Grace Under Fire

by Franklin Horton

  "I want to know if my mommy is hurt," the boy demanded.

  “Yeah, is she hurt, Paul?" the big man mocked.

  Paul didn't like being made fun of. Since he couldn’t hit Johnny, he did the only other thing he could do. He lashed out and backhanded Dylan, dropping him to the gravel. The boy started crying and curled up on the ground. It was all Conor could do to not shoot the man where he stood. He couldn’t tolerate seeing kids mistreated.

  To distract himself, Conor tried to process what he was seeing on a tactical level rather than a human one. So the kid didn’t belong there at the house; the guy walking with the kid didn’t belong at the house; none of the folks in the truck belonged there either. He still didn’t know if the family was in control of their house or if they’d been compromised.

  The other man from the truck noticed something and pointed to Paul’s pants. “Look at that,” he jeered. “He pissed on himself.”

  Johnny laughed. “That what happened? You peed on yourself like a little baby?”

  Anger flared within Paul. "No. I spilled my coffee when the shooting broke out."

  The two men nodded at Paul but their amused expressions indicated they did not believe him.

  Paul mumbled to himself, trying to regain face. "I ain't got to stand here and take this.”

  “Not when you got a diapey needs changing,” Johnny taunted.

  Paul started walking off, trying to cut around the two men. Johnny stuck out a hand out. It was nearly as broad as Paul's chest. He stopped the smaller man. "You forgot your kid."

  Paul shrugged, agitated. "He’s Debbie's kid. He ain’t nothing to me. You can be his daddy if you want. He's your problem now."

  Johnny shook his head. “I ain't got no way to take care of a kid."

  Paul shrugged. "Then kill him. I don’t care."

  "You'd let us just kill your girlfriend’s kid? Just like that?" Johnny asked.

  "Ain’t no skin off my ass," Paul said.

  Johnny whipped out a pistol and stuck it in Paul's face. "I don't like you. I've never liked you. Tell me one reason I shouldn't blow your head off right now."

  A look of panic crossed Paul's face. Johnny was more than capable of doing what he threatened to do. In his panic, Paul looked at the kid, hoping he might have something to offer, but instead he found Dylan grinning at him, obviously pleased to see Paul being the one terrified for a change. Paul’s mind raced. He was a cornered rat looking for a place to scurry.

  "This house up there, it's something special. It works even when the power is off but you'll never figure it out without me. I know how to make it all work—the power, the water, everything. If you kill me you'll never figure it out."

  Johnny glared at Paul through the sights of his pistol. His finger was on the trigger. He was as likely to pull it as not, knowing there would be no consequences. "If a dumb ass like you figured it out, I can figure it out too."

  "No, no!” Paul said adamantly. “It's more complicated than that. The old lady taking care of the house was Debbie's mother. She showed me how it all worked. It’s complicated. There’s lots of switches and gauges and stuff. Things you have to check every day or it will quit working."

  Paul was just making up stuff now but he was desperate. He’d seen that Johnny was leaning toward killing him now. He had to swing the pendulum back the other way.

  "But—" Dylan interjected.

  "Shut up!" Paul screamed, cutting him off.

  Johnny didn't drop his gun but Paul could feel the tension easing just a hair. "I guess we could go up there and check it out before I make up my mind. No harm there."

  “No. It’s not that easy. There's people up there. They control the house now. They have guns. You can take the house but it won’t be so easy as that."

  "We have guns too," Johnny said, waving his around as if to prove the point.

  "They have more guns. Better guns," Paul said.

  Johnny tucked his gun back in his waistband. "So what do you propose?"

  "We can use the kid," Paul said, gesturing at Dylan.

  Johnny laughed as he tucked the gun back in his waistband. "You really are a lousy person."

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  The Hardwick Farm

  Grace began running as soon as she was out of the house. As much as she’d run the last two days, this pace felt like second nature to her. She glanced back over her shoulder and saw her mother struggling already. She was trying to run but couldn’t. It was painful to watch.

  Grace was torn. Should she take off without her mother and reach Dylan sooner, or stay with her mother?

  She slowed. Her mother was moving along at a fast walk, tears rolling down her face from the pain. Grace admired her mother’s determination. She had never realized her strength before.

  "I'm sorry," Teresa said. “I tried, but I can’t run like that.”

  "It's okay, Mom."

  “I know you could go faster without me."

  Grace didn't respond. They both knew the answer to that already. At least traveling on the gravel road was relatively easy. Assuming the man who took Dylan stuck to the woods, the women would make better time. Yet who knew if they were even going in the right direction? Grace began to think the entire effort might be futile. They may never recover Dylan.

  They were about two hundred yards from the house when they heard a diesel engine approaching. When you lived in the country and heard your family coming home day after day, you learned to distinguish between the sounds of their engines. Grace and Teresa immediately knew this was not one of their vehicles.

  "What should we do?" Teresa asked.

  Grace wasn't sure she had the answer for that. There was no time for a complicated plan. "You go over there behind that woodshed," Grace said, pointing to the wooden structure filled with firewood.

  "What are you going to do?"

  Grace hesitated. "I'm going to ask whoever it is what they're doing here."

  Teresa didn't like the sound of that plan but the engine was getting closer with each approaching second. There wasn't time for extended debate. With worry clouding her face, Teresa loped off painfully toward the woodshed and situated herself behind one corner. She got down on her knees and laid the barrel of the AR pistol across a chunk of firewood. From that position, from that distance, she could take out the driver if she needed to.

  While Grace may have seemed confident, maybe even overconfident, to her mother, she was actually terrified. The engine sounded like the growl of an approaching monster. She had no idea who or what was coming or what it would bring. When the sound of crunching gravel reached her ears, she knew the vehicle was nearly upon them. She stood in the center of the road and spread her feet defiantly. She prepared her rifle, holding it across her body. She flicked the safety off and double checked the chamber, confirming the glint of brass. She made sure she had her next mag ready.

  When the truck crept into sight, she realized it was someone's old Farm Use dump truck. Lots of her neighbors had them. They were typically dump trucks that were no longer safe for construction, or even for highway use. There were people riding on the hood of the vehicle.

  With the difficulty of obtaining fuel, people had been resorting to all types of transportation. When you did see a vehicle on the road, it often looked like something from a Third World country, with people clinging to every surface of the vehicle. She couldn’t tell how many people were in the truck but it was more than she felt comfortable with. Not quite a dozen but maybe close to that.

  Her palms began to sweat. She had to force herself to control her breathing. She tried to distract herself from her growing anxiety by coming up with a plan. If this turned into a fight she was going to have to take out the driver first and then try to find cover. That would be her plan.

  As the vehicle drew nearer, she recognized both of the people on the hood. One was Paul, the man that she and her mother had been trying to track and kill. The other person riding on the hood was Mrs. Brown's grandson, Dylan.
He was sitting on Paul’s lap, the man holding tightly onto him.

  She raised her rifle to get a better look at what was going on. The AR-10 had a Vortex 1x4 optic. It was set to 2x power. When Grace had the truck in her field of view, she could see Paul had a grin on his face and a revolver pressed to the side of the child's head.

  The sight of that nearly stopped her breathing. There was something so wrong about it. She centered the crosshairs of her scope on the middle of Paul's face. Under ideal circumstances she could have made this shot. Ideal circumstances involved shooting at a stationary target though. Paul was not a stationary target. The truck was constantly bouncing and jostling. One moment Grace had a kill shot, the next her crosshairs were landing on Dylan’s face.

  She could not take that kind of chance. If she missed and caused Dylan’s death she was not sure she could live with the consequences. Grace reluctantly lowered the barrel of her rifle, not wanting to provoke someone into taking a shot at her. She still wanted to be ready though. She could raise the rifle and take action in a split second if shooting started. Yet there was still the matter of Dylan right there in the middle of things. She didn’t know what to do.

  The truck jolted to a stop thirty feet from where she stood. The driver killed the rattling engine and set the parking brake. All fell silent except for the ticking of the cooling engine. There were three men in the cab. None were brandishing firearms but it was a safe bet they all had them.

  Over top of the cab, there were people standing in the truck bed. Not all were men. There were a few rough-looking women in there with them. Most of these were brandishing weapons, either pointing them into the air or levelling them across the cab in her direction. She’d never had so many guns pointed at her in her life. If this was a standoff it was likely to be her last. The odds were against her. She took several deep breaths trying to calm herself.

  The man on the hood stared at Grace with a maniacal grin. She decided it would be up to her to break the silence.

  “We've not been introduced," Grace said. "My name is Grace."

  Paul sneered. "I told you once to get off my property," he said. "Since you’re not gone I guess I'm going to have to make you leave."

  "How do you intend to do that?"

  Paul tapped the barrel of his revolver a little too hard against Dylan's head. The boy frowned. He tried to move his head away but Paul wouldn't let him.

  “I’m taking that to mean that you kill Dylan if we don't hand our home over to you?"

  Paul grinned. "Guess you’re smarter than you look. That’s exactly what I mean."

  Grace took another deep breath and tried to let it out without telegraphing her nervousness. There was a lot on the line here and she was in over her head. She had no experience that even remotely prepared her for something like this. She would have to go with her gut.

  "That kid means nothing to me. He's not family. My family is safe. Do want you want," Grace said. She didn’t mean it but she was trying to disarm Paul. She didn’t want him to think they’d roll over for him just because of Dylan.

  The man driving the truck stuck his head out the window and yelled, startling Grace. "You said you could do this. Get on with it!"

  "I told you I'd handle this!" Paul shouted back.

  The driver threw his door open and slid out of the cab. The truck lurched slightly backward when he took his foot off the brake. The parking brake caught it but jolted everyone in the vehicle. The driver walked around his open door and snatched Dylan by the arm, yanking him violently off the hood of the truck. Dylan cried out and tears rolled down his already stained cheeks.

  The driver spun on Grace. He was a big man, wearing a sleeveless t-shirt, his arms lined with crude jail tattoos. There was something in his eyes that warned Grace he was more a threat than Paul. Paul was a loose cannon and might do anything, but Grace didn’t feel like he was eager to kill. This man gave off the vibe that he’d killed before and liked it.

  "Let's test this theory,” he spat. He whipped out a hunting knife and laid it against Dylan's ear. "Maybe he's not family but can you watch him get sliced up?"

  Grace didn’t answer. She didn’t want to see Dylan harmed but she also couldn’t just drop her gun and surrender. She’d screwed this up royally. She’d gambled on meeting them in the road and confronting them. She’d gambled on telling them that their hostage meant nothing to her. Now Dylan was going to get hurt and she wasn’t sure she could do anything about it. Her brain scrambled for a possible solution.

  Boom!

  A shot rang out and a round caught the truck driver in the neck, just below his ear. Blood sprayed everywhere. The geyser of blood drenched Dylan but the knife dropped away from his ear. The driver threw his hands to his throat in a futile attempt to stem the loss of his blood supply.

  Grace was paralyzed by what was happening but something hit the ground in front of her and broke the spell. She staggered backward, startled and unsure of what it was. It sounded like a rock, then there was a hissing sound. Thick smoke poured from the object. There was another thud to her side, then more smoke.

  Grace snapped out of it and raised her rifle. She intended to drop Paul but he was not there. He’d disappeared in the cloud of smoke. Grace spotted Dylan crouched down by the front of the truck, his head and chest soaked in blood. His hands were held out in front of him. He appeared to be staring at them in shock.

  She ran for the child and swept him into her arms. He was too big for her to carry for any distance but she managed to get him to the nearest cover, a steep embankment at the shoulder of the road. She shoved him over the edge and then dropped down beside him, pressing his head down into the weeds.

  She raised her rifle and turned back to watch for a target. Teresa opened fire at some point, shooting into the truck after she saw Grace pull Dylan out of the line of fire. The people in the truck were firing back at Teresa, making little effort to protect themselves. Grace managed to drop one from behind with a head shot before the attackers ducked below the level of the truck bed, naively assuming the steel dump bed would protect them. Grace began punching holes at random intervals in the steel skin. It was no match for the 7.62 caliber rounds. Blood sprayed and people screamed.

  Amidst the chaos a hand snaked from behind Grace and covered her mouth. Another hand grabbed her rifle barrel. She went ballistic, trying to bite the hand while going for her Glock.

  The man held her tighter. “Easy now. I'm a friend. Your dad sent me.” The voice belonged to an older man with an Irish accent.

  Grace didn’t believe him. She didn't believe anything anyone said anymore. She struggled to break loose, to put a bullet in the man. She would not be taken.

  "Stop it! Listen. They call me The Mick but my real name is Conor. A man named Kevin called me from a compound where he is staying with your dad, Robert. Your dad asked me to check on his family because he was delayed. I'm here as a favor."

  The man released her and Grace rolled over defiantly. She met his eyes and searched for the truth. Her face was red from exertion, her expression fiery. She was still considering going for her Glock. She hesitated. The man knew about the compound and about Kevin. Still, she trusted no one. Especially not strangers showing up at her home.

  "Your name is Grace. You came here with a man named Tom. Your brother is Blake and your mother is Teresa. You can kill me if you want but I’m telling the truth."

  Grace tried to make herself relax. Despite her distrust of everyone, this man seemed to be telling the truth. Another burst of gunfire drew everyone’s attention back up to the road. Two people had jumped from the bed of the truck and were firing at Teresa. Conor threw up his AR-9 and dropped each of them proficiently with a single shot.

  "Stay here until I call you up,” he said, starting up the bank.

  Grace grabbed him by the ankle "No! My mom will shoot you."

  Conor hesitated. "Good point."

  "Mom!" Grace yelled. She waited a moment. "Mom!"

  "I'm here!"<
br />
  Grace breathed a sigh of relief, concerned for a second that her mother might have been shot in the exchange.

  "We’re coming up. There’s a man with us. He’s on our side. Don’t shoot."

  Grace, Dylan, and Conor climbed back up to the road. Teresa edged out from behind the shed, her AR pistol on Conor, uncertain what the appearance of the stranger meant.

  "Who are you?" she asked. “What are you doing here?”

  "He's a friend of the people who dropped Tom and I off in town," Grace said. “Dad sent him.”

  "Tom?” Teresa asked, confused. “Who’s Tom?”

  Grace realized she hadn’t even had an opportunity to tell her mother about Tom. In fact, her mother knew nothing of what she’d gone through over the last week. "Tom's a good friend. He came here with me. He's in a battery-operated track chair and the battery ran down on the trail last night. I had to come on without him."

  Dylan finally broke his paralysis and ran to Teresa. She wrapped the small boy in a hug. She tried to shield his eyes from the death around him but it was probably too late at this point. He was drenched in blood and terrified.

  Conor checked the bodies, circling the truck to make sure he had everyone accounted for. "I’ve got six dead, two wounded!" he called out.

  Boom! Boom!

  The sound of a pistol shot startled everyone and weapons flew up.

  "My bad," Conor said. "Eight dead. No wounded."

  Conor reappeared at the front of the truck. “It looks like some of them got away."

  "What about Paul?" Grace asked.

  "The one who was holding the kid on the hood?" Conor asked.

  Grace nodded.

  "I don’t see him. He must've turned tail in the confusion and ran."

  "Mom,” Grace said, “you and Dylan go to the house. I'm going after Paul. No way I'm leaving him out there to come back another day. We only fight this coward once."

  "I'm not so sure about that," Teresa said. "I don't like the idea of you going after him alone."