaine blubbered, her clothes dripping on the bare stone.
“Shut up, bitch. You’ll see soon enough,” said the man with his hands around her neck.
As the procession disappeared into the cave, one figure, gripping a rifle, stepped out and stood in the flat area in front of the entrance, looking out on the path and river below.
Now.
Her back was to him. Nick turned on the laser sight of his pistol but not the flashlight. A little red dot appeared on her lower back. Nick crept down the path. He would move up behind her, stick the gun against her head, and order her to drop the rifle. Then he’d trade her for Elaine. Once they made the exchange, they’d get the hell out of there. Let the police track down these creeps. He’d done his part.
Except it didn’t work out that way.
He got all the way down the path, the interior of the cave still out of sight around a slight protrusion of the rock face, and had only a couple more steps before he reached the woman standing guard when she turned around.
Nick never knew if she turned to witness Elaine’s violation or if she heard his approach. But the girl turned, her eyes widening as she spotted him.
Nick fired.
The bullet got her in the gut. She grunted and doubled over, hitting the ground hard.
Nick swung around the bend and saw the group of cultists surrounding his little girl. Two had pinioned her arms. Another held her down. A fourth clamped her mouth shut. Two stood by a video camera set on a tripod, filming the scene.
The seventh cultist stood at her feet, opening his robe.
That’s the one Nick shot first.
The bullet got him square in the side of the head, the exit wound fanning blood and brains onto the back of the cave.
Nick fired three more times as quickly as he could, hitting the man closest to him in the side, making him pirouette and fall. The other two bullets panged off the back of the cave.
He didn’t get a fifth shot because one of the cultists fired.
The bullet took Nick in the right shoulder. His arm spasmed as he stumbled back, his gun clattering onto the rock. Despite the shock, Nick surged forward to grab it, his adrenaline giving him strength.
“Stop!” barked the man who had shot him. Nick would have ignored him, but he saw another cultist pointing a gun at Elaine’s head.
He paused, thinking fast.
“D-Daddy?” Elaine sobbed. The man who had been holding her mouth shut now stood and pulled a gun from his robes.
“I’ll get you out of here, honey,” Nick said, his words almost drowned out by the screaming of the woman he had shot in the gut. His own initial shock was beginning to wear off, replaced by an agony that paralyzed his arm and spread through his entire body.
Another cultist pulled off his hood. In the candlelight Nick saw a rugged, sporty face marred by several short scars.
He recognized that face. Everyone at the university did.
“Brett Dawson,” Nick said.
Now it all made sense—the hatred of the locals, the sexual perversion, the yearning for a different time. Dawson really had attacked that underaged girl by the riverside, and when he got punished for it, he wanted to wipe out Republic. He wanted to go back to a more brutal time when people like him could take what they wanted with no repercussions.
But why had the others followed him?
No time to think about that now. Brett strode forward. Thinking fast, Nick stepped back. For a moment, no one spoke. Only the girl he had shot screamed in agony. The man he had wounded gasped as another tried to staunch his wound. The third cultist Nick had shot lay in a bloody ruin.
“So, you know me, Professor Upton? I bet you don’t remember that I was in your mythology class too, a few semesters ago.”
“Yes,” Nick said. “Now I remember.”
He had backed up as far as he could without stumbling down the slope. To his left, the woman writhed and wailed. Her rifle lay just out of reach.
“Don’t even think of it,” Brett said. He kept his pistol leveled at Nick’s chest.
“Let Elaine go,” Nick said. “She never did anything to you. You can sacrifice me instead.”
Brett snickered. “And miss out on the fun? She a pretty little piece of ass. No point in having a religion if you don’t get a little young pussy on the side, eh?”
“You’re sick,” Nick spat. Brett hadn’t come all the way out of the cave. Nick needed to get him out there.
“Come on, don’t you read the newspaper? Don’t you read history books? Organized religion has always been about fucking children.”
“How can you people follow this maniac?” Nick called out to the rest.
“Because we’re only going after locals,” another cultist said. He strode out of the cave, gun in hand. “They’re not worth shit. We’ve all been insulted by these rednecks. Some of us have even gotten beaten up. That girl you shot almost got raped in a local bar. Why the hell should we care about a bunch of those subhumans? They deserve what they get.”
“My daughter isn’t a local.”
“Your family became locals when you fought against us,” said the man. He was the one who had been holding Elaine’s mouth shut so that she couldn’t scream while they all took turns with her.
The man sauntered over to Nick, coming within view of Nick’s companions, still hidden above the cave.
“Hold it right there, you piece of shit,” Clayton shouted.
The man paused, glanced over his shoulder, and saw half a dozen guns trained on him. He froze.
“Drop it,” Clayton ordered.
The university student almost did, then squared his shoulders.
“I got my gun trained on your friend here. If you shoot me, the last thing I do before I die is kill him.”
“And I’ll kill his little bitch of a daughter!” Brett called. He had ducked back into the cave and was holding a gun against Elaine’s head.
The man covering Nick grabbed him by his wounded arm, making pain lance through his body. He got behind Nick, using him as a shield.
“I called the police,” Clayton bluffed. “They’ll be here any minute. If you let them go, we’ll give you a head start.”
“Just let Elaine go,” Nick gasped through his pain. “Keep me as a hostage. It will increase your chances.”
“Fuck that!” Brett shouted. “Drop your weapons!”
“Ain’t gonna happen,” Clayton said.
“We’ll kill them,” Brett replied.
“And die yourselves,” Clayton shot back. “We got you outnumbered and trapped.”
Brett gripped Elaine by the hair, making her yelp with pain. Holding a gun to her head, he led her out. The other cultists stayed within the safety of the cave, unsure what to do. The woman Nick had shot kept screaming.
As Brett emerged from the cave, he turned so that he put Elaine between himself and the guns arrayed above the cave.
He backed up to stand beside the man covering Nick.
Elaine looked at her father, tears in her eyes.
“I love you, Elaine,” Nick whispered.
“Come out,” Brett called to the cultists remaining inside. “We’re getting out of here.”
Those still in the cave didn’t respond immediately. Two lifted the wounded man, while another grabbed the video camera. Nick knew he had only a few seconds to act. But what could he do? He was already feeling weak from the bullet wound, and the man guarding him had his gun trained on him.
Neither, however, was looking at him at the moment.
Nick glanced behind him. The slope fell off steeply, grass and some bushes clinging to the side. The path ran at the bottom of the slope about twenty feet down.
“Hurry!” Brett shouted, waving his arm impatiently. When he did this, he let go of Elaine.
That was all the invitation Nick needed. He slammed between Brett and the other cultist, knocking them both to the side and sending an agonizing jolt of pain through his wounded arm. With his usable arm, Nick grabbed Elaine and threw her down the slope.
Brett turned. Nick grabbed for his weapon hand. Several shots rang out.
The other cultist fell in a spray of blood, but Nick didn’t have time to celebrate his death. He was too busy trying to prevent his own.
Nick had pulled the gun to the side to keep Brett from shooting him, but the young man was stronger and unwounded. Brett clamped his free hand around Nick’s throat and, inch by inch, pushed the gun around. Nick struggled but knew that in another second Brett would be able to fill his gut with lead.