The Survivalist (National Treasure)

by Arthur T. Bradley

  “Yeah? Like what?”

  “I need to find a boyfriend, get married, and maybe have a few kids. Plus, I want to become a doctor. Oh yeah, I want a chicken farm too.”

  “Sounds like quite a life.”

  She leaned her head against his thick back and closed her eyes.

  “Yeah,” she said dreamily, “quite a life.”

  Chapter 21

  Mason awoke to the tap-tap-tap of fingernails on the car’s roof.

  “You awake in there?” called Brooke.

  Bowie stuck his head out through the open window and tried to give her good-morning sugars.

  She pulled back and said, “Keep that waggling tongue to yourself.” She looked in at Mason and smiled. “I meant the dog, not you.”

  Mason scrunched his eyes and yawned.

  “What time is it?”

  “A little past six. You did say you wanted to get going early. You know, before the army of undead shows up to eat us for breakfast.”

  He stretched and let out a little moan. Sleeping in a car was like sleeping on an IKEA futon. While it was better than the floor, you could be sure of a sore back in the morning, especially when a hundred-and-forty-pound wolfhound insisted on sharing the backseat.

  “Poor thing,” she said, with a playful frown. “But sleeping out here was your choice, remember?”

  “I remember,” he grumbled, sliding up to the front seat and climbing out. He set his M4 onto the seat and donned his holster. “Give me a minute to get presentable, will you?”

  “Maybe do a little something with that hair too,” she said, scrunching up her nose.

  He cut his eyes at her. While he wanted to offer a clever retort, it was hard to come up with one. Brooke looked amazing. Not quite as amazing perhaps as she had in her panties the night before, but a not too distant second nonetheless.

  Bowie hopped out of the car and started toward the open high bay door. Mason followed after him, certain that they had the same idea in mind. After exiting the building and sniffing around a moment, Bowie hiked his leg next to a large pile of steel. Mason bellied up next to him, the previous day’s adventures replaying in his mind. It had been a hell of a day, starting with an airplane ride and ending with an amorous proposition. He’d had worse days, but he’d sure as hell had better ones too.

  He sighed. “I’m pretty sure women are going to be the death of me.”

  Bowie’s ears perked up, but it took Mason a moment to realize that he wasn’t listening to him.

  The wolfhound began to growl even before he had finished his business.

  Mason zipped up and leaned around to see past the pile of shelving. A reconnaissance team of three infected men were crossing over from the well-drilling company across the street. Two carried rifles, and the third, a shotgun.

  Before Mason could dart back into the building, Bowie let out a loud woof and bounded out into the street to confront them. It was too late to call him back. The men were already swinging up their weapons.

  Hoping to draw their attention, Mason pulled his Supergrade and squeezed off three quick shots. He settled for sending the rounds over their heads rather than risk striking Bowie with a hastily fired shot.

  The men scattered as they sought cover.

  Bowie started toward the closest but turned back when he heard Mason calling for him.

  They bolted for the building, and even with a head start, Bowie managed to beat him through the open door. They found Brooke sitting on the hood of the Trans Am, legs crossed, like she was at a photo shoot for Hemmings Muscle Machines.

  “What’s happening?” she said, hopping down.

  Before he could answer, a bullet punched a neat little hole in the front of the building with a sharp ting.

  “How’d they find us?” she said, quickly ducking behind the car.

  “It was only a matter of time.” He ran up to a panel along the left side of the bus and used his knife to turn a small locking mechanism. As the panel swung open, it revealed a tray with three large lead-acid batteries. Plenty of juice. The trick would be having enough time to use it.

  Racing back over to the Trans Am, he leaned in and grabbed the steering wheel.

  “Brooke, give me a hand with this.”

  She moved to the other side, and together, they pushed it closer to the bus. When the car rolled up next to the battery compartment, Mason reached in and popped the hood.

  “We’ve got maybe sixty seconds before trouble comes through the front door.” He snatched his M4 from the front seat of the Trans Am and passed it to her. “See if you can keep them from ruining our day.”

  “Me! I can’t fight them off.”

  “Then we’re both dead, because I’ve got to get this car running.”

  Brooke’s cheery morning demeanor vanished as she squatted down behind the Trans Am’s engine compartment and braced the M4 on the hood.

  “I’m not a soldier,” she complained, switching off the safety.

  “Today you are.”

  Mason slid out the tray of batteries. Any one of them would be enough to jump start the Trans Am. The only problem was that he didn’t have any cables.

  He quickly surveyed the shop. A six-foot length of flexible steel conduit ran down from an overhead shop light. It would have to do.

  He raced over, grabbed the conduit with both hands, and jerked it away from the wall. Wires tore free, as did the conduit itself. He grabbed the handful of wires and snaked them out the other side. No individual wire was thick enough to carry the electrical current, but if used in parallel, he thought they might. He brought them, along with the bare conduit, back to the Trans Am.

  A gunshot sounded, and Mason looked over to see the M4 belch fire.

  “They’re coming!” she shouted, firing a second shot.

  Mason twisted the bare ends of three of the wires together, first on one end and then the other, doing his best to ignore the panic in her voice. His job was to get the car running.

  Gunfire sounded from outside, the bullets ricocheting off the steel plate covering the grille of the bus. Brooke returned fire, a steady boom, boom, boom as she shifted her aim from one man to the next.

  Bowie started toward the door, and once again, Mason had to call to him.

  “Bowie!”

  The dog stopped and looked back at him, confused.

  Mason pointed at the Trans Am. “Get in the car, boy.”

  Bowie reluctantly climbed into the backseat of the car and settled onto his belly with his chin resting on his paws.

  Turning his attention back to the wire, Mason attached one end of the bundle to the positive terminal of a bus battery and the other to the Trans Am battery. Not wanting to take the time to create another bundle, he used the steel conduit to connect their frames together.

  Sliding across the hood, he half-rolled, half-fell into the front seat of the Trans Am. He turned the key and was rewarded with a click-click-click from the engine. Juice was flowing. It just needed a little more time.

  Brooke fired another handful of shots, and while she was doing a fine job of keeping the men out, she hadn’t hit a single one.

  Mason poked his head up through the open T-top.

  “Do you want to drive or shoot?”

  “Drive, of course!”

  “Then get in here and take the wheel.” Mason flopped out through the top of the car and landed beside her on the concrete with more grace than he thought possible. He placed a hand on the stock of the M4. “Go! I’ve got this.”

  Brooke pulled open the passenger door and slid over behind the steering wheel.

  “Will it start?” she said, placing a hand on the key.

  “Your guess is as good as mine.”

  As he spoke, Mason sighted in on one of the men. He was hiding behind a stack of steel shelving, occasionally leaning out to take a shot. Unfortunately for him, he was doing it in a very repeatable way. The next time he leaned clear of the cover, Mason squeezed off a round. The bullet caught the man in th
e left shoulder, and he fell back behind the steel.

  Brooke gave the key another try, and there was the unmistakable wonh-wonh-wonh as the engine tried to turn over. It was getting close.

  “Count to twenty and try again!” he shouted.

  The other two men began firing simultaneously, perhaps hoping to pin Mason down enough to enter the building. Instead of cowering, he dropped to his belly and took aim around the car’s front tire. Thinking that Mason had been forced behind cover, one of the men bolted in, looking left and right for a place to hide.

  He didn’t find one.

  Mason shot him twice in the chest, and he fell onto his back, twitching and moaning on the concrete floor.

  The third man was more cautious, choosing to duck behind one of the tractor-trailers in the parking lot.

  Mason used the opportunity to hop into the passenger side of the car. He stood on the seat, taking aim out through the open T-top.

  “Give it another try.”

  Brooke turned the key, and the engine sputtered to life, a puff of thick black smoke coughing from the tailpipe. She revved the engine a few times, and it roared like a dragon ready to take flight.

  Mason fired three quick suppressive shots at the last of the men.

  “Go!” he shouted.

  Brooke punched the gas, and the Trans Am shot out of the high bay, spinning tires across the parking lot before grabbing hold to send them barreling down Industrial Park Road.

  Mason leaned around to look behind them, wondering if the lone man would try to take a shot.

  He did.

  As he popped up and frantically fired in their direction, he learned the same lesson that many had before him: hitting a moving car is hard. When it’s a Trans Am fishtailing around a winding curve, you might as well save your ammunition.

  Even though he was rocking back and forth, Mason replied in kind, returning a handful of shots in his direction. They weren’t meant to hit the man, only to add a little shakiness to his hands.

  By the time they reached the end of Industrial Park Road, the Trans Am was pushing sixty miles an hour, with Highway 10 approaching fast. To their left, they saw a convoy of perhaps fifteen or twenty vehicles heading their way.

  Brooke whipped the car onto the asphalt so violently that Mason had to grab the frame with both hands. Thanks to rear-wheel drive and 325 foot-pounds of torque, the Trans Am once again fishtailed across the lane, first one way and then the other. Brooke did a respectable job of not oversteering and eventually righted the car in the center of the highway.

  Mason swung the M4 back up and began firing short bursts at the vehicles now in pursuit. A few hit steel, but more importantly, the gunfire caused them to slow and drop back. Within a couple of minutes, the Trans Am had pulled away and was barreling south, whipping through the intersection known as Will’s Corner.

  Mason dropped down into the vehicle and settled against the worn black leather. With the wind rushing in through the open T-tops and the sound of the roaring engine, they had to nearly shout to be heard.

  “We’re not going to get far,” Brooke said, tapping the gas gauge. The needle was pegging empty. “Not many good options for escape around here, either.”

  She was right. To the west was mostly open farmland, and to the east, the Nansemond River. Their only hope was to continue south until the car ran dry. But that had its own share of risks.

  “Stay on Highway 10.”

  She turned to him. “You’re kidding, right?”

  “I don’t see that we have a choice.”

  “You do realize what’s to the south?”

  “Thieves and killers, by all accounts.”

  “And that doesn’t concern you?”

  “Of course, it does. But right now, I’m willing to take the devil I don’t know to the one I do.”

  “The Badlands,” she said, shaking her head. “I hope it’s not as awful as people say.”

  Mason said nothing. He had heard rumors of the area having descended into all-out anarchy, but they were just that—rumors. Truth was something that had to be discovered for oneself.

  Brooke reached over and grabbed his hand.

  “Promise you’ll keep me safe.”

  Mason’s gut clenched. He didn’t want to promise Brooke anything. Jessie was waiting for him at her family’s farm, confident that his vow to return meant something. Pledging to keep another woman safe, especially an ex-lover, seemed like a complete betrayal.

  Love, however, was not all that drove Mason Raines. Duty also acted as the underpinning of his character, and without that, he was nothing more than another man with a gun.

  “I’ll get you to safety. After that, you’re on your own.”

  She smiled and squeezed his hand. “I knew you wouldn’t abandon me. Not after all we’ve been through.”

  Mason closed his eyes and let the wind buffet his hair and face. Nothing was as it should be, the world completely out of kilter.

  He accepted that.

  Life was not lived by waiting for happier times, but by finding it in the grimmest of circumstances. Perhaps he would survive long enough to keep his promises, or perhaps this day would be his last. All he knew for certain was that he had to be true to himself.

  If those who knew him were one day asked what kind of man Mason Raines had been, he hoped they would say he was a marshal, a friend, and above all, a man determined to do the right thing.

  The Survivalist adventure continues with Solemn Duty…

  198