by Nathan Jones
She wasn't sure she could even pull the trigger, and her arm was trembling so much she'd probably miss even from a few feet away. And that was only if the dog didn't suddenly leap and knock her to the ground before she even had time to react.
Thankfully the animal stayed away, making a low dangerous noise in its throat. Deb kept screaming at it and slowly backed along the ditch in the other direction, struggling to keep her hold on the limp little burden she held.
More bodies had joined the dogs in crashing through the hedge, soldiers in uniforms and full body armor. They were shouting orders to the animals in their unfamiliar language, and gathering up the people in her group who the dogs had already subdued or taken down.
Maybe it was luck, or some random fluke, but she made it ten feet in the confusion without being spotted. Then she heard a crashing from the hedge directly in front of her, along with what was obviously cursing even in another language. Another soldier was fighting through clinging branches to get at her.
Deb turned and shoved the boy away, catching him by the shoulders and leaning close to his pale, frightened face. “Run!” she hissed. The boy stared at her blankly, clutching his hurt arm close to his chest. “Run, and don't hide! The dogs will find you if you hide, so run and keep running until they stop chasing you!”
He didn't seem to understand, at least until she shook him and then shoved him away. The boy stumbled, made a heart-wrenching keening sound, then turned and bolted into the darkness.
Almost at the same time the soldier broke through the branches, shining a light directly into Deb's eyes. From the way he held it she had a feeling it was attached to his rifle. She grit her teeth, thinking of the boy fleeing behind her, and raised her pistol. And just like she'd prepared to do for weeks now she pulled the trigger over and over. She wasn't even aware she was still screaming until the sound of the shots drowned out her voice.
The blockhead staggered and the blinding light swung away as a hit threw off his aim. She fired half a dozen times more, barely aware that for the last few the only noise that came from the gun was a hollow click.
In that silence the soldier, apparently unharmed, darted forward. She saw the light on his gun swing around wildly, and a moment later stars burst behind her eyes and pain exploded across her face.
She went down hard, mind blanking for a moment. The only thing she could think was that now she was dead. She'd either missed or her bullets hadn't been able to get through his flak jacket, or maybe they had but hadn't done enough to stop him. At any moment she expected to feel the cold jab of the rifle's muzzle against her face, then the end.
The seconds dragged by, each one an eternity, until she finally recovered her wits enough to open her eyes. She saw the soldier standing over her, gun pointed down at her chest, but he didn't fire. And he didn't fire.
She was alive. He hadn't killed her.
The man saw her open her eyes and screamed an order, taking one hand from his gun to motion wildly. He kept repeating the gesture, growing more and more angry and impatient, until Deb's dazed brain finally processed the unspoken command and she painfully pulled herself to her knees. Immediately the man moved around behind her and roughly grabbed her arms, slapping handcuffs around her wrists.
Then he hauled her to her feet as easily as if she weighed nothing, which unfortunately these days wasn't all that far from the truth, and began shoving her towards the hole he'd torn through the hedge to reach her. Deb stumbled forward with her path lit by his wildly waving light, awkward without her hands to balance her or prevent her from running into branches.
One poked her face less than an inch from her eye and made her stop and duck away with a yelp. The soldier behind her cursed impatiently and slammed his rifle into the small of her back, knocking her forward through the hedge on her knees so she tore through a dozen branches that all scraped her skin and caught at her clothes.
Deb allowed herself to be pulled back to her feet and pushed forward again, trying to focus through her pain and misery. Blood trickled down from a cut on her cheek where the man had hit her with his gun, dripping off her chin onto her filthy clothes, and her face throbbed as it began to swell. Her back throbbed with a dull pain of its own, and her skin had fiery lines of pain from the branches that had scratched her. But beyond all those distractions was the confused reality of the situation.
He was taking her prisoner. Only the blockheads didn't take prisoners. That was one of the few things all the conflicting reports agreed on, that the invaders shot any Americans they found on sight. Deb's panicked mind tried to think of any reason why she hadn't met the same fate, and all the answers were too unpleasant to contemplate.
The soldier marched her towards the back of a truck, and to her relief Deb saw that the rest of her group had also been taken prisoner, including the men. So maybe what the blockheads had in mind for her wasn't what she'd feared.
After all, they'd started out the invasion taking everyone prisoner, relocating them to massive internment camps but by all reports treating them fairly. Maybe they'd finally gotten over their rage at the Retaliation and had stopped killing people on sight. They had to have some human decency left, didn't they?
It sure didn't seem like it. The soldiers who weren't occupied handling prisoners seemed to be amusing themselves by beating and taunting Derrick, the oldest man in her group, while he cowered on the ground and begged for mercy.
The only other mother in the group cried in protest as her seven year old daughter was torn from her grip and prodded away from the huddle of prisoners. The soldiers shouted at the confused girl and waved their hands in a shooing motion, until she finally seemed to realize what they wanted. She turned and bolted into the night, disappearing into the darkness beyond the lights.
A few others were pushed out of the group, people in their thirties or older and a boy in his early teens. Then the soldiers began herding Deb and everyone who remained towards the back of the nearest truck, which she saw was packed with even more filthy and frightened prisoners.
She tried to catch one last glimpse of the rest of her group as the blockheads made her scramble up into the crowded truck with the others, but all she saw was soldiers and snarling dogs. Everyone who came up into the truck was about her age, less than half of the group she'd been with. She didn't want to think about what would happen to the others.
Then again, she didn't want to think about what would happen to her.
The press of unwashed bodies was so tight that no one could sit, and the stink of it made her stomach heave. It was like the worst mosh pit ever. When the truck lurched into motion a few minutes later the packed mass of people barely shifted.
Deb slumped against the prisoners around her, who were all slumping as well. Not quite sitting or crouching, but all leaning against one another to take the weight off their legs. It wasn't very comfortable and she had trouble breathing, but there was literally no other choice.
To her surprise another emotion had joined her grief and despair. Relief. She was caught, and the enemy might have a terrible fate in store for her, but at least she didn't have to run anymore. Didn't have to hide, cower, spend sleepless days and nights evading pursuit. Events were out of her hands for the moment.
She could finally rest, at least until she found an opportunity to do something about her situation.
End of Book Four
The story continues in Determination,
Fifth and final book of the Best Laid Plans series.