Scotty holstered his pistol. “Sounded like the coach had answers.”
The click of a cocked gun boomed through the vacant hall. Reagan whipped her gaze to Jon, who trained his shotgun on them. Scotty drew his weapon quicker than a gunfighter in the OK Corral. “Is this the part where you double-cross us, Little? You better make your shot count because I don’t miss.”
“You weren’t supposed to be here, Malone. I’m just correcting a mistake.” Jon’s thin eyebrows crinkled. “Duke, take the shot.”
“Cassidy is in my sights,” a voice crackled. The pitch sounded high and whinny and didn’t match the appearance of the Frankenstein-like man.
Reagan spun on her heel and fired at the shadows where his voice originated. Strong arms locked around her waist and her rifle clanked against the tile. She twisted and kicked but Jon’s grip didn’t falter. “Don’t fight it, Reagan. We don’t want to hurt you.”
Scotty hustled to her aid and was blindsided by the man called Duke. His fist collided with Scotty’s jaw and the Texas Ranger ballcap helicoptered into a locker. Duke dealt another punch, knocking Scotty to the ground.
Reagan fought against Jon as Duke continued to plummet Scotty. “Let me go.”
As if he were lifting a kid, Duke yanked Scotty to his feet and sent an uppercut to his stomach. Scotty fell into a locker and barely managed to keep his feet. His stare landed on Reagan. “Run,” he spat. His hand reached in the open locker and he swung a three-ring binder at Duke’s dome. Duke’s jowls bobbed. Scotty added a left cross and a quick right jab. His feet danced like a boxer in the ring.
Jon’s grip loosened when he realized Duke wouldn’t easily dispatch Scotty. Reagan used the opportunity to break free of his hold. She shoved her elbow at Jon’s nose and stomped on the inseam of his foot like her dad taught her. Jon hunched and she scrambled for her weapon. Jon grabbed her by the boot and jerked her to the ground. Her right hand brushed across the barrel of her gun and she jabbed it at his head before applying a strong kick to the chest.
With a final glance at Scotty, Reagan dashed after Jon. Scotty held Duke in a chokehold, but the giant rammed Scotty into the lockers.
She knelt and retrieved the backpack containing their radio. With a long stride and quiet steps, she made a beeline for the second-floor library. Reagan burst through the doors and ducked behind a row of books. Jon stalked into the library like a heard of buffalo.
“How many times do I have to tell you, Reagan? You aren’t our priority.”
“And Scotty is?” Reagan asked before slipping behind the next row of books.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“I’m not going to get into the classic bad guy spiel. I’m just following orders.”
“From Nottingham?” Reagan maneuvered into a row of nonfiction. “What were you hired to do?”
“Same things I said before.”
“Your tired old story isn’t cutting it, Jon Boy. I want answers.”
Jon crept deeper into the library. “The suspense is more fun.” The comment surprised Reagan and she wondered if flashes of the real Jon broke through his stoic façade.
“How many Merry Men are there?”
“From what Duke says, we’ve lost a few from when this little game began. Your father shot Duke’s partner, Gilbert Whitehead. David Doncaster took a bullet from Scotty. I guess I would have been dead too if your sweet little sister didn’t save me from the cliff.”
“Game?” Reagan asked. “And all these Robin Hood names are what? Your roles?”
“Something like that.”
“Is Nate Campbell one of yours?”
“He was just as much a mistake as Scotty and even crazier than Robertelli.” Jon made a tsk sound. “Hey, I said I wasn’t going to give a bad guy speech.”
Reagan backtracked to the library entrance and sent a little whistle. “Hey, Johnny.”
Jon whirled to Reagan’s rifle trained on him. “Not bad. You kept me talking and got the jump on me. But you don’t have it in you. You’re more likely to swing the rifle than shoot it.” Jon’s hand leveled a Sig Sauer, the one Andy shuffle-boarded across the hall.
His arm twitched and Reagan fired from across the library. The momentum sent Jon into a bookcase and blood dripped from his left arm. “Guess I was wrong.” He swiveled on his heel and shot the glass window. It shattered and Jon jumped through his second-story escape.
Reagan closed the gap to the broken window. Even the short distance to the ground made her woozy. Jon crashed into the bushes with a tuck and roll before stumbling to his feet. He charged toward Robertelli’s discarded ATV. Reagan steadied the gun against her shoulder and squinted through the scope. Her body swayed with a touch of vertigo, the phobia more debilitating than ever. The burn on her neck stung, taunting her as she squeezed the trigger. Miss left. Jon righted the ATV and saluted two fingers as he fled.
Holding the gun at her side, Reagan raced from the library in search of Scotty. She skipped downstairs, her feet barely touching the steps. The brawl migrated to the front of the school. Duke pinned Scotty’s arm and rammed his head into a locker. Reagan smashed her elbow into a glass case and retrieved the bright red fire extinguisher. Before either man detected her presence, she hurled it at Duke’s crew cut. His grip on Scotty loosened and his knees buckled. Duke’s cold gaze bore into her for several seconds before his eyes slammed shut.
Scotty applied one more swift kick to the gut to be safe. He wiped the blood from his busted lip. “Let’s get some rope to haul this big fellow. Where’s Traitor Jon?”
“He bailed from a second-story window and escaped on the ATV.”
“Well, that’s just awesome.” Scotty knelt for his hat and moaned as he stood to his full height.
“I’m worried Jon will catch our group. We don’t have time to question Duke or even bring him with us.”
Scotty massaged his jaw. “At least we retrieved the radio, right?”
Reagan held the pack as an affirmation. “We better hurry.”
“Give me a second.” Scotty knelt to search Duke’s pockets. “No ID, nothing. How strange.”
“When he… arrived, he was carrying a backpack.”
Scotty shifted and located a canvas, military-style bag. “Let’s go.” He sent one last snarl at Duke. Reagan wished they had more time to interrogate Frankenstein.
While her people outnumbered Jon, they were unaware of his betrayal. Not to mention the other Merry Men he could call for assistance.
Chapter 12 – Electric Slide
Tom
Hunter fisted his grip, expelling jelly from his half-eaten doughnut. Dropping the pastry, he joined Tom and Robin on the ground. Gunshots echoed through the still night, piercing the strong winds. Skimming the domed aisle security mirror, Tom waited. The headlights illuminated a man in front of a newer model Toyota Forerunner. Tom directed Robin to the vehicle. The bundled figure lurked with a weapon at his waist.
“You recognize him?” Tom asked.
“Hard to say in his get-up.”
Lights as if from a UFO illuminated the figure as his ghost-like shadow danced in and out of view. The breeze blasted summer heat, masking the winter chill.
“Something is happening.” Tom rolled and aimed his pistol through the broken window and squeezed off three rounds.
Hunter propped on a case holding doughnuts and squeezed the trigger of the scoped rifle, but the figure wasn’t there. “I don’t have a visual.”
As Robin watched through her scope, she shook her head. “Nothing.” She shielded her eyes. “It’s as bright as day out there all the sudden.”
“Let’s hunt,” Hunter said.
After pulling on his gloves, Tom clicked the magazine into his pistol. “Head out and keep low. Don’t get yourself killed, but take this man alive. Go.”
Forming a grid, the trio searched the parking lot and stopped where heat rose from the softened street. Water, melted from the snow, dribbled from the convenience store roof
. Tracking the flow of the running water, Tom traced it to a drainage ditch. Barn red. A jacket. Before he fired on the red, Dixie bobbed into the beam of Tom’s flashlight.
Once he recognized she was unharmed, Tom gritted his teeth, twitching his jaw muscle. “Why in the world did you follow us out here? This is not a game or a TV show. People have died.”
“Fine. I made a mistake, but the ship has sailed and you could use the help. I wanna find my mom instead of cowering in the hideout with the weak and injured.” She unzipped the jacket showing the Sig on her belt. Strapped on her shoulder, she carried a twelve-gauge shotgun like Tom’s.
“How about we let Robin escort the girl back to the hideout?” Hunter tipped his hat.
“Davidson won’t like it,” Tom growled. “But we don’t have time.”
With wide eyes, Dixie gawked toward the dimming light. “Tom, it was freaky what I saw on my way to the store.”
“Everything’s been freaky,” Robin said, arms crossed and eyes narrowed. “You’re following us does not help. Tom is going to act all worried about you if a fight breaks out. It might cost us.”
“I can handle myself.” Dixie towered above Robin with a four to five-inch advantage. “I’m athletic, a good shot, I run fast, and I’ve never backed away from any kind of fight.”
“Little girl, shooting at a person is a whole other ballgame.”
“Don’t be condescending to me. This fake ATF move of yours cost us way more than anything.”
“Enough.” Tom parked between the two females. “It’s done. She’s here and we’ll have to deal with it. Both of you have to pull your weight, like me and Hunter. If we get in a gunfight, it will be different than shooting skeet or a target. You prepare yourself and don’t hesitate to pull the trigger.”
“I’ll be ready.” Dixie's eyes, small like her father’s narrowed. She possessed Davidson’s stubborn impatience as well. “The freaky light show made a yeti-sized man disappear. He fired his gun into the store at you guys. I charged the hill to engage him, but the ground rippled and it got hot. Super-hot. The wind changed from cold to hot like the ground. Then the bright light came from behind the store by the industrial building. I can’t explain what I saw really. The light pulled the man through the air toward it. Then he wasn’t there.”
Tom’s eyes darted to Hunter. “Sound like the wormhole London Fog spoke of?”
“It just might be.” Hunter twisted his neck, glancing at the roof of the store. “Come on, we should check out the light source.”
The ground stayed warm as the quartet prowled the dark street behind the 7-11. Eerie, abandoned four-wheel-drive SUVs, delivery trucks, and pickup trucks made for cover and a place to stop and observe. The creeping continued to the next snow-dusted vehicle until the group reached a stopping point.
Dixie clapped her gloved hands. “Awesome, a giant hole in the ground. We should definitely go in.”
The jagged edge where asphalt crumbled away left behind a pit wide enough to drive an SUV through. Belly crawling, Tom scooted to the edge, held his flashlight, and peered into the abyss. Robin joined him on the edge as Dixie and Hunter circled above, covering. “I can’t see the bottom.” Tom dusted his knees. “Dixie, let’s use your young eyes. Tell me if you see anything.”
Dixie shimmied on the warm ground and joggled the glove from her fingers as she inched toward the edge. “The bright flickering light is coming and going. I think we can repel with ropes. The bottom is maybe thirty feet.”
“Tom, I don’t know about going into some creepy hole.” Robin shifted, bouncing on her toes.
Retrieving a flare from his backpack, Tom lit and tossed it to the bottom. Glowing red bounced off of the rocky coal walls. “This could lead us to Barb and Reagan.” He swung to Hunter. “And your brother. It’s a chance worth taking. I’m all in for giving it a shot.”
“I wish I paid more attention.” Robin kicked the edge of the hole, knocking through the gloom ending in a thud. “I’ll get the climbing gear Travis Wayne put in my backpack.”
Within seconds, Hunter secured the rope to a stop sign, used a grappling hook, and slithered into the hole. “Clear down here,” he said. “Hurry, there’s a tunnel with a light source at the end. It’s flaming on and off.”
Dixie called, “Next,” attacking the task.
Robin indicated she trained for rope work in Nottingham’s games and scurried as easily as Dixie. Tom slipped a few times, losing grip, but managed to bang his way to the bottom with only a mild twisted ankle. Gun drawn, he trotted as Hunter loped ahead, the 1000 lumen police flashlight showing the way. The blinking light source brightened, removing the necessity for a flashlight. The tunnel descended a twenty-degree angle and a ringing sound akin to a cellphone, annoyed the senses.
They froze at the shimmering edges of the tunnel, which spun. The same metallic smell from the train station assaulted his nose. Tom’s eyes widened. Did he see rain at the end of the tunnel? The bright light illuminated something impossible. A train track with a rusty iron bridge.
“That has to be the other side,” Hunter screamed.
“Keep your guns ready.” Tom struggled to keep pace with Hunter and the two swift women. They smashed into an invisible wall. A musty, electric smell assaulted his nose, different from the metallic scent. Dixie fell, Robin stumbled, and Hunter received the brunt of an electrical charge. “Hold on, Big Game, don’t bulrush again.”
“I see my brother. He’s in danger.” His voice shrilled as he slammed into the barrier and stumbled.
Tom stopped before the invisible fence and studied the flickering image. It wavered much like the light earlier. On the railroad tracks, two stout horses pulled a crude apparatus of a railroad handcart sandwiched between mining cars. From body language, he recognized Reagan on top of a painted palomino. Wind and rain whipped at her, but she didn’t lose the cowboy hat she prized. Barb hovered near the railroad cart and the caboose teetered over a massive hole.
Hunter smashed into the obstacle a third time. And for the third time, he collapsed to the ground. The hair on Tom’s head stood on end from the discharge of the electrical current. The image flickered, brightened, and exploded away. The electricity remained, sparking off the edges of the tunnel like a knife striking flint.
“Get out,” Tom screamed, unsure if he could be heard over the deafening ring.
The ground rumbled. Rolled. Rattled. A mini earthquake excavated clay and rock. Ignoring the pain in his ankle, Tom hauled Hunter to his feet. The husky fellow lingered for a few beats, gazing into what was no longer there. Robin helped drag him. Dixie sprinted ahead and fashioned the rope for the ascent. She scaled like a mountaineer. An image popped into Tom’s mind of a sporting goods store’s rock-climbing wall and Dixie’s mastery. They went for a new softball mitt, but she spent the afternoon scrambling to the top and repelling to the bottom.
Robin rested her feet on an outcropping as she adjusted her grip on the rope. Her arms flexed, her upper body strength faltered, and she smashed her shoulder as her footing slipped. She corrected the next swing and made the climb without further incident.
Hunter continued to scowl toward the electric wall. “You leave. I’m trying again. I gotta get to my brother.”
“He’s not there, Big Game. Climb the rope.” A mild shock zapped Tom’s arm. “This area is one gigantic electric charge. We have to move. Now.” A stronger zap traveled his leg and staggered Tom.
“Ahhh.” Hunter convulsed, his tongue drooped, and his eyes rolled back into his head.
Tom slapped Hunter’s cheek. “Stay with me.”
Through the ringing, Robin shouted, “Tie the rope around him. We can pull him up.”
After securing the dead weight, Tom leaned against the wall, to avoid electric zaps. His knees buckled, but he stayed upright. His right arm convulsed, his nervous system unable to control his body. With a burst of energy, Tom scaled the wall a few feet without the use of the rope. A charge surged through the floor, but the wal
l offered a breather from the painful zaps, intensifying into shocks. Waiting for the others to lower the rope, he studied the tunnel shooting mini-lightning bolts. A magnetic pulse tugged at his gun and the buttons on his clothes.
Dancing particles the size of dust and covering every color of the rainbow lit the tunnel and a whooshing noise blasted air at Tom, pushing him off balance. His legs locked on a large root. Teeth clattering and arms shaking, he fought the pain traversing his arms and tried to hang on. One of his gloves plummeted and the electrical current fried it to a crisp. The burned leather and rubber hit his nose as he locked his hands onto the side. He faltered but adjusted his grip. The rope arrived. He climbed a few feet higher, feeling a fraction of voltage on the wall. He looped the rope around his chest and under his arms. “Pull, this whole tunnel is electrified.”
At the top, Tom rolled clear as the circumference of the hole shrank. Another whoosh of hot air blasted from the hole and sucked inward with a plop like a draining tub. Imploding, the cavity turned to rubble. The bright particles faded and the electrical charges powered off. An eerie calm settled as the light from cracks in the ground illuminated the area for another thirty seconds.
Exhausted from the effort, Tom crawled against a pickup tire. Dixie and Robin worked on Hunter, alternating pumping on his chest. Tom’s right hand froze into a claw position and his knees and ankle ached. Thousands of needles pricked electric pulses onto his knees. The ankle ached the same as when he rolled it playing tennis with Barb. The ankle would get better but the hand and knees would take longer.
Hunter sputtered to consciousness, though Tom’s hearing betrayed him. Lips moved. No sound reached his ears. Was he deaf? His breathing struggled. He tried to stand and his eyes blurred. His legs wobbled to Jell-O, he collapsed and felt nothing. He saw nothing. He smelled nothing. He heard nothing. His brain tried to focus, but it slipped as well.
Chapter 13 – The Bridge
Reagan
For the first time since the sky turned green, Reagan watched a sunset. Though fading, it held a hint of the avocado glow but a sunset none the less. She nudged Bailey forward with a squeeze of her knees. With a whinny, the horse galloped. “How long since we left our group?”
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