by Hunt, Jack
“You got him.”
Nate went to get up and a flurry of rounds made him drop.
“Stay where you are!” Corey bellowed. He might have got lucky with one shot but the guy wasn’t dead, and he sure as hell was still dangerous. Corey moved around the tree and darted over to a boulder covered in green moss. There, he heard the guy move and saw his fatigues. He sprinted for another tree. Corey cast a glance over his shoulder to check on Nate and grimaced when he saw he was gone. “Damn it, Nate,” he muttered before breaking off towards the man. The oversized guy had taken up position behind two trees that were close together. Every few seconds a muzzle would appear and unleash bullets his way. Due to how steep the landscape was, and the lack of cover ahead of him, he was going to have to go up and around. Corey darted out, ducking bullets that were taking chunks out of the trees. A piece struck him in the face and he cursed.
“Nate?” he said in a low voice as he came back to the spot he’d left him in. “Where the hell are you?” No sooner had he said that than he spotted him between the trees. His eyes darted over to where the man had been. “Nate. Get out of there.”
Corey’s voice was lost.
Nate vanished behind bushes and when he came back into view, the injured man had his arm around his neck. Corey’s stomach dropped as he saw a Glock held to Nate’s head. At the bottom of the incline they stopped and looked up at him.
“Come on down,” the man said. “Or I will do it. And drop the gun.”
Corey hesitated for a second, keeping his rifle on them. He peered through the scope but couldn’t get a clean shot. Underbrush covered their lower half and the rest of him was hidden behind Nate.
“Drop it!” the guy bellowed again.
This time Corey complied.
“And the handgun.”
He paused for a second before taking it out and tossing it.
“And the knife.”
Reluctantly Corey did as he said and removed it and dropped it near his foot.
“Now come on down here.”
The two of them shuffled back. Nate wasn’t going anywhere as he had a firm grip on his neck and the barrel of his handgun under his chin. Getting closer, Corey noticed the guy was wearing a beanie hat, had a thick dark beard and was well-built. The kind of man who looked as if he pumped iron regularly.
“That’s it. Come closer.”
Corey held both hands out and tried to get the man to calm down. He was red in the face and from what he could tell, sporting a gnarly wound to his thigh. He stumbled back a little, dragging Nate with him.
“Look, just let him go.”
“Move your ass, that way!” he said gesturing down the slope towards the lake. The man could only control Nate using the arm around his neck and the muzzle under his jaw, all of which left Nate’s arms hanging loose. Stripped of weapons, they had no other option than to follow his lead. Corey was doing his best to keep the guy calm as he obeyed his orders. All the while his mind was searching for a way out. He didn’t have to think too hard; Nate took the risky leap.
One hand shot up pushing the armed man’s hand away from his jaw, while he simultaneously dug the thumb of his other hand into the man’s bullet wound on the thigh. He let out a bloodcurdling scream, the gun went off and the fight was on.
Corey raced forward and lunged off a boulder. His body collided like a football player gunning for an opponent, knocking them off balance. All three of them went into a dizzying roll. As soon as Corey stopped tumbling, he scrambled to his feet and was on the man. Fortunately, he’d dropped the handgun and now it was just the two of them against an injured man. Corey swung his leg but the guy caught it and brought an elbow down. He let out a cry as pain shot up his leg. Nate dived on his back and the two of them spun around as the hulking guy tried to shake him.
Then he saw the rock.
Corey grabbed up the hand-sized stone, barreled towards the man and cracked him in the face with it. Down he went, landing hard with Nate still attached to him. Not wasting a second, Nate pulled a knife from the man’s sheath and plunged it into his chest, once, twice, three times, then again, and again until he was no longer moving and both of them were soaked in blood.
Not waiting for Nate, Corey hurried towards the edge of the tree line and burst out into the clearing that went around the lake. His heart sank at the sight. They were gone.
“Damn it. Damn it!” he bellowed gritting his teeth.
A few seconds behind him was Nate.
Corey turned and ripped into him, stabbing his finger into his chest and pushing him back. “You ever. Ever! Disobey what I tell you, I will kill you myself. Do I make myself clear?”
Nate threw up his hands. “Okay, okay. Holy shit, dude. Ease up.”
He held him there, gripping his shirt tightly and glaring at him.
6
They’d been watching the camp from the observation tree stand for the better part of three hours. He saw nothing that looked unusual. Sure, it was an odd place to have a campground but hey, he hadn’t been in the area for over nine years. Allie scribbled inside a notebook and closed it before looking again through the binoculars. Tyler perched on the edge, studying her.
“What’s in the notebook?”
She glanced back. “Dates, times, schedules. Every place including Camp Olney operates on a schedule. Guard shifts rotate at a certain time, meetings occur on certain days, people come and go every week. I’ve been coming here for over two months watching, taking meticulous notes.”
“So you can find a chink in their armor,” Tyler added.
“You’ve got it,” she replied with a smile. “You hungry?” Allie pulled a small stove from a burlap bag that was attached to the corner of the stand by a nail.
“Sure.” He watched as she took out a can of soup, used a can opener and poured soup into a small metal pot. She lit a Coleman stove and placed the pot on top. “How many times a week are you out here?”
“Multiple times. Sometimes for an hour or two, sometimes overnight.”
“Two months. And they don’t notice you’re gone?”
“No. Like I said, everything works on a schedule.”
He nodded. A strand of dark hair draped down over her face and she swept it back behind her ear. For someone that didn’t wear makeup she was exceptional looking. The kind of woman that could make his heart speed up a little. Few did that. He’d dated a number of attractive women, Erika included, but there were only a small number that put his nerves on edge. “Your parents. Where are they?”
She hesitated before replying. “A plane crash. They were celebrating their twelfth anniversary. After, we stayed with our grandparents for a time but they were getting too old to take care of us and thought it was best if we went to stay with a family they knew up here, that’s how we ended up in Olney.”
“Before that?”
“Texas.”
He nodded slowly. “I’m sorry.”
She shrugged. “It is what it is, right. You?”
Tyler shook his head and blew out his cheeks. “You don’t even want to know. I feel like people have lied to me my entire life.” Allie sat there stirring the pot, glancing at him as he filled her in on his background.
“That’s pretty messed up. So, until three weeks ago you thought Andy was your father and you had no idea about Jude.”
“Crazy, huh?”
She stopped stirring and her brow furrowed. “Look, I didn’t know. When I came to you in the woods that night, I figured you were an outsider. I was trying to save you…”
“From getting involved. Maybe getting a little help. I get it,” he replied.
“Had I known I probably wouldn’t have said anything.”
She continued stirring. After a few minutes Allie handed him a cup of chicken soup. She took a seat beside him. Their vision of the landscape before them was distorted by the camouflage netting. “So, you have an older brother. You get along with him?”
“You could say our relationship is s
trained. It’s been that way since I left home. It’s not his fault. Andy pushed us to become something he wanted. There was never any room for our thoughts or opinions.” Tyler tapped on the side of the steel cup and got lost in the past for a few seconds. “Nothing mattered except for his way.” He took a few sips of his soup and then took a gulp as it was lukewarm.
“So, these friends of yours…”
“Nate and Erika.”
“Yeah.”
“I imagine they’re wondering where you are.”
He scratched his forehead. “I had to know about him.”
“And?”
Tyler put his cup down. “He doesn’t strike me as a man given to causing harm. He’s a little eccentric but so is Andy. I’m used to that. So forgive me if I find it hard to wrap my head around this.”
“That’s why I brought you out here,” she said. He furrowed his brow and she clarified. “You asked me how I can visit here without them knowing. Look, Jude visits every week on the same day. When he’s not around, the rules of the camp kind of fall by the wayside.”
“He’s coming here?”
“Yes.” She glanced at her watch. “Soon. Not yet. He never used to but after the incident with Madison, I noticed a change in the pattern. He still sends out groups at least twice a month to do an exchange of food supplies for bullets but this is new.”
“How new?”
“As in, this is a change in schedule.”
Tyler nodded, rising and resting his elbows on the edge of the railing and looking out at the camp in the distance. Without binoculars it was nothing more than specks of light in the darkness. “What if you manage to get your sister out? What then?” He turned his head toward her.
“We would leave.”
“And go where?” She didn’t reply to that. Tyler put a finger and thumb up to the bridge of his nose as he tried to make sense of it all. “So you think he’s made some kind of arrangement with this group?”
“As far as I know.”
“What if the reason your sister is down there is because she met someone? Have you considered that?”
She shook her head as she got up. “No. She wouldn’t do that. Since our parents’ death she’s always been there for me.”
“People change, Allie. My brother isn’t the same as he was when we were kids. Neither am I.”
She stabbed the air with her finger. “I know Madison. She wouldn’t have done that without telling me first.” Allie turned, bent over and dug into the burlap bag and took out a metal canister. She twisted off the top, chugged the contents, winced and then offered him some.
“What is it?”
“Bourbon.”
He took it and knocked it back. It burned like fire going down his throat but damn it was good. Far better than the shitty moonshine they served up back at camp. Tyler tapped the bottom of the canister against the wooden railing ever so slightly. “Why then? Why is she there?”
“It’s obvious, isn’t it?”
He shrugged. Given some time he might have a few ideas but he wanted to hear it from her.
“Slavery.”
“Come on, Allie.”
She stared at him. “Unrealistic? Between 2014 and 2016, ISIS drew in extremists from all around the globe. A large majority were women who went out on missions as suicide bombers, others operated as families in terror cells and others were taken in as brides, used for nothing more than sex and to serve those fighting. You think this is any different? Think again.”
“That was war. Extremism.”
“What the hell do you think this is, Tyler?”
He studied her. A sliver of light filtered through the netting and shadows bounced off her face. “Living like this is extreme. Trying to survive is extreme. Let me guess, you think Russia, China or Iran was responsible for the power grid going down? I’m guessing you haven’t had that talk with Jude yet, right?”
He didn’t reply. Up to now it hadn’t really mattered who was responsible as everyone had their own theories and without government in place to substantiate them, it did little to help their daily lives. The focus was on survival, not defending their nation against a foreign threat. At least not that he knew.
“Here, I want you to listen to something.”
She went over to a hook that she’d hung her backpack on and dug into it. She pulled out a recording device. When he saw it, she smiled. “Powered by batteries.”
“Ah.”
She fiddled with it for a minute or two, and then pressed play.
“This was taken from a meeting.”
Over the course of the next twenty minutes Tyler listened to audio of a recording that Allie had taken a few weeks back. One man spoke to those attending and told them that in signing up they would agree to go through all forms of training — marksmanship, hand to hand combat, land navigation, patrolling, rappelling, communication and code language, holding defensive positions and setting up bases. It was the kind usually given to militia.
Tyler looked back out towards the flickering lights. Entertaining the thought that her sister and others were being used as slaves, in whatever way that might be, meant accepting that Jude was something far worse than Andy. Even if he wasn’t behind the group, not doing anything about it and giving to the raiders’ cause made him a supporter of it. He couldn’t be behind that.
Tyler’s chin dipped. So many lies. He didn’t know who to believe anymore but he knew that he needed to talk to Corey. “You asked for my help but you and I can’t do this alone. There’s too many of them out there. It would be madness.”
“At this moment. Yes. But not all the time. Listen, I know you might not see the value in the risk but surely you can see the value of getting your hands on that cartridge reloading machine.”
“My father probably already has one.”
“And the material?”
“Possibly.”
“But what about medical supplies?”
“A large number,” Tyler replied.
“Not like what is down there. There is a mountain of supplies. I’m not talking about just cartridges and powder. Medication. Dry food. Cans. Enough to cover the town of Whitefish for several years. Before they hit towns, they emptied abandoned semi-trucks on the highways, then homes, then major emergency supply centers.”
“And you know this because of observing them here for two months?”
“I didn’t just say in this location. I’ve been keeping tabs on them for some time.”
Tyler rested his chin on his hand and leaned against the railing. “We would need to do more surveillance.”
“Everything you need to know is in here,” she said, handing it over.
“I need to talk with my brother.”
“By all means.”
“There’s a good chance he’ll turn it down.”
Allie shrugged. “With or without your help, I’m going in.”
“You’ll need to come with me.”
“To Whitefish? No.”
“They need to hear this from you. It can’t just be from me.”
She took the notebook back out of his hand and tucked it back into her bag. “Forget it. It was a bad idea.”
“Allie.”
“I can’t leave the camp and go with you. It would raise too many suspicions.”
“Okay. Then let’s hope they hear what I have to say.”
She took the notebook back out and gave it to him. He took another swig of the bourbon and handed it back to her and sat down and flipped through the notebook. She squeezed in beside him and leaned over and pointed out a few sections in the book that were useful to know. As she did, her hand brushed his. Their eyes locked for a second and she cleared her throat and pulled back. “Anyway, it’s all in there. If you have any questions just let me know.”
“I’ll do that.” Thumbing through he got to the back and saw a few sketches. “What are these?” She turned and reacted as if he wasn’t meant to see them. She tried reaching for the notebook but he pulle
d it back with a grin on his face. “Hold on a second. What’s the hurry?”
“Just give it here. I was meant to…”
He flipped two more pages. A couple were of the camp, then he landed on a portrait that looked similar to him. Her cheeks flushed. “Is this me?” He asked.
“I…” She sounded at a loss for words. In the pencil sketch, she’d captured him reading. He came across another one, and another. “Look, um,” she was about to explain it away when they saw a red flare soar up into the sky.
“What’s that?” Tyler asked.
“Shit. We need to go. Now!”
7
There was a traitor among them, of that he was sure. Upon return from the lake he was surprised to find the same truck outside. Corey ran his hand over the hood of the green utility vehicle. It was still warm. He pulled the handle and opened the driver’s side. There were no keys in the ignition nor anything on the leather seat or in the glove compartment that could link it to the group they’d seen. “Anything?” Nate asked.
He slammed the door shut and led the way, shouldering his rifle. “Nothing.”
They garnered shocked looks as they traipsed into the lobby with blood on their faces. Corey’s right hand was still gloved in dry blood from stabbing one of the men.
“Where’s my father?” he asked one of two officers posted by the door.
“In the back, room 201. You guys okay?”
“You wouldn’t by any chance know if he left this building over the past hour?”
They both shrugged. “Not that I recall. Then again we’ve been posted at the front all night.”
“And the utility truck around back. Anyone used it?”
“No idea.”
He continued on down the hallway and eyed the rear exit. It was possible that someone could have snuck out and driven away without anyone noticing, especially if they were familiar with the door guards’ schedule. Once he found the room, he barged in. Entering, he caught the tail end of his father addressing a room full of civilians. Behind him was a whiteboard with a map of the lake and an overview of what they had talked about. Andy snapped a cap on his Sharpie. “Any questions?”
