by Shows, Greg
Blakely scanned the landscape. His goggles showed him a few small animals at work in the fields and scrub and trees. Mostly there was nothing to see.
Then he heard a metal clang back the way Getter had gone.
“I thought I told you to get the fuck out of here!” Blakely said as he stepped out from behind the UPS truck.
Someone darted across the road. Instantly he went for his rifle, swinging it up to point at where he’d seen the crossing. There was no one to shoot at. Instead he heard a sound like a bicycle chain being whipped into a car windshield, and a bullet smacked into the side of the UPS truck, missing his chin by less than three inches.
He dove for the ground, asking himself how he’d been flanked.
“Maybe I’m not a badass,” he said as he rolled for the ditch, wondering who could be firing at him.
He heard the bicycle chain sound again and another bullet smacked into the road next to him. It came from the other direction and hit so close to his right shoulder that he wondered if the end of his life had arrived.
He tried to recall if Sadie had said or done anything to signal the sheriff in Shanksborough, but under the pressure of enemy fire, couldn’t focus. He rolled down the incline to the bottom of the ditch, throwing dust and ash everywhere as he cursed himself for his carelessness. Then he began crawling back the way he’d come—toward the enemy who’d fired the first shot. An enemy who was now between Blakely and the girl he was supposed to keep safe.
Chapter 6
When she heard the muffled gunshot Sadie sat up. She pulled her respirator over her face, then grabbed her backpack and rifle off the passenger floorboard.
“Wait,” she told herself, and paused for a few seconds. The second muffled shot got her moving again.
She grabbed the metal window lever and spun it so that the glass beside her dropped down.
Not that she could see in the darkness.
The distant lightning flashes in the north gave her brief seconds of dim light, but told her nothing about what might be going on.
Seconds later a rapid series of gunshots sounded, unmuffled and close. She wasn’t sure how, but she knew it must be Blakely.
Instantly she threw the door open and leapt out. She ran east, away from where she thought the shots had come, flicking on her flashlight and leaving the road to sprint northward into the dust-coated scrubland.
She knew it was stupid to show a light, but decided it was the lesser of two evils. Running in the darkness was a sure way to break an ankle or gouge out an eyeball, and she needed to get out into the middle of a woody area so she could hide—in a tree, or beneath a bush, or inside a log.
More suppressed gunfire erupted behind her, from three different directions, a series of rapid, repeated “clangs” that sounded out then died.
The image of the old farmhouse she’d passed two days earlier appeared in her mind, its bristling rifle barrels pointing at her. It couldn’t be more than a few miles behind them. What if the people in that house had seen her and Blakely passing? What if they had followed, hunkering down during the storm and attacking in the middle of the night.
She clicked off the flashlight. She’d gone at least a hundred yards into the scrub and trees, and if she could hide well enough, she might be able to get her ankle bracelet off and slip away before the general and his men could find her.
But she knew her plan would never work.
Whoever was attacking them had followed and waited until the middle of the night to attack. They had night vision scopes or goggles.
Sadie ducked down behind a stunted tree and looked back toward the road. Another barrage of gunfire shattered a short quiet period, and she saw muzzle flashes, which were followed by a bright explosion and a boom that rolled over the land as loud as any thunderclap, but more percussive. Sadie felt the rumble through her boots. Sharp flashes of red and yellow sparks sprayed up from the ground. The “clang-clang-clang” of suppressed automatic rifle fire sounded immediately after their appearance
As Sadie watched the road, another flare of red and yellow sparks ignited, and then another, both followed by Blakely’s gunshots.
When the fourth flare ignited next to the truck she’d been sleeping in, Sadie realized Blakely was looking for her, driving back their attackers and trying to use flares to disrupt his enemy’s optics. Whether or not he was doing this because he cared about her safety or was merely doing his soldierly duty was something she wondered about for all of two seconds. Then she realized she’d been given a perfect escape opportunity.
As she turned her head slightly and scanned the road with peripheral vision, she reached for her multitool and brought it out. It was time to cut the ankle monitor off and run. She’d just gotten the knife blade open when she caught a flash of movement coming her way.
“Git up from there!” said a redneck voice. “Before I put my horsewhip to you.”
Sadie dove sideways and tried to roll up to her feet so that she could see if someone were to attack. Before she could get anywhere she heard a loud “crack” and felt something slap into her backpack.
She knew instantly the guy wasn’t kidding about the horsewhip. The tip of the whip swung over her torso and slapped into the top of her right thigh.
“Ow!” she yelped as she got to her feet. She lunged forward with her multitool thrust ahead of her, its point aimed at a shadowy figure she could barely see.
“Hahhh!” the voice in the darkness said just as someone out in the darkness let loose with three quick shots. “You better put that down, ‘less you want a wedding day more painful than usual.”
Sadie ignored the man’s threat and lunged forward again, her knees bent and her elbows at ninety degrees.
“Don’t say I didn’t warn you none!” the man said and Sadie smiled. It was the same thing the cannibal cop had said before she’d killed him.
But then came another whip crack.
This time the leather struck her hand and wrapped around her forearm like a coiling ribbon of fire.
“Ahhhh!” she shrieked. She dropped the multitool and without thinking grabbed the whip with both hands and pulled. At first there was resistance, but then it was gone and Sadie fell back, the whip still coiled around her wrist.
Sadie hit the ground. Her pack slammed into her back so hard she grunted. She tried to roll onto her side, but it took an eternity, and by the time she’d managed it a boot slammed into her ribs.
“Uhhhlll!” she grunted.
“You gon’ have to learn how to act, little girl,” her attacker said.
Sadie was about to gasp out an obscenity when her respirator was jerked off her face and over the top of her head. A second later a fist slammed into her gut.
She clutched at her belly with both arms.
“Now you gon’ get yourself up and put your hands behind your back, and we gon’ walk.”
“Where?” she wheezed.
“Right into God’s will,” he said, and jerked her to her feet.
At first Sadie refused to put her hands behind her back. But when the man pulled a pistol and shoved it against her temple, she relented. Her guts clenched when the metal handcuff bracelet snapped around her wrists.
“Move” the man said, and he shoved Sadie forward, away from the gunfire.
“You got him Samuel?” a woman’s voice crackled through a tinny speaker.
“He ain’t trying to fight us,” the voice whispered. “He’s just running.”
“You take him down, now,” the attacker said. “Don’t disobey me.”
“Yes sir,” the voice responded and the crackle disappeared as the attacker turned down the walkie-talkie.
Sadie shuddered at the idea that Blakely might die. She wasn’t sure exactly what this man wanted with her, but if Blakely was killed she’d have to either get herself free or hope for help from Titman—who might or might not be able to find her, and who might or might not go back to torturing her instead of trying to achieve his military objective.
/>
Sadie and the man kept walking, moving parallel to the road, following a trail worn through the hilly scrubland. The suppressed gunfire faded from her hearing and Blakely’s shots grew distant.
“Heavenly Father,” her attacker said suddenly, “We thank you for sending this daughter, soon to be baptized Ruth in honor of that precious ancestor of David, so that we might fulfill your command to go forth and be fruitful and multiply.”
“Where are you taking me?” Sadie asked, but the man ignored her.
“We praise you, Father, for providing this vessel for our seed, and ask that you continue to provide for our needs as you pour out your wrath on this land.”
“Hey, Asshole,” Sadie yelled, and instantly wished she hadn’t. The man sent his horsewhip whizzing at her. Sadie felt the leather lash against her buttocks, just beneath the bottom of her backpack.
“Ow!” she yelped.
“I don’t know how you was raised, little girl, but you gon’ have to learn respect and decency if you’re gon’ to be a part of our family.”
“I’m not going to be a part of your family, you idiot,” she said, but regretted it when the tip of horsewhip cracked and a burning a ring of pain encircled her left calf.
Sadie tripped and fell and dust enveloped her face.
“Upon thy belly shalt thou go,” the man said. “And dust you shall eat all the days of your life.”
“Oh my God,” Sadie said, and coughed and swallowed hard. The handcuffs and backpack made her lean forward to keep her balance, which made her back hurt. She was almost grateful when they topped a hill and came down upon an open, flat spread of land. It stretched out, gray and endless into the darkness.
“What is this?” Sadie asked. She thought it might be cropland, but the lack of rows suggested otherwise.
“A mine,” the man said.
Then Sadie knew she was walking across what was likely once a hill or low-altitude mountain. One that had been bulldozed down and dug out and refilled after the stone and dirt had been processed for coal or lignite or other minerals or metals people wanted. They walked for half a mile before they left the flattened area and re-entered the scrubland.
“You boys get him?” the man asked. The radio crackled and a voice came through.
“We got him,” the voice said.
“Is he dead?” the man asked. There was a pause, and then an answer.
“We got him alive. He’s hurt.”
“Did you not hear me tell you to kill him!?” the man yelled, and when the voice at the other end didn’t respond the man yelled: “You ain’t trying to be Saul against the Amelekites, are you?
“No sir,” the voice said.
“Well do what you’re told, boy!”
“Yes sir,”
Sadie heard a distant shot so faint she wondered if it was real. She felt a wave of dread and fear wash over her and wobbled on her feet. She wanted to throw herself down on the ground and refuse to walk. Only the fear of the man’s horsewhip kept her moving.
Her grandfather’s voice tried to comfort her.
“Keep playing along,” his voice said. “You’ll get away. Just be ready.”
Sadie wasn’t so sure, and chided herself once again for sticking her nose into the Tall Man’s business. If only she’d kept hidden and avoided human contact….
But she hadn’t, and as a dim orange light grew brighter and closer, the dark outline of the old farmhouse she’d seen two days before came into focus. Sadie shuddered. She was going to have to kill someone, she realized. Maybe several someones.
Let’s get to it then, she thought as a rectangle of light appeared ahead and a shadowy figure appeared in the doorway of the old two-story farmhouse.
Chapter 7
“Let’s get those filthy socks and underwear off,” said a woman with braided and pinned blonde hair. She held an oil lantern in one hand and a pistol in the other.
The woman couldn’t have been much older than Sadie, but her attitude and appearance was so foreign that Sadie couldn’t believe the woman had ever lived in the 21st century. She wore a loose, pale blue dress that covered her entire body like a sack, from her neck to her bare red toes. She and the man had forced Sadie to take off her boots, pants and shirt outside the house and leave them on the wide wooden porch next to the back door. They hadn’t seen the ankle monitor since Sadie had pulled her sock up over it.
Behind Sadie, an old clawfoot bathtub with scratches and gouges in the white porcelain stood waiting with steaming bubble-bath water in it. The smell of lavender wafted up from the tub. Next to it, resting on a small triangle shelf built into the corner, sat a Bible. A candle flickered beside it.
“Why are you doing this?” Sadie asked.
“It’s God’s will,” the woman said with a loud voice. Then she whispered: “Get in there or he’ll beat us both.”
The woman hung the lantern from a rope and hook suspended from the bathroom ceiling. Then she turned away from Sadie and lifted the back of her dress.
Sadie gasped when she saw the criss-crossing red welts covering the woman’s hamstrings and thighs and buttocks beneath her baggy white panties. The welts were raised and inflamed, and some of them glinted with fresh blood.
“He did that because I moaned too loud when he was screwing me this morning,” she whispered. “Moaning during sex is a sin.”
Sadie, who didn’t move to take off her panties or bra or socks, stood staring as the woman turned and dropped her hem.
“He’ll whip you for anything,” she said.
“I noticed,” Sadie said, and rubbed her wrist. “And he’ll die for it.”
The woman’s eyes widened and rolled toward the bathroom door.
“Don’t say that,” she whispered.
“Ya’ll hurry up in there,” the man’s voice boomed through the door.
“Come on,” the woman whispered, and put her hands together as if she were pleading for her life.
“I don’t want to see my son’s wife naked…” the man said, though Sadie thought she detected a note of amusement in his voice that belied his words. “But if I have to come in there and hurry you up, I’m sure God’ll forgive me for it.”
The woman holding the pistol sagged against the door as if her legs had gone weak, and Sadie wondered why she didn’t just turn and empty her gun into the old bastard.
“Please,” the woman whispered. She lowered the pistol. “Get in. This isn’t even loaded. I just wanted to scare you so he won’t whip us.”
Sadie made a calculation concerning the lunacy she’d witnessed thus far and said, “You mind?” The woman with the pistol looked away and Sadie quickly peeled off her remaining clothes and stepped into the tub.
“Samuel’s going to be a happy man,” the woman said. “You might be happy too, if you accept this. He’s good looking. And he’s kind. It’s good you don’t have any tattoos like me. You better get in before it gets cold.”
Sadie sat down in the steaming, soapy water and gasped. She couldn’t remember the last time bathing hadn’t meant rubbing a gummy bar of soap over her body after splashing cold toilet tank water over her skin. Despite her fear and anger and determination to kill the man who’d whipped her, she wanted to lie back and rest for a week.
“What’s your name?” Sadie asked.
The woman flicked her eyes toward the door and knelt beside the tub.
“I used to be Madelyn Linville,” she whispered. Then she sneered and said: “I’m...Beulah. It means ‘married.’ You believe that? I’m married to Noah. Now hurry up.”
“I’m not calling you ‘Beaulah,” Sadie said. “Fuck that.”
“Quiet!” Madelyn whispered. “Don’t ever curse or he’ll beat you half to death.”
“Who are these people?” Sadie asked, and looked for a weapon. She saw nothing.
“Your new family. If you can keep from getting killed. We had this one girl who wouldn’t stop fighting. Eli’s wife. She ran off and Eli and Samuel went after her.”
“What happened?” Sadie asked.
“They said they killed her for disobedience,” the woman whispered. “But I’m not sure. She was ugly so I think they let her get away. There’s always more people coming by.”
Sadie lay back in the tub.
“You aren’t ugly, though,” the woman said. “The boys won’t kill you, but Noah might. Use this soap.”
Sadie had never enjoyed the smell of lavender, but the warm water made the scent somewhat tolerable. She used the bar of soap Madelyn gave her, and when she’d finished and the water had turned gray, Madelyn brought out a small shampoo bottle and squirted a tiny amount into Sadie’s hair.
“Spa treatment,” Sadie sneered.
“It’s your wedding day,” Madelyn said. “Better try to look good. I know it’s hard, but you don’t have any choice.”
“I’m’ not getting married,” Sadie said. “And I’ll kill the first man who touches me.”
“That’s what I said,” Madelyn said as she lathered up Sadie’s hair. “Until Noah tied me up in the backyard and went after me with his whip for an hour.
“Jesus,” Sadie said. “Why don’t you run away?”
Madelyn stopped lathering Sadie and leaned in close to her ear.
“Haven’t you been out there?” she whispered. “You know how many times I got raped in Steubenville before Noah bought me? I’d have died in another day or two. At least here we get plenty of food. Noah’s got a whole basement full. Enough for years.”
Sadie felt her stomach clench.
Callie’s going to Steubenville.
“What were you doing in Steubenville?”
“I was just trying to get across the river,” Madelyn said. “My brother’s in Chicago. If he’s still alive. Steubenville’s got the only bridge. They blew up all the rest of them. But things are bad there. Real bad.”
“You still haven’t told me why you don’t run away.”
Madelyn laughed.
“This place may suck, but it doesn’t suck as bad as out there. At least here I’m only getting raped by one man, and he’s so old he can’t last more than about a minute if I get him worked up. Small price for food and shelter.”