by Harley Tate
Her brother pushed off the counter. “You don’t have to stay up.”
And leave Lucas free to snoop about in the house? She smiled. “It’s okay. I don’t mind.”
Doug walked over to the kitchen door and peered through the window before unlocking it. Lucas stood on the back porch, hands shoved in his pockets, looking every bit the college employee.
Lottie growled soft and low in Melody’s lap. She’d always been a good judge of character. As Lucas walked in, Melody smiled, but didn’t shush her dog. “Hi, Lucas. You’re out late.”
He glanced at Doug. “Is it a problem? Should I go?”
“No, not at all. It’s just that it’s dark tonight. Not much of a moon, you know?”
Her brother smiled and Melody fought the urge to gag. She shouldn’t be so hard on Doug’s friends. It wasn’t Lucas’s fault the power grid failed and his entire existence was turned upside down. Being the social media arm of the University of Oregon’s student relations department meant his entire job revolved around a computer screen.
Lucas lived for student photographs and trending hashtags about the college. Without his computer or phone, the guy probably cried himself to sleep at night. Melody kept the laugh to herself. Being cruel wouldn’t do her any favors. “How’s your street? Any more inspections?” She wished she could call them raids.
He shook his head. “Not yet. Most of the walk-ups are empty. We’ve got a lot of college kids and a few professors. They all left town first thing.” He pulled a hand from his pocket and ran it through his shaggy hair. “It’s mostly just me and a couple retired folks who’ve been there forever. Agnes hasn’t left the first floor in twenty years.”
Melody nodded. She’d attended a house call with Dr. Benthorn the year before for one of Mrs. Teeples’s cats. The poor thing wouldn’t eat a single bite. Turned out he had late stage stomach cancer. Melody pushed the memory aside. She didn’t need to think about any more animals dying today.
She glanced back at Lucas. “Has the army found your parents?”
Lucas shook his head. “Not yet. I’ve been tempted to walk to the University campus to ask, but I don’t want to ruffle any feathers.”
“Why would going in person be a problem?”
Lucas’s eyes grew wide. “Haven’t you heard? They’ve instituted a lockdown of the entire campus. No one in, no one out. I can’t even get to my office anymore.”
“What about the cafeteria and all of that? I thought they were letting students who lived off campus come and eat.”
“Not anymore.”
Melody knew about the curfew in her neighborhood and the discouragement of neighborly meetings. But forbidding even employees and students from entering the campus took it to another level. “Where are the students?”
Lucas pinched his lower lip between his fingers in hesitation. “I wouldn’t want to speculate.”
Doug spoke up. “Do you know something?”
“There were a few still living in the building next to me until yesterday.”
“And now?”
“They’re gone.”
“But you said the army hasn’t been back.”
Lucas paused again, his eyes darting back and forth as he scrunched up his nose. “I said there haven’t been any more inspections. I don’t know if they’ve been back. For all I know, the kids left in the middle of the night on their own, but…”
He trailed off and Melody almost snapped. She stood up, and clutched Lottie to her chest. “Tell us, Lucas.”
“I heard an engine rumbling a street or two away. It sounded like an army truck.”
“I knew it.” Melody turned to her brother. “This is exactly what I’m talking about. As soon as the army figures out what to do with us, we’ll be next.”
“We don’t know the army is responsible.”
“Like hell, we don’t.” Melody eased around the table and brushed past her brother and his friend. “I’m getting some air.”
She stomped up the stairs of their house and headed straight for the little balcony off her bedroom. The nerve of Lucas and her brother. How naive could two grown men be? Didn’t they see the danger? Didn’t they care?
Melody tugged the door open and a rush of cool night air slapped her face. She sucked in a breath and let it out in a rush, the air taking most of her frustration with her. Clear skies, light breeze. Another beautiful night in Oregon.
The moon hung low and half full in the sky and as Melody eased down into a rocking chair, a few stars blinked into view. Five minutes of staring at the gorgeous night and Melody had second thoughts.
Maybe her brother was right. Maybe she was overreacting and making something out of nothing. Apart from taking pets, the army had been good to them.
Food. Water. Weekly checks. Everything seemed normal. If she hadn’t run into Colt on the street and Mr. Wilkins hadn’t pulled him to safety, she might begin to believe Doug and his Pollyanna theories.
But she’d seen Colt’s injuries. The bruises across his chest and ribs. The bullet hole in his arm. Danielle’s, too. The poor girl lost a good chunk of hair and scalp in the back of her head and what was left hung in burned tatters before Gloria cut it off.
They barely escaped with their lives. No benevolent army treated people that way. Whatever this National Guard unit had planned, it wasn’t sanctioned by the United States Army. It couldn’t be.
She leaned back in the rocking chair and closed her eyes. Somehow, she had to convince Doug fighting was the only option. If only she knew how.
Chapter Seven
COLT
Streets of Eugene, Oregon
11:00 p.m.
Damn leg. Every time he took a step, the stitches in his thigh tugged and pain shot across his skin. Melody’s work was admirable, but his oversight led to the stab wound to begin with. If I’d been more careful… If I’d double tapped that soldier behind the dumpster instead of heading straight for the truck…
He pushed the criticism to the back of his mind. Colt didn’t have time to dwell on his mistakes. He needed intel and he needed it yesterday.
Based on his conversation with Harvey, Colt not only memorized a working map of the town, but he knew the areas already secured by the army. If he wanted to find out their plans for the city and what they had in mind for the residents who didn’t resist, hitting the areas not yet secured would be his best option.
Keeping to the shadows, Colt skirted the edges of yards and houses, blending in with the darkness as best he could. If any of the soldiers wore night-vision goggles, no concealment would work, but Colt took the risk. The chance this unit possessed a full set of gear was slim. Even as a SEAL half of their gear would be broken or on back order or missing key parts.
It was worse for reservists and National Guard units who only worked part-time. Apart from the basics of uniforms, rifles, and a handful of vehicles, the unit occupying Eugene probably didn’t have much. Colt wondered how armed a college town in the middle of Oregon could possibly be. If the army did confiscate all the weapons it located, they may have a tiny arsenal by now.
Working his way north, Colt headed farther and farther away from the University and the base camp for the army, and closer to unsecured portions of town. The shift happened gradually. In Harvey and Melody’s neighborhood, most of the houses were either empty or occupied with quiet residents who followed directions and stayed inside.
Not so out in the fringes of the city. The smell of burned wood and warped plastic assaulted Colt’s nose and he slowed. One house away a burned-out shell of a structure still gave off heat. The soot-stained tower of a stone chimney loomed in front of him, rising out of piles of charred beams and ashes.
Colt stopped beside the wreckage. Did the army burn the house or did something else cause the destruction? Down the street, more ruined houses lurked, standing one after the other like burned-up stubs of matches in a book.
Melody’s words from before echoed in his head: the army sent the firefighters home
. They must have not only anticipated fires but welcomed them. Easier to control a resistant group of residents when their houses were nothing more than heaps of worthless charcoal.
Colt squinted into the darkness at the houses across the street. Although they were spared, ravages of time without food and water took their toll. Dead grass covered the lawns, some with weeds over a foot tall. A car occupied the front of one house, parked like it ran out of gas on the front lawn, more of a squatter than permanent resident.
After checking for any movement on the street or in the windows of the closest houses, Colt hustled across the road. He ducked behind the fender of the late-model Ford, and crouch-walked around the front. Broken shards of glass greeted him at the driver’s side door and Colt rose up to check inside.
A stain spread across the seat along with fragments of the window, and Colt didn’t need a flashlight to know the source. The stale blood reeked of iron and decay and Colt covered his nose as he stepped back.
As tempting as an inspection of the house behind him and the rest of the street might be, it wouldn’t serve his purpose tonight. He needed to find an active patrol and assess their current tactics. Were they desperate or still even handed? Were they shooting on sight or still handling the locals with kid gloves?
Colt picked up the pace, ducking past more signs of conflict as he worked his way to the edge of the city. The apartments grew more and more spaced out, replaced by larger houses on larger lots. But the signs of violence remained. Burned-out cars. Torn down fences. Toppled stone mailboxes.
Three weeks after the collapse of the grid and even the nice part of town suffered. He headed toward a street cutting in at an angle when the first sound of another person that night caught his ear. Colt eased into the shadows of a pine tree and waited.
The voices filtered through the houses in choppy, incomplete bursts. Men. Harsh tones followed by laughter. Louder then softer, closer then farther away. He couldn’t get a read on them.
After pulling his service pistol from his waistband, Colt stepped away from the tree. Weaving through the darkness, he worked toward the voices. Through a backyard, out a side gate, over a low hedge, around a child’s play set.
The voices grew more distinct as he approached, but still he couldn’t hear. Were they military? Locals out on the prowl? Someone from outside looking for an easy score?
The longer the power stayed out, the more desperate people would become. Jarvis’s unit might be keeping the peace now, but how long would it last? How long could they keep some semblance of order before a group with even fewer scruples challenged their position?
Colt pulled up behind a camellia about the size of an elephant and eased into a crouch among the browning flowers decaying in heaps on the ground. He closed his eyes and concentrated on the men he could hear but not see.
They were close, somewhere to the west of his current position. Outside, by the way their voices carried. Maybe a back porch or a driveway. He would need to be cautious.
Opening his eyes, he took stock. The houses in his immediate vicinity sat in the middle of large lots of half an acre or more with landscaped front yards and curtained windows. Not a single light shone in any of them. Colt walked past them all, staying alert, but growing increasingly frustrated.
At the end of the block, he stopped. A large sign rose out of the ground across from him. Even in the dark, the white block lettering stood out from the background.
Rockmill Homes
New Construction
From the High 500s
Colt turned down the street and froze. Instead of sprawling ranches with established yards and large footprints, a clear-cut subdivision opened up in front of him. Curving streets, a hundred sewer stubs sticking out of the ground at regular intervals, and a single house smack in the middle.
The entire first floor glowed like a lighthouse in the middle of nowhere.
Colt rushed into the yard on the corner, hugging the shrubbery as he approached. At the end of the lot, he ducked behind a thick boxwood and exhaled. He’d found the men and his first hunch was correct: they were army.
A desert Humvee sat in the driveway of the house, headlights blasting the sign MODEL NOW OPEN that hung above the garage. Colt shook his head. Running down the battery of the vehicle just to have some light was beyond stupid. Not only were they blind to the darkness, but they were broadcasting their position to everyone within half a mile.
As he watched, the front door swung open and a pair of soldiers walked onto the porch. Without the noise pollution from cars and air-conditioners and a million other electric devices, their voices carried across the breeze.
“Gimme a light, man.”
“Don’t get your panties in a twist. I’m coming.”
Colt unclipped a pair of binoculars from his belt and brought the soldiers into focus. Both young, with cropped hair and beardless chins. Nondescript, typical National Guardsmen. Their uniforms might need a good pressing and a trip through the laundromat, but other than that they looked the part.
People in a neighborhood like this would respect and listen to them. Follow orders.
One of the soldiers pulled out a packet from his pocket and plucked out a hand-rolled smoke. He handed it to the other man before flicking the wheel of a lighter with his thumb.
Holding the flame up to the end, the soldier lit the paper before pulling back. The other man sucked the smoke into his lungs until his chest puffed out and held his breath.
Colt rolled his eyes. Idiots.
Before he turned blue, the soldier exhaled and handed the joint to the other man. He mimicked the first’s actions, sucking in smoke and holding it until he couldn’t stand it another second.
He exhaled on a laugh. “I told you the nicer neighborhoods always have the best shit. Spoiled rich kids know where to score.”
“Whatever. I just want Jarvis to pay us like he promised so I can get the hell outta here. This place is full of pussies.”
“And I plan to ride every last one.” The soldier grabbed his junk and grinned. “Meow.”
Colt wanted to drop them both where they stood. They were worse than idiots. Cocky assholes and guns were a terrible combination.
“Did somebody say meow?” A third soldier walked around the side of the house holding a wriggling sack in his hand.
“What’s in the bag, Marty?”
Marty shoved his hand into the sack and pulled a wriggling cat out by the scruff of its neck. Its hair matted in clumps over its sides, but from the blue points on its ears and the matching fur on its paws, it couldn’t be a stray. Someone paid dearly for that cat and now it hung by its neck in the hands of a bored young man.
“Get that fleabag out of here. You know the orders: immediate disposal.”
Marty shrugged. “I thought we could have a little fun with this one first.” His face contorted into a nasty grin. “Anybody ever seen a cat with a firework attached to its tail?” He pulled a wad of something Colt couldn’t see out of his pocket and held it up.
“Aw, man. You’re one sick bastard.”
“I know. Now come on and help me truss this bitch up. I can’t wait to set it off.”
Colt tensed as the soldiers set to work wrangling the terrified cat. One of them rushed back into the house and emerged seconds later with a roll of duct tape while the other two held the sack over its face and front paws.
He could take three of them. But what if more lurked inside? An angled-back Humvee fit four, five in a tight squeeze. But that didn’t mean anything. More could have been dropped off. Hell, they could be living in the house for all he knew.
As much as he wanted to rescue the cat, he couldn’t risk it. With all of his wounds, he wasn’t operating at a hundred percent. It would be a suicide mission.
Colt pulled the binoculars down, unable to watch. He would go back to Harvey’s house and regroup. Come up with a better plan. As he stood up and turned, a familiar voice trapped his breath in his chest.
“L
et the cat go! Let him go or I’ll shoot!”
Day Twenty-Three
Chapter Eight
DANI
Rockmill Homes Model House
Eugene, Oregon
1:00 a.m.
Dani pressed the butt of the rifle tight against her shoulder. No way were those jerks going to light a cat on fire for fun. The soldier holding the duct tape twisted around, laughing as soon as he spotted her.
“Ooooh, look here, boys. It’s another animal that wants to play.”
The rifle dipped and Dani gritted her teeth to keep it level. Her left arm ached and her fingers cramped from digging into the front of the magazine well. Stupid weak arms. Colt never looked pained holding one of these.
She hoisted it up again and braced her back foot against the concrete while she aimed at the man who spoke. “Put the cat down and I won’t shoot.”
He snickered. “Do you even know how to shoot that, little girl?”
Dani twisted to the left and pulled the trigger. The round whizzed past the soldier and drilled into the wood beside his head. She didn’t bother to reply.
One of the two holding the cat stammered. “H-Hey, maybe we should—”
Marty screwed up his face, the acne on his cheeks squishing tighter like one giant ball of rage. “Shut it, ass wipe. She’s bluffing.” He pointed the roll of tape Dani’s way. “Put that thing down before you really make me angry.”
Dani aimed the barrel at center mass, smack on the name tape of Marty’s utility shirt. Despite the chill in the night air, sweat beaded across Dani’s forehead and down her temples, meandering in slow rivulets down her cheek before dripping onto her shoulders. The jerks needed to drop the cat before she dropped the gun.
She repeated her demand. “Let the cat go.”
“How about you give me the rifle and I won’t gut you like a fish before I put one between your eyes?”
Dani swallowed. She came prepared for killing. The minute the bag went over the cat’s head, she made her decision. No way were these men going to hurt a defenseless animal just because they could. The world might have gone to hell, everyone she loved might be dead, and she might be signing her death warrant, but Dani wasn’t going to watch a cat be tortured.