75
The next day we plant the vegetables. Two of us act as sentries, and the rest lower the tiny plants into the soft black soil in predetermined sections. Tomatoes, beans, melons, everything has a place. Every crack in the woods startles us, and we jump up constantly until John comes over from his post.
“It’s under control,” he says, his voice firm. “I don’t think they’ll come in daylight, anyway. They’ll wait for dark.”
Summer is here, I can feel it in the strength of the sun on my back. The grass in the yard is long and soft under my bare feet. Adrian used to say I had hooves instead of feet, because the minute it’s warm enough I cast off my shoes and run barefoot over any terrain. My feet hate to be cooped up.
It takes all day, but the plants are in and watered. After dinner we sit in the lamplight, waiting, watching and talking quietly until it’s time for bed.
The next day is another glorious one, followed by another. John has us doing small things around the house that might give us an advantage if—when—they come. Nelly and I take turns sleeping out in the barn with John, and I’m exhausted and itchy from sleeping on hay.
Peter and Ana have been working hard. We’re all angry, but I sense a lessening in everyone else’s ire. Not mine. This is the only safe place we have, and now it feels as dangerous as anywhere else. This house was always my safe haven, and they’ve taken that away from me.
“Maybe they’re not coming,” Penny says on the fourth day, the relief evident in her voice. She looks at John hopefully.
“No.” He cocks his head like he can hear them. “I think they’ll come tonight.”
76
A short bark wakes me from my light sleep. It comes from inside the house and is followed by Nelly’s voice on the radio.
“They’re here.”
There’s an incredible amount of tension in those two words. I throw back my blanket, instantly alert, and creep to the barn door next to John. The gunmetal feels slimy in my slick hand. It’s still dark, but the moon is low.
“Let them show themselves,” he says.
He holds a rifle with a scope in his arms. He wants us to see what our intruders’ plan is before he does anything. He hands me the other rifle. Rifles are better for distance shooting. I re-holster my pistol.
“Four men so far,” Nelly whispers over the radio, as John fits the earpiece in. “Two just went around back.”
The moonlight is bright enough to see the two men make their way around opposite sides of the house. One edges onto the deck, while the other slips into the bushes.
“Lights,” John commands into the radio, as he sinks to one knee.
The solar spotlight on the deck flares to life and illuminates a figure lifting a crowbar to the sliding glass doors. The other light should be giving a clear view of whoever is in front. John sights and pulls the trigger. There’s a loud report and a scream as the man drops to the ground and writhes before going still. I look through the scope, but the second man hasn’t come out from the bushes.
A bullet thuds into the wood above our heads. John jumps up. “Back inside!”
I head for the door to the outdoor pen where Flora and Fauna spend much of their days. Two more bullets hit the barn, but the shooter still aims for our original spot. I slip into the pen, John close behind me, and crawl along the ground. I kneel and raise the scope to my eye.
“He’ll come back up,” John whispers, his rifle raised. “Wait for it.”
The form in my scope looks like part of the foliage until it moves. John and I fire at the same time, and he goes down.
Then all hell breaks loose. The sound of breaking glass is followed by shots from in front of the house. My breathing is ragged, but my legs are strong when I stand.
“I’ll go to the front. Head to the back and go inside if it’s safe,” John says.
We hop the fence and run across the grass. At the deck John splits off and heads to the front, where it’s now ominously quiet. I look at the man John shot long enough to be sure he’s dead and skirt around him to the sliding doors.
A shout from inside stops me. I can see into the living room, but not the hall, where everyone’s attention is drawn. Nelly has his pistol in his hands. In the dim light he looks furious. Peter stands ready to shoot out the front window, with frantic glances at the scene behind him. Penny holds a struggling Laddie by the collar with a desperate look on her face. I don’t see Ana. Someone must have Ana. The breaking glass was someone coming in down the hall. A surprise attack.
A voice yells, “Put your fucking guns down, I said! Put them down or I’ll kill her. I will.”
Ana screams. James grimaces as he watches and holds his useless weapon. Laddie roars, but Penny holds tight. If she lets him go, Ana might get shot.
I’ll head for the other side of the cabin. The broken window. Maybe I can get in that way, too, and make my way down the hall behind him. I fall into a running crouch just as the wind from a bullet raises my hair and crashes through the door. The shattering glass stings my face and hands. I’m off the deck and behind the bushes as another shot misses. There’s a single shot from inside and Nelly’s voice rings out.
I don’t have enough clearance for my rifle in the thick foliage. I drop it and aim my pistol at the side of the barn, where I think the shots came from, but it’s quiet. It’s hard to tell; everything in the woods echoes. I crawl through the bushes, heart racing, waiting for that shot, the one I won’t hear until it’s too late, until it hits me.
When I hit something soft, I let out a scream of surprise and cut it off, quick. It’s the man John and I hit, and if he’s not dead he’s close to it or unconscious. I scramble over, wincing as my knees sink into his torso. I scurry around the corner of the house just as a man jumps out the broken window and races for the road, followed by Nelly. I can’t risk a shot.
Laddie races across the back lawn to the barn with deep, angry barks. We were trying to keep him safe inside, but he’s gotten out through the broken glass of the doors.
The gunfire in the front begins again, and I stand there, undecided. I was going to follow Nelly, but now I head to the front of the house with my back against the logs, never forgetting that someone by the barn wants me dead. Two men are in the trees on the other side of the driveway, guns flashing as they fire at the other corner of the house, where John keeps them at bay.
They’ve situated themselves so that there’s no clear shot for John or from the house windows, but I’m able to line one of them up in my sights from my vantage point. I aim for his ample beer gut. I don’t think about it, don’t ruminate on the fact that I’m killing someone, because I don’t care. I want nothing more than to see him fall, to choke on his own blood.
Before the gun goes off I already know I have him. It’s like down at the school, with the machete. I’ve entered that serene place in the midst of the terror. The bullet and I have an understanding: I tell it where to go and it does what I ask. He drops when it slams into him, and I cut off his howls of pain with another shot.
His partner makes the mistake I was hoping he would, racing to the other side of the tree. The porch lights up with gun flashes, and John moves forward. Four, five, six shots hit the man with a deafening sound. He does a little jig and flies backward.
Peter twists from his spot on the porch as I move out of the shadows. He turns his gun on me. I freeze.
“It’s me, Cassie!” I yell.
Peter lowers his gun, his eyes huge.
“Ana?” I ask.
“She’s okay,” he says.
I exhale in relief. “There’s at least one more behind the barn. Nelly chased one down the driveway. I’m going after him.”
“I’m coming with you,” John says, and turns to Peter. “We’ll go after Nel and the one behind the barn. Two cover the back, two cover the front. Stay inside. I’ll call on the radio.”
Peter nods and heads in. I hear sobbing before the door closes. John and I walk within the edge of the woods
along the driveway. I wish I were barefoot; my boots are too loud on the forest floor. The woods are silent and still. Any creatures who would normally be stirring are holed up, waiting for this storm to pass.
There’s a crash at the end of the driveway and two shots. A voice calls out, but I can’t make out the words over the sound of an engine roaring to life. They can’t be allowed to leave; this has to end tonight. I put on a burst of speed, sprinting on the diagonal through the woods, leaping over obstacles I can just make out.
I jump the ditch and see Nelly standing in the road with his gun raised as the van moves toward him. The windshield cracks as he takes two shots at the driver’s side and stumbles out of the way.
“Nelly!” I whisper, so he knows it’s me.
I grab his arm to steady him. The van moves past, and I think maybe he’s missed, but then it coasts and bumps against a tree. I move forward.
He grabs my shirt. “Don’t go yet.”
The van door stays closed. Nelly barely puts any weight on his left leg. He’s hurt. John reaches the van and eases the door open. The interior light shows the perfect circle of one of Nelly’s shots in the driver’s forehead. A high-pitched scream from inside the van makes us all leap. Whatever it is, it sounds frightened.
John moves to the empty passenger’s side. I jump up next to the dead driver and point my gun into the cargo area, which is littered with beer cans and empty wrappers. A little girl cowers in the corner. Her hands are over her head, and her screams flow one into another without ceasing.
John wades through the trash to pick her up as Nelly flings open the back. She’s no more than seven. Her feet are bare, and she wears a flimsy polyester nightgown that may have been pink once. Her long hair is ratty and tangled. She beats on John’s arms with her fists, but he keeps his grip.
“It’s okay. It’s okay,” he repeats. “We won’t hurt you.”
She quiets and swivels her head between the three of us. When she sees me she looks like she might just believe him. Her blue eyes are gigantic and scared, but dry. Even in the weak light from the van, I can see the freckles that stand out in sharp relief from her pale skin.
I reach for her. She pushes off from John and lunges at me. She’s lighter than I thought, all arms and legs and skinny ribcage. They wrap themselves around me so tightly it’s difficult to breathe. She smells like piss and sweat and liquor. I wonder what they’ve done to her.
“The one who had Ana ran that way.” Nelly points into the woods that lead to the barn and back of the house. He gasps when his weight shifts. “But I wanted to take out the one in the van so they couldn’t get away.”
“Your leg,” I say. His jeans have a ragged hole at the calf surrounded by a dark stain.
Nelly shrugs. “It’s just a graze.”
We’ve got to find the last of them, and Nelly won’t be able to move fast with his leg.
“Nels, you take her to the house.”
I try to hand him the girl, but she digs her nails in and buries her head in my shoulder. We can’t have her screaming again, and I can hardly bring her with me.
“Honey?” I ask. I lean back so I can see her face. “Look at me, sweetie. What’s your name?”
She looks into my eyes with her distrustful ones and whispers, “Elizabeth. Beth.”
She tries to duck back down, but I lift her, forcing her to talk to me. “Beth, do you have a best friend?”
She nods. “Alana.”
I talk quickly. “I have two best friends. One is Penny. She’s back at our house. The other is right here. He’ll take you to the house to see Penny.”
I point my chin toward Nelly. He’s disheveled and holding a gun, but otherwise he looks friendly when he smiles at her.
I make a face like I’m telling her a secret. “His name’s Nelly. He has a girl’s name! Isn’t that funny? I named him that!”
Nelly makes a face like he still hasn’t forgiven me, and something that resembles a smile crosses her features.
“Beth, I need you to go with him and be as quiet as you can. We have to catch the men you came with so they won’t bother us anymore.”
Her grip loosens almost imperceptibly. “You’ll catch them?”
“Yes. I promise they won’t hurt anyone else ever again.”
She lets me hand her to Nelly. She looks even more pathetic cradled in his big arms. John radios the house to alert them to Nelly’s arrival and our plan.
“Let’s go,” he says to me.
“Careful,” Nelly says.
He shifts Elizabeth to his side and grips his gun. I know he’d rather I were heading to the safety of the house, just like I’m glad he is instead of me.
I give him a small smile. “Always.”
He turns to limp toward the driveway, talking softly to the little figure in his arms.
77
When we were kids my favorite game was Manhunt. It was like hide and seek in the woods, except when the hunter caught the hiders they would join the hunt for whomever was left. The last man standing had to make it to the far-off home base without being caught. Or, I should say, last girl standing, because I almost always won. I think part of the reason I loved the game so much was that it was the only time my feet were sure and my breath came easily. In school gymnasiums and fields I always missed the ball, got a stitch in my side or came in last. But in the woods, especially in my woods, I couldn’t be caught. I would cover myself in leaves, hide in ditches, slog through mud—nothing was off limits. My body knew where it was going and what to do, even though it was only a game.
This isn’t a game, and I haven’t played Manhunt in years, but I still know where I’m going. The woods are always changing, but the overall feel remains the same. The big stump, the lightning-struck pine—all my old friends are still here.
It can’t be more than five minutes since we left the house, but it’s time enough for the remaining men to have gotten a plan together. John and I jump the trench, step over the trip wire and under the barbed wire. We make it to the edge of the yard. The spotlight’s been turned facing out, so we can’t see anyone in the house behind it.
John catches movement to the left and points; it might be the man who had Ana. There’s a thunk from the right, near the barn. I motion that I’ll head that way. He nods and heads left. My hair sticks to my face and my heart pounds. I stop when I hear the voices. They come from the side of the barn, where there’s cover in the trees.
I creep out under the fruit trees, which have dropped all their blossoms and gotten down to the business of making fruit. My footsteps are muffled by the petals that still carpet the ground. Two men crouch by the barn, but my view is obstructed by trees.
“Let’s just get out of here,” one says.
“You heard the shots from the road as well as I did,” says the other. “There ain’t no where to go. We’ve got to take this place. I’ll take out the light and cover you. You run.”
I move fast, but I’m still too slow. A wiry figure jumps up. There’s a loud crack and the light goes dark. I can’t see the one who stayed behind; my eyes are too accustomed to the light to be of much use until they adjust. Feet thump on the wooden deck, followed by a volley of gunfire. As my pupils widen, I see James and Penny standing in the broken glass of the doors, guns flashing.
The other man runs. I take off after him. He’s broad and bursts through the woods like an elephant. I hear shots behind me. John. I realize I can see the man twenty feet in front of me. The sky is no longer dark and the stars have disappeared. But if I shoot now, I’ll probably just hit a tree and he’ll know I’m here.
He turns for the road, not taking his own advice to stay and fight it out. The way he’s blindly smacking through the brush makes me think he doesn’t know about the perimeter we’ve made. They must have come down the driveway, where we moved the cans so they wouldn’t know we were expecting them, and then gone into the woods. I know I can cut him off if I move fast. It’ll keep me out of his line of fire as well.
The cool air burns my lungs. I hate running. I swing under the barbed wire, stop short behind a tree and wait.
There are noises far behind me, also following his progress. In the second that I allow myself to think, I hope it’s John. The man’s closer now; I can hear him grunting. My breathing seems so loud and I try to stifle it, even though I know he can’t hear. I close both hands on the gun I hold up against my heaving chest. I’ll get him either way. If he gets past the line, I’ll shoot him in the back as he goes past.
But he doesn’t get through. There’s a scream and the twang of metal as he hits the barbed wire and it catches his clothes and the skin under them. I step out from behind the tree into a firing stance. I’m not surprised to see it’s Neil Curtis. He’s dropped his gun and uses his hands to rip his clothes off the wires that hold him. He manages to tear himself free, falls back on his rump, and scrambles for his weapon.
“Stop!” I yell.
He freezes and blinks up at me. His eyes are the same as they were at the roadblock, empty except for a bit of mean and a lot of crazy.
He puts his hands up with a small, creepy smile. “Okay. You win. I’m going, and I’ll never come back.”
He thinks I won’t shoot him because I’m a girl. He’s so used to having his way with women, even if that way includes ropes and guns, that he thinks he’ll win this one, too.
“No, you’re not,” I say, but my hands tremble.
He sees it and leans toward his weapon a few feet away. My finger tightens on the trigger and he stops.
“None of your folks are hurt,” he says. It’s almost a whine.
I want to laugh. Does he really think that’s all that matters? Plenty of other folks are hurt. I just pulled one of them out of a van, stinking of dirt and men. I think of the Franklin girls and their parents, of Sam, of that tiny body at the school, wrapped in a final baby blanket of pink insulation. I shake my head, and my hands stop trembling. Everything inside me grinds to a halt, like it’s covered with a layer of ice.
Until the End of the World Box Set Page 24
