Matthew rushed over, still weak. He stood below me, as I quickly pulled Gordon into the tunnel.
His breathing was ragged and broken. Matthew lowered him down to the floor the best he could. I reached up to try to secure the hatch, ducking my head and stretching my hand out, hoping they weren’t close.
A shadow covered the entrance, and a hand shot out, grabbing my wrist, twisting hard, and pulling me upwards. I cried out just in time for Matthew to grab my ankle and yank me back.
I landed on top of Matthew. We both lay sprawled across the concrete. I sprang up, grabbing my pistol and aiming it at the hatch.
I heard Steve’s gruff voice from just outside the entrance.
“It won’t be long now, Holly,” he warned. “We are coming to get you, and we will have the cabin.”
I shot at the hole, my bullet hitting nothing but night sky.
“Tsk. Tsk. Holly, you should know better than to waste your bullets. I’m not leaving the entrance, and you can’t stay there all night. It’s time to make a decision.”
I looked over at Matthew. He pointed in the direction of the cellar door. We both grabbed Gordon.
I had one hand underneath his arm and one hand still holding my gun steady towards the hatch.
Matthew and I pulled Gordon through the door to the cellar, yelling upstairs for Norm.
“Norm, we need you! The tunnel entrance is open. They’ll be coming down into the tunnel soon!”
Running footsteps sounded from above. Norm catapulted down the stairs, Kate in one arm and the young girl close behind him.
Gordon was lying in the corner, his back facing us, too still and quiet. A knife wound on his back, bloody and raw.
Norm rushed forward putting Kate down on the cellar floor and trying to secure the cellar door.
He and Matthew grabbed the handles and pulled, but it was too late. Steve and his men started shooting at the door.
Matthew and Norm jumped back against the wall, taking cover. Norm went to draw his gun from his belt, but realized too late, it wasn’t there.
From the other side of the room, near the door to the basement, a bullet rang out.
Wait. That’s the wrong side. Who’s firing on our side? I looked over to see the little girl, the sister, with a gun in her hand. She lowered it, and aimed it at my chest.
“It’s okay, Steve. I’ve got her. Everyone drop your guns, or I will shoot Holly.”
She looked at me with hatred and anger in her eyes.
Steve and his men emerged. Each one training their guns on one of us. Steve strode forward.
“Good job, Wendy. Now, it’s time to make your choice. Do you want to kill her? This is a crossroads for you. This decision will define your life.”
He stepped away from Wendy and gestured towards me with his hand.
“You said you would take me instead,” Matthew yelled, desperately.
“No, Matthew,” Wendy trained her eyes on me, not turning away as she spoke. “You ran away. You didn’t keep your end of the deal. She is the reason my sister Sarah is dead. She is the only reason. She could have stepped out to save Liza and my sister. She chose to save herself. Steve and I tricked you. You led us right to them.”
I was crouched in the corner with Gordon to my left and Kate hiding behind me, her whole body shaking uncontrollably, soft whimpers escaping her. Gordon’s breaths were shallow and ragged, but he had woken up with all the commotion and pushed himself to sitting against the wall.
“Wendy, Wendy is that you?” his feeble voice ricocheted around the cellar.
Wendy looked over at Gordon. Her eyes met his with recognition.
“Grandpa? Grandpa! They killed Sarah. Holly could have come out when he warned her. She could have saved her,” she cried as tears sprang up in her eyes.
Her eyes focused harder on Gordon, and I saw the truth wash over her as soon as her eyes traveled to the blood trickling from his mouth.
“You’re hurt. Did they hurt you?” She stared hard at me.
“No, sweetheart. Holly didn’t hurt me. I’ve known her since she was a little girl like you. Wendy, she would never hurt anyone on purpose. Your mixed up, sweetie. That man,” he raised his arm and pointed at Steve.
“That man, he’s the one who hurt me, Wendy. Sometimes, things happen on accident, like with Holly and Sarah, and sometimes, things happen on purpose. He hurt me on purpose. Is that who you really want to trust?” His strength was failing, and his body shivered. He collapsed into unconsciousness.
Wendy’s hand wavered. I saw her look at Steve, confused. Matthew stood on the opposite wall, the man nearest him was caught up in the conversation, distracted. Norm sat on the ground, his knees pulled tight against his chest. He looked feeble and scared, but I knew he was pulling his gun from his ankle holster. He eyed the two men nearest him. They would underestimate him. They were young, cocky, full of pride. I turned back to look at Wendy just as I saw the flash of a muzzle and heard the blast of the gun going off.
CHAPTER 18 (Holly)
I didn’t have time to think, just to move. As soon as the gun in Wendy’s hand went off, I threw myself at the waist of the man covering me, hoping like hell I’d get under his shot. I heard his pistol fire just as I impacted with his midsection, hammering him into the wall.
I was vaguely aware of other gunshots going off but didn’t have the attention to spare. I had only the slimmest advantage over my man, and I had to get control of his gun. I quickly threw my arms up and overhead, like doing a butterfly stroke in the pool, and swooped down to capture his arms and lock him into a bear hug.
Scenario 8. Norm had me practicing the bear hug since before I could actually get my arms around him.
As soon as I locked hands around my target’s back, I let the rest of that old training kick in, and I pivoted to put him between myself and all the rest of the guns in the room. Once I had control of my own little fight, I was able to assess the rest of the situation.
Steve was shouting, “Cease fire! Cease fire! Don’t hit the kids!” from somewhere down the tunnel. Gordon was still on the floor, not moving. Kate and Wendy were cowered together in a corner. Norm had his hunting rifle and was at the edge of the doorway to the escape tunnel. He kept his weapon at the ready but didn’t lean into the opening to avoid silhouetting himself.
Matthew was across the room from me, with a pistol in his hand. “Drop it, Travis! Drop it!” he shouted.
“You wouldn’t dare,” said the man I was wrestling.
“Get the kids up into the cabin and let’s have a fair fight,” Steve yelled from down the tunnel. “Four on four. What do you say?”
“Drop it, Travis, or I swear!”
“Seems like three on four, since we’ve got one of your men,” Norm shouted down the tunnel.
“Three on three, actually. I haven’t seen your old buddy there move for a while.”
I spared Gordon a glance. The fact that he wasn’t moving was probably why nobody had taken a pot shot at him, exposed as he was to the tunnel.
“Drop it, Travis.”
“Clear the kids out!” Steve shouted. “You let the kids out safely, we’ll have us a fair fight. You don’t, and I’ll make sure you live to regret it for a long, long time.”
“Four on three, asshole!” Wendy shouted. “Next time I see your stupid face I won’t miss.”
“Wendy, you’re just a kid. This isn’t your fight.”
Travis let himself get distracted again by Wendy. Stupid mistake. I slipped my right leg a little bit to the side, and rocketed it up between his legs, followed by a stomp right down onto his instep. It stunned him momentarily, just long enough for me to release the bear hug and go for his gun. I disarmed him, but in the process, the gun discharged.
Several rounds came into the cellar from the tunnel, shattering through our accumulated supplies, shattering some glass jars or thudding into the cinder block walls.
“Cease fire, damn it!” Steve shouted. “Cease fire!”
When tense silence returned to the cellar, Norm and I made quick eye contact, and assessed the situation again. Wendy and Kate were still huddled up in one of the corners on the same wall as the tunnel – the safest place in the cellar when rounds were incoming. Gordon was still laid out on the ground, eyes closed, but I could see his chest slowly rising and falling. Matthew and I both had guns trained on Travis, who was cowered in a corner, whimpering.
He wasn’t so tough as he’d been when he had the gun aimed at me.
“Can we shut the door now?” Matthew asked.
“As long as it’s open, they’ll keep talking. We know where they are,” I said.
“Come on, old man!” Steve shouted. “Let the two kids go, and we can settle this.”
“I’m not going anywhere!” Wendy yelled again. “Definitely not with you.”
I looked over at the girl. She was maybe 12. Way too young to have seen her sister shot right in front of her, then be recruited to essentially act as a turncoat, before being given a gun and told to kill another woman.
I had to spit, the thought of what Steve was doing to her disgusted me so much. He had a code of honor that one didn’t hurt kids, but he was also willing to use Wendy to gain Matthew’s trust and lead him to us, and then he armed her and encouraged her to kill somebody in cold blood. I couldn’t fathom just how out of whack his moral compass had to be to hold such completely contradictory ideas.
“What are we up against,” Norm asked Matthew.
“Steve and two dipshits like this guy here named Brantley and Spence.”
Travis turned and shouted, “Hey!”
That’s all he got out, before I busted him upside the head with the pistol in my hand. “Keep your mouth shut,” I snarled at him.
“Steve is obviously ex-military, maybe some sort of commando or something? I don’t know,” Matthew whispered, just enough to carry across the cellar to where I was. “But he carries himself like my grandfather, who did a lot of shit in ‘Nam that he never talked about.
“Wendy winged Steve,” Norm said, quietly. “Pulled the shot and got him in the right shoulder. I don’t think any of my rounds hit home. I know none of Matthew’s did.”
“Got it,” I said to Norm. “So, one guy that is likely more capable than either of us in this situation, and two meat shields. Plus this one here.” I pointed at Travis on the ground.
“We’ve got to do something fast if we’re going to have a chance at saving Gordon. We don’t have golden hour for him. With the capacity we’ve got here, we’ve got a lot less to start treating him.”
“I’m waiting,” Steve shouted. Now that I knew he’d been hit, I could hear the strain in his voice.
“Is he a southpaw?” I asked Matthew.
“No.”
Which meant the best guy on the other team had a wound on his dominant side. Another small advantage for us.
“I don’t think Wendy’s going to go to you willingly,” I called down the tunnel, trying to buy us some time.
“Not a chance!” Wendy screamed.
“I don’t want you to get hurt,” Steve said. “You and that other girl, why don’t you two just go upstairs.”
Kate wailed as the tension got to her.
“We’ve got to do something fast,” I said. “Before they get desperate and stupid.”
“That door fireproof?” Matthew asked.
“Resistant, not fireproof,” Norm said.
“I smell camp fuel or something down here. One of the stray bullets must have busted a can of it open,” Matthew said.
“Yeah,” Norm said. “We’ve got a bit down here. I had it in the back of my mind. If we get to shooting and a stray ricochet strikes a spark.”
“Fires are a huge risk in those long mountain tunnels, because they eat up all the oxygen,” I said. I looked at my watch. “You two keep Steve talking for at least four minutes. Get as much flammable stuff soaked in fuel as you can. Throw it down and follow it with a flare. I’ll be sitting on the other end of the tunnel.”
“How are you going to get out?” Norm asked. He pointed to the stairs up to the cabin, which were behind him. To get to them, I’d have to cross the cellar in clear view of the tunnel.
“Travis, you want to live?” I asked.
He nodded his head desperately.
“Give me your clothes. Strip.”
He looked confused, but the gun in my hand kept any questions he had behind his teeth and did as I said.
“Deal,” Norm said.
“Yo, Steve!” Matthew shouted. “What about our deal that you spare me if I give up Holly?”
“I was never going to honor it,” I heard coming up from the tunnel. “Anybody who’d give his woman up as easy as you doesn’t deserve to live. Coward!”
I started putting Travis’s clothes on over my own.
“Speaking of cowards, how are Brantley and Spence doing?” Norm shouted, then he mouthed, “Go!” to me. “If they’re willing to run back to town, we’ll let them go.”
I dashed across the opening to the tunnel and quickly swapped my pistol for Norm’s rifle.
“They’re good. We’re all right here.”
“Alright.” I shouted. “We’re sending your man Travis upstairs with the two kids.” I walked across the tunnel entrance. “Kate, I need you to walk upstairs really nice for me. Wendy, fight with everything you’ve got. I’ll drop you and keep going with Kate. Get out of sight as soon as I drop you, OK?”
Both girls nodded at me.
“We’re going to send the noncombatant and the two girls upstairs right now,” Norm called out.
I picked up Kate and took Wendy’s hand. “You stay down here and keep making noise until Norm sends you back upstairs. When he does that, you run up here and go hide in the bedroom, OK?” I told Wendy.
“Got it,” she said.
I slowly made my way to the stairs while Norm and Matthew kept busy, huddled on their side of the room pouring camp fuel and kerosene into bundles of bandages, spare clothes, and books. Anything that would burn.
We had several fire extinguishers stored down there with the supplies as well. I could only pray that they would be enough to keep the flames from burning through the tunnel door.
“They’re going up!” I called.
“Fingers off your triggers,” I heard Steve say. Still, I could swear I felt crosshairs on my back as I walked, Kate in my arms, Wendy beside me, to the stairs.
On cue, Wendy started fighting me. “I’m not going. I’m not going! I’m going to kill Steve for killing my grandpa! NO!”
She jerked at the sleeve of Travis’s jacket almost hard enough to yank it off of me. I think that having her play the part of a girl in emotional agony at seeing her grandpa laying on the floor, dying, actually opened up those flood gates inside of her. She wasn’t acting, she was really letting all of her feelings out.
I just needed her to do it right there in the doorway long enough for our plan to work. I pulled free of her and kept going up the stairs with Kate. Norm and I locked eyes and looked at our watches again. I asked for four minutes.
I deposited Kate in my bedroom and told her to get under the bed and stay there, unless smoke got up the stairs, then she needed to run.
She stared at my wide-eyed and nodded. I burned a good half minute getting her to let go of me and get under the bed.
Travis’s clothes might buy me a little more time at the other end of the tunnel if Steve or one of his men saw me, so I kept them on. I unslung the rifle from where I’d strapped it tight to the front of my body and left the cabin. I ran like the wind for the end of the tunnel and set myself up behind a log with a good vantage point.
I checked my watch. I’d used a little more than four minutes from the mark, but the men in the tunnel had to run almost as far as I had. The silence and the wait were killing me as the seconds kept ticking on.
Finally, I saw somebody emerge from the tunnel. It definitely wasn’t Steve. He was dressed in hunting camou
flage and just didn’t have the same presence as is commander. I couldn’t risk showing my hand too soon, so I let him come out of the tunnel. He turned his back to the entrance and watched.
A second man, dressed similarly, crawled up out of the hole in the ground. As soon as he was on his feet, both men started jogging away without a second glance back. There wasn’t any time for me to worry about where Steve was. I needed to deal with these two. I set one up in my sights, led him a bit, and fired. A split second later, his body twisted and convulsed.
I let out the rest of my breath, took a deep one in, and started releasing it slowly while I picked up the other man. He’d made the critical mistake of stopping and gawking when his companion was hit. That was all the time I needed to get a solid sight picture and gently squeeze the trigger for a second shot.
CHAPTER 19 (Matthew)
Our Survival: A Collection of Post Apocalyptic EMP Survival Thrillers Page 68