by Sam Sisavath
Of course he was probably going to die trying to help a group of people he didn’t know from Adam (with the exception of Christine, of course) until twenty-four hours ago, because that was what had become of Keo’s life these days.
For some reason—and it hit him out of the blue—as he was charging toward the three Buckies even as they were still rising up from their cover and were swinging their weapons in his direction, Keo thought of her.
Not Emma. He was surprised it wasn’t Emma.
Instead, he thought of her.
It had been five years since he’d last seen or even talked to her. He’d heard stories about what she was doing now, how she was raising an army of her own with the purpose of saving the world from itself. It was a mighty feat, but if anyone could do it, it was her.
And he was imagining the look on her face when someone told her what had become of him, how he had run straight into a fight he had no skin in, only to get himself killed.
“That’s Keo for ya,” she would probably say. “Always doing something stupid even when he knows better.”
I definitely should have known better, he thought as he sprayed half the magazine at the three figures even as they began firing in his direction almost simultaneously. Or two of them were, anyway, because the third took two rounds to the chest and was falling when his comrades opened up.
Bullets zip-zip-zipped around Keo as he launched himself with wild abandon and landed sideways on the ground. The impact jarred enough of his senses that he barely noticed the stabbing pain coming from his left side. He was bleeding, he knew that much, but didn’t have time to fully acknowledge it because there were still two men out there trying to kill him and he had to keep moving.
Two? You better hope there’s just two nearby!
The truth was there could have been more. Not just in the spot where he had knocked off the first two, but somewhere nearby. What were the chances there were just five and that was it? What were the chances he wasn’t nearly as shit out of luck as he had originally thought?
About as good a chance as you getting out of this alive, pal!
He sighed and struggled up onto his knees, blades of grass swiping at his face and shoulders and arms as he scrambled pathetically against the soft, wet dirt. The pop-pop-pop of fully automatic rifle fire shattered the early morning around him. He could smell burning foliage almost right away as bullets pierced through the vulnerable wall of grass to his left and right and above.
Above? Yup, above, too!
Keo lunged forward, away from the exploding ground, and rolled once, twice—a half dozen times (maybe?) before finding his knees under him and pushing his head up just enough to see two men in black assault vests racing forward but not at his current position. They were making a beeline for where he had begun his crazy rolling spree.
Twenty meters and closing in fast.
One was frantically reloading while the other peered through his gun’s red dot sight at the spot to Keo’s left, far from his current position. The man must have caught Keo moving out of the corner of his eye, because he swung his weapon over—
Keo shot him once in the thigh, even though he was aiming for the chest. Then, when the man stumbled, Keo put a second 9mm round into his gut. The Bucky vanished into the grass even as his partner spun in Keo’s direction, while at the same time pulling back his rifle’s charging handle. He was lifting his weapon when Keo shot him twice in the chest and watched him, too, collapse out of view.
He had a moment of triumph (five against one and he was still alive!), but it only lasted for a second or two before a loud crack! thundered, and he twisted even as searing pain erupted from somewhere along his temple.
He dropped to the ground as a second crack! exploded, and a large-caliber round sliced stalks of grass in half two inches from where he had landed on his stomach. Keo rolled away from the spot even as the sniper fired again—and again—but the man was aiming at the same location while Keo was getting farther away.
Rolling, rolling, rolling! he thought and wanted to laugh out loud, but there was too much pain to push anything through his lips but haggard grunting.
He finally stopped moving when he couldn’t make himself complete a new roll, and lay flat on his back staring up at the sun while sucking in one large breath after another. He reached up and felt along his right temple and brought his hand back covered in blood. It stung and it hurt, but it wasn’t life-threatening. At least, not the “my brain is leaking out” type of threatening wound, even if it did feel as if his skull was about to shatter at any second.
Keo wiped the blood on his pants and looked down at his left side. Now that one looked bad. It was a through and through, and he was definitely leaking out of two holes made by the same bullet.
Not good. Not good at all.
It took him a moment—a minute? Two?—before he realized the shooting had stopped. The sniper (snipers?) had either gone back into their holes, or they couldn’t locate him anymore. But the lack of bullets flying in his general vicinity didn’t mean there wouldn’t be bullets flying later when he tried to get up.
And he had to get up. He had to look for help. He hadn’t thought ahead to bring a first aid kit with him, and everything he had, he had on him. Which wasn’t much. There was the knife and the last magazine for the MP5SD.
Shit, he thought as he swapped out the almost-empty mag and put a fresh (final) one into the H&K. Another reason he should have risked the extra weight and brought a handgun along. Instead he was now down to thirty rounds and done.
Shoulda, woulda, coulda.
He wasn’t entirely out of luck, though. There were five dead bodies with plenty of ammo for him to salvage. There were two dead Buckies nearby, and all he had to do was find the strength to roll over to them—or just one of them—and take what he needed. He’d seen one of them carrying an AK-47 and the other had an AR-15. Either rifle would be perfectly acceptable, especially once he ran out of bullets for the submachine gun. And if he was lucky, maybe one of them would be carrying a first aid kit on them.
If he was lucky.
If he didn’t die before he reached them.
If there weren’t Buckies moving toward his position now to finish the job.
Keo lay perfectly still and listened (it was much easier than trying to move), but the only sounds that came to him were the back and forth of grass swaying in the fields and the winds rushing from the nearby shoreline. He couldn’t hear anything that indicated footsteps or voices, and though the first sniper bullet had nearly taken his head off, they didn’t have to be close to have gotten off a good shot.
So who were the guys he’d encountered? Maybe the snipers’ support staff. Normally snipers worked either alone or with a spotter; but then, these weren’t your everyday snipers. Maybe Buck’s boys had their own way of operating.
Who the hell cares. You’re bleeding to death, remember?
Oh, right.
He finally managed to make himself roll over onto his good side, flinching and gritting his teeth to keep from screaming out the entire time, and got his bearings. The two dead Buckies were somewhere in front of him. Ten meters or so, give or take. It was definitely makeable even if he had to crawl his way over, which was probably the only possible approach in his current condition. Sure, it would hurt like a bastard, but it was better than exposing his head and getting it shot off—
Crack! as a bolt-action rifle fired, but this one sounded from much farther away.
Jonah’s. Did that come from Jonah’s?
Keo stopped moving and listened.
One minute…
Two…
Suddenly a burst of automatic rifle fire—pop-pop-pop!—that was quickly followed by two slow, purposeful cracks! from the same high-powered bolt-action rifle. The fact that nothing was exploding around him was proof whoever was shooting wasn’t targeting him or anywhere in his general direction.
Keo moved to his knees, feeling woozy with every inch he managed, and finall
y pushed his head above the tree line.
There, a figure—no, not one, but two—racing across the open field nearly a quarter of a mile from his location. That would put them almost halfway to Jonah’s, and they looked like ants as they ran at full-speed not at the town but away from it. The two men were far enough apart that the gunfire coming from Jonah’s had to be split between the two of them, which Keo guessed was the plan.
A torrent of pop-pop-pops originated from Jonah’s, bullets raining down on the fleeing figures and kicking up dirt around them. But nothing was hitting and the two men continued moving, running as fast as they could, from the looks of it. Keo thought about picking them off with his MP5SD, but they were well beyond his range even with a decent scope.
Another crack! just before one of the retreating figures stumbled and fell. The other one stopped for a moment to look back—just a second, if even that—before he did the smart thing and turned around and kept running, moving even faster now, if that was possible.
The gunfire from Jonah’s continued, rounds chasing the lone fleeing sniper, but he had put too much distance for the automatic rifles. The bolt-action fired twice—crack! crack!—but neither shot hit their target, and the man kept going.
Run, little rabbit, run, Keo thought. He had to admit, the guy had definitely earned his freedom.
Keo lay back down on the wet (Why is it so wet? Oh right, my blood) and looked up at the bright sun hanging above him. The throbbing from his temple was getting a lot worse, and he was likely bleeding to death if the continually growing wetness under him was any indication.
He told himself to start crawling toward those dead Buckies to raid them for first aid kits, but he didn’t have the strength to put the thoughts into action. Instead, he continued staring up at the sun as it rose higher and higher above him, and decided that he really liked the idea of living this close to the ocean. Maybe that was why Jonah and Sherry and the others hadn’t wanted to leave this place when they stumbled across it, and it took the impending threat of Buck’s army to get them to do so.
A house on the beach next to the ocean. What could be better?
Keo closed his eyes, and he must have been dreaming, because he swore something was licking at his face while someone—a female voice—was calling out his name.
“Keo. Keo.”
Screaming his name, actually.
“Keo! Wake up!”
He opened his eyes and saw a small head with dirty brown hair dangling off the sides hovering over him, replacing the sun.
“Don’t die, Keo. Don’t die.”
“Die?” he said. Or whispered. But he was definitely sure he had said it.
Maybe.
“Yeah, don’t die,” Megan said. “You still gotta find Mom. Okay? You can’t die yet. You gotta find Mom first.”
“What are you doing out here? I told you to hide…”
“I saw you get shot, and you didn’t get back up.”
“Oh. Good reason.”
He closed his eyes again. The pounding pain from his temple hadn’t eased up even a little bit, and the wetness under him had increased. He was probably going to drown soon, from the feel of it. Can you drown on your own blood? There was a first time for everything.
“Keo, come on,” Megan said. Her voice sounded very soft and far away. Either that, or his hearing was slipping. “Come on!”
“Come on?” Where are we going?
He was on his feet. Somehow. He didn’t know how exactly, but he was back on his feet and—
He was falling again.
No, not falling, but lying down on his stomach, then being pushed across hard leather by someone from behind.
“Come on, Horse, come on!” a voice said. Megan? Was that still Megan?
Then he was moving, somehow.
The field flashed by in front of him. Under him. Wind rushed against his face and body, and red drops drip-drip-dripped to the ground as he traveled across it.
Blood. That’s my blood.
He didn’t know how long they walked (Ran? Jogged?) but he was aware of them going faster and faster, before finally slowing down again.
“Don’t shoot!” someone screamed. “Please don’t shoot!”
Then someone was shouting, “Jesus, get them in here!”
Somehow, fields of grass gave way to sand pebbles and voices gave way to the calm, soothing waves of the Gulf of Mexico.
A house on the beach next to the ocean. That’s the way to live.
That’s the way to live, all right…
TWENTY-SEVEN
CARS. Engines. People shouting.
What happened to the waves?
He struggled to open his eyes. He blamed it on the headache, like someone (or an army of someones) was banging away with a drum set, but the problem was they had no clue about how to play the drums.
Someone needs a lesson. Or two. Or a few hundred.
When he finally did manage to fully open his eyes and keep it that way for more than a few seconds, he found Sherry leaning against a railing next to him. There was wind and sunshine on his face, and he was outside. He assumed it was the deck of one of the houses in Jonah’s, though how he got here was a mystery. He wasn’t bleeding to death, which was all he really cared about.
Not bleeding to death is good. Definitely very good.
Or, at least, he didn’t think he was bleeding to death. The comfortable mattress (was it a mattress?) he was lying on didn’t feel the slightest bit damp. There was still natural sunlight around him, so he hadn’t slept through the day. Unless, of course, he had and was waking up days later, which would not have been ideal given what was out there—or more specifically, what was incoming.
Buckies. A whole mess of Buckies.
Sherry must have heard him stirring, because she glanced over. “Look at you, still alive. Jonah and I took bets on when you’d wake up.”
“Who won?” Keo asked.
“No one. I said tomorrow at the earliest, and he didn’t think you would.”
“Oh, ye of little faith.” He paused. Then, “Speaking of Short Round…”
Sherry smiled. “He’s busy coordinating the evacuation.”
He thought about trying to sit up, to test how badly off he was after his little stunt in the fields, but decided the consequences weren’t worth finding out. Besides, he was lying on some kind of soft cot—or a mattress on a pallet. Whatever it was, it was damn soft, and the wind and sun in his face was so soothing.
I’m still at the beach. Definitely still at Jonah’s.
“So how long have I been out?” Keo asked.
“A few hours,” Sherry said.
“What time is it?”
“We’re coming on noon. You’re lucky to be alive, Keo. You were bleeding like a stuck pig when the girl brought you over. But fortunately, we got to you in time.” She seemed to wince. “I wouldn’t move too much, if I were you. That bullet hole in your side’s not going to disappear anytime soon.”
“You’re up and walking around.”
“I was shot yesterday. Big difference. Besides, I don’t have any choice.”
“And I do?”
“You have plenty of choices. One of them is to stay down until you’re healed. We have some sedatives that will help with that.”
“No,” Keo said. “I’ll sleep when I’m dead.”
She frowned. “That might not be a long way off.”
“Hey, jokes are my territory.” Then, “You said the girl brought me back here?”
“I think her name is Megan? She got you up on that horse of yours and led it over here. Brave kid. She told us you were going to go back out there to look for her mother after you got better.”
Keo sighed, and this time did try to sit up, despite his better judgment. He managed it just barely, thanks to the wall on his left providing support. He turned around on the bed and slid his feet off the cot. He was shirtless and his side had been bandaged, and when he touched his temple, he found more gauze up there.
The pain continued to throb, except this time it was coming from below and above his torso, simultaneously trying to see which one was going to kill him first. Moving any part of his body was like being punched in the gut, repeatedly.
It could have been worse. You could be dead right now.
“I saw a plane,” Keo said.
“The Warthog?” Sherry said.
He nodded. “You know what it is?”
“They come through here every now and then. Carl was in the military; he recognized what they were.”
“They?”
“There’s a fleet of them out there, somewhere. Jonah says he started seeing them years ago when that whole Battle of Houston thing was happening. He thinks they might have taken part in it, launched from an island somewhere out in the Gulf of Mexico.”
Jonah’s right, Keo thought, and said, “Where was the one from this morning going?”
“Don’t know. None of them have ever stopped to chat with us.”
“Never?”
She shook her head. “I guess they’re doing their own thing.”
“I guess so.” Keo sighed again and leaned back against the wall. He took a breath, found it easy enough, and took another one. “Who shot the snipers?”
“I did,” Sherry said. She nodded at a bolt-action rifle leaning against the railing next to her. It looked familiar. “I’ve never shot that far and well in my life. I think he was up there guiding my aim.”
“He?”
“Carl. That’s his rifle.”
“Ah.”
“I take it you’re not a believer?”
“Depends on what you’re talking about.”
“You know what I’m talking about.”
“Six years ago, I would have said no without having to think about it. But I’ve seen a lot of things since then…”
“Exactly,” Sherry said. “How can you still not believe after everything you’ve seen out there? After everything that’s happened?”
“I’ve been accused of being a little stubborn before.”
“A little?”
He smirked. “But you do, apparently. Believe, I mean.”
“Yes.”
“Did you always?”