by Sam Sisavath
“No. Not always.” She turned around and leaned against the railing. “But like you said, Keo, the things I’ve seen out there...”
There was a loud banging sound, then car doors slamming below them.
“What’s going on?” Keo asked.
“We’re leaving. Guys are loading up the trucks as we speak.”
Keo clenched his teeth and stood up. It was a mistake, and pain rippled across his body.
“You really shouldn’t be up,” Sherry said, looking back at him.
“I’ll be fine.”
He forced himself to walk gingerly over to her. Every step was a knife shooting through his side, a reinforcement of Sherry’s comment.
But Keo kept stubbornly going forward anyway. “I’ve been in worse shape.”
“I believe you.”
He finally reached the railing and grabbed onto it for support, and looked down.
There was a full-blown evacuation going on below them. Jonah’s men were in constant motion, transferring boxes, bundles, and everything else they could carry from the other buildings over to the vehicles. Keo hadn’t counted when he was here earlier, but there had to be over two dozen cars down there. Christine and the refugees were also around helping with the moving.
Keo glanced behind him, into the building he was standing on. There was furniture and beds but no people. Megan also wasn’t back there.
“Living quarters,” Sherry said. “Everyone took their emergency personal items. The only thing left to carry down is you.”
He snorted and turned back to the activity below. “Where’s Megan?”
“She’s walking Horse around on the beach.” Sherry chuckled. “One of the sentries saw it running off about ten or so minutes after you went swimming. Jonah and I were wondering if it knew you’d left it behind.” She glanced at Keo when she said that last part.
Keo shrugged. “It’s a weird horse.”
And it saved my life, he thought, remembering how the thoroughbred had burst out of the bush and headbutted the blue-eyed ghoul. Great. I owe my life to a horse. How the hell am I going to pay that off?
He looked past the hustle and bustle below and at the empty fields beyond. There were no signs of Buckies and no hints that anything had happened, or that he had almost died out there. There was just a lot of grass rippling against the wind.
But that calmness wasn’t going to last forever. Sooner or later, Buck was going to show up, and after what had happened yesterday, then this morning, Keo didn’t think he was going to be in any mood to negotiate.
He checked his watch: 11:45 a.m.
“How long has this been going on?” he asked.
“Right after you got back,” Sherry said. “We’re almost done.”
“Then what?”
“Then we’re gone,” Jonah said as he climbed up the stairs to join them on the deck. His shirt was damp with sweat, and he wiped at his face with a rag. “I hate to abandon this place, but it’s better than sitting here and waiting for your Bucky pals to come back. This time they might bring more than just eight guys.”
“Was that how many were out there this morning?”
“Five regular guys and three snipers,” Sherry said.
“You were right,” Jonah said to Keo. “If you hadn’t gone out there and done what you did, they could have pinned us down here for days waiting for their reinforcements to show up. Then all our asses would have been cooked.”
“I saw two of them making a run for it,” Keo said.
“One got away,” Sherry said.
I guess Carl’s heavenly aiming assist was a little off.
Jonah leaned against the railing next to him and looked down at the ongoing evacuation. He shook his head and sighed. “I’m really going to hate leaving this place. But dammit, it isn’t worth dying for.”
“Where are you guys going?” Keo asked.
“There are a few places farther down the shoreline that could make for a decent replacement. It won’t be the same, but, well, we started from scratch before, and we can do it again.”
“Here,” Sherry said. When Keo looked over, she handed him the same bottle of painkillers he’d given her earlier. “Thought you’d need it back. We refilled it for you.”
“Hallelujah.” Keo took the bottle, shook out two white pills, and downed them in one swallow. “You doing okay?”
“I got my own refills this morning.” She took a similarly small and unlabeled bottle out of her pocket and jingled it. “Thanks for asking.”
“I guess getting shot isn’t anything new to you, huh?” Jonah asked him.
Keo smirked. “I’m still around. That’s all that matters.”
“I hear that.”
“How long before you guys take off?”
“Thirty minutes, give or take,” Jonah said. “We’re loading the nonessentials now. I wanted to wait until I was sure we had extra space.”
“Even with all the refugees?”
“We have eleven trucks, two sedans, two motorcycles, and a Jeep.” Jonah nodded. “We got plenty of space. For you and the girl, too.”
As if on cue, Keo spotted Megan walking over to the crowd, pulling Horse by the reins behind her. She made a beeline for Christine and the group from Winding Creek.
“Where’d you get all the gas?” Keo asked.
“We put a storage tank underneath one of the houses a while back, filled it with as much fuel as we could find before they went bad,” Jonah said. “One of my guys is a former airport mechanic; he’s been keeping an eye on it for us until we needed it—like now. Guy’s a magician. I wouldn’t know the first thing about that stuff. Most of these cars were already here before I showed up. The rest came with everyone else.”
“How much fuel is left down there?”
Jonah shook his head. “Not much. We filled up every spare can we have to take with us. Why, you need fuel?”
“Nah. Horse can pretty much eat anything except gasoline.”
“So does that mean you’re going with?”
Keo shook his head.
Jonah grinned at Sherry. “I told you.”
“You’re nuts,” Sherry said to Keo.
Probably, he thought, but said, “I need you to watch her for me. Megan.”
“Me or Sherry?” Jonah asked.
“No offense, man, but she’d be more comfortable with Sherry.”
Jonah chuckled. “Hey, I can be pretty good with kids. Don’t let the beady eyes fool you.”
“I have no doubt.” He looked over at Sherry for confirmation. “She knows Christine, but I’d feel better if there was someone watching her who could actually protect her if necessary.”
Sherry nodded. “Don’t worry about her. She’ll be in good hands.”
“You sure you don’t wanna tag along?” Jonah asked. “We could use a man with your skill set.”
“I can’t,” Keo said.
“Can’t, or don’t want to?”
Keo didn’t answer right away. Instead, he watched Megan standing next to Christine. The girl must have sensed him staring, because she looked up and over, and when she saw him, waved.
Keo smiled and waved back. “I promised her I’d find her mother.”
“You can barely stand,” Jonah said. “You won’t be much good against the Buckies in your current condition. Better if you come with us, get healed up first, then go looking to get yourself killed. I mean, go looking for her mother.”
Keo chuckled. “Thanks for the vote of confidence, Jonah.”
“No sweat.”
“She told us the Buckies got Emma on the way over here,” Sherry said.
“Uh huh,” Keo nodded.
“You know where she is?” Jonah asked. “I mean, if you’re going to go after her, you need to at least know that.”
“Doesn’t take a genius to figure that one out.”
“Fenton.”
“Yup. Fenton.”
“What the hell are they doing with the women and children in F
enton?” Sherry asked. “Christine and the others told us the same thing; they were taking just the women and children. What is going on in that place?”
Keo shook his head. It was a very good question and wasn’t anything he hadn’t asked himself over and over again since Winding Creek: What are they doing with the women and children in Fenton?
“I don’t know,” he finally said. “But that’s where they took Emma, so that’s where I have to go.”
“Must be the end of the world fever, making everyone a little nutso,” Jonah said. “That’s assuming you even make it there. And I’m not talking about the getting-shot-on-the-road type of misfortune. I’m talking more about you falling down and dying with no one around to stop you from bleeding to death.”
“He’s right,” Sherry said. “You really should come with us, Keo. You’re in no shape to be going out there on your own. You’re in no shape to be doing anything on your own right now. At least wait twenty-four hours if you’re dead set on doing this.”
“I’ll be fine,” Keo said. “Besides, I won’t be alone. I’ll take Horse with me.”
“You can’t even ride in your current condition.”
“We’ll see about that.”
“The man’s made up his mind, Sherry,” Jonah said. “I can respect that. I think it’s pretty dumb, mind you, but I respect his determination to get himself killed.”
Sherry didn’t look like she was ready to give up, though. “Even if you make it to Fenton, you’ll be walking into the lion’s den. I’ve heard about what they did to Dresden, Juno, and Winding Creek. If they find out who you are, you’ll never make it out of that place alive, Keo.”
Keo watched Megan and Christine below, waiting for their turn to pile into the waiting vehicles.
Finally, he said, “Wouldn’t be the first time I did something I wasn’t supposed to walk away from. I’ll just add this one to the list.”
TWENTY-EIGHT
HORSE DIDN’T SEEM to notice that everyone was leaving Jonah’s except for them, but then the thoroughbred appeared more occupied with the pair of crabs that had washed up on the beach behind them. Keo kept expecting Buckies to come out of hiding, either running out of the trees or popping up from the surrounding fields to start raining bullets in their direction, but nothing of the sort happened. Instead, Jonah’s people disappeared up the shoreline one car at a time, carving a makeshift road along the spot where the grass met the beach.
“Head over there if you’re still alive after this,” Jonah had said. “If we’re not at one of those places, we’ll be at the other ones. Just keep going.”
“You don’t sound very optimistic about seeing me again,” Keo had said.
Short Stuff had chuckled. “I’ve been around a long time, Keo. Seen a lot of things that would make your hairs stand up. I even had a back-and-forth with a couple of guys who managed to do things I didn’t think were possible. So I absolutely believe we’ll be seeing you again, but I also wouldn’t be surprised if we didn’t.”
“Take care of Megan for me.”
“I thought that was Sherry’s job.”
“Just in case.”
“Just in case,” Jonah had nodded.
“Can I ask you a question?”
“Only if I don’t have to answer.”
“Why are you doing this?” Keo had asked. “Is this about saving these people, or is it about self-preservation?”
Jonah had grinned back at him. “Can’t it be a little of both?”
And then they were gone, along with Megan. The girl had waved to him as the truck she was in with Sherry drove off. Keo had put on a forced smile and waved back, but even that took a lot of effort and he had thought, Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea after all.
But it was too late to change his mind now as he watched the last of the vehicles vanish up the shoreline, sunlight blinking off its roof. He continued to hear the sounds of their engines in the open air for a long time afterward. Until, eventually, even that faded and it was just him and Horse standing on a beach with the Gulf of Mexico batting against the sands behind him.
Keo glanced over at Horse. “You should have gone with them. You know that, right?”
The animal ignored him and continued playing with the two crabs.
“I’m just saying, don’t say I didn’t give you the chance.”
Keo grabbed the saddle horn and gingerly lifted himself up and into the stirrups, then spent a few minutes adjusting the two slung packs to achieve a better balance. Mostly, he just wanted to make sure he wasn’t going to black out and fall right back down. The thought of lying on the sand, dying, with no one around to pick him up was a very real possibility.
His temple still throbbed, but the painkillers were helping with that, and also with the continued pain from his side. The stitching was better than anything he could have done himself, and he was lucky to be near Jonah’s when he was shot.
Lucky? You wouldn’t have been shot if it weren’t for them.
“Good point. Very good point.”
Horse lifted his head to look back at him.
“Don’t mind me, just talking to myself,” Keo said, and patted the animal on his mane. “Let’s take it slow, huh? Easy does it.”
Keo took out the bottle of painkillers and popped two more into his mouth, chasing them down with some warm water this time. He spent an extra few minutes letting the chilly air from the ocean wash across him, then closed and reopened his eyes to see if he was in any danger of toppling off the saddle.
Good enough. Good enough.
He picked up the reins and turned the horse around, then pointed it back toward the woods.
Keo didn’t completely leave Jonah’s behind; at least, not right away. He knew where Fenton was—at least, the general direction, which was north—but he wanted to make sure of something first.
He went back into the woods a mile from the shoreline and found a spot far enough from the area where all the action had taken place last night and earlier this morning and sat down to rest. He considered tying Horse in place, but the thoroughbred didn’t look like it had any interest in wandering off. Besides, the animal had proven to him that it was more than capable of taking care of itself, not to mention coming through for him in the clutch. If something happened, Keo didn’t want to hamstring the horse’s ability to react—or to save his life, again.
I’m putting my life into the hands of a horse. Great.
Well, the horseshoes of a horse, anyway, he thought with a chuckle.
He didn’t do much of anything except sit and eat the beef jerky and bread Jonah’s cooks had given him before they left. He was starving, and the food was a welcome relief. So was the doing-nothing part, as he sat leaning against a tree and waiting.
One in the afternoon came and went, and nothing.
Keo dozed off and opened his eyes to the sound of car engines in the near distance, just beyond the woods. He got up and moved toward the tree line, MP5SD in front of him, and peered out.
Trucks, six of them, each one with mounted machine guns in the back, were tearing across the field toward Jonah’s. There were more men on horseback flanking the vehicles as they waded through the waist-high grass. It looked very much like a small army, and Keo caught the white circled M on a couple of their assault vests through his binoculars.
Buckies. Of course, Buckies.
It was a lot of firepower. If there were even just two in the technicals, along with the machine gunner, that would mean nearly thirty men in all, including the twelve on horseback. There were probably more since a few of those trucks had backseats and at least two of the technicals had an extra man hanging in the back.
They stopped about half a mile from Jonah’s, the ones on horseback climbing off their saddles and kneeling in the grass for cover. The front passenger on one of the lead trucks stepped out and peered forward with a pair of binoculars. The man was standing on the other side of the vehicles and had his back turned, so Keo couldn’t see who it w
as. It didn’t take him very long to realize the place was empty, and if they suspected an ambush, it didn’t stop them from continuing on ahead at full speeds.
He glanced back at Horse. “I know what you’re thinking: where do they get all the fuel? Am I right?”
Horse ignored him and busied itself with trying to get at the leaves dangling from a nearby branch. If the animal was even the least bit interested in all the vehicles revving their engines out there, he didn’t show it.
“Exactly,” Keo said, and turned back around.
He watched them from a safe distance, listening for more Buckies that might have lagged behind, possibly even lingered in the woods around him as backup. But he had chosen a good position, far enough away from the center of Jonah’s and almost at the other side of the fields.
The Buckies had spread out and were going through the houses one by one. They were much too far for Keo to tell if one of the figures moving back and forth was Buck himself. Would the man finally show up in person after he had lost so many soldiers to Jonah’s? It was possible, but Keo didn’t discount the possibility the man might have so many underlings that losing a dozen or so wouldn’t even faze him.
Around four in the afternoon, smoke drifted into the air as fire began spreading quickly across the wooden structures along the beach. At the same time, the Buckies fired up their engines and climbed back onto their horses, and half of them retreated through the same fields, while the other half headed up the beach in the direction Jonah’s caravan had gone earlier.
Keo wasn’t too worried about the Buckies catching up to Jonah’s group. They’d gotten a large head start, and using the beach was only temporary. He had to admit, for someone who had been fiddling the last five years away on, essentially, a beach house, ol’ Jonah had a pretty good head on his shoulders.
The fire over Jonah’s abandoned houses raged for some time, eventually consuming everything by 4:34 p.m. Keo watched it in silence while finishing the bag of jerky and another piece of bread. When he was done, he swallowed down two more painkillers to help with the irritating thrumming in his head. He reached up to make sure he hadn’t started bleeding again up there, but his hand came away dry.