Pale Horse (A Project Eden Thriller)

by Battles, Brett

  As she moved over into the back part of the car, the child, Nipa, looked up at her and tightened her grip on the old woman.

  “It’s okay,” Kusum said. “I’m here to help you.”

  “Save her,” the old woman whispered. “Please.”

  “I will save both of you.”

  The woman tried to smile, but ended up coughing. This caused Nipa to start crying.

  “It’s okay,” Kusum said, touching the girl’s cheek. “Everything will be fine.”

  “Nipa first,” the woman managed to say between coughs. She moved like she wanted to hand the girl to Kusum, but she had little strength.

  Kusum reached out and put her hands under the baby’s arms. As she started to lift the girl away, Nipa panicked and tried to grab the old woman again.

  “Don’t worry,” Kusum said, pulling the girl to her. “I won’t hurt you.”

  She hugged the baby to her chest, but Nipa turned her head so she could look at the old woman and continued to cry.

  “It’s okay, it’s okay,” Kusum said over and over.

  After several seconds, she heard a noise above, and her father’s head appeared in the open window.

  “Hand her up,” he said, once he’d taken a look at the situation.

  Kusum stood as best she could and raised the girl toward his outstretched hands. Nipa screamed in protest.

  “She’s just scared,” Kusum said.

  “Of course she’s scared,” her father replied as he grabbed hold of the baby. “I raised two girls, remember? I have seen scared before.”

  As he pulled Nipa out of the car, Kusum knelt back down next to the old woman. “Your turn,” she said.

  The old woman didn’t move.

  “Hey. Come on. Time to get you out of here.”

  No response.

  Worried, Kusum put her fingers on the woman’s neck. This time she did feel a pulse, though it wasn’t strong. She put a hand on the woman’s chest to check her breathing, and instantly pulled it up again, looking at her palm. Blood covered the pad at the base of her thumb. She pulled back the cloth that had fallen over the woman’s midsection, and stifled a cry.

  The tip of a piece of metal was sticking up right below the woman’s ribs. Blood was soaked into the clothes around the wound.

  “Kusum,” her father said.

  She looked up.

  “There is nothing we can do for her. We can’t move her and we can’t stay.”

  “Take care…of Nipa,” the old woman whispered. “I will stay here with my…daughter.”

  Kusum fought back the tears of frustration that had suddenly gathered in her eyes, knowing her father was right.

  Carefully, she covered the wound back up, and wiped her palm on the cloth.

  “Rest now,” she said. “I will take care of Nipa.”

  Though the woman’s eyes were closed, she seemed to relax.

  “Come,” her father said. “Let me help you up.”

  With a nod, she stood and took his hands.

  __________

  DARKNESS FELL BEFORE Kusum and her family reached the edge of the city, which meant they were still a very long way from where they were supposed to meet Sanjay.

  They had checked every abandoned vehicle they passed, but soon discovered each had been left behind for a reason. As for traffic, it had dwindled to a trickle, and the cars they did see never once slowed as they passed Kusum’s family walking along the side of the road. Unless they found another ride soon, there was no way they would reach Sanjay that evening.

  “You want me to take her?” Kusum’s mom asked.

  Kusum held the sleeping Nipa against her chest, the girl’s head lying on her shoulder. They had barely restarted their journey when Nipa insisted that Kusum carry her. The girl then clung to her like she was afraid Kusum would disappear at any second, until she finally passed out.

  “I’m okay,” Kusum said.

  In truth, she liked holding the girl. She had promised to keep Nipa safe, so that’s what she would do until they could reunite her with her family.

  That task would not be easy. She’d realized not long after they left the accident that she should have grabbed the old woman’s—and perhaps the driver’s—identification. That way she would have had information about Nipa’s family. But by the time she’d thought of it, they were too far away.

  Once everything is back to normal, I’ll go to the police and tell them where the accident occurred. Surely, they’ll have information about who was involved.

  The good thing was that Nipa appeared to have suffered only a few scratches and bruises in the accident. How the incident would affect her mind, only time would tell. Of course, given the situation they were all going through, the girl wouldn’t be the only one mentally bruised.

  “They’re still there,” Jabala whispered a few minutes later.

  Kusum glanced over her shoulder. Sure enough, the three figures that Jabala had first noticed over an hour ago were passing beneath several lights about one hundred and fifty meters behind them. At first Kusum had dismissed them as just being others trying to get away from the city, but the distance they kept never changed, even after Kusum’s family stopped for a few minutes to rest.

  “Who do you think they are?” Jabala asked.

  “I don’t know.”

  The shortest of the trio was probably a child, but the distance made it hard to tell whether they were men or women, let alone what age they were. Really, the only important question was, were they trouble or not?

  “Do you think you can take Nipa without waking her?”

  Jabala eyed her suspiciously. “Why? What are you going to do?”

  Kusum nodded toward the people following them. “Find out who they are.”

  “You could get hurt. You don’t—”

  “They won’t see me. Don’t worry, okay? Here, take her.” Kusum gingerly lifted Nipa from her shoulder and put her in Jabala’s arms.

  “What’s going on?” their father asked, glancing back.

  “I’m going to find out who those people are,” Kusum said.

  “You are not.”

  “I am. We need to know.”

  “You’re my daughter. You will stay with us.”

  “Someone needs to check. If you had a son, you would let him do it. You have none. Who are you going to send? Darshan?” She waved at her young cousin, who was clutching tightly to Kusum’s mother. “I’m the only one.”

  “I’ll do it.”

  “No,” Kusum said. “You need to watch over the others. I will go.”

  She could see the conflict in her father’s eyes. After a moment, he reached into the bag he was carrying and pulled out a sheath holding a four-inch knife. “Here,” he said, handing it to her. “Don’t use it unless you have no choice. Be very careful.”

  “I will.”

  Before he could change his mind, she slipped between two closed roadside stands and into the brush behind them. Looking back, she could see her farther hesitating, wanting to follow her.

  “Keep moving,” she said in a harsh whisper.

  Reluctantly, he turned in the direction they’d been headed and said, “Come on, everyone. Let’s go.”

  She watched them for a second to make sure her father didn’t change his mind, then found a good spot where she could see the whole road, and settled in. It wasn’t long before she heard the footsteps of those on the road behind them. One was walking faster than the others. The child, she thought, working twice as hard just to keep up.

  Though she knew there was no way they’d see her, she crouched down a bit more. The sound of the steps increased until finally the trio came into view.

  The smallest was definitely a child, a boy probably no more than Darshan’s age. What was surprising was that the other two were children also. Taller, yes, but their faces gave away their age. Kusum thought they couldn’t have been more than eleven or twelve. They were both girls, the taller of the two holding the hand of the boy.


  She looked to see if any of them was carrying weapons, but the only things they had were their well-worn clothes and each other. Kusum considered what to do next, and decided on a course of action her father would have disapproved of.

  She waited until they passed, then silently moved out from her hiding place and onto the road behind them.

  “What are you doing?” she said.

  All three jumped, the smaller of the girls letting out a brief scream. As they looked back, Kusum could tell they wanted to run.

  “Don’t move,” she said, showing them the knife.

  “Please don’t hurt us,” the smaller girl said.

  “Then tell me why you’re following us.”

  The girls exchanged a glance. The tall one, who Kusum could now see was a few years older than the other, said, “We’re not following you.”

  “You’ve been following us for the last hour and a half.”

  “We’re just using the same road. You can’t stop us from doing that.”

  Though the girl was smaller than Kusum, she had donned a tough front, going so far as to move in front of the other two.

  “Where are you going?” Kusum asked.

  “To visit our family,” the girl said quickly.

  It was a transparent lie. Kusum was sure they’d grown up in the streets, and doubted they even knew who their families were. She didn’t even think any of the three were related to each other, as none shared any similar physical traits.

  She stared at the older girl for several seconds, then put the knife back in the sheath and held it at her side. “When was the last time any of you had anything to eat?”

  “We ate just a few hours a—” the older one began.

  “Yesterday,” the boy said. “In the morning.”

  Kusum frowned. “Come on, then.” She walked through the middle of them, and started down the road toward her family. After a moment, she looked back. “I said, come on. Unless you’re not hungry.”

  The boy was the first to move, but the girls weren’t far behind him.

  With that simple invitation, Reva, Induma, and Adesh joined Kusum’s family.

  They would not be the last.

  30

  MONTANA

  2:14 AM MOUNTAIN STANDARD TIME

  LIZZIE DREXEL KNEW they were out there. She could feel them watching her house. She’d seen one of them fifteen minutes earlier, peeking around a tree. And where there was one, there had to be more.

  She barely thought about the boy anymore. He’d been gone since the day before. To her, that was a lifetime ago. So much had happened since then. The world, as Owen had always told her it would, had gone to shit.

  “You were right, big brother. You were right,” she muttered.

  Aren’t I always?

  For hours, she’d sat mesmerized in front of her computer, watching the news. Everywhere it was the same—death being delivered in dull metal boxes. That no one had died yet didn’t mean anything. It was going to happen. She knew it would, like she knew why the men watching her house were there. Owen had told her.

  Those boxes would be wasted out here, his voice had said. Those are for the crowds. People like you and me, they’ll come for us individually.

  He told her how they planned to do it—break in, hold her down, and swab the bug in her nose.

  Too bad for them they’ve come to the wrong house, Owen said.

  She smiled. “Yeah, too bad.”

  Lizzie wasn’t about to die from the killer virus, but she was willing to die if it meant taking with her those who were trying to give it to her.

  She went into the bedroom and opened the secret panel in the closet. Her sweet brother had prepared so much for a world he didn’t live long enough to see.

  Oh, I’ll see it, he said.

  She nodded. “Right. I just meant—”

  I know what you meant. Now do what needs to be done.

  Owen’s big concern had been a civil war. He hadn’t been clear what form it would take—race-based, religious, or class driven—but that wasn’t important. He just knew it was coming. And while he wasn’t interested in joining any of the sides, he wasn’t about to let anyone take what was his.

  He had two main means of preventing that from happening. The first was the four sniper nests he’d created under the eaves of his house. All he would have had to do was crawl from corner to corner to cover the whole house. He’d even lined the otherwise unfinished attic with steel plates for protection.

  The problem with this option was that Lizzie was not the marksman her brother was, nor would her bad hip allow her to move around the attic in any kind of useful fashion. That left the second option—setting off the Semtex explosive that was built into the house right above the basement retaining wall, and in the garage along the base.

  All she would have to do was wait until the killers approached the house, then boom.

  She felt a bit sad that it had come to this. She’d come to love the house, but she was not about to die in it from some painful, draining infection.

  Uh-uh. Not her.

  She flipped the switches that turned the system on, removed the remote control from its clip, and carried it to the dining room window where she could watch and wait for the exact right moment.

  __________

  THE HOUSE SAT near the edge of a clearing, a detached garage off to the side. They would have passed right by it if Miller hadn’t noticed there were fewer trees in its direction, then found the broken twigs indicating a spot where someone had sat and watched the building like they were now doing.

  Could it have been Brandon? Ash had wondered. Was his son right now inside the home, sleeping?

  Both buildings were dark, and there was a faint whiff of smoke in the air, hinting at a dying fire in the fireplace. Someone was definitely home, but at this hour they were undoubtedly asleep.

  Ash was tempted to walk up and knock on the door. It was only a warning relayed by Miller from Christina at the base that kept him from doing it.

  “A survivalist,” Miller said, summarizing what he had been told. “Or was. He died about a year ago and his sister moved in last August.”

  When Ash looked at him, surprised, Miller told him that the Resistance kept detailed notes about its nearest neighbors. The current occupant, Elizabeth Drexel, apparently led a very quiet life. She was an account who did all her work via the Internet, and since taking up residence, had only twice driven the thirty-five miles to town for supplies. Where she fell on the whole survivalist thing, they had not yet been able to determine, and that was the problem. Survivalists were a notoriously paranoid lot, and not fond of people knocking on their door. Especially at two in the morning.

  “Did you see that?” Ash said.

  “See what?” Miller asked.

  “The window facing us, something moved along the edge.”

  Miller studied the window for several seconds. “There’s nothing there now.”

  “There was.”

  Ash closed his eyes and played the movement back in his mind. It had been a curtain, but not flapping like what might happen if a burst of air rushed past. It had been more…subtle, controlled. Like someone pushing the curtain away from the frame so they could look outside.

  One way to find out, he thought. He rose from his crouch. “I’m going in.”

  “Whoa. You’re going to scare the crap out of her.”

  “I’m just going to ask her if she’s seen Brandon.”

  “We should at least wait until the sun comes up.”

  Ash locked eyes with him. “My son is missing. I’m not going to waste time waiting for it to get lighter. I’ll knock on the door and ask about Brandon. That’s all.”

  Miller was clearly not comfortable with the decision, but he said nothing.

  “You stay here,” Ash said. “Less likely to scare the crap out of her if there’s only one of us.”

  __________

  AS SOON AS Lizzie returned to the dining room window, she moved the
curtain just enough so she could create a clear spot to peek through with her night vision goggles. She watched and waited.

  It didn’t take long for her intruders to make a move.

  One moment the night was still, in the next the dark figure of a man stepped out from the trees and started walking toward her house.

  You were right, little sister. They’re really here, Owen said.

  When the man passed the garage, she frowned. “Where are the others?”

  Patience.

  “Why aren’t they all coming?”

  Owen apparently didn’t have an answer for this.

  With each step the man took, she became more and more frustrated. She was supposed to take them all out, not just one guy.

  Her thumb slipped down the side of the remote. “What am I going to do?” she asked.

  Her brother still said nothing.

  “What do I do?”

  __________

  SO FAR, ASH had seen no repeat of the movement he’d detected earlier as he passed the garage and trudged across the cold, hard earth toward the house’s small porch. He hesitated in front of the door for several seconds, then raised his hand and knocked.

  __________

  LIZZIE WATCHED THE man until he disappeared from her view as he went around to the front of the house. She looked back at the woods, wondering once more where the others were, then stepped away from the window.

  Was the man scanning her house for weak points? Or would he try to break in? She walked quietly toward the door, wanting to hear the moment he attempted to pick the locks. She was only a few feet away when—

  Knock, knock, knock.

  She jerked backward, nearly falling on the floor.

  Knocking on her door was not something she expected.

  Knock, knock, knock.

  Pull yourself together, Owen ordered.

  She took a couple of deep breaths to calm herself, and moved up to the door. The man was just a few feet away now, right on the other side. She looked down at the remote in her hand.