Footsteps. They’re coming. But there’s only two of them…
Maybe. Or maybe those were the only two stupid enough to be talking while raiding some strange compound. They’d been smart enough to watch the place, though, since they’d seen the truck leaving not long ago, and they’d spent the time since then just watching the chicken coop. They weren’t that stupid, then. They just didn’t know anyone was inside.
Both those things, she realized, made them more dangerous, not less, and Emma’s hands grew slick on the pitchfork handle, her sweaty palms grasping at it like a drowning person with a life preserver.
A burly, bald man with a neck tattoo came through the door, with a knife in one hand and a large pillowcase in the other. He froze when he spotted Shelly, then Emma.
Shelly hissed, barely above a whisper, “On your knees, mister.”
A smile crept across his face. “Put that down, woman, ’fore you hurt yourself.”
He reached for the gun in Shelly’s hands. If he got that gun, Emma felt in her bones, unimaginably horrible things were in store for her and her mom. But her mom was a coward. Shooting bandits who had already murdered one of them, that was one thing. This was different, and Emma doubted her mom could pull the—
Bang. Something deafened Emma.
Smoke. The smell of gunpowder.
One thought wormed through her mind as she stood mesmerized by a bit of skull and brain that was crawling down the door frame: But Mom is no killer.
And yet, her mom had just killed that man.
The thought was interrupted by the other woman, who’d been right on the man’s heels, as she darted through the door, swinging something in her hand.
Her mom raised the smoking pistol to fire again, but Emma watched in slow motion and knew, Shelly wasn’t fast enough. The woman plunged a knife into the inside of her mom’s gun arm, the force moving the barrel aside. The gun went off again as Shelly’s wounded arm smashed into the doorframe, and it flew from her hand to land outside.
Emma thought the woman was screaming but couldn’t hear over the ringing in her ears. She’d known a pistol going off inside the coop would be loud, but being prepared for it had done little to protect her ears from the noise. Not that she had expected her mom to actually pull the trigger.
Surprise…
Emma didn’t wait for her mother to tell her what to do. Right, wrong, those didn’t matter. Mom was helpless and hurt, and the strangers hadn’t stopped to talk it out. If her mom could do it, so could she. Emma sprinted forward from where she’d been lurking by a stack of hay bales, and drove her pitchfork with all her might, aiming at the woman’s head. Its tines caught the woman in her neck, sending a jolt up Emma’s arms, maybe a tine hitting bones, but then resistance vanished and it pushed through easily. With a moist sound, the tines emerged from the back of the woman’s neck to embed themselves into the coop’s lumber wall.
Emma didn’t pause to see what came of it, though. She dived through the door and snatched up her mom’s pistol. Holding it in both hands, she flung her back up against the coop’s outer wall and spun to bring the weapon to bear, around the rear of the chicken coop.
There was no one.
She stared dumbly for a moment. It was impossible to believe the two had been by themselves. Wasn’t it?
A sound slowly rose over the din of the ringing in her ears. It was Shelly. Oh crap. Mom!
Emma ran inside, looking around frantically.
The strange woman hung by the tines through her neck, limp. The man’s body was sprawled face-first in the hay bedding that covered the floor, the back half of his head a mush-mess. Her mom knelt where she’d stood, frantically trying to get her belt looped around her arm above the wound in her bicep, and not having much luck.
Her mom looked up, and their eyes met. Emma wasn’t sure what to do—but then her mom’s mouth ticked up faintly at the corners. “Good job, honey. Are you okay?”
Emma nodded. Smiling? It was okay, everything was okay. Her racing heart slowed, at least a bit.
Shelly indicated her arm with a nod of her head. “Okay. Give me a hand with this?”
Emma tucked the pistol in the back of her waistband and rushed to kneel beside her mom. “I got it.” She fought shaking hands, the aftermath of adrenaline, but at least she had two of them to use. How was her mom so calm? And she hadn’t lost her head when the man didn’t cooperate…Clearly, she’d have to reconsider her views about her mom. And just as clearly, this new world they were living in was no place for hesitation. If Mom had hesitated, things could have gone very badly for them both, but she hadn’t. She’d been cool as a cucumber, and it had helped Emma to do the same.
She looped the belt around Shelly’s arm, put one twist into it, then fed it through the buckle and pulled it tight, the “turn” placed over the artery and veins along the inside of her mom’s arm, just as she’d been taught.
She blinked, surprised that she remembered it in the middle of everything going on. Maybe she was more like New Mom than she’d thought.
Shelly took the belt’s end from her, and held it drawn tight. “Thanks. To the house. Now, girl! Let’s go. There could be others.”
They raced to the house, and when Emma saw friendly faces rushing toward them with rifles and pistols in hand, she felt a flood of relief so powerful that it made her head spin dangerously.
Safe…for now.
11
Nick’s head whipped up at the gunshot report as it rolled across the compound. He shouted for the others to follow, even as he snatched up the rifle leaning barrel-up beside him, then rushed toward the west end of the house. The report had come from the north field, he was certain, and that was the fastest way to get there. His feet moved of their own accord as he tallied in his head the people for whom he was responsible. Damn—only Shelly, Abram’s wife, would be up there at that time.
He bowed his head and redoubled his efforts, feet flying faster. The pounding of others’ boots close behind was a steep reassurance.
He reached a row of hay bales extending roughly parallel to the house and ducked behind their sheltering concealment, swinging his barrel up and over to rest on them as he scanned the area up ahead. Nothing moved.
Corey sped past, Maggie’s thin figure racing beside him, heading toward the next cover—a dead tractor that provided real cover, not just concealment, unlike Nick’s hay bales.
With a thud, a thin woman with long brown hair came to a halt crouched beside him. That would be Quinn, he decided without taking his eyes off the field ahead. Owen’s wife, and a crack shot.
In the back of his mind, he wondered where the others were, but of course, Vaughn and Liam were working the southernmost tower construction. It might take them a minute.
Once Corey and Maggie were in position at the tractor, Nick ducked out from behind his hay bales, and he and Quinn sped ahead. They passed Corey and Maggie and kept going. There was no other good cover between them and the big outbuilding that housed the chickens, so he sprinted until he got there, expecting a bullet to strike him at any moment.
Two figures came out of the coop—Shelly and her daughter, Emma. Shelly was gushing blood from her right arm, but had a rope—no, a belt—tied around her bicep.
“Maggie, keep watch,” he shouted, and skid to a halt by the coop, just in front of the other two. “What the hell happened?”
Emma’s eyes were wide, but her voice was steady as she replied, “Two scavengers. They’re dead. Get Dexter to raise Dad on the radio. I got this.”
He paused, then Shelly shouted, “Go!”
Nick nodded once, curtly, and sprinted toward the south tower, as Emma walked her mom down toward the nearest med kit.
After Emma got her mom to the first aid kit, Nick came back from rounding up a patrol and checking out the chicken coop, and he immediately took over, shooing her away. Still in shock, she merely nodded and then trudged back to the house. She entered the kitchen through the mudroom door, but before it ev
en shut behind her, Corey’s voice startled her from her dazed thoughts. “Emma, are you okay? Are you hurt?”
She turned around and stared at him for a moment, unsure how to answer that question. She was far from okay, but only her mother had been physically hurt. “I’m fine,” she lied. It was just easier than the truth, and she didn’t want to deal with all of that at the moment, though at some point, she’d probably want to talk to him about it all. Just, not right then.
He watched her in silence, slowly shaking his head.
Emma waited. Then, she crossed her arms. Seconds ticked by, and her awkwardness grew. Finally, she asked, “Why are you staring at me?”
“There’s something different about you. I’m trying to figure it out,” he replied without hesitation.
“Oh.” Weird, but Corey could sometimes be intense, often over things she hadn’t considered important. Had he felt the same way, once? She’d find out when they talked—later. “Well, if you don’t mind, I’m covered in…stuff, and I have to go tell Dad what happened.”
Corey nodded and shrugged. “Yeah, of course. I think…I just expected you to be more shaken up about it. That was rough. I guess I need to stop thinking of you as being a little kid, though.”
Emma forced a shaky smile, partly for his benefit, and partly because he was still being kind of weird and it still felt awkward. “I’m not a little kid, but what do you mean?”
He didn’t smile back. “The woman. I went with my dad to check out the chicken coop. I just wonder how she got that way after attacking your mom. I don’t see how Shelly could have done it herself, and you were the only other one there. It sort of seems like you did some quick thinking. Might even have saved your mom. Am I wrong?”
Emma paused. All she wanted at the moment was to be alone. She couldn’t think of anything to say, though, other than to answer him, but nope, she didn’t want to think about all that. At least, not yet. So, she turned around. “Mom saved me first.”
She hurried away, leaving Corey standing in the kitchen alone, and pushed all those thoughts away. It was just easier to focus on what she had to do—the task at hand, as her dad would have said.
She trudged into the basement, their ad-hoc radio room, and she ignored Dexter’s wide eyes on seeing her. She’d change out of—and probably burn—the clothes she was in, but she needed to fill her father in before she could shed the bloody things and take a long, hot shower. Her mother’s blood—
Emma shook the thought from her head. “Hey, Dex. Any luck?”
“Yeah. He’s on standby, on the backup channel you set up. I saw the note you left yourself—and so could any bad guys who took over this place, so don’t do that again—but it was handy, this time.”
“Did you tell him anything?”
He shook his head. “I figured you’d want to, and he doesn’t need half the story. She’s your mom, but she’s his wife, and you were there. You have answers I wouldn’t have.”
She nodded curtly, then took the chair Dexter offered. She hovered over the mic until the door closed softly behind him.
Once she was alone, she took the mic in hand, took a deep breath to steady her voice, and pressed the button. “Eden-Three to Eden-One, come in.” She repeated the rehearsed phrase twice.
“Eden-One here. There you are. Tell me what’s going on,” came Abram’s reply. There was an edge to his voice, like he knew something bad had happened.
His transmission had a lot of static, though. His mobile units didn’t have as much power or as large an antenna as her hard-mounted base station had, and ham signals could be weird—they bounced around a lot, and sometimes it was easier to talk to someone in Australia than to someone twenty miles away, if conditions were right. She remembered that from her father’s lessons, but knowing that did little to lessen her irritation at it.
It occurred to her that he had also not mentioned that she’d already been scheduled to connect with him in a couple hours, rather than at this time, presumably so that anyone listening in wouldn’t know they had a schedule, much less what it was.
Smart old fox.
She replied, “Eden-Two was injured. Two unknowns came to steal…things. They were armed. We—”
Emma paused to take a ragged breath, but didn’t stop transmitting, lest she have to listen to his panicky voice begging for details.
She and I murdered them, that’s what’s going on.
She continued in a monotone, “She and I ended the threat. But she was hurt pretty bad. She got stitched up as best we can, but we’re sending someone out for better sutures to improve her long-term prognosis, and to have it on hand.”
Wow. She had definitely been spending too much time with Aunt Maggie, talking like that. Had she ever even used the word “prognosis” before the end of the world had come? Probably not. She had never had to in the old world.
His voice shaking—though whether it was from fear or rage, the static prevented her from knowing—Abram replied, “How bad is it?”
“It looks like a clean wound, but we won’t know about infection for a couple days.” She drew a deep breath. If even the musty air of that chicken coop had gotten into her cut, her mom might be in deep trouble.
But that was a what-if, and she was fine for the moment, and Emma had every hope she’d stay that way. “The wound was not contaminated visibly, on-scene.”
Again, Emma was a bit jolted by Maggie’s words coming out in her own voice.
“I…I should come home…” Abram’s voice trailed off.
A bolt of fear swept through Emma like electricity running up and down her arms at the thought. In her head, she screamed against the idea, but stifled what she had been about to blurt out. She paused, collecting her thoughts and pushing back against the fuzzy thinking of adrenaline, before she replied, “No, Eden-One. Stay on task. Eden-Two is okay for now, but if you come back…If you don’t do what you set out to do, this is going to happen again. Next time, it’ll be worse. It’ll be the end. Do not turn around. We’re fine.”
The radio crackled, but was otherwise silent for about ten seconds, long seconds to Emma.
“So, Eden-Three. Tell me again about the attackers. Two men came from the south, and then what.”
Alarm shot through her. Two men? That wasn’t what she’d said. Nor had she mentioned a direction, and south was the wrong one…Abram was testing her, she decided. Or testing her story, at least. “No, a man and a woman. Refugees. One armed. They came from the far side of the field near the broken incubator”—she avoided saying a direction, but that was enough for him to know they’d come from the north side, avoiding his verbal trap to confirm that all was indeed well, that no one was forcing her to give the all-clear sign—“without alerting us until they were almost on top of us.”
Another pause, this one only a couple seconds, and then Abram said, “Well, at least it’s decent enough weather for traveling.”
There it was. Their code phrase. If she gave the wrong response, he’d know she was being coerced or was somehow otherwise not able to speak freely, and then he would race home. No need for that. She smiled wanly. “Could be worse, for sure.”
“All right,” came Abram’s prompt response. “We’ll stay on schedule. See you like we talked about,” he said, avoiding broadcasting how long the compound would be short on defenders—just in case someone else was listening in, of course. He was always careful on the radio, and expected the same of her.
They logged off according to the protocol he’d taught her—another word she’d never used before all of this—and because she hadn’t thought to look at the clock walking in, nor had Dexter, since the log journal had no new entries, she simply made one up. Her father would never know, and it would never matter anyway.
12
Palmer approached the roadblock, with Gary by his side. The barrier was nothing more than three cars, pulled across the road on the southerly side of the bridge. Off in the distance, on the opposite side, there was another checkpoint. I
f anyone managed to break through this roadblock, they would flow into their range of fire. There would be no way to escape, except for falling back or jumping over either side of the bridge, into the cold waters below.
Both Palmer and Gary had their hands raised as they stepped cautiously toward the barrier. Four men dressed in civilian clothing stepped out from behind the vehicles, rifles aimed at them.
A voice boomed. “Don’t move, and keep your hands up.”
Palmer came to a halt, and so did Gary, and all they could do was wait for further instructions. Now wasn’t the time to get shot.
“State your names and business,” came the booming voice. The man was the tallest of the four, and his broad shoulders barely fit his black t-shirt.
Palmer stood with shoulders back and fixed his gaze on the man. “Name’s Black, and this is my friend, Gary. We’re here to talk to Wyatt Weston about his daughter, Brooke.”
The tall man wore a puzzled look. “You have information about Brooke?”
Palmer nodded.
“Okay, give me a minute,” Tall Man said, then pulled a two-way radio from his belt and brought it to his lips as he turned away, making deciphering what he was saying impossible. After a moment of back and forth with whoever was on the other end, the man turned to his colleagues. “They’re clear to enter, but stick to protocol.”
Two of the men approached Palmer and Gary, patting them down and relieving them of their weapons. “Put your hands behind your backs,” one said, and both Palmer and Gary complied. One of the men grabbed Palmer by the shoulder, and before he could react, he quickly found his hands bound behind his back with a zip-tie.
“Is this necessary?” Palmer asked, knowing it damn well was.
“Quiet,” one guard said, then pushed him slightly and Palmer started walking.
EMP Crisis Series (Book 3): Instant Mayhem Page 8
