Joanna could feel Shane press closer up against her, hugging her knee in his tiny arms.
“I’m scared,” his voice trembled through the darkness.
“I know,” Joanna replied. “It’ll be okay,” she said.
It was hot and stuffy inside their little self-made cave. Joanna could feel the sweat starting to bead on her forehead. A drop trickled down her nose, hanging for a moment at the tip before plummeting into darkness.
They could hear more crashes outside in the basement and smell smoke as it seeped through almost imperceptible cracks around their steel door. Small pinpricks of light began to push their way inside their holdout as the fire spread throughout the basement.
Joanna felt around blindly in the darkness.
“Where’s the bucket?” she asked.
“Here,” Janet whispered.
Joanna felt something bump against her foot as Janet pushed a sealed two-gallon bucket over to her.
Blindly, Joanna felt for the top edges of the bucket before finding grip on the lip of its lid and pulling it open. She fished around in the cool water inside and then pulled several wet hand towels from within. She wrung them out over the bucket and passed one to Joanna, then one Shane before taking one herself and wiping her face and then draping the towel around the back of her neck. She helped Shane to do the same.
Joanna wanted to move. She wanted to get the kids through the tunnel and out to the cool of the outside. She wanted to breathe fresh air, but she knew it was too soon. The gunmen were probably still outside, waiting to see if anyone emerged from the burning house. She couldn’t risk it…not yet.
Shane started coughing as more smoke drifted in around the edges of the steel plate. Joanna fished several more wet rags from the bucket and did her best to stuff them around the cracks in the plating, temporarily stemming the smoke’s infiltration.
Suddenly there was a rumble and then a tremendous, bone-rattling crash outside. The protective steel plate buckled inward and Joanna was sure it was going to give way. She could hear more debris falling against it as dirt crumbled in on top of them from around the bunker’s wooden support beams. A collapse of their tiny bunker hadn’t been on the top of her list of concerns, but it suddenly flashed to mind as a distinct possibility. Joanna quickly pushed the thought aside, choosing instead to focus on the still buckled steel plate – now sitting slightly askew – that served as the only protection between them and being cooked alive.
Another thunderous sound above them followed seconds later by a vicious impact in the basement outside, and it seemed the steel plate would let go any second. Joanna released her hold upon the kids and swung herself around to press her feet up against the barrier in an effort to help hold it in place. She felt it pressing hard in against her and she used her elbows to dig into the soft dirt floor behind and beneath her to give herself leverage against the pressure.
After a moment, she felt some of the weight pressing against the plate subside, but as she tried to remove her feet from the plate, they wouldn’t release. She realized that the soles of her tennis shoes had melted onto the hot steel. In the darkness, she bent forward in a half sit-up to untie her shoes, freeing herself from the scalding steel.
The smoke was getting thick inside their tiny holdout. Janet hoped that the most recent explosion of noise had been the house collapsing in upon itself. It would likely be the occurrence they needed for the armed men outside to give up hope of anyone emerging from the home and leave.
She paused to re-soak their towels so they could cover their faces and mouths in order to make breathing easier. The unseen smoke stung their eyes and the heat was now almost unbearable.
After about a minute, Joanna felt the towel that was helping her breath starting to grow warm and dry out. She used a hand to find the bucket of water-soaked rags. The water level inside was decreasing by the minute as they consumed the precious contents to help protect themselves. She knew that time was growing short, but they had to hold out just a little bit longer.
She could feel Shane shaking beside her, his sobs nearly muffled by the sound of the fire as it cracked, popped, hissed, and whooshed outside, sucking more precious air from their hole. It almost sounded like a living, breathing thing, its fiery fingers trying to reach their way inside the confines of their tiny holdout.
“Okay, everybody dip their towel one last time” Joanna said when the heat was just too much to bear any longer. “We’re going into the tunnel. We’ll stop part way and wait for another minute or so. I’ll lead. Shane, you follow me, and Janet, you bring up the rear. Everybody allow some space between them and the person in front of them just in case there’s a collapse.”
She squeezed around the other two on her hands and knees, got onto her elbows and pushed her way inside the start of the small tunnel, lowering herself onto her stomach as she entered. Just inside, she groped blindly until her hand touched a plastic shopping bag. Inside, she found a flashlight that she clicked on. She kept it in her right hand while using her forearms and elbows to drag herself through the nearly impassible crawlspace.
About six feet into the tunnel, she paused, listening. Behind her she could hear the other two begin to move behind her. She kept going, wanting to make room for them. It seemed like she’d been crawling forever, but knew that at the pace of just a few inches with every squeeze forward, progress would be agonizingly slow. She prayed that the small support beams around her would hold the weight of the earth above as she crawled, cringing and holding her breath each time she bumped against one.
Joanna wasn’t claustrophobic in most instances, but this wasn’t most instances. Robby had done most of the digging on this part of their escape route. She and the kids had worked largely on the entry and exit chambers that could be constructed without much danger of being entombed. In hindsight, she wished they’d made the exit chamber in the backyard big enough for all to fit. But by the time Robby had reached this portion of the dig, they’d been almost out of food and had decided that they shouldn’t expend much energy on digging. She found that now, as she considered what being buried alive would truly be like, she regretted the decision.
A vision of the supports cracking and then breaking and releasing the tons of earth above her didn’t bother her at first. Then, as her shoulders pressed against the sides of the tunnel and stuck, she imagined them being wedged in place, unable to move them, unable to move anything. Dirt would force her head down, cover her eyes, her ears, and get into her mouth and nose. The weight would slowly force the breath from her lungs. Each time she exhaled, like an enormous boa constrictor, the earth would press tighter, keeping her from refilling her lungs with precious oxygen.
She felt herself start to breathe in short panicky pants and forced the thoughts aside. She wanted to turn around and go back. All she could think about was being trapped, powerless in the dark. A pressure upon her right foot told her that Shane was behind her. His was a soothing presence, a presence that was enough to force her to mentally tough it out and urge her onward.
Finally, she made it to the end of the tunnel where it exited into a wider space that turned upward. She wriggled herself wormlike until she could sit up, her torso pointing up toward the tunnel’s exit above her while her legs remained inside the shaft itself. A blast of hot air whooshed up around her and she guessed the steel door had finally given way. It wouldn’t be long now before they were baked inside what was fast becoming a chimney for their house fire.
She could feel Shane pushing at her foot again and his muffled voice whining, “Mommy…Mommy, I’m scared.”
She knew they couldn’t wait any longer. It felt like they were being roasted alive. She pulled herself the rest of the way into the escape chamber so that she was nearly standing upright. She set the flashlight down and used her hands and the back of her neck to push up upon a piece of plywood that covered the exit hole. Above that was Shane’s sandbox, largely devoid of sand to relieve the pressure it would put upon the hole and make i
t easier to shove aside. She raised the covering several inches and peeked outside. In front of her, she could see the remnants of their home. The brick chimney was still standing, the back door and a portion of the back porch remained, and part of the staircase still rose to a missing second floor, but everything else now lay in a smoldering and still-flaming pile, blackened portions of which jutted from where the basement had once been. There was no sign of the marauding gang who had destroyed their home. Just as Robby had predicted, and just as he had prayed, they must have assumed that whoever was inside the home had been killed in the fire and therefore departed.
Joanna cautiously moved the sandbox aside and crawled out. She did another quick scan of the area around her and then lifted out Shane.
“Go to the garage and wait there,” she hustled him off in the right direction. Then she helped Janet out, re-covered the hole, and headed for the garage herself.
Once there, she found the emergency packs they’d stashed inside several plastic trash receptacles. These packs were concealed in large garbage bags and each contained a parka, two extra pairs of socks, an extra pair of shoes – which Joanna promptly made use of – two extra shirts, and a pair of pants. There was also Robby’s army knife, several cans of corned beef hash, four canteens of water, some water purification tablets, a small medical kit, several pairs of gloves and winter hats, a few hard candies and throat lozenges, a flashlight with extra batteries, several cigarette lighters, a portable propane-fed single burner for cooking, one small tank of propane fuel, a Swiss army knife, and several forks and spoons.
On top of the packs and inside another bag were winter coats, an extra blanket, and their old camping tent.
Besides each other, it was now all they had in the world.
CHAPTER 4
MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 16th
9:24 a.m.
SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
There was a flash of light, an explosion, a cloud of smoke, and the chatter of automatic rifle fire. I was disoriented as I made it to my feet from where I’d fallen on the wet forest floor. And as I regained my composure and looked around me, I realized that the two men who I had been preparing to assault now lay dead on the ground before me.
I was confused as smoke swirled around me, unsure of what to do or who had killed them.
Suddenly a hand on my shoulder clarified everything. I swung my rifle around, finger on the trigger, but a familiar voice stopped me.
“Don’t you shoot me, punkass,” it said.
I knew instantly by the “punkass” that it was Ray, my college buddy. He was the only person I knew who used the term.
It now also made sense as to where the smoke grenades had come from since Ray had previously had access to such items through his work with the FBI.
All I could do was smile in relief as a return greeting and say, “My gun jammed.”
He grabbed me and pushed me up behind the nearby trees for cover.
“Here,” he said, handing me his sidearm. “What’s the situation?”
“Not sure,” I said. “I got three people in the sinkhole over there,” I nodded. “They were supposed to be behind me, but they didn’t make it.”
“How many bad guys?” Ray asked, pushing a fresh clip into his assault rifle.
“Not sure…ten left maybe.”
Smoke now swirled thick around us. I could hear more gunfire over by the road.
He nodded. “Alright, let’s go get your people. Ready?”
I nodded, taking a quick second to clear the jam in my rifle.
“Let’s go,” he said, ducking around the right side of the tree and unleashing a spray of fire in the direction of the nearest attackers while advancing toward the sinkhole. I followed, finishing off what ammo was left in my rifle and then firing the handgun Ray had given me.
I saw Ray get at least one other attacker and saw two more retreat from the general vicinity in which he was firing, running back toward the clearing where they had parked their vehicles.
Suddenly, from Ray’s right, a young Hispanic woman appeared about 20 yards away. He turned as she leveled her weapon at him. They fired almost instantaneously and both fell at almost the same time just as I reached the sinkhole.
There I found Will and the others. Will was tying a bandana around his right thigh. The leg of his blue jeans was soaked in blood.
“Got hit as soon as we tried to make a move,” he said as soon as he saw me.
I nodded, gathering him up. “Come on,” I said. “We’ve got to go.”
I threw his arm around my neck and lifted. “Paul! Dad! Come on!” I yelled, pulling Will up and out of the hole with me.
I could see Ray getting to his feet, looking down at the shredded bulletproof vest that had saved his life. The Hispanic woman was nowhere to be seen.
“You alright, man?” I asked as we approached.
“Yeah…let’s go,” he winced, rubbing his chest, and then getting under Will’s left shoulder to help me with the load. “I’ve got to get back to Pam.”
“Where is she?” I said.
“On the entry road. I told her to stay with the vehicle.”
“Go on ahead,” I said. “We’ll be okay. Just make sure Pam’s safe.”
Ray left me with Will and ran on ahead of us through the woods, disappearing behind a thick row of trees that separated the road from the forest about 100 yards ahead.
I could hear more firing in front of us and then silence.
I prayed that Ray and Pam were okay.
* * *
Jake was sure that it was just a matter of time before the few remaining guys that were held up in the little sinkhole would run out of ammo. He knew his crew had enough ammo and enough people to outlast whatever these guys had brought along with them. He and his men were ready for a fight. These weekend-camper suburbanites weren’t.
He and Ava had almost gotten around to the one spot in the forest where escape for the people in the pit might still be possible. The two of them had split off from their two accompanying soldiers to finish the encirclement. These rats in their hole were putting up one hell of a fight, and he’d lost a few decent men in trying to finish them, but he was confident now that he and Ava were on the scene.
It was at that moment that he saw one of the rats scurry from its hole. Jake wondered just what in the hell the man was thinking as he headed straight for the trees where two of his soldiers were taking cover. He was surprised by the man’s speed and bravery, and he watched as he got the drop on Jack and Lewis who were dicking around behind the trees, taking little potshots at the men in the sinkhole. But then he smiled, watching. He knew the guy was fucked when his gun appeared to jam and Lewis got a hold of it, grappling with him while Jack realized what was going on and aimed his weapon at the man.
Jake was sure the guy was done for. Then everything went to shit.
Suddenly something hit Jake hard in the gut, stunning him and knocking the wind out of him. He doubled over in pain and was then knocked backward and onto the ground as there was an explosion of smoke around him. The chatter of automatic gunfire erupted nearby as he lay dazed.
By the time he recovered, the rat hole was empty and his men were on the retreat.
He had no idea what had happened, where Ava was, or if she was even still alive. It made him wonder if they made it all this way just to be killed by a pack of rats out here in the middle of nowhere. Had he built his army and traveled from Chicago down here to the boondocks in hopes of waltzing in and taking whatever he wanted, only to lose it all to some band of white-bread yuppie scum from the suburbs?
The thought made him angry. He wanted to go after these people; he wanted to find Ava, but then his sense of self-preservation kicked in.
He could always get revenge. He could always find a new sex toy. But there was only one Jake Stines; and right now, he needed to do all he could to preserve Jake Stines.
It was time to cut his losses, get out, and get out now.
* * *
&nb
sp; By the time we made it out to the entry road, I could see Ray knelling over a body lying on the ground beside his Hummer. I quickened my pace as much as I could while still being careful not to over-exert Will. Dad and Paul followed quietly behind. I wanted to help Ray with Pam if I could; but as I neared, Pam moved out from around the other side of the vehicle.
“I got one of them,” she said, still clutching a shotgun. She looked a bit shaky and leaned up against the side of the Hummer for support.
Ray turned to look at us, pocketing some ammo he’d removed from the dead guy that Pam had killed and whose body lay on the ground beside the Hummer.
“She done good,” he nodded at me. “Got this one as he was high-tailing it back down the road.”
I helped Will into the back seat of the Hummer and laid him down to inspect his wound.
Meanwhile, Ray continued checking the dead man for anything of use, pulling several pieces of paper from inside the man’s jacket pocket. Ray paused, opening an envelope and scanning the letter he pulled from inside.
“John…look at this,” he said.
I turned away from Will to see Ray holding the letter and envelope out to me. Dad and Paul attended to Will while I took the papers from Ray. I noticed immediately that the writing on the outside looked familiar. Then it struck me. The writing was mine.
“What the heck?” I murmured.
It hit me then that this was one of the letters I’d mailed before we’d driven down to southern Illinois. It was addressed to Claire’s brother Kevin and his wife Kim. Somehow these guys had gotten a hold of it. In turn, I had to assume that this likely meant the worst for Kevin and his family. As sad as the thought was though, I couldn’t dwell on it now.
The Systemic Series - Box Set Page 22