by Harley Tate
Besides, leaving them alive gave his uncle someone to hate. An enemy he could unleash his full wrath upon that didn’t have the same last name. Silas much preferred that option. He leaned against the concrete wall and let the cold seep through his jacket and into his bones.
The pair of guards hauled the wounded third man into the back seat of a pickup truck and the woman climbed in with him. She pushed her hood back and sunglasses up and Silas blinked. Older than he thought. Practically middle-aged. He ticked a few more points into her column.
Not that it mattered. Soon enough they would learn what happens when you declare war against the Cunningham clan.
The truck engine grumbled to life and Silas watched it exit the parking lot to head north toward the ski lodges. Interesting. Maybe there was more than just abandoned resorts up in the foothills. He made a note to check out the area after dealing with the hospital.
With one guard dead and three on the road, Silas walked over to his cousin. Beckett lay slumped against the concrete, his blood congealing in the cold air like pudding. He took a deep breath and hoisted Beckett’s body onto his shoulder before turning toward the stairs. Taking them as fast as an added two hundred pounds would allow, Silas hustled down the flight.
Their snowmobiles were hidden at the entrance to the parking lot behind an abandoned bus and Silas headed straight there, not stopping until he deposited Beckett’s body on the back of the rig. Using a tarp tucked in the saddlebag of his vehicle, Silas wrapped his cousin’s body and lashed it to the rear of the seat. It wouldn’t be the prettiest procession back home, but dead men didn’t get a say in the land of the living.
Beckett could pound him for the rough treatment when they met again in the hereafter. Silas closed his eyes for a moment and sent up a prayer. It was all he could do for now.
Now the hospital. Silas fished his hatchet out of his saddlebag along with a smoke grenade and a backup handgun and stuffed them all into various pockets in his parka. If there were more guards hiding inside, he would be ready.
Five minutes later, he stood back outside the doors he’d tried to breach hours before. Slamming into the doors had decorated them with shoulder-height dents, but they hadn’t given way. He needed something that could break the lock.
Silas pulled out the hatchet and wedged it between the doors just above the locks. With all of his strength, he brought his foot down on the handle. Something inside the doors cracked. He kicked it again. The hatchet shimmied to the floor.
He rocked it out of the crack between the doors and sheathed it before giving them a push. They bowed and Silas grinned. I can work with that. With a deep breath and a ten yard running start, he threw his body at the dented door. It gave way and he stumbled through and into a dark hall.
From his right pocket he pulled a Glock 17 equipped with the best Streamlight thieving would allow. He toggled it on and panned the hall. No noise. No movement.
He pulled the smoke grenade from his pocket with his left hand and held it low and ready. Every three steps, he panned the hall. The light was bright enough to illuminate everything within a twenty foot radius, but that didn’t mean he was safe. The guards had been crafty. Sealing off this side of the hospital meant lower visibility for intruders.
Presumably, soccer mom and her friends knew the area even in the complete darkness. It would give them an advantage in every fight. Silas crept down the hall to the first door. He jiggled the handle. Waited. Opened the door.
Nothing. He eased inside and closed it behind him before lighting up the space.
About ten chairs sat in groups around coffee tables in the main area, clearly rearranged for current use. Behind them stretched a counter with signs for pickup and drop off and a cash register to the right. Silas blinked.
You’ve got to be shitting me.
He stepped forward. The shelves were full. It was a stocked hospital pharmacy. He almost laughed out loud. Elias would never believe it. Silas could go home, explain until he was blue in the face, and Elias would order him out of the room and tell him to sleep it off. He looked around him.
I have to prove it.
If he could convince Elias that the pharmacy was fully loaded, Beckett’s death would be an afterthought. They would send an army of Cunninghams down to capture the hospital and stake their claim over the entire area. Hell, Silas might get the whole town named after him.
He hopped the counter and searched in the cabinets until he found plastic bags. He loaded them up with as many drugs as he could carry, not worrying about what they were, just whether he could get them all to fit. When he’d filled them all, he tied the bags shut and used an extra to lash them all together.
After hoisting the collection over his shoulder, Silas backtracked through the waiting area and out the pharmacy door. Before the door shut, he paused. A grin puffed out his beard and he reached into his pocket for the hefty black cylinder.
He set the bags on the floor, and headed back into the pharmacy. After finding a roll of KT tape, he unrolled three strips and used them to adhere the cylinder to the doorjamb.
Once he ensured the tube was secure, he popped the top on the cylinder and affixed another strip of tape to the side of the door. After easing out of the room, he slipped the tape strip through the metal pull on the top of the tube and smoothed it across the door as it swung shut. Not the easiest maneuver with meat-stick fingers, but he managed all right. Besides, the weight of the door would seal the tape and hold the metal ring in place.
At least until one of the guards came back.
Silas smiled. He wished he could be there to see it, but he had more pressing concerns. With the bags of drugs back over his shoulder, he headed out into the freezing air and straight for his snowmobile. With a bungee cord, he lashed the drug bags to Beckett’s tarp-wrapped body and slid onto the seat.
He gave his load a pat. “Don’t worry, cousin. You didn’t die in vain. The town of Truckee is about to be reborn.”
The snowmobile revved to life and under the weight of his grip, the machine lurched forward toward Donner Lake Motor Court and his waiting uncle. Once Silas showed him the bounty and explained all that was left behind, Elias would be singing his praises. Beckett’s death would be forgiven and the Cunningham clan would prepare for the start of a whole new life.
Chapter Nine
WALTER
Jacobson Farm
3:00 p.m.
“That’s the gist of it.” Walter rubbed the back of his neck and waited for Ben’s reaction. The leader of the Jacobson farm remained silent and stoic; his wife, not so much.
“We can’t trust it. For all we know it could be a coup or a military faction that’s gained control.” Jenny Jacobson chewed on her lower lip and shook her head. “We didn’t vote for a Unified States of anything.”
Before Walter could explain to Ben in private about the radio transmission, Jenny, Brianna, and the rest of the family had barged in the doors, red in the face from a snowball fight across the farm. After the older kids took the younger ones back to the main house, Walter had explained the story all while fielding a hostile stare from Brianna.
She spoke up as soon as Jenny finished. “Assuming these census workers show up in Truckee, we should make ourselves scarce. The less they know about us, the better.”
“What if they bring supplies?” Heather Jacobson focused on her uncle. “We’ve been lucky so far, but if what this General Whatever-His-Name-Is said is true, they could have trained doctors and nurses. They could bring back essential services like the hospital.” She glanced around the large multipurpose room. “God knows I could use the help.”
Heather had treated more than just her own family over the past two weeks. Thanks to her medical training, Dani was alive and Walter’s gunshot wound was almost healed. If the Jacobsons had been through even a quarter of what his group had suffered, Heather must have been exhausted. It made sense she would hold out hope.
Not everyone felt the same way. Craig Jacobson shoo
k his head. “I don’t trust it. It could all be a scam. If we welcome them, they could confiscate all the drugs and leave us to fend for ourselves.” He ground his fist into his palm. “No way we let them into the pharmacy.”
Brianna stepped forward. She may have been young, but she was more than capable of assessing a threat. “If we leave the pharmacy as is, we won’t have a choice. They’ll search the place and demand entry.” She glanced at Walter, looking for support.
He nodded. “It doesn’t matter if it is some branch of a new government. As soon as they see what you have, they’ll take it. You should move the medicine.”
“Don’t you think that’s a little rash?” Heather brushed her long hair over her shoulder and turned toward Brianna and Walter. “We spent weeks clearing and securing the hospital. Abandoning it now makes no sense.”
“So you want to lose everything?”
“I don’t think it will come to that.”
Brianna cursed beneath her breath. “Then you’re even more naïve than I thought.”
Heather tried to placate Brianna with a smile. “If they’re coming from any kind of distance, the snow and ice will slow them down. You know as well as I do that the roads are impassable without four-wheel drive. We probably have until the spring to make a decision.”
“Or they might show up tomorrow in Humvees with guns mounted on the back. You seriously want to wait months to do anything?”
“It’s an option.”
“A bad one.” Brianna tossed her blonde curls and cracked her knuckles.
Walter held his breath. He knew that look in her eye. Things were about to get tense.
“The Unified States of America? That’s not the start of something good, it’s a declaration of war.” Brianna barely kept her voice above a shout. “If the military has taken over operation of the country, we’re not America as we knew it. We’re something else. Something dangerous. Our friends were in Eugene when the National Guard swept into that town and took over. It was horrible.”
“Brianna’s right.” Walter waited until most eyes were on him. “Colonel Jarvis showed up with a lot of the same promises about food and aid and rebuilding. But it quickly turned into a forced occupation with work camps and family separations and the confiscation of all weapons. Good people died.”
Craig bristled. “We’re not giving up this farm and going to work in some labor camp.”
“But you’re willing to give up the medicine you’ve fought for all this time?” Brianna’s composure teetered. “That’s ridiculous.”
Ben spoke up for the first time. “Jarvis was an isolated incident. The transmission you all heard didn’t originate in Oregon.”
“We don’t know—” Brianna interrupted, but Ben held up his hand.
“I agree. Calling it the Unified States is concerning, but we don’t know the facts. These could be patriotic Americans trying to rebuild the country just like us.”
“Or it could be a ruse designed to take our food and weapons and turn us into indentured servants.”
Ben leaned back in his chair. “Talking in circles will get us nowhere. Let’s put it to an initial vote. All those in favor of talking to these census workers, raise—”
A frantic, repetitive honking drowned out the rest of Ben’s words and he jumped up from the table. Craig beat him to the door, yanking it open before disappearing into the sunshine.
Walter rushed to follow, squinting against the hard light as one of the Jacobson pickup trucks bounded into the open field. The passenger-side door flew open as the truck skittered to a stop in a weedy patch of gravel.
Please, don’t let Tracy be hurt. It wasn’t the kindest thought, but in the moment, it was all Walter could think. They had been through so much already. He wasn’t prepared for another catastrophe. How lucky could they continue to be?
As he strained to see, holding his hand up to cast a shadow across his face, Tracy emerged from the truck and waved her arms over her head. “We need a gurney! Hurry!”
Craig took off for the medical building with Brianna on his heels while Heather and Walter closed the distance to the truck. Larkin climbed down from the driver’s side and motioned for Walter’s attention.
Walter wanted to get to his wife, but she was on the other side, leaning over the seat with Heather. He let Larkin lead him a few steps away. “What happened?”
Larkin dropped his voice barely above a whisper. “We were attacked. Pair of scouts with scoped rifles and snowmobiles. Obviously trained.”
Walter looked beyond him to the truck. Craig and Brianna double-timed a gurney up to the passenger-side door as Ben approached.
“Who’s hurt?”
“Daniel’s been shot. Single gunshot wound to the side. He’s unconscious. Lost a lot of blood.”
“Damn it.”
“That’s not the worst of it.” Larkin swallowed. “John’s dead.”
“What?” Walter hissed the word. “How?”
“Shot while on lookout. He died before we could find him.”
Walter rubbed a hand down his face. Ben would be furious. If Daniel died too… He shook his head to stop the what-ifs. “Are you and Tracy hurt?”
“No. We got one of the shooters. Big guy, early twenties. Looked like he’d been in the mountains a while.”
“You said there were two.”
Larkin nodded. “Thought it was better to get Daniel back here instead of hunting the other one down.”
“What about the pharmacy?”
“It’s as secure as we could manage. The fire doors were holding. We barricaded the door in the morgue.” He glanced behind him as Ben and Craig carried Daniel’s unconscious form away from the truck and toward the medical building. Brianna and Heather followed.
Tracy rushed toward Walter.
He wrapped his arms around her. “Thank God you’re all right.”
“I wish I could say the same for John and Daniel.”
“Larkin filled me in.” Walter pulled back. “You’re sure it was only two?”
His wife nodded. “But they must have come from a group. Well-running vehicles and plenty of fat around the middle.” She shuddered. “They were strong, too.”
Walter didn’t like the look on her face. Based on her grimace, he was even more thankful she made it out of there alive. This changed everything about the pharmacy discussion. “Ben will have to see reason.”
“About what?”
“Moving the drugs. This attack combined with the radio transmission—he’ll have no choice.”
Tracy’s eyebrows lifted. “What radio transmission?”
Walter exhaled. He forgot his wife and Larkin didn’t know. In as few words as possible, he laid out what it said.
Larkin bristled. “‘Unified States’ my ass. No way are any supposed census workers taking a step on our turf.”
“I’m sure Anne and Barry will see it that way, but Ben might not agree.” Walter looked toward the medical building. “Ben’s been waiting all this time for the government to stitch itself back together. If he thinks this is it, he might welcome these workers in.”
“And get rounded up like everyone in Eugene?” Larkin almost spat on the ground. “You know what happened there. So many good people died because of Jarvis and his quest for control. If they do the same thing here, we’ll all be turned into glorified slaves or taken out back and shot.”
He ran a hand over his sandy-blond hair and turned around in a circle as if he could find the answer on the ground. “If the Jacobsons roll over, can we trust them not to rat us out? For all we know they’ll lead these people right to us.”
Tracy spoke up. “We can’t worry about that now. What matters is the pharmacy. That man will be back. And the next time, he’ll be ready.”
Walter exhaled. They had to convince Ben to move the drugs if it wasn’t already too late.
Chapter Ten
TRACY
Jacobson Farm
5:00 p.m.
The icy winter wind
dried the sweat and dirt on Tracy’s face into a gritty paste. She wiped at her eyes as she turned to face her husband. “We have to convince Ben to move the pharmacy now.”
Walter nodded. “I know. But first, we have to tell him his nephew is dead.”
Larkin groaned. “If they don’t move the pharmacy, then his death and the countless man-hours spent guarding the place will all be for nothing.”
As Tracy opened her mouth to agree, Ben emerged from the medical building. He hunched against the weather as he made his way to their group huddled by the F-150. Tracy held her breath, preparing to break the terrible news.
“How is Daniel?” She managed a small smile.
“Heather kicked me out. Said I was too big to help.” Ben rubbed at his beard. “We won’t know for a while.”
“I know you’re not ready to hear this, but I have more bad news.”
Ben stilled. “About the men who did this?”
She shook her head. “About John. There’s no good way to say this.”
Larkin stepped up. “He’s dead.”
“What?” Ben took a step back. “How?”
“Gunshot wound to the gut.”
Ben closed his eyes. After a moment, he turned to Larkin. “Walk me through it.”
Larkin relayed what happened from first seeing the two men, to John losing visual, to the one attacking Tracy’s door, and John radioing for help. When he reached the part of the story where they found John, he faltered.
Tracy continued. “Larkin shot one of the scouts—not the man who attacked my door, but the other one. Probably the shooter. He died instantly.”
“Good.” Ben snuffed back wave of snot and emotion. “What about Daniel?”
“We found him behind a vehicle in the parking deck. He was unconscious, but still alive. We rushed him to the truck and drove straight here.”
“So who’s watching the pharmacy?”
“At the moment? No one.”
Ben cursed. “That goes against every protocol we have! If I knew your group would be this sloppy—”
