Jack Kilborn

by Afraid (lit)

The truck didn’t seem to be in any hurry, cruising down Main Street at a languid pace. Fran’s injured foot seemed to catch fire every time it slapped against the pavement, and her balance was seriously threatened by the binding on her wrists. But slowly, agonizingly, she reached the rear of the tanker.

  “Josh! Stop!”

  Rather than stop, the truck picked up speed. Only a few miles per hour faster, but Fran couldn’t match it. She scraped her toe bone against the tarmac, and the spike of agony made her slow down. Miraculously, Josh also slowed down. Did he see her?

  Energized, Fran pushed on. The truck was within twenty yards. Ten yards. Five. She made it!

  Heaving, bleeding, Fran stumbled up to the passenger side as the door opened.

  Sitting up in the passenger seat was Martin Durlock, the mayor of Safe Haven. He was naked, gray duct tape wrapped around his face and wrists slick with blood.

  The mayor screamed behind his gag, his whole body shaking. He stretched his bound hands out to Fran, eyes wide and imploring, and then the truck sped up and continued down Main Street, turning left onto Conway, the blue and red strobe lights fading into darkness.

  Already light-headed from the running, Fran began to hyperventilate. She cast a dizzy eye back at Taylor, who was shining the flashlight on his own face. He frowned in an exaggerated way, his free hand miming tears running down his cheeks.

  Fran closed her eyes and bent over, putting her head between her knees, not allowing herself to pass out. A cool breeze blew across her with a faint whistle, and the river sounds helped her to calm down, to focus.

  The river sounds.

  Fran lifted her head, realizing she stood on an overpass. Beneath her was a choppy section of the Chippewa River. A summer day didn’t go by without her seeing at least one lonely fisherman propped up along the railing, line dragging the water.

  She went to the edge and leaned over the short iron railing, smelling the water below. Fran couldn’t see in the dark, but she knew from memory the drop from overpass to water was about fifteen feet. But was it deep enough? If she jumped, would she break her legs? And if she survived the fall, could she stay afloat with her hands tied behind her back?

  The flashlight hit her in the eyes.

  “I bet that water is really cold.” Taylor would be on her in a few more steps. “And I’ve heard drowning is an awful way to go.”

  Not as awful as being tortured to death by a madman, Fran thought. But even more important than that was getting to Duncan, making sure he was safe. She held her breath, closed her eyes, and flipped herself over the railing.

  The fall lasted only seconds but seemed to take much longer. As she spun through the air she imagined rocks below, jagged steel, broken glass, or perhaps an island in the middle of the river—something other than water that would crack her bones and split her flesh.

  But water, and only water, was what she hit, and that was shock enough. Fran entered the river face-first, a strong slap that made her ears ring, then her body plunged down, deeper and deeper, until Fran wondered if the river even had a bottom. The cold assaulted her from every angle, invading every pore and crevice of her body.

  Fran twisted around, but disorientation and darkness prevented her from knowing where the surface was. A strong underwater current pulled her sideways, flipped her over. Fran stopped moving, letting the river control her, until the undertow passed and she felt herself being buoyed upward from the air in her lungs. She scissor-kicked in that direction, kicked until her head pounded, her shoulders and neck straining.

  And then Fran breached the surface, coughing and sputtering and surprised to still be alive. She floated onto her back and continued to kick, going with the flow, unable to see anything but knowing that she distanced herself from Taylor with each passing second.

  Just as Fran got her breathing under control and settled into a steady rhythm, she heard a sound like distant applause. The noise continued to build, and by the time it had grown into a dull roar she realized where it was coming from and what it was.

  Fran turned to face forward, the full moon illuminating the rapidly approaching waterfall.

  Josh pointed his light into the trees. He couldn’t see their attackers, but he knew they were there.

  “Who are they?” Josh asked Streng.

  The sheriff had both hands pressed to his side, the gun tucked into his holster. “I have no idea. Their uniforms are bulletproof, look military, but don’t have insignias. The smaller one had an accent, sounded Spanish.”

  “What do they want?”

  “He kept asking me about Wiley.”

  Josh turned the beam in the other direction. He could feel their eyes on him, but he saw and heard nothing. “Who’s Wiley?”

  “He said Warren. That’s his given name, but he only goes by Wiley. He’s my brother.”

  Josh looked at Streng. The older man leaned against a tree and winced.

  “Does your brother still live in the area?”

  “Probably. I don’t know. We don’t talk.” Streng pushed off from the tree, hitched up his pants, and stared into the woods. “We have to go back for Sal.”

  Josh felt the bile rise.

  “We … uh … don’t have to go back for Sal. I tried. I’m sorry, Sheriff. There was nothing I could do.”

  Josh’s mind took him back to the Mortons’ house, that huge man holding Sal’s dead wife. Josh tried to grab Sal, to get him to run away. Sal refused to move. Then the giant walked over, calmly put his hands on Sal’s neck. Josh threw himself at the larger man, but it had no more effect than wrestling a tree. What happened next was something so horrible, so terrifying …

  “You’re sure he’s dead?” Streng asked.

  “Yeah.” Josh would never be able to erase the image, or the sound. “He’s dead. Where’s your car?”

  “Gold Star.” Streng pointed in the direction they just came from. “Maybe we could sneak past them.”

  “No way.”

  “How about the fire truck?”

  “Someone stole it.”

  “We’re batting a thousand, aren’t we?” Streng said it without smiling.

  Josh pulled out his compass, found east.

  “County Road H shouldn’t be too far. We have to get moving. Can you run?”

  “I’ll manage.”

  Streng didn’t look like he could take another step, but they didn’t have a choice. Josh headed east as fast as he could push himself, setting the pace, willing the sheriff to keep up with him.

  After twenty yards, Streng fell behind.

  Josh stopped, flashed the woods, saw a blur of movement in the distance. The killers were almost upon them. And when they caught up, Josh wouldn’t be able to protect the sheriff any more than he had protected Sal. Or Annie.

  When Anne was diagnosed with leukemia, he promised he would take care of her. He promised she’d get better. He promised they would get married and have kids and live out their lives just as they’d planned.

  Fate made him break all of those promises. After she died, Josh vowed he would help others. So he became a volunteer firefighter, then a full-time firefighter, and soon a paramedic. Josh didn’t want to let anyone else down.

  He motioned for Streng to hurry. Streng lumbered over, breathing heavy.

  “Go on without me, son.”

  “That’s not going to happen.”

  “They don’t want you. Just me. Go on.”

  Josh put Streng’s arm over his shoulders and grabbed him on the side, by the belt. They shuffled through the forest for another hundred yards, until Josh’s breath was as ragged as the sheriff’s.

  “Leave me,” Streng said between gasps. “We both don’t have to die.”

  “Stop talking. Run faster.”

  Streng grunted with effort, but the old guy didn’t have anything left in the tank. After a dozen more paces, Josh was practically carrying him. They stopped, panting and wobbly, next to a fallen pine tree, and Josh whipped out his compass.

  “Do y
ou have any weapons on you?” Streng rasped.

  “Just a pocketknife.”

  “Take it out and be ready to use it. Flash the light over here.”

  Josh pointed the beam at Streng’s trembling hands. The sheriff ejected the clip, counted bullets.

  “Four, plus one in the pipe. They’re going to come at us from two different directions. The big one, Ajax, will draw the fire, fast and loud. Santiago will come in sideways, sneaky. I need you to get hid, jump Santiago when he comes out. Know where a man’s jugular is?”

  Josh nodded, automatically picturing it in his anatomy book.

  “Go in at an angle, to get under his clothing. Stab deep and twist.”

  “What about Ajax?”

  “I’ll keep the big guy busy.”

  Josh put his hands on Streng’s shoulders, looked deep into his eyes.

  “You can’t handle him. What he did to Sal … it was inhuman.”

  “Sal wasn’t armed. I don’t care how tall a man is, he takes a few hits to the oil pan, he leaks. Lemme see your knife.”

  Josh handed him the slim Swiss Army Explorer, the blade extended.

  “That’s your knife? You win that in Cub Scouts?”

  Josh didn’t find Streng’s lame attempt at humor amusing. “Fighting isn’t going to work,” Josh said. “We should run. The road is less than a mile away.”

  “You go.”

  “We’ll both go.”

  “Son … I’m all runned out.”

  “You can make it.”

  “I can’t make it.”

  Streng gripped the flashlight, directed it downward. The front of his pants was soaked pink.

  “That Santiago, he busted up something inside. The only thing keeping me on my feet is adrenaline, and that’s wearing off.”

  Josh felt sick.

  “I couldn’t save Sal. I hit Ajax with a chair, and he tossed me aside like I was a stuffed toy.”

  “Not your fault, son.”

  “I could have done something else.”

  “We don’t have time for a breakdown now, Josh. Head for the road or hide in the bushes, but make your decision quick.”

  Josh closed his eyes, let the words come out.

  “He twisted off Sal’s head, Sheriff. Like a bottle cap.”

  Josh felt the sting of the slap a millisecond after he heard it. Then Sheriff Streng grabbed Josh’s collar.

  “That Ajax guy stands damn near over seven feet and has to weigh close to four hundred pounds. God only knows what kind of steroids he’s on. You couldn’t have stopped him if you had a bazooka. Now forgive yourself and move your ass, or we’re both going to die here.”

  The heat rose on Josh’s cheek where Streng had hit him, and he nodded and lumbered into the woods to look for a hiding spot, his Swiss Army Explorer clenched tightly in his fist.

  The phone lines are having some trouble,” Mrs. Teller told Duncan. “I can call people in town, but anything outside of Safe Haven gets a busy signal. The same for 911. Maybe it has something to do with the electricity being out.”

  “What’s going on?” Duncan asked.

  The old woman racked another shell into the shotgun. “Mr. Teller used to talk about this when he was still alive. Help me with these locks.”

  Duncan helped her twist the three deadbolts on the front door, but his eyes were on the window.

  “Don’t worry none about the windows. That glass is shatterproof. Mr. Teller redid them a few years ago, when he was getting nutty from the dementia. There’s plastic sandwiched between the two panes. You could hit it with a bat, still can’t break through.”

  Duncan aimed Mrs. Teller’s flashlight through the window. He watched Bernie sit up, sniff something he held under his nose, and then pick up his big lighter. He attached a piece of metal to it, and the lighter could shoot like a flamethrower.

  “Mrs. Teller. I don’t think he’s trying to break in.”

  Mrs. Teller peered out the window and frowned.

  “That buckshot didn’t seem to slow him down much. Next time I’ll aim higher.”

  “Who is he?”

  “I dunno, Duncan. Mr. Teller used to rant on about being invaded by the communists, but he went funny in the head before he died. Ain’t no communists left, ’cept for the Chinese. And this fella don’t look Oriental.”

  “He wants to kill me and Woof.”

  Mrs. Teller put her hand on Duncan’s head.

  “Child, that ain’t gonna happen.”

  Duncan saw what Bernie was doing and shrank away from the window.

  “He’s starting the house on fire.”

  “Looks like that’s what he’s aiming to do.”

  Woof nudged up against Duncan, and he knelt down and hugged his dog, tight. He didn’t want Woof to be as scared as he was.

  The room became orange, as the flames leapt from one window to the next. Duncan smelled smoke.

  “I think,” Mrs. Teller said, “we had better get into the basement.”

  The waterfall wasn’t any taller than five or six feet, but Fran felt like she’d been dropped from an airplane onto concrete. Though she’d tried to go over feetfirst, she’d gotten turned around and landed full force onto her chest. Every particle of oxygen in her lungs got expelled, and then the current pulled her under, dragging her this way and that way, and her diaphragm refused to follow orders and took in a big gulp of water.

  Real panic trumped any psychosomatic panic attack she’d ever experienced. Fran had no time to contemplate her health, or her safety, or if she’d live or die. She didn’t think about Duncan or her husband. Her life didn’t flash before her eyes. She didn’t mourn the future she’d never have.

  Her whole body and soul, every nerve, every pore, wanted only one thing—air. Fran became a primal animal, not thinking, just existing, and to keep existing she had to breathe.

  She thrashed and kicked and strained and coughed, the blackness of unconsciousness mingling with the darkness of the surrounding night, and when she broke the surface gagging and coughing and vomiting water, her throat felt like it had been scoured with steel wool, and she was no longer cold and, strangely, no longer afraid.

  The current slowed, and Fran floated on her back, taking in air, letting the burn in her lungs recede. She began to plan.

  First she needed to get out of the river. The raw panic of almost drowning had kicked up her body temperature a few degrees, but it was falling again. Fran needed to warm up or she’d die.

  Freeing her hands was also important. She tried to flex her fists but didn’t feel anything. The cold, and the loss of circulation, had made her arms numb.

  Then she needed to find Duncan. She had no idea if Taylor was telling the truth, if they had Duncan, or if it was just something he said to hurt her. But she felt in her heart that Duncan was okay. And she intended to keep it that way.

  Fran kicked slowly to shore. When she made it close enough, she stood on the river bottom, the sand sucking at her feet, and half walked/half slithered onto land.

  Ahead, a small retaining hill paralleled the riverbank, protecting the road from floods. Fran began to climb. Her dripping body made the earth muddy, slippery. Dirt dug into her wounded foot, and rocks and branches tore at her knees as she crawled up the embankment, but she soldiered on, inch by inch, until she finally reached the top, her heart practically stopping when she saw the large man in the dark uniform standing on the road, staring at her.

  Sheriff Streng liked Josh, and for a brief moment he considered eating the gun, which would give the younger man a chance to run, to get away, without the burden of dragging Streng along.

  Streng dismissed the notion almost as quickly as it entered his head. While he didn’t consider himself beyond heroism or self-sacrifice, Streng knew that Josh had no knowledge of combat, no survival skills. As sad a shape as Streng was in, it would be better for both of them if he stayed alive a while longer. At least until they could find help.

  Josh’s flashlight winked out five
yards east. Streng held his breath, listened to the firefighter climb a tree. Good. Even well-trained soldiers sometimes forgot to look up, especially when facing an inferior enemy. Santiago and Ajax were incredibly well trained, but they also seemed cocky.

  Who were they? Streng knew they must be connected to the helicopter crash. He needed to ask Josh about it, see if they could figure out where these guys came from. They wanted Wiley, and Streng knew there could be only one reason someone would bother tracking down that old bastard.

  They knew. Somehow they knew.

  On one hand, Streng shouldn’t have had any problem giving Wiley up. He owed him nothing. And Wiley could take care of himself.

  But even though he hadn’t spoken to him in thirty years, blood was blood. Streng couldn’t forgive Wiley. But he couldn’t let anything happen to him, either.

  Streng held the pistol in a two-handed grip, pointing at the ground, and waited for the bad men to come.

  It didn’t take long. As predicted, Ajax came into the clearing with the subtlety of a rampaging bull. He paused, stared directly at Streng, and then ran straight at him.

  Streng held his ground, trying to listen for the sneak attack, checking his peripheral vision. There. On the left. Santiago, crouched next to a bush. Unfortunately, Josh’s tree was in the opposite direction. Streng would have to lure them over.

  Streng ran right, yelling, “Leave me alone, you bastards!” so Josh would know it was him. Then he stopped, turned, and fired twice at Ajax.

  The muzzle flash showed Santiago was closer than he’d guessed, practically on top of him. Josh must have seen it, too, because he dropped on Santiago like an avalanche, smashing the man into the ground.

  Streng went to him, grabbing at clothing and flailing limbs, trying to put a bullet into Santiago’s head.

  And then, suddenly, he was no longer on his feet.

  Ajax had grabbed Streng’s gun arm, his massive fingers encircling his entire biceps. He lifted him up like he was a child. Streng’s legs kicked feebly, and he lashed out with his left hand, trying to scratch out the giant’s eyes. His fingers met flesh, and two of them disappeared inside a massive nostril. Streng pulled, and something tore.