“I imagine Joe’s boys will be along shortly,” he said, scrubbing Bowie’s neck. “And when they see dear old dad leg-tied to a pole, they’re going to be none too pleased.”
Bowie pressed up against him, laying his head against Mason’s chest.
Mason had no illusion about the Wards surrendering to his authority. Three men against one would always choose to call rather than fold. It was going to come down to a gunfight.
He leaned down and kissed Bowie on the nose.
“A fight is coming, and we’d better get ready.”
CHAPTER
15
By morning, Samantha was nearly back to her old self. Her fever was gone, and she had a hearty appetite, eating a package of freeze-dried eggs and nearly a full sleeve of Ritz crackers. The miracle of penicillin had worked its magic once again.
“How far is it to Mount Weather?”
“Not far, maybe another hundred and fifty miles. You sure you feel well enough to travel?” Despite his lingering concerns over her health, Tanner felt the need to get out of the house. If the doctor had spilled the beans about Samantha, the Merchant might decide to make a play for her.
“Oh sure,” she said, wiping her mouth on a small curtain next to the bed. “Let me brush my teeth, and I’ll be ready to roll.”
If they didn’t encounter any kind of detour, Tanner estimated they could be to Mount Weather by lunchtime. Once there, Samantha would be taken from him. With her mother dead, he didn’t know what would happen to her. The only thing he knew for certain was that she would be taken care of. Even if Samantha ended up at Crunchem Hall Elementary School under the care of Miss Trunchbull, she would be a lot safer than running around with an ex-con getting into God knows what kind of trouble.
“You said your dad had passed, right?”
“Yes,” she said, digging out her toothbrush. “He died from the pox.”
“You got any aunts or uncles? Older brothers or sisters?”
She studied him, trying to figure out what he was up to.
“No,” she said, drawing out the word. “My Aunt Alice died a few years ago from cancer, and my dad was an only child, just like me. Why?”
He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. She needed to know the truth.
She stood up with the toothbrush in one hand and a bottle of water in the other.
“What’s wrong?”
“Last night, the doctor told me something. It’s going to hurt for you to hear it, but I know you’re strong enough to handle it.”
She sat back on the bed.
“My mom’s dead, isn’t she?”
It surprised him. “How’d you know?”
Samantha put her hands in her lap and stared at the toothbrush.
“I just did.”
“I’m sorry, Sam. I really am.”
“How did it happen?”
Tanner sat down on the bed next to her.
“I don’t really know. The doctor only said that she’d been killed by one of her advisors. I don’t know who or why.”
“I hope it didn’t hurt too bad.”
“So do I.”
Samantha sat, saying nothing for nearly a full minute. Tanner sat beside her, equally as quiet.
“What are we going to do now?” she asked.
He started to tell her that he was going to take her to Mount Weather, that she would be better off there. But for some reason, his mouth couldn’t quite form the words.
“I don’t know,” he said with a sigh. “What do you want to do?”
“I should probably still go to Mount Weather, right?”
“Right.”
“People would take care of me, make sure I go back to school.”
“I’m sure they would.”
She looked up at him, and there were tears in her eyes.
“Is that what you want?”
He swallowed to keep his voice from breaking.
“No.”
“You love me, right?”
He nodded, unable to speak.
“Okay then,” she said, wiping at her eyes. “I guess we’re stuck with each other.”
He smiled and put his arm around her.
“I guess we are.”
Tanner was strapping his backpack to the motorcycle when Samantha came out of the house.
“You ready?” he asked.
“I’ve been thinking…”
He felt his stomach tighten. Had she changed her mind already?
“Yeah?”
“I don’t really have anything of my mom’s to remember her by. That’s not right.”
“You have her eyes.”
She smiled. “I do, don’t I?”
“What were you thinking?”
“That maybe we could go by our old house to get a few things. I doubt anyone has taken them.”
“What old house?” As soon as he asked the question, he knew the answer. “Wait, you’re talking about the White House.”
“Mom had lots of pretty things there. Pictures of our family, too.”
Tanner thought about what Washington, DC, must look like. Jammed streets. Decaying bodies. And plenty of the infected.
“Going into DC would be terribly dangerous,” he said, knowing that mere words wouldn’t change her mind. Her mother’s belongings were a treasure worthy of any quest, and no threat of bandits, zombies, or plagues was going to deter her.
“I know.”
“Our only chance would be to get in and out before dark,” he said, thinking out loud.
“You said that we could be to Mount Weather by lunchtime. Washington is only like sixty miles from there.”
“You been studying the map again?” She had a way of doing that before arguing her case for a detour.
“Maybe.”
“Come on then,” he said, swinging his leg up over the bike. “We’d better get rolling.”
She tossed her backpack up next to his and strapped it down.
“This will be easier than you think. I promise.”
“I have yet to see anything easy when it comes to you, Samantha Glass.”
She hopped up on the seat and wrapped her arms around him.
“Have you been eating enough?” she said in a very serious tone. “Really. You’re feeling so trim.”
Even detouring around every major interstate, the drive from Altoona to Washington was less than two hundred miles. To Tanner’s surprise, less than six hours later, they were navigating unbelievable traffic jams in Fort Myer, Virginia. Hundreds of thousands of cars jammed every major roadway. Decaying corpses, now little more than clumps of dried flesh, hair, and bones, lay on the streets and sidewalks like pods from the body snatchers. The dead were dressed in all manner of clothing: business suits, dresses, hiking shorts, and blue jeans—people who had been unable to stop going about their normal activities either because of perceived necessity or tragic denial.
Tanner maneuvered the heavy touring bike over sidewalks, weaving through alleyways and around vehicles. When things got too tight, he would stop the motorcycle and use his feet to guide them through.
“This is horrible,” Samantha said, studying the chaos around them.
“It’s only going to get worse the further in we go.”
He turned east onto 2nd Street, a two-lane residential road that paralleled Arlington Boulevard. They followed it past a set of public housing projects, the plain red brick buildings looking no better or worse for the world having been destroyed.
They crossed an overpass and came to a small guard booth in the center of the road. A sign hung on the front of the building, Hatfield Gate. The booth was empty, and both of the lift barriers were bent at odd angles, a result of cars pushing their way though. Tanner continued ahead, swerving around the twisted metal barriers.
It was only after another few hundred feet that he realized where they were. Directly ahead was a huge plot of green grass, dotted with e
ndless rows of small white marble gravestones. He stopped and stared out at the sprawling graveyard. The grass was overgrown and unkempt, but it in no way took from the ominous beauty of the site.
“What are those?” she asked.
“Graves.”
“I’ve never seen so many. Where are we?”
“Arlington.”
“That’s a cemetery, right?”
“You’re the president’s daughter, and you’ve never been to Arlington National Cemetery?”
She shook her head.
“Hang on,” he said, turning the handle bars. “It’s important that you see this.”
Tanner turned the bike down a small road, each side blanketed by endless graves. He swung left on McPherson Drive and continued navigating through several more sections of the cemetery. Samantha sat speechless as she took in the enormity of the site. Less than a minute later, they stopped in front of a massive white amphitheater.
“That is so cool,” she said, looking up at it. “Can we go inside?”
“We can go wherever we want. The world is everyone’s and no one’s.”
He dismounted and led her up a short set of marble stairs to stand at the front entrance of the amphitheater. Inside, curved rows of white bleachers stretched from left to right, filling the oblong shaped structure.
“It’s like a Roman coliseum,” she said, running her hand across the smooth marble wall.
“Let’s walk to the other side. I want to show you something.”
Tanner led her around the inside ring of the structure, and they were both awestruck by the majestic beauty of the carved marble and intricate pillars. When they got to the opposite side, he pointed to an inscription carved above the entrance.
Samantha read it aloud. “Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori. That’s Latin, right?”
He nodded.
“Do you know what it means?”
“It is sweet and fitting to die for one’s country.”
She seemed surprised. “You understand Latin?”
“Of course. Don’t you?”
She squinted at him with suspicion.
He grinned. “I brought my own son here when he was a boy. I’m taking it on faith that the tour guide knew what he was talking about.”
“I didn’t think you were that smart,” she said with a twinkle in her eyes.
They continued back around to the main entrance and slowly descended the marble staircase. Directly in front of the amphitheater were three white inlaid slabs and, behind them, a raised white marble tomb. Samantha walked up to the sarcophagus and traced her fingers over the words. Here rests in honored glory an American soldier known but to God.
“I’ve heard of this place,” she said. “It’s where they buried a special soldier, right?”
“Something like that. I think it symbolizes all the soldiers who were lost or never identified.”
“Why would—”
Samantha’s question was cut short by a growl from behind them. They spun to find a pack of dogs approaching.
Tanner glanced at the motorcycle. It was maybe thirty feet away—too far to get to, let alone escape on. He reached down, grabbed Samantha, and hoisted her up to the top of the tomb. She toppled forward and nearly rolled off the other side as she struggled to find her balance on the stone structure.
When she was finally stable, she turned back to him.
“Come on!” she shouted, holding out her hands.
The top of the sarcophagus was a little over eight feet off the ground, and Tanner doubted that he could make it up in time. He was big and heavy, and while those qualities were great in a fistfight, they were less than optimal when trying to scamper up anything. Neither was the help of a ninety-pound girl going to make much of a difference.
Tanner turned and brought the sawed-off shotgun up to his shoulder. There were eight dogs, all mutts and all big enough to give Cujo a run for his money. The dogs had a crazed, I’ve-been-eating-people-for-too-long, look in their eyes. He took aim at the one leading the pack and squeezed the trigger. A tight load of buckshot slammed into the dog’s chest, and it immediately tumbled forward, dead. Tanner sidestepped away from the tomb as he brought the weapon back down. He didn’t know if any dog could jump high enough to get to Samantha, but he couldn’t take the chance.
As he prepared for his next shot, a pop sounded from behind him. He glanced back and saw Samantha lying prone on top of the tomb, looking down the sights of her rifle. The second dog fell, whining as it crawled away.
The remaining six closed in on Tanner.
He fired the shotgun a second time, taking off most of the head of another animal.
Samantha’s second shot came an instant later, also killing a dog.
Two dogs jumped at Tanner at the same time. He swung the butt of the shotgun up and clocked one under the chin, but the second dog caught him by the meat of his left forearm. It was tremendously powerful, jerking him forward as it tried to take him to the ground. The two remaining dogs swung in around behind him, barking and snapping at his legs as they looked for an opening.
Tanner planted his feet and began to spin, lifting the dog that had latched onto his arm into the air. As he swung around, he tried to use the dog’s body to bludgeon the other two animals coming up from behind. A third pop. A small chunk chipped out of the concrete as the bullet went wide.
Tanner felt the dog’s neck break and its bite loosen. He slung it away and brought the butt of his shotgun down on a dog coming in for his thigh. The blow glanced off the dog’s head, and the animal yelped as it scampered away. Of the eight, only two dogs remained in the fight, but neither appeared ready to give up on their meal.
A fourth pop dropped the animal that Tanner had hit with the butt of the shotgun. The last dog leaped forward, its mouth open as it went for his throat. He shoved the shotgun up between them, hoping to keep teeth from finding flesh. The dog weighed more than a hundred pounds, and it drove him back until he tripped and fell. Without hesitation, the giant dog was on him, snarling and biting as it tried to get to his face.
Tanner wrapped his legs around the animal and pressed the shotgun firmly against its neck. The dog snapped wildly, globs of milky white saliva dripping down on his chest. Much like his fight with the Russian, they were at a stalemate. The dog couldn’t get to its prize, and Tanner couldn’t initiate an attack without taking his hands off the shotgun. He had no illusions about Samantha coming to his rescue. He and the dog were simply too close. It was up to him to end it.
Tanner did the only thing he could. He released the shotgun.
The heavy gun fell to his chest, and the dog immediately lunged forward. Tanner reached up with both hands and caught the dog’s head. He wrestled against the beast, driving his fingers into the animal’s eyes, ears, and mouth. It squealed in pain and finally pulled back in retreat. Tanner flung it away and quickly scrambled to his feet. The dog stumbled down a long set of stone stairs before racing across an open stretch of grass.
Tanner bent over and picked up his shotgun.
“Are you okay?” she asked, standing on top of the tomb.
He did a quick injury assessment. There were half a dozen small wounds, but the worst was the bite on his left forearm. He counted four puncture marks on the top and three on the bottom, several of them quite deep. He moved his fingers around. Everything seemed to work okay, which he took to mean that there was no nerve damage. Pain could be dealt with, but fingers that wouldn’t close into a grip caused all sorts of problems.
“I’m fine,” he said, walking toward her.
She climbed down with his help, and they returned to the motorcycle.
“Reload,” he said, stuffing fresh shells into his shotgun.
“But you’re hurt.”
“First we ready ourselves for the next fight. Then we inspect the damage.”
She nodded, her eyes never leaving the bloody bites on his arm.
Whe
n they had their weapons fully reloaded, she used a bottle of water to wash out the dog bites. Blood still oozed from several of the holes.
“These look awful. Do you think they’ll get infected?”
“I’ll be all right,” he said, not at all sure of what he was saying.
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