A loud ping startled everyone in the M-ATV. "Someone shot at us!" Brin said.
"Looks like somebody has night vision after all…" said Ted. "Drop the hammer, man. They know were coming. May as well hit the lights. It might scare them a little," he chuckled.
Erik turned on the headlights and the road illuminated before them. Abandoned cars lined either side—muzzle flashes popped all around them.
"That's a lot more than four cars!" Erik shouted over the noise.
"What do we do?" asked Brin, placing one foot on the dashboard as if it would prevent her from getting shot.
Ted chuckled. "Nothing! Ignore them—whatever they got, I guarantee you it ain't enough to put a hole in this thing."
Erik clenched his jaw and pushed his foot to the floor. The big Caterpillar diesel engine under the hood roared in response and sped up on the straightaway. The bridge itself looked to be about 30 or 40 yards long. Erik was relieved to see stout concrete railing paralleling the road. Hopefully the whole thing was made of reinforced concrete.
The M-ATV rumbled forward picking up speed as bullets bounced off its armor. Erik tightened his grip on the stirred wheel. "Almost there," he announced.
"Steady as she goes," advised Ted from the back seat. "Everybody brace for impact—when we hit those cars up there, just try to stay loose. Erik, keep your hands tight on the wheel, she'll do the rest…"
"You sound like you've done this before," said Erik as they approached the bridge.
Ted laughed. "Once or twice…"
"Everybody hang on!" Erik called out. The sound of the oversized armored tires on the asphalt changed to a distinctive rumble pattern as they hit the bridge. Erik ignored the speed limit posted for crossing the bridge. He flicked his eyes to the dash and saw they were doing 52. He grinned and tensed—the bridge seemed to hold.
They were halfway across the bridge when the men behind the barricade opened fire. Erik heard more than saw the bullets strike the ballistic-hardened windshield. His confidence grew the closer he got, as more bullets struck the vehicle and bounced harmlessly off into the night. The rain, pouring down in buckets, now sounded louder than bullets hitting the M-ATV's armored hull.
"Here we go!" yelled Ted. "Hang on!"
Erik kept his jaw clenched tight as they smashed into the barricade. There was a tremendous crash, then his vision was obscured by leaves and branches that flew up in front of the windshield. A split second later, the M-ATV careened into the cars parked across the road, the impact like nothing Erik had ever felt before. The vehicle shuddered by did not stop and everyone was thrown forward in their harnesses.
When Erik's vision cleared, he saw the speedometer had dropped to 35 after all, but the big truck was gaining speed again. They heard metal scrape the sides as they barreled through the makeshift barricade followed by screams and shouts as more gunfire targeted their ride.
The children screamed and Ted tried to soothe them, but Erik laughed. It was exhilarating. They had completely destroyed the barricade. Once free of the wreckage, the M-ATV picked up speed again. The road before them was a tunnel of light, surrounded by blurred trees on either side.
Neatly packed rows of cars—many of them riddled with bullet holes—lined the north side of the road as they passed the visitor's center.
"Looks like they've got a pretty good racket here," said Ted from the back seat. "They must have stopped anybody who came through here…"
"That's a lot of cars. What happened to all the people?"
"Well," answered Ted, "they might have confiscated the vehicles in exchange for safe passage…" His voice wasn't as confident as his words.
"Not this one," said Erik through clenched teeth. He eased up on the gas pedal when they went around the first bend in the road and the roadblock disappeared from sight. Erik heard Ted rustling around the back. He risked a quick glance over his shoulder and saw him stand up in the turret.
"What are you doing? We made it."
Ted dropped behind him and shouted over the roar of the wind as it whistled through the armored turret, spraying everyone with a fine mist. "I guarantee you, we're not free and clear yet—they have enough vehicles, they're gonna send somebody after us. I'm just going to convince them to leave us alone." Ted clapped Erik on the shoulder and stood back up into the turret.
"Just keep going!" urged Brin.
Ted screamed down into the vehicle over the noise of the wind. "We got two cars behind us! Kids, cover your ears, daddy's going loud!"
Without further warning, Ted let loose with a brief salvo that sounded like a canon inside the vehicle. Erik gritted his teeth but kept their speed constant. A glance out his tiny side window showed one set of headlights wink out in the side mirror just before the trailing car exploded into a bright orange fireball. The brief explosion illuminated a pickup as it swerved around the flaming wreckage and parked sideways across the road.
Ted dropped inside the vehicle and sealed up the turret. He shook the water off his poncho and pulled the hood back, his face split in a smile. "Well, that was fun!"
Erik glanced at Brin. "Welcome to Georgia."
Chapter 5
Killing Spree
GABRIEL EVANS STEPPED OUT the Holdens’ back door, wiping his bloody hands on a kitchen rag. After a good scrub, he absently tossed the rag to the ground and continued walking. His boots crunched through the snow. His dark eyes were immediately drawn to the lake. They had a helluva view.
He paused at the crest of the slope leading down to the lake and took a deep breath. The cold, clear mountain air seared through his lungs. The world always looked so clear and sharp…after.
Evans sighed, feeling relaxed for the first time since he escaped the clutches of the New York penal system. He looked toward the neighboring house, what was her name? Larsson. Right.
A short hedgerow of bushes and small trees mostly obscured his view of the house itself. A thin tendril of smoke rose above the snow-kissed pine canopy. Someone was home.
He looked at the snow-covered garden and the boat shed further down the lake path. The late Alvin Holden's boot prints hadn’t been covered by the fresh snow yet. The serenity he felt vanished—he had work to do. Evans turned on his heel and marched back inside.
Without scraping his boots, he trudged mud and snow through the house on his way back to the front door. He paused in the kitchen, grabbing a handful of Helen Holden's cookies and stuffed his mouth. He closed his eyes. She was right; they were delicious. He slipped the rest of the pack under his coat and took one longing look at the pantry.
I’ll be back for you.
His eyes fell on another porcelain cat. He smashed it on the floor. Creepy ass old lady.
Stepping out the front door, he tugged on the undersheriff's jacket, making sure he was back in character in case anyone was watching. He looked up and saw Bondo staring at him through a break in the trees across the street. Evans glanced left and right. No activity, no line of sight for people in any houses nearby to see him. He nodded at Bondo and jerked a thumb toward a copse of trees by the road.
Meet me there.
He forced his way through the front yard and stood behind the clump of scraggly pines, waiting for Bondo to join him. Eventually the diminutive lackey worked his way down the road after several hasty glances over his shoulder.
Evans narrowed his eyes. You're nervous. Why?
"So what's the plan, Spike?"
He closed his eyes. Through clenched teeth, he said "I told you to call me sheriff." Evans turned and opened his eyes, leveling a glare at his forgetful sidekick. He clenched his fists knuckles cracking like snapping twigs. "Do I need to beat that into you so you can remember it?"
The smaller man shrank back in fear. "N-n-no…" he stammered. "I got it. Promise." He crossed himself. "Scout's honor. Won't happen again."
"It better not," Evans spat, glancing down the street. "Stupid shit like that could blow our cover. We haven't found shelter yet, remember?"
"Wha
t about that place?" Bondo asked, pointing at the Holden residence.
Evans shook his head. "I mean we haven't found shelter for everyone else. That can be my place, sure, but I'm not squeezing all you assholes in there. Too small. We need to spread out." He turned and glanced north at the next closest house. A large white shape through the trees caught his attention.
He squinted through the light snow. "What is that? A boat?"
Bondo stared with his beady little eyes. "Yeah, looks like a sailboat, Spi—ah, sheriff."
Sailboat? Evans thought for a moment. The extra mobility a boat offered in a lake community might be a real asset. He glanced down at his twitchy sidekick. Not to mention it could be a nice way to escape if things went tits-up.
The men he'd brought with him could be counted on for one thing and one thing only—violence. He ruled them with an iron fist through force of will and physical presence. They could all go screaming straight to hell for all he cared. They were idiots—but they were useful idiots. Evans felt the corner of his mouth twitch.
For now.
He kept his eyes glued to the sailboat. "Run back and see if anybody knows how to sail. I'm gonna go check out that house. Meet me over there. And be discreet."
“What?”
Evans pinched the bridge of his nose. “Be careful—we don’t know which of these houses are occupied.”
"But what if there's somebody home?"
“Jesus, is there an echo in here?” he asked to the sky. His hand slipped into the undersheriff’s coat and gripped the reassuring steel of the crampon. "I'll handle it. Just get over there."
He left the copse of trees and headed for the targeted house, ignoring the final protest of his chicken-shit lieutenant. He refused to look over his shoulder—the little bastard should be moving and if he wasn't, Evans would snap his neck.
It took him longer than he expected and his feet were half frozen in his too-small boots, but he made it to the side of the house. Judging from the amount of snow on the driveway, the unused front walk, and the darkened windows, he figured the house to be abandoned.
If it’s not abandoned, then no one’s been home for a few days, at least...
He approached one of the windows on the south side of the house, cupped his hands and put his face up to the glass. The room on the other side of the window was decorated like the Holden place. It was a grandmother's house, and it was empty.
He took a step back from the window and lowered his hands as a morbid thought crossed his mind: what if some old lady who lived there had died during the collapse and her body had been rotting in there the entire time?
A shiver went down his spine. Gabriel Evans could kill a man for looking sideways at him—rape and murder were his specialty, his trade, his craft. But coming across a decomposing body…
That's just creepy.
He shuffled away from the window and moved to the rear of the house to investigate the boat. At the back of the house, he found more of the same—a snow-covered porch and walkways yet no footprints in sight. A small, tiny vegetable garden lay half-buried under the snow, nestled as it was under the overhang of a large tree.
With no other houses in sight, he made his own path to the lake and stood on the rocky shore staring at the white sailboat, tied to a rotted dock behind the house. He’d never been on a boat, so he had no idea what shape it was in, but it looked pretty clean to him. It was sporting about an inch of snow on every horizontal surface, but the mast looked straight. There was a big lump right in the middle the ship which he assumed to be the folded sail.
He turned at the sound of approaching footsteps and saw Bondo accompanied by a mangy old man.
"Hey Sp—sheriff. Gimpy here used to run a charter business down in the keys."
The old man laughed. "I was a smuggler, you pansy." He glared at Evans without fear. "I got pirate blood in my veins,” he joked as he leaned around Evans’ bulk.
"Now that's a beauty—thirty-eight footer by the looks of her. Clean lines…" Gimpy stepped forward and crunched down, getting a better angle. "Oh shit yeah. She'll run like a scalded cat before the wind. Someone took good care of ‘er. You don’t see these anymore. A 1963 Yarmouth."
Evans watched as the old man's eyes lit up the more he studied the boat. He definitely sounded like a sailor, rattling on about jibs and lines. "I don’t know what that means.”
Gimpy blinked, his mouth open. “Well…ah…”
Evans held up hand. “Save it—I don’t really care. Go check it out."
The three of them made their way down to the rickety docks and carefully climbed aboard the sailboat. Evans was quickly approaching the point where he didn't care if anyone spotted them or not. As far as he could see along the shore, only one more house had been built to the north. He glanced south toward the Holden and Larsson houses, next to the abode of the mysterious Colonel. The point of land just a little farther south obscured anything else.
Gimpy found a hatch and jimmied the lock, dusted the snow off the teak decking and disappeared below with a cackle. Through the snow drifting down Evans couldn't see any further up the shoreline, but there had to be more houses. Prime real estate like that screamed ‘build here’.
Bondo whistled. "Would you look at that?"
Evans turned and followed Bondo's gaze across the lake. A massive three-story house, the side facing the lake almost completely made of glass, dominated the shoreline. Someone had serious money over there.
He clenched a fist. Now that would make an excellent base camp. Whoever owned that probably had tons of food stocked up, too. Rich people always did crazy shit like that. He squatted next to the boat's sail and peered inside the darkened cabin.
"You think you can get this thing across the lake?"
The old man hooted from the interior. "No problem at all! She's in real good shape. Got all kinds of charts—everything you need’s down here, even some GPS gear and shit. Battery’s probably dead, but I think I can hook 'em up to the engine and get her runnin' once we get some power."
"No—we're not using the engine."
"Not using…? Why?" The old man looked around him and tossed down one of the navigation charts on a little desk—not much more than a plank of wood sticking out of the hull. "Unless we got a good stiff breeze, this thing's not gonna be very fast…"
Evans smiled. "I don't care about speed—I'm looking for stealth." He glanced over the hatch toward the mansion across the lake. He could see it in his mind’s eye: standing behind the wheel, the ship silently plowing its way across the lake in the middle of the night, loaded for bear with the roughest, meanest of his crew. They could beach just below the house, slip up in there and kill anyone inside, take whatever they want and be back across the lake to start ferrying his men. They'd be like a bunch of modern-day pirates.
No…Vikings.
He peered back into the cabin. "So, Gimpy…what do you know about Vikings?"
Evans struck in the middle of the night. According to the cheap Casio watch he'd taken off the undersheriff's corpse, it was 2 AM. Perfect. He signaled Bondo.
"It's time. Take your men over to the neighbor’s house. Kill anyone inside and lock it down as fast as you can. Keep the curtains closed and for fuck's sake don't turn on any lights until I get back. Think you can handle that?"
A few of the raiders chuckled. Bondo glared at them, then nodded. "Yeah."
Evans frowned, far from certain. "Split your crew between that house and this house. I don't think anyone's in this one, but be ready."
"You got it, Spike." The man paled once when Evans looked at him. "I mean sheriff."
Dammit. Actually hoped you would work out. He pulled the crampon from his pocket and held the eyes of the man who had called him Spike. Quick as a snake, he drove the metal bar straight up under Bondo's chin and sunk it deep. He watched as the little man's eyes rolled up into his head before he let the body collapse to the ground, quivering and leaking blood on the snow. Evans turned the rest. "Who am I?"
"You're the sheriff," they said in unison.
"Good. Get going." He pointed to the biggest man in the group. "You're in charge."
With the first group dispatched, he turned to his hand-picked crew for the sailboat. They all sported clubs or ax handles, even a shovel—whatever weapons they could find in the boat sheds. It wouldn't matter, his men were tired, cold and hungry. They were ready to rip into anyone who stood in their way.
Halfway across the lake, Gimpy tapped his shoulder. He had ordered strict silence to get across the lake so he was happy someone had remembered not to speak. Evans turned. The old man grinned from behind the sailboat's steering wheel and pointed off to the side.
A faint glow rippled off the surface of the water, perhaps a half a mile across a wide bay. It was too cloudy for him to get a good view, but there was definitely something over there. Something darker than the surrounding darkness. It looked like a long low building along the water. Whatever it was, someone had a light on.
Interesting.
Evans turned back to the front of the boat. He'd worry about that later. They were approaching the shoreline. He took a good look at the massive house. It grew taller and taller above him as they approached the shore—an imposing sight. As they came ashore, Evans hopped over the side and splashed into the ice-cold water, ignoring his feet.
"Okay, boys, let's have some fun."
Chapter 6
Time for a New Car
ERIK LOOKED OUT THE small triangular window of ballistic-hardened glass. The Georgia landscape had been reduced to a gray blur in the first few moments of the day. He rubbed his eyes, wishing once more they could just find a place to stop and sleep for a while, free from fear. It'd been another long night.
Somewhere well north of the border, they'd rumbled into a small town, hoping to find supplies. Before they could even find a spot to park, people came out of the woodwork, on the attack. In their haste to leave, Ted had driven the M-ATV through a number of cars. As tough as it was, their vehicle was not a tank, and the damage was starting to take its toll.
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