“Mr. Tolley doesn’t want to play. Go outside and kick the baby to death.”
“Sir,” Perry said without question, and he headed for the door.
“Stop!” Nathan screamed.
Perry kept marching—and he reached out, putting his hand on the door handle.
Brant smiled. “Sergeant Perry, stand down. I think we have an understanding now.”
Perry came back to where he had stood before, lifted his gun, and aimed it squarely at Nathan’s forehead.
“So, Nathan, as I was saying. What do you think?”
“I think you’re going to kill me, whatever I say.”
“I think you’re right.”
Brant put his hands down flat on the table, turned them inwards, and interlocked his fingers.
“This is what I’m doing to America, Nathan. Putting it back together. Detroit has already linked up with Chicago and Casper—sharing resources, expertise, and weaponry. Did you think I was coming to Denver just to catch up with you and explore my options for revenge? Of course not. You were just the cherry on top. Tomorrow, I go to a meeting with leaders from Boulder, Salt Lake City, Omaha, and the head of FEMA forces back up the road a’ways, General Carter. We’re at the start of something big, Nathan, something really big. You, you’re just small fry. But I am going to enjoy frying you.”
Brant laughed at his own lame joke, and Nathan swallowed. There were three rifles on him, weapons-hot. His friends and his family were outside surrounded by soldiers. If he wasn’t going to die in this room, he was going to die very close to it.
And, Nathan was hot. Hotter than he’d been in an age. The sweat of that heat standing out on his forehead, running down his cheeks… his knee was moving involuntarily, and he could feel his heart beating so loud that it could have crawled up his neck and moved into his brain between his ears.
“It’s me you want, Brant. I was the one who screwed things up for you in Detroit. Though, judging by how you’ve recovered, not screwed you up nearly as much as I might have hoped.”
“Well, no. There has been a recovery, and a strong one, at that.”
“You don’t have to hurt my children, or the women.”
Brant guffawed. “Equal rights now, my friend, especially for women. Everyone gets hurt now. It’s a better world all around. No one gets left out.”
Nathan thumped the table.
“Temper, temper, Nathan.”
“The kids then. Please. Let them live. I don’t care what you do to me…”
Brant cocked his head to one side, regarding Nathan like a man might regard a steak he was about to greedily tuck into.
“You know, Nathan, if you knew what I have planned for you, I think you really would care. In fact, I know you would. It’s very, very nasty.”
There were no options left.
No one to come to the rescue.
Carmel was outside with Tommy under arrest with the others. His children were in the firing line, and he was locked in a room with a madman who was going to take his time killing him, and enjoy every damn second of it.
The room was sucked down to a dried husk. Nathan felt at once tiny and powerless, as well as strong and invincible. A man with nothing to lose really has nothing to lose. But a man who has no way out still has at least one way out, his daddy had told him. When you’re in that position, it just comes down to how many you can take with you.
Nathan was alone with the soldiers and Brant. He was a man with no way out.
Brant pulled a .44 Magnum from inside his jacket, cocking it before pointing it at him. The gun looked ludicrous in Brant’s pudgy little hand. It looked almost too heavy for him to lift.
No way out. Except the only way out.
Nathan knew then, in that moment, after all he’d been through, that his story was probably over.
But that didn’t mean he wouldn’t go out fighting.
“Okay, Brant,” Nathan said, opening his palms. “You win.”
25
“Prepping… being a prepper… isn’t just about digging a hole in the ground and filling it with cans of corned beef, bags of lentils, and a chemical toilet,” Cyndi said.
Nathan eyed the two new, ten-pound sacks of rice Cyndi was moving into the garage, to put with her racks of bulk dried goods like beans and pasta, plus tubs of dried fruit, and cans of ham, chicken, and tuna, and seeds and piles of shelf-stable prepared meals. Alongside those, gravity-fall water purification equipment, and purification tablets, stoves, kerosene, tents, and a dozen other things that looked like a prop list for the apocalypse.
“True,” Nathan said. “All you’re missing is a hole in the ground. Good thing I have a place for my tools at work. There’s no room for them here in my garage, among the tent-pegs and fire-starters.”
Cyndi swiped the top of his arm and then, almost as an afterthought, nuzzled his neck. “Trust me, one day we’ll need all this. I hope we don’t, but the way things are going with the weather, it might be the best decision I ever made. But that’s not the point I’m trying to make. You’re a prepper, Nate.”
“I am not.”
“You just don’t realize it.”
“Well, I know my backside from a hole in the ground, so I suppose that’s a start.”
Cyndi smiled and put an arm through his. “I still think the jury is out on that, buddy.”
“Ha!”
“Look, I’ll prove it to you, right?” She walked him across to the other side of the garage and pointed. “What’s that?”
“A can of oil.”
“Why do you have a can of oil?”
“Is there a prize at the end of this?”
“If you’re lucky, I might road-test my latest acquisition from Victoria’s Secret.”
“Oh my.”
“Back to the oil.”
“Kinky.”
She swiped him again. “Answer the question.”
“Okay! It’s spare engine oil, in case the engine of the Dodge needs it.”
“So, you’re prepared…?”
“I guess.”
Cyndi undid the zipper on Nathan’s jacket and put her hands inside around his stomach. “And when you’re driving on the highway, and there’s a lot of traffic, and there are mad dudes around swapping lanes, and taking risks, what do you do?”
“I spot escape routes. I taught you to do that. Highway driving is like chess. You have to know your strategy three or four moves ahead, so you say… where am I gonna go if the dipstick ahead slams on the anchors? Am I going to go left, or right? Can I brake hard, or will that send the doofus behind me up my tailpipe?”
“Exactly, you’re prepared. You’re a prepper. You have a strategy; you have a plan. It’s one for the moment, but it’s a plan. That’s all I’m doing. I have a plan. I have a strategy. That’s all.” Cyndi smiled.
“Okay, I get it. I do. If it makes you happy…”
“One day, it might make us all happy. Thinking like this. It’s the oil for the engine of our survival; it’s the space on the highway we’ll steer into if there’s an accident up ahead.”
“I love you, Cyndi Tolley.”
“And I love you, Nathan Tolley,” Cyndi said, reaching under the front of his shirt with her quick, cold hands. “But there is one plan you haven’t made.”
“Oh?”
Nathan’s pants fell down as Cyndi giggled.
“One that stops me undoing your belt. Nathan, prepping is all about making sure you don’t get caught with your pants down, showing your whole backside to the valley!”
Nathan’s opened palms flipped over and he gripped the edges of the table. Pushing up with his knees and emitting a guttural roar that came from the very depths of his chest, he lifted the thick oak table off of the floor and prepared to be shot.
Sergeant Perry reacted first, and two bullets embedded themselves in the wood close to where the soldier might have expected Nathan’s head to be. But Nathan was already ducking, so that even if the bullets had made it through t
he wood, they would have missed him completely.
The Magnum boomed, but such was the speed and attack and power that Nathan had put into lifting the table, Brant’s shot went wildly wide.
Preparation.
That’s all it was.
Nathan had tensed his legs like heavy duty springs on a hair trigger. He’d prepared for where on the edges of the table to grip to get the best leverage to lift it rapidly and make a barrier between himself and the armed men in the room. He’d prepared for exactly when he would need to throw the table up, so that he could dive underneath it, drawing the fire of the other soldiers.
He fully expected this to go south pretty quickly, and the bullet that slammed into his left hand, entering through his palm and burning a hole right the way out the other side, was evidence that it might.
But he’d been right.
They didn’t expect him out in the open so soon. They might have imagined he was going to try to use the table as cover, but that would have been an insane plan. All they’d have to do if he did that was walk around the table and kill him.
No, Nathan had one chance as the table went up on the thrust of his desperate heave, and that was to go underneath it, out into the open, and into the gnashing, snarling maw of their weapons.
He crashed into Brant’s belly, pushing him back into Perry, reaching up with both hands, and ignoring the pain and the spattering blood, he grabbed the Magnum and twisted it around. Brant’s finger breaking and tearing in the trigger guard also had the effect of sending a round directly into Sergeant Perry’s face.
Perry’s head deformed and collapsed, his body spinning away to crash to the floor.
By the time the other soldiers had their weapons trained on Nathan’s new position, he had both of his knees on Brant’s chest, and had the barrel of the Magnum stuffed into his mouth, having knocked two of the mayor’s front teeth back into his throat in the process.
“You pull that trigger and Brant dies, too.”
The soldiers kept their weapons pointed at Nathan, but they didn’t pull the trigger.
“Get out. Both of you,” Nathan hissed at them.
They didn’t move.
Nathan rammed the Magnum deeper into Brant’s mouth. “Tell them!”
A mess of noises came out of Brant’s mouth and he vigorously nodded his head, waving his hand at them.
They got the message. The door opened on a blast of snowflakes and bitter wind, and then it was shut. Nathan pulled the gun from Brant’s mouth and hauled him to his feet. He propelled Brant across the room, keeping his corpulent frame between him and the only window in the room, just in case some joker decided to fire through the glass from outside. Nathan reached up with his bleeding hand and extinguished the oil lamp. There was still light bleeding in from the floodlight the FEMA troops had set up outside.
This was still, as far as Nathan could tell, a no-win situation for him. All one of the soldiers had to do out there was to bring Tony or Brandon to the window, with a gun to his head, and he was pretty sure he’d buckle. But he wasn’t letting Brant know that right now. And Nathan knew he had to get this over with before the soldiers outside had time to take stock.
“I’m going to take you to the door, Brant, and with your gun stuck in the back of your head, you’re going to tell the soldiers to get back in their APC and drive the hell back to Denver, or so help me God, I’ll kill you where you stand.”
Brant’s mouth was full of blood, and his missing teeth made his voice hiss and lisp, but he got his point across with alarming alacrity. “You think they’re going to stop hunting you? Even if you do kill me. You think you’re going to be able to rest for one second?”
“I’ll take my chances.”
“You don’t have a chance. Let me live and I let your kids live. That’s the best deal you got right now, Nathan Tolley, the very best.”
Nathan pushed Brant toward the door, holding onto his shoulder, shoving the barrel of the Magnum hard into the back of his neck. Nathan’s shot hand hurt like hell, but he could still grip the material of Brant’s shirt as he pushed him forward, past Sergeant Perry’s crumpled body. This was the last roll of the dice and he knew it. To have come this far, with this much pain and hurt, to have it all end here, was not the life Nathan would have chosen for himself. If he could reboot it all, and be back in Glens Falls, he would do it in a heartbeat.
I’m not a killer.
I don’t want to be a killer.
I don’t want to be what people like Brant have been turning me into.
“Open the door.”
“Last chance, Nathan. I’ll let the boys live.”
“Open it!”
Nathan positioned himself close in behind Brant as the door opened and the Big Winter flooded back into the room. Flakes swirled and blew, the wind tangled their hair, and it all made their clothes flap and shiver. It was like standing on the prow of a ship powering through the huge seas of the Arctic. A whole sky of killing weather thrown at them with the force of the gods.
Tommy, Free, and Dave had been separated from Lucy, Syd, and Carmel. The men had been pushed against the wall of the house, their arms on the bricks, their legs kept wide. They were being covered by two FEMA soldiers with M-16s. Two others were covering the women on the other side of the yard. They were huddled together, shivering.
Of the two soldiers Nathan had sent outside after Perry had been killed, one was holding Tony by the arm and the other had Brandon in his arms.
“Get my boys out of the cold! Put them in the truck!”
The snow fizzed and swarmed in the wind, but no one moved.
“Tell them,” Nathan said, screwing the barrel of the Magnum into Brant’s neck.
“Do it!” Brant called, and the soldiers moved.
“I love you, Anthony Tolley!” Nathan yelled over Brant’s shoulder.
“I love you, Daddy!” Tony called back.
The soldiers put Tony into the crew cab of the F-350, then dropped Brandon into his arms before slamming the door.
“Tell them what I told you,” Nathan hissed into Brant’s ear. “Get them out of here.”
He could feel Brant stiffen against him. Perhaps he didn’t want to give Nathan the satisfaction. Perhaps he was preparing himself to die. But if he didn’t give the orders Nathan wanted, they would be standing here until they all froze to death.
Nathan knew then he’d made the threat on Brant’s life too many times. When you say the same word over and over again, eventually it loses all meaning and starts to sound lame. It was the same with death threats. Ultimately, they were useless if the person you were threatening wasn’t afraid to die. He imagined Brant was making his peace with the fact that his life was going to end. Maybe he wanted to go to his death safe in the knowledge that Nathan would see his children die before his eyes.
“Say it.”
“Go to hell,” Brant whispered. “Kill me. Go ahead. Then watch your boys eat bullets. Shame I won’t see it, but man, I can imagine it, and it’s giving me a good thought to go to meet my Lord with…”
Brant began to struggle and try to pull away, but Nathan put his elbow around his throat to hold him steady. Nathan knew there was no way now that the soldiers would withdraw, not now that Brant had communicated to them that he was willing to die.
Brant’s confidence that the balance of power was changing was clear in his voice as he spat through broken teeth. “Go on, you coward! Shoot me! Go on! Say goodbye to the boys for me.”
Nathan felt his finger tighten on the trigger; it had been a desperate idea that had been bound to come to nothing, but he’d had to try. He’d at least owed that to his boys. That he’d gotten this far in this desperate situation was more due to luck than judgment. Now that Brant had regrown his backbone, he didn’t have anywhere else to go with it. The soldiers were now just waiting for the order to shoot them both. Nathan couldn’t let that happen. But there was nothing more he could do.
So, now it was up to Tony.
<
br /> Preparation.
“I don’t get it.”
Nathan sat with his son in the F-350. The others were making camp, with Free and Lucy off hunting in the woods. The day was gray, but at least it wasn’t snowing. Dave and Donie were working on the laptops and Syd was playing with Rapier near the campfire.
“Uncle Tommy and I showed you how to fire it. Now we need to hide it.”
“But why are we hiding it? Don’t we need it?”
Nathan pulled a roll of insulation tape from the pocket of his winter coat, and then he laid the Colt on the seat between them in the crew cab. “We’re hiding it in case we need it. There are people after us; there are bad men on the road. There might come a time when I can’t help you, or you’re in danger, or… well… when I can’t get to you.”
Tony shook his head. “That’s not gonna happen, Daddy. You’re too smart.”
Nathan ruffled the boy’s hair and smiled. “Mom was the smart one, kid. I just learned some stuff from her. And one of those things was to prepare. You can’t prepare enough, but if you don’t prepare at all, there’s nothing you can do to change the situation—any situation you’re in.”
Tony cuddled Brandon and nodded, and Nathan hoped he understood what he was getting to. “Every vehicle we have from now on is going to have one of these, with a full magazine taped under the driver’s seat. All you’ll have to do…”
“Me…?”
“Only if the situation gets so bad that I need you to do it.”
Tony’s face was confused and awkward, taking it all in, but Nathan could see his eyes filling up with a million questions. The boy had had to do a lot of growing up since Cyndi’s death, and Nathan felt bad about putting this level of responsibility on him, but all it was was preparation. Just in case. A situation that he hoped would never happen, but if it did…
“All you have to do, if you’re not in a position to fire it yourself, is throw it to the nearest person who can. Trust me, they’ll be waiting for it.”
“How will I know?”
“Know what, son?”
“That the situation is so bad that you need me to do it?” Tony asked.
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