Was it possible we’d managed to fall in with the group of misfits who had actually been run out of town last year? How?
I threw my memory back, trying desperately to remember what that group had done to get themselves kicked out. It had been before my time in Ellis Woods, so I hadn’t been involved, but I thought it was something to do with them stockpiling things that the mayor had thought the town itself needed.
I frowned, my heart racing. Had it been…weapons? I didn’t want to think so, but my instincts were screaming at me that it was. That they’d been collecting guns.
And using them in ways that broke the law.
“Shit,” I breathed out. I’d already suspected that our host was trouble. I would never have guessed that he was someone who had done something dangerous enough that the mayor had kicked him out of town. And that he’d still be holding a grudge.
And that I would deliver that very mayor’s niece right into his hands.
“Shit, shit, shit.”
I couldn’t see Angie’s face, but I could see her hands laying stiffly on the blanket. She was awake. And she must have heard everything those men had just said. I hoped to God she played possum and pretended to be sleeping—at least until I could figure something out.
This was bad. Really, really bad. Angie had a broken leg—and some very large flesh wounds—and desperately needed a splint before I tried to move her. I didn’t think we’d be able to get away from these nut jobs without making her at least somewhat mobile first, though even with a splint she was going to be in a lot of pain if we moved. Even better, we couldn’t count on anything having any power. Batteries might still work, but if I knew what an EMP could do—if that’s what this was—then anything that had electrical components was going to be completely fried. Which would include any vehicle our host might have sitting around.
Then I thought back to what he’d said—he had a working truck.
Perhaps his truck was old enough that it didn’t have a computer in it. If it was from the 70s or earlier, and Angie and I could gain access to it, then we might just be okay.
My next thought, though, got rid of the slight flare of hope I had at that conclusion. If what I was hearing was correct, then it meant that these guys wanted Angie. In fact, they had a very specific use for her. And they would need her alive if they were going to pull it off.
But they didn’t need me. I was just going to be in the way—and that meant that they were probably going to try to get rid of me. With their sights on Angie, they would quickly decide to eliminate anyone standing in their way. The bear-man had probably already decided that. Hell, he’d probably settled on it last night.
I would have to move fast when they came for me. Get out of the way, get Angie, and get the hell out of there. None of it was going to be easy. But it would all start with acting completely normal right now.
I had never been a good actor. I preferred to tell people exactly who and what I was, right from the start. But right now, my entire life depended on me acting like everything was completely fine.
Dammit.
6
I made plenty of noise coming out of the bathroom and sauntered in with an unconcerned air—or at least I hoped I did.
I glanced down to see that Angie was indeed playing like she was asleep. Thank God. “She was up most of the night. Probably won’t wake up until light,” I told them.
They turned toward me, the newcomers surprised to see another person in the cabin. I wondered whether they thought Angie had managed to make it here on her own—and how they thought that might have happened. But then I put it to the side as distinctly unimportant.
They hadn’t known I was there. So they weren’t very observant. Got it. That would, I hoped, come in handy later.
The host introduced the group. “These are my cousins, Sandy, Ben, and Logan.”
He looked pleased, as though with his thugs for backup, everything was going his way. And I knew what that meant. More of them. Less of me. I tried to remember exactly where I’d put my rifle down—and whether I’d left it loaded. I thought I had. I thought it was under the couch and that it was loaded up, ready to go.
If I was lucky, Angie’s rifle was right there as well. I knew I’d had them both strapped to my back when we got here.
“Glad you guys got through the storm,” I lied. “It’s been a hell of a night out there, eh? We’ll be going as soon as it lets up. Have to get my wife to a hospital.”
One of the cousins, tall and broad with a shaved head, scowled. “That right, Randall? They leavin’ so soon?”
Randall. So our host did have a name.
Randall was still looking at me consideringly. Was he going to show his cards now—or wait until later? Maybe he would still act like he was our friend.
Of course, there was the possibility he would give me his true intentions right now…
“Well, first we’ve got to fix this sweet lady up with a splint,” he said quietly. “Broken leg. Bear attack. She won’t be going anywhere until we’ve splinted her leg.”
The tall one looked at me in surprise. “Attacked by a bear? How the hell did you two survive?”
I shot it—but I didn’t say that. One thorough look at these guys and I realized that the best possible plan here was going to be to act as stupid and helpless as I could. Absolutely naïve to how one stayed alive in the woods. Completely defenseless.
The less they suspected my training, the more surprised they’d be when I turned on them.
“It heard another animal, maybe a moose, and took off. It was acting crazy—like the other animals we saw. Maybe its crazy brain thought every other living thing was encroaching on its territory.” I shrugged, trying to be as simple and non-threatening as possible.
It looked like it was working, so far. The men around me were nodding and grinning to themselves as if they were speaking to an idiot. So far, so good.
Then I remembered that Randall had already seen my dog tags and cursed myself. He knew that I’d been through at least some training—and he had to expect that I knew how to kill. The others might not know yet, but it would take Randall less than ten seconds to tell them. Once he remembered. If he remembered.
There was only one answer. I was going to have to instigate this fight before they figured it out. And I would have to escalate things very quickly in order to catch Randall off guard.
Time to get things moving. Luckily, I already knew exactly how to start this particular fight.
“I have a first aid kit in my bag,” I said. “If we’re going to build a splint, that’ll give us what we need to keep the pain down. Hold on, I’ll grab it.”
But Randall waved me off. “Nope, we got this. Logan, get my green bag and kit from under the bed.”
As the tall guy went on his errand and Randall gazed at Angie, I quickly sized up the other two cousins. Sandy and Ben, I presumed. One was shorter, with neatly trimmed hair, while and the other was of average height with medium-length, greasy hair and a squashed nose that had probably been broken and left that way. Both had a dull look in their eyes, as if they were devoid of compassion.
I hoped it also indicated that they were dull. And slow to react.
The tall one, Logan, had a look of keen and nasty intelligence that rivaled Randall’s. They would be the most dangerous. So the other two, Tweedle-dee and Tweedle-dum, would go first. Even if they had handguns under their coats like their cousin Randall, I thought I could take them both out before either one went for them.
I’d have to catch them when they were away from their smarter cousins, though. If I attacked while Logan and Randall were within sight, the two smarter guys would immediately shoot me.
At least the shotguns stacked in the corner behind the door would be hard to retrieve quickly. They didn’t exactly keep them to hand. If I could get rid of Dee and Dum, and hold Randall and Logan off with my own gun, we might actually have a chance.
But I had to have Angie ready to bolt. And that was
still going to be, as far as I could see, the biggest problem. I needed her splinted up. And I desperately needed any working vehicle that Randall might have. Anything less and we were going to be sunk.
Hopefully, his story of a running truck had been true…
Logan returned with a long green bag and a sizable first aid kit, then, and Randall unzipped the bag, reached in, and pulled out a tall walker splint that seemed sized for a woman and would reach to just below Angie’s knee. I stared at it, surprised. Why would he have something like that? Just in case some damsel in distress happened along?
Well, they were survivalists, I supposed. Perhaps this was the sort of thing that such people kept around.
I was pulled back to the reality of the situation by Randall suddenly leaning toward Logan, his face drawn up in a sneer.
“Now that everything’s changed, we need to move up the timetable. First, we take care of our little problem; then, as soon as the storm lets up, we head toward town.” His raised eyebrows revealed that his eyes had taken on a manic glow, and I had to fight to keep my face calm, as if I hadn’t heard anything at all. “We’ll take back what’s ours and then start gettin’ prepped for the next phase.”
Right. Okay, so we were definitely moving toward a quick resolution, then. I took a deep breath, steadying myself, but kept my face neutral. He couldn’t find out that I’d heard him. Couldn’t know that I’d even begun to guess what he was up to.
I needed to keep acting like nothing was wrong. Until I was ready to hit the gas pedal.
While Randall changed Angie’s dressing, amid her moans, I mentally went through three possible escape scenarios. None of them was great, but they were our only options—which meant I’d have to go with one of them, at some point. As soon as I saw an opening. I gave a mental nod to the one that would shed the least blood as being the most useful, though I wasn’t naïve enough to believe that saving the lives of these men would be necessary—or even preferable.
At the end of the day, our secondary problem would be making sure they didn’t come after us. And with that in mind, I thought, it might actually be better if I killed them outright as we escaped. Something inside me was grabbing onto that idea with relief. Something inside me smelled the imaginary blood and wanted action. It wanted a clear objective and a green light to execute. It felt good to have an enemy again, to have that clear sense of black and white, us and them.
But that wasn’t the mission. Angie was.
I might see Randall and his cousins as enemy combatants standing in the way of my objective, but I couldn’t allow myself to get distracted by the thrill of action. I needed to focus on getting my wife to safety. That was all that mattered. Then, if we survived that long, I would find a way to get us back to Ellis Woods and to Sarah.
If I killed Randall and the others in the process, that was what it was. But I couldn’t make that my prime objective.
Randall moved on to the splint, lining it up on either side of Angie’s thigh and lashing it into place. It was excruciating to stand by while her moans ripped through the cabin, but I held her hand and watched, knowing that I needed that splint in place for what I was going to do next.
Once Randall was finished, he moved away, leaving me alone with Angie. For the moment.
“John,” she whispered through clenched teeth, her body tense with pain. “They know who I am, they…they—”
“I know, honey.” I kept my voice low and soothing, trying to sound like I was just comforting her. “I heard. Just hang in there. I’m going to get us out of this.”
“Just be careful. These assholes are dangerous.”
I met her gaze and allowed my eyes to harden and a cold calculation to settle over my mind. I’d never had to take care of her like this before. Now that I had the chance, I knew I was going to do whatever it took to make sure she came out the other side. No man left behind, I told myself.
“So am I.”
Randall gave out some more orders, then, and Dee and Dum went to the food shelf and opened several cans of beans and vegetables, putting them in two pans and beginning to heat them on the stove. The food, basic as it was, satisfied us just enough. It would hold us until we could reach relative safety. But I wasn’t stupid enough to think that we were all just going to sit down and have lunch like we were old friends.
When it came down to it, I didn’t have to wait long. Randall hung back while Dee and Dum wandered over, casually flanking me on either side where I sat next to Angie on the sofa. Her hand moved down to grasp mine, and I gave hers a squeeze, sending her the sign—I hoped—that I knew what I was doing.
Logan stood up in front of us, scratching at a scab on his bald head.
“Come over here a second, man,” he said on a sneer. “Need a word with you.”
A word. Right… I kept my breathing steady, retreating into that part of my mind where I could still think and reason while fear and uncertainty raged around me. The place I’d found on my first tour of Afghanistan—and the place I’d gone to again and again whenever we had to go into dangerous territory. The place where I could keep my wits about me, even when shit was going bad.
“Sure,” I said.
I stood up slowly, only partially needing to fake my exhaustion. These boys were using a strategy so simple as to be almost laughable. Separate me from Angie, surround me, then beat me into submission. They’d make her watch so that she knew how dangerous they were—and force her to think that she couldn’t afford to fight them. That she wouldn’t be big enough, or that they’d do the same to her if she tried.
Once I was dead, they’d use her for whatever they wanted to use her for, and that would be that. Probably kill her afterward.
The thing I knew and they didn’t was that I’d spent years training for exactly this situation. And they were never going to see my moves coming.
When it started, I cried out in fake surprise. Logan swung a meaty fist at my head and I went with the blow, dropping to the cabin floor. Yeah, I’d known it was coming, but that wasn’t going to make this any easier. I was outnumbered here, and Randall had a gun on him—even if it was a small one. I couldn’t take the other three out without drawing fire from our host. Our guns were too far away and I didn’t want Angie getting hurt any worse than she already was.
So my plan was to take the beating and wait for an opportunity. It wasn’t a good plan. But I’d had worse.
I let the cousins rough me up, slipping away from the worst of the blows in a way that they wouldn’t be able to notice. I absorbed the others, twisting and turning so that they were distributed all over my body rather than focused in any specific place, and making sure that none of them landed on a spot that would do too much damage.
These guys were just like any others. They thought kicking you would take you out. They didn’t realize that fighting that way meant that you were hitting the same spot over and over again—and that it made you easier to avoid. I would be bruised and sore later, but nothing would be broken. Most importantly, I would still be able to function. And I wouldn’t have wasted any strength on fighting back.
I was planning on using that strength for something else entirely.
When they thought they were done enough, they tied my hands behind me and ran a length of rope from my hands to my tied ankles so I couldn’t stand up. This, too, was laughable.
I’d have been able to get out of those knots in my sleep. But I wouldn’t do it until I was ready.
When they pushed and pulled me over toward the wall and left me leaning against it, I did finally smile. My pack sat less than a foot away from me. And that was exactly what I needed. The opportunity I’d been waiting for.
They’d put me in the one place in the entire cabin where I’d be able to get to exactly what I needed to get away.
7
I’d been able to figure out whether Dee and Dum were packing handguns—they weren’t—during the fight, and now I scowled at the floor, thinking through what their next steps would
be. The two dumb ones would drag me outside, no doubt, where I would be dispatched by Logan or Randall—who were probably the only two with the guts to try to kill a man.
At least that was how they thought it was going to work.
I watched through narrowed eyes as they made their way toward the bedroom and pulled the curtain shut behind them. I listened to their voices as they murmured to each other, no doubt coming up with the same plan I’d already outlined, and started slipping my wrists out of the bindings. I’d pushed outward with my wrists as they were tying them, so the loops were far too loose. It made it easy to slip back out of them with almost no effort.
Just like Houdini, I thought to myself, pulling my arms back around to their correct position and rubbing my wrists.
A second later, I had my hands in my pack, rifling through for my hunting knife. I had to get that knife—which I’d hidden at the bottom of the pack—before any of those goons made it back into the living room. Once I found it, I yanked it out, shoved my pack back into place, and threaded my hands around behind my back again.
They needed to think I was still tied up. That I was still helpless.
I flashed one quick glance in Angie’s direction before I looked at the floor again. She was staring at me with wide, fearful eyes—but I could also see the shadow of a grin at the corner of her mouth. She knew exactly what I was doing.
It was the two goons who returned for me, just as I’d expected. Moment of truth, I thought, my muscles tensing in readiness.
When Dum pulled me up by the back of my shirt, I swung my arm around and struck him in the temple with the butt of the knife. He collapsed in a heap on the floor, and I quickly backed up, crouching down a bit and getting ready for Dee to charge me. Dee, however, was staring in shock at Dum, a look of utter confusion on his ugly face.
Bitter Cold Apocalypse | Book 1 | Bitter Cold Apocalypse Page 5
