The Survivalist

by Arthur T. Bradley

  He let his hand move up to rest on the back of her head. Her short brown hair felt like threads of silk.

  “You’ll get through it.”

  She lifted her head up and looked into his eyes.

  “And then what?”

  He didn’t have an answer.

  Her hand came to settle against his cheek.

  “I lied to you back on that bridge.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “When you asked if any of it was real. I lied and said that it wasn’t.” She leaned forward and brushed her lips against his. “I love you.”

  Mason felt his stomach knot. He had wanted to say the same words to someone else a few hours earlier.

  Hoping to change the subject, he said, “We need to get him into the ground.”

  She nodded, wiping her eyes.

  “What can I do?”

  “I’ve got this. You get a little rest.” Mason bent down and flopped Locke onto his shoulder. Dead weight was hard to move, and his legs threatened to buckle as he carried him down the narrow aisle.

  “Check on me when you’re done,” she called. “Please.”

  “All right,” he said with a grunt.

  Mason carried Locke as far as the bottom of the steps before setting him on the ground. Everyone wanted to see their loved ones treated with respect, but carrying a two-hundred-pound man for more than few feet was beyond his abilities. Instead, he grabbed Locke by the ankles and began dragging him toward a doorway at the back of the building. Bowie followed after him, the dog doing his best to stay awake.

  Mason dragged Locke as far as a drainage trench out back. His arms ached, and with his back already threatening to spasm, he accepted that this would have to be Locke’s final resting place.

  He lined up the body and rolled it down into the trench where it settled facedown into a small pool of water.

  Bowie stood beside Mason, looking down at the corpse. With the first good flood, it would likely float downstream. Even if not, dogs would find it. Given what Locke had done to canines at The Farm, it seemed only fitting that they should return the favor.

  A lover, and former Mossad agent, had once offered a beautiful eulogy over a fallen stranger. Looking down at Locke, Mason felt obligated to say something.

  “Every man makes choices along the way. Yours led you here. Let’s hope that there’s some measure of forgiveness in whatever comes next, because if there’s not, you’re screwed.”

  Not quite as moving as Leila’s perhaps, but at least it was from the heart.

  Mason turned and walked back into the bay. It had been a long hard day, and he was looking forward to a little shut-eye. Bowie seemed even worse for wear, trudging along like he barely had the strength to take another step.

  Mason helped him to settle into the backseat of the Trans Am.

  Leaning in, he kissed the dog on the nose and said, “Get some rest, boy. I’ve got it from here.”

  The dog licked his chin and settled onto the seat with his eyes pressed shut.

  Mason returned to the school bus, expecting to find Brooke curled up on one of the seats.

  She wasn’t.

  Instead, she sat with her feet draped out into the aisle as if waiting for him. The dim flashlight made it look like she was sitting around a dying campfire.

  “Are you okay?” he said softly.

  She slid out from the seat and stepped close to him.

  “I’m alive, and I’m here with you.” She reached out and took his hands in hers. “That’s all I know anymore.”

  “We can’t go back, Brooke. Not after what you did.”

  “Why not? It’s just us now. My father’s gone. You could learn to forgive me. I know it.” She inched closer, her body pressing against his. “Tell me what you want, Mason, and I’ll give it to you.”

  A disturbing mix of anger and lust swirled in his belly.

  “It doesn’t work that way.”

  She pulled his hand up and gently placed it against her chest. The flesh felt like warm glass.

  “Who says it doesn’t?”

  He drew his hand away. “I do.”

  Brooke glanced back at the makeshift bed she had made on the seat.

  “What if I asked you to make love to me? Would you?” She pulled her shirt free and began to undo the buttons. “Just physical—no promises of anything.”

  Mason knew that he should tell her to stop, but he said nothing, the heat of her body igniting a flame of passion that any man would find difficult to ignore.

  She slid her shirt off her shoulders, unsnapped her thin black bra, and let it fall to the floor. Her firm breasts shone in the dim light like molds of perfect flesh.

  “I need you, Mason. Now, more than ever. I need to feel safe.” Her hands went to the top button of her trousers. “Please.”

  Still he said nothing.

  As she slid down the zipper, Mason closed his eyes and imagined taking her, hard and fast. Brooke was asking him to treat her as a sexual object. Why should he say no? It would mean nothing. If anything, it would be gallant. A man helping a frightened a woman to feel safe.

  Brooke slowly stepped out of her pants. She took his hand and pressed it against the inside of her thigh.

  “Will you do this for me, Mason? Will you make me feel safe?”

  He took a deep breath, inhaling her seductive pheromones. She was as alluring as Bathsheba, and pulling away from that kind of inescapable power seemed utterly impossible.

  But that was exactly what he did.

  “No,” he said simply. “I won’t.”

  Tears filled her eyes. “Why not? Don’t you care for me?”

  “Of course, I do. And that’s one reason why I won’t do this.”

  “One reason? What’s the other?”

  Mason thought of Jessie lying next to him in the moonlight, staring at him with dream-filled eyes.

  Instead of answering, he turned to leave.

  “Get some sleep. We leave at first light.”

  Brooke stood nearly naked in the dim orange glow of the light, watching him go. But it wasn’t rejection or shame that she felt.

  It was hope.

  The man she loved, the man that she had killed her own father to be with, was still in love with her. That much she now knew for certain.

  Chapter 20

  Tanner knew that something was wrong as soon as he put the hose back in his mouth and found himself unable to draw a breath. He tried forcing air back down the hose, hoping to clear the obstruction.

  No luck.

  That meant one of two things. Either the gate had pinched the hose, or the other end had fallen into the water. If it were the first one, he could probably straighten it out when he got back to the gate. That would let him draw a breath and continue on.

  No big deal.

  If it was the second, however, he would have to swim the entire way back without air. That worried him, but not as much as the fact that it would mean Samantha was in trouble.

  Tanner slipped his feet back into the water and took several deep breaths. Despite what many people thought, purging was done not to raise the body’s oxygen level but to lower its carbon dioxide. By doing so, a diver could stay under longer without feeling such urgency to breathe.

  When Tanner was ready, he dropped below the water and used the ladder to kick off. The distance between hatches was probably only thirty yards, but he had to navigate through the gate as well. If it had pinched the hose, the gate may have closed, which would force him to use the key to reopen it. Doing so would likely only take a few seconds, but seconds felt like an eternity when holding one’s breath.

  When he saw that the gate remained open and the hose intact, his momentary feeling of relief was quickly replaced by worry. If the other end of the hose had fallen into the water, it could only mean that something was wrong up top.

  Tanner ripped the hose from his chest and pushed his way through the gate, the dull metallic clunk sounding as it pulled shut behind him. By
the time he reached the ladder, his lungs were heaving, and his vision had begun to darken around the edges. He scrambled up, gasping as his head pushed clear of the water. The world slowly came back into focus, and what he saw was nothing short of horrifying.

  Felix sat atop Samantha, choking the last bit of life from her fragile body.

  Tanner clambered out of the water but was unable to get to his feet on the wet floor. He scrabbled forward, finally managing to stand as he came up behind the man. Rage consumed him as he grabbed Felix by both ears and flung him back into the room.

  Felix tumbled across the open floor, finally crashing into one of the empty shelves. As he wriggled free, a wet foot caught him under the ribs, flipping him onto his back. With his hands extended before him, he began to beg for mercy.

  “Please! I didn’t mean to hurt anyone.”

  Tanner was having none of it. He raised his foot, ready to put an end to the man, when a forearm suddenly slid across his throat.

  “Leave him alone!” Doherty wheezed, small flecks of vomit spraying onto his cheek.

  Tanner stepped wide and flipped Doherty over his leg. The sick man hit the ground with a painful crunch. By the time he got back to his feet, Tanner was on him. He hit Doherty with a right cross, and the man did a less than graceful pirouette on his way back to the floor. He lay in a heap, moaning through a broken jaw as Tanner turned his attention back to Felix.

  Apparently having decided that retreat was the better part of valor, the tall man half-crawled, half-stumbled his way toward the door.

  Tanner snagged the back of his shirt and whirled him around.

  Felix came at him like a rabid animal, flailing and scratching. Rather than hit him, Tanner reached out and caught the man’s head with both hands. Positioning his thumbs over Felix’s eyes, he drove their points deep into his skull.

  He screamed and tried desperately to pull away, but there was no escape. Tanner swept his feet out from under him and shoved him to the ground. When he finally pulled his thumbs free, the man’s eye sockets were filled with a jellied pink mess.

  Felix brought his hands to his eyes and began to wail uncontrollably.

  Rearing overhead with both fists, Tanner hammered down onto the man’s spindly chest. Bones snapped, and cartilage gave way as the entire cavity crushed inward. Felix coughed and gagged, unable to draw a breath as blood flooded his collapsed lungs.

  Still not satisfied, Tanner grabbed his hair and began to beat the man’s head against the granite floor. Blood spilled out, but he continued the savage assault until rage finally gave way to fear.

  Samantha!

  He hurried over, finding her lying on her back, lifeless and pale.

  Tanner leaned down and placed an ear to her chest.

  Nothing.

  The fear was so intense now that it threatened to overwhelm him. He forced a deep breath in and out, reminding himself that her survival depended on him keeping it together.

  Placing one hand on top of the other, he began pumping her chest. He did it quickly, perhaps one hundred beats per minute, with each motion compressing her chest about two inches. When he got to a count of thirty, he stopped and tilted her head back to administer two rescue breaths.

  She didn’t stir.

  He shook her by the shoulders. “Come on, Sam. Wake up!”

  Nothing.

  He shifted back to delivering chest compressions, another thirty.

  Still nothing.

  He went back to rescue breathing. One deep breath. Then another. As he moved his hands back to her chest for the third time, she made a slight moaning sound, as if waking up from a nightmare.

  “There you go,” he said, patting her cheek. “You can do it.”

  He lowered his ear to her chest and was rewarded with a steady thump-thump, thump-thump, thump-thump.

  Tanner sat back, his eyes filling with tears. He remained like that for several minutes, watching as his adopted daughter slowly returned to the land of the living. It began with a slight shift of her legs, then a squinting of her eyes. Finally, she took a deep breath, let it out, and then settled into a slow regular pattern.

  When Samantha finally opened her eyes, she saw Tanner sitting next to her. He was soaking wet, and his hands were stained with blood.

  “Hey,” she said, her voice hoarse.

  He nodded. “Hey.”

  She sat up, wincing from pain in her stomach. When she looked around the room, she saw that Oscar had disappeared into the water, Felix was lying nearby, his head in a pool of blood, and Woods lay face down where she had shot him. Only the sickly Doherty remained alive, and he sat in a corner, holding his jaw, weeping softly.

  Samantha gingerly touched her neck. It felt bruised.

  “Does it look bad?”

  Tanner stared at the dark purple ligature marks.

  “It’ll heal.”

  “I think I may have… you know, died for a little while.”

  Fearing that his voice might break, Tanner said nothing.

  “I saw my mom and dad.”

  “Really?”

  “My dad was smoking a cigar.” She wrinkled her nose as if able to smell the odor.

  “And your mom?”

  “She kept telling me that she loved me, over and over.”

  “Sounds uncomfortable,” he said, knowing that Samantha didn’t like open shows of affection.

  She shrugged. “I had forgotten how beautiful her voice was.”

  “Was she sad that you couldn’t stay with her?”

  “No. She just smiled and shooed me on, like she understood.”

  Tanner nodded. People who died and came back generally had a tale to tell. Whether there was anything to such stories he couldn’t say. What he did know was that they held tremendous power with those who experienced them.

  Samantha looked over at the open hatch.

  “Did you find anything?”

  “Nothing worth taking.”

  “I know what happened to the gold.”

  “You do?”

  She motioned toward Woods. “He said it was loaded onto a train by men who used to be soldiers.”

  “Did he say which way they went?”

  “Northeast, on the CSX railroad. Are we going after it?”

  The question was not as simple as it had once been. Knowing that Samantha had suffered so terribly made Tanner want to lock her away in a tower to keep her safe forever and ever. But without the gold, he knew that Issa would remain Mother’s prisoner. It was an impossible choice to make.

  “I think we should,” Samantha said, making the decision for him.

  “You do?”

  “Sure. We’ve come this far. It seems only right that we finish it.”

  He nodded. “All right. Rest a while, and then we’ll go.”

  She carefully got to her feet and lifted her pack onto her back.

  “I’m okay. Just a little tired-feeling, probably because of the whole dying thing.”

  Tanner walked over and slipped on his boots and shirt.

  “You’re not going to let me forget that, are you?”

  She smiled. “I haven’t decided yet.”

  Doherty let out a soft plea, and both of them turned. He was in bad shape, broken jaw, sweat-soaked, and looking like a bucket of death warmed over.

  “Let me get rid of the trash first,” Tanner said, starting toward him.

  Samantha reached out and gently caught his arm.

  “Don’t kill him. I think there’s been enough of that already.”

  Tanner considered her request. While he understood her reluctance to witness any more violence, there was no way he was leaving Doherty in a state that would allow him to cause them any more grief.

  An idea came to him. “All right.” He walked over and grabbed Doherty by the feet and dragged him to the hatch. “In you go, sunshine,” he said, pushing him into the water.

  “I’ll drown,” the man said in a garbled voice.

  “Not if you swim hard, you
won’t. There’s another hatch,” Tanner turned and pointed, “that way.”

  “But—”

  “No buts.” He began to lower the hatch. “Big breath now.”

  Doherty’s eyes were as wide as dinner plates as the hatched closed over him.

  Tanner turned the thick metal wheel on top to secure it in place.

  “Do you think he’ll make it to the other hatch?” asked Samantha.

  “That’s for him and the water to decide.”

  As they left the small room, Tanner felt something in his pocket. It was the key from the dead guard, the key that fit the underwater gate. He pulled it out, and flicked it away into the room.

  “What was that?” asked Samantha.

  “Nothing of importance.”

  With the addition of a blanket placed behind the saddle, Major didn’t seem to mind carrying both Tanner and Samantha. She rode with her hands wrapped around his waist, their packs draped across the horse like saddle bags.

  “Do you think we’ll be able to find the gold?”

  “A trainload of gold doesn’t just disappear. Someone had to have seen something.”

  “And then what? Whoever took it isn’t likely to give it to us.”

  “All I know is that we’re not going back empty-handed.”

  “Maybe if you explain why we need it…” She trailed off. “That’s not likely to work, is it?”

  “For people like us, nothing comes easy. Might as well face it.”

  “We do pretty good though, right?”

  “We’re still alive. That’s all that counts.”

  She sat quietly for a moment and then said, “I forgot to tell you thanks.”

  “For what?”

  “Bringing me back.”

  “Who said I brought you back?”

  “My chest is sore from where you mashed it, and I have the smell of Tanner breath in my nose. No need to deny it.”

  “Tanner breath?”

  “Sort of like puppy breath, only without the cuteness.”

  He grinned. “You’re welcome. You sure you didn’t want to stay with your mom and dad?”

  “I figure I’ll see them again one day. Right now, I’m still young and have lots left to do.”

  “Yeah? Like what?”

  “I need to find a boyfriend, get married, and maybe have a few kids. Plus, I want to become a doctor. Oh yeah, I want a chicken farm too.”