by Alex Mersey
“I know.” He pressed one hand down to push off from. “I’m okay, let’s just go before…before…” His head lolled to the side and his elbow bent, straining to hold his weight let alone push up.
“Chris!” Rachel glared at him.
“I’m trying,” Chris answered, trying to get his t-shirt off to use as a bandage. His left arm wasn’t cooperating. Pins and needles shot up and down with prickling bursts of numb and shock. “My arm’s a little stiff.”
“Tell that to my hip bone where you jumped me!” She came around to pluck at him, tugging his t-shirt roughly to whirl him about, and then her abrupt touch was gone. “My God, your arm’s a little stiff? Stiff, Chris? Are you kidding me? There’s a hole in your back, Chris, a gaping, bleeding hole! Did you even know you’d been shot?”
She spun out from behind him. “The next time you decide to jump in front of a bullet, don’t!” She ripped her spaghetti strap tee over her head with spurious jerks. “Just don’t! You two are both jackasses, you know that?”
“That’s rather harsh,” Chris ground out, fed up with her pissy attitude and the pain. Oh, and getting shot. A part of him had suspected all along, but he hadn’t wanted to know for sure, he really hadn’t, and know he did. Thanks, Rachel.
“She’s just scared,” Bran said, his words floating out on shallow breaths rather than spoken, his color tinted ash gray. “This is just what she does. Her temper goes off like a rocket.”
“Of course I’m scared!” Rachel balled her top into a wad and pressed it to his side. “You should try it sometime, then maybe you’d think twice before rushing a man with a shotgun pointed at you.”
“Rachel, listen to me.” Bran pushed her hand away and took over holding the makeshift stopper. “I’m not going to make the walk to town. You and Chris need to go.”
“Don’t tell me what to do.”
“You can bring help.”
Chris stepped in. “No one’s doing anything until we’re farther away from the farm and those—” He cut off at the sound of an approaching vehicle, staring dumbfounded as a jeep rounded the curve in the road up ahead.
Two people up front, more in the back, closing in at a decent speed on the open stretch of clear road. Literally closing in on them, since they’d been walking down the middle of the road when Bran had dropped.
Chris stood there, arms hanging at his side. It was an army jeep, so he was pretty sure it wouldn’t run them down. He thought about flagging it, then decided to save his energy. Rachel was stripped to her bra. Bran was bleeding out on the road. They were obviously in deep trouble and the jeep would either go off-road to drive around them or stop to help.
The jeep slowed, cruising to a halt alongside them with the guy in the passenger seat shouting out, “He’s been shot.”
“They’ve both been shot!” Rachel shouted back.
She was still hunched beside Bran, keeping the pressure on his wound. And propping him up, Chris realized. In the minute it had taken the jeep to reach them, Bran had passed out.
The driver, army, left the engine running as he jumped out. “How bad is it?”
“He’s lost a lot of blood,” Chris said, shaky with relief. He went down on a knee beside Bran. “There’s a doctor in Little Falls. It’s only another mile or so down this road.”
“That’s where we’re going.” He shooed Chris aside so he could get in there.
The other guy stripped his t-shirt and tossed it at Rachel as he took over at her side of Bran. “We’ve got him.”
Rachel pulled the shirt on, tagging their heels as they half-carried, half-dragged Bran’s lifeless body, but Chris stayed back, out of the way. Whatever got Bran in the jeep and to Little Falls quicker.
One of the women packed out of the back of the jeep. Blond hair feathered onto a pixie face. She didn’t look that young, but she hopped the rear door like it was nothing and made a beeline for him. “You were shot, too?”
“I’ll be okay.” He twisted with her, keeping his back view to himself. “It’s a short walk into town.”
She glanced toward the jeep. With Bran now slumped into the passenger side and the back seat crammed solid with her friends and at least two oversized rucksacks that he could see, there wasn’t space to swat a fly.
“Johnnie, come on, we’ll walk with Sean,” she said, waving a small boy out the jeep as she turned back to Chris. “You can take my place.”
As if he’d take a woman and kid’s seat. Especially with the sunrise farm duo on the loose. “Thanks, but that’s not necessary.”
“It’s not a problem.”
“Actually, it might be,” Chris said. “The men who shot at us are still in the area.”
The driver was already climbing behind the wheel, but the other guy heard and scooped the boy back into the jeep before his feet had hit the ground. “How many and how close?”
“Two.” Chris jabbed a thumb toward the oak trees that nestled the farmhouse, too close for his liking.
“Lynn, you’re riding.” He reached over to delve behind the front seats and came up with a rifle, eyes scanning for the threat.
Chris hurried over to where Rachel was bent over the jeep door and Bran, keeping the pressure on his wound. “Here.” He fit himself in there, moving his hands over hers and the soaked ball of cotton. “You climb in.”
“What about you?” Her frown burrowed into him. “I’m fine to walk and you need to get your ass to doc Nate.”
There was no way he’d leave her behind for maybe another round with stetson and grizzly. “The only place is Bran’s lap and that is not happening. Get in, Rachel. Or we could stand here and argue,” he added when it looked like that was exactly what she had in mind, “while Bran bleeds out.”
Enough said.
A couple of seconds later, the jeep sped off and it was just him and… “I’m Chris, by the way.”
“Sean.” The man dipped his head Chris’s way as they started walking. “Exactly how worried are we about these shooters?”
Chris scowled at him, not really scowling at him, just the mask ironed onto his face from the constant pain lancing his shoulder and spiraling up his neck.
“They’re back there, on a farm.” He looked over that way, searching the trees for movement. “Sunrise Farm. But they shot at us from the porch… I don’t know, a good ten, fifteen minutes ago, and I didn’t see them come down. We haven’t seen anything of them since.”
“Protecting their land?”
“That’s not their farm,” Chris informed him, picking up his pace. “I don’t think they were welcome guests, either.”
When he realized Sean wasn’t keeping up, he slowed, took a proper look at the guy. Tape across the forehead, brown hair plastered there with sweat and what might still be some blood. Favoring his left leg. Spine slightly hunched. “Looks like you ran into trouble yourself.”
“Something like that.”
Chris waited for more, but seemed that was it. They walked in silence for the next few minutes, his thoughts turned to Bran, dread eating away at him until he felt himself slipping out of himself, into disconnected nightmare territory.
He shook it off. Stay real. Sent Sean a sideways glance. “That guy driving the jeep, he’s army, right? Is there a base around here? Is that where you guys are from?”
“We were picked up along the road, just like you,” Sean said. “But yeah, that was Private Ritter. He said they’ve set up camp in the town we’re headed for, Little Falls. They moved in this afternoon, apparently.”
“Are you being serious?” Chris’ voice pitched in disbelief and hope. “The army’s in town?”
“I wouldn’t get too excited about it.” Sean gave him a look. “It’s just a small unit. A satellite company, I think he called it.”
Too late. And what the hell, he didn’t care how small the unit was, it only took one man and whatever chain of command he was in contact with to make contact with the president. Knowing Williams, he was already all over that.
<
br /> There was no immediate presence of armed forces when they entered Little Falls at the crossroads from the north, although there was a definite change in the air. Small groups huddled on corners and in front of the stores, speaking in hushed tones. And a lot of foot traffic down by Nathan’s end of the main road through town. The direction from which he caught the glimpse of brunette, another glimpse of long legs and short shorts, then the whole of Rachel, baggy t-shirt hanging to her knees, pushing through the tide.
She looked up, saw him, but she didn’t wave, didn’t come charging at him like a spitting ball of fury. She reached the picket fence of Nathan’s house and stopped, waiting for him.
Pulse thundering at his temples, Chris broke into a run. “Bran?”
“We took him to the medic tent.” Her voice shook, her eyes blurred with unshed tears as she fluttered a hand at the south fields behind her. “They’ve got some type of field surgery set up there.”
“Is Nathan there?”
“No, I meant the army, they’ve set—”
“Yeah, I heard about that.” He looked at her, the fiery tiger whittled down to fragile bone and flesh, and didn’t need to ask.
His gut twisted with the stupid, uselessness of it all.
What danger did three teenagers pose to two armed men? They didn’t need to shoot. Bran didn’t need to go charging up to the porch.
It was all so stupid.
Useless.
“Rachel, I’m so sorry.”
She grimaced, chewed on her inner cheek. “But I think he’ll be okay. They’re stitching him up and they’ve given him blood. His dad’s there, was already there watching the camp go up when we drove through, and he has the right blood type.”
What? “He’s going to be okay?”
“That’s what the doctor told his dad, said he was lucky that the bullet missed his stomach.”
“What’s the matter with you?” Chris blurted, his head spinning and his stomach knotted even worse from the emotional whiplash. “When we thought he was dying, you acted like you wanted to kill him faster. Now he’s going to be okay and you look like your world’s just ended. I thought he was dead.”
“What’s the matter with me?” Some of her grit returned. “You and Bran got yourselves shot right in front of me. That’s what’s the matter with me.” Her eyes lifted past him as Sean finally joined them. She pointed at Nathan’s front door. “I think your people are in there. The army doctor was busy with Bran and he asked the driver to bring them here.”
Sean glanced at the picket-fenced house, then back at Rachel. “How’s your friend doing?”
“He’s going to make it.”
“Good.” Sean looked at her another second, then swept that look over Chris with a nod as he turned onto the house’s path. “I’m glad to hear that.”
Rachel turned to go, too.
“Rachel, I’m sorry.” Chris blew out his irritableness on a shallow breath. “I shouldn’t have gone off at you like that.”
“It’s been that kind of day.” She paused only long enough to say goodbye. “I’ve gotta go find my mother before she hears what happened. See you around, Chris, and get Doc Nate to take that bullet out your shoulder before it grows roots!”
Chris stood there, watching until she hooked a left down a side street, smiling like some idiot that thought he had any reason to smile for. The goofy moment didn’t last, not with the prospect of what awaited him. Williams had let him off the leash for one single day and he’d gotten himself shot.
And Williams didn’t make him wait.
The front door flew open to the man’s long, purposeful strides. He saw Chris and the intensity of his expression eased. “I just heard there was a shoot-out north of town.” Then he saw Bran’s blood all over Chris and his face hardened to stone.
“It’s not mine,” Chris said. Not the blood he could see, that is. His feet dragged, in no hurry to reach the end of the path. “I’m fine.”
“You weren’t hit?”
“Um…” Maybe he could just live with the bullet in his shoulder. Williams need never know.
Williams cursed and moved like a flash, putting his body between Chris and any potential threat from the road.
“They didn’t follow us into town,” Chris protested.
“You know that for a fact?”
“I think I would have noticed,” he muttered, but he cast a paranoid look around, anyway, as Williams shepherded him indoors.
- 25 -
Chris
They were seated at the kitchen table. Chris with a glass of freshly squeezed orange juice in front of him. Williams staring at him patiently, rolling the slug removed from Chris’ shoulder between his thumb and index finger.
It was a clean wound, apparently. Nathan had cut the bullet out and bandaged the wound, and then handed Chris into Williams’ aftercare, far more worried about his other patient, one of the girls who’d been travelling in the jeep with Sean.
Chris rubbed at his arm where some feeling had started to prickle back after the local anesthetic injection. Sipped on his orange juice. Ran his tongue over the fleshy bits caught in his teeth.
And still, Williams stared and rolled the bullet over and over with that methodical rhythm.
“I’ve told you everything,” Chris said.
“I know.”
“We didn’t do anything stupid. Farmer Brown asked us to collect a cartload of eggs and milk for the town.”
“I know,” he said, his voice flat, his stare steady, his face blank.
He’d retreated into deep, unyielding secret service mode where betraying a thought or emotion was akin to treason.
Chris sighed. “So, the army’s here?”
“A Captain Davis is in command,” Williams said. “We spoke, but all I got from him is an affirmative on the electromagnetic pulse. It’s nationwide, possibly global, and resulted from a deliberate strike at our technology from the Silvers. That, and our chain of command is definitely still in place, all the way up to the president.”
“And he’s able to make contact with my dad?”
“Not directly, he’s not that high up the totem pole,” Williams said and, perceptive as ever, added, “The plan hasn’t changed, Chris. I’m getting you to Colorado.”
Good. That wasn’t the part of the plan he wanted changed. “Yes, but when we set out, the trip would only have taken a few days,” Chris said. “Now we’re looking at weeks. I’d just like to speak to my dad and we don’t know how long it will be before we get another opportunity.
The seconds crawled by as Williams looked at him, then the bullet action paused mid-spin. “That would mean being stuck here a while longer.”
He was considering it, and Williams never wasted time considering something unless he deemed it full of merit.
Chris grinned. “More time for you to steal a car.”
“We have no idea what the communications situation looks like,” Williams said, flat out ignoring the stab of humor. “But, okay, I’ll have another word with Captain Davis in the morning, see if that’s an option.”
“Thank you.”
Williams pressed the bullet to the table with a finger and stood.
“Where are you going?”
“Drink your orange juice,” was all Williams said as he walked out the kitchen. “Doctor’s orders.”
Chris grabbed his prickling shoulder and rotated the ball to loosen some of the stiffness, his thoughts already reaching for the impossible. He didn’t want to return D.C. He wasn’t even sure his dad would still be there. With the power out, the shelter couldn’t still be operational, could it?
No, he didn’t want to go to the president. What he really wanted was for the president to come to him. To change his mind, to choose Chris and Colorado above country, just this once. And maybe not even that. If operations from all the government bunkers had been voided with the EMP, then some research station in the mountains was just as good a place to run the country from as anywhere else.
It was a slim hope, reaching for the impossible, but Chris wouldn’t let it go until he’d at least spoken to his dad.
Lost in those kind of thoughts, it took far too long for his brain to unscramble and answer the question Williams had avoided.
He jumped up from the table so abruptly, the chair rocked back and crashed. Williams might have overlooked the sunrise gang if they were moving out in the morning. But they weren’t.
Lynn was on the floor in the lounge, playing a game of snap with her son.
“Have you seen Williams?” he called.
She glanced up. “He passed through to the front. Everything okay?”
“Yeah, thanks.” Chris strode into the short passage. Was he jumping to conclusions? Williams acted swiftly, like a reflex, when the moment called for it, but he was trained to assess and organize a cohesive strategy if time allowed.
He pushed open the door that led through the consulting room to the clinic.
Sean was there, turning from the window as Chris barged inside.
“Is Williams in there?” Chris nudged his chin toward the clinic door.
“No, he left the house about ten minutes ago.”
Chris marched up to the window, took a look outside. “Did you see which way he went?”
Sean gestured north.
Shit. Heart thumping, Chris’ eyes went to the rifle slung across the man’s chest. “Could I borrow that? I swear I’ll return it.”
Sean pressed a hand over his chest, over the barrel. “You know how to shoot one of these?”
“I’ll figure it out.”
“Then that would be a no.”
Thanks for nothing. Chris spun about and stormed out the room, out the front door, made it to the gate at the end of the path before Sean reached him.
“What the hell’s going on?”
Chris glared at him, didn’t pause for breath as he marched down the road. He would have sprinted, except his legs had hollowed out and his bones felt like jelly. He should have finished the damn orange juice. “Williams went after those shooters at Sunrise Farm.”
“And you’re going after him?” Sean grabbed his arm, not stopping him, just slowing him down. “You know that saying, don’t bring a…well, your bare hands to a gun fight.”
