by Sam Sisavath
The only one who hadn’t shown any signs of easing up was the fourth man. He was older than the other three by at least ten years and had a large beard. He looked as if he was wearing a uniform that was at least a size too small, making him seem bigger than he really was. He was still watching the Chevy from behind the back of the GMC, as if he expected a gunfight to start up at any moment.
The man must have sensed Gaby staring, because he looked over in her direction and they stared at each other across the short distance. She didn’t know how long that lasted. Maybe it was just a second, or a few seconds. It could have been just a split second.
Oh, shit.
Gaby responded on pure instinct. She wasn’t even aware of what she was doing until she had squeezed the trigger on the M4 and hit the side of the truck.
She had fired too fast and missed!
Fortunately for her, the solid ping! as her round drilled into the vehicle must have startled the bearded man enough, because instead of shooting back at her, he ducked behind cover. That gave her the precious extra second to flick the fire selector on the carbine to burst fire and squeeze the trigger again.
She strafed the truck with the first three-round volley, swinging her rifle from right to left, shattering the driver-side window in the process. She kept squeezing the trigger even as the other three men were slow to react, as if they couldn’t decide between hiding and returning fire. One man was struggling to get a hold of his rifle, while another was racing along the length of the pickup.
Thank God for amateurs, Will.
She was already backing up, moving behind her open passenger door (hoping and praying Nate was doing the same on his side) while continuing to pull the trigger again and again and again—
Then, a second later her own gunfire was lost in the torrential downpour of brap-brap-brap! coming from behind and slightly to her left.
Danny.
Gaby threw a quick look back and saw him standing in the back of the Chevy. He was firing the M240 machine gun over the cab, the nonstop clink-clink-clink of empty 7.62mm brass casings pouring down and bouncing off the roof and landing in the truck bed around his feet. Some flickered onto the highway behind Gaby, while others somehow managed to rain down the front windshield and clank against the front hood.
Danny held onto the heavy weapon with both hands and was moving it right and left, bracing its bucking weight against the truck’s roof to keep it under control as he oscillated his fire. He was slightly bent over, eyes looking behind the iron sights of the weapon at his targets thirty yards up the highway.
There was a loud explosion as a tire blew, then another one. Windows shattered against the constant ping-ping-ping! of bullets punching through aluminum and metal and steel. All the noise and fury drowned out her own labored breathing. She couldn’t even hear (though she could see) Nate, outside the driver-side door on the other side, still firing up the highway. The smell of gasoline wafted across the highway to her nostrils as the two perforated vehicles began leaking fuel.
Gaby didn’t realize she had stopped pulling her M4’s trigger until Danny finally stopped shooting. By the weight of her weapon, she guessed she still had half a magazine left, so she switched it back to semi-auto and focused on the two vehicles.
Or what was left of them.
The last half dozen or so shots from the M240 were still echoing off the sun-baked highway and the walls of trees to both sides of them when she finally recognized her own shallow breathing. Slowly, slowly, she forced herself to settle down, just as the last gunshots faded.
“Clear it!” Danny shouted. She didn’t know why he was shouting until she realized he was probably slightly deaf from firing the machine gun and didn’t even know it.
Then there was just the silence again, with the occasional clinking as she moved forward, kicking casings out of her path. Nate was moving forward, parallel to her. They exchanged a brief look and nod before continuing on to the GMC and Toyota.
They were wrecks. Worse than wrecks. The tires were blown, every window smashed to pieces, even the ones on the other side. Danny hadn’t spared a single round, and she made a promise to herself never to get in front of one of those weapons.
She didn’t say a word, and neither did Nate as they scooted toward the shredded metal carcasses. She counted two bodies on her side, including the man with the beard and the blond. There were two more on Nate’s end. Thick red blood pooled under and around their still bodies, wet and unnaturally bright against the sun.
Gaby lowered her rifle and looked back down the interstate at Danny and waved. He nodded back and put the M240 away and climbed out of the truck. She didn’t have to be able to see his face to know that all those little motions were causing him a lot of pain with his broken leg. Not that Danny said anything as he hobbled over to the driver-side door and looked in at the girls.
She glanced across the lanes at Nate. He was staring at the bodies, and she couldn’t quite tell what the expression on his face was at the moment. Regret? Sympathy? Guilt?
“Nate,” she said. “We should take their weapons and look for anything else we can use in the trucks, then get out of here.”
He nodded back but didn’t say a word. He looked inside the Toyota through the broken front passenger-side window, and she did the same to the GMC. There was a case of MREs in the back, along with green cans of ammo. She grabbed a tactical pack from the floor and found it filled with extra clothes that she yanked out and replaced with the MREs before collecting two M4s from the ground.
Nate had picked up a third rifle on his side, but didn’t bother with the fourth one. “It’s busted,” he said before she could ask.
“Let’s get out of here,” she said, and they took their spoils back to the Silverado, where Danny was waiting for them.
“We good?” he asked them.
“We’re good,” Gaby said.
“How about you, Nathaniel Bacon?”
Nate shook his head. “I don’t know who that is.”
“Read a book sometime,” Danny said. He glanced down at his watch, then looked up at the feeder road beside them. “We’ll cut across Lake Dulcet and make our way south. It’ll be close, but if we haul ass, there’s no reason we can’t reach Song Island by four or five. That sound good?”
“You know where you’re going?” Gaby asked.
“Yeah, sure. Just follow the signs, right? I’m good at that, you know. Back in college, they used to call me Follow The Signs Danny.”
“‘Follow the Signs Danny’?” Nate said.
Gaby managed a smile. “Just go with it.”
“Ah,” Nate said.
She tossed the bag of food, ammo cans, and rifles into the back. Annie and Milly were outside on the driver side and Claire was standing next to her, looking at what remained of the soldiers’ trucks. Gaby was glad the girl couldn’t see the bodies on the other side of the vehicles. Claire was strong, but she didn’t particularly want the kid seeing everything if she could help it.
“What’s that smell?” Claire asked, wrinkling her nose.
“Gasoline,” Gaby said.
“Oh.” Then she turned her calm eyes on Gaby. “I could have helped.”
“Not until you learn how to shoot a rifle.”
“I already know how to shoot a rifle.”
“I mean a real rifle.”
“You’ll teach me?” she said, nodding at the carbine in Gaby’s hands. “Soon? I want to help, too.”
“Soon,” Gaby nodded. “Now get inside so we can get going.”
“Next stop, Song Island?”
God, I hope so, she thought, but smiled reassuringly and said, “Yeah, definitely next stop, Song Island.”
Claire grinned and climbed back into the truck.
Danny was already settling in behind the steering wheel. “You did good, kid.”
“Thanks,” she said.
“Don’t let it go to your head.”
“Perish the thought.”
He gru
nted, then, “Asses down and seatbelts on. Annie, you’re up front with me. You know how to read a map?”
Annie climbed into the front passenger seat. She didn’t look nearly as shell-shocked or dazed as she had earlier during the first firefight on the highway. Maybe, Gaby thought, Annie was finally warming to what it took to survive out here.
It’s about time, too.
“It’s just a map,” Annie said, taking the folded paper from Danny. “How hard could it be?”
“Pretty hard, if you’re blind,” Danny said.
Gaby walked over to Nate, who was already waiting in the back of the truck. He held out his hand, and she let him pull her up.
“How old is that girl? Twelve?” he asked, looking into the cab window at Claire on the other side, clutching her FHN shotgun.
“She’s thirteen.”
“Thirteen. Jesus. You think she’s ready for an assault rifle?”
“I wasn’t ready for one, either, but I got over it.”
“Well, in that case, why don’t we just give her a bazooka?”
“If only we had one.”
“I was kidding,” Nate frowned.
“I wasn’t,” Gaby said.
*
She sat in the back of the truck across from Nate, with the M240, now reloaded with a fresh ammo belt, rattling next to them. The soldiers were, if nothing else, well stocked when they ventured out. Danny drove, with Annie in the front passenger seat directing his turns using the map.
They had taken the feeder road off the I-10 and were now moving through what looked like Downtown Lake Dulcet. It wasn’t a particular big city—more like a tourist attraction—and the only sound for miles was the churning of the truck’s engine. If Josh’s soldiers were in pursuit, they would be able to hear them easily enough. But that couldn’t be helped right now. To move fast, they had to be loud, too.
The one bright spot was that it had been almost an hour since they entered the city and there were no signs of pursuers. That supported Danny’s theory that the rest of the ambushers were either positioned in Lake Charles further up the interstate or waiting to strike near Salvani. Either way, they had skirted trouble.
Or they hoped, anyway.
Nate sat across from her so they could see both forward and back, as well as both sides of the road. She kept the M4 in her lap, because the very thought of not having it was terrifying. The only sounds for the longest time were the car engine, the wind blasting in her ears, and stray brass casings clinking randomly around them. Danny was driving at forty miles per hour in the narrow streets and gassing it when he found bigger lanes.
She should have felt good about making it through a second ambush unscathed, but seeing those men falling under Danny’s onslaught hadn’t been nearly as triumphant as she had expected. Looking across at Nate now, she guessed he felt the same way, which may or may not be why he hadn’t said a word since they climbed into the Chevy.
“You okay?” she finally asked. She had to raise her voice over the roar of the wind to be heard.
He gave her a forced smile. “Yeah. You?”
“We did what we had to. Back there.”
“I know.”
“Then what’s wrong? Is it the four guys we had to kill?”
“I don’t care about those guys. I was thinking about the other two. The ones who were with me before.”
“What about them?”
“I shot them in the back.” He paused. “They never saw it coming. One of them…he was surprised. I could see it on his face afterward.”
They chose their fates, Nate, she wanted to say. They got what they had coming. Would they have felt bad about shooting us?
But she didn’t say those words out loud because she could see how much it was bothering him, and had been for some time now. It didn’t surprise her at all that he would feel guilty about it. They had once argued about whether to kill another man who had ambushed them on the highway not all that long ago.
“Did you know them?” she asked.
He shook his head. “Not really. We were thrown together when I volunteered for this.”
“You volunteered?”
“I had to. It was the only way to leave L17 and find you.”
“L17,” she repeated. “The town they took me to was called L15.”
“There are dozens of towns in just this state alone. You have no idea how massive the operation really is, Gaby. L17 had over 5,000 people.”
Not people, Nate. Cattle. That’s what we are to them. Nothing but cattle.
“I’m glad you’re alive,” she said, and managed a smile that wasn’t completely forced.
“You already said that.”
“It deserves saying again.”
He gave her his best (mostly) unforced smile. “I wasn’t sure for the longest time, you know. After I woke up…”
“What happened to you, Nate?”
His face darkened slightly. “The night at the pawnshop. They didn’t kill me. They’d been feeding on me for…” He shook his head. “I don’t know how long. After they were done, I guess they put me in one of the towns.”
He stopped talking and seemed to drift off.
“What happened then?” she prompted.
“I eventually got my strength back. After that, they asked me if I wanted to keep fighting or comply. That was the word they used. ‘Comply.’ Not ominous at all, right?”
“Who was it?” she asked. “Who asked you?”
“Just some guy,” Nate said. “I was lucky your friend Josh wasn’t around. I don’t think he would have been quite as willing to just let me go on my merry way.”
You have no idea, Nate. No idea at all.
Nate was staring at her intently when he added, “After he took you, that kid, did he do anything to you, Gaby?”
“Like what?”
“Anything. Did he do anything to you?”
She shook her head. “It wasn’t like that, Nate. Josh…”
Wouldn’t have done something like that, she wanted to say, but she didn’t, because she couldn’t be certain. The Josh she knew—the eighteen-year-old kid who had survived with her and Matt, would never have even thought about something so despicable. But that boy was long gone, replaced by a stranger. This Josh was different. He wasn’t her Josh.
“No,” she said. “He didn’t do anything to me.”
Nate looked relieved. She wondered how long he had been thinking about that, tormenting himself with what was happening to her at Josh’s hands. Gaby didn’t know if she should be grateful or annoyed. Maybe she was overthinking it. Nate was one of those gallant types. An idealist. If the world hadn’t ended, he would have become an Army officer and served his country dutifully and likely retired a war hero, one that was well-liked by his platoon. Or unit. Or whatever it was they called groups in the Army.
“But anyway, back to their comply-or-die question, it was a no-brainer,” Nate was saying. “When I told them about my military background, they were happy to let me enlist. Like I told Danny, most of these guys are average Joes. Office drones, salesmen, construction workers, you name it.”
“Why did you decide to become one of them?” Gaby asked. She was thinking about all the soldiers she had seen, the ones she had shot at, and the ones she had killed. The men from Mercy Hospital, the ones in Dunbar, men like Mac and (the other) Lance that held her captive in L15…
“It was the only way I was going to get to leave the towns,” Nate said.
“I thought anyone could leave.”
“That’s what they tell you, but it’s a lie. You’re never seen in town again, but it’s not because you found someplace better. You just…disappear. I don’t know what happens exactly. No one I’ve talked to does; but then, we’re all pretty low on the totem pole. Maybe the guys higher up know.”
I bet Josh knows.
What happens to those who leave the towns, Josh? Where do they go? What becomes of them?
“How did you escape?” Nate asked.
/> She told him about waking up in L15, then escaping with Peter and Milly before getting captured again in Dunbar by Harrison’s men. He smiled when she got to the part about reuniting with Will and Danny later.
“He’ll be okay,” Nate said. “Will, I mean. I’ve never met a more capable guy in my life.”
“I know,” she nodded. “I would worry if it was someone else, but it’s not. I wouldn’t be surprised if we got to Song Island and found out he already beat us there.”
Nate nodded back, but she could tell he didn’t actually believe her. Which wasn’t a total surprise to Gaby, because she had a hard time believing it herself.
*
They didn’t say anything again for a while. There was a lot to talk about, but she didn’t want to do it in the back of a moving truck with the wind tearing away every other word between them. Besides, there would be time for everything she wanted—needed—to ask him later.
She glanced into the cab window to break the monotony of staring at Nate across from her. Annie was consulting the map in her lap while Danny drove. They were aimed south the entire time, except for a few minutes where they had to take detours. But for the most part, it was always south, toward Song Island. Toward home.
They were approaching the southern city limits of Lake Dulcet, with the downtown far behind them now, when Gaby heard something that made her sit up. It wasn’t a gunshot, another car engine, or any of the alarming noises she had been waiting for since they abandoned the interstate for the streets.
It was a man’s voice shouting at them.
Nate heard it too, and he looked around before settling on a group of office buildings behind him. There were two figures on the rooftop of what looked like a big box warehouse store, both jumping up and down and waving their arms frantically above their heads to get their attention. The sun was behind them, but both had the shape of men clutching guns in their hands. If the intention was to flag them down, swinging assault rifles wildly back and forth was probably the dumbest thing they could have done.