“What now—” Shelby was asking when there was a crack! and something popped! on the other side of the truck. “What was that?”
“The tire,” Chuck said. “The front-side passenger tire.”
He was right, and a second or two later Ana noticed a slight dip in the truck’s height along with the sound of air leaking.
Another crack! and this time the back end of the Ford also dipped slightly.
“What are they doing?” she asked.
“Keeping us in one place,” Chuck said. “If they can’t get to us, they’re going to make sure we can’t keep following them.”
“Car’ll still run on two tires,” Shelby said.
“Not very well, though.”
“Good point.”
Ana glanced down at her watch again on instinct.
“I know,” Chuck said when she looked back up at him. “I know.”
“What?” Shelby said from behind Ana. “You know what? What’s going on? Chuck, what’s going on over there?”
“Nothing, kid,” Chuck said, looking past Ana at the younger man. “Maintain your position and stay alert. Keep your eyes and ears open for anything that even remotely sounds like someone coming toward us. Got that?” Then, when Shelby didn’t say anything, “You got that, Shelby?”
“Yeah, yeah, Roger and out and all that good stuff,” Shelby said, though judging by the lack of conviction in his voice, Ana wasn’t so sure he really did “get” it.
But she couldn’t do anything for Shelby at the moment. Hell, she could barely do anything for herself, much less the three men stuck behind the parked Ford with her.
Should have let them keep right on driving. Why did I get in the truck?
Because it was supposed to get you to Texas faster, that’s why.
Wash. This was all his fault.
You asshat.
Not that she actually believed that…for the most part. Yes, it was Wash’s fault that she was out here, but she had been fully prepared to follow him down to Texas anyway after what he had done for her and Emily. He had gone above and beyond to help get Em back even when he didn’t have to. Sure, she’d saved his life, too, but he’d returned the favor more than once and still he had come back for her, rescued her from Mathison.
Besides all that, she liked him.
“He said he was leaving without telling you because he didn’t want you to come with him,” Marie had told her when Ana found out, hours after Wash had left. “I got the feeling he was trying to do you a favor.”
Sonofabitch, she had thought then and continued to do so even after saying good-bye to Emily and following in his trail out of Kanter 11.
“The gas tank,” Shelby was saying behind her. “What if they shoot the gas tank, Chuck?”
“It doesn’t matter if they do,” Chuck said. “We’re gonna have trouble with just two working tires anyway.”
“No, I mean, what if it explodes? Wouldn’t it explode?”
“It won’t explode.”
“But if they shoot the gas tank, won’t it explode? Like in the movies?”
“Cars don’t explode because you shoot the gas tank, kid. They’d need incendiary rounds to even start a fire, and the chances of them using one is nil.”
“You sure about that?”
“Yeah, I’m sure.”
“Okay. That’s good. Okay…”
Ana was watching Chuck closely as he talked, and she believed him. Not that she knew anything about bullets or what you could or couldn’t do to make a car’s gas tank explode. But Chuck didn’t look worried, and he was back here right alongside her and Shelby.
Either he’s right, or he’s a really good liar.
“Are they still out there?” Ana asked.
Chuck had been peeking out from behind the truck, sometimes looking over the hood and other times around the front bumper. He had kept changing it up, probably to keep the snipers from getting a bead on him. It must have been working, because he was still alive.
“I don’t know, I can’t see them,” Chuck said. “And I don’t think we will, either.”
“Why not?”
“Because in their shoes I wouldn’t risk it, so I don’t think they’re going to, either. Unless…”
“Unless what?”
“Unless they’re stupid,” Chuck said.
“Stupid?” Ana thought. I don’t think they’re stupid, Chuck. They knew we were chasing them, and they laid in wait for us. They turned the tables. That’s not stupid. That’s smart. And ballsy.
Ana turned her attention back to Randall. He hadn’t opened his eyes or moved, and if not for the steady rise and fall of his chest, she would think he was dead. But he wasn’t. At least, not yet. It remained to be seen if he would continue that way in four more hours.
She checked the skies, but it was bright and wide open, without a single cloud in sight. Despite all that sun, it was getting colder, and she wrapped her jacket tighter around her before zipping it up and slipping the gun back into one of its pockets. With both Shelby and Chuck armed with rifles, there didn’t seem to be any point in keeping her own weapon out, especially when she couldn’t see a single person to shoot anyway.
There was an unsettling silence to the Oklahoma land around her, and even the occasional howl of wind had ceased. The state had always seemed flat and unassuming ever since she crossed over into its border, with only the mountains in the far distance—like an oil painting, more surreal than real looking—to break the monotony of white nothingness between the hard ground and the heavens. Of course, it didn’t help that she had painfully avoided anything that even looked like a big city.
Chuck continued to sneak looks out from behind the truck, and each time he did—alternating between peeking above the hood and the front bumper—she kept expecting him to pull back without his head attached. But whoever was out there—and however many of them there were—hadn’t fired since they took out the tires on the other side.
“Anything?” she asked Chuck.
He shook his head.
“Maybe they left,” Ana said. She wasn’t sure if that was optimism in her voice or… Yeah, she was pretty sure it was optimism.
“Maybe,” Chuck said.
“What if they did scram?” Shelby asked behind her. “Went splitsville? Wham, bam, no thank you, ma’am?”
“Maybe,” Chuck repeated.
“What about the truck?” Shelby asked.
“What about it?”
“You sure it’ll still run?”
This time, Chuck didn’t answer right away. She assumed he was thinking about it just like she was.
Trucks—or any vehicles, for that matter—weren’t designed to run on just two tires, but that didn’t mean they couldn’t. There was probably a spare in the back, which would give them three working tires instead of just two. If the killers had taken off, she didn’t see why they couldn’t keep going to this nearby town called Mayfield.
If the campsite’s murderers were gone, and if they weren’t just waiting for them to make themselves visible so they could be shot.
And that was the big question. Just because the ambushers hadn’t fired a shot for the last few minutes—How long had it been? Five minutes? Ten? More?—didn’t mean they weren’t still out there. After all, there was no reason for them to be in any hurry. She and the slayers were trapped back here. All the killers had to do was wait them out. And if they couldn’t get them, there were other things out here at night that could finish the job for them.
“Yeah, I think so,” Chuck finally said.
“Then let’s get out of here,” Shelby said. “Load Rand up and hightail it.”
“It’s not that easy, Shelby.”
“Why not?”
Ana looked over her shoulder at the young slayer. “Because if they’re still out there, they can still pick us off. Just like they nearly got Randall last time.”
“Oh,” Shelby said. “We wouldn’t want that.”
“No, we wouldn’
t.”
“Got any other ideas?”
“Not right now.”
“Well, that’s no good,” Shelby said, and turned away.
She looked over at Chuck and found him watching her back. But Chuck didn’t say anything, and neither did Ana.
Instead, she glanced down at her watch again.
“I know,” Chuck said when she looked back up at him. “I know.”
“We have to do something,” Ana said. “You said Mayfield’s not far away?”
“Two, maybe three more miles left?”
“Is it closer to two or three?”
“Does it really matter if they’re still out there?”
Ana sighed. He had a point. It really didn’t matter how far Mayfield was if the same people who had taken out Randall were out there. If they could already make one shot on a fast-moving vehicle, how easier would it be to shoot three people on a slow-moving truck?
The phrase sitting duck rushed through her head.
Ana shifted her weight to lessen the pressure on her legs and thought, I should have stayed on the Walker. God, why didn’t I just stay on the Walker? Sure, it would have taken longer to get to Texas, but I’d get to Texas, eventually.
She passed the time by checking up on Randall again. The morphine Chuck had shot him with was doing its job. The question was, what were they going to do when the drug finally ran its course and Randall woke up?
“Hey, you hear that?” Shelby said from behind her.
She glanced back at him. “Hear what?”
“Listen.”
She did, tilting her head slightly for a few seconds.
Then, “I don’t hear anything.”
Shelby gave her an almost annoyed look. “You don’t hear anything?”
“I don’t hear anything either, Shelby,” Chuck said.
“Geez, you guys need to take out the wax,” Shelby said. “Listen closer.”
Ana exchanged a look with Chuck, but it was clear he couldn’t hear whatever it was Shelby thought he was hearing, either. She didn’t say anything, and instead sat still and craned her head and really tried to listen this time.
There was a brief wind, followed by silence…
“I hear it,” Chuck said.
“Hear what?” Ana said, when she felt it. She still couldn’t hear anything, but the ground underneath her was clearly moving. Thumping.
Then, finally, she heard it.
Horses.
Next to her, Chuck readied his rifle and gritted his teeth, shouting, “Get ready! Here they come!”
Six
There were at least two riders, with the possibility of more, judging by the thickness of the dust cloud being kicked into the air. Of course, there could have been ten more riders among the two she thought she could make out, for all she knew, given how far they still were from the truck.
Ana pulled her head down and said a silent thanks that the two or three seconds she’d stuck her head up to peek through the shattered front passenger side door of the Ford hadn’t ended with her brains splattered all over Randall. The wounded slayer was still lying next to her, oblivious to this latest development.
To her left, Chuck also pulled his head away from the front bumper.
“How many did you see?” she asked him.
“Two?” he said. He turned slightly while still crouched to look over at her. “What about you?”
“Just two, too.” She glanced back at Shelby, peering through his rifle’s scope perched on the back bumper of the truck. “How many do you see, Shelby?”
“Three,” Shelby said.
“Three? You sure?”
“Yeah. I see three.”
“Are you sure?” Chuck asked.
“Yeah, of course I’m sure,” Shelby said. “Three riders.”
Ana turned back to Chuck, who nodded. “Shelby doesn’t just have the best ears of the three of us, but also the best eyes. If he says there’s three coming our way, then there’s three coming our way.”
“But there were six of them at the campsite,” Ana said.
“I know.”
“So where are the other three? Wouldn’t they attack with everything they have?”
“Not unless they want to keep some back as snipers,” Chuck said, but the way he had said it left her unconvinced. He didn’t look all that confident, either.
“What is it?” she asked. “What are you really thinking, Chuck?”
The older slayer shook his head. “It’s just a thought…”
“What is?”
“Maybe it’s not them. The killers from the campsite.”
“Why wouldn’t it be?” Then, before he could answer, “Who else could it be?”
“We’re close enough to Mayfield that they could have heard those gunshots.”
“And?”
“And, maybe the ones coming toward us now are from Mayfield.”
Ana couldn’t be sure if Chuck actually believed what he was saying or, if like her, he was just hoping. It was difficult to read his heavily-lined face.
“That’s a big if,” Ana said.
“Yeah, I know,” Chuck said before turning and peering around the bumper to get another look.
Ana did the same, standing up slightly to look through the open driver-side door across the seats—while doing her best to ignore Randall’s blood on the upholstery the entire time—and out the broken window onto the other side.
The riders were getting closer, and she could just barely make out the outlines of three riders and their mounts flickering in the afternoon sun. Three, not the two she thought she had seen at first, so Shelby was right.
I guess the kid really does have good eyesight.
She lowered herself back down and looked toward Shelby, leaning around the back bumper while peering through his rifle’s scope.
“Still just three, Shelby?” she asked.
He answered without pulling away from his rifle: “Yeah. Just three.”
“How far away are they?”
“Two hundred meters, give or take.”
“Two hundred meters is a lot, right?”
“About two football fields,” Shelby said.
Ana twisted back around to look at Chuck. The older slayer was checking his sidearm—a semiautomatic pistol—before slipping it back into its holster.
“What are you doing?” Ana asked.
“Just being prepared,” Chuck said. He looked up and past her, at Shelby. “Don’t shoot unless they shoot first, Shelby.”
“I never shoot first, boss, but I always shoot last,” Shelby said from behind her.
“What are you going to do?” Ana asked Chuck.
The older man didn’t give anything away with his expression, but he also didn’t look particularly concerned, either. Then again, he hadn’t looked very concerned since all of this began. Ana had a feeling this wasn’t Chuck’s first time in these types of situations, a thought that she wasn’t entirely sure was supposed to be comforting.
“Let’s see what they do when they reach us,” Chuck said. “If they don’t immediately open fire, maybe they’re friendlies.”
“And if they do open fire?” Ana asked.
“Then we open fire back.” He squinted through some dust at her. “You need to stay down when that happens. Shelby and I will do the shooting.”
“I have fired a gun before, you know.”
“This isn’t up to debate. Just do what I tell you.”
She fought back a flurry of annoyance. “Yes, sir.”
“I’m trying to keep you alive, kid. Don’t make it difficult.”
“Whatever,” she said, unable—and unwilling—to hide the petulance on her face.
She thought Chuck would be angry, but he only chuckled before turning around and facing the hood of the truck. Ana wondered if he would have a different opinion of her effectiveness in a fight if he knew the things she’d been through, the things she’d done to survive this long. Or, hell, what she’d been forced to do si
nce she left Nebraska in search of her sister.
Mathison, the cabin, Mark last night…
But she kept her mouth shut. Chuck was doing what most men used to do before everything went to hell: He was looking after the small, “weak” female, putting himself (and Shelby) voluntarily in danger for her sake. It wasn’t anything new; in some cases, she’d even encouraged it. After all, who traveled across the country without any visible weapons?
Despite all that, his command irked her, and she had to restrain herself from setting the record straight.
If he wants to make sure you live through this, why are you fighting it? that familiar voice asked somewhere at the back of her mind.
It was a good point. Besides, she had a very good reason to ensure that she survived this: Reaching Texas, finding Wash, and then, when she’d returned the favor by helping him do whatever it was he was dead set on doing, return to Emily and take her home.
That last one was the real goal. The only goal.
She took the small SIG Sauer out of her jacket pocket and held it in her palm. She had small hands, but the gun fit almost perfectly anyway. Too bad she hadn’t insisted Chuck give her more than one magazine for the pistol. Six shots. That was all she had for now.
Better make them count, I guess.
The slight quaking underneath her boots was becoming more insistent, and their side of the parked Ford was starting to tremble more noticeably as the riders grew nearer. If that alarmed Chuck at all, she couldn’t tell by the way he remained kneeling next to the front driver-side tire with one knee in the dirt. Behind her, Shelby was squatting next to the back bumper, still looking through his rifle’s scope. The way both men were handling the chaos that had befallen them made her wish she’d had them at her side when she was chasing after Mathison. Wash had been a great stand-in, but if she’d had Chuck, Shelby, and Randall along, too…
“Give me a sitrep, Shelby,” Chuck said after a while.
“One hundred meters and closing,” Shelby said.
“Still just three riders?”
“Still just three riders, boss.”
“They’re making a hell of a mess out there for just three riders.”
“Still just three riders, though.”
After The Purge: Vendetta Box Set [Books 1-3] Page 28