by Nick Randall
The momentum of the Suburban built even further when the back tires were penetrated by the nail boards as well and the massive vehicle swung around like a carousel at the carnival!
No matter how tightly Jon held onto the steering wheel, it was over. The Suburban made two complete three sixty turns, going off the road where it finally crashed front first into a tree!
The air bags exploded into Jon’s face. Though dazed from the crash his left hand managed to find the door handle so he could twist it and kick the door open.
He stumbled out and fell to his knees.
Two men each armed with pistols emerged from the woods, the men who had set the trap.
“Arms up!” one of them said as they approached Jon with their pistols raised.
Jon feigned being wounded and disoriented as he raised himself to this feet and then stumbled around a little.
“I said arms up!” the first of the two men repeated.
“Can’t see anything, can’t see anything,..” Jon murmured as he continued staggering about.
Suddenly, with lightning fast speed, Jon drew one of his Glocks from its holster while throwing himself against the road. He fired a total of six shots by the time he had fully hit the ground (and severely bruised his shoulder in the process), and both of the men lay dead on the ground.
Jon pulled himself back up to his feet and scanned the area for more hostiles. None that he could see.
He returned to the Suburban.
“Is everybody alright?” he asked.
“We’re fine, we’re fine!” Josie held onto Alex in the back.
“My leg’s kinda weird…” Roy grunted, clearly dazed and half unconscious.
Josie leaned over to the front to see that Roy’s leg was now bleeding profusely through his pant leg.
“Over there!” Jon could hear shouting.
He glanced up over the Suburban, and a few hundred yards up the road where they had just come from, he could see several dozen militia members running straight for them as one massive horde.
“They’re coming!”
“Can you move, Roy?” asked Josie.
“I don’t know…AH!” Roy yelled in pain as he tried to move his leg.
“Jon, take Alex and get outta here!” Josie screamed.
“What about you guys?” Jon asked, surprised.
“Take her and go!” Josie insisted, virtually handing Alex to Jon through the door.
“Mom what are you doing?!” Alex screamed.
“Go Alex, you need to go with Jon!” Josie insisted. “Get out of here and get out of here fast!”
“Come with us!” Jon said, taking Alex through the door and setting her down on the ground.
“I’m not leaving Roy and Ben!” Josie said.
The militia men up the road were closing in fast, about half as closer as they were previously.
“MOM, NO!” Alex burst out crying.
“Jon, take her and go, put as much space between us and yourselves now!” Josie cried back. “Alex, dad and I we’ll find you again, I promise we will!”
Jon picked up the crying Alex and carried her away into the trees where they disappeared.
Initially Josie could still hear Alex’s cries quite clearly, but soon they became more distant and faint the more Jon carried her away into the woods.
Chapter 4
Ben heard two words that he had wished he would never have to hear again in his entire life.
“Benny boy!”
There was only one person on the entire planet who would have said those two words to him, and even if he hadn’t used those two words ‘Benny Boy’ specifically, Ben still would have instantly identified who it was based on the voice alone, regardless of which words were used.
A pair of hands grabbed Ben tightly by the ankles and tried to drag him out of the back of the Suburban.
“No, no, no!” Ben started to say and tried to resist, but it was too late as he was yanked off of his stretcher and out of the Suburban and fell to the dirt like a sandbag.
The moment his body made hard contact with the ground, Ben screamed as the force of the body-wide blow exasperated all of the pain he was already feeling from the gunshot wounds.
He grimaced and clenched his teeth, closing his eyes and trying to control the mercilessly intense and internal burning that had gripped itself over the inside of his body.
When Ben opened his eyes again, just when the pain was beginning to ebb a little away, he found himself staring in absolute horror into the two dark and furious eyes of the man he feared most.
“We meet again, Benny boy!” Ojo was grinning and revealing all of his golden teeth.
Ben winced. Those teeth, in all their shiny glory, had always seemed so disgusting to him, but even more so now.
And really, he wasn’t all that shocked to see Ojo standing over his face now. Being shot up so badly and bedridden had taken a significant toll on him. The world just seemed so unrealistic, as if everything were a dream and anything could happen. Running into Ojo again was inevitable and unavoidable.
“Fate has returned you to me, Benny boy!” Ojo continued, as excited as a young and innocent visiting the ice cream shop or toy store, the only difference being that Ojo was hardly so innocent. “Surely you must understand that, at least.”
Ben said nothing as his enemy began to prod his body around with a stick. Keeping his mouth shut seemed like the very best thing that he could do right now.
“In the time since we last saw each other, Benny boy, I’d say you’ve had it rougher than I had, that’s for sure,” Ojo continued to prod around Ben’s body with the stick.
Suddenly, the edge of the stick found one of the bullet wounds and Ben screamed again.
Ojo’s eyes went wide and he released the pressure from the stick to provide relief to Ben, who calmed down but continued to breathe heavily.
“So, I wasn’t the only poor bastard who shot you!” Ojo exclaimed. “Boy oh boy Benny boy, it seems like you’re a bullet magnet! That’s a good way to die in these parts, but you just keep truckin’ on!”
“If you’re gonna kill me, just get it over with,” Ben spoke to Ojo for the first time.
As far as Ben could tell, his life was over anyway. The bug out had failed and the Suburban was destroyed. Roy and Josie were prisoners and Jon and Alex had disappeared into the woods. They had lost, and that was that. What was there left to live for at this point?
“Are you surprised?” Ojo asked.
“Surprised?” Ben was confused as he contemplated his anticipated upcoming death that he was fully prepared for.
“Surprised to see me of course!” Ojo laughed. “I bet back at that dirt mount homestead you thought you had seen the last of me, didn’t you? I must whole heartedly concede, amigo, that when I saw you go down that it was the end of you too. Took the bullet like a champ!”
Ojo was just as Ben had remembered: careless, excited, loud, boisterous, and dangerous.
It was only then that Ben’s eyes shot around and he noticed other militia members standing around him as well, all armed.
“It’s been a long story since you saw me last,” said Ojo. “As you can see, I’ve made some new friends. Just like you.”
Out of the corner of Ben’s eye, he could spot Josie and Roy forced on their front sides over the dirt and having their hands tied behind their backs. Both of them were still apparently unconscious and motionless.
“I don’t want to hurt your feelings, Benny boy,” Ojo just wouldn’t shut up. “But I’m not in this excited mood right now because I found you. No, my amigo! The real reason I’m so excited, is because I found this guy over here!”
Ojo grabbed Ben by the shirt collar and dragged him over to Roy and Josie.
“Drag the bitch away,” Ojo instructed the militia men standing around. “I only want this one.”
As instructed, the militia men dragged Josie away while leaving Roy for Ben. But hot was it that they were now following Ojo’s orders?
“I want you to watch this,” Ojo told Ben.
He then kicked Roy over onto this back.
“Wake up, wake up, you bastard!” Ojo slapped Roy repeatedly across the face, and he awoke.
“Do you know who I am?” Ojo asked.
Roy didn’t say anything or even show an ounce of emotion on his facial expressions. Ben admired that. Only now, he realized that screaming out whenever his pain was worsened made him look incredibly weak in the eyes of Ojo.
“I very politely asked you…” Ojo started to say. “DO YOU KNOW WHO I AM?!”
Ojo punched Roy hard against his face. “DO YOU?!”
Roy shook his head, refusing to say a word. His intense military training was now kicking in. He could resist a lot of pain and simply receiving a punch and a scream in the face wasn’t going to force him to say anything.
“You’re right,” said Ojo. “You don’t know me. But do you want to know who you did know?”
Again, Roy was motionless and emotionless. Just so completely still as if no one was even threatening him right now. Ben looked away, not wanting to watch Ojo rip off half of Roy’s face with a bullet if that’s what it came to, but he couldn’t help but listen to the entire encounter.
“Dominic,” Ojo told Roy, and he was now much more serious both in terms of the tone of his voice and of his facial expressions. “Dominic. You knew Dominic. My only blood brother. And you took him from me. You didn’t even know his name, did you? Do you remember? The night three men came to your house. You killed one of them. Do you remember?”
Roy thought. Of course he remembered. That night barely a week ago, when he and Josie had awoken to the loud echoing thunder of something heavy being dropped downstairs, and when Roy had gone to investigate, it had resulted in a jacketed hollow point 9mm bullet being delivered straight into the skull of the home intruder he physically confronted.
It was that night that had served as the catalyst for everything that had transpired sense. Roy cursed himself internally. The two other home invaders had gotten away, and far too easily. If only he had been able to take both of them down like he had the first, they never would have gotten back to their gang to give away the homestead’s location.
“You,” Roy spoke and sneered at Ojo, finally putting two-and-two together and recognizing who he was. “You’re the one who attacked my homestead.”
“Yeah, I did,” Ojo replied. “But only because of the blood brother you took from me!”
Ojo struck Roy hard multiple times across his face and brow. Ben winced from each blow he heard.
“And do you want to know something else?” Ojo asked when he finished beating Roy. “Do you want to know how I was able to find your little shitty homestead to begin with?”
Roy didn’t say anything.
“ANSWER!” Ojo suddenly drew a machete and held the edge of the blade to Roy’s throat.
“Because two men got away,” Roy reluctantly obeyed and answered. “I would have killed them, I swear to God if they were only a little slower….”
“SHUT UP!” Ojo screamed. “You wanna know who one of those getaways were, the one who led me back to your place?”
Ben’s heart stopped.
Ojo then placed the cold steel of the flat of the machete’s blade against Roy’s temple and tilted it over so Roy was now facing Ben.
“That’s right,” Ojo said. “You’re looking at him now.”
Roy couldn’t believe it. Ben could see the shock and surprise conquering his face.
“You?” Roy asked.
“I’m…I’m sorry,” was all Ben could say.
Roy yelled furiously at Ben’s admission and immediately flung himself over him. Ben was completely helpless as Roy delivered punch after punch to his face.
Two of the militia members started to intervene, but Ojo kept them at bay with his machete.
“Let ‘em have it!” Ojo said. “This is fun!”
Ojo and the other militia members then watched on in amusement as Roy reduced Ben’s face to a bloody pulp with a series of fast and powerful punches.
“That’s enough!” the grizzled man with the eye patch and long black leather jacket approached, the same grizzled man who had captured Ojo, Spider, and Jonah before.
He grabbed the flailing Roy by the back of his jacket and lifted him up off Ben like a rag dog. With a quick swing he threw Roy onto the ground with a loud thud.
The grizzled man then lifted his leg and brought it down hard over Roy’s leg wound. Roy grimaced and grabbed the wound with his hands. The grizzled man relented and relaxed his foot.
“No, he’s mine!” Ojo screamed. “I told you this one is mine! He killed my brother!”
The grizzled man slapped Ojo hard across the face to shut him up. He was still in control.
“Stay out of this,” he sneered, and then stood in between Roy and Ben on the ground.
“Hello,” the grizzled man said.
Neither Ben or Roy spoke back.
“I see that you two and Ojo here have had a little run-in before,” the grizzled man continued after it was clear that neither Ben or Roy were going to say anything back. “In fact, it seems that he knows the two of you quite well.”
Again, neither Ben or Roy said anything back.
“I will say one thing for you guys,” the grizzled man said. “You’re tough, all of you. Cost us a few guys and a hell of a lot of time. But we got you now, and that means you belong to us now. You belong to Nero. Let’s go pay him a little visit now, shall we?”
* * *
“Faster!” Jon snapped. “And be quiet!”
Alex was crying uncontrollably as she stumbled along through the woods behind him.
Jon rolled his eyes. He was never a fan of children, and Alex wasn’t doing anything to change his attitude toward them. If anything, she was only making it worse.
“Listen, what part of quiet do you not understand?” Jon sharply turned to face Alex.
Alex quit walking and stood there in front of him with her head faced down, tears dropping like rain to the dirt, and her body wrapped in her torn and bloody cotton jacket that at one time would have been a clean purple.
“Where’s mom and dad?!” Alex asked. “We just left them!”
“We left them because we had too, and if you don’t shut the hell up I’m going to leave you too!” Jon scolded, only to instantly regret it as Alex’s cries intensified and grew louder.
“Okay, okay, okay, I’m sorry,” Jon knelt down in front of her and tried to set his hands over Alex’s shoulders, but she took a few steps back to escape his grasp. “Can you please calm down and at least being so loud so we can think this through. We’ll find your mom and dad again, alright? But for now you have to be quiet or else the bad people are going to find us.”
“You’re just saying that to make me feel better!” Alex resisted. “I want my mom and my dad.”
Jon rolled his eyes again. He simply didn’t know how to communicate with young kids.
“No, I’m not saying this to make you feel better,” he said. “I’m telling you this because it’s the truth. We can find your mom and your dad, and do you want to know why?”
Alex shook her head.
“Because I know some people,” said Jon. “People who can help us. But they’re a ways away…”
‘Then we have to go back to mom and dad!” Alex insisted.
“No, not yet,” Jon held up his hands, trying to show her that he was trying to avoid a direct confrontation. “We can’t do this alone. We go back, and we get killed, but if we get help we can save your parents. Do you understand?”
Alex didn’t respond with anything, not even a gesture.
“Do you understand?” Jon asked again.
Alex nodded this time.
“Okay, good, good,” said Jon. “Okay, so here’s the deal. I know some people like I said. They live about ten miles away, so we got some walking to do. We can get their help and we’ll go back and track down your
parents to rescue them. But I need you to stay focused, alright. Be focused and be alert. You’re a soldier now, alright?”
Alex’s ears perked up.
“A soldier?” she asked.
“That’s right,” said Jon.
“I used to patrol our homestead like a soldier,” said Alex. “But all they let me have was my BB gun. So didn’t really feel like one.”
“You ever fired a real gun?” Jon asked.
Alex shook her head.
“You mean your dad seriously never taught you?” Jon asked.
Again, Alex shook her head.
Jon withdrew one of his Glock 19s from its holster and handed it to her.
“Take it,” Jon instructed.
Alex obeyed and accepted the weapon into her hands. Not only had she never fired a real gun before, she couldn’t even think of the last time that she had actually held one either. It felt heavy, certainly heavier than the toy guns she was used to.
“Woops, keep your finger off the trigger,” Jon caught Alex’s finger gliding over the trigger of the pistol. “Do you think you could use it if you had to?”
Alex nodded. “Yeah.”
“Good, good, then,” said Jon. “It’s always more comforting knowing that you have backup. Now, let’s go find those people like I was telling you about. And then after that, we’ll go save your parents.”
Chapter 5
Josie slowly opened her eyes. Her vision was blurry, but she could make out the brown and creaky wooden boards of the ceiling above her.
She was lying flat on her back, and though she was outstretched with her arms extended above her and her legs pulled straight, her position was actually quite comfortable. There was a soft pillow under her head and she had sunk partially into the nice, plush mattress that she was laying on.
As her vision slowly returned to her, Josie started to move her arms, only for her range of motion to become instantly restricted and for a sharp pain beginning at her wrists to shoot through to her elbows.
Josie snapped her head to one side, and she immediately saw what she had feared: her left arm was handcuffed to the bed. The pain had been caused from the cuff digging into her skin when she tried to move around. When she looked the other way, she could see the same was true with her other hand and wrist.