by Sam Sisavath
“Thank you,” she said.
He nodded. “You’re welcome. So, should we—”
The loud crack! of a rifle cut him off, just before a bullet slammed into the tree two inches from Nate’s head and showered him in bark.
Gaby spun, lifting her rifle, and even before she saw what she was aiming at, squeezed the trigger again and again and again.
Two men in hazmat suits were simultaneously stepping out of a bush and diving in separate directions. They fired back wildly as they ran for cover, bullets splintering tree branches over her head.
Nate grabbed her wrist, pulling her behind the big oak tree as bullets smashed into it and peppered her face and clothes with tiny pieces of bark. As soon as she made it to the other side, Nate let go of her and took off. She followed without hesitation.
Bullets pecked the ground around her, throwing dirt and grass into the air.
Nate wasn’t running straight, she realized; he was starting to curve right—taking them back south, then southwest.
He’s leading us back to the parking lot. Back to the truck.
Away from Will…
They ran nonstop for almost five minutes, and Gaby thanked God she was in the best physical shape of her life, thanks to training with Will and Danny on the island. It had been almost three minutes since she last heard gunfire, but Nate didn’t seem anxious to stop, so she didn’t, either.
After awhile, though, she started to gasp for breath and finally risked a glance over her shoulder, seeing no one behind them.
How long had they been running? Five minutes had felt more like five hours.
“Nate,” she said. “I think we’ve lost them. Slow down.”
Nate slid to a stop behind the trunk of another giant oak tree, taking up position with his carbine. Gaby did the same on the other side, both of their weapons pointing back in the direction they had come. She was out of breath, gasping for air. Nate was breathing just as loudly on the other side.
“See anything?” he said softly, keeping his voice down.
“No,” she said, matching his pitch. “Are you okay?”
“I have pieces of trees in my hair, and I’m pretty sure some got into my eyeballs.”
“I don’t think that’s possible.”
“No?”
“No.”
“Never mind, then. I’m probably fine.”
“Probably?”
“Arm’s throbbing like a sonofabitch, though.”
“Are you bleeding again?”
“No. It just hurts.”
“Yeah, well, you were shot. It should be hurting.”
“Makes sense, then.”
They both shut up when a man in a hazmat suit emerged out of the woods in front of them, moving in an unhurried trot as if he were jogging in a park. He was out of breath, and he stopped dead in his tracks the instant he saw them looking back at him. For a second—just a split second—he stared, brown eyes widening in an “Oh, shit” moment.
She flashed back to Ray, the young collaborator Will had shot earlier. This man wasn’t a teenager. He was in his thirties and old enough to know better. Like Ray, the man had his name (“David”) scribbled in painfully perfect letters on an envelope label over his left breast.
David started to lift his rifle, and she and Nate fired at the same time. The man slumped to the ground.
“Go!” Nate shouted.
Gaby took off running through the woods again, legs pumping, rifle swinging back and forth in front of her. She was only vaguely aware that she was purposefully keeping to the same southwest angle Nate had set for them earlier.
Toward the parking lot…farther away from Will…
She looked back at Nate, running after her, face constricted in pain, blood dripping from his left arm through her lousy-looking tourniquet. He tried to grin back at her, but he barely had the strength to make it convincing.
*
They ran for another fifteen minutes, stopping to rest every five, before continuing again, when Gaby looked back and saw Nate’s face. It was flushed and covered in sweat; he looked as if he was straining badly with every step.
She slowed down before coming to a complete stop next to another oak tree. She imagined what a nightmare it would be to get lost in here. Every tree looked like the 5,000 other trees around it. Turning left or right, south or north gave her no directional markers, because one side of the woods looked the same as the other three. There was only the sun to lead her southwest.
She put her hand on the tree trunk, the other holding the M4 against the ground like a crutch. Nate was gasping for breath next to her, his blinking eyes scanning the area.
“Do we keep going to the parking lot?” he asked between desperate, hard-fought gasps.
“I’m not sure.”
“It’s your call.”
She thought about it for a moment, even looking back west. Not that she could see Will, or the camp. But he was back there, somewhere…
“We should go,” she said finally.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
“Gaby…”
She picked up her rifle and began walking. “Come on, we’ll retreat back to the game warden’s office and wait for Will there, just like we planned.”
Keep moving. Just keep moving…
*
They reached the parking lot thirty-nine minutes later, walking at a brisk pace. Nate had used the time to get stronger, helped greatly by not having to overexert himself. She didn’t know how they had managed to lose their pursuers, but they hadn’t seen or heard anyone since they had shot the man named David.
They crouched near the edge of the parking lot, where the grass met the asphalt, and peered out. She didn’t believe for a second that the bad guys wouldn’t have the place covered. It would have been the first place they looked. Unless these people were total idiots—and they had done nothing to show her that they were—the parking lot would be the perfect place for an ambush.
So where are they?
She couldn’t see anything that wasn’t here when they first arrived. They had emerged out of the woods at about the same spot where they’d entered, and she had a decent view of the gray Saleen sports truck about forty yards away. On the other side would be Will’s Triumph, though Gaby couldn’t see it from her crouched position.
“See anything?” she whispered.
Nate shook his head. It wasn’t an enthusiastic “No.” It was more of a cautious, “No, but that’s what worries me.”
“You’re thinking it too, right?” she asked.
He nodded. “They should have figured out by now where we parked. It’s a no-brainer.”
“So where are they?”
“Exactly. Where are they?”
She looked out at the parking lot again, trying to see it from a different perspective.
After about a minute, she gave up.
“What do we do?” she whispered.
Nate thought about it, then said, “We might have to risk it. It’s either that or take our chances back there.”
And by “back there” he meant the woods, where every tree looked the same, and every patch of ground looked like the last patch. It was either that, or risk running for the truck and hoping no one was waiting behind one of the other thirty or so vehicles scattered around the parking lot. Neither option was very appealing to her.
Like we have a whole lot of choices…
She looked over at Nate again, saw him watching her back intently. “What’s the plan?” he asked.
“You’re asking me?”
“You seem to know what you’re doing.”
She looked back at the parking lot. “What choice do we have? We can’t run around in here forever. Sooner or later, it’s going to get dark.”
“Yeah.”
“We don’t have any other, better choice. Right?”
“I don’t see any.”
She sighed. She hated this. It was stupid, reckless…and they had no choi
ce.
Will would have figured out another way.
Too bad he’s not here…
“On five, then?” Nate said.
“How about three?”
“Just three?”
“I don’t like to count all the way to five,” Gaby said. “I get anxious around two.”
“Okay, on the count of three.”
“Together, right?”
“Together, yeah.”
“No bullshit.” She fixed him with a hard look. “We step out together on three and make a run for the truck.”
“Agreed. Ready?”
“Okay.”
“One, two…three.”
Nate moved first, jumping out into the open.
She sighed, and got up to follow him.
Nate hadn’t gone more than a few feet when the gunshot exploded across the parking lot, so loud that it startled and made her jump a little. The bullet went through Nate’s left shoulder, exited his back, and kept going, clipping the tree branch over her head with a loud crack.
He fell backward and Gaby moved on instinct, dropping her rifle and lunging out into the open. She managed to slide under him, catching Nate as he fell. He was heavy and he pushed her down with him, her knees scraping against the hard asphalt through her pants.
Nate was already bleeding badly, warm blood pumping out of him and spilling over her clothes. Gaby shoved her hand over the wound, before her brain caught up with her and told her he was bleeding on both sides of his body because the bullet had gone right through him. She reached down with her other hand, digging underneath his heavy body, and cupped the other side of the bullet hole, too.
Her mind spun as panic fought for control over her senses.
Her pack! She had the first aid kit in her pack!
Gaby pulled her hands away from his wounds and ripped the pack free, unzipped it, and pulled out the roll of gauze, pressing it against the hole in his back to stifle the bleeding on that side. Almost instantly, blood soaked through the cotton material, making it heavy. She kept it pressed against him anyway, using her other hand to wrap it around his body over his clothes. She was covered in blood, and she realized she was doing a terrible job of stopping his bleeding, but she couldn’t think of anything else to do.
Nate’s eyes shifted from the sky to her. His lips quivered and he seemed to be out of breath, fighting to get out every word. “Gaby…are you…crazy…run…”
She shook her head.
“Gaby…stupid…go…”
He was right. She knew it was stupid, and every part of her brain screamed at her to get up and run. Or at least reach for her weapons.
She did neither.
She had already abandoned Will, left him out there on his own. How long could he last by himself? Soon, he could be another casualty for her to add to her growing list. Right alongside her parents. Her friends. Poor Matt. Even Josh.
And she was supposed to let Nate just lie here and die, too?
No!
She wrapped up his shoulder again and again until she had run out of gauze. He grunted against her, his face a mask of pain. Her hands were slick with blood, but she didn’t care. She wiped them on her pants and didn’t give them another thought.
The sound of heavy boots rushing in her direction momentarily distracted her attention from Nate’s face. Men were coming out of the woods around them, some appearing from behind parked vehicles. They were moving cautiously toward her, probably wondering what the hell she was doing with Nate. She wondered if she looked like a crazy woman in their eyes. A crazy woman covered in blood.
She saw flashes of hazmat suits. Gas masks. Assault rifles. White label strips with names written in marker. One of the men had a large hunting rifle with a big scope on top.
She thought about running. Dragging Nate back into the woods.
Too late. Too late for that now.
She looked back down at Nate instead. His face was so pale, and he felt simultaneously heavy and lifeless in her lap. At least he had stopped bleeding, though it was hard to tell because they were both covered in blood.
The barrel of a rifle poked her in the shoulder. It didn’t hurt, but it was annoying, forcing her to look up into an old face, gas mask perched on top of his forehead. The man had an AR-15 aimed at her face and was saying something, though she couldn’t make out what. She didn’t know why, but it was difficult to hear anything at the moment. The man’s name tag, written in cursive handwriting, read, “Barton.”
Barton seemed to finally give up communicating with her. He reached down and pulled the Glock from her holster, then scooped up her M4 and stepped back.
Another man in a hazmat suit did the same to the Beretta in Nate’s holster, then picked up his M4. Nate stirred, but didn’t fight.
The man with the hunting rifle (“Wilson” was written in careful lettering across his left breast) moved closer and casually aimed his weapon at her from point-blank range, eyes calmly watching her from behind the clear lenses of his gas mask. He was the only one still wearing his gas mask, she saw; the others had theirs hanging off their hips.
She stared back at Wilson. If she was going to die, she would look into the eyes of her killer. At least she could do that much.
Wilson matched her gaze, and his finger tightened around the trigger—
“Stop!” a voice shouted. “I said stop, goddammit!”
Wilson lowered his rifle reluctantly and looked back. “Orders were to shoot on sight,” he said, his voice muffled by the gas mask.
“They weren’t my orders,” the voice said. It sounded equally distorted.
“I didn’t know you were in charge now.”
“You don’t know a lot of things. That’s the point.”
The men gathered around her and Nate began to part, and a new figure in a hazmat suit and gas mask appeared. The others reacted strangely to his arrival—as if they didn’t care for him, but felt the need to obey him anyway.
The newcomer was the only one without a name tag over his hazmat suit, which made her think he didn’t really belong here. Maybe he was just passing through, or maybe he was part of another group, like Kellerson and Harris and the men who had attacked Mercy Hospital. She didn’t remember a single one of them wearing labels, either.
He looked down at her and Nate, and by the way his eyebrows raised, he seemed to be focusing on the way she held Nate’s limp body in her lap.
“Who is he?” the man asked. “Why’s he so important to you?”
That voice!
Even muffled by the gas mask’s breathing apparatus, there was something familiar about the voice now that the man was closer. She couldn’t quite place it, though. It was a maddening feeling, especially because she thought the voice belonged to someone who was, at one point, very important in her life.
But that couldn’t be, could it? That man was…
“They killed Ray,” Wilson said. “And David, too.”
The newcomer ignored Wilson, and his eyes remained fixed on hers. “What are you doing here?” he asked. “You’re not supposed to be here.”
That voice! I know that voice!
When she didn’t answer him, the man pulled off his gas mask.
Gaby stared into brown eyes she hadn’t seen in months, belonging to a man she thought she would never see again.
But it was impossible.
The man (the boy) those soft, gentle brown eyes belonged to was dead. He had drowned in a lake. She knew this because Will had told her so himself. He had seen it happen. Blaine and Maddie had seen it happen, too.
That was over three months ago.
You’re supposed to be dead!
“Answer me, Gaby,” Josh said. “Who is this guy? Why is he so important to you?”
CHAPTER 24
WILL
Getting into the camp was easy once he put on the hazmat suit and gas mask. They belonged to a man named Givens, according to the label taped over the suit, which was a good fit if a bit loose around the mid
section where Givens had stretched it out. Clasping on the gun belt fixed that.
The camp was much more encompassing when viewed at ground level. He was surprised by the breadth of it, along with the human congestion, and had to actually stop and take it all in. It was, in many ways, a self-contained city built from the ground up, even though there was a temporary vibe to it.
“How many people do you think are down there?” Gaby had asked.
“A thousand?” Nate had answered.
He was close. If there weren’t a thousand people down here, mingling around the campfires and the hundreds of tents of every shape, size, and color, it was pretty damn close.
Now that he was seeing it from up close, the hurricane fencing around the camp looked haphazardly installed. He got the impression it was a minor inconvenience, a fait accompli with the people it was supposed to be holding in. Their acceptance of the situation was what kept them here, not a fence that looked as if it could be toppled by a five-year-old leaning against it. Certainly, the thirty or so collaborators he had spotted around the place weren’t enough to keep this many people in line.
Will entered the camp through one of the gates interspersed every fifty meters or so. The gates had latches and coiled steel cables with padlocks, though none were being put to use. It was just another sign that this was less an internment camp as he had surmised from Sandwhite Point, and more of a voluntary way station of sorts.
As he walked through, the people didn’t seem surprised or scared of him. Some nodded and moved on, and others—mostly children—looked on with what Will thought was admiration. That was disturbing, but he had to remember that the hazmat suits were essentially uniforms, and children, regardless of the situation, were naturally inclined to be wowed by a spiffy uniform—even if it happened to be something as aesthetically unpleasing to the eye as a Level B hazmat suit. Of course, in the eyes of a child, a chemical suit might have looked pretty impressive.
Directly ahead of him and impossible to miss was the blue tent. It reached so much higher into the air than the others that it almost looked like a mountain. Will walked toward it, maneuvering around the tents, campfires, and people in his path. He walked as if he belonged, unhurried, meeting every eye that bothered to catch his.