There was still Michael, though, and in the depths of her heart, Danielle knew he was the real reason she had insisted on returning.
“Mr. Jenkins,” she called, directing her voice upward in the direction of the house. “It’s Danielle. Do you remember me? You gave me the rifle. It’s come in handy since, so thank you for that.”
She listened and waited for a reply, and when none came after several seconds, she moved toward the sliding glass door that led into the basement. She gripped the faux wooden handle and pulled.
Locked.
“Dammit!”
“Maybe he left,” McCormick offered.
Danielle turned to the soldier, who was standing at the threshold of the open gate, his arms folded as if waiting for her to finish trying on outfits in a dressing room.
Danielle walked the length of the house to the window where Scott Jenkin’s had anchored the barrel of his rifle and aimed it at her during the first visit. She pushed in on the glass and then up, and instantly heard the suction of the seal followed by the slide of the window upward. It budged just an inch or so, but it was wide enough that Danielle could get her fingers between the frame and sill. She lifted with a heave and opened it fully.
She looked back at McCormick. “I’m going to go unlock the door.”
McCormick sighed and then made a motion of his head as if to protest, a move that signaled to Danielle he was hoping the house would have been impenetrable and they would be forced to leave. Instead, he only replied, “Sure.”
Danielle was inside the house and at the door within seconds, sliding it open and finding McCormick waiting on the stoop.
“Now what?” he asked, the ring of irritation still present in his tone.
“Isn’t this what you do for a living, soldier? What do you mean ‘now what?’”
“I just meant that if he didn’t respond to you—this Jenkins person—what makes you think he’s just going to be waiting for you in his recliner, ready to saunter out on your command? I mean, how well do you know him? Do you know him at all? He could be violent.”
Danielle stared at McCormick for a few beats, studying the questions in her mind, feeling there was something a bit off about them, steering her.
He did have a point though: if Scott Jenkins had, in fact, lost his grip on reality, as he seemed on the verge of doing only a few days ago, he could be dangerous. But it was a chance she was willing to take, especially considering that if that were the case, there was a child that needed rescuing.
“I guess we’re going to find out,” she said, and then turned and walked toward the armory room and the stairs that led up to the first floor. McCormick followed, keeping a step behind. “I just have the feeling they’re here,” Danielle added, as if needing to bring the thought to life.
Danielle could hear McCormick stop immediately, now a few paces behind her.
“They?” he uttered.
“What?” Danielle continued down the hall, but she could sense the bubbling of dread rising in her gut. She turned slowly toward McCormick, and as she did, she saw only the blur of the soldier’s hand as it snatched the barrel of the shotgun and ripped it from her grip.
“What are you—?”
McCormick thrust the bottom of his foot forward, crashing the sole against Danielle’s left hip, sending her sprawling against the wall beside the armory door. The back of her head smashed against a studded area of sheetrock and a flash of white exploded across her vision.
And then she waited for the blast of buckshot to follow.
Instead, McCormick’s voice cut through the basement air like a sword, quiet and annoyed.
“This could have been very easy,” he said. “We could have just driven out of here like we’d planned, you in the trunk, and then cruised right up to the lab like fucking UPS. No issues, no violence.” He paused. “Of course, you would have been pissed at me once you realized what had happened, but at least you’d be alive. For a while.” He then nodded toward Danielle. “And without the headache.”
Danielle blinked several times, clearing the cobwebs from her head, and when she had a clear view again, she glared up at the traitorous soldier, processing his words slowly, trying to make sense of them in a brain that was almost certainly concussed.
“Why didn’t you just take me prisoner when I came back from the car?” she asked. “You were free. You had the guns right beside you.”
He shrugged. “I guess I pegged you as someone who might not allow herself to be taken alive. Thought maybe you’d made a pact with yourself or something. Could have had a cyanide pill in your pocket, maybe. Or a .22 in your boot for just such an event. So, I figured if I could prove to you I wasn’t a threat, that I was actually on your side, you’d be apt to go along with the escape plan. Especially if I made it seem like it was your idea to begin with.”
“It was mine.”
Danielle thought back on the idea of escaping in the trunk of the Mazda, using McCormick’s rank as the cover. Some of the plan was hers, she supposed, but as she reflected on it groggily, maybe not the more important elements.
McCormick smirked and shrugged, finding no point in debating what was now a frivolous issue. “Who else is here?”
Danielle had been right to be suspicious in the driveway—a point that was obvious now—McCormick had been to the house before. And she understood now that they had found Scott. That was why he referred to the household in the singular.
The guy.
But that also meant they hadn’t found Michael.
She thought of Scott again. Was he dead? Did he fight them? Or had they taken him to ‘the lab?’ Danielle assumed the former, based on the stockpile of weapons that sat behind the door less than six feet away and the man’s anger at losing his daughters. She couldn’t imagine him going quietly.
She looked over at the large steel door that protected the armory and the adorning lock that was the size of softball. It was intact.
“I don’t know,” Danielle finally answered, “I was only here once. There was a man here, Scott, he’s the only person I met.”
“I don’t think so. ‘They’re here. I just have the feeling they’re here.’ That’s what you said. You wouldn’t have phrased it like that if you thought only one person lived in this house.”
Danielle shrugged and closed her eyes. Her brain was still foggy from the smack to the back of her skull, and she couldn’t invent whatever lie was needed to throw the soldier off the trail. “I just assumed there were others. I don’t know. Anyway, you’ve obviously been here. You searched the house. Did you find anyone else?”
“No, but that doesn’t mean anything. Not necessarily. They could have been out at the time we were here. Scavenging and such.”
“Well, let’s say there was someone else living here. Do you really think they would be still? After knowing you already came by and took...where did you take him? Where is Scott?”
McCormick ignored the last part of the question. “Maybe not, but that doesn’t change the fact that there may be others in the cordon who are uncorrupted. We need to find them and bring them to safety.”
Danielle laughed heartily at this last line and then looked up at the liar standing above her, the shotgun in his hands still aimed low, positioned toward her chest.
The weapon didn’t matter now, though, not unless it was in her hands; McCormick outweighed her by eighty pounds, at least.
“Are you really still doing that thing, McCormick? Trying to play the part of good guy? Jesus Christ, soldier, at least own that you’re a monster and let that shit go.”
McCormick clenched his jaws. “This is what I do. It’s what I’m trained and paid to do. I know it isn’t fair. None of this was your fault or anyone else’s that was in here when this all happened. But it happened, and all we can do now is try to prevent it from spreading further.”
“Then why not just hunt the ghosts? The corrupted? Why not help the survivors? What a concept that would be! To rescue us when you ha
ve the chance—like now, for instance. That’s what a human being would do.”
McCormick shook off Danielle’s notions as if they were the silly suggestions of a child. “We can’t be sure there’s no corruption in you. Lying dormant. Incubating. We have to quarantine everyone who was inside at the time until we know for sure.”
“Yeah, and how long does that last, this quarantine?”
McCormick looked away. “I don’t know. That’s classified.”
Danielle chuckled. “That sounds like another way of saying ‘forever.’ Have you ever seen someone come out of quarantine?”
“Like I said, its—”
“That’s because they don’t.” Danielle shook her head in disgust. “Nobody is worried about ‘corruption.’ Not the physical kind anyway. They’re worried about the more common type. The kind committed by your commanding officer and his commanding officer and god knows who else. God knows who’s a part of this whole genocide.”
“Call it whatever you want. We’re trying to keep an accident—a terrible accident—from turning into the end of civilization.”
“It was no accident!”
McCormick didn’t respond.
“And what do you call this? Soldiers imprisoning innocent people. Ultimately killing them. Does that sound like civilization to you?”
McCormick had nothing else to say on the matter, and he simply flipped the shotgun up, compelling Danielle to stand.
She put her head back against the wall and closed her eyes again, and then Danielle recalled how Scott Jenkins had been in that exact position, his eyes glistening with tears as he re-told the story of his daughters and their turn toward abomination. She wanted to cry herself now as she remembered him, imagining the terror he was feeling at that moment—if he was still alive—agonizing over the state of his son.
Where was Michael?
“Get up!” McCormick commanded.
Danielle stood slowly, testing her balance, which was a little wobbly, and then she took a step forward, lurching, nearly bumping against the barrel of the shotgun.
McCormick stepped back quickly and pumped the weapon once. “If you want to die now, on the floor of this basement, then do that again. Let’s go.”
Danielle walked toward the back door, her mind racing, desperate to focus on some solution to her current capture. But her head was swimming, finding only disjointed memories and panic.
She was about three paces from the door when she heard a Wump! sound rush through the room. It had come from the bottom of the stairs, at the place she’d been only seconds earlier.
“The hell was that?”
McCormick turned toward the stairs for an instant and then snapped his head back to Danielle, holding the gun steady, assuring her that he had her covered if she was thinking about making a move.
A creaking sound squealed into the room now, the opening of a door.
“Let’s go,” McCormick instructed, nodding in the direction of the noise. His voice was leery, urgent. “Get in front of me.”
“Why thank you; such a gentleman.”
Danielle shuffled back down the hall and, as she turned the corner, she could see instantly into the armory.
The steel door was now wide open.
“Look!” she said.
“What the hell? How the...”
McCormick turned on his heels, holding the gun out as he spun three-sixty, trying to find the person responsible for this impossibility.
“Maybe he’s inside,” Danielle said, offering what she thought was the least likely scenario.
McCormick pushed Danielle into the room and then pulled out a flashlight, shining the beam across the walls of rifles and ammo and a variety of other weaponry. “Holy shit,” he whispered. “This is why we couldn’t get in this room. We figured it was something valuable, but damn, look at this place.”
Then, as if suddenly remembering why he was there to begin with, McCormick jerked his neck quickly to his left. Then his right. But the room wasn’t very large, maybe 12x15, and there weren’t a whole lot of hiding options.
“Nobody’s in here,” he stated, not quite confidently, and then he nodded Danielle back to the main basement area.
Danielle was first through the door, McCormick a step behind, and as the man cleared the door frame to the armory, a voice boomed down from the top of the stairwell.
“Hey!”
Instinctively, Danielle dropped to the ground like a bag of wet laundry, covering her head and ears, muffling the sound of the Pop! Pop! Pop! that rang through the air. The shots were followed by a wail from McCormick that lasted only seconds before sputtering to silence.
Danielle stayed crouched for several beats, and when she finally glanced up the flight of stairs, she could see Michael on the landing, crouched on one knee with a rifle on his shoulder, his eye still pressed to the sight.
She looked back to McCormick who was flat on his back, his eyes bulging, a hole the size of a cherry and just as a red glowing in the middle of his throat. He was choking on his blood.
Danielle stood quickly and pointed to the boy on the stairs. “Get outside, Michael!” she barked. “Wait by the car parked next to your dad’s truck. I’ll be out there in a minute.”
Michael stood and stared down at the man who lay dying on the ground at the bottom of the steps. He blinked several times in disbelief.
“Now, Michael! Go!”
“I need my bag. Dad said never leave for good without the bag.”
“Where is it?”
“It’s right inside the door. On the right. I need it.”
Danielle softened her tone now, almost whispering. “Okay, I’ll get it. Now go.”
Michael finally met Danielle’s eyes and nodded once, and then he turned and dashed through the doorway leading up from the basement.
Danielle waited for the sound of the front door to open and close, and then she picked up the shotgun.
She looked down at the fallen soldier and felt a wave of sympathy flood her. He’d never wanted to be this person, she thought. Certainly not as a child, and probably not a minute prior to joining whatever deranged company of men and women to which he had belonged.
But he was this person now, if only for a few seconds longer.
Danielle set the shotgun down and then walked into the armory and picked up one of the two dozen handguns that were set neatly on display in a cushioned velvet case. She slammed the accompanying magazine into the well and released the slide, locking the round in place. She then picked up Michael’s bag, took a deep breath, and stepped outside the armory, back to the spot where McCormick was anguishing.
His whole body was quivering now, his head convulsing as if he were possessed, his eyes pleading for Danielle to help him.
With a squeeze of the trigger, she did.
Escape the Cordon
1.
“Michael!”
Danielle burst through the front door with a Santa-sized satchel on her back; she hadn’t cleared out the armory, not by a long shot, but she took enough to be trouble for anyone that came looking for it.
She ran past the pickup—which, from the front of the house, covered up the view of the Mazda entirely—and then stopped at the car where she’d told Michael to wait for her.
He wasn’t there.
“No!” Danielle uttered, spinning a quarter turn at a time, searching for the boy. “No! Michael!”
A mechanical whir buzzed behind her and she spun on her heels, the shotgun pointed, seeking the sound. As she turned, she knocked the duffel full of arms into the Mazda’s mirror, and for a moment, she expected the bag to explode. But there was only the rattle of metal, and Danielle took a breath, trying to calm herself.
“Maybe we should take the truck instead.”
Danielle looked up to the truck’s passenger window, and there was Michael, the window now fully open. He stared distantly through the front windshield, as if rapt by some figure floating out over the hood.
Take th
e truck.
Danielle looked back to the Mazda, assessing the two choices. She was familiar with the Mazda at this point and felt comfortable driving it, and she didn’t have experience driving such a giant 4x4 as the Silverado beside her. But it was a four-wheel drive, which could come in handy, and since the enemy already knew about the Mazda and the car was now likely on a radar somewhere, they might just be expecting it to show up at the border eventually.
“It’s got a full tank,” Michael added.
The Mazda was just under a half. She was sold. “Okay.”
She gave a thought to grabbing the rifle that remained in the backseat of the sedan, but with her raid of the armory, she had more than she would ever be able to use in her bag already. If she had planned on staying another month or two, she would have taken the extra ten seconds to grab it, but at that moment, she wasn’t planning on staying another day.
Danielle walked quickly to the driver’s side of the truck and hopped in. Michael had turned the truck’s power on already, so Danielle turned the key another quarter turn and started the engine, rumbling it to life with a growl. She threw the truck into reverse and backed it out quickly, with authority, squealing the tires and nearly clipping the Jenkins’ mailbox, missing it with her mirror by an inch. She then headed southwest toward the Flagon
“Are you okay,” Danielle asked, keeping her eyes fixed on the road, expecting to see a convoy of army jeeps at any moment, or perhaps the flock of crabs that had ambushed her earlier. To that point, however, the road remained clear.
Michael turned toward Danielle, his face pained, puzzled. “He wouldn’t let me help.”
“Your dad?”
Michael nodded. “When they knocked on the door, he made me go to the safe room and promise that I wouldn’t come out. No matter what.”
Danielle gave the boy’s recollection a moment to resonate and then softly she asked, “What happened?”
They Came With The Snow (Book 3): The List Page 11