by Bowman, Dave
Brody closed his eyes. "He's missing. Been gone four days. His truck is abandoned on a dirt road a few miles from here."
Heather's face distorted in pain. Her world was falling apart right before her eyes.
They were quiet, listening to their mother moving through the rooms downstairs calling for Katie. The screen door opened and shut, and Myra’s calls grew faint as she walked down the porch steps and into the front yard.
Katie had run off somewhere, but that fact barely registered in Heather’s mind. Her brother was gravely ill, and her father was out there somewhere. Missing!
Heather took a step away. "I've got to go look for him! Why is no one looking for him? This is crazy. I – I don't understand what's going on around here!"
"We looked, Heather," Brody said hoarsely. "We all have. You should keep looking for him, but –"
Heather spun around toward the door and began to charge out of the room, too impatient to listen to what Brody had to say. She had to take action now!
“Wait,” Brody requested.
Heather looked back at him, almost cringing from the sight of her brother in such a weakened state.
“What is it?” she asked, blinking back tears.
“Don’t go. Stay here with me,” he said. “Please.”
Heather unclenched her fists and let go of the doorknob. She took a deep breath, then slowly dragged a chair over to the side of his bed. She put aside her frantic need to search for her father, to go tearing through the woods on a wild quest to find him, going out of her mind with worry and frenzied panic. She exhaled deeply and sat beside her brother, taking his cold hand in her own.
“I’m here,” she said.
24
"Hey, are you all right?" Brent asked while keeping pace with Jack as they ran through the alley. Brent was out of breath and spoke between gasps of air.
Jack was getting dizzy, but he pushed himself on. “That shed up there,” he said, indicating a small storage shed in the alley. They had crossed the street and were entering the next block.
Brent turned the handle on the shed door and ducked inside. Some light streamed in a tiny window on one wall, and he looked around. It was empty.
“All clear,” he said and watched as Jack followed him inside, limping on both legs now.
Jack’s pants leg was saturated with blood. He fought the dizziness threatening to take him over, and looked around the shed for anything he could use to stop the bleeding. Brent helped him look, too, but finally Jack gave up and took his shirt off. He applied pressure to the wound, causing his eyes to smart from the pain.
The shed was filled with assorted junk – old lawn mowers, broken-down electronics, and furniture in ill repair. Jack picked out a chair from the corner jumble and sat down.
Brent saw the blood flowing from Jack’s leg and gasped.
“Man, he got you good,” Brent said, seeing how badly Jack had been stabbed.
Behind him, Brent dug through the piles of junk. "I doubt I'm going to find a first aid kit in here," he said. "But it would sure be a stroke of luck if I could."
Brent looked down at Jack, who was breathing in short gasps.
"Here, put your feet up," Brent said as he dragged a table across the floor and helped Jack elevate his legs. "Isn't that what you're supposed to do if you're in shock?"
Jack didn't answer, but he put his feet up. Brent took the shirt from him and began to apply pressure to the wound. His eyes moved over the walls, landing on a stack of boxes nearby.
"If I could just find some alcohol swabs. A bottle of peroxide. Something." He spoke under his breath, more to himself than to Jack.
"And we're going to need some bandages, too," Brent continued. Jack's silence was making him nervous, and he was eager to fill the empty room with his words. "You probably need stitches. I wish my mom was here. She'd know what to do. She's a nurse."
Jack tipped his head back and closed his eyes.
"You don't look so good, Jack."
Jack opened his eyes again and gazed in Brent's direction clumsily, as if his vision were fading. "I'm better than I look," he said, slurring the words.
Brent didn't quite believe him, but he decided to use Jack's desire to cling to consciousness to his own benefit. "Okay, then, you hold this shirt against the wound while I look for a first aid kit," Brent said.
He watched while Jack pressed hard against the wound on his leg. He frowned and concentrated on his effort. Satisfied that Jack could manage the task, Brent set to digging through the boxes.
"There's so much crap in here, maybe we'll get lucky," he muttered under his breath. The first box was stuffed with outdated electronics – answering machines, beepers and pagers, a Walkman or two. "It's like a museum in here. Every obsolete electronic device known to man."
He moved on to the next box, which held a record player. Tossing it aside, he tore into the third, glancing over at Jack. He was hunched over his leg, his elbows bent as he strained.
"How's the leg doing?" Brent asked.
"Just fine," Jack mumbled.
The next couple of boxes were packed with more useless items. Brent kicked at the boxes in frustration. He ran a hand through his hair and crossed toward the door.
"I think I saw a shed in the next yard over," Brent said. "I'll be back in less than five minutes."
Jack mumbled something in agreement and watched as Brent grabbed his rifle and slipped quietly out the door.
Jack looked down at the gaping hole in his thigh. He was losing too much blood. How had he gotten himself into this mess? He should be home by now. Home with Annie.
A few minutes later, Brent bustled in the door again. He knelt at Jack's side and prepared his supplies – a small bottle of vodka and some kind of bags stuffed full of assorted odds and ends. When he began to pull out sewing supplies, he looked up at Jack. Then he quickly looked away.
"This is the best I could find," Brent offered. "It's not going to be fun. But at least you're not going to die."
When Brent began to thread a sewing needle, Jack's stomach twisted in dread. He looked away. He wished he had lost consciousness already.
Jack opened his eyes and blinked confusedly. The light filtering through the tiny window was much dimmer than before.
Had he fallen asleep?
He looked down at his leg. It was throbbing with pain, but a white shirt was wrapped around the wound. It had stopped bleeding.
"Did you finally wake up?"
Jack twisted around to see Brent, who was leaned against the wall in the corner. Brent looked exhausted, with dark circles under his eyes and his hair all disheveled.
"How long was I out?" Jack asked groggily.
"Couple of hours," Brent said. "It's getting dark. Must be around 6:00 or 7:00 p.m."
Jack looked down at the jacket draped around his shoulders.
"I found some clothes in the shed next door," Brent said. "Keeping the patient warm is important when treating shock. At least, I think that's what I heard one time."
"Did you sew me up?"
Brent nodded. "And I did a damned fine job of it, too. I think when this is all over, I have a bright future in medicine waiting for me."
Jack shifted in his seat, grimacing from the pain. He seemed to have injuries all over now. "Thanks for that, Brent. I appreciate you watching my back like that."
Brent shrugged. "You've only done it for me a half-dozen times."
"Well, you’ve come a long way from where you were at in LA,” Jack said. He glanced at the window. “Has anyone passed through the alley?"
"Not a soul. We're lucky no one heard us back there when the guard stabbed you."
Jack shook his head. "I don't think he was a guard."
"Why not?"
"Didn't you see the way he was cowering there, hiding out of sight? Guards around here aren't like that."
Brent nodded, thinking. "You've got a point. And I guess he would have had a rifle if he'd been a guard, too."
"E
xactly. He was probably hiding out there for who knows how long. He was hungry and scared. He probably thought we were guards."
Brent chuckled. "I guess our impersonations of the guards were a little too good."
Jack looked down at the shirt tied around his leg. "I guess so."
He looked out the window at the fading light of the afternoon and sighed. "The day's almost over and we still haven't found Naomi," he said, not bothering to hide the defeat in his voice.
He couldn’t help feeling a little defeated, or at least frustrated. This rescue mission was supposed to have been over by now. He had underestimated the enormity of the gang’s operation – both the size of their territory and the number of guards and weapons they had on their side. Once again, he was amazed at how much Oscar’s gang had accomplished in just a few days. And the gang had even continued without its leader! Apparently, when one leader had been killed, another sprung up in its place, ready to rule.
"They've got way more prisoners than I ever dreamed," Brent said. “They killed a ton of people to take over this town, then enslaved the rest.”
“There’s just no end to man’s depravity,” Jack muttered.
“What did you say?” Brent asked.
Jack looked up. “I was just thinking how depraved and sick you’d have to be to do all this, to organize all this. You’re right – it’s slavery what they’re doing. And they found so many people to go along with it, to back them up.”
Brent nodded. “You should have seen the way they treated us in those dorms. They shot anyone who tried to escape. Beat us if we didn’t work fast enough. We were expendable. Barely human. If they killed us, there were plenty more willing to do the work – people who’d do anything to stay alive.” He looked at the bruises on Jack’s face and shoulder. “Looks like you took some hits in C Block before you got out of there.”
“You could say that,” Jack agreed.
“How’d you get out of there, anyway? That must’ve been hell. Isn't C Block like their high-security prison?
“It was mostly luck. Some strategy, too, but luck had a lot to do with it."
"What was your strategy?"
"Just take one of them down at a time. And start running away as soon as they’re down."
Brent laughed. "You make it sound so easy."
"It's never easy taking a man's life," Jack said. "But if it comes down to a choice between me or them, it's not as hard as you might think."
"And in a way, the rage helps, too,” Brent added. “You know, the anger that makes it possible to do things you normally wouldn’t."
"In this kind of situation, I guess it's helpful," Jack agreed.
"I was so mad when that guy stabbed you, I didn't even stop to think. I just hit him," Brent said.
Jack nodded. The truth was, he was tired of fighting. He was tired of bloodshed. But as long as there were tyrants threatening his freedom and that of the people close to him, he knew he'd have to fight.
Going back out there, facing the gang and their guards, wouldn’t be easy. Each confrontation meant putting his life, and now Brent’s, on the line. But Jack knew they had to do it.
"So that's what we'll have to do when we go back out there, right?" Brent asked. "Just take them down one at a time?"
"Not exactly. This time will be a little different."
"How so?" Brent asked as he leaned forward.
"First, did you get a good look at the lay of the land out there when you were looking through the sheds?"
Brent smiled. "I had a feeling you'd ask me that. Yes, I did. I figured it'd be important, especially since it was starting to get dark."
"Good," Jack said. "Now, I need you to tell me everything you know."
25
Paul woke with a start. He sat bolt upright in his makeshift bed, looking around nervously.
For a second, he had forgotten where he was. He had forgotten everything. Then, with a sudden agonizing blow, he remembered it all.
It was the middle of the night, and he was still in the cornfield. He was still all alone. But his dream stayed with him, haunting him.
He had dreamed that Jack was dead.
It had been so vivid, so real, that for a second, Paul thought he was actually there, watching his brother be shot.
In his dream, Jack had gone into a tall building. He was armed, and had charged in like a movie hero. But his enemies had been waiting for him, and they pumped him full of lead until his body lay lifeless on the floor.
But it was just a dream, Paul told himself.
He wiped the sweat from his forehead and kicked the blanket off his legs. Even though the temperature had dropped while he slept, he was wet with perspiration and burning hot.
Had it been a dream, or a premonition?
Paul lay back down on the hard ground with only a blanket he had found in the empty house for padding. It had just been a bad dream. Paul hadn't spoken to his brother for years. There was no way that Paul could have a sixth sense about his estranged brother's death.
But wouldn't that just be Paul's luck – to walk halfway across Texas only to find Jack gone, or dead? Paul had already lost so much. He needed his brother to still be alive.
His mind wandered to the two brothers' falling out. They had disagreed about what to do with their mother in her final years. Jack had always denied it, but he was their mother's favorite. Everything that Jack wanted, Mom had agreed to. Jack wanted her to have in-home care when she grew too old and weak to care for herself. No one had listened to Paul's reasoning for wanting to put her in a home, where it would be safer and she'd have access to specialized care.
Paul felt his face become hot just thinking about the troubled memories. What had started as a simple disagreement had turned into an immense rift between the brothers. And in the end, Paul had lost Jack.
It seemed so silly now – losing a family member over a disagreement. Paul thought of how he and his wife had fought so much in the past two years. Was it all Paul's fault somehow? Was he just impossible to get along with?
He stood up, wanting to stretch his legs. Sleep was eluding him. He strode along the outer row of corn, which had yet to be harvested. In the darkness, he could only make out vague shapes of the tall stalks.
At the end of the row of corn, he looked out on the empty field before him. The tall grass waved in the slight breeze. Overhead, the clouds slowly parted. The silvery moonlight gradually cut through the clouds, casting the field in an eerie light and making the darkened forms in the field come into focus.
Paul jumped.
Far away, a woman stood in the field. His pulse racing, Paul stared at her silhouette.
It was Marie. It was his wife.
His throat seized up, shutting off his air supply. He looked away, stricken with terror. Anguished, he turned back to the field once more.
Nothing was there.
Paul kicked at the ground in frustration. He didn't believe in ghosts. But he was starting to believe his mind was slipping.
He hurried back to his blankets and pulled them over his head. He closed his eyes, wanting to fall asleep quickly. But even with his eyes closed, he saw his family. Their arms were reaching out toward him, begging him to help them.
He turned over in bed, trying to shut their images out. Why was his brain torturing him like this?
Gradually, he started to doze off once more. But again, he jerked awake violently, disturbed by the image of his dead brother.
What if Jack really was dead?
What if Paul made it all the way to the ranch house, only to find it deserted?
As worrisome as that thought was, Paul had yet more pressing dilemmas. He was starting to doubt his own sanity. And why not? After all, he had a mental breakdown for a day or two. After finding his family crushed dead under the rubble of their house, he had wandered in the woods aimlessly. He hadn't known where he was. He had completely lost touch with reality.
Paul had never had problems with mental illness before. Ne
ither had anyone in his family. So why was this happening to him now?
He lay still underneath the blanket, praying feverishly that he wouldn't lose his mind.
26
It was an hour after nightfall when Jack and Brent left the shed.
Moving under cover of night, they headed south through the alley. During Brent’s search for medical supplies and clothing, he had spotted a large work crew of female prisoners two blocks away. Their housing was probably nearby, which meant they had a good chance of finding Naomi. According to Brent, the prisoners were corralled to their dorms just after dark, where they were fed. The gang ran things on a tight schedule. Now that they were without electricity, daylight was never wasted. The prisoners were brought out to work as soon as the sun rose, which meant they were sent to bed early.
If the female prisons were run like Brent’s prison had been, Naomi’s group would be just finishing dinner around then.
Brent directed Jack to take a turn toward the right at the end of the second block. He had spotted a three-story office building earlier. With any luck, the building would be empty, and Jack and Brent could make their way to the roof. There, they would have a prime view of the hotel across the street.
At the end of the block, they stopped and looked at the hotel. Sure enough, both male and female guards patrolled the area. Some of them wore headlamps, and others stood in the darkness.
Judging from the presence of several female guards, the hotel was serving as a women’s prison.
Keeping to the shadows, they ran up the steps of the office building. The glass doors had been broken, but no one had bothered to board them up. Hopefully that meant that the gang was not using the building.
The two men crunched the glass underfoot as they entered the building. The interior had been graffitied and destroyed. Jack and Brent walked past broken furniture and ransacked boxes on their way to the stairwell.
They climbed the stairs quickly. Jack wanted to get this over with as fast as possible. But he had to be careful, too. He was fully aware of the danger of the situation. Brent's quiet, somber attitude conveyed his understanding of just how dangerous this mission was.
