Ashes (A Project Eden Thriller)

by Brett Battles

“I want to see what it is, too,” she said.

  He contemplated telling her to go back, but decided there was no reason to, so he ran on.

  The structure turned out to be neither a cabin nor a shed, at least not in the traditional sense. It had once been a mobile home, but now was a wreck. Three quarters of the roof had collapsed, and an entire sidewall was lying on the ground in pieces. Holes from shotgun blasts covered much of the walls that were still standing.

  It had been a long time since anyone had ever called this place home, Brandon thought. He scanned the small clearing surrounding the trailer. How had it arrived here? For that matter, how had the people who lived here gone to and from civilization? There had to be a road, one wide enough for the trailer.

  He finally spotted an opening in the trees on the other side of the clearing, and jogged over. Though the forest had started to reclaim it, signs of the old road were still there.

  He looked back at the trailer. It could be a passable shelter, but if the Project Eden people spotted it, they would check it for sure.

  The road, though, would provide an easier route through the forest, and allow them to get farther faster.

  “Come on,” he said to Loni as he started running back to the others.

  __________

  A CLICK OF a tongue.

  Judson looked toward the noise. One of the men ahead of him had paused and was waving for him to come over.

  “What is it?” he whispered when he got there.

  The man pointed at a broken branch on the ground. Judson bent down for a better look. It had been snapped cleanly in two, as if someone had stepped on it.

  Excellent, he thought as he rose back up. He knew it wouldn’t be long now. The Ash kid and his buddies couldn’t be more than seven or eight minutes ahead of them.

  He pointed ahead, and the team started out again.

  __________

  WHERE ARE THEY? Josie wondered.

  Chloe and Miller should have been back by now. Josie had heard something a few minutes earlier, grunting and what sounded like feet scuffing the ground, but after that, nothing. The problem was that she couldn’t see a thing. The truck was not only blocking the road, but also her view of everything on the other side.

  She stood there, frustrated, torn between her promise to Chloe to remain where she was and her desire to know what was going on.

  Maybe she could move down until the truck was out of the way. She’d still be in the forest, so that wouldn’t be breaking her promise, right?

  Staying within the woods, she crept forward until the truck was no longer obstructing her view. She could see the house now and the two vehicles parked in front. The front door of the home was open.

  As she looked around for Chloe and Miller, she spotted the lower half of two legs lying on the ground, sticking out from between the cars.

  Miller? she wondered.

  Fear squeezed her heart.

  Where’s Chloe?

  She whipped her head around again, but Chloe was nowhere to be seen, so she looked back at the feet. If the cars mostly hid one body, they could easily be hiding two. And if Miller and Chloe were dead, it would be up to Josie to save her brother.

  Deciding her promise was no longer valid, she shot out from the cover of the trees and crossed over to the body, not daring to breathe again until she was safely between the two cars.

  The dead man was not Miller. Nor was there a second body.

  Her relief was tempered by her concern about where Chloe and Miller were. In the house? It seemed awfully quiet there. If they were confronting the rest of the Project Eden squad, wouldn’t she hear something?

  What if they were in trouble?

  What if they needed help?

  Her father had been training her and Brandon to handle these kinds of situations. She did know how to shoot a gun. True, she had never shot at a person before, but if someone she cared about was in trouble, she knew she could pull the trigger.

  She glanced down at the dead soldier, at the rifle lying beside him.

  __________

  ANOTHER TONGUE CLICK, this time from the man farthest to the left. He was pointing at something hidden in the trees, not too far off.

  A building, Judson thought, smiling. The kind of place a group of kids might think was a good place to hide.

  Using hand signals, he redirected his team toward it.

  __________

  CHLOE HELD UP her hand, stopping Miller. She’d heard something, a noise. Kind of like the sound a woodpecker would make if it hit a tree only once. She had no idea if woodpeckers ever came to this part of the country, but she was pretty damn sure one wouldn’t be knocking away at a trunk during the winter.

  She waited, hoping to hear it again, but there was no reprise.

  She nodded in her best guess of the direction it had come from. “That way.”

  __________

  JUDSON CURSED TO himself.

  The structure, which turned out to be an abandoned mobile home, was empty. He’d been so sure he was going to find them there.

  “Sir,” Williams, one of his men, whispered over the comm.

  Judson turned away from the trailer.

  “Footprints,” Williams said.

  He was at the edge of the clearing near a gap in the trees. Judson walked over.

  Williams pointed at the ground. “There, sir.”

  In a patch of loose dirt were several footprints, all of them too small to belong to an adult. They were aimed toward the gap in the trees.

  Not only a gap, Judson realized. A road.

  “This way,” he said, going through the opening. “Double time.”

  __________

  “I’M TIRED,” ONE of the kids shouted.

  Before Brandon could react, Loni said, “Quiet.”

  “Can’t we stop?” another asked.

  “We have to keep going,” Brandon said.

  “Why?”

  “We don’t want the bad men to find us.”

  “Brandon,” Miss Collins said. “They need to rest. Just for a little bit.”

  He could see all the kids looked beat. Even Billy and Carter seemed to be dragging. He stopped. “Five minutes. Then we gotta go again.”

  Most of the kids plopped down right where they’d been standing.

  Miss Collins walked over to Brandon. “They can’t keep going like this. They’re too young. They don’t have the strength you do.”

  “Just a little longer,” he said. “I’m sure we’ll find someplace we can hide.”

  She looked around, her expression a mix of compassion and resignation. “Where?”

  Before he could answer, Ellie, who was still beside him, said, “I need to go potty.”

  “I’ll take you, sweetie,” Miss Collins said.

  Ellie shook her head. “Brandon.”

  “Actually, I think it’s better if Miss Collins takes you,” Brandon said.

  Ellie looked doubtful.

  “It’s okay. I’ll be right here,” he told her.

  Reluctantly, she let go of his hand and went with Miss Collins.

  After they left, Brandon decided he needed to relieve himself, too. He chose a tree not too far away, circled behind it, and unzipped.

  “Brandon!” It was Miss Collins. She sounded odd.

  “Just a sec,” he said.

  He finished and zipped up. He circled back around the tree, but immediately stopped.

  Miss Collins was standing not too far beyond the spot where they’d parted a few minutes earlier. Behind her was a man holding a gun to her head. Two other men were behind him.

  The man with the gun grinned. “So, you’re Brandon?”

  Brandon’s mouth went dry. “Um, yes,” he said, barely loudly enough to be heard.

  “Brandon Ash?” the man said.

  It wasn’t a chill that shot up Brandon’s spine. It was an arctic blast.

  __________

  ONCE THEY DISCOVERED that the kids had gone down the road, it didn’
t take long before Judson and his men heard them ahead.

  Judson ordered three of his men to quietly follow the kids, while he and the other two moved into the forest, intending to arc around to get in front of their prey and overwhelm them from both sides. But the kids stopped in the middle of the road before Judson’s small squad was in place.

  “Hold,” Judson whispered, crouching down behind some brush.

  Through the branches, he examined the group of children. Ten kids. No, eleven. But only one adult. A woman. Judson had figured there would be at least two, if not three. This would make things even easier.

  “Williams?” he said softly into his mic.

  “Go for Williams.” He was one of the three left behind the kids.

  “Get ready to move in.”

  “Copy.”

  “Let us—” Judson cut himself off.

  The woman and a small girl were heading into the woods in their direction. As they drew nearer, he could hear them talking.

  “…than that,” the woman said. “It won’t be much longer now.”

  “My feet hurt.”

  “I’m sure they do.” The woman paused. “Let’s go right behind that bush.”

  “Okay.”

  ‘That bush’ was only fifteen feet ahead and to the left of Judson’s position.

  “Everyone hold,” he whispered.

  The woman and the girl circled around the bush and stopped.

  “Here?” the girl asked.

  “Here’s fine.”

  The woman turned her back to Judson to help the girl. As soon as the girl finished going to the bathroom, the woman leaned down to assist her again.

  Judson took that as his cue and moved out from his hiding place, motioning for the two men with him to follow. He was able to get in right behind the woman a moment before she stood up.

  The little girl sucked in a breath when she saw him. The woman started to turn, but Judson grabbed her and placed his gun against her back.

  “Quiet now,” he said. “If you cooperate, no one will get hurt. All right?”

  She nodded.

  “Let’s go back to your other friends.”

  “Come on, Ellie,” the woman said, holding her hand out to the girl.

  “These are the bad men,” Ellie said.

  “It’s okay,” the woman told her. “Come on.”

  Ellie hesitated a second, then took the woman’s hand.

  Keeping the gun at her back, Judson guided them over to the other kids.

  “Which one’s Brandon?” Judson asked.

  The woman looked around. “He’s not here.”

  He moved the gun to her head. “Don’t lie to me. Which one?”

  “I’m not lying. He was here, but he’s not now.”

  “Call him.”

  The woman said nothing.

  “Call. Him.” He twisted the gun’s muzzle against her temple.

  “Brandon!” she yelled.

  __________

  “BRANDON!”

  Chloe and Miller froze.

  The voice belonged to a woman, and had come from fifty yards away at most.

  Chloe and Miller moved into woods to cut down the chance of being seen, and continued on. As they got closer, they could hear another voice, a man’s. Though he was too far away for them to understand him, his tone suggested he was giving orders.

  Another twenty feet on, Miller grabbed Chloe’s shoulder and pulled her to a stop. He pointed back at the road. Three soldiers had stepped out of the trees on the other side. They paused in the middle, talked for a moment, then two headed toward the voices, while the third stayed where he was.

  There was no question in Chloe’s mind about what was going on. The Project Eden team had found Brandon and the others. The man waiting on the road was the safety net in case someone tried to escape.

  That was something they could use to their advantage.

  Chloe whispered her plan into Miller’s ear. He nodded, and made his way silently to a point about forty feet deeper into the woods, nearly level with the man’s position. Chloe went in the other direction, stopping just inside the forest.

  Right on schedule, Miller scraped a foot across the ground, and walked in place loudly enough for a few footfalls to be heard.

  The guard whipped his head to the right, peering into the darkness.

  Miller waited a second before he scraped the ground again.

  The guard glanced down the road where his friends had gone, then looked back into the woods.

  “Someone’s out here,” he said.

  Radios, Chloe thought. Crap.

  She would have to be extra careful.

  The man was quiet for a few seconds, then nodded. “Copy.”

  Holding his rifle tightly, he headed into the woods. The moment he passed Chloe’s position, she moved in behind him.

  His first indication that something was wrong was her hand on his mouth. His second was the knife plunging into his chest.

  Chloe dropped him to the ground. Two down.

  __________

  “YOU’RE CAPTAIN ASH’S son, right?” the man with the gun asked Brandon.

  Brandon remained silent.

  “That’s a yes, I take it. My bosses will be very interested to talk to you.”

  “You don’t have to hold your gun against her like that,” Brandon said. “I’m not going to run.”

  The man smiled, and pulled the gun away from Miss Collins’s head. “All right. But if you do try, I’ll kill her.”

  One of the kids started to cry, while a few others looked on the verge of doing the same.

  “I said I won’t.”

  The man smiled at Brandon, and looked at the others. “Listen up. This is what’s going to happen. I’ll give you another…” He paused. “Two minutes to rest, then we’re going to walk back to the house.”

  “What happens then?” Carter asked.

  “That depends on how well you behave.” The man surveyed the kids. “Any other questions?”

  No one said anything.

  “Good,” he said. He let go of Miss Collins. “You should rest, too.”

  He took a step back, and motioned for his two men to spread out. He touched something on his shirt and said, “Williams?” There was a pause. “Two of you come in. The other stays out there in case someone tries to sneak by.”

  He must be talking on a radio, Brandon guessed. Sure enough, seconds later, two more soldiers arrived.

  Suddenly, the main guy cocked his head to the side. After a moment, he said into his radio, “Check it out and report back.” He took a step forward. “Time’s up, everyone. On your feet. We’re getting out of here.”

  The kids slowly got to their feet.

  “Who’s missing?” the man asked Brandon.

  “What?” Brandon asked.

  “Who’s missing? There’s someone not here.”

  Brandon looked around. All eleven kids and Miss Collins were there. “I don’t know what you mean. Everyone’s here.”

  The man took a step closer. “Don’t lie to me!”

  “I’m not lying. We’re all here.”

  The man studied Brandon’s face, then turned and walked several feet away. “Krieger, report.” He paused. “Krieger, report.” Another pause. He shot a look at the two newly arrived men. “Go.”

  They went back the way they’d come.

  That’s when it hit Brandon.

  Chloe.

  __________

  CHLOE AND MILLER were ready and waiting when the two men returned. Instead of luring them into the woods with a sound, they used the dead soldier’s body, leaving his head sticking out from the tree line just far enough to be seen.

  Like moths to a light, the two men rushed to their fallen comrade. Chloe and Miller were on them before they even knew what happened.

  Four down.

  __________

  “WILLIAMS?” JUDSON SAID.

  No response.

  “Williams, what the hell’s going
on?”

  Still nothing.

  What the fuck?

  He glanced at McGrath and Torres. Both men looked concerned.

  “Let’s get everyone together,” he ordered.

  But before any of them could take a step, a shot rang out. McGrath fell to the ground, and Torres stumbled a few feet before joining him. Several of the kids screamed.

  Not one shot, Judson realized. Two. He slipped behind a tree just as another bullet hit its trunk.

  “Everyone get down!” Brandon Ash said. “Lie on the ground!”

  Judson searched around, desperate. The girl who’d had to go to the bathroom was two feet away. He grabbed her and pulled her to his chest.

  “Leave me alone!” she screamed, and started to wail.

  “Let her go!” Brandon yelled.

  Judson ignored him as the girl struggled in his arms. “Stop it or I’ll break your arm.”

  Though her whimpering didn’t stop, her thrashing ceased.

  “Please,” Brandon said again. “Let her go. You…you can take me instead.”

  Judson looked at the girl and then at Brandon. The boy was a lot bigger than she was, and would be much better as a shield.

  “Fine. Get over here,” he said.

  “Let her go first.”

  “No way.”

  The boy hesitated a moment, then crawled over. Judson grabbed his arm and dropped the girl.

  “Go to Miss Collins,” Brandon told her.

  The girl stood there like she didn’t want to leave.

  “Go on,” Brandon said.

  Tears streaming down her face, she nodded, and disappeared around the tree.

  Judson yanked Brandon in front of him, and held him against his chest with his left arm.

  “Come on out,” a female voice called. “We know you’re back there.”

  Who the hell is that?

  His gaze darted all over the place. There had to be an escape somewhere, a way out of this mess.

  There were enough trees that if he ran straight back, maybe they wouldn’t be able to get a shot at him.

  “You’re wasting time,” the woman said. “You’re not getting away, so come on out.”

  Judson adjusted his hold on the boy, and whispered, “Follow my lead.” He took a step forward.

  The roar of the gun wasn’t as surprising as the sensation of the bullet passing by only a few feet in front of him.