She sprinted with a strength she had never felt before, her legs pumping up and down and her arms swinging back and forth. Even though Hokies was easily a foot taller, she beat the woman to the trees by nearly two full seconds.
As soon as he entered the tree line, Samantha ducked under a large briar, spun around a pine tree, and plowed through waist high bushes. Hokies was right behind her but ran neck first into the hanging briar. The sharp barbs pierced her skin, and she nearly fell backward as she stopped dead in her tracks, screaming in pain.
“Come back here!” she shrieked.
Samantha never looked back, ducking and dodging her way through the intricate maze of trees and brush.
Carefully pulling the briars away from her skin, Hokies turned back toward her house.
“Come quick!” she shouted. “The girl! She’s over here!”
Tanner pushed Brother Lands out of the sheriff’s office, one hand on the gaff, and the other gripping the crown of the man’s hair. A tall Mexican man stood a few feet away, his back facing the door to the courthouse. He held a Remington 1100, 12-gauge shotgun and wore bandolier of ammunition hanging diagonally across his chest like Pancho Villa. With a thirty-inch barrel and a total length of almost five feet, the shotgun seemed enormous in the confines of the building’s entryway.
As soon as they stepped out, Pancho said, “What the hell do you have in his mouth?”
Tanner pulled lightly on the hook.
“This is what I call ‘life insurance.’”
The man suddenly seemed uncertain. He hadn’t expected to see Lands come out of the room, and certainly not with a giant hook in his mouth.
“What do you want?”
Tanner shrugged. “Nothing really. I came out to tell you that the girl’s gone.”
“Bullshit. She’s inside.”
Tanner eased the hook forward about an inch, and pulled back on Lands’ hair, like he was a talking puppet.
“Tell him.”
“She’s gone,” he gurgled. “Out the window.”
Pancho leaned around, trying to peer into the sheriff’s office.
“It’s true,” said Tanner. “Now the question is what do we do next?”
Before Pancho could answer, a bony man with a mop of red hair burst through the courthouse door.
“She’s running...” He struggled to catch his breath and get the words out. “Through the trees behind the courthouse.”
Tanner immediately drove Brother Lands forward, the gaff cutting into the back of his throat. They slammed into Pancho, pressing him against the courthouse wall and pushing the shotgun barrel high into the air.
The red-haired man came up behind Tanner, but he hesitated with his arms outstretched, unsure of exactly what to do with a man who was twice his size. Tanner answered the question for him by spinning around with an elbow strike to the side of the man’s head. The single blow took his legs out from under him, and he collapsed onto the floor.
Pancho shouted for Brother Lands to get off him, but the gaff was still cutting into his mouth, and he couldn’t move in any direction without it slicing deeper into his throat.
Tanner whipped the handle end of the gaff around like a pugil stick, catching Pancho in the eye. The torqueing motion poked the hook through Lands’ cheek, and his protests turned into painful shrieks. Tanner continued leaning into both men, pinning them against the wall. But the exertion was taking it out of him, and he knew that, sooner or later, one of them would manage to slip out from his three-man wall sandwich.
Deciding that it was better to control the situation, he shoved the gaff sideways, driving Lands away on his tiptoes as he followed the metal hook out into the room. Before Pancho could take advantage of the space, Tanner immediately closed the gap and slammed back up against him.
Realizing that holding onto the shotgun was doing nothing more than tying up his hands, Pancho finally dropped the weapon. Shifting to one side, he managed to drive a knee up between them. That put enough space to enable him to slide sideways along the wall and finally free himself.
Tanner pressed ahead, firing a quick jab with his left hand, which immediately bloodied the man’s nose. Before he could deliver a more powerful cross, Pancho brought up a short, but effective uppercut. The blow caught Tanner under the chin, and it rocked his head back a few inches. Rather than retreat, Tanner whipped his head forward, head-butting Pancho on the bridge of his nose. More blood began to flow down the Mexican’s face, and he stepped back, trying to collect himself.
Tanner shot out a roundhouse kick, his shin landing solidly against the side of Pancho’s knee. The leg buckled and ligaments tore free. To his credit, the man didn’t fall. Instead, he reached forward with both hands, hoping to change the fight from a standing one to one on the ground. Tanner parried his hands away and sliced up with an elbow strike to the man’s face. The blow knocked out Pancho’s two front teeth and split his upper lip all the way to the tip of his nose.
Refusing to give up, he pummeled Tanner with everything he had. Tanner reached forward with both hands, popped his thumbs into Pancho’s eyes, and pulled his head down into a tremendous knee strike. The blow instantly broke the man’s neck and sent blood spraying all the way up to the ceiling. Tanner tossed him aside and turned back to face the other two men.
The skinny redhead was still on the ground, conscious now, but unable, or perhaps just unwilling, to stand back up. Lands had managed to finally free himself from the gaff, but he was moaning, holding both hands over the hole in the side of his face.
Tanner reached down and picked up the shotgun. It weighed almost nine pounds and felt absolutely enormous. He pressed his thumb up into the ammunition tube. It was tight, which meant that it contained four shells. He eased back the operating handle and saw a fifth shell in the pipe.
Five wouldn’t be enough. He walked to Pancho and yanked the bandolier up over his head. There were easily thirty rounds in it. Enough for what had to be done.
Without saying a word, he walked over and beaned the skinny man with the butt of the shotgun. When he turned around, Lands was staring at him with venom in his eyes. Tanner lowered the business end of the shotgun toward him.
“On your feet, asshole.”
“You poked a hole in my cheek,” he said in a garbled voice.
Tanner motioned with the shotgun.
“Up.”
Lands slowly got to his feet.
Tanner moved closer and grabbed him by the throat.
“What did you want the girl for?”
Lands didn’t answer.
Tanner squeezed until he felt the man’s windpipe starting to collapse. Tears poured down Lands’ face, and he finally motioned for him to stop.
“She’s—” He stopped and swallowed, trying to get his voice to work. “She’s the one,” he choked.
“The one what?”
“The one our Lord told me was coming. The one He demands we give to him.”
“Demands as in what—kills?”
“She’s the one,” he pleaded. “He saved us. Without another offering, we’ll be afflicted like all the others. He told me this is the only way to ensure our salvation.”
“Then I guess you’re all in for one hell of a disappointment.”
Tanner squeezed Lands’ throat again, but this time, he didn’t let go until he no longer felt the soft thudding of the man’s pulse.
Samantha was no stranger to fear. She had been afraid almost her entire life. Whether it was being called on in class or humiliated by school bullies, fear never left her. She would have thought that an apocalypse would only have made it worse, but surprisingly, it didn’t. Instead, it had turned fear into a more cyclical event. Sometimes it was so close that she felt unable to move, petrified as if Medusa had cast eyes upon her. But other times, like when she and Tanner were cutting wisecracks or enjoying the warmth of a fire, there came a welcome relief from the fear.
This underst
anding came to her as she hid in the nook of a huge oak tree, desperately trying to catch her breath. She had run directly west, deeper into the woods and away from the townspeople. Unfortunately, that meant she now needed to turn south to get to the burned-out school. If she did that, though, she might give up the small lead she had built over those chasing her.
She could no longer see or hear the woman with the Hokies sweatshirt, but Samantha had no doubt that she was still behind her somewhere. In the distance, she heard the sounds of dogs barking. They seemed to be coming in her direction.
“I can’t outrun a dog,” she said, looking around for a place to hide. There were plenty of trees, bushes, and rocks, but nothing that would keep a dog from finding her.
She had an idea. Dogs track by smell, right? she thought. If there’s a strong smell, they’d go to it rather than to her.
She stepped away from the tree, moved to a small bush, and pulled down her pants. She let a few drops of urine fall on the ground beside the bush and then quickly shuffled over to another bush. She did this to half a dozen spots in the area before pulling her pants back up. She took a quick whiff of the air. It could have been her imagination, but she thought she detected a faint ammonia-like odor.
Satisfied, she turned and started running south.
Tanner peeked out through the partially open courthouse door. Other than a single unarmed man standing across the street in front of the church, no one else was in sight. He didn’t know how much time he had before they caught Samantha. Perhaps they already had. Perhaps they were inside the church about to plunge a dagger into her heart to satisfy their bloodthirsty deity.
He stepped from the courthouse with the shotgun raised to his shoulder.
“You there!” he shouted to the man across the street. “On your knees!”
The man whipped his head around and started to shout for help.
Tanner squeezed the trigger, and a load of buckshot knocked the man off his feet. With the shotgun still up, he swept left and right. The street was empty.
He brought the weapon down and ran to the church. The bright red door was closed. Without checking to see if it was locked, he kicked to the right of the handle. The door flew open as the jamb gave way. He swung the giant shotgun up and stepped into the church.
The room was dark and slightly smoky. A dozen empty pews had been pushed up against the walls. In the center of the room was a long foldout card table covered with a blood-soaked white sheet. An ornate menorah sat at one end of the table, all seven candles freshly lit, and a bloodstained butcher knife sat at the other. Behind the altar, a full-sized crucifix had been flipped over and duct-taped in place so the corpus of Christ was hanging upside down. Encircling everything was a huge white pentagram painted on the wooden floor, the bucket of paint still sitting in a corner.
Tanner stood there for a moment, coming to grips with what he was seeing. He wasn’t sure exactly what he had expected, but the crude sacrificial altar was not only revolting—it was amateurish. Devil worshippers were bad enough, but even they were expected to have some measure of professional pride.
Without even thinking about it, he walked over to the altar and toppled the candelabra. Flames licked the wooden crucifix, and within seconds, it was ablaze. When he turned back around, a man with a scruffy beard and a woman wearing a Hokies sweatshirt were standing in the doorway. They hurried into the church, screaming for him to stop.
Holding the shotgun at waist level, Tanner shot them both. Blood sprayed onto the walls as buckshot ripped into them. All of it combined—the blood, the huge pentagram, and the heat of the burning inverted crucifix—made him feel like he was standing at the gates of Hell, striking down demons as they tried to cross over.
He pulled three rounds from the bandolier and shoved them into the weapon. Stepping over the bodies, he moved out into the street. He was in a killing mood, and God help anyone who got in his way.
From the edge of the trees, Samantha saw the burned-out school up ahead. Whether the fire had been intentional or accidental, she couldn’t tell. However it had happened, it had done a number on the building. The roof was almost completely missing, only the scorched rafters remaining.
She ducked down and rushed across the open grassy field. She had to cross in front of two small brick houses, but fortunately, neither appeared to be occupied. She continued on past the long gymnasium. The building was made of sheet metal, and the paint had blistered from the heat of the fire. One of the basketball goals still hung from the ceiling, its rim charred and black.
She made her way around to the back of the school and entered through a burned-out doorway. The inside of the building had been gutted by the fire, and the burnt smell was nearly overpowering. What remained of the walls was covered with thick black soot. The ceiling was completely missing in most places, and every window had burst from the intense heat. Fortunately, the floor was set on concrete and seemed safe enough to walk across.
She stepped carefully around nails, broken desks, and parts of the collapsing structure. A badly burned body lay in one corner, curled up, like the person was trying to hide from the fire. Samantha bent down and picked up the partially burned cover of a book. Charlotte’s Web. She smiled, remembering the story of a pig and a spider that became the best of friends.
Her mind turned to Tanner. She grinned. Surely he was the pig.
She gently put the cover back down and continued picking her way through the school. She came to a classroom that hadn’t been as badly burned as the rest of the building. Small desks were still arranged in neat rows, facing a melted pull-down projector screen. She moved to one of the chairs and sat, expecting it to comfort her. Strangely, it felt only small and confining.
Samantha ran her hands along the top of the desk, wondering if she’d ever go to school again. She liked school. Liked learning. It was something she was good at. But like Tanner had said, studying pilgrims, long division, and igneous rocks didn’t seem so important anymore.
Things were different now. She and Tanner were living in a different world, at least until she got back to her mother. She closed her eyes and imagined her mom’s face. It was still clear in her mind. She missed her mom’s smile, her soft kiss at night. Tanner would never do that. Well, probably not.
What would her mom think of him? She covered a smile and started to giggle. The giggle turned into a warm laugh, which was cut short by the sound of gunshots in the distance.
Tanner walked west on Fairground Street, heading toward the house behind which Samantha had disappeared. Fifty or sixty yards ahead, three men emerged from the tree line. One carried a rifle, and the other two had handguns. Samantha was not with them.
Tanner stopped, brought the shotgun to his shoulder and fired. The nine double-aught pellets spread about four feet apart, peppering the man holding the rifle and winging the man to his right. Both men fell to the ground. The third man brought up a small semi-automatic handgun and began to fire wildly in Tanner’s direction. Nothing even came close to hitting him.
Tanner fired again, knocking the man off his feet. He continued toward them, feeding fresh rounds into the belly of the shotgun. The man who had been winged was still alive and fumbling with bloody fingers to get a revolver out of its holster.
“Hands!” yelled Tanner, pointing the massive shotgun barrel at him.
The man raised his bloody hands into the air.
“Don’t shoot me,” he begged, blood seeping out from his neck and shoulder.
“Where’s the girl?”
“She got away.” He motioned with his head toward the trees. “In there.” The man caught sight of a plume of gray smoke rising up from behind the courthouse. “You’re burning our church!”
“I may burn the whole goddamn town.”
The man reached for his pistol, surely knowing that he would never get to it in time.
Tanner shot him in the chest, and he bounced nearly a foot off the ground.
&
nbsp; When he was satisfied that all three men were dead, Tanner bent over and searched their bodies. The first man had a bolt-action deer rifle. Unfortunately, the stock had been split in two by a couple of double-aught pellets. The second man carried a Kahr PM9, a quality pistol that was two sizes too small for Tanner’s hands. He took it anyway, shoving it into his back pocket. He could find no spare magazines or ammunition for the weapon. The final man had a Ruger Bearcat .22 single-action revolver. Another small gun, this one built for younger shooters. He took it too with the notion of passing it on to Samantha. A quick search of the man’s pockets revealed an unopened box of fifty .22LR rounds. They would come in handy.
He did a quick count of those either dead or out of the fight. Six in the courthouse, if he counted Moe, who was presumably still sitting tight, one outside the church, two inside, and now, three more at the tree line. That made twelve. Lands had said the entire town was down to thirty-seven people.
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