She’d been following the Golden Rule, treating people the way she would want to be treated, but not the way they actually wanted to be treated. This was a tough lesson, and one young adults were supposed to learn—but now it seemed likely to mean their deaths.
“Canada,” Sara said. “We have a way to Canada—”
“Shut up, Sara,” Ava said. She got up off the girl. “Don’t say a thing to these people; they’ll only tell the FEMA forces.”
Sara’s mouth worked, but no sound came out. The emotional strain of everything she’d experienced had begun moving in a confusion of expressions across her face. Rage, grief, exhaustion, and agony. She’d been pushed too far, Parker realized, and he needed to keep control of her. Ava was already running on emotional bankruptcy. If one of them snapped, then it was likely both would snap.
Whatever happened in the next few moments would decide how the rest of this encounter was going to unfold. He had to speak up, to guide them back to a place of neutrality before things spilled over and got out of hand.
“Sara—” Parker began.
A heavyset fireplug of a man in a green John Deere hat, with mutton chop sideburns, walked around the corner of the building; he had a deer rifle with a scope over one shoulder. He stopped, mouth open, and stared at the scene before him.
“No,” Parker said.
Eyes bulging, the man began backing up, his fingers clawing at the leather strap of his sling.
“No!” Parker said, his voice sharp.
The man got the sling off his shoulder and fumbled with the stock, trying to swing the unwieldy weapon around. He opened his mouth to shout and Parker knew it was over; he lifted his M4.
Sara shot the man in the chest, a tight three-round burst punching into his torso and cracking the sternum. With an almost idiotic look of surprise, the man went down, and the burst of gunfire echoed down the shallow valley below the empty vineyards.
“Shit-fuck-shit!” Ava shouted.
Parker jumped to his feet and ran to the edge of the building. The men who’d been standing in the knot in front of the kitchen building were all looking in his direction. A few of them had started walking in Parker’s direction, responding to the unexpected gunshot.
Behind him, he heard the sound of flesh on flesh as someone slapped someone else. The men coming toward him unlimbered their weapons, but froze mid-step when they saw him.
“Not everyone feels the way you do!” Sara shouted, presumably at the girl, Jessica. “Some of them want to be free!”
Parker lifted his carbine and cut loose with several bursts, purposefully aiming above their heads. The men scattered like quail.
“No!” Jessica shouted back. “No one wants to leave the Church! You were the only malcontent!”
“Who the fuck uses the word ‘malcontent’?” Ava asked.
Parker came running back toward them, knowing he’d only bought them seconds. “Move! Move! Goddamn it, move!” he yelled.
Ava was already coming to her feet. The imprint of Sara’s hand was a red blotch on Jessica’s cheek, and Parker’s daughter was drawing back her hand to strike the girl a second time.
Parker grabbed her by the wrist and she locked eyes with him, berserk with fury.
“We’re not shooting innocents. Run, or die,” he said.
That got through. Both Ava and Sara began running then, heading for the thin line of bushes edging the Vineyard. Parker jogged after them, body half-turned backward to watch for the men he’d scattered and their companions. He was used to the pain in his leg and hip now, though the injuries still slowed him. Jessica remained on the ground, one hand to her inflamed cheek. A figure started coming around the corner of the building, and Parker fired twice into the wood frame of the structure so that the person ducked back out of the line of fire.
Parker turned and ran in earnest.
28
There was no time to process or discuss what had happened; they wouldn’t have been capable of doing so anyway. They needed to flee, so they fled. Parker couldn’t help thinking they were nothing more than corpses running, too stupid and too stubborn to know better. They were already dead, but they weren’t smart enough to lay down and die.
Behind them, they heard people shouting, and several sharp bangs of high caliber rifles followed after that, but it became apparent to Parker very quickly that the men of the camp had no intention of following them into the woods. Still, he had no way of knowing how much they were in communication with FEMA forces, so he pushed the girls and his own body hard.
At least, while they were running, there was no chance they’d have to talk about what had happened, he figured.
Too tired for games, they started moving directly toward the rail line rendezvous. Parker assumed that, if the Council didn’t know about the underground railroad Maggie had described, then there was little reason they should anticipate their direction of flight. He was thinking it might be sixty miles—three days of hard travel. Better to move by day than risk stumbling blind in the dark; especially with the temperature dropping more each day.
It was going to come down to luck, he knew. Again.
Leaving the Vineyard behind them, they slipped through a cow pasture and into an area on the edge of the suburbs where the countryside ran thick with roads. He tried to skirt them while still heading more or less north, but it grew tougher as they left the foothills. They slowed down, daring to eat a little something and quench their thirst.
Sara wouldn’t meet his eyes or say a word as they parceled out food and water, and he didn’t push her, not knowing where her emotional state was. For once, Ava kept any smart-ass comments she might have to herself. After ten minutes, they finished their break and started moving again.
Half an hour later, they reached an elevated spot overlooking Highway 31 and Parker saw the mileage sign indicating Indianapolis was twenty-five miles away and realized they were east of Carmel, a suburb north of Indianapolis, surprising him at how far they’d traveled.
“Look,” Ava said pointing down the highway.
A mile back, Parker could see a large unit of soldiers moving north; six Humvees, a dozen canvas-topped two-ton trucks carrying troops, and SUVs and pickups rolling to the front and rear of the convoy. He guessed it was a company-sized element, more than one hundred men. Below them, a small caravan of two black SUVs and a single Humvee rolled down the highway, taking up both lanes and passing directly beneath where they were hiding. Parker scoped the far side of the road. He saw a squad-sized element patrolling a stretch of neighborhood street—in no hurry, but ambling in their direction.
“Christ,” Sara said. “I didn’t realize it was this bad out here. No wonder they didn’t want to leave the Vineyard.”
“They might think they’re free and clear but ultimately, they swapped what freedom they had for a cage,” Parker said watching the vehicles roll by. “We’re going north; if they set up a screening sweep….” He didn’t finish the thought. He didn’t have to.
“We’ll have to cross the highway,” Sara said. “If we want to reach where Mom told us about, we have to cross. God,” she said. “If it’s this bad out here, can you imagine what’s happening closer in toward the cities?”
“I know,” he said. “It’s thirty-six miles to Kokomo, a straight shot up the 31. But we’re encircled on all sides; they’re driving us, though they don’t know it yet,” he said. Then, “I don’t think,” he added. “But we’ve got to come in from the rural areas if we want to reach the pick-up spot.” He shrugged, helpless. “We don’t give up; we don’t quit.”
“Then we might as well cross the highway here,” Ava pointed out.
Parker nodded. Every time they’d opened fire, they’d given the authorities a position to triangulate. Despite that, they couldn’t stop moving. He sighed. There was nothing to do for it. He began edging down the side of the hill toward the highway, sticking close to the brush and moving slow.
At the edge of the road, he paused in the high
grass and scanned the area. There was a stretch of wooded greenbelt in front of them, running down the middle of the highway. Slowly, Parker raised his head and scanned the area.
He froze.
Right on the side of the road sat a military green canvas bag. Immediately, Parker looked up. They were right there, a Small Kill Team with the first soldier less than thirty feet away. He broke out in a cold sweat. How many of these teams could be strung out around the area? Three or four men, lying in hiding near obvious routes, waiting for refugees fleeing the larger towns and cities.
The soldiers moved a little and they emerged from the background, his vision able to discern them in their ghillie suits like autostereogram posters coming into focus. Parker shuddered. It had been the purest form of animal instinct that had warned him. The greenbelt was on a slight rise giving anyone watching a decent view of both sides of the highway. As a result, their position now left them exposed to Parker.
Eyes darting, he counted three, settled in about twenty-five yards apart. Two of them held scoped and modified M14 designated defensive marksman weapons, the M21 Sniper Weapon System. They fired 7.62 mm NATO cartridges, the same as the M60 machine gun. The third manned a M249 light machine gun.
He realized neither Ava nor Sara had seen the men. Moving his head slowly, he looked back over his shoulder; they had frozen when he had, as if they’d developed a pack-mind with his.
The three men ahead of them sat quietly. Parker slowly raised his hand and pointed at his eyes before holding up three fingers. Ava and Sara nodded; they saw them, too. Sara stiffened, then barely shook her head from side to side in a “no” motion. She looked petrified. Parker gave her a quizzical look.
What? he mouthed.
She opened her eyes wide, darting them from side to side, and then she thrust out the tip of her tongue. She was terrified, and he couldn’t understand her. Finally, he realized she was pointing. Ever so slowly, he turned his head. He squinted, and realized the bushes down from them, on the same side of the road they were on, were full of men. It was another SKT. Between the two groups, they had set up a slightly modified “L” shaped ambush. Only, the three fugitives had emerged right in the gap between the joining ends of the long and shorter arms.
Parker’s mouth ran dry and the hair along his forearms and the back of his neck stood on end, his body flushed as adrenaline soaked him. His body nearly vibrated with suppressed energy. They’d been lucky that none of the soldiers saw them come down the hill but there was no way that luck would stay with them if they tried to backtrack.
We’re dead, Parker realized. I should give up, maybe save Sara and Ava’s lives. He knew the thought was ridiculous even before it finished. He remembered the U.S. Marshal putting the Chevy 350 into gear and peeling out, leaving the three prisoners to hang by the neck from the lamppost.
He unclipped the fragmentation grenade they’d stolen from the dead soldiers at the hasty ambush after the cabin, sure the soldiers would see the movement. He showed it to Sara and Ava, then pointed across the road. Ava took out her grenade, as well. Any moment, he expected a barrage of high-velocity rounds to rip into his body. Parker set the first grenade beside him and then pulled out a second. He held little hope of actually being alive long enough to throw the second grenade.
He eased his breath out through clenched teeth and pulled the pin. The sound seemed as loud as a tire jack clattering on a garage floor; he was sure every single soldier heard it. He closed his eyes, breathing in, and then he slowly released the pent-up breath.
Swinging his arm up, he heaved the grenade over the tall grass where they were hiding and across the road before dropping himself back down and grabbing the M4. Ava came up to one knee still hidden by the tall grass and lobbed hers even as Sara, eyes bulging, opened up with her own weapon. Parker’s throw was bad, and the grenade rolled into the ditch on the other side of the greenbelt and exploded harmlessly.
He pivoted to reach for the second grenade as a bullet slammed into his back. He bucked under the impact and saw blood spurt as Ava took a round. Flat on his back, he pulled the pin on the second grenade and heaved it over his head without looking. He heard the metal sphere rattle as it struck pavement, but then went deaf as guns opened up around him.
The concussive force of a grenade, either his or Ava’s, rattled his teeth in his head and he looked around. He saw a man’s leg come floating down out of the air. The third grenade went off, and rocks, dirt, and shrapnel sprayed everywhere. One of the soldiers along the same side of the highway they were had stood up and the blast had detonated his body, ripping it apart before Parker’s bleary eyes; even so, a great deal of the blast force still slammed into him.
He blacked out for a moment and, when he opened his eyes, he’d rolled to his belly and begun firing toward the knot of men on the same side of the road as them. He was deaf, using the kickback of recoil to tell him he was firing. He had a concussion, he realized; his brain felt like it was wrapped in gauze. He couldn’t see out of his left eye for some reason, either, and assumed it was too full of blood. His entire face was numb, so he couldn’t pinpoint the problem.
He killed a soldier and then the Kill Team was on them. The three of them were still prone, trying to fire almost straight up as the soldiers charged.
A soldier, a teenager, came charging up first, but he was confused and was looking too high to see them. Parker shot him in the face as he was about to step on him, but as the boy fell away another figure in BDUs appeared right behind him.
Parker put two three-round bursts into him and part of the man’s arm came off as he tumbled away. Parker rolled onto his side, saw a man beating at Ava with the butt of his rifle, and killed him. He sensed movement again, and rolled back the way he’d been pointing originally. It felt like the M4 was too awkward now and he let it go, drawing the stolen Beretta instead. They were killing each other at hand-to-hand distance and a pistol was better than the shortened carbine.
He leveled the M9, but then saw it was Sara flopping into the dirt next to him. She shouted at him, but all he could see was her face twisting with the effort of screaming. She clawed at him with a hand covered in blood and he dimly realized she wanted him to roll back into the ditch. Groggy, he did as she wanted, snagging the M4 with his free hand. The stimulus of what he’d seen finally reached his brain in a meaningful way and he realized Sara’s little finger had been shot or torn off.
Lying on his back, pistol up, Parker snapped the muzzle of his gun back and forth, trying to cover every vector at once. He worked his jaw and his ears popped with a rush, and he could hear again. He heard the pop-pop-pop of a carbine and turned toward the sound in time to see Ava finish shooting a wounded soldier in the head. She was painted red with blood; he wasn’t sure how much was hers and how much was someone else’s.
“They’re dead?” he asked.
He finally understood what the term gobsmacked really meant. He was utterly and completely gobsmacked to be alive. He tried to get up, but Sara pushed him down.
“Easy,” she said. She looked at his face. “Oh, Jesus,” she said. It was really more of a gasp.
“Your hand,” he got out. “We have to wrap it.”
“My hand is not what you need to be worried about,” she told him.
Remembering the impact that had struck his back, he felt himself. Looking around, he saw the contents of his pack scattered everywhere. The bullet that had hit him had ripped it open before striking his body. He looked under his left arm and saw where shrapnel had peppered him but he couldn’t deal with it now.
Ava stumbled over and dropped heavily to her knees beside them. “I killed a lot of people,” she said. Parker saw her slipping into shock right before his eyes. A bullet had entered at the back of her neck and to the side on a downward angle and exited through the front of her left shoulder. Something Parker’s EMT instructor had called a dorsal wound.
“We have to move,” he said. Able to hear, he realized he was in shock, as well. “Wh
y did I have to pick now to quit drinking?” he asked no one.
Above them, the skies opened up and rain poured down. He turned his face up toward the rain to let it wash him, and he suddenly had feeling in his face again. He groaned out loud in a strangled cry as fire exploded in his left eye socket.
“Help me,” he said. “There’s something in my eye.” He raised his hand to feel gently around his face and try to estimate the extent of the wound.
Ava grabbed his wrist and stopped him. He looked at her, confused.
“Jim,” she said, her voice soft and dull. “There’s nothing in your eye.”
“Hurts,” he said, confused. “Bad.”
Ava nodded. “That’s because you don’t have an eye anymore. You have to let me pack that for you.”
“I don’t have an eye?” his voice sounded plaintive in his own ears.
He looked at Sara and saw her holding the hand with the missing finger up, trembling. He looked at Ava. The small-framed blonde looked like Sissy Spacek in the original movie poster for Carrie.
We’re so fucked, he thought.
“Jim,” Ava said. “Jim, look at me.”
He looked at her with his one good eye. It sounded weird hearing his first name coming out of her mouth. “What?” he asked.
“You have to stay with me,” she said. “You have to tell me what to do. We’ve got to wrap you up; we’ve got to wrap Sara up. We have to stop my bleeding.” She panted, as if the effort of her speech was on par with running a race.
Sara needs help, Parker thought.
It was enough to get him moving again. He nodded slowly. “Open the bag over there—it’ll have a field medic kit,” he said. When Ava did so, he asked her, “Is my eye still attached? Is it hanging by the optic nerve?”
Dead End (911 Book 2) Page 23