by Lowry, Chris
I still didn't like the too long barrel, no good for close quarters work, but I couldn't do much about it at the moment. I listened to their footsteps as they followed me down the hall and out through the arch and could see blinding headlights washing across the gate.
There was still enough light to see by, not quite dark, but not bright sunshine. The glowing orb had slid below the horizon and this was what remained, the perfect time to hunt lightening bugs.
They flickered in the pasture as if summoned by my thoughts and I stopped in the archway to study the scene in front of us. Jamal stood to my right, one step behind, LaRon and Donald a step behind him. I glanced over my shoulder and saw Anna in the shadows of the archway, half illuminated in the shadows, the tip of her shotgun gleaming as it aimed roughly at the back of the two boys. Good positioning.
In front of us were two trucks, Troop transports painted beige, perhaps back from Iraq or never sent and just painted to match what had been the current war until the Z showed up. Three Humvees flanked the trucks, and standing in the back of one was the General.
“Shit,” I muttered.
“Is it him?” I heard Anna gasp.
She recognized him too.
“Who?” asked Jamal.
“We've run into this guy before,” I said out of the side of my mouth.
“He followed you here?”
He held a megaphone to his mouth and shouted over a loudspeaker.
“You are a hard man to find.”
“Looks like.”
“What does he want?”
“Me.”
“Whoever set those tripwires was smart,” the General continued. “Took us a bit to figure it out but once we did it was like tracking a shot deer.”
He pointed to two heads on poles, young faces slack in death.
“These belong to you?”
Jamal gasped and gagged behind me.
“Steady,” I whispered.
I couldn't make out his craggy features. In the fading twilight, he was mostly shadow, like a wraith summoned from the underworld.
“What do you got in there?” the General asked. “Looks like a good place to spend the night. Why don't you invite us in?”
“Not my place,” I shouted. “We're still cleaning it up. Why don't you come back tomorrow and I'll have it ready for you.”
“I bet you will,” he laughed, mirthless, a flat sound that fit his demon image. “Like you had your kamikaze ready for us at the church.”
Julie had been a part of our group and inconsolable after her husband was shot by the General's men. She got her revenge with a grenade pick pocketed off a private and dropped at the feet of a squad. Her sacrifice bought us time and a chance to escape, and didn't leave the General's militia in good shape.
He had a couple of squads in the back of each truck, each facing out, weapons drawn and aimed at the woods.
“No one out there,” I told him. “No one in here but a bunch of kids.”
“Just like a terrorist,” he screamed. “Hiding among children. Getting women to do your dirty work. You won't fight like a real soldier.”
“I'm not a soldier.”
But he wasn't listening. I couldn't see his eyes, but I suspected there was a glint in them, a little bit of madness far beyond what the rest of us had.
“I want my knife.”
“Come and get it,” I pulled it out in my left hand so he could see it.
His Humvee jolted forward. Jamal stepped beside me.
“I've got your back,” he said.
His head exploded in pink mist and splattered gore and blood across the side of my face and across my chest as he fell like a puppet with cut strings.
I fell backwards and heard a second sniper's' bullet buzz past the end of my nose.
“Back!” Anna shouted and sent a shotgun blast toward the gate as the Humvee shifted into lower gear and began to plough through.
I crab-crawled backwards, watched as a geyser of chipped concrete exploded where I had just been. Donald ran past Anna shouting a warning, LaRon turned and his chest erupted as the sniper hit him in the back. He fell at her feet. I made the safety of the arch and grabbed his weapon.
It was a hunter's rifle, a .3030 Winchester. I sank into the shadows against the side of the archway and aimed at the Humvee. The driver's window was a dark splotch of glass, it's headlights blinding as it bounced up the sidewalk toward the arch.
I could hear the other trucks rumbling in behind it.
“Get to the others, see if there's a back way.”
I sent a shot into the window and watched it spider web, cranked the lever and sent another. The third sent the vehicle off course and rammed it into the corner of one of the other buildings. Soldiers spilled out and that's all I got to see as bullets shredded the archway.
I ran bent over until I hit the back building and jerked open the auditorium door. It was empty.
“Damn it.”
“Back here,” Brian called as he leaned through the cafeteria door.
Bullets pinged off the entrance doors, some punching through the metal as the soldiers advanced. The sound of broken glass showered through the courtyard as they peppered the windows for imagined snipers.
I ran through the cafeteria doors and found the kids lined up in an orderly fashion, Byron standing in front of Donald and five other boys, all armed with hunting rifles.
“We waited on you,” Byron told me and led us through the door in the back of the room.
“Down there,” he pointed.
Hannah led the kids through the door and Byron grabbed a wire that tilted a cabinet over and blocked it after we went through.
“It won't buy us much time,” he said and jogged down a flight of stairs.
It led to a concrete underground tunnel.
We got the kids moving and after a couple of hundred meters met a flight of stairs up. Bootsteps pounding up the tunnel sounded behind us.
“They're coming.”
“This is the bus terminal,” said Byron. “They can't bring their trucks through here, so we'll be on wheels but they'll have to go back and get theirs.”
He smiled at the brilliance of his own planning and I spared a tight grin for him. He had madness in his eyes too, but it was my kind of crazy and right now on our side.
“Get everyone loaded,” I squatted at the bottom of the stairs and lifted the Winchester. I still had my rifle on my back, but the gun that won the West felt pretty good in my hands. They hold seven rounds, and one in the chamber so I'd have to switch pretty quick, but four shots could slow their advance enough and I was in the time buying business.
Byron moved to the top of the stairs and sat down so he could peer down the ceiling of the tunnel. He sighted with his rifle.
Brian and Hannah took the kids through the metal door at the top of the stairs.
I saw the first set of boots pound up the concrete flanked by two others. I lined up and shot at knee level across the breadth.
Screams followed, along with automatic fire that chewed up the concrete around me.
At the bottom of the steps wasn't the safest place to be.
The advantage I had of shooting down a straight line into oncoming soldiers was shared by them, and amplified by the number of guns they used.
I cracked out the forth shot, a little higher this time aiming for heads or Kevlar or whatever I could hit. Cordite smoke tinged the air and filled the tight space with a fog.
Then Byron shot.
He was deliberate and careful, another Southern boy raised around rifles and taught to shoot at a young age. There's a big difference between a man and a deer, but the boy had said he'd killed before and when someone is trying to kill you, it's easier to shoot them back, and better if you do it first.
The bullets at their heads sent them scrambling back up the tunnel, still in range for both of us, but they didn't expect resistance or had a different plan than once more into the breech.
It was a different pl
an.
Byron shot again.
A man screamed.
Then we heard a pin drop. A literal pin. Followed by another, and two rolling tumbling sounds.
Tiny pineapple looking balls made awkward rolls up the tunnel for us.
“Out! Out!” I screamed and ran up the stairs.
It felt like running in slow motion, running through oatmeal. Time slowed down and I could hear the tumbling of metal on concrete as the grenades turned over and over.
Byron scrambled up. I grabbed him by the scruff of his coat and shoved him through the door.
The grenades went off twice, the concussive force of the explosion picking me up and tossing me through the open doorway on a cloud of smoke and fire. The rifle across my back caught the edge of the door, flipped me over and broke the stock as I sailed across the maintenance bay of the garage.
I couldn't hear anything but a loud roaring sound in my ear. Everything hurt. I could move my head enough to roll it over and someone drove an ice-pick through my ear, or at least that's what it felt like.
Byron stumbled up and grabbed a blue metal barrel by the door. He twisted off the top, planted his legs and tipped it down the stairs.
Donald ran over and helped him with a second barrel, opening it and rocking down the stairs after the other.
“Good plan,” I muttered and tasted blood.
The barrels would take out anyone coming up the stairs and would slow them down as they had to climb over it at the bottom.
Byron slammed the door, and Donald set a third barrel in front of it to block it.
Anna and Brian helped me to my feet and dragged me toward the bus. I could smell chlorine and another smell from the spilled liquid.
Feelings other than hurt came back as I moved. Nausea. Headache.
Brian tried to talk to me, but it sounded like he was talking through the other end of the tunnel, trying to shout over the roar.
They dragged me into the bus, followed by Byron and Donald. Peg didn't bother to shut the doors, just dropped it in drive and tore out through the open garage.
We watched the door to the maintenance tunnel open and a man in a gas mask stepped out. The General raised his pistol and sent shots after the truck. The bullets punched through the thin sheet metal, punched through Donald's shoulder and sent him reeling. The second hit one of the six-year old's next to Hannah and the third cracked the rear window and exited through the roof.
Hannah screamed and held the little child while it died in her arms. Peg jolted the bus across the road, hitting bumps or Z and my back bounced off the vinyl seat. The pain was too much and I passed out.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
I came to in waves, flashes and pieces of the drive. We stopped at a crossroads and waited a moment as a teenage boy climbed on to the bus, Byron's watcher. Anna stood next to Peg and directed her down a zig zag series of roads. We stopped somewhere and off loaded Donald and the little dead boy.
Then we parked next to a giant yellow brick church to wait for daylight. We slept on the bus or tried to. There were sniffles, and tiny wails. Hannah's voice making noises to comfort.
They moved me to the rear seat and I lay on my stomach on the bench, my knees in the floor. Anna came to me and did an examination by flashlight. She checked my eyes, wiped dried blood that had leaked out of my ears. I felt pressure when she touched my back, but no pain. Nothing.
“You're burned,” she said.
I couldn't hear her and tried to shake my head to tell her. That hurt too much so I tried to tell her with my eyes. We needed to work on that communication though, because Brian walked up behind her and saw what she saw in the flashlight beam.
“Ouch,” he said. “You're gonna live but you won't be wearing tank tops.”
I did the eye thing with him and he nodded.
Some people just get you.
“You still can't hear?”
Eyes up and down.
“You probably blew your ear drums.”
“You saved my life,” Byron peered over the back of the back of the seat in front of me. I couldn't move my head to see much of him, but gave a quick glance out of the corner of my eye.
“I owe you,” he said.
“He can't hear you,” Brian told him.
“I said I owe you!” he shouted.
A couple of kids complained about the noise and he cowered closer.
“Will he be able to hear again?”
Brian shrugged.
I hoped I would because this damn roaring was getting annoying. Only now it was turning into a ringing sound, and I could hear voices. Barely, like coming in on an old television, static thick and too low to make out words, but noise and ringing.
It was something to sleep on.
“Set up guard,” I mumbled to Brian.
“He can still talk?” Byron sounded surprised.
Brian nodded.
“He just can't hear. It's going to make him impossible to reason with. Not that we ever were able to do much of that before.”
“I put two men on the roof,” Byron told me. “She parked us beside the church so we've only got to watch three sides.”
“I brought us back to Cuthbert,” she said. “I didn't know where to go.”
“Cuthbert,” I told her. “Take us tomorrow.”
She nodded and smoothed the hair back from my head.
“Rest,” she whispered.
“I need to rest.”
Brian carefully selected a part of my shoulder and patted it and he walked back to the front of the bus to join Peg.
Anna settled beside me and jacked a shell into her shotgun. I didn't think she would sleep much tonight, but I felt better knowing she was watching me.
I closed my eyes and tried breathing through the pain, trying to focus on sending blood to the wounds on my back, my legs, healing blood that would take the pain and wash it down my veins. The ringing in my ears took on the rhythm of the blood, pounding in time with my breath and if it couldn't quite be called sleep, exhaustion dragged me down into something close to the oblivion of it.
CHAPTER TWENTY
I woke up full at first light and for a moment, I didn't feel anything, didn't know where we were. The bus was silent, or at least I couldn't hear anything and that made me concerned. For a moment I wondered if everyone died while I was passed out and I was in a corridor of corpses.
I had a craving for a strong cup of coffee so powerful that it nearly knocked me off the seat, and I realized I hadn't eaten anything since one sip of soup, making sure Anna had the rest. Truth be told one sip was all I could stand.
I pushed up off the seat and fought down the urge to scream as fire lashed across my back, my legs. I wanted a mirror to look at the damage and then was glad I didn't have one. Seeing it would somehow make it worse.
Burned.
Was I a mass of scarred flesh and raw oozing wounds?
We needed to get some antibacterial cream or bactine on it quick. Burns were notorious breeders of rot, and I didn't want to survive so far only to get taken out by a microscopic bug.
First I needed to know where we were.
The gray light of the morning showed a building beside one window. I stepped over Anna and held onto the back of each seat to keep my balance. Stars exploded, waves of feeling sick washed up and down each time I planted a foot, made sure it was solid and stepped over another kid or set of extended legs.
I made the front of the bus and smiled.
Brian was sitting in the driver's seat, his back to the wall by the building, cradling Peg in his lap. They were guarding the door.
I almost didn't open it, because the sound would wake everyone up, but the movement down the aisle had been painful, but I could feel the blood flow starting to loosen up my limbs. I didn't quite feel better so much as I didn't feel as I did laying down.
That was a start.
I reached for the handle and tried to pull the door. It wouldn't move and the ripping tearing feeling across my s
houlders made me gasp.
That woke up Brian and he jumped a little, startling Peg. They both eyed me for the moment it took them to remember, to push past the confusion and then Peg reached forward and took the handle from my hand. She cranked the door open with a small hiss.
“Thanks,” I mumbled.
My mouth still felt mushy, tasted salty and my tongue was swollen. I bit it either during the explosion or the landing.
I stepped outside and remembered I forgot my rifle, then remembered the stock was cracked. I wondered if it would work again, or was a wash.
Brian climbed down beside me and we took several steps out toward the road. I recognized the white cottage across the street, the yellow giant church beside us.
“Cuthbert,” I told him.
He nodded.
“I'm not going to ask how you feel because you look like crap.”
“I feel like crap.”
“It's an improvement I think.”
“I can always rely on you for a confidence boost.”
“Is your hearing back.”
“You're talking through a tin can and it's a whisper, but I can make out what you're saying at least.”
“You want to hear how bad it is?”
“Bad? We're alive, aren't we? That's the second time we escaped from that militia. If I'd known they were going to hunt for us, we would have been more careful.”
“They probably would have burned our fort down too.”
“Alright Doc, give me my diagnosis.”
“You've got bad burns on your back. Barbecue bad.”
I could feel those, or rather couldn't feel the burns but the empty spaces of white hot pain that lanced across the muscles there when I breathed.
“I figured. We need to get some anti-bacteria on it.”
“That's what I thought too. You've got two big cuts where something got you. Concrete I guess. They're gonna need stitches. Anna packed one with cloth, but you could see the muscle.”
“Ouch,” I sighed.
“That's an understatement.”
“Anyone else hurt?”