Samantha! The thought hit him like a bolt of thunder.
The beast advanced toward her, snarling, with its huge hands outstretched.
Tanner took two large steps and leaped onto the creature’s back, snaking one arm around its neck, while the other attempted to secure some kind of choke.
No luck.
The girth of its neck was simply too big to completely lock his arms. Desperate, he resorted to yanking the creature’s head back, anything to keep it from biting Samantha.
Even with his strength, Tanner was no match for the beast. Samantha knew that if she didn’t do something fast, they were both going to die. Her first thought was to use her trusty knife. It was a good blade, certainly capable of cutting the monster’s flesh. But instinctively, she knew that it would not be enough. And then it came to her.
The silver bullet.
Samantha reached across her waist and slid the Patriot free. It looked insignificant, a pea shooter against a beast as powerful as Goliath. But it was her one and only hope. She sat up and shoved it against the creature’s belly while thumbing back the hammer. The trigger pull was harder than she had anticipated, and for a moment she thought she might have accidentally left on the safety.
Suddenly, the gun bucked and a loud boom sounded. Blood splashed over her hand, dripping from her fingers like warm maple syrup. She cocked the hammer and squeezed the trigger a second time. Another thunderous boom, only this time the gun flipped sideways, twisting out of her slick hands. She held her breath, uncertain what effect, if any, the bullets might have had.
And then… everything went dark.
Chapter 17
Issa ran along the back of the museum, skirting an intricate maze constructed from eight-foot-high evergreen hedges. What were once perfectly manicured bushes now had spindly green shoots reaching into the air. As she rounded the far corner of the maze, she took a knee and stared out into the parking lot.
It didn’t take long to find Dolly. The old black woman lay on the asphalt, cupping her face. A teenage boy stood over her, hands outstretched as he pleaded with four armed men. Based on their angry shouting, they appeared to be in no mood for mercy.
One of the men stepped forward and drove the butt of his rifle into the boy’s gut. He doubled over and dropped to his knees, nearly gagging from the pain. The man kicked him in the face with the flat of his boot, sending the teen to the pavement.
Issa glanced back at the museum. A thin trail of black smoke had begun to rise from the rear of the building. She looked around and cursed under her breath. No one had yet to notice the fire. Nearly everyone was fixed either on the stage in anticipation of the coming auctions, or on the vicious beatings of Dolly and her grandson Jerome.
Bells began to toll, a rich musical tune filling the air. The crowd cheered and turned to face a large stone tower to the south. Sensing that it was their chance to escape, Jerome helped Dolly to her feet, and together, they pushed past the men.
But it was not to be. The same man who had hit Jerome brought his rifle up and took aim at their backs.
Issa was in motion before she even had a chance to think about what she was doing. Still kneeling, she swung the Merkel up and fired. The recoil sent her tumbling onto her backside, but the shot was true, and the man with the rifle stumbled forward and collapsed to the ground.
The crack of the rifle sent people ducking in place, their eyes searching for the shooter. Fingers pointed and shouts sounded as people spotted her.
Issa rolled to her feet, watching as Dolly and Jerome ran southeast past a small service station. It seemed unlikely that they would escape, but at least they had cleared the crowd.
She quickly replaced the spent cartridge and searched for a place to hide. The tall hedge maze struck her as the perfect spot, until she realized that it would be like a rat running into a trap. Distance was her only hope.
Issa began to run, racing across Cave Hill Road and veering southeast to follow Dolly and Jerome. Several men pushed their way through the crowd. One took a potshot at her that missed by mere feet, shattering a car window. As she gained ground, she heard faint shouts from the crowd.
“Fire!”
Bright yellow flames now licked out through the museum’s cracked windows.
Still standing on the stage, the potbellied man waved his arms and shouted for people to remain calm. It didn’t work. The more he yelled, the more people panicked. Soon, scores of people pushed against one another, trying desperately to reach their cars without being trampled. As chaos ensued, the slaves seized their opportunity. Some ran. Others turned on their captors. Gunshots rang out as men fired on the slaves, often missing to hit bystanders. What started as a fearful retreat quickly turned into a terror-driven stampede.
Issa stayed her course, sprinting along the far side of Cave Hill Road. Dolly and Jerome were dead ahead, the old woman hobbling as fast as she could while dragging an injured leg behind her. Issa caught up to them as they crossed beneath the Lee Highway overpass.
“Hurry up, old woman,” she said, slipping an arm around Dolly’s other shoulder and nodding to Jerome.
Dolly looked over and smiled, blood covering her teeth.
Picking up the pace, they practically dragged Dolly along the ground. As they passed a small manmade lake filled with dark blue water, shouts sounded from behind them. Issa glanced back and saw six men running in their direction. Cars and trucks also began to spill from the parking lot, some escaping the chaos, others giving chase.
She accepted that there was no way they were going to outrun their pursuers, certainly not with Dolly in tow. Issa had a choice to make. She either had to abandon the old woman and her grandson, or risk sharing their fate.
She could hear Tanner saying, “They’re dead weight and you know it.”
“Even so,” she whispered, “I can’t leave them.”
“Then you’d better find someplace to hole up, and fast.”
Issa spotted two women coming out of the bell tower up ahead.
“There!” she huffed, pointing to the stone tower that rose more than a hundred feet over their heads.
They made it to the doors just as the women were preparing to lock up. Issa waved the Merkel at them, and they quickly abandoned any sense of duty to race off across the open field. Together, she and Jerome carried Dolly into the tower and closed the doors behind them. The wood was heavy, perhaps Australian Buloke or some other form of ironwood. That was the good news. The bad news was that the deadbolt was keyed on both sides, and they didn’t have the key.
Issa turned and surveyed the tower’s interior. Everything was painted a dingy beige, and water stains ran down the walls. The lowest level had been set up for remote viewing of the carillon player sitting several stories up. A dusty large-screen television was mounted to a wooden table with a “Do Not Cross” fabric barrier roping it off. Several heavy wooden chairs sat stacked in one corner. Resting beside them was a toolbox and a fire extinguisher.
Metal steps wound around the inside walls of the square tower all the way up to the belfry. The stairs themselves seemed quite defendable. Unfortunately, there was a long narrow window directly opposite the doors that looked just big enough for someone to squeeze through. Two entrances, one gun. They weren’t going to hold out for very long.
Issa turned to Jerome. The teen was wearing a long-sleeve flannel shirt and filthy blue jeans held up by a leather belt two sizes too big.
“Give me your belt,” she said, holding out her hand.
“What?” He brought his hands in front of the buckle protectively. “Why?”
She slapped his hands aside and pulled the belt free. Hurrying back to the doors, she slipped it through the two handles and cinched the leather tight. It was a start, but it wasn’t nearly enough. She rushed over to the toolbox, hoping that someone might have stashed a spare key. No luck. She did, however, find two large flathead screwdrivers and a hammer. Racing back to the doors, she hammered the screwdrivers between them a
nd the surrounding frame.
She turned to Jerome. “Get your grandmother upstairs and find a place to hide.”
“But she’s hurt!” he said, his voice shaking.
“I’ll be all right,” Dolly wheezed. But she didn’t look all right. A small gash above her eye seeped blood, and she clutched one wrist close to her body.
“But, Grandma—”
“No buts. Do what she says.” She slipped an arm over his shoulder, and he reluctantly pulled her to her feet. Together, they staggered up the stairs.
Issa retrieved the fire extinguisher and followed after them, stopping when she reached the first landing. Shouts were coming from outside, and someone jerked on the door handle. When the door refused to open, they bumped it with their shoulder.
The belt and screwdrivers held.
Knowing that it wouldn’t be long, Issa pulled the pin on the fire extinguisher and sprayed the lower level and metal steps below her. A cloud of white vapor filled the air, the monoammonium phosphate settling to provide a slick residue on the surfaces.
Something heavy smashed against the doors. They shuddered but once again held.
Issa brought the Merkel up and fired a single shot through the center of one of the doors. Ironwood or not, the door was no match for the 500-grain bullet, and an inch-diameter hole appeared in the door. Screams sounded from outside, followed by a series of wild gunshots. More holes appeared, but they did little to break the doors free.
As Issa reloaded, she moved to a nearby window and peered out. A crowd was gathering, perhaps twenty people, nearly all of them brandishing weapons. This was not a fight she could win. If they were smart, they would simply force her to retreat up the stairs and start a fire on the lowest level, either suffocating her with smoke or burning her alive.
Another blow hit the door, and this time the frame began to give way.
The enemy was coming, and Issa had no way to stop them.
To say that Issa was afraid would have been an oversimplification. Certainly, she felt fear clawing at her gut, but mostly there was a sense of regret. It wasn’t so much from having chosen to help the enslaved women, as it was knowing that she would never again feel Tanner’s strong embrace or hear Samantha’s amusing quips. She also felt profound sadness for her unborn child who would be robbed of the chance to smell a flower or chase a butterfly. She was consoled only by the knowledge that it would die in the comfort of her womb, the bond between mother and child unbroken.
Her nostrils flared as she drew in a breath. Death may be galloping ever closer, but he wouldn’t be departing with only her and her baby. She would see to that.
The door burst from its frame and crashed onto the floor as one giant block of wood. Men were stacked one behind the other, and she fired directly into their midst. The huge slug hammered into the first man’s chest, shredding his heart and blowing an enormous hole through his back. It continued on, ripping through a second’s man stomach and kidney, before finally coming to rest against a third man’s hip. All three men collapsed to the ground.
Two others leaped over them to land on the stone floor coated in foam. Both men skated briefly before one flopped onto his back and the other slid into the flat-screen television.
Still recovering from the recoil of the shot, Issa swung her rifle toward the man lying on his back and fired a second time. The bullet grazed the side of his head, taking with it a chunk of the man’s skull.
Two more men dashed into the tower, more careful of their footing as they sought cover. Issa wheeled around and raced up the stairs. Rather than try to fight from the stairway, she continued on all the way up to the highest level.
It housed an office of sorts, complete with table, chairs, and a wooden cubbyhole for papers. At the center of the space sat an antique carillon. The clavier was similar in appearance to a conventional organ except that in place of keys there were wooden handles. Dozens of metal turnbuckles rose from the carillon to connect into the open-air belfry overhead. The bells themselves were not visible thanks to a low-hanging ceiling, but a ladder at the back of the space granted access.
Dolly and Jerome sat huddled beside the instrument. Both looked completely spent from their climb up the stairs.
Seeing the frantic look in Issa’s eyes, Dolly shook her head and said, “You should have left us, child.”
“Yes,” Issa puffed, trying to catch her breath. “I should have.”
“Then why didn’t you?”
Issa didn’t have an answer. Part of her had wanted to leave them, but another part knew that she couldn’t. Perhaps there was still too much humanity left in her.
“Would you have left me?” she countered.
Dolly seemed surprised. “Course not.”
“There. You have your answer.”
Issa reloaded the Merkel, a radiating pain in her shoulder reminding her that the big gun punished both shooter and target alike. Assuming the slavers didn’t just decide to burn them out, they would have to come up the narrow staircase no more than two abreast, and even that would be awkward. Issa figured she could take at least a few of them before they overran her.
She readied the gun and waited for the stomp of men’s boots on the heavy metal stairs.
They didn’t come. Instead, she heard a commotion coming from the ground floor. Maybe they were drawing straws to see who would go first, or worse yet, maybe they were gathering firewood.
Another thirty seconds passed. A minute. Two. Her hands trembled slightly. What the hell were they waiting for?
Dolly sat forward, tilting her head to listen.
“Why ain’t they comin’ for us?”
As if in answer to her question, the staircase began to shake as men pounded their way higher. Too loud for one man or even five. They were coming all at once. Better that way, thought Issa. Like Tanner, she preferred to die in the fire of battle, not be picked apart by cowardly carrions.
Large figures rounded the corner and pushed their way into the belfry. They halted at the sight of Issa kneeling beside Dolly and Jerome, gun aloft, her finger on the first of the Merkel’s two triggers. Her finger twitched reflexively, but instead of squeezing, she lowered the gun and stared in disbelief.
A mass of infected men stood before her, armed with hatchets, clubs, and rifles. A giant with thick muscular limbs and a skull like that of a Klingon stood before her, looking pleased with himself.
“Korn?” she breathed.
He crossed his massive arms and grinned.
“Issa!”
Korn covered the space between them with two giant steps and extended his hand. She took it and rose to her feet. His eyes were drawn to the swell of her stomach, and his face became pale.
“You’re with baby.”
She nodded. “Yes.”
“But how?”
“Things are not as we thought. Our women are not barren.” She left the rest unsaid. No man wanted to hear that he was sterile.
“Does Mother know?”
She shook her head. “I was on my way to see her when...” Issa looked back at Dolly and Jerome. Both stared with wide eyes, uncertain if doom or salvation had arrived. “It’s okay,” she said. “They’re friends.”
Korn motioned to them. “Go. You’re free.”
Jerome helped his grandmother to her feet, and together, they hobbled toward the staircase. As Dolly passed, she brushed a hand across Issa’s back.
“Thank you, child. Perhaps the Lord will see fit for us to return the favor one day.” And with that she was gone, gently nudging her way through the throng of fighters lining the staircase.
Feeling Korn’s eyes on her belly, Issa gently rubbed a hand over the tight skin.
“I suppose I must look very different to you.”
“Different,” he said, nodding, “and the same.” There was a sadness in his voice that even his gruffness couldn’t hide.
“You’ve changed too.” There remained a savage fire in Korn’s eyes, but he was better spoken. He also
carried an AR-15 over one shoulder. Six months earlier, he couldn’t have fathomed the mechanics of operating such a weapon. She looked past him at the infected warriors starting back down the stairs. Many of them, too, seemed calmer and more rational.
As if sensing her thoughts, he said, “Mother says we’re beginning to think again.”
Their eyes met, and he seemed ready to say something that she didn’t want to hear.
“How is it that you came to be in this town? This tower?” she asked.
He walked to a window that looked out onto the grassy field below. His army of nearly five hundred fighters was mopping up the last of the slavers.
“Mother sent us to end this. To end them.”
“Mother is reaching out beyond Mount Weather?”
He nodded.
Issa wasn’t sure if that was a good thing. Where Mother’s army went, butchered bodies were invariably left in its wake.
“She knew of the slavery?”
“She knows many things.”
Issa gently rubbed her stomach. “She doesn’t know this.”
“No. And perhaps she shouldn’t.” Korn stepped closer, and Issa tightened her grip on the Merkel hanging at her side. He struggled to speak. “You and I, we were almost one.”
“Yes,” she said. “But now I’m another’s.”
“Even so, no good will come of you going to Mother like this.”
“How can you say that? The women deserve to know.” Her words came out stronger than she intended, and she attempted to soften them by saying, “Don’t they?”
He shrugged. “You have always made your own choices.” There was something about the way he said “choices” that suggested he was not merely talking about going to Mount Weather.
“Come,” he said, turning toward the doorway. “We will see if you are as wise as you are headstrong.”
Chapter 18
The Survivalist (Freedom Lost) Page 21
