“How?”
“Later, the shooting ports! I left them open.”
Ray led the way to the rifle pit. Another explosion rocked the building. They fitted the blocks to the holes and pinned them.
“He’s on the roof, has to be.”
“It’s one place we can’t shoot,” Karla said.
* * *
Karla dropped into the tunnel, a plywood shaft roughly two feet by two feet. She had meant it to be hard to get through. Slow, a trap for anyone attempting entry. She slithered in the dark, pushing two rifles and a small pack. She hit the end wall, and pushed up on the trapdoor. It was heavy. Dirt fell on her face as she struggled to prop it open. An alarm triggered in the house, but she’d warned Ray.
The explosions stopped. She regretted that. It meant the man would move off the roof and be harder to find. She climbed out, making quick work of rehiding the door. She crept to a stand of aspens, then moved cautiously toward the far ridge. She stopped, cupped her radio and whispered, “Help me.”
“One. Outer door.”
Another explosion. Smoke rose from the opposite side of the house. The man had blown the door. That didn’t get him into the house, but a couple more grenades would. And it denied Ray access to the gun ports.
“Yours.” She had no plan to defend the door. It would handle small arms. If it was breached, she had the tunnel. Ray was in trouble.
Karla climbed a tree. Up thirty feet, she rested the rifle on a limb and scanned the opposite ridge. The men had stopped shooting when the grenade attack began. They may have moved on as well. Her surprise wasn’t working out. Then it did.
Automatic fire from her house. Karla smiled. The man was shooting at her steel and concrete double door. She guessed he had used his last grenade on the outer door, thinking it would get him in, then found the more formidable front door.
Three minutes. A man came round the corner, hugging the wall of the house. He glanced up at the gun ports. Karla sighted. One hundred thirty yards, absolutely in body armor. She pulled the trigger and watched his head explode, then she started slowly down, and froze.
Another man limped across the meadow. A truck survivor, perhaps given an all clear by the man now dead at the house. He dove suddenly into the tall grass. He hadn’t seen the other man fall. Her rifle was suppressed, the report indistinguishable from theirs. Her adversaries were definitely communicating.
Karla marked the spot where the man disappeared, then followed the slow progress of swaying grass. One shot. Two. Three. She slipped behind the tree trunk out of instinct, and dropped to the ground.
“One down,” she whispered, jogging away.
Karla moved deeper into the trees, up the slope away from the meadow. Two distinct rifle shots. From the house: Ray. The only rifle without a suppressor.
“Number two, truck path.”
Near the top of the rise she climbed a tall spruce. She pulled the binoculars from her pack and scanned the far ridge, from where one man had shot down at the house. She spotted him far to her left, a hundred yards short of the trail past the cave to the meadow. She marked the range at 1100 meters. Well past her skill level.
“Three. Cave trailhead. On top.”
She watched him move left, then ease to the edge of the ridge. He rose to throw a rock that even from that elevation, landed short of the house. Gauging the distance. He didn’t want to waste a grenade.
The man started down the trail. Karla saw the end game. He would see the front wall to the cave. He would not walk by and leave a door to his unguarded back. The door would resist small arms fire. He would use a grenade next. She didn’t know Ray’s construction standards, but she suspected they were not hers. The man would kill Brittany and move on the house. With a couple more grenades, he’d finish the job the first man started.
Ray could see the same image on camera two, if he was watching. Caitlin dead in the foreground. The trail beyond the cave to the back.
“Cave,” she spoke low and with urgency.
Ray could not see the cave from the gun ports, but he would have a single shot at the man when he reached the bottom of the trail—before the man recognized the danger and retreated. By then Brittany would be dead.
Karla gauged the distance to the cave at 900 meters. She could not see the door, just sections of the trail. She’d have a possible shot if the man would pose, but the wind up the slot was tricky and no banner flew to give her aid.
The man stopped short of the cave and drew back against the rock wall. He studied the door, wondering perhaps whether it held supplies or people. He would not want to destroy either. He pulled a grenade from a jacket pocked and eased down. A muffled report from Karla’s right, then another. Ray ran toward the trail dodging bullets. The man jogged uphill and hugged the wall.
The explosion echoed across the valley. Smoke, dust, rapid rifle fire. Ray, charged up the trail, still firing, though the man was down. Karla scrambled to the ground and turned off her radio. She didn’t need the message. Whoever remained was hers.
Chapter 76
Karla circled the northeast ridge and approached from the east. She spotted the second vehicle, a camouflaged SUV, on the hiking trail near the footpath to the meadow. No one was in it, but that was expected. She paused and sipped water. They would be back. The vehicle was the men’s only way out. She need do nothing but wait.
A radio crackled in bushes a hundred feet up the foot trail from the vehicle, three hundred from her. In the scope, a piece of black fabric showed between leaves. She fired twice and moved in.
“I’m hit.” The man spoke into a handheld. “I don’t know,” his response to an unknown question.
Karla emerged from behind a large tree. He was on the ground his back to her. He clutched his left side.
“Do . . . not . . . move.” He stiffened at her voice. She took two more steps. “Now roll onto your stomach, hands out.”
He did.
She came up behind him and poked the rifle in his back. “Where are you from?”
No answer.
“How many with you?” She waited a beat. “You may choose to remain silent. If you do, it will be forever.”
He remained still.
“Last chance. One, two, three.” Karla slammed the rifle butt into his head, then, with a pocket knife, slit his throat.
He was an idiot. The radio said there was at least one more. Her worry was that it might be two. In a minute she’d know.
“Hal, report.”
Karla picked up the radio and moved up the hill.
“Hal?”
Karla spoke into the radio. “They’re all dead but you. How do you want to play it?”
She shut the device off and listened for a response in the open air. She heard nothing, jogged a hundred yards and stopped. “Didn’t read you.” She clicked it off again. The voice, quite faint, came from twenty degrees left.
Karla took fifteen minutes creeping closer. The man called again to Hal. She was certain he was last of the crew, and she wanted him alive. The man stepped from behind a tree. He turned his back to her and started down.
“Drop the rifle and step away.”
He let it fall.
“Now, with one hand, take off your jacket and vest.”
In two minutes, Karla had him naked. She checked his boots and shorts and tossed them back.
* * *
Karla called out as she and her prisoner approached the house. Ray stepped out with a rifle and stared at the man in boots and briefs.
“Having fun?” he asked.
“Party’s just about to start,” she replied.
“You can kill me, okay, I’m not telling you anything.”
“Such brave talk.” Karla pinched his ear lobe. “I haven’t asked anything yet. But when I do, you’ll tell me. Death is nothing. Imagine eternal, bone crushing pain.”
She marched him inside. Brittany sat crying on the love seat.
; “Ray, tie his hands and feet. Then you better take Brittany outside. And shut the door. She doesn’t need to hear his screams.”
Brittany stopped to look at the man. “Did he kill my mother?”
“He was one of them.”
Brittany slipped off her shoe and swung it into his face.
Ray pulled her away. “He’ll get worse than you can give him.”
“Here’s how it works,” Karla said. “No prelims. I’m going to inflict intolerable pain. You tell me when you’re ready to answer my questions.”
She started the generator and ran a cord into the room. She stripped the wires with her knife then cut off the man’s underwear. She touched the ends to his genitals. She repeated the procedure five times, with ten seconds between each charge. Then hit him with the charge at random intervals and locations. The man hung with it.
Karla put the wire away and started a burner on the gas cooktop. “You’re holding up well. Some men are crying by now.”
She heated a spoon. After a minute, she touched it to his chest, then his forehead. She reheated it and continued the burns for five minutes. He gritted his teeth as tears rolled down his cheeks.
“Better than most, but we’re only getting started.” She swung a hammer and smashed a finger, then another.
“You killed my daughter. I don’t care how much you suffer. From a tool box, Karla pulled pliers and heated them. She put them to his fingers first and squeezed. She did the lobe of an ear next. Then the other ear and his nipples.
“Outstanding performance. The sad thing is it’s all for nothing. Your friends will never wonder what happened to you. If you think god cares about your character, you’re living on the wrong planet. So you’ll have scars and pain for your heroics, but you’ll talk to me.”
She crushed his lower lip. “You up for a week of this? We’ll move you, of course. The other side of the mountains. Then some others will have their fun. But I’ve got you till tomorrow.”
She touched the hot pliers to his penis.
“Okay!” He screamed.
“That’s better. But any hesitation and we start over.” Karla called Ray in to listen. Brittany came, too
“Where are you from?”
“Pueblo. We’re out of Pueblo.”
“How many is we?”
“Maybe a couple hundred. I’m not sure.”
“How many crews do the hunting?”
“Four.”
“And the planes?
“Four full pilots.”
“Others are training?”
He nodded. Karla showed him a Percocet and placed it in his mouth. She raised a water bottle to his lips.
“You’ll feel better in a few minutes.” She looked at him. “A little food might help, too. Brittany, there is stew on the shelf. Would you warm it please?”
“What are your friends going to do when the team doesn’t come back?”
“Send a plane. Then scouts.”
“You haven’t been in contact with Pueblo. At this distance, you need the planes to relay your messages.”
He nodded.
“You’ve not been up in these mountains before. Why now?”
“We heard hundreds are up here.”
“Have you found that many?”
“Not in this sector.”
“Would you like some whiskey?”
He nodded and she fetched a small glass and fed him a sip. “Is your entire group immune?”
“Of course. Not all our food is virus free.”
Karla bit her lip. “How far do you folks range?”
“A hundred miles. More to the east. We stay out of Denver, though some of us came from there.”
She gave him another sip of whiskey.
“What kind of equipment do you have,” Ray asked. “Beside what you brought here?”
“Machine guns, mortars, RPGs. Humvees, helicopters and planes.”
“Pretty impressive.” Ray plopped into a camp chair next to the man. “Lot of ex military?”
The man nodded.
“Any tanks or personnel carriers?”
“There’s men out scrounging.”
“How many of your two hundred carry guns?”
He snorted. “Like here, everyone.”
Karla dripped whiskey into his mouth. “Have you encountered other large groups?”
“People talk. Denver. I haven’t seen them.”
“I hear a plane,” Brittany said.
* * *
The single engine plane came in from the east. Karla tracked it in the rifle scope, guessing altitude and calculating lead. “We need to send them a message.”
Ray stared at the truck, then took off running.
Karla shouted a warning about the man in the grass, then fired three shots through the Jeep’s doors. She didn’t know about the men in there, either.
Ray jumped on the truck, swung the gun toward the grass, and fired a quick burst. Then he aimed it upward. Karla opened fire first. Brittany followed, Karla shouting how to lead the plane. It moved directly overhead and Ray opened up with the machine gun, hurling hundreds of bullets. The plane flew on, seemingly unscathed.
Then the engine pitch changed. The plane veered left and lost altitude. Ray let off a quick burst. Karla fired another clip, tasting blood.
“We should go after it,” Karla yelled.
Ray shook his head as he trotted back. “We hit it, probably have to put down. They’ll have radioed that home.”
“Westbrook’s gonna be bullshit,” the prisoner said. “He won’t let that go.”
“Westbrook’s your leader?”
“He’s never lost a plane. He’ll send in some heavy shit. You guys are dead.”
Chapter 77
“How quick can you pack?” Ray followed Karla into the garden.
She stooped over Jessie and hugged her, felt the hole in the protective vest and her blood. Karla erupted in tears. “She shouldn’t have been here. I told her I would clean out the garden.
“She was helping. She always did. I never saw a child work harder,” Ray said. “She and I . . . . She was very special.”
“She liked you. She wanted you for her father.”
Ray shook his head. “We have to bury them or take them with us.”
“In the garden. I want to see them undisturbed.
A shot echoed from the house. They dropped and spun. The prisoner lay on his side at Brittany’s feet. Ray and Karla jogged over.
“He killed my mom and Jessie. He said his friends would take care of us if I helped him get away.”
“It’s okay.” Ray hugged her. “It’s okay. I wasn’t going to let him go.”
“I hate him!” Brittany kicked his stomach and walked toward the trail.
“We’re going to bury your mother,” Karla said. “Then we have to leave.”
Thirty minutes later, they placed Jessie and Caitlin in the same hole in the garden, then transplanted tomatoes over their grave. There were no words to say.
* * *
“We can’t hide in the mountains,” Ray said, “They’ll track us in the trucks. The utility vehicle can’t hold us and enough food and gear to last more than a couple weeks. We can leave now and make a run. Two, three hours before they’ll put up another plane.”
“That’s not your recommendation?”
“No ma’am. We’ve got the fifty. I’d intercept who they send and buy us a full day to get lost.”
“Ambush?”
“I like intercept and engage.”
Karla and Ray bent over a map. “They could take Fifty over the mountains,” Ray said. “Then One-Forty-Nine past Gunnison. But that’s a lot longer than the direct route. I don’t see them worrying about us until they’re within a couple miles of here.”
“So, they’ll come in on One-Sixty, at least to South Fork.”
“Be my bet,” Ray said. “Unless they send a helicopter. The man sai
d they had one.”
“That’d be giving us quite a warning, wouldn’t it?” Karla offered.
“They could land one within a couple miles. Might give us an hour. They don’t really know what’s up here, though. We downed a plane and wiped out a hunting party. If they got too close, a helicopter could make easy pickings.”
“How many in a helicopter?”
“Good point. Don’t know what they’ve got, but I’ll bet it isn’t a military transport. Six or eight with gear would be a hefty load. In a civilian chopper, 300 miles would be a long haul. And they’d have to stand off somewhere within radio range.”
“They’ll drive,” Karla said. “Can we take the gun from the truck?”
“Sure can, but the mount’s welded. Without it, you can’t aim the thing.” Ray paused. “All in all, the vehicle would be of more use if you hadn’t killed the engine.”
“I had other goals at the time. Guess we’ll have to tow it.”
* * *
They broke camp an hour before dusk. Karla stood for long minutes in Jessie’s room. Her clothes and few possessions sat on the shelves. Karla picked up the phone, a useless relic but for the camera. She scanned pictures and stopped at Jessie and her on the deck at the farmhouse, Jessie, about eight, reaching for a grey striped kitten. Karla recognized the picture and wondered why Jessie had transferred it to her phone. Karla tucked the phone in her pocket, locked her house, and left it behind.
Karla drove her truck, towing the disabled one, its front wheels resting on the trailer. Ray followed in his truck with the Honda in the bed. Brittany trailed in the utility vehicle. Battle was unpredictable. Escape had to be planned for.
East of South Fork, they pulled off the road into a stand of trees.
“We could take them on here if we had to.” Ray said. “But I’d like more elevation and distance from the road.”
Ray left in his truck to scout a location. Karla examined the machine gun.
“Why’d you build your own house?” Brittany asked.
“I like privacy. And indoor plumbing.”
“Mom said if you’d built one more room, we all could have lived there.”
Times What They Are Page 31