Into the Fire

by Kyla Stone

  “We’re sorry for your plight,” Archer said. “We understand—”

  “But we can’t help you,” Boyd interrupted, his voice stern. “I’m sure you’ll be able to find something in Naples.”

  “Go to hell!” Sal spat. “That’s where you belong, anyway.”

  “Mom?” the girl asked again, shivering despite the oppressive heat.

  “These folks could help us, but they won’t,” Brenda said bitterly. “Guess it’s every man for himself, isn’t it? You’re just as bad as the hijackers and thieves and looters!”

  Vince raised both hands in a pleading gesture. “Please, forgive our rudeness. We’re desperate and hungry. Please, if there’s anything you can do…”

  Archer heaved a sigh and lumbered back to his bike. Shotgun pointed at the ground, with his free hand, he grabbed the pack lashed to the rear of his bike, pulled out a large bag, and tossed it to Vince.

  “There’s four wild boar and goat cheese sandwiches, two smoked largemouth bass, a jar of potato salad, two bunches of grapes, a cucumber, three bottles of fresh water, and some carrots. Just one fork, but I’m sure you’ll make do.”

  “We’ll be hungry again by tonight,” Sal said.

  “We need a vehicle,” Brenda insisted. “Or at least a jerrycan of gas so we can fill the tank of one of these cars along the road and get it running again.”

  Archer, Jake, and Boyd exchanged a look. It wasn’t a pleasant one.

  It wasn’t lost on any of them that these people hadn’t bothered to show a bit of gratitude.

  “We don’t have anything else to spare,” Jake said. “We’ll escort you back to the highway. You should be on your way.”

  “Thanks for nothing,” Sal said.

  Logan raised the AR-15. The brothers aimed their shotguns and rifles at the refugees’ feet.

  “Like we said, you should be on your way,” Archer said, calm but firm.

  32

  Logan

  Brenda let out a low curse. Vince’s shoulders sagged. The girl stepped closer to Clarissa, who held her daughter tightly, still trembling.

  “Fine,” Terrance said sullenly. “We’re going.”

  Zane and Zander remained behind with Logan and Dakota. Archer, Jake, and Boyd gave them a personal escort, ensuring the refugees actually made it to the highway.

  The tension didn’t melt from Logan’s shoulders until they were out of sight and the rumble of the Harleys had faded.

  Dakota let out a relieved sigh. “It was nice of you guys to give them your lunches.”

  Zander grinned. “Nah, that was just Archer’s.”

  “He’s gotta eat that much or the big oaf loses weight.” Zane patted his own well-endowed gut wryly. “Great problem to have, right?”

  Zander rolled his eyes. “You’ve got the opposite problem, brother.”

  “Don’t I know it.” Zane settled on his bike but didn’t start it. He crossed his burly arms across his broad chest. “Thanks for your help back there.”

  “We didn’t do anything,” Dakota said. “Not really.”

  Zane grabbed a bottle of water from the pack behind his bike and guzzled it down. “They had more people than we did. Sometimes that makes ‘em think they can get the drop on us, take our guns and our bikes. They don’t have a snowball’s chance in hell of that, of course, but it’s best to avoid a messy altercation in the first place.”

  “Just the appearance of strength makes a difference, believe you me,” Zander said, the laughter abruptly vanishing from his voice. He stared off into the middle-distance for a minute before speaking. “We’ve learned a lot of lessons in the last few days. Hard ones.”

  Dakota shoved a few stray strands of sweat-dampened hair behind her ears and glanced down at her gun. “I wanted to help them, but…”

  “Something was off,” Logan finished for her.

  Her gaze flashed to his, concern in her eyes. “Yeah. There was…”

  “Ungrateful schmucks,” Zane said. “They got enough for a full meal each, but they wanted more. No matter how much we’d have given them, they would’ve felt like they deserved it, not us.”

  “You offer ‘em a loaf of bread, next thing you know, they’ve invaded your house—and kicked you out,” Zander said.

  “We had to turn them away.” A part of Logan wanted to touch Dakota’s shoulder or take her hand—for comfort? For solidarity, or something else? He stopped himself. She wouldn’t want that, wouldn’t want him.

  “I know. Doesn’t mean I like it, but I know.” Dakota kicked angrily at a chunk of gravel. “It’s not those kids’ faults they have assholes for parents.”

  “There’ll be more like them,” Zander said. “You can bet your bottom dollar on that one.”

  He was right. Next time, the bad guys could boast more people and more weapons. Haasi had the right idea with the ‘sticking together’ thing. As much as Logan preferred to be a loner, he wasn’t stupid—or so stubborn he’d act against his own best interests. In a SHTF situation, you needed other people you could depend on to have your back. Ezra was foolish to reject their offer of mutual aid.

  They weren’t trained soldiers, but Logan liked them well enough. They all seemed proficient with their weapons. Haasi and Maki were both fierce, intelligent, and capable. Like Dakota.

  Archer was definitely the Collier brother in charge. He seemed like a sensible guy, affable and even-keeled, but maybe too trusting. Zane and Zander were big and jolly, like a pair of hairy redneck Santa Clauses, but they’d been dead serious dealing with the refugees.

  Jake was clearly the spitfire, judging by their altercation earlier, though he’d mellowed out once he realized Logan wasn’t a threat. He and Boyd were the more suspicious, standoffish brothers, but that wasn’t a negative in Logan’s book.

  He pointed toward the end of the dirt road. “We should cut down trees and plant underbrush to block the entrance—it shouldn’t be hard to make it look overgrown and abandoned. From the highway, anyone passing by likely won’t notice the road, and if they do, they won’t expect to find anything worth looting.”

  Zander brightened. “Hey, yeah. That might work. But how do we get in and out?”

  “We could create a smaller ATV or dirt bike trail further in the woods,” Dakota offered.

  “Dude,” Zane said, “we’ve got trucks and chains. It won’t be nothing to haul aside a few trees if we need access ourselves.”

  “Great,” Logan said. “I can come help first thing in the morning.”

  Zander grinned and slapped his shoulder so hard he almost flinched. “Great idea, man. Thanks.”

  Logan faced the twins and took a deep breath. As long as they remained at the cabin, they needed help, whether Ezra would face it or not. “I know Ezra isn’t interested in a community road patrol, but I am. He doesn’t control me or what I do. I’m happy to help.”

  “Yeah, that’d be good.” Zander grinned and tugged at his beard. “I’ll ask Archer about it.”

  Dakota glanced at Logan with a quick, hard smile before looking away. “Count me in.”

  The crack of a gunshot took them all by surprise.

  33

  Dakota

  Dakota waited, tense and stiff, straining her ears to listen. Three more gunshots rang out. They were coming from the west—from the direction of US 41.

  One of the Collier brothers’ radios crackled. Zane grabbed his from his waistband. “What the heck’s going on?”

  “Damn scumbags turned around and shot at us!” Archer’s incredulous voice spat from the speaker. “Almost scalped Jake. He’s alright, but we’re taking fire. Get your fat butts over here.”

  “On our way,” Zane said.

  Zander scowled through his bristly beard. “Archer was too trusting, like always. Damn him!”

  “They want the motorcycles,” Dakota said.

  “Those dirtbags aren’t getting a thing from us.” Zane adjusted the sling of his rifle and headed for his bike. “I’m takin’ back those dam
n sandwiches, too.”

  Zander stood still. His eyes were wide and red-rimmed. He looked angry—and afraid. “If something happens, so help me…”

  Zane turned and slapped him on the shoulder. “Nothing’s gonna happen. Come on!”

  Dakota already had her Springfield unholstered. She mentally counted her bullets—nine rounds in the magazine, plus the one in the chamber, plus the two spare magazines in her pocket. Twenty-eight. No way to know if it’d be enough.

  She pictured the hundreds of rounds of ammo, the dozens of loaded magazines, and the rifles just sitting on the picnic table a quarter of a mile away. Too far to run back and get them with a battle already underway.

  She and Logan exchanged a tense glance. Was he on board with the plan? Was he with her on this?

  He nodded.

  Good. They were in agreement on this one.

  “We’re coming,” she said.

  “Let’s go!” Zander went to start the engine.

  Dakota lifted her hand. “Wait! We need a plan.”

  “We don’t have time—”

  “Thirty seconds,” Logan said. “We can’t go in hot without a plan.”

  “We can cut through the woods and surprise them,” Dakota said.

  Zander nodded tightly. “Okay, yeah. We drive the bikes in fast. The engines will hide any noise you make, and their attention will be on us.”

  “Good,” Logan said.

  “Just remember you’ll get there faster than we will,” Dakota warned.

  “Got it.” Zane twisted and patted the back of his Harley. “Here, ride behind us until just before we get to the highway. It’s a few miles, still. Then you can sneak into the woods and do your thing.”

  Logan was already moving toward Zane’s bike. “Got it.”

  The ride was short and bumpy. Dakota clung to Zander’s substantial middle and turned her head to the side, trying not to inhale strands of his wiry, shoulder-length hair as the wind whipped her face.

  A minute later, she was off the bike and darting into the woods, Logan at her heels. Her pulse thudded in her throat, her hands damp, her mouth dry.

  She moved with ease through the trees, stepping carefully to avoid roots and twigs and thorns. She was no ninja, but she knew how to keep relatively quiet.

  Logan, meanwhile, crashed after her like an oversized elephant.

  “Do you have any idea what the phrase ‘walk softly’ means?” she asked in a low, strained voice.

  “I’m a city boy, okay?” he hissed back. “I’m doing the best I can.”

  He was, so she swallowed a sarcastic comment and pushed back a tall thorn bush so it wouldn’t smack him in the face. “Slow down. Try to step lightly, place the heel or toes of your foot down first and roll your foot slowly and gently onto the ground.”

  He tried. It was marginally better.

  “We don’t have to do this, you know,” she said. “We can turn back.”

  “I know you want to. And so do I. We’ve got to protect this place. And that means working together.”

  She hid her smile. “Watch your step. Lots of pigmy rattlers and coral snakes out here.”

  Logan let out a muffled curse. “I changed my mind. Take me back.”

  Before she could respond, a shout echoed through the trees.

  Dakota held her finger to her lips. “No more talking.”

  They crept closer. The shouting grew louder. Another gun went off, this one the resounding crack of a shotgun.

  The roar of Zane and Zander’s bikes drew closer.

  Dakota paused between two pine trees, a large live oak with the trunk the diameter of a kids’ bicycle tire directly in front of her. Spanish moss dangled from the branches. Glimpses of highway appeared through the foliage on either side of the oak about twenty yards straight ahead.

  She held up her hand. Logan halted.

  Cautiously, they crept forward.

  34

  Dakota

  Dakota peered around the massive tree trunk. She squatted a little to peer through the boughs of a scrubby pine obscuring her view.

  To the left, three Harleys were laid down on their sides, facing back the way they’d come. Thirty yards north, the pudgy teenage boy lay in the middle of the road.

  The boy was on his back, legs splayed, arms flung out. A dark stain spread across his shirt and leaked onto the pavement beneath him. He didn’t move.

  She sucked in a sharp breath, her stomach roiling. She hated seeing a dead kid. But these people had chosen to attack first. The Collier brothers had every right to defend themselves.

  She didn’t want to kill anyone today, but that didn’t mean she wouldn’t.

  If they didn’t take care of this problem now, the group would head straight back to Mangrove Road, searching the homesteads for loot, including Ezra’s place. Ezra could easily defend his property against the likes of these, but why risk it?

  Mistakes happened. Mistakes got people killed all the time.

  She could visualize what had likely happened. Archer, Boyd, and Jake rode the Harleys a few dozen yards behind the would-be thieves, who acted appropriately meek and chastised while Archer grew more and more overconfident with every passing minute.

  After a few miles, Archer waved them off, Boyd offering one final warning: don’t come back or else or something equally lame. Then they headed back, not waiting for the group to walk out of sight first.

  The scumbags had waited for the bikers to turn around. Someone, probably Sal, had whipped around and shot at the brothers’ retreating backs. They hadn’t wanted to damage the bikes because they needed to steal them. Plus, being soft city guys, their aim was crap.

  As soon as the first shot fired and missed, the bikers had whipped around and returned fire, killing the kid. Both sides fled for the cover of the woods, inciting the ensuing stand-off.

  And that’s where they remained, hostiles and allies hidden somewhere amongst the trees.

  She shifted her gaze and scanned the treeline. A few more shots rang out as she caught sight of a color that didn’t belong—yellow, a checkered blue-and-white.

  Across the road and sixty feet to the south, two men hid behind a large live oak about ten feet into the woods. Terrance and Vince, both facing the road as they traded volleys with the Collier brothers.

  As Zane and Zander roared up the road, they shifted to aim at the bikes’ riders.

  Sal and the women were nowhere to be seen.

  She and Logan had a few seconds of surprise while the intruders were focused on the oncoming bikes. They needed to use them wisely.

  If they were lucky, the engines would block the noise of the gunshots, or at least their direction, to give Logan and Dakota more time to hit their targets.

  There were plenty of trees to seek cover behind, but the other side claimed the same advantage.

  Logan gestured silently. She nodded. She would take out Terrance on the left. He would shoot Vince, who was mostly blocked from their view. She considered herself a good shot, but Logan was better.

  She exhaled slowly, controlled her breathing, and aimed her weapon. Terrance’s head and shoulders were exposed behind the tree. She zeroed in on the back of his head.

  It wasn’t an easy shot. But maybe it would flush him out, even if she missed.

  She squeezed the trigger. Bark sprayed. Terrance ducked, dropping out of sight. Vince disappeared, too.

  Mosquitos buzzed around her face. She couldn’t slap them away.

  Logan lowered the muzzle of the AR-15 a fraction and let loose three rounds. Bang, bang, bang.

  A scream shattered the sweltering air. Then a crash. Vince appeared again, staggering between two trees. A few shots came from the south, blasting the tree trunks to the right and left of him.

  Logan moved one step to the left, exposing himself a bit as he adjusted his aim and fired two rounds in quick succession.

  Vince’s body jerked once, twice. He collapsed into the underbrush and didn’t get up.

  �
��Two down,” Logan muttered. “That includes the kid.”

  Dakota scanned the woods, ready to fire at the slightest movement, but there was nothing. “I lost the other one. I’m sorry.”

  “We’ll find him again.”

  She searched the road. A tan Ford Escape sat along the near side of the road about forty yards away. The passenger side door hung open.

  A figure lay slumped against the tire closest to Dakota—a heavy, middle-aged black woman wearing a flowery housedress and a fuzzy slipper on one foot. Dozens of red, oozing blisters and sores bubbled the exposed skin of her arms, legs, and face.

  Cold adrenaline shot through her veins. Dakota inhaled sharply and caught the rancid scent of decay. The woman was dead, and had been for days. She’d attempted to flee the destruction like so many others, but the radiation was already inside her, eating away at her flesh from the inside out.

  Dakota was about to turn away, her stomach roiling, when she glimpsed movement. A shadow through the windshield, then another. At least two people crouched in front of the Ford Escape.

  35

  Dakota

  Logan tapped Dakota’s shoulder and pointed.

  About fifty feet south of them on their side of the road, a man crouched behind a waist-high clump of Brazilian pepper bushes. He was facing away, his shotgun braced against the trunk of a slash pine. Sweat drenched the broad, stretched back of his shirt. Sal.

  A shotgun blast exploded the silence. Several birds took flight from the trees around them, squawking in protest. She couldn’t see who Sal was aiming at through the thick foliage.

  Two rifle shots blasted back. One round slammed into a tree trunk a dozen yards ahead and to the left of Sal. A few leaves drifted to the ground.

  Sal flattened himself behind the bushes. She could still just make out his hulking form in the forest shadows.

  Logan pointed at the truck, then gestured south. She nodded, understanding. She’d circle around to the front of the truck to dispatch whoever was hiding there, while Logan went the opposite direction and took out Sal.