The last hundred yards to the barricade seemed to take forever to cross. If you asked me later, I would have sworn it took at least five minutes, but I know, given how fast I was driving, it had to have happened in no more than a few seconds. It's funny how time can seem so elastic when the proverbial is hitting the fan.
Indigo put her hand on my thigh, but I hardly noticed. We all hunkered down, Luke and Indigo below the level of the dashboard and me with just my eyes and forehead peeking over so that I could see where I was driving.
A few shots hit the windshield, high on the passenger side, and I felt a couple hitting the cargo box where it rose above the cab but, for the most part, the Chinese fire seemed to be concentrating on the motorcycles behind us.
If they think we are a Chinese military truck, we might still get out of this, the hopeful thought shot through my head.
The soldiers manning the barricade were not like the ones we'd been captured by. They wore simple gray-green trench coats rather than the urban camouflage with padded armor points, and they carried old style rifles. I later learned they were conscripts and had no choice about whether they wanted to be in the army or not, and that the Chinese Army was mostly made up of soldiers just like them.
The armored personnel carrier actually looked like a small tank to me and, to my horror, as I examined it, the turret started to turn in our direction. I saw it inching around in slow motion and I wondered if we'd make it to the barricades before it fired.
We did, barely. We crashed through the wooden barrier and Chinese soldiers leapt out of our way as we careened through. The armored personnel carrier started firing at the motorcycles behind us. I realized that rather than a cannon, the gun on the turret was more like a giant machine gun, and right now it was spitting hot metal death at the Tigers on our tail.
The truck was heading straight for a Humvee and I slammed on the brakes and turned the wheel hard to my left. We skidded sideways, sweeping up three Chinese soldiers who hadn't jumped out of the way quickly enough. They were crunched between us as I sideswiped the personnel carrier, causing both vehicles to shudder.
The truck slewed back to the right and stopped in the center of the intersection with a screech of tires.
Still alive.
“Are you okay?” I asked the other two.
Indigo nodded and a shaken Luke risked a glance through his window as I took stock of our situation.
“Damn, the Tigers are getting massacred, man,” he said. “We should get the hell out of here while the Chinese are distracted.”
I peeked over my shoulder and out of the window. Luke was right. The Tigers were being slaughtered… but not all of them. Well back on the bridge, far enough that the fire of the soldier’s machine guns was ineffectual, an all-too-familiar figure straddled his bike.
Chen, with the last two of his crew on their bikes flanking him, stood sentinel and looked down upon the destruction of the Red Tigers.
I knew it was impossible, but I felt like Chen was staring right at me and I shivered. Finally, as the turret on the armored vehicle began to whir and slowly raise its muzzle toward them, the remaining Chen and his men gunned their bikes and spun around, racing from the scene.
I snapped out of my trance. It was only then that I noticed movement to my left.
“I think it might be too late,” I said, glancing out my window.
A group of six Chinese soldiers were approaching from the rear of the truck on my side, waving their hands and shouting, although their words were lost in the roar of the gunfire going on around us.
“Indigo, hand me the rifle behind you,” I said, sorry that her hand would be leaving my thigh.
I slid the revolver back into my parka pocket. Three soldiers, two with rifles and one armed only with a side arm, approached the cab of the truck, while the other three stayed by the back corner. I ducked down as they approached. The soldier with the handgun – I think he might have been an officer of some sort – shouted something in Chinese just outside the driver’s side door.
I tensed as the door handle twitched and was yanked open.
There was a look of surprise on his face when he saw me scrunched down there with the assault rifle aimed straight at him, at least I tell myself there was when I think back. In reality, everything happened too fast for me to notice.
At this range, I couldn’t miss, and my chest shot went straight through the officer’s body and into the soldier behind him. Both crumpled to the ground.
The third soldier began to bring his own assault rifle up as I swung my weapon towards him. I wasn’t going to be quick enough. I heard a soft spitting sound next to my head and the soldier, wearing his own look of surprise, dropped one hand from his rifle and scrabbled in a futile attempt to remove the crossbow arrow embedded in his larynx.
He dropped to his knees and slowly fell forward, squeezing his trigger as he fell. One bullet pinged into the metal of the dash right by my head, another into the floor, and the last of the three round burst triggered by his death spasm slapped harmlessly into the roadway beneath the cab.
Reeling, I saw Luke rack another short arrow into the crossbow. I shook my head to clear it and leaned out of the door to see one of the soldiers by the back of the truck aiming his rifle my way. There were three flashes and the open door jerked behind me. I brought my own rifle around and returned fire. One of the three rounds found its mark and the soldier fell, grabbing at his thigh. Behind me, there was another spitting sound, and I heard a body hit the asphalt.
Luke pulled back from his window.
“Go!” he yelled.
I slammed the driver's side door and tried to restart the truck – it had stalled when we'd skidded to a stop. Despite my sense of impending doom, the truck turned over on the second try, and I slammed my foot on the gas and turned left. We shot down the road that would take us back to the freeway, leaving the firefight behind.
Part Two: Decisions
7
I couldn't hear it but Indigo told me afterward the gunfire on the bridge had started to die down, so we probably got out of there at just the right time. The truck wobbled just as we were losing sight of the Chinese checkpoint. It felt as if a gust of wind had caught the side of the cargo box, but then we were clear. My head hurt from the roar of the gunfire and constant adrenalin, but I knew the others were feeling it just as much as I was.
“We need to stop and check everybody in the back is okay,” Indigo yelled over the cold wind howling through the broken windows.
I kept my foot planted on the accelerator.
“We will! Just not yet.”
Stopping this close to the checkpoint didn't seem like a good idea.
“We need to do it soon,” she insisted.
I nodded.
I drove fifteen minutes at full speed, which didn’t actually seem very fast in the damaged truck, but at least there had been no signs of pursuit.
“There’s the on-ramp,” said Indigo, pointing into the distance.
“Still no one on our tail?” I asked Luke.
“No.”
There was a boarded up old gas station with a large garage behind it a quarter of a mile before the on-ramp. I slowed the truck.
“We’ll stop here,” I said.
I turned into the driveway without further consultation, but I hadn’t slowed enough, and the truck pitched dangerously. For just a brief second I thought it might roll onto its side. Indigo gave a short squeal as she slid hard into Luke, squashing him against the door. I braked with a jolt and we were all propelled forward in our seats.
“Dude! What the hell?!” yelled Luke.
“Sorry,” I said, looking sheepishly at them.
I put my foot carefully on the gas again and eased the truck around behind the gas station to the garage behind it. The doors of the bigger building were open and it was pretty much empty apart from a few old barrels and assorted machinery. I drove the truck inside and pulled up.
Luke and Indigo and I look
ed at each other, their faces mirrored what I felt. Relief mixed with worry about our passengers.
“Come on.”
We jumped out and ran to the back of the truck. Indigo went to the cargo door of the truck as Luke and I shut the big doors of the garage, concealing the truck from prying eyes. Turning, I got my first look at the cargo box of the truck, and my stomach lurched.
The back door of the truck, remarkably, only had a few holes in it, but the sides were pretty chewed up.
Did the packed food and gear protect them? I wondered doubtfully to myself.
There was a line of five holes near the back on the driver’s side. They were much larger than the other bullet holes, as were the matching set of exit holes on the passenger side. I remembered the truck shuddering as we were escaping the checkpoint, and my mind flashed to the turret mounted weapon on the personnel carrier.
Luke told me that the weapon it had mounted was most likely a 25 millimeter auto-cannon, firing armor-piercing rounds. Luckily the sides of our truck would have been like paper to those puppies and they passed right through it. We were very lucky to have made it out of there with the truck intact.
Luke and I moved quickly to join Indigo at the back of the truck. Luke banged on the door with his fist.
“Is everybody all right in there?” he called. “I’m going to open it up.”
There was no response, not that we could hear anyway, and I moved to stand next to him as he readied himself to push up the roller door. He looked pale. I didn’t blame him. I was even more afraid of what we might find when we opened the door now that I’d seen the damage to the truck.
Luke undid the latch and pulled the door up.
It clattered noisily upward and revealed the cargo bay of the truck. It was a mess. Supplies had tipped around and now lay strewn across the floor. Our people looked dazed as they struggled to move boxes and rise off the floor. Everyone I could see was shielding their eyes in the sudden light. Some were moaning and I could see everybody except Karen, John, Mark, and Brooke.
The ride must have been hell on four wheels for those in the back, what with crashing through the barrier and into the armored personnel carrier, not to mention auto-cannon fire ripping through it.
“Are you all okay?” I asked, looking around and desperately trying to spot the missing.
“Most of us are just a bit bruised and battered,” Sonny said. “I think,” he winced as he shoved a box containing extra bedding off of his legs. Sonny still looked weak but, miraculously, much better than he had been the last time I’d seen him early that morning.
“Where’s Brooke?” Ben’s voice caused me to glance in his direction. “She was standing right next to me.”
“Let’s get this stuff moved and look for anybody who is missing,” I said. “Just pile it all out and to the side of the truck. We can repack it later.”
I motioned for Luke to join me and we climbed up into the back of the truck to help people out. Ben stayed inside to help while the others limped down from the truck.
Ben found Brooke quickly. Her hand emerged from a pile of debris and she waved quite calmly, leading him to her. She was fine apart from a twisted ankle and a sore knee. Relieved, I continued pulling stuff away from the front left corner of the truck and came across another hand.
It was a girl’s hand, pale and limp.
As I pulled away tins and boxes, I saw blood. Lots of it. I knew Karen was dead when I gently revealed her face. Thankfully, her eyes were closed. I felt sure they would have stared at me accusingly if they had been open. There was a bullet wound in her chest and it was obvious she had been killed instantly. I finished uncovering her, tears of rage stinging my eyes and then turned to help Luke. We had to make the living a priority and it was possible that Mark and John were still alive.
They were. I think Mark had been hit by a round from the personnel carrier’s cannon. He was gravely injured and his left arm was barely hanging on by a few threads of tendon and skin. He was unconscious, but the bleeding wasn't as bad as I would have thought. Both Luke and Sonny explained that the auto-cannon probably had tracer rounds mixed in, which may have partially cauterized Mark’s wound on its way through.
John had not been hit by gunfire, but was in a bad way, as well. The falling supplies had crashed right on top of him and his leg was caught under a large bin of canned food. It was clear the shin bone in his right leg was broken. I’m no doctor, but even I know that a person’s leg is not supposed to have an extra bend between the knee and the ankle.
We laid John and Mark out on a training mat that we pulled from the truck. Brooke and Samara tended to them while Luke and I climbed into the truck and covered Karen with a sheet we had found in the garage. We gently lifted her up and out of the truck, and I heard the other girls crying as they watched us carrying her. Sonny walked with us as we carried Karen out through the side door of the garage and to a small stand of trees behind the gas station. When we got to the trees, we paused.
“There,” Sonny said, nodding his head toward an oak tree on our left. The earth had eroded away from the base of the trunk, leaving a cavity underneath framed by exposed roots. “That'll make a good resting place for poor Karen.”
I nodded, not trusting myself to speak.
We carried her over and placed her inside. It was tight and it took us a long time to maneuver her into the cavity, but we finally managed to arrange her body in a halfway respectable fashion. When we were done, both Luke and I sat back on our heels, catching our breath.
“She’s with Arthur again,” Sonny said. “Hopefully, both of them will be happier for it.”
I grunted a non-committal reply. My doubts about the existence of God had also led me to question the notion of an afterlife.
Death is strange in this new world. Before the Flu, we had such a fear of it. It was always hidden and behind the scenes. We talked about it only in neutral terms, ‘he passed away’ or she had ‘gone to a better place.’ We sent our dead away to be prettied up, made to look better than they had when they were alive, just so when the funeral came around, everybody could remember a perfect image of their loved one.
Then we locked them away in a box underground or burned them to a small pile of ashes and hid them away, where they would be forgotten most of the time, only to be remembered on rare occasions or special dates. But now, in this new world, death is ever present, and it is everywhere. The reminders of death are impossible to avoid, just like death itself.
The thing that surprises me is how quickly we all became used to it. Even then, while Sonny, Luke, and I laid Karen to rest beneath the oak tree, I knew I had become numb to the idea of death. It was simply a fact of life and would continue to be so. I had no illusions that it would ever be otherwise again ... at least not for a long time and I was suddenly angry again. I didn’t want to be used to death, didn’t want to get to the point where it meant nothing.
“We should get back to the others…” Sonny said.
“No, wait ... can you go and get the others, Luke. I think we should stop to say a few words for Karen.”
The day was still gray, and the temperature seemed to be hovering just above freezing. Even though there was no sign of the thick fog which had made the morning’s drive such a chore, the clouds looked ready to begin dumping more snow on us at any moment. Within a few minutes, we were all gathered around the makeshift grave. The girls were weeping before I even began to speak.
“We’re here to say goodbye to Karen, and also Arthur, who we weren’t able to bring with us. They were both ... great. And I can say personally, and I think also on behalf of Brooke, Ben, and Luke, that they both made us feel welcome at the academy. I don’t know what waits for them on their final journey, but I hope they find peace wherever it is ... that’s all, I guess. Thanks.”
We started to shuffle away and I saw Indigo suddenly dash off toward a patch of scrappy looking yellow flowers that were growing through the cracked pavement. I waited while the others we
nt into the garage.
She retrieved a handful and went back to Karen’s resting place, gently placing them on the blanket. She gave me a sad smile as she stood and came toward me. We didn’t say anything; both of us knew there was nothing to say. We walked a few feet in silence, and then her hand found mine. My heart nearly stopped, but I told myself it was just one human comforting another, even as I hoped it was a sign of something more.
After the injured and dead had been removed from the truck, we re-entered the garage, pulled the doors closed and started repacking it again. When we were nearly done, I walked out through a side door a little way into the overgrown yard and examined the gray sky, listening for the sounds of helicopters or vehicles. Sonny emerged from the garage, joining me. He was looking better, and I marveled at his powers of recovery. It had been less than 24 hours since he’d been shot.
“That could be trouble,” I said to Sonny, looking at the overcast sky. “If it snows and the Chinese Army is looking for us, it’ll be easy to follow our trail in fresh snow.”
“Yeah, it could create a problem,” Sonny replied. “And they will be after us for sure, but there’s no reason to worry about it. We’ve got enough things to worry about that we can control, or at least influence. Weather isn’t one of them – nor are the Chinese.”
“I guess that makes sense,” I said.
We headed back into the garage in silence, lost in our thoughts. I can’t speak for Sonny, but I was thinking about what he’d said, about only worrying over the things we could control, and my mind had gone straight to the problem of who would be coming with us.
Mark was in a bad way, and it wasn’t a stretch to think we might be bringing him out to lie next to Karen before the day was through. He was still unconscious when we got back inside but Samara reported his heartbeat was strong. Still, he was in no condition to travel. Nor was John.
The America Falls Series: Books 1-3 : America Falls Box Set 1 Page 20
