The whole situation was amusing to Smith, even if he was certain it wasn’t so much for Mags and the other two. But hey, they had tried to kill him not more than ten minutes earlier, so he couldn’t quite muster the sympathy for them.
He was still pondering his next move when he heard the faint tap-tap-tap of footsteps—except it wasn’t coming from the horses like last time.
He glanced to his right, away from the trio at the front of the store.
There. Movements—very, very quiet movements, but not quite quiet enough—coming from the back of the store.
Footsteps.
Soft, deliberate footsteps.
Human footsteps.
He turned back toward Mags and her friends. Their shadowed outlines remained calm, oblivious to the newcomers. Well, the man and the blonde’s outlines, anyway. Smith still couldn’t make out Mags anywhere.
Smith tried to get a better look at the blonde, but she had chosen a good spot next to the counter. If not for the color of her hair, Smith wouldn’t have been able to convincingly assume she was a woman at all.
He refocused on the back of the store, which was closer.
The footsteps were still there—as quiet as before, and still not as completely silent as whoever was making them thought they were being. Smith had to admit, they were doing a damn good job of advancing while staying undetected by the blonde. Whoever they were, they’d found a way into the store that he had missed. Either that, or the entrance was somewhere on the other side of the building that he hadn’t had the chance to search yet.
Smith couldn’t make out how many of them there were. It could be just one or two, or more. But that was just a guess, because they were still too well-hidden even from him. He wondered who was going to spot them first—him or the blonde?
The answer came when Smith glimpsed two shadowy forms emerging out of the pitch-dark back half of the Archers. His eyes picked them up as they appeared in his line of sight and crouched next to a shelf filled with Levi’s. They couldn’t have been more than twenty meters from where Smith sat, as silent and still as a popsicle mouse. He might not have even seen them at all if they weren’t almost exactly parallel to him. They were also closer to the front doors than he was at the moment.
Smith turned back to the blonde, who was staring in the wrong direction. Smith could just make out the shape of a rifle—or maybe that was a shotgun—in her hands.
Turn your head, blondie.
He wasn’t sure why he had even thought that. It wasn’t like the trio’s fate mattered to him, not after that barrage of bullets they’d unleashed on him earlier.
All that shooting…
Smith wondered if that was how the other group had found Mags and her companions. No doubt all that gunfire could be heard for miles. So when you got right down to it, the trio’s current troubles were almost entirely their own fault. Smith hadn’t asked them to try to murder him.
He was very willing to sit back and watch the events unfold, until he saw the blonde stand up, a pool of moonlight from the front doors splashing over her. The light also revealed her face to Smith for the first time.
She was just a kid. She was just a goddamn kid.
Smith wasn’t the only one who saw the girl standing up. The two bozos in front of him did, too, and they ducked down as the blonde scanned the darker section of the Archers in front of her. Had she noticed them after all?
“Donna, get back down!” a voice hissed. It was Mags, somewhere closer to the front doors but still invisible to Smith.
The girl, Donna, turned around to look back at Mags—or where Smith assumed the other woman was. “I think I saw something, Mags.”
“Where?” a third voice asked. The man.
Donna was about to answer when one of the two silhouettes across from Smith raised himself up from the floor into a kneeling position. The long shape of a rifle appeared in his hands a second later, and just as Smith figured out what was about to happen—but before he could decide if he should shout out a warning or not—there was a loud pop! and Donna fell down.
“Donna!” Mags shouted.
Smith finally saw Mags again, lunging to her feet near the front doors, and running toward where Donna had fallen back into the shadows. The woman didn’t seemed overly concerned about exposing herself. Smith had to admit that was damn courageous on her part. Either they were related or were close friends. Either way, Mags was determined to get to Donna, despite knowing what had just happened.
Pop-pop-pop! as the same shooter fired again, and he was soon joined by his buddy. They were both on their knees now, stabs of flame spitting from their rifles as they shot at the running Mags, who wasn’t deterred by the volley of lead being directed at her. She didn’t jump behind one of the counters for cover or even bother lowering her profile. She wanted—she needed—to get to Donna, and nothing would stop her. Not even a hail of bullets.
Goddamn. Now that’s impressive.
For a split second, Smith thought about giving the woman a helping hand. He wasn’t a fan of guys sneaking up on someone. That was cowardly, if you asked him, and Smith had been trained by people to have some sort of standards when it came to warfare. Then again, he’d been in more than one situation where it was preferable to sneak up and shoot someone in the back, especially if it meant saving lives.
But there was also something to be said about doing nothing and keeping your own head attached. This wasn’t his problem. He didn’t know Mags and the others from Adam, and he was still smarting over the fact they’d tried to kill him for no reason. Her and the guy in her group.
Speaking of the guy, where was he now? Shouldn’t he be lending a hand? Or providing some kind of covering fire for Mags?
Just as that last thought raced across Smith’s mind, he heard the sudden roar of brap-brap-brap-brap! as the guy’s full-auto weapon opened up in the direction of the attackers.
Both men lunged to the floor and began crawling away as bullets ping-ping-pinged! off metal racks and pek-pek-pekked into wooden shelves around them. Even more ripped into hanging clothes and littered the air around them with clouds made of shredded fabric.
The brap-brap-brap-brap! of the man’s continuous gunfire was thunderous and impossibly fast. Too fast. That was the problem with squeezing everything out in one burst—you ran out of bullets faster than you would have if you’d gone the semiauto route.
In the aftermath of the man’s relentless full-auto fire, the only sounds Smith could hear were metal ranks clanging against the floor and the thunks of broken wood toppling over. Pieces of fabric continued to flutter in the air like millions of down pillow feathers, making it difficult for him to relocate the two attackers—
There’s Waldo.
They were both very much alive and still crawling their way to safety. One went away from Smith, but the second one was crawling right toward him.
Wrong direction, dude.
The man was on his belly, his chest raised slightly as he scrambled away from his old spot. He had his rifle—an AR-15—in front of him, gripping it with both hands like he was back at basic training and crawling underneath barbed wire.
Definitely wrong direction, my dude.
The man suddenly stopped, looked up, and locked eyes with Smith.
Smith wasn’t sure how long they stared at one another. Maybe it was just a few seconds or even less than that.
Maybe just a heartbeat.
Or half of one.
The attacker was scrambling to get up on his knees while fumbling with his rifle when his head disappeared in a shower of buckshot.
Ten
The boom! of Smith’s shotgun might not have been as loud if Mags’s male companion were still firing his rifle on full-auto. But the man had stopped, likely to reload, and it was suddenly very quiet again except for the falling racks and displays when Smith unloaded on one of the attacker’s faces.
Smith was on his feet and scrambling away from his spot a second later, waiting for Mags’s
guy pal to try to pick him off. The trio wouldn’t know that Smith had just helped them out. Not that that had been his intention, of course, but it had ended up serving the same purpose anyway.
And Smith did hear the renewed brap-brap-brap-brap of full-auto fire, except the bullets weren’t buzzing around his head.
Well, at least he’s not shooting at me!
Smith didn’t stop until he’d retreated almost all the way to the fishing area again and slid up against a row of plastic baits. The Archers had gone silent once more, Mags’s partner having stopped shooting almost as quickly as he’d let loose the second time. He couldn’t have been out of bullets again, could he?
Maybe, maybe not. Smith wasn’t going to find out, though.
At the moment, there was just silence except for Smith’s slightly accelerated heartbeat. If nothing else, at least all the running and shooting had taken his mind off his hunger.
His stomach growled as soon as he thought that.
Or not.
Smith moved to another shelf just in case someone had heard his gut rumbling a second earlier. It was highly unlikely, but the store was so quiet that Smith wasn’t willing to take any chances. He would just hate to find himself on the wrong end of that full-auto rifle once again.
He had located a new spot when he heard the pop-pop-pop of a semiautomatic rifle firing. Like the last volley of bullets, these weren’t directed at him. He learned where they were being sent when there was return fire from outside. The parking lot.
Then, out of nowhere, a man’s voice shouting, “Your boys are dead, Freddy! Send more of them in here, and I’ll kill them, too! You hear me? Come on in if you want! I’ll kill you, too! I’ll kill you fuckers!”
Someone’s mad. Either that, or he’s doing a really good job of selling the tough guy.
The voice had come from inside the store, near the front entrances, so it had to be Mags’s friend. The “boys” he was talking about were, of course, the two attackers that had snuck into the store unnoticed until they shot Donna. (Gotta find the back door that they used…) But Smith found the guy’s comments amusing.
“Your boys are dead, Freddy! Send more of them in here, and I’ll kill them, too!” the man had said. He was taking credit for the one Smith had shotgunned in the face also, not that Smith was going to correct him.
Right now, he was still trying to decide his next course of action—
“Don’t fucking move,” a voice said from behind him. “You fucking even twitch, and I’ll blow your fucking head off.”
Fuck.
Me.
Mags. It had to be Mags. The voice was female, and Smith knew for a fact Donna was in no position to sneak up on him or anyone else. If the kid was even still alive.
“The shotgun,” Mags said. She was almost whispering, which was why he wasn’t sure it was Mags in the beginning.
Dammit. How’d she get so close?
“Put it on the floor,” Mags said. Then, before he could act on her command, “Slowly.”
Well, at least she hasn’t shot me yet.
Yet.
He bent his knees, then laid the shotgun down on the smooth floor. His right hand was very close to his waist, and all it would have taken was barely one-tenth of a heartbeat to grab the SIG Sauer from its holster and…turn around.
Yeah, he wasn’t going to be able to make both moves. He was fast enough that Smith was convinced he could reach the gun, but it was the twisting around to take aim at Mags that was going to take more speed than he could muster—
“Go ahead,” Mags said.
Smith froze.
“I know you want to,” the woman continued. “Go ahead and see where it gets you.”
He smiled, knowing that Mags couldn’t see it. He’d been pretty impressed with her when he saw her running toward the fallen Donna despite all the gunfire directed at her, and now she’d found some way to sneak up on him. And then she’d even known what he was thinking while not being able to see his face.
Smart woman.
Then: What’s the deal with all the smart women in this city wanting to kill me?
Instead of going for his holstered sidearm, Smith lifted both hands into the air and held them high. “Don’t shoot.”
“Get up,” she said.
He did, keeping both arms as high as possible. “I saved your life.”
Mags didn’t reply and Smith thought, She knows about the guy I killed. Either she deduced it by the headless body or—
Yeah, she probably deduced it from the headless body.
Whether she believed him or not, Smith decided to jump feet first into his story. After all, what did he have to lose? If Mags had wanted to shoot him, she could have already done it. But she hadn’t, which meant she wasn’t sure about his loyalties. That just further convinced him she’d already found the shotgunned attacker.
“I didn’t have to do it,” Smith said. “But I did. Even after you and your buddy tried to kill me.”
Mags still didn’t say anything, and he learned why when a hand snatched the shotgun off the floor next to him, and she immediately retreated. He hadn’t heard her at all, and when Smith turned his head to look back, saw why: She was standing behind him in her socks. Her shoes were tied together by the shoelaces and hung off one shoulder.
He grinned, and thought, Goddamn, she’s smart.
Smith looked up at her face. She was probably in her early thirties, with short brown hair and equally brown eyes. She wore jeans and a long-sleeve plaid shirt, and if he had any doubts that she could shoot him dead at any time, all he had to do was pay attention to the way she held the AR-15 in her hands while peering at him from behind the iron sights.
“I’m not your enemy,” Smith said.
“Then what are you?” she asked.
“I’m just looking for supplies, that’s all. If you’d introduced yourself earlier, we would have gotten along. I wouldn’t have shot first.”
“You know who doesn’t shoot first out here?”
Smith had a feeling he knew the answer to that, but he asked anyway (because he wanted to keep her talking). “No. Who?”
“Dead people.”
Yeah, he knew that was coming.
He said, “Speaking of which, who are those guys trying to kill you and your friends?”
“That’s none of your business,” Mags said.
“You don’t think so? What about their friends? What—”
“Mags!” a voice shouted from all the way across the store. It was the man. “Mags!”
“I’m good!” Mags shouted back. “I got him!”
“Tell him I saved your life,” Smith said.
“Shut the hell up.”
She hadn’t lowered her rifle even a little bit. If Smith had to guess, she was still trying to decide whether to shoot him now or later.
He said, hoping to change her mind, “How’s your friend?”
“What?” Mags said.
“Donna.”
Mags squinted at him from behind her weapon. “How do you know her name?”
“The guy shouted it out.”
“Well, she’s fine.”
“She’s hurt.”
“She’ll be fine.”
“I’m just saying, you’re down to two able bodies.” Smith turned all the way around, keeping both hands raised high. “How many are out there?”
“That’s none of your concern.”
“More than two? More than five?”
He was just throwing out numbers, but he had a feeling he was close.
And Mags hadn’t done or said anything to convince him otherwise.
“I’m just saying,” Smith continued, “that you can use another gun.”
“You?” Mags said. She might have almost smirked.
He shrugged. “Why not?”
“We almost killed you.”
“Yeah, you did. But I can overlook that.”
“Why would you?”
“Look, can I lower my hands? T
hey’re getting tired.”
“No.”
“Pretty please?”
“You want me to shoot you?”
“Of course not.”
“Then keep those hands up there.”
Smith sighed. “You need my help. We both know it.”
Mags didn’t respond. Maybe she was actually starting to think about his proposal. Or maybe he was reading her body language all wrong. Right now, she could be trying to decide where to shoot him for maximum pain, for all he knew.
“I’m not a bad guy,” Smith said. “I was just looking for supplies when we, uh, met. That’s it. I’m not your enemy. I don’t want to be your enemy.”
“So why would you want to help us?”
“’Cause I get the feeling whoever’s out there isn’t going to just let me walk out of here, especially after I killed one of theirs. The way I see it, you’re my best shot at seeing morning. Look, I’m just looking out for myself here. It’s win-win for the both of us.”
She didn’t answer, and he could almost see the cogs turning behind her eyes.
Smith decided to keep going for it. “You know I’m right. We need each other. I want to get out of here, and so do you. I figured, together, we have a better chance. Am I right or wrong?”
She remained quiet.
“Right?” Smith persisted.
“Right,” she finally said.
Then, she did what he was hoping for and lowered her rifle.
Smith breathed a sigh of relief and slowly put down his hands. He could have gone for the SIG Sauer then and there but decided against it. While he was trying to convince Mags, he had ended up convincing himself.
There was little chance that whoever was out there was going to let him just walk out of this place. Even if they didn’t know he’d shotgunned one of their friends to death, there would be a lot of questions and suspicion, and those things might lead to them deciding Smith wasn’t their friend. Not that Smith thought his odds were better with Mags and her companions, but it was better than getting shot by her.
After The Purge, AKA John Smith Box Set | Books 1-3 Page 7
