Finding Shelter

by Ryan Westfield

She didn't want to make any noise, but she let out a cry of pain.

  The paint can hit the floor with a clatter. Sadie couldn't see it, with her head facing the other way, but she heard the lid pop off. The sound reminded her of a soda can being opened.

  Sadie began feeling the paint. It was oozing around on the floor, the thick substance getting in her hair. It smelled horrible. She'd always hated the smell of paint, and it always seemed to give her a headache.

  The door to the room flew open.

  Sadie was already facing the door.

  A woman appeared. The same woman Sadie had seen earlier. Terry's wife. What was her name again? Olivia?

  Sadie scowled at Olivia. She was just as bad as Terry.

  Suddenly, Sadie's expression changed from a scowl to one of fear. She couldn't help it.

  She was afraid.

  The woman towered above Sadie. She looked terrifying. There was a horrible look on her face. A look of disgust and despair.

  What was she going to do?

  Had Terry already died? Would he die?

  "You'll be happy to know that my husband is on his last legs," she said. She spoke the words with disdain. She spoke the words with quiet, intense fury. "He's got minutes to live. Not hours."

  Sadie decided to tell the truth. "I'm sorry," she said.

  It was true. She hadn't wanted to shoot Terry. She'd rather have had the situation turn out completely differently. But what other options had she had? She'd needed to try to defend herself.

  "That's not going to do any good," said the woman, spitting on the floor, her eyes barely looking at Sadie, as if Sadie was some kind of disgusting specimen that was too horrible to actually look at.

  It was clear what was happening.

  Maybe this woman wouldn't have had kidnapped Sadie on her own. Maybe she had been a nice woman.

  But her husband had done the deed. And now, with her husband dying from a bullet to the stomach, she was going to blame everything on Sadie.

  Sadie was going to become the complete focal point for this woman's rage and despair.

  "I'm still trying to decide what to do with you," said the woman. "Terry told me all about where you're from. Apparently you told him quite a bit on the walk here. So we know all about you."

  "They'll give you whatever you want," said Sadie.

  "We'll see about that," said the woman. "Terry thinks you're my ticket now. My ticket to survival. He says that your people will give me whatever I need. And now that he's going to be gone, I'm going to need all the help I can get. Terry may be be a shithead, but he's kept us alive. I can say that for him. He may be a coward and a jerk, but we're still alive. And I can't say it'd be the same without him. I'd have been dead a long time ago."

  "They'll give you whatever you want," said Sadie, repeating herself. "But what’s more, they'll take care of you. They're good people. We've taken people in before. Especially when they're eager to work and they're good people."

  The woman raised her eyebrow skeptically.

  The paint was really soaking into Sadie's hair. The smell was disgusting. Having that chemical smell so up close and personal made her want to vomit.

  "They'll take you in," said Sadie. "If you bring them to me, they'll be so appreciative. My mom must be freaking out about where I am..."

  "I'm not buying it," said the woman. "You may think I'm a fool, but I'm not. Even though I stayed with Terry... look where that got me. Alive, yeah, but stuck. Hiding all the time. It was hard for Terry to talk, but he managed to tell me everything you told him about your mom. She sounds like a fierce woman. Vengeful. Powerful. Strong."

  "She is," said Sadie. "But she's also kind. And forgiving."

  "Bullshit. I don't believe that for a second."

  Sadie was shocked by the tone of the woman's voice. It sounded harsh. Very harsh.

  "What are you going to do with me, then?" said Sadie.

  "I haven't decided yet. Might be easier to get rid of the evidence. Terry's been wrong plenty of times before."

  Get rid of the evidence?

  Sadie knew what that meant.

  "You can't kill me," she said. "I know you have a daughter my age. How would you feel if this happened to her?"

  "That's what I'm trying to stop from happening."

  "My mom would never do anything like that..."

  "That's what you think now. But you're not an adult. When you're an adult, you'll understand. Sometimes you have to do terrible things. Even when you don't want to.”

  The woman was turning away from Sadie, and before her face fully turned, Sadie saw tears running slowly down her cheek. The tears caught the daylight in a strange way, seeming to sparkle.

  Then the woman marched out, her footsteps heavy and hard. The door slammed behind her, and Sadie was left alone, with her head and jaw hurting, with her limbs hurting, with the horrible paint smell overwhelming her completely.

  17

  Georgia

  There wasn't time to explain it. Good thing John knew her well enough to know that there was a method to her madness. He knew that if she told him they were doing it one way, there was a very good reason for it.

  Now, Georgia herself didn't know exactly what that reason was.

  In fact, Georgia knew well enough, rationally, that shooting dead one of the men wouldn't do them any favors.

  Better to just run for it before shooting. Even if she and John both got off good shots, there were still six men standing. And probably more in the truck.

  She was going off a hunch. A gut feeling. Instinct that had come from months of this kind of stuff. Her brain had become good at analyzing and dealing with these kinds of situations, the way that a concert cellist might slowly develop an innate sense for when to play loud and when to play softly.

  Her mind was evolving. Becoming the mind of a warrior. Or at least someone who survived. Because, sometimes, staying to fight wasn't going to lead to survival.

  Georgia knew she was right. She knew her gut feeling was right. And maybe it was good that John would believe her right away, without explanation, because if she'd explained it, maybe he wouldn't have wanted to risk his life based on a hunch.

  It was a lot to ask of him.

  But they were always asking a lot from one another.

  He was already risking his life, trying to find Georgia's daughter.

  Georgia readied her rifle. The scope was against her eye, pressed against her face. It felt good. Familiar. She knew what she was doing.

  Her finger was on the trigger.

  The man's head was in her scope.

  Why were the men acting the way they were? It was strange behavior. Hadn't they spotted them?

  Georgia couldn't worry about that now. She had to go with her gut on this one. There was too much information to process rationally.

  Max would have had one approach. And Georgia had hers.

  Neither was necessarily right.

  The time was now.

  Georgia squeezed the trigger.

  The rifle kicked.

  The man's head exploded inwards. His body sunk to the ground, falling rapidly.

  Georgia's ears rang. She put the scope aside. Somehow, she knew it wasn't going to work for a second one. She knew it intuitively, just getting a sense of the men and who they were and how they moved.

  Georgia knew that they'd be fast in responding.

  She was already on her feet, the gun in one hand. Ready to run.

  John was already off. Running. Several paces ahead of her.

  Good. Just the way she wanted it.

  A bullet slammed into a thin branch near her, the branch exploding on impact, shattering. A gun discharged, the sound echoing out.

  Georgia was running. Sprinting. Following John through the trees.

  She didn't turn around. She didn't listen for footsteps. She could barely hear anyway, over the roar in her ears.

  John ran fast. Faster than she'd seen him run in a long, long time.

  She manag
ed to keep up with him.

  Her breathing was heavy and ragged. She was sweating intensely. She felt the burn in her legs. She felt the pain in her knees. She felt the pain on the bottoms of her feet as her boots slammed into the earth.

  She kept her arms pumping at her sides as best she could. The rifle slammed into her side, and into the back of her leg. Painful. Not too bad though. Nothing she couldn't deal with.

  Finally, she couldn't take it anymore. She had to turn around. And she did.

  There was no one there. She saw no one.

  It made sense. If she'd been able to see them, she'd probably already be dead. That didn't make much sense. But in a way, it did. If they'd followed her closely, they'd have been in range to kill her. It wouldn't have been hard.

  For some reason, the men had perhaps retreated. Or decided not to pursue. Maybe they were carrying something valuable in that truck. Maybe they were spooked, seeing one of their men die instantly like that.

  Who knew? It didn't matter.

  John hadn't turned around. He didn't know the deal. He was still running.

  That was good. They shouldn't count their eggs before they hatched. They didn't want any false victories. Better to get a good distance away before resting.

  Georgia saw it before she heard it.

  John's head suddenly bobbed up and then down.

  He let out a yelp. A noise of fear. A guttural sort of noise. An unintentional sort of noise.

  He'd lost his balance or was in the process of losing his balance.

  In another situation, it would have been almost funny. It looked as if he had suddenly decided to pull off a dance maneuver, as if he'd decided to bob his head like a chicken.

  It looked like a stunt. Like a gag.

  But it wasn't.

  His boot must have gotten caught on something. Or his leg must have given out. Or he'd simply lost his balance for no reason at all.

  Mere seconds later, he was flying through the air forward, as if he were taking an intentional dive into the dirt.

  Georgia missed the next part. It all happened too fast. A tumble of limbs. A collision with the ground.

  The next thing Georgia knew, John was on the ground. Face down.

  He was grunting in pain.

  Georgia stopped suddenly, threw her hands out to stabilize herself, so as not to run over John.

  She looked down at him. Struggling to take in what she saw.

  His right leg was clearly broken. The femur had snapped in two. The break allowed for an odd, impossible angle.

  It shouldn't have looked like that.

  Shit.

  It was a bad break. A really bad one.

  Georgia glanced behind her, turning her head. There was no one there. But that didn't mean they weren't coming.

  Georgia ducked down, her hand moving carefully over John's leg.

  The bone had broken through the skin.

  It looked horrible.

  Georgia had seen pictures before, but she'd never seen it in person. It looked worse than she could have imagined.

  Blood and bone. Broken skin. Not a pretty sight.

  John was, admirably, trying to keep his noises of intense pain to a minimum.

  "Is it bad?" he managed to say, his voice barely audible over grunts of pain.

  "It's bad, John."

  "They're going to be coming. Leave me."

  "You know I'm not doing that."

  "You've got to. Think of Sadie. You're not going to find her if you're dead."

  "Who says I'm going to be dead?"

  "If you stay there with me, you're going to be," said John. "I don't want my last act to be to get you killed along with myself. This is my fault. My mistake. I'll take the consequences."

  "What would Cynthia think of that? If I get back to camp and you're not there. I'll tell her that I left you to rot on the ground with a broken leg? I'll tell her that I didn't lift a finger to help you. And you think she'll be OK with all that?"

  "We've talked about it. She'll understand."

  "You've talked about it? I don't know what she told you, but let me tell you, there's no way she's going to be OK if you don't come back."

  "She knows the risks of this lifestyle . We have an understanding."

  "You may think you do. You may think you've accepted the consequences of being in a relationship. You may think that you're ready to lose her, and that she's prepared to lose you, but that's not the case. It's really not. So I'm not leaving you here. It doesn't matter what you say, so save your breath. We're getting out of here together, or we're not getting out of here at all."

  "You... don't..." John spoke haltingly, grunting through the pain.

  "Save your energy," said Georgia. "I'm going to get us out of here."

  John just grunted. Georgia didn't know if he'd decided to listen to her and shut up, or if the pain had just gotten too great for him to talk.

  Georgia's hands were on her rifle. She was looking around, putting her eye to the scope, taking it away. Trying to scout the whole area.

  If the men were coming, they'd come soon.

  If they came, the best-case scenario was that it was five men against one woman.

  Georgia suddenly spotted John's rifle on the ground.

  Crouching, she made her way over to it. Grabbed it from where it had fallen.

  "Here," she whispered, stretching out her hand, holding the rifle so that John could grab it.

  She didn't know if he'd be able to shoot.

  He probably didn't either.

  No point in talking about it much.

  He'd shoot if he could.

  And if he couldn't, then he wouldn't.

  It seemed as if the only thing Georgia could hear was her heartbeat.

  She stared into the distance, waiting for the men. Watching for them. Everything seemed to turn blurry as her thoughts turned towards her daughter.

  Where was Sadie now? Would she ever find her?

  The chances were slim that Sadie was alive. And even slimmer that Georgia would ever get to her, whether she was dead or alive.

  18

  Wilson

  Wilson was following Max along a back road. They were walking in the middle of it.

  Wilson kept turning around. He was waiting for the moment when he'd see them all coming for them. He was waiting for the moment when he'd know that he'd soon be dead.

  Of course, Wilson doubted they'd be killed on the spot. More likely, Grant would want to make an example out of them. Especially Wilson.

  What had Wilson been thinking?

  If he'd been smart, he would have let Max, the prisoner, die. He would have let Grant do what he'd wanted. Then Wilson could have snuck off into the night any time he'd wanted. He could have taken enough with him to carve out a comfortable little niche for himself somewhere far away, somewhere where no one would bother him.

  But he hadn't. He hadn't done that.

  He'd let his anger get the best of him. He'd let himself lose control.

  And yet, despite losing control, he hadn't killed Grant.

  Why?

  It was as if Wilson had been unable to break completely free. Despite hearing what Grant had done, despite hearing how power-hungry and insane Grant had become, or had always been, Wilson had been unable to strike the final blow.

  Not only that, but he'd prevented Max from doing so too.

  He should have pulled the trigger himself.

  He should have plunged a knife into Grant's heart.

  At least that way, when Wilson drew his last breaths, he'd know that he'd done some good in the world. He'd known that the psychopath he'd served for too long was dead, hopefully rotting away in a shallow grave, his corpse indistinguishable from the millions of other corpses that littered the country.

  "Max," called out Wilson, picking up his pace. It seemed as if Max was getting farther away from Wilson. He was moving an incredible pace. Limping along rapidly.

  Max didn't answer. And he didn't turn around.r />
  Wilson had given him one of his handguns, keeping the other for himself.

  Wilson had the gun in his hand now.

  The weight of it didn't feel comforting. It didn't reassure him.

  The gun was a reminder of what was going to come. A fight. Violence. Death.

  Wilson himself had devices and procedures for situations like this. He knew exactly what to expect.

  He'd tried to tell it all to Max. Explain everything to him. But Max hadn't been interested. He'd just been interested in going. Getting far away.

  But Wilson knew that getting far away didn't matter.

  No matter how far they got, the militia men would always be able to catch up to them. After all, they had fleets of working vehicles. Trucks. Cars. Motorcycles. Dirt bikes.

  All working. All gassed up. All ready to hunt Wilson and Max down.

  The alarms had been sounded early. Everyone had been on alert. Those on guard duty had responded, but hadn't left their posts, in case an attack was imminent. Those on reserve duty had responded, some of them filling out defensive positions, and others taking up the hunt early.

  Max and Wilson had managed to evade the groups of the first responders.

  And, so far, they'd been able to keep ahead of Unit B.

  Unit B was a crack unit. A special unit. A unit of men who rarely had equals.

  Unit B was scary enough. Terrifying, really. Wilson had seen the reports of what they'd done. They had no mercy. They were barely men. More like caged animals. In a fight, at least.

  Unit B wouldn't be all. Grant would respond personally. With his own group. His secret group. The group that did the worst things. The unspeakable things.

  Wilson shuddered. A chill ran down his spine. It wasn't a good feeling, being on Grant's bad side.

  Why hadn't he killed him when he'd had the chance? Because he was weak. Horribly weak.

  Wilson was suddenly overcome with shame. Horrible shame and self-loathing.

  He couldn't do this. Who did he think he was? He was the man behind the desk. He didn't need this, dying out there, exhausted, dehydrated, starving, after days of being hunted like some animal.

  Wilson couldn't do it. The emotions were overpowering. Simply too much.