“Lucia, do you have somewhere you can go? Perhaps family who can take you in? Don’t tell me where, just tell me if that’s an option for you.”
Lucia paused and then nodded her head.
“Yes, I have a cousin not too far from here - a day’s drive or so.”
Sarah pointed at the truck Arturo and the other three men arrived in.
“Can you drive that truck?”
Lucia nodded again.
“Sure.”
Sarah smiled and then turned to Preacher and Akrim.
“Let’s go – tie them up.”
Both men followed Sarah’s orders, surprised at the determination by which they were given. Minutes later found them pushing the four Mexican migrant workers down into Lucia’s cellar. Each man’s hands were bound tightly behind their backs by a piece of thick rope. Then the cellar entrance was closed and a large rock from outside placed over it. The intent wasn’t to trap them forever but to provide a temporary prison while Sarah and the others made good their escape.
Lucia packed a briefcase of clothes, food, water, and a single picture of Douglas and herself sitting together on the front porch taken a decade earlier. The truck was checked for fuel and found to have almost half a tank. Lucia confirmed that would be more than enough to get her where she needed to go.
Sarah placed Arturo’s gun on the front seat next to where Lucia sat behind the truck’s steering wheel.
“Don’t be afraid to use that if you need to, Lucia.”
The old woman scowled and then pointed at the much younger Sarah.
“You just worry about yourself, young woman - you and that child you’re carrying.”
Sarah smiled back as she nodded her head.
“I will, Lucia, I will.”
“And you men watch out for that beautiful mother-to-be. And Preacher, don’t think I didn’t notice how you look at her! She’s going to need help raising that child.”
Preacher’s eyes suddenly widened as he attempted a reply but found the words unwilling to emerge. Instead he felt himself blushing, no small feat considering his dark complexion. His embarrassment caused Lucia to chuckle.
“Oh, I wouldn’t have figured you for being such a shy thing! Now get moving! There might be more of Arturo’s men headed this way wondering where he disappeared to. I’ll be fine. You stay safe. Get to where you need to be.”
The old woman gave her home one last look and then turned the key. She knew it was time to leave. Knew in fact she should have done so sooner.
The truck’s engine roared to life and then Lucia stepped on the gas and sped off as her left hand waved out the window while Sarah, Preacher, and Akrim watched her go.
That left the three to prepare for their own departure. The Harley and scooter once again had full tanks of gas. It was enough fuel to get them at least another few hundred miles west of Macy. Preacher proposed they work their way through the rural areas of central Illinois and then into Iowa. The other two agreed.
Though none of them mentioned it to each other, they all sensed something pulling them west. It was not so much a conscious thought, but rather a feeling, a gentle push down a path they could not yet see.
Go where you need to be.
Those were Lucia’s words, and Preacher, Sarah, and Akrim knew that somewhere west was where that need was taking them.
Sarah took her position behind Preacher on the back of the Harley and once again wrapped her arms around his chest. The gesture brought a hidden smile to her face as she leaned her right cheek against his back.
Akrim looked at Preacher.
“Ready?”
Preacher nodded, lowered his helmet visor, and then the Harley growled its approval as he put the bike in gear and began moving slowly onto the paved street. Soon the three were once again chasing the sun as an unknown future rose up to greet them.
--------------------
EPISODE SIXTEEN:
“Oh my god…”
It had taken Sabina and her two teenaged children nearly a week to reach the expansive lands surrounding the small college community of Pullman, Washington from the shores of their home city of Bellingham.
She had hoped to find safety and shelter at the ranch of an older aunt who had made the wide open spaces of the Palouse in Eastern Washington her home for the last several decades. What she and her children found instead were the remains of something horrible.
The land was burnt beyond recognition. The great wheat fields which normally swayed gently in the almost-always present Palouse winds prior to harvest had been replaced by darkened, scorched earth. Thousands of acres as far as the eye could see had been blackened by a horrific fire. Smoke still smoldered in some places, while the earth itself and the skies above it were absent any sign of remaining life.
“Where is Aunt Meg’s house, Mom?”
The question was posed by Sabina’s son, Jackson. Though just sixteen, the events of the Race Wars had already noticeably aged him. His eyes had become those of a man, more determined, more wary, and far more concerned about the well-being of his mother and sister.
Jackson had spent a week at his great Aunt Meg’s ranch two summers ago helping with the wheat harvest. He had returned home to Bellingham both tired and sore, but with three hundred dollars in his pocket. He expressed an appreciation for the early to rise and early to bed timetable that dominated the Palouse ranch community where people had formed a quiet, symbiotic relationship with the soil upon which their livelihoods depended.
“It’s gone, Jackson. See over there…nothing but some burnt wood and the foundation.”
Jackson’s eyes followed to where his mom pointed and then saw for himself how little of the farmhouse he had spent that week two summers ago, remained.
“Was it an accident?”
Sabina remained silent, scanning the area around the home’s burnt-out husk for any sign of life as their dog Bosco leaned against her right leg seeming to do the same.
“Mom, what happened to Aunt Meg?”
Mika asked the question Sabina wanted to avoid, though the pit of her stomach had already tightened over the possible answer.
“I don’t know, Mika. She was in good health, a strong woman, so I’d like to think she was long gone before the fire reached the house.”
Even as she spoke the words there was a quiet whisper within the recesses of Sabina’s mind that told her such an escape was unlikely. The remnants of the great fire spread out across the property like terrible talons, bloody and deadly things that hinted at tragedy.
Sabina knew her Aunt Meg was most likely dead.
“Why the hell would you want to drive on over there for?”
Those were the words of the man in LaConner following her frightening escape from the Luttia Indians. He agreed to trade Sabina’s boat for his nearly forty-year old, thirty-two foot diesel-powered RV she then used to take herself and her kids over the pass and into Eastern Washington. The journey of several hundred miles went slowly as she left the main road often to hide while traffic would pass by and then resumed the trip after the highway was once again empty of other vehicles. The RV’s little diesel engine sipped fuel though, allowing them to make the journey without the need to refuel along the way. Finally they had reached the outskirts of Pullman where Aunt Meg’s farm was located and began following the three-mile long dirt road drive that led to the farmhouse.
The air had been thick with dust and soot, and the smell of the recent fire hung over them like a particularly heavy blanket that threatened to suffocate all who breathed it in.
“Hey, what’s that?”
Jackson was pointing at a small, moving dust cloud that was at the bottom of the shallow valley that adjoined Aunt Meg’s ranch property. It was close to a thousand yards from their location and upon closer inspection Sabina was able to make out three other identical dust clouds also moving toward the smoldering corpse of the farmhouse.
“They look like…ATVs.”
Sabina confirmed Mik
a was right. That was exactly what they were.
Coming here was a mistake.
Sabina felt the sudden need to get moving once again. Evil was now affixed to the normally beautiful and idyllic landscape of the Palouse, and by bringing her family there she had placed them all in terrible danger.
“C’mon, back to the RV. We need to get moving again.”
Jack and Mika followed their mother’s order without question and soon all three were back inside the RV as Sabina drove slowly down the long drive toward the road that would take them back to the main highway. She had already decided to avoid going into Pullman itself. Instead she intended to do the same as they had on the journey through the mountain pass that separated Washington State’s western and eastern portions – stay hidden.
It was already late afternoon. Night would push out the day in just a few more hours. Sabina intended to have them well on their way to the interior of Idaho’s Lolo National Forest by then. She recalled camping there once as a child and remembered it being a place of great natural beauty but more important, also a location far removed from regular human contact.
“Mom!”
Mika’s cry issued from the back of the RV. Bosco lifted his head from where he had laid down on the floor underneath the small dining table. Jackson rose from the passenger seat and made his way to her to see what was wrong while his mother continued driving toward the main road.
Jackson returned a moment later, his face grim.
“What is it?”
Jackson pointed toward the back of the RV.
“We’re being followed. It’s just one of them, but they’re right behind us.”
Sabina gripped the steering wheel more tightly while looking up at her son.
“Who?”
Jackson cleared his throat.
“One of those ATVs…it’s right behind us.”
Sabina stood up and then pulled her son behind the wheel.
“Once you reach the main road turn left and then keep going.”
Jackson’s mother then joined her daughter who was staring out the RV’s back window and confirmed what Jackson told her. No more than fifty feet behind them was a young Hispanic man atop a red and silver ATV. His long black hair flew behind a pair of narrow shoulders.
He was smiling.
Sabina didn’t fully understand why that smile bothered her so much. She just knew it did.
“What’s he want, Mom?”
Sabina shook her head while keeping her eyes fixated on the ATV.
“Is he going to hurt us?”
Sabina glanced at her daughter and then shook her head again as her eyes smoldered like the remnants of her Aunt Meg’s farmhouse.
“No, I won’t let anyone hurt you, Mika.”
Mika kept staring through the window at the man following them, her eyes wide with fear.
“Mika, look at me.”
Mika glanced upward and found her mother staring down at her with an intensity that was almost as frightening as it was reassuring.
“NOBODY is going to hurt you. Not while I’m here.”
Mika gave Sabina a quick nod. She wanted to believe her mother, but something in the strange smile of the man who followed them gave her pause.
The RV tilted to the right and then the left, indicating Jackson was turning it back onto the paved road. Sabina watched and waited to see if the man on the ATV would follow them.
He did.
Shit-shit-shit.
Despite her tough talk to her daughter, Sabina was increasingly troubled. She told Mika to keep watching behind them and then returned to the front of the RV and returned herself to the driver’s seat while Jackson sat back down on the passenger side.
Sabina pushed down on the accelerator, increasing the RV’s speed to just over forty miles an hour. She looked into her side mirror and saw the ATV remained just behind them and then increased their speed to fifty.
Mika again yelled out from the back of the RV.
“He’s barely keeping up, Mom! If you go a little---“
Suddenly Mika screamed.
“He shot at us! He has a gun!”
The RV swerved wildly toward the far right side of the road, its frame groaning its discontent as Sabina turned around to shout at her daughter.
“Mika, get down! Get down now!”
Out of the corner of her eye Sabina saw Jackson pointing at something in front of them. It was another ATV no more than a quarter of a mile down the road and moving toward them – fast.
Sabina grimaced as she straightened the RV and then pushed the accelerator further toward the floor. The 150 horse power diesel pinged angrily as the speedometer showed them approaching sixty miles an hour.
“Hold on – I’m gonna hit the brakes!”
The RV’s tires squealed against the pavement as Sabina clung to the steering wheel with all her strength. Then she smiled upon hearing and feeling the jarring impact of the ATV following behind them as it hit up against the RV’s large rear bumper. She looked over at the right passenger side mirror and saw it careen out of control into the ditch to the left where it then remained unmoving.
One down, one to go…
Again Sabina mashed the accelerator to the floor and again the RV’s engine cried out its angry discontent. Thirty miles an hour turned to forty and then to fifty as the distance from the approaching ATV was reduced to just a few hundred feet.
Sabina ducked her head behind the steering wheel and grabbed onto Jackson’s left arm, making him lower himself behind the vehicle’s large dash as well. A half second later a single bullet pierced the windshield, tore through the space where Jackson had just been sitting, and then imbedded deep into the faux wood cabinetry above the RV’s small kitchen area.
Sabina peeked out from behind the steering column and saw the image of the man driving the ATV. He looked to be in his early 30’s with a fleshy face that was broken apart by a panicked scream as he suddenly turned his ATV sharply right, missing a collision with the RV by no more than a few feet.
The RV catapulted itself down the narrow paved road, finally reaching a speed of nearly seventy miles an hour. Sabina knew that was much faster than the ATVs could go.
Just keep going. A few more minutes and they’ll never catch us.
Jackson was staring at the small circular hole in the windshield and then a similar hole in the seat where his upper chest would have been. He appeared to be struggling with the reality of what had almost happened.
“We’re gonna be fine, Jackson. You did good.”
A loud ping emanated from the dashboard cluster. Sabina looked down and saw a softly glowing yellow low fuel warning light staring back at her.
That’s ok. We have another twenty miles of fuel left, probably more. More than enough to get away from here.
Sabina’s entire body was jolted by the sound of Mika’s scream. Both she and Jackson turned their heads to look behind them.
The door to the RV’s back room was closed.
Mika screamed again and then Sabina heard the most terrifying sound of all – silence.
Without looking at her son, Sabina stood up from behind the wheel.
“Drive! Just keep going as fast as you can!”
The mother of two then reached down and grabbed the loaded hunting rifle she kept propped beside the RV door. She shut out any thought of what might be going on at the back of the RV that would make Mika scream so loudly. From behind Sabina, Bosco let out an uncharacteristically low, menacing growl.
The journey to the RV’s back room took no more than a few long strides, but to Sabina it felt like a near eternity. She stood just outside the door, re-gripped the rifle in her hands, and then lifted her right leg and kicked the door in.
“LET MY GIRL GO!”
It was the man who had followed behind them on the ATV. His shoulder-length hair hung in a mass of greasy chaos over his narrow, sinewy shoulders. His lean, wolfish face carried the same inhuman smile, a slash of terrifying indifferenc
e that cut across his pockmarked features.
The smell was almost as bad as the predatory smile.
The man’s dark t-shirt and tattered jeans were affixed to his dark skin in layers upon layers of sweat and grime, the result of remaining unwashed for many weeks. He smelled of sweat, piss, shit, and most frightening of all – insanity.
He also had Mika’s throat wrapped tightly inside the nook of his left arm while his right hand pressed a rusted hunting knife to her throat. Upon seeing Sabina, his grin widened enough to expose a row of stained, broken teeth as his dark tongue flickered outward to lick a pair of dry, cracked lips.
American Survivalist: RACE WARS OMNIBUS: Seasons 1-5 Of An American Survivalist Series... Page 20