A covered truck appeared from the south. Ray hit the cab more than half a mile away. The truck stopped and a dozen men scrambled from the back. One fired an RPG while the others ran to the woods. The rocket exploded low in the cut a hundred yards short. Ray killed the man who fired it.
“Time to go,” he shouted to Brittany. “They’ll overrun us in a couple minutes.” As they ran, Ray tired quickly with the weight of the fifty and wished he hadn’t sent Rainy away with car.
He slowed to a jog and trailed Brittany. They passed a farm and Brittany reached a bend in the road. She pointed back just before two men emerged from the trees above the interstate. Ray leapt clear of the roadway as they opened fire.
Bullets sparked the pavement. Brittany fired from behind a tree and hit a man. Ray moved towards her then dropped to the dirt—his fifty useless as a handheld. He motioned Brittany to run as he sighted in on men moving in the trees. He dropped the lead man then shot another through several inches of wood, giving his pursuers something to consider. Then Ray took off after Brittany.
He rounded another curve, Brittany a hundred yards ahead. She ducked behind a stump and covered Ray’s retreat. He caught up, and they left the road, crossing a one-time front yard of a double-wide home. They reached the woods on the other side and Brittany hung back. Ray crossed another yard, heard two shots and turned. Brittany sprinted through the waist high grass angling toward the front of a house. He dropped the fifty into the bough of a tree, spotted a man a hundred yards behind her and killed him.
Two men fired from across the field. Ray held them in check as Brittany made the corner of the house and broke for the tree line. Bullets smacked the limb holding Ray’s rifle. He dropped behind the tree, seventy yards to the nearest cover.
Ray now had no place to go and the wrong weapon to defend himself. Brittany turned at the trees, saw his predicament, and started back. He waved her away and she obeyed. He knew what came next. He’d been four years prepping Brittany for this day. She would survive without him.
Ray lay prone. He worked his feet trying to dig in and get ready. Bullets thudded the ground and tore at the tree. More than two men firing, he thought. One man worked right and Ray shot him. A bullet from the left caught the heel of his boot. Ray scanned again for any shelter, saw none. He counted to ten and pushed around the tree with the fifty.
The ground exploded a hundred yards out. Ray dropped a man shifting from the blast. A second explosion shook the trees and was accompanied by automatic rifle fire from the corner of the house. Ray grabbed the gun and bolted as another explosion thundered behind him.
Ray charged past the house and caught up with Rainy, hefting an M4 with a grenade launcher. She tugged his arm then led the way to the Golf, just beyond a row of windbreak pines. Brittany sat at the wheel and tore away as the doors closed.
“Glad to see you,” Ray said. “Change of plans.”
They drove to County Home Road and parked out of sight of the interstate, then lugged weapons to the overpass. Two covered trucks had converged on the scene. The men that had chased them trickled down the hill to the interstate. More men jacked and propped the flatbed, trying to right the tank.
Rainy opened with the fifty, hitting two men before the rest found shelter in the Humvees or behind the tank. Ray dropped mortar rounds on every vehicle and the tank. Smoke and twisted metal filled the air. Flames leaped from a truck, then secondary explosions sent more metal flying. A few men fled. Rainy shot them.
They sat watching the wreckage.
“Let’s go after the trucks,” Brittany said.
Ray shook his head. “Ambush, all for it. Chasing them down the interstate will get us killed.”
“Look what we just did,” Brittany insisted.
“They weren’t ready. We’d be sitting ducks on the road, too. You want to risk that for the people who threw us out?”
“It wasn’t them. It was Lamar.”
“They put him there. Did anyone even try to help Karla?”
Rainy shook her head.
“I’d be more inclined to shoot a few than help.”
“Maybe that’s better than where they’re headed,” Rainy said.
Ray worked his mouth. “Maybe. Alive they have a chance. And anyway, we’re not done here. We didn’t more than scratch the tank.”
He tasked Rainy once more to return to the farm, taking Brittany, while he kept an eye on the convoy. He kept beside him the fifty, a scoped M16, and an M4.
He heard the dump truck long before he saw it and the howitzer hooked behind. Rainy parked it beside the overpass on Ray’s directions. He unhooked it and shoved in a shell. Seven rounds cratered the southbound lane and obliterated an already dead Humvee. The eighth punched a hole that nearly decapitated the tank’s turret and left it a smoldering hulk.
Ray watched and waited, then carefully cleared the perimeter before he signaled the women closer. He descended alone to the wreckage, searched bodies, and collected undamaged weapons, ammo, and rations. Rainy joined him first, then Brittany. It was Rainy who found the wanted book with Karla’s picture.
“Craig,” Brittany offered, glancing over Rainy’s shoulder.
Ray gave her the squinty-eyed stare reserved for when she saw something he didn’t. “We were all there. Why her?”
“It’s morning at the church. You were on your ass by the truck, half dead. Rainy, TJ, and Lamar were tied up in the dirt. I was what, twelve? Karla had the big rifle and stood right in front of the camera.”
Ray pictured the moving battle, bet on more hidden cameras. “Guess it’s not hard to see her as the woman who attacked their patrol a few hours later.”
Brittany asked, “Did they trace her here?”
Ray shook his head. “I don’t see them with that kind of technology or understand why now.”
Brittany took the book and flipped through the pictures. “Wonder who the others are.”
“People like us,” Rainy offered. “The ones who fight.”
Chapter 130
Brittany, Ray, and Rainy walked the farm. Only the two barns and the milking shed still stood. Every underground structure had been blown except Karla’s walled off rooms—though the corridor used to access them was packed solid with dirt and concrete.
“Once the tank arrived it was all over,” Ray said.
“Karla would have stopped it,” Rainy replied. “The big guns were here. She would have used them.”
“Howitzers aren’t designed for close combat against moving targets. She could have tried or she could have run. But anyone who stayed would have died or been hauled away.”
“She would have found a way. Then she would have rebuilt, only better.”
“And the next time it’d be a B-52. This land was her undoing. She would have rebuilt a hundred times and still not have seen the futility, and moved on.”
“Karla would have gone after them, instead, like at Rock Island.” Rainy tossed a hunk of concrete. “She told me once her worst mistake was ever leaving.”
“She was wrong. It killed Jessie, but more people died here.”
“Will they come back?” Brittany asked.
Ray shrugged. “They got what they wanted and took a good lick. I’m sure they’d like to find who did it. But they won’t. They’ll send planes. We’ll stay in the woods well north. They’ll move on pretty quick. We’re just a distraction to whatever they’re up to.”
“We could pay them a visit,” Rainy said. “And give them something to think about.”
“The three of us?” Ray shook his head. “Suicide.” His eyes lingered on the blocked path to Karla’s rooms. “If I dig that out, you know how to get in?”
Rainy nodded. “But there has to be a way to slow them down.”
“You figure it out, let me know. Meanwhile, I’ll check on the backhoe.”
“People.” Brittany pointed to the road. Seconds later, Gail trudged into view from the north, her son, Josh,
trailing her. He quickened his step as he caught sight of Brittany and Rainy.
They all met in the driveway and Gail asked, “What now?”
“We’ve got a spot,” Ray said. “You’re welcome to join us. Or, we’ll get you to your farm if you’d rather.”
“My husband’s gone. Nothing left back home to make a new start.”
“I can’t promise anything more than food, on most days.”
“That’s something.” Gail took in the rubble. “For a time here, it was almost like before. I really thought we’d made it.”
Ray gave a tight smile. “Karla did some amazing things. I hold her in awe and I owe her my life. But I’m not sure there’s a safe place left in this world for the visions in her dreams.”
Acknowledgements
My thanks to Judy Goldsmith and Pam McGill Duncan for teaching me to write and to Donna Bonci for her encouragement, criticism, and support. Thanks also to early readers Peri Costley and Mary Richinick. Their editorial advice is appreciated and is incorporated in the final manuscript.
Times What They Are Page 50