The only dark cloud on his horizon was Eva and deciding what to do with her when the time came. That was something he could worry about in the days to come though, and, now he had two people to share the burden with.
Unable to ignore his full bladder any longer, he opened the door and got out. He clasped his hands together and stretched his arms into the air to work the kinks out of his back. He was stunned when he felt something pressed hard against the back of his head.
It was accompanied by a voice barely above a whisper that he caught in his good ear.
“Oh, you in trouble now boy…”
42
Jack recognized the accent was American and that it almost certainly belonged to someone his age or younger. He opened his mouth to tell his assailant not to shoot, when automatic gunfire shattered the silence of the night. Robert! His barrage was answered by the firework-like cracks of handguns being fired from the other side of the parking lot.
Jack instinctively dropped, the gun of his assailant firing where his head had been a split second before. Before he hit the ground, he swiveled and swung his still joined hands around, striking the side of his attacker’s right leg just above the knee. He was rewarded with a grunt as the gun wielder collapsed.
Jack was on him immediately. He grabbed the kid’s gun hand before he could turn it on him again and they wrestled for control as the gun fight that had been initiated by Robert continued.
Above Jack a side window of the FFD SUV exploded, showering glass on them. He barely noticed. The kid under him was wiry and fighting hard. Jack’s superior weight and strength began to tell, and he was able to slowly twist the barrel of the heavy pistol until it was under the kid’s chin. His finger closed over the trigger finger of the boy’s.
The kid’s eyes widened. Not only at his predicament. It was only then he realized the kid had probably thought he was sneaking up on a Chinese soldier. The surprise turned to defiance quickly, the look on the kid’s face almost daring him to pull the trigger.
There was a hiatus in the automatic gunfire.
“Stop firing, Robert!” Jack yelled.
“Jack!? We’re under attack!”
Another volley of pistol-shots whizzed overhead and then a voice Jack didn’t recognize called out.
“Jimmy! Where you at man?”
The kid under Jack twitched his head in that direction, and he knew right away it was Jimmy under him.
“Jimmy, call out you’re okay and to stop shooting,” Jack grated.
Jimmy looked like he might argue but was convinced when Jack pushed the gun a little deeper into the soft flesh under his chin.
“I won’t hurt you.”
Jimmy weighed up his options then nodded.
“Hector! You can stop shooting! They’re American.”
“Jimmy, is that you?!”
“Of course, it’s me!”
“You sure about this man? Why they trying to drill us if they’re American?”
Jimmy rolled his eyes.
“Because we ambushed them, you big dumbass! Quit shooting!”
Jack swallowed a nervous giggle he felt bubbling in response to the comical dialogue; he understood things were still balanced on a razor’s edge.
“Let go of the gun and we’ll stand up,” Jack said. “I’m not going to shoot you.”
“How do I know that man?”
“Really?”
The reality that he would have been dead already if the big white boy had wanted it cut through Jimmy’s adrenaline-hyped brain and he gave a short nod, before relaxing his grip and allowing Jack to take it.
“Okay, good. Come on.”
Jack got up and put out his hand. Jimmy ignored it and got up under his own steam. He teetered when he put weight on the leg Jack had struck and this time allowed the bigger boy to steady him when Jack put out his forearm.
Jack tucked the pistol into the back of his uniform pants.
“Okay, tell your guys to come out but with their guns down.”
“Hector! Donny! All of you come out! Don’t shoot or I’ll kick your asses!” called Jimmy, propping himself against the Chinese vehicle.
The front door to the Hummer opened and a blonde girl in a comically oversized Chinese army uniform climbed out.
“Hey, Jimmy,” she said, as if she’d known him for years, then looked up at Jack. “Um, we have a problem. Eva’s gone.”
43
As if he couldn’t quite believe it, Jack leaned over and looked through the open door. The seat was empty. An unscathed Robert looked over his shoulder at him from the front seat.
“She was there a few minutes ago, I swear.”
Jack stood up and slapped the roof of the Mengshi in frustration. He didn’t have too much time to think about it as Jimmy’s gang converged on them.
“You better get out,” Jack said to Robert. “And leave the gun on the seat.”
“Hi, I’m Jen,” the girl said to each and every one of Jimmy’s gang as they emerged from the dark.
Jack shook his head at her perpetual friendliness.
“I can’t believe no one got hit,” said Robert when they had assembled, and it was evident no one had been shot.
“That’s what happens when a bunch of kids have a shootout in the dark,” Jen said, sagely. This time Jack also detected an element of contempt to her tone.
“Did anyone see a Chinese girl get out of this truck?” Jack asked when all the introductions had been made. None of the ambushers had.
“Jen?”
“Sorry, I had my head between my knees when Robert started shooting everywhere.”
“Who is she?” Jimmy asked.
“A soldier we took prisoner back in Sacramento. We need to find her. Her hands were tied, but she’s made a run for it during all the excitement.”
Jimmy’s eyes lit up at the prospect of hunting for an enemy soldier.
“We can help. Let’s find this bitch.”
“She isn’t a bitch actually,” said Jen crankily. “She’s pretty nice when you get to know her.”
“I hardly think taking her to the bathroom is ‘getting to know her’,” said Robert. “She would cut our throats in a heartbeat.”
Jen opened her mouth to argue.
“He’s right Jen. She can’t be trusted. We have to find her before she raises the alarm.”
Within a few minutes they had raided the stationhouse for flashlights and began conducting a search for the missing prisoner. They scoured the parking lot, the streets surrounding the fire station and inside the stadium itself. An hour later they reconvened in the parking lot.
“No sign of her,” said Jack. “Any of you?”
Jimmy and his crew shook their heads. Jack nodded grimly.
“That means she’s on the run and will keep going until she can alert her people. We have to get moving. Jimmy, you and your people should probably think about finding another part of Fresno to make your home.”
“No way man, this is our territory. If those bitches come callin’ we’ll be givin’ them a true Sureños welcome.”
There was a chorus of agreement from his homeys and they bumped fists.
“What if they bring tanks and helicopters?” said the ever-practical Jen.
Jimmy shrugged, still looking tough.
“We’ll see what we see.”
“It’s like 2am in the morning,” said Robert, to Jen and Jack. “We should probably sleep before we drive again. After all we’ve survived so far, I’d prefer not to die in a car crash.”
Jack, who was tired and frustrated at having lost the prisoner, bit back a sarcastic response. He saw the sense to the suggestion.
“In the car?” asked Jen.
“No,” Jimmy answered before anyone else. “You come back to our place and sleep in on a mattress. We’ll even feed you breakfast. It’s only a block away.”
Jack was reluctant but saw from the looks on Robert and Jen’s faces he would have a fight on his hands if he refused the graciou
s offer of the kid he’d so nearly killed, and been killed by, just an hour before.
“Okay.”
As they walked out of the parking lot, none of them noticed the dark shape watching them from the rooftop of the firehouse.
✽✽✽
Lieutenant Eva Hao, of the People’s Liberation Army, watched the American brats the whole time they searched for her. It had been easy to slip away when the idiot in the front seat began firing his weapon. Once she was safely away from the vehicle, she had quickly rid herself of the tie around her wrists by using the edge of the low brick wall to wear at the nylon until it snapped.
Thank goodness the tall, dangerous one – the bastard who had killed her beloved – had decided to secure her hands in front. She would make him pay for his sloppiness.
When they vacated the parking lot, Eva stood and slipped over the edge of the single story roof top, dropping to the ground silently. Part of her army training had incorporated Wing Chun, a martial art that favored skill and economy of movement over size and strength. She had taken to it like a baby to mother’s milk and its aspect of stealth would serve her well tonight.
She padded silently after the Americans.
✽✽✽
“This is nice,” said Jen.
Her appraisal of the gang’s hideout was generous in Jack’s opinion. They were living in an old boxing gym and the building stank like old sweat and liniment cream. It was spacious though. From the door on the street they had gone up one flight of stairs, and through a door that opened into the massive room.
There were two boxing rings on each side of the long space. In an open area near the far wall were weights and exercise equipment. The floorspace down the center between the rings was covered with sleeping bags, air mattresses and an assortment of blankets and pillows.
A girl had been waiting for them when they arrived. Her name was Selma and after Jimmy had briefed her on what had gone down, she asked a bunch of questions.
“Oh well, she’s long gone now. Did you guys want something to eat or drink? We have plenty, as long as you like eating out of a can.”
“No thanks,” said Jack. “We ate before we bedded down in the truck for the night.”
“Okay, well you all look beat, did you want to pick a bed?”
Jack took a quick look through the windows at the street outside as the others settled in to sleep. The light of the waning moon was enough to see that the street was as empty as he supposed much of the city was. God only knew how far Eva had gotten already. They would definitely have to make a move and get out of Fresno first thing in the morning.
He laid down on the air mattress next to Robert and pulled the too-short blanket up to his chin. It was as comfortable a bed as he’d had since sleeping on the sofa the last night at his family home. Someone extinguished the candle that was the only source of light in the cavernous room. In only a few minutes, Jack fell into a deep, dreamless sleep.
✽✽✽
Eva had easily tracked the kids back to a dilapidated gray building a few blocks from the fire station. They were noisy and careless. Ten minutes after they entered the building, she sat down on the porch of the vacant store across the road and waited.
The candlelight in the second story window told her exactly where they were, and she waited patiently for a full hour after its light was extinguished before standing up and crossing the street. She bent over and pulled the short-bladed knife that had been secreted in her right boot the whole time, before taking them off along with her army issue shirt.
She folded the shirt neatly and placed it on top of the boots just inside the opening of an alley that ran down the side of the building. With the knife between her teeth, and wearing only her socks, pants and the black tank top that had been under her shirt, she followed the alley to the rusting fire escape.
To anyone looking into the alley by the pale light of the quarter moon, they would have barely seen a shadow as she climbed the staircase silently. Within a minute she had climbed through a small window and landed softly on the worn timber floor beside a weight bench.
Death in socks had arrived at Joe’s Gym and Fitness.
44
The first few died quickly. A scrawny boy first. Then a girl. The boy had been lying on his stomach, she simply clamped one hand over his mouth and punched the knife between his C1 and C2 vertebrae, then pushed his face into the pillow until he stopped breathing.
The girl who was sleeping a little away from the rest was messier. Again, she clamped her hand over the teenager’s mouth, but this time punctured the carotid artery. The girl thrashed violently for the full minute it took her to bleed out. Eva hugged her tight the whole time, minimizing the noise of her struggle.
Two down, seven to go. The next was another of the city kids who had attacked the vehicle. A boy again, this one bigger.
He was sleeping on his back, his mouth and lips making a strange puffing sound instead of a snore. She hovered the point of the knife above his right eye, and then violently hammered the base of the handle driving the blade deep into his brain, killing him instantly.
Three down.
She crept up to the fourth shape. This figure was smaller, and she recognized the blond hair of the girl Jen instantly. She paused over her. A full 20 seconds passed before she decided to leave her for the moment. She told herself that it was in case things went awry and she needed a bargaining chip, but things had gone so smoothly so far, she knew she was lying to herself. Was she getting soft?
She stepped over the girl and found the next shape was the kitchen boy, Robert. Yes! This would be sweet. She knelt soundlessly beside him. He was also on his back and she decided to kill him in the same efficient manner as the puffing boy.
Eva raised the knife and hovered the point over his left eye. She was about to hammer it home when a piercing scream rent the silence.
✽✽✽
Jen was having a dream about her grandmother. She was sitting at the table of her kitchen and Grandma was at the oven pulling out some freshly baked peanut cookies – her favorite.
There was something not quite right though.
They smell funny Grandma, she said.
Don’t be silly dear, said Grandma without turning around.
But they don’t...
Instead of that freshly baked cookies smell she knew so well, it was an acrid, metallic smell.
Fine then! Grandma huffed uncharacteristically and stalked to the kitchen sink, throwing in the tray of cookies. Jen felt relief, until the sunlight streaming in the window darkened, that is. It was like someone had drawn a blind over the sun.
Jen’s eyes snapped open.
The metallic smell of blood was strong and when she turned her head, she saw a shape bending over Robert.
She screamed.
✽✽✽
A sleep addled Jack scrambled out of his sheets but was barely to his feet just as a dark shape sprang at him, knocking him back onto the floor. Metal glinted in the moonlight from the dirty windows and he only just managed to raise his forearm and block the blade from slicing his throat. He grunted when it bit into his flesh. He reached for the knife hand of his attacker, but he grasped only air. The knife wielder eluded him and then firmly planted the short blade between his ribs. Jack gasped.
He’d been stabbed!
Jack closed his hand over the hand holding the knife, gripping it so it couldn’t be withdrawn and used again. In the faint light, he locked eyes with his assailant. It was Eva and her face shrieked fury.
✽✽✽
Eva was furious at herself for not killing the girl. Her sentimental mistake had seen the alarm raised. She heard the people around them shouting and scrambling for weapons. There was little time now; she stooped low over the boy Robert and looked quickly for her true target.
Jack.
She found him, a long shape scrambling from his sheets three feet away. She jumped clean over the stirring Robert, and hit Ju’s killer as hard as she could. He
managed to block the first strike of her knife, but her second caught him in the chest, just below his right breast.
A few seconds more to finish him, and then she would gladly face her maker.
✽✽✽
Jack and Eva wrestled for control of the knife embedded in his chest as the waking children screamed and tried to work out what was happening. Jack felt blood trickling down his body as they struggled. The piercing pain in his chest was literally breathtaking, and he realized his lung had been pierced.
Every time Eva tried to jerk the knife free, a new shot of agony traveled up and down his body and he felt his grip on consciousness slip. Both of their hands were slippery with his blood and it was only a matter of seconds before she won control of the knife and finished him.
An enormous bang accompanied by the brief flash of a gun muzzle. Eva’s head jerked violently to the right, and she was thrown off him to the floor where she lay unmoving. Jack heard a sob and looked up to find Jen, the heavy gun in her hand wobbling dangerously as she stared in horror at the woman she had just killed.
Jack’s world went dark.
45
Robert awoke to his cousin’s high-pitched screams. He reached immediately for the automatic weapon he’d left on the floor next to his mattress and rose to his knees.
“Jen! What is it!”
“Oh my God, someone’s attacking Jack! Help him!”
Before he could even process that, another yell rang out, followed by swearing from the other kids. He heard grunting and struggling from Jack’s bed. He turned his gun that way and as his eyes adjusted to the faint light, he saw the silhouette of a woman kneeling over Jack.
He raised his weapon, about to tell her to put her hands up when Jen brushed by him and reached out. The gunshot in the enclosed space made his ears ring and in the brief flash of the muzzle he saw Eva, for that’s the only person it could be, collapse onto her side. His gun-shy cousin hadn’t been reaching out, she’d been aiming a pistol.
Lone Wolf: A Post-Apocalyptic Survival Thriller (America Falls - Occupied Territory Book 1) Page 14