Raging Storm

by Vannetta Chapman

  “What was with the offering?”

  Jack squirmed uncomfortably. “Folks want to give. They want to say thank you. It’s a natural thing.”

  “And Hernandez doesn’t mind accepting the loot.”

  “It’s not as if it’s much good out on the streets. People can’t even use it. How would they? Stores are empty. There’s nothing to trade for.” Jack laughed, and then turned suddenly solemn. “He keeps it, sure. Locked up safely for the end times.”

  Max crossed his arms. “People were putting their wedding rings in that plate, Jack. Doesn’t that strike you as a little odd?”

  “In normal times, maybe. Not anymore. People are grateful. If they have food and a safe place to stay, they’re grateful.”

  “So that’s what we were seeing? Gratitude?”

  “Sure. That’s all it was. Isn’t like the reverend forces anyone to hand over their stuff.”

  Max and Patrick again exchanged glances. Both shrugged nearly simultaneously, relieving some of the tension in Max’s shoulders. He almost laughed out loud. Yeah, it was a little strange, but he’d seen worse. God himself knew that he had seen worse in the last three weeks.

  They all stood, and Jack began rearranging the chairs in a line like they had been. “Glad I could help you gentlemen. Now, you pick yourself a nice bedroll and have a good night’s sleep. Someone will come for you in the morning, after breakfast, and take you to confession.”

  “Excuse me?” Max said.

  Jack’s head jerked up, surprised at Max’s change in tone.

  “Did you say confession?” Patrick asked.

  “Well, yes. You can’t stay in a city of refuge unless you confess your atrocities.”

  “Our atrocities?”

  “Says so, right there in black and white. Joshua chapter twenty, verse four. ‘When he flees to one of these cities, he is to stand in the entrance of the city gate and state his case before the elders.’ ”

  “And we do that at confession?”

  “You do, though not at the city gate since that isn’t exactly possible at the moment. Instead, you confess to Reverend Hernandez, and he decides an appropriate penance.”

  “Such as?” Bhatti asked.

  Max heard voices in the hall, and then a few men started straggling in, heading straight to their bedrolls, without a word or a nod.

  “What kind of penance?” Patrick asked, stepping closer to Jack and lowering his voice.

  “Different things.” Jack took a step back. “Sometimes he sends you out to find food—people here need food. Or he might have you go and look for other types of supplies. Once you’ve found what he’s told you to find, then your penance is done and you’re forgiven for your atrocities.”

  “What if we haven’t done any atrocities, Jack?” Max stepped closer too, so they made a tight small circle, with Bhatti keeping an eye on the people who walked in.

  “Everyone’s done atrocities in these times. Haven’t you?” For just a moment Jack dropped the bumbling old guy act, and his expression was replaced with a shrewd, hardened look. “Or are you telling me you haven’t killed anyone out there?”

  Max thought of the battle between Abney and Croghan. He remembered the feel of the lug wrench in his hand as he cracked it against the man’s skull to save Shelby. Had he killed anyone? Probably, and he would need to come to terms with it in his heart and in his soul. But he wouldn’t be confessing any of those things to Reverend Hernandez.

  Patrick took one step back. “You can go now, Jack. Thank you for escorting us here.”

  “Of course. Of course.” The bumbling old guy was back. “Now you three get some rest. After a hot breakfast, you’ll be ready to face the day and whatever it holds.”

  “Hang on a minute.” Jack was nearly to the door when Max called him back. “I need something to write on and a pen, and then I’m going to need you to deliver a note.”

  “That’s not something that I normally—”

  “He needs paper, a pen, and a moment of your time.” Patrick’s voice brokered no argument.

  Max could tell his friend was quickly running out of patience, and the old man would have been a fool not to notice. But Jack Clark wasn’t a fool, Max realized. He was merely a man doing what he needed to do, being who he needed to be, in order to survive.

  He straightened his bow tie, reversed directions, and went in search of pen and paper.

  THIRTY-SIX

  Shelby and Bianca scooted closer together.

  “Ten more minutes until lights out.” The room mom gave them a pointed look as she walked by.

  “Soon she’ll tell us no more giggling.” Bianca kept her voice low and wiggled even closer. “Stop hogging the letter. I need to see it.”

  “I already read it to you.”

  “I knew he was sweet on you, but this goes above and beyond.”

  “It doesn’t make any sense.”

  They put their heads together, literally, lying on their stomachs on two mats that had been provided by the same room mom who was attempting to run a tight ship over twenty women in a fifteen foot by twenty foot classroom. It was crowded. The room smelled of sweaty bodies and unwashed bedding. As in the cathedral, there were no windows to open, though there were small skylights in the ceiling.

  No one complained about the crowded conditions or the cranky overseer.

  They were safe.

  They had a place to rest.

  They’d eaten.

  There was much to be thankful for, though at the moment Shelby felt anything but. Having to halt their search for the evening was bad enough.

  Being chased by men in a flatbed truck was worse.

  Now, in addition, they were separated from the guys.

  Apparently, there was to be no cohabitation in this city of refuge, not even for the married couples, and based on what Shelby had heard there were several in that situation.

  Bianca had her nose almost on the letter. The room would have been dark—no generators were used to power the lights, though Shelby guessed they had been used in the kitchen. Instead, many of the women had pulled flashlights from their backpacks. Fortunately, the guards had let them all keep their packs after they checked them for weapons.

  Shelby held their flashlight while Bianca studied the letter.

  “A man just showed up with this?”

  “Yeah, while you were reserving our mats.”

  “And he was wearing a bow tie?”

  “Sounds odd, but he was.”

  “And he said this letter is from Max.”

  “He asked if I was Shelby, handed me the letter, and said the young man pining for me sent it.”

  “Max isn’t young.”

  “Agreed, though he’s not old either.”

  “He used the word pining?”

  “He did.”

  Their room mother collapsed into a chair by the door. She was a short thing, with red hair and a mean disposition. Probably she was former military. At least it seemed to Shelby that she would have made a great drill sergeant. She’d yet to see the woman smile.

  “It’s some kind of code,” Bianca said.

  “But why? And what does it mean?”

  Shelby ran her finger across the lines as they silently read Max’s note for the third time.

  Missing you already. Couldn’t find Micah.

  Remember when we were four and snuck outside to see the ram your father was keeping in the west pasture? Good times. Sleep well, Shelby.

  “He misses me?”

  “That’s to throw off bow-tie man, who no doubt read the note before he passed it on.”

  “Couldn’t find Micah must mean—”

  “That this place is not a part of the Remnant. I think we knew that already.”

  “Okay, but we were never four. Max is one year older than me—always has been.” It was a relief to joke, even though fatigue was beginning to weigh on her like a lead apron.

  Bianca stiffened, glanced around, and then ducked her head next
to Shelby’s. “We’re supposed to meet them at four.”

  Of course! She fought the urge to slap her forehead. No need to attract attention. She kept her expression neutral in case they were being watched and lowered her voice to a whisper. “At the Ramcharger.”

  “Which is being kept on the west side of the building.”

  Room mom cleared her throat and called out, “Flashlights off in two minutes.”

  “How are we going to get past her?” Shelby asked.

  “At four in the morning, I imagine she’s going to be out cold. If not, we’ll think of something.”

  “Why at four in the morning? What did they learn?”

  “I don’t know.” Bianca flopped over onto her side and pulled the thin blanket up to her chin. The room was warm, but Shelby thought the blankets provided each person an illusion of privacy.

  “I will admit this place gives me the creeps.” Bianca yawned and added, “When I asked one of the women what they do every day, she said the reverend will decide that.”

  “He’s the king and this is his kingdom.”

  “Yeah, but are we being given refuge or being held prisoner?”

  “I don’t know. I imagine we’ll find out when we try to leave.” Shelby flattened the note from Max, placed it between two pages of her notebook, and put the entire thing in her backpack. She’d written some notes earlier, before the bow-tie guy had shown up. But she wasn’t sure they were coherent. Exhaustion felt like a cloak she was wearing, pinning her to the mat. She lay back, though she had no expectation of being able to actually sleep.

  “Did you set your watch alarm?” Bianca asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Sounds like Max wants us to try to rest—he wrote sleep well.”

  “Probably he meant sleep while you can.”

  “Hard to imagine, but sounds like tomorrow might be worse than today.”

  Flashlights around the room all clicked off, and almost immediately Shelby heard the sounds of sleep—yawns, sighs, and from one woman big, manly snores. She’d never been able to sleep in public. Sleeping in this room would be impossible. Her eyes stung, so she squeezed them shut. When had she last slept? And how would she get through tomorrow if she didn’t get some rest?

  “Bianca?” Her voice was a whisper.

  “Yeah.”

  “Do you regret coming?”

  Bianca answered her almost before she’d finished the question. “Not one bit.”

  “Even if—”

  “Even if, Shelby.” And then Bianca reached out across the darkness, found her hand, and laced their fingers together. Perhaps that show of friendship, Bianca’s hand in hers, Bianca’s answer seeping into the tender places of her heart, all combined to calm her nerves. Shelby slipped into a deep and restful sleep.

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  The next thing Shelby knew, her alarm was beeping. She silenced it quickly and sat up in the darkness, stunned to realize that she had slept for six hours.

  Her throat was dry and her mouth swollen from the punch she’d taken from Raven. She touched it carefully and winced. What she’d give for a glass of water.

  But they had no time for that.

  She reached over and nudged Bianca, who sat up as if she’d thrown cold water on her. It took a few moments for Shelby’s eyes to adjust to the darkness. Only it wasn’t completely dark. Skylights allowed in starlight.

  They didn’t dare speak, didn’t want to risk waking the room mother, who was snoring from her mat next to the door. They tiptoed across the room, each foot placed carefully, gingerly, so as not to step on any of the women, not to rouse anyone. The room mom was sleeping so close to the door that they were only able to open it a fraction, but it was enough.

  Shelby pushed her backpack through, turned sideways, slid through, and waited for Bianca, who popped out seconds later.

  She turned the knob all the way to the right, inched the door closed, and slowly released the knob. There was the smallest of clicks. They both froze, Bianca clutching her arm, Shelby afraid to breathe. She counted slowly to ten, twenty, thirty. Finally she nodded, and they crept down the hall.

  Soon it was clear that they were going the wrong direction, as they found they had crept to a dead end—two doors that were chained shut. Was each room they passed filled with more of the reverend’s congregation? Did each room have a guard? Shelby checked her watch—ten minutes until four.

  Still they didn’t speak. They turned around, tiptoed back down the hall, past their room, and turned right down another hall. A door at the end opened to the outside, and they could see the parking garage rising up in front of them.

  She breathed a sigh of relief and shook out her hand from where Bianca had been clutching it.

  They jogged as quietly as they could across the pavement, made a left, and practically bumped into a night guard.

  “No one’s allowed out until daylight.”

  “Yes, but—”

  “You need to return to your room.”

  Shelby ran a hand over her stomach. “I’m having such terrible cramps, and I need…I need supplies I left in my car.”

  “The nursing station will open thirty minutes before breakfast.”

  “She can’t wait that long,” Bianca said.

  “She’s going to have to.”

  The guard pulled his gun. It was a semiautomatic like she had once practiced with at the ranch. Only this gun had an unusually long barrel—a silencer, Shelby realized with sickening dread. Who needed a silencer to protect people inside a building? Unless they were using it against the people in the building.

  “Like I said—you need to go back inside because you’re not getting past me.”

  Both Shelby and Bianca didn’t think so much as react, all of those self-defense classes they took together coming back in a flash. Bianca launched herself at the guard’s arm, the one that had pulled out the weapon, and she bit down on his wrist as if her life depended on it. The semiautomatic fell to the ground, and the guard cursed. Shelby scooped up his weapon the same moment he threw Bianca off him. He tossed her aside like a person would swipe at a pesky fly. With his left hand, the one that wasn’t bleeding, he reached for a backup weapon.

  Shelby didn’t have to think.

  She didn’t have to measure the pros and cons.

  She raised the gun in her hands and pulled the trigger, slamming the man back against the wall. She’d aimed for his chest, his center of mass like she’d been instructed, like Max had told her a hundred times when their target was a bale of hay. But the gun kicked, or maybe she overcompensated for the extra weight of the silencer. Maybe it was the adrenaline flooding through her bloodstream. Whatever the reason, the barrel rose, and the bullet impacted the guard in the center of his forehead. He was dead before he hit the wall.

  “Drop it! Drop it! Drop it!”

  “No.” Shelby’s voice was shaking, her arm trembling, and her knees about to buckle. But what they had to do…that remained crystal clear. “No. We might need it.”

  Bianca grabbed her arm, and they ran toward the parking garage.

  Max and Patrick and Bhatti were waiting at the entry, standing next to both of their vehicles.

  “What happened?” Max asked, his gaze on Shelby’s face.

  “No time. We need to go.” Bianca shoved Shelby toward him. “We need to go now.”

  And then Shelby was in the Dodge, unable to remember opening the door, getting in, or buckling the seat belt. Max punched the accelerator, careened around the corner and through the guards who had been looking toward the street, expecting trouble from that direction.

  He drove like a race car driver, like someone with demons chasing him, Patrick tight on his tail.

  Shelby looked down, surprised to see she was still clutching the gun. She turned in her seat and looked at Bhatti. Their eyes met, and she understood that he knew what she’d done, that she’d just killed someone.

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  Max pulled over once he could no
longer see the church in his rearview mirror and Bhatti had assured him there was no flatbed truck tailing them. He threw the Dodge into park, turned it off, hopped out of the car, and hurried around to Shelby’s side. When he opened her door, she was still holding the gun, still staring at it.

  “Shelby, honey, I’m going to take the gun. Just relax your hand.”

  Patrick and Bianca and Bhatti were crowded around them by the time he took the gun and thumbed the safety to on. He handed it to Bhatti, who checked it again and then placed it in the backseat of the Dodge.

  “We made it out of the building okay,” Bianca explained. “But then a guard tried to stop us. When we argued with him, he pulled his weapon.”

  “And you took it away from him?” Patrick asked, the question full of pride and admiration.

  “I bit him.” Bianca grimaced.

  Max turned and stared at her, noticed that blood stained her shirt.

  “I think I hit an artery.” She wiped the back of a hand across her mouth. “Hopefully I didn’t get some disease from the creep.”

  “Can he identify you?” Max asked.

  “He’s dead.” Shelby had been silent, her eyes jumping from one person to another, but now she focused on Max. “The gun fell to the ground, I grabbed it, he reached for another, and so I…I shot him.”

  “All right.” Max wanted to reach out and touch her face, pull her into his arms, assure her that she’d only done what had to be done. The lawyer in him wanted to explain her legal standing, that what she described was a classic case of self-defense, but the man in him longed to comfort her. He did neither. He had been crouched beside Shelby’s seat, but now he stood and looked back the direction they’d come. “I don’t think they’ll come looking for us, though from what we heard of the reverend, he sends his followers out all over the northern side of downtown.”

  “Max, I killed a man. Stood three feet in front of him and just…his face was…his head…”

  Instead of answering, Max pulled her up to her feet and into his arms.

  He kissed the top of her head and held her until he felt her take in a deep breath.

  He watched Bhatti and Patrick turn and survey the area.