He only got four yards before his head blew apart in a cloud of blood, skull, and brains. A high-velocity round had taken him in the ear and nearly blown his head all the way off of his neck. The body spun and crashed against the back of the F-350.
“Sniper!” Toothill screamed as she hit the snow. “Covering fire!”
The .50 calibers on top of the A1s lit up, firing in any direction the operators thought might hide a sniper. There was a thicket of blue spruce to the side of the highway, covered in snow, which began shaking as if a giant was shouldering his way through as the bullets from the .50 caliber machine guns burst into their midst.
To the other side of the highway, there was a raised, manmade hill with an exit ramp that started throwing up detonations of earth as rounds from the A1s clattered in.
Nathan opened the crew cab door and reached in, grabbing both Tony and Brandon by the back of their coats and yanking them out of the vehicle next to Rapier. He dragged the kids down, putting their backs against the front wheel and covering them with his body. Rapier lay alert on the seat, head on his paws, ears pricked.
“Stay down, you hear. Stay down!” Nathan said to Tony.
Tony nodded with terrified eyes, and Brandon, shocked to be out in the cold and in the noise, began to wail. Toothill had crawled to the back of the F-350 to see if there was anything she could do for Zimmerman. Nathan saw her reach out and try his wrist for a pulse, but it was a fruitless task, seeing as most of his head was six feet from his shoulders. At least she was trying, he guessed.
The .50 calibers stormed to a hush, and the spruce stopped waving.
One of the soldiers at the machine gun had slumped forward, blood spurting up from his neck and pumping across his uniform. The soldiers had taken up the best defensive positions they could, but it was clear they had no idea where the shots were coming from.
“Stay down! Stay down!” Toothill yelled to her men.
Tommy had a Glock in his hand and was looking around wildly, down on one knee. Nathan could see into the Land Cruiser, but the occupants were so low in the seats that he couldn’t see any of them. All that stuck out of the open door was one of Free’s legs. Nathan guessed he was laying across Lucy in the passenger seat.
“Samuels!” Toothill yelled. “You take the trees with your squad. I’ll take the ramp!”
The soldier who she’d called to got up and ran with seven men into the trees as the .50 calibers fired above their heads, chopping into the trees, blowing branches apart, and exploding the trunks open into thick yellow, brown-tinged cracks.
Toothill got up, drawing her own pistol, and sprinted forward, head down, to the other side of the highway, where she was joined by six soldiers. They vaulted the collision fencing and began wading through the deep snow on the other side to get to the exit ramp.
A soldier just behind Toothill went down in a spray of blood and screaming agony.
“They’re getting massacred!” Tommy spat bitterly. “We need to get the hell out of here.”
“If we move the trucks, we’ll become prime targets.”
“I’m not going to sit here and wait to have my brains introduced to the outside of my body!”
With that said, Tommy got up and dived inside the Ford.
Nathan had only moments to consider what to do—to stay outside the Ford and run to the Land Cruiser to use it as cover or get back into the truck. There was a yell as another of Toothill’s squad went down, his thigh opened up as if by a can opener.
This told Nathan that the sniper was most likely either around or inside the thicket of spruce, which was on the other side of the vehicle as he knelt beside the Ford.
“Dammit, Tommy! Damn you to hell!”
Nathan picked the boys up, rolled into the crew cab, and placed his body between the boys and the sniper side of the vehicle.
“Drive, Tommy! Drive!”
Tommy didn’t need second bidding and, gunning the engine, he bumped the Ford forward, hissing and crunching through the snow toward the A1s.
Nathan couldn’t see where they were at once the crew cab door he’d climbed in slammed shut under the forward momentum of the truck. He put his arms across the boys and Rapier, pushing them down as hard as he dared, bracing them for the impact he knew was going to come.
Except it didn’t.
“Move! Damn you, move!” Tommy began screaming at the windshield, and Nathan could hear the rustle of Tommy’s Parka as he gesticulated to the remaining soldiers in their A1s.
At least one of them must have heeded his call, as the Ford ground on through the snow with its underside scraping at the surface, the tires sizzling through the crystals. The ear-shattering rat-tat-TAT of the .50 calibers still thumping on the air.
Nathan kept his head down and his eyes screwed up, expecting a high-caliber sniper round to smash through the door of the Ford and take him in the skull or the spine, ending him where he lay. Every thump or crack as the Ford slithered along the highway made Nathan wince and tense—was the sound just being created by the conditions, or was it a piece of hot, steel-jacketed death with his name on it?
I’m a mechanic from Glens Falls. I’ve got kids. I’ve got a job. I’ve got a wife… had a wife… who was beautiful and smart. Why am I here? What am I doing here, about to die on a road in Colorado, nearly two thousand miles and seven states away from my home, covering the most precious things in my life from a maniac with a gun?
Nathan’s thoughts became a mantra. A prayer. A plea. Please get my kids away from here. Please.
Tommy kept the truck moving for a good five minutes, and Nathan continued to swaddle the boys with his body the whole way. Brandon snuggled into him and Tony looked up at him again, eyes fearful but grateful all at once. Nathan pulled them closer and whispered that they would all be okay. But, in honesty, he knew that could well be a lie.
A lie that he was telling them, but also telling himself.
As the Ford slew to a halt, Nathan finally got up on the seat, trying to get a view through one of the windows at the side mirror.
Thankfully, Free and those in the Land Cruiser had taken their cue from Tommy and followed through and far beyond the roadblock. The military-green Toyota pulled up alongside them. Syd, Free, and Lucy jumped out.
Tommy and Nathan joined them. Nathan’s nerves were thrumming with energy, his breathing ragged in his throat below a dry mouth that was tight with anxiety. “What the hell was that about?” he asked.
“Who cares about law and order anymore?” Lucy asked, looking back down the road. “It’s everyone for themselves. Who’s going to stop you hunting soldiers?”
Nathan banged his gloved hand against the side of the Ford. There was little in the way of any kind of civil system left in the country as it was. And what little remained was apparently coming under attack like this? “If you’re setting up something to take the best advantage of a situation, the last thing you want is what’s left of the government telling you what to do. Perhaps someone was out today sending a message,” Nathan said. “God, this is depressing as hell.”
Tommy was pulling an MP4 from the back of the Ford and slamming a full magazine into it. “We should travel weapons-hot from now on. We can’t be complacent. And today we were.”
Nathan pulled an MP4 out for himself and checked the gun over. It wasn’t ever his wish to be a gung ho cowboy, but sometimes the times demanded it. “Agreed. Everyone make sure you have sidearms and quick access to better firepower if we need it. We learned a valuable lesson today. Going south isn’t going to make us any safer.”
Only three A1s had made it away from the roadblock.
Thirty minutes later, while Nathan and the others were planning their next move, what was left of the military presence in the area scythed up through arcs of snow and came to a stop nearby. The vehicles were built for nine soldiers each, but both had a wounded tenth laying on the cargo plate over its rear axle. Both injured men were in a bad way, blood seeping from gunshot damage beneath b
attlefield wound packs.
Toothill herself had been winged in the top of her arm; luckily, it was just a deep scrape, but one that had made a bloody mess of her ragged uniform. As she climbed out of the A1, a medic was trying to run a bandage around the wound.
“We don’t have the capacity to escort you, as we have to get these injured men to Denver stat, but I strongly recommend you follow us at your own pace. There’s a FEMA camp there where you’ll be safe and sheltered.”
The thought that flashed across Nathan’s mind just then was that hanging out with the government anywhere right now was a recipe for getting yourself shot. “Thanks for the advice, but we’re heading much further south than Denver.”
“Suit yourself,” Toothill answered as the medic finished her bandage, “but this is not the first time we’ve come under sniper fire, or attack. There are people out there who don’t want a return to a lawful country.”
“We know. We saw it in the north. It’s why we’re keeping away from cities where we can. Robber barons taking over, running cities like mafia gangs and cartels. Little men thinking they’re Bond villains.” Nathan stopped himself from going further, remembering that he’d used an alias for a reason with Toothill, and it wouldn’t do to be giving her any ancillary information that might link the party to Detroit and Brant.
She nodded, and replied, “There are people out there who have had a taste of power, and they’re not going to let it go easily. What’s left of the structure of the government and the military is doing what it can to help in Denver, but there’s few of us, and as you can see from today, there are people out there who want there to be fewer still. Be wary, Mr. Grieves. Be very wary, indeed.”
The lieutenant shook Nathan’s hand, then turned to her men.
“Okay, move out!”
Toothill got back into the lead A1 and the unit shhhhhsed and bumped away along the highway.
When the military vehicles had finished clearing the Toyota and the Ford, Nathan could see there were thick splashes of soldiers’ blood in the snow surrounding them.
14
Three days later, they stopped at what had been a picnic area among a thick plantation of spruce.
There was a view across the plain to what the cop maps told them was Carpenter Peak, one of the white-topped, dark blue thrusts of the Front Range of the Southern Rockies. In warmer, better times, it would have been an area alive with families cooking out, the squeals of happy children, and the barks of companion dogs. Now it was a desolate, empty place where the evening was closing like a lid, and there was no dry wood to be found for fires. So, they hacked branches from the spruce and let them burn with thick, piney smoke that smarted the eyes and caught in the throat until the moisture was gone.
They’d stayed away from Boulder and bypassed Denver. There had been a little traffic on the roads as they’d moved down the state, between the two cities, but they hadn’t encountered any more military or, better still, snipers. The vehicles that they had come across had either sped past or turned around and gone on their way at a rate of speed commensurate with the occupants being scared that the unknown trucks bearing down on them might have been bandits or gangsters. But these cars and small trucks hadn’t given the impression that the drivers were heading south like Nathan and his party. If anything, they’d signified local traffic coming in and out of Denver. Perhaps suggesting foraging or hunting trips to supplement supplies. Whatever the reason for them to be out of the suburbs of the cities, these people hadn’t been interested in stopping to shoot the breeze with people they didn’t know.
These grim twilit days spread a heavy, unhappy mood around the people in the two trucks, though. Only Tony, happy to have Syd back with them, seemed more settled and less on edge. They would sit in the crew cab as either Tommy or Nathan drove, reading comics, making stupid jokes, or singing ridiculous songs. Nathan liked to hear his son coming back to something like his normal self as they drove. He couldn’t have asked for anything more right now, and maybe it was only the first green shoots of a recovery, but he embraced it happily.
Syd for her part was very much like she had been when Nathan had first met her on the icy road outside Glens Falls—not giving anything away, her shields up and ready to repel boarders. Nathan knew that he might have to work hard at building bridges with the girl again, and from past experience, he knew that there was no point forcing the issue. Let her enjoy her time getting to know Tony and his dog, and the deeper stuff could come later.
The fuel situation was not yet critical, but Nathan had decided they’d take any opportunity they could use to barter their guns or provisions for gas, should one present itself. South of Centennial, on the 105, they’d already bartered guns and ammo for two tents, groundsheets, and a brazier and oil lamps. They’d also passed at least three open gas stations on the way, but all had displayed signs saying ‘NO FUEL – ONLY FOOD’ that looked to have been officially issued. Perhaps FEMA forces in Denver were at least getting supplies out to the outlying areas around Denver. The Coloradans manning the No-Gas Stations were wary and standoffish when it came to strangers, and hadn’t wanted Nathan’s party to camp anywhere nearby.
Trust, understandably, was in short supply around these parts.
Apart from a few brief snow flurries, the weather had been windy but not harsh. Nights were as cold as any Nathan had experienced, and huddling up in furs with his boys was the only way to make it through the night without their chattering teeth keeping them awake. There had been no more tremors to contend with, though, and Nathan at least was sleeping better because of it.
Now, while Nathan, Tommy, and Donie set up camp near the picnic site, Free and Lucy took their rifles and went hunting. Rapier hung about the camp with Tony while Syd took a turn with Brandon.
The baby was growing, and healthier than he’d ever been. The nomadic lifestyle suited him more than any of the others, it seemed. When left to his own chaperoned devices, the eight-month-old had begun working out not only how to crawl, but would pull himself up almost to standing before dumping himself on his backside with a happy squeal. The baby clothes they had for him would soon no longer be adequate for his burgeoning frame, and Nathan reminded himself again to make it a priority to see what they could find in nearby small towns when they moved off tomorrow.
Although there were people on the road occasionally, it seemed the vast majority of the population in the area had moved into Denver. Houses had been abandoned along the route—presumably because there was no electricity coming out to them—and at least twice they’d seen evidence of places that had been overrun violently. In one roadside property, they’d discovered three bodies, shot down where they lay. Reminiscent of their travels between Glens Falls and Detroit, Nathan had been saddened to see such wanton murder victims left untouched by the side of the road.
The evidence of the near complete breakdown in social order was taking its toll on all of them, but on Lucy most of all. Where she had risen to the challenge of becoming a de facto leader of the group when Nathan had been ill, the two earthquakes, the attack by Price’s men, the deaths witnessed at the wind farm, and the sniper fire at Toothill’s squad had left her quiet and withdrawn.
“I don’t know what to say to her,” Free had confided in Nathan the night before while Lucy had sat alone in the Land Cruiser with her thoughts, her face set and her eyes a thousand miles away.
Nathan had taken Brandon to her in an attempt to get her to come out of herself, but she’d looked at him askance, and told Nathan in no uncertain terms, “Brandon is yours, Nathan. I’m not your surrogate Cyndi. You’re not going to make me feel better by dumping your problems on me.”
That had hurt, cutting him deep well below the heart, but he’d tabled his rage and gone back to Free as Brandon had gurgled happily in his ear.
“She was so happy at Caleb’s place,” Free had said, shaking his head. “We had plans and ideas. She was alive with possibilities—that’s how she described it to me, man, and now,
it’s like all the life has been sucked out of her.”
In many respects, Nathan could understand the change in her mood. All of them were feeling it now. All of them had taken hit after hit after hit, with little in the way of respite. Although Lucy had grown up hunting and shooting with her family, she had eased into a life of privilege, marrying well into more and more money. Since Nathan and the others had found her on the highway, draped in jewels in a limousine, sitting with her dead chauffeur, her transition from the good life to whatever this was had been total.
After all, reserves of strength were finite, Nathan thought, and maybe, for now, Lucy’s were all dried up. “Why don’t you take her out hunting tomorrow when we next make camp?” Nathan had suggested. “You know how good she is with a gun, and we’ve just not needed to do any hunting for a while because we’ve been okay for food, but maybe having something positive to do will help. Something that isn’t looking after a baby—I mean, I can’t imagine babies were much of a presence in her life before….” Stopping, Nathan had thought out loud, “You know… I don’t think I’ve ever asked her, did she ever have children?”
Free had shaken his head. “She didn’t. And never mentioned having them to me.”
Nathan had felt a little guilty as he’d commented, “She’d probably not thank us for considering her lack of children as having any effect on her mood.”
“That’s bad-man-talk, right?”
“Oh yes. If Cyndi were here, she’d be whupping my hide good for it.”
“To be fair, Nate, I love you like a brother, but I’d rather not hear about your sex life.”
Free and Lucy came back with a young whitetail doe they’d stalked and shot in the forest beyond the picnic area. Lucy didn’t look any happier, but she did come up to Nathan to apologize for the night before.
“It’s okay, Lucy, I get it. This isn’t a world for any of us right now.”
“Thanks. I’m just… gahd, Nate, how long is this going to go on before we find some peace, some place to settle? If it’s not Brant, it’s the very earth trying to kill us. I’m tired, Nate. So tired. I’m tired of washing in cold water and I’m tired of cutting my own hair. I’ve lost all my jewels and gold in trade. I have nothing left of the me I was before. You have Tony and Brandon… what do I have?”
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