by Hunt, James
Heads nodded quickly, and Rodney kept his voice down as he tapped on the detonator box. “Our signal is still with the explosives.” He checked his watch. “We’ve got less than four minutes.”
Harley assigned everyone quickly, and they disappeared into the darkness, hunched low in the night. Rodney returned his eye to the scope, searching for the inmates under the cover of darkness, praying that he wouldn’t have to blow the charges early.
Every breath hurt. It was as though glass had been ground up in Kate’s body, and any movement sent the shards into muscles and bones and organs. She collapsed into the kitchen chair that Dennis shoved her into and tried to find a position where the pain wasn’t so intense. She didn’t find one.
The pain was so blinding that Kate wasn’t sure how long Luke and Holly were standing in front of her before she saw them. Gags were shoved in their mouths, and their arms were tied behind their backs, with Dennis lording over them, large and in charge, the man who called the shots. The judge, the jury, and the executioner.
“Oh,” Dennis said, smiling as he watched the realization spread over Kate’s face. “Looks like someone is finally back with us.” He looked down at both Luke and Holly. “Wave hello to your mother, kids! Oh, wait.” He spun them around so Kate could see the rope tied around their wrists. “They can’t. Ha ha!” He spun them back around and then shoved them into two chairs across from Kate, with him standing behind but still between them.
“Are you guys okay?” Kate asked, her voice shaking, her mind trying to process only three things: her pain, her children’s safety, and any weapons that were nearby.
Luke nodded, and Holly cried. Kate tried to stand, but the moment she pushed herself from the chair, another bout of pain planted her ass back in the seat.
“So what do we talk about first?” Dennis asked. “I’ve already had a good conversation with my son about his heritage.” He stared at Luke. “Medical history, girls, my time in prison.” He flicked his eyes back toward Kate. “Mark.”
Kate grimaced and tried another lunge, but an even bigger flash of pain pushed her back down into her seat, and Dennis let out a slow, methodical laugh, shaking his head.
“I can’t imagine what it was like going back to that cabin and finding your children gone and your husband dead. But then again, I can’t imagine what it would have been like to be married to you.” He wiped his nose, sniffling. “So how do you want to do this, Kate? Do I pick one to kill? Should I have you pick one to kill?”
Kate watched Dennis’s eyes. They had always been the tell in his poker face. And at that moment, they looked as they had on the night over nineteen years ago. He was going to take one of them from her. And she would have to pick.
“Well, Kate?” Dennis asked, those eyes boring into her soul, his hands massaging Luke and Holly’s shoulders. “What do you say?”
Time. That was all Kate needed. Just enough time for the distraction. She closed her eyes, drawing in quick gasps of breath as she remained hunched in her chair. She opened them again, a bit of clarity returning, and she spied a cluster of steak knives on the counter. Six or seven big steps—that was all she’d need to grab one. How much time was left till the detonators went off? She couldn’t remember. The pain had blinded her to it.
“Tick tock, Kate,” Dennis said. “C’mon! Don’t keep me in suspense!”
Kate straightened, adjusting her posture in the chair, gritting her teeth, and groaning in pain as a thick sheen of sweat appeared on her forehead. She was weak, and she knew Dennis saw it. But she just needed to pull his attention away from her kids.
“So that’s what you want to do?” Kate asked, trying to play off a sense of apathy. “Play a game? I think you spent too much time playing with yourself on the inside.” She laughed, and Dennis’s expression slowly faded to match his murderous eyes. “You know, that letter that I submitted to the parole board, I think I rewrote it a dozen times before it was just right. Before I knew that it would keep you in that jail cell for the rest of your life.”
Dennis released his hold on the kids and stepped toward her, but she didn’t let up.
“My lawyer told me that I didn’t have to come to the meeting, but I said that I wanted to be there. I wanted to make sure I saw the look on your face.” Kate forced a smile, and that was the straw that broke the camel’s back.
Dennis screamed, lunging for Kate in the chair, leading with his fist. The first blow broke her nose, spraying blood down the front of her shirt, and knocked her from the chair. She rolled on the ground, her mind conscious enough for her to see Luke lunge at Dennis only to be backhanded to the ground.
Another scream filled the room, and before Kate could determine whether it was hers or Holly’s, Dennis lifted her off the floor, triggering more stabbing pain in her sides as he slammed her against the wall hard enough to knock the pictures of the family that had lived there previously to the floor.
“You’ve always been a hard one to nail down, Kate,” Dennis said, tightening his hand around her throat like a vise. She clawed at his arm and swiped impotently at his face. “You were always smart, but you never knew when to quit.” With one heavy flick of his arm, he flung her halfway across the kitchen, her shoulder landing hard on tile, eliciting another debilitating crack from her ribs.
The pain was so immense that when Kate opened her mouth to scream, nothing came out, and the screams that she heard now were coming from Holly, her daughter’s face red and tearstained as her voice cracked with grief.
“Mommy!”
Kate could do nothing but stare at her daughter, as Dennis was on her once again, ramming his fist into her cheek, numbing her head and leaving her ears ringing. The next hit, she couldn’t feel, and it took her a moment to realize that she was standing upright, Dennis holding her up against the counter as her body sagged.
“I thought about raping you before I killed you, but now that I’ve gotten a real good look at your face, I think I’ll pass,” Dennis said, his dark eyes wild with anger and violence. “But I bet there are a few guys out there that wouldn’t mind it. Women have been in short supply, especially with our influx of men.” He smiled, the specks of Kate’s blood that had sprayed over his face filling the wrinkles around his eyes.
Kate moved her lips to speak, but the pain and exhaustion had numbed her tongue. She could see Luke trying to get up from the floor and could hear Holly screaming bloody murder. All sense of time disappeared, and Kate tried to remember what she was waiting for, but any attempt at remembrance disappeared with another punch to the gut.
Dennis released her, and Kate crumbled into a lifeless pile of meat on the tile. She blinked, which was the only movement allowed to her that didn’t elicit a screaming symphony of pain. Her position on the floor granted her a view of her son. He was screaming something at her, but Kate could only watch the movement of his lips. She thought of how good a man he had become. She thought of how good of a man that he would be.
Would be.
Kate circled that thought, a meaning in it that the pain in her body wouldn’t allow her to grasp, but when she felt the vibrations from Rodney’s detonations, she remembered.
Dennis turned toward the blasts, and Kate lifted her head, the effort requiring what remained of her strength. The knife rested above her, but it was too high, too far for her to reach. But Dennis had his back turned, and she knew it wouldn’t stay that way forever. She had to act, and she had to do it now.
With what remained of her strength, Kate pushed herself to her knees, buckling over at the waist and her clutching her chest as her ribs shrieked in pain and defiance. Kate extended her arm, her hand shaking as her fingertips grazed the knife’s handle.
A scream escaped her lips as she raised it high, and Dennis turned, his eyes widening as she brought the blade down. He jerked away at the last second, only the knife’s tip catching the meat of his chest, spraying a line of blood to the floor.
“Gahhh!” Dennis stumbled backward into the table as Ka
te collapsed to her knees, the strength from her body gone as she looked at her children.
“Run,” Kate said, the word coming out cracked and inaudible. She tried again, screaming from the depths of her soul. “Run!”
Holly was out of her chair first, then Luke pushed her out the kitchen door. Dennis watched them leave and then turned his murderous glare to Kate. “You bitch!” But something at the door caught his eye, and at the last second, he sprinted out of the kitchen and deeper into the house as a gunshot thundered at the kitchen’s exit.
Rodney burst inside, rifle up, scanning the kitchen until his eyes fell on Kate, and he flung the rifle’s strap over his shoulder. Kate collapsed into his arms, forcing him to hold up her weight as she struggled for breath.
“Holly,” Kate said, clutching Rodney’s shoulder. “Luke—”
“They’re outside,” Rodney said. “C’mon, we have to get out of here, quick.”
Rodney dragged Kate through the door, and she was surprised to feel nothing from the cold as the bottoms of her feet skidded across the snow.
Bodies littered Main Street, some of the buildings catching fire from the blasts that were set off, and up ahead, Kate saw Luke and Holly with Captain Harley near the highway exit. She then saw Stacy leading a group of people from one of the buildings.
Random gunshots erupted in the night, and despite the violence around her, Kate swelled with hope. She was almost out. Her body was broken, but she was almost free.
“Just hang on, Kate,” Rodney said, his voice strained as he practically carried her away. “We’re almost there. Just hang—”
The gunshot and the sudden taste of snow in her mouth were simultaneous. Kate barely felt the scrape of the concrete as she and Rodney face-planted to the ground.
Kate lifted her head and found a red blotch rising on the back of Rodney’s shoulder. She reached for his arm, her face swollen and numb. “Rodney!”
More gunshots thundered, and screams followed the violent mechanical thunder as Kate watched a group of gunmen surround Captain Harley and her children.
“I want them alive!”
Kate turned back toward the house, finding Dennis with his arm extended with a pistol in his hand. The blood from the knife wound was still dripping, but the cold slowed the crawl of blood down his stomach.
More of Dennis’s men emerged from the houses and the woods, some of them leading her people by gunpoint. She felt hands on her, and Kate was lifted off the pavement, her body devoid of all feeling as Dennis pressed the end of his pistol against her cheek.
“Eighteen years,” he said, his voice haggard, and on the verge of tears. “Eighteen years in a concrete cell, eighteen years lost because of you and my bastard son.”
Luke was thrust to his knees next to Kate, and Dennis removed the pistol from her cheek and pressed it against Luke’s temple.
“Mom?” Luke asked, crying.
But she couldn’t answer. She could barely keep herself conscious.
“I want you to know that I take no pleasure in killing our son,” Dennis said, his voice steadying but that mad look returning to those dark eyes. “But I do take pleasure in watching his death cause you pain.”
Kate drew in a ragged breath and focused on those dark eyes that a foolish nineteen-year-old girl once found attractive but now made her sick. “He was never your son. You were never a part of him, no matter what you say.”
Dennis cocked the hammer on his pistol. “Fuck you, Kate.”
Gunfire rained over the town, the explosions erupting from behind her, and Kate only caught a glimpse of Dennis’s face as he removed the pistol from Luke’s head and fired above their heads, retreating down the street.
And as Kate fell forward, she saw the bullets that cut through Dennis’s chest and stomach, brilliant plumes of red spreading across his shirt as his body jerked wildly with each gunshot until he lay on the pavement, covered in blood. Dead.
A few more gunshots echoed, and then Kate felt hands up and down her body.
“Medic! We need a medic!”
“Ma’am, can you hear me? Ma’am? We’re with the United States National Guard. Are you the one who sent the Morse code message? Ma’am?”
Kate wanted to answer, but everything had suddenly turned cold, and the white of the snow faded to grey. She couldn’t feel her breathing anymore, and as she closed her eyes, she knew that she could find peace with the knowledge that her children were alive.
Chapter 13 (Six months later)
Weeds and grass crept over the highway, trapping the broken cars and clogged road. The snows of winter had long since melted, and the heat of summer had descended upon northern New York State.
But while the days had grown long and hot, not a single man, woman, or child complained. The icy grip of winter had left a mark, and it would take a long time before that cold finally thawed.
Rodney adjusted the strap of his rifle as he weaved through the line of cars, Luke behind him, dragging a deer with him.
“You don’t want to help me with this?” Luke asked, panting.
“You said you wanted to go hunting,” Rodney answered, turning back with a smile over his thick beard, which was shiny with sweat. “Number-one rule of hunting is that the guy that does the killing doesn’t have to do the carrying.”
Luke rotated his shoulder as he gave the heavy buck another tug by the rope and tarp that he was dragging across the grass. “Last time, you said it was the hunter who does the killing that does the carrying.”
Rodney laughed. “Well, that’s the good thing about being the teacher. I get to make the rules.” They walked another mile before Rodney finally broke down and helped Luke pull it. They walked all the way toward Duluth’s exit then rolled the buck down the ramp to the highway into town.
It was almost evening by the time they returned, and the street was busy with chatter. Tables were already being set out for dinner, a mishmash of dining ware that stretched from one end of Main Street to the other.
Smiles and friendly faces greeted Rodney and Luke’s entrance, and when they flipped open the tarp to reveal the fresh game, applause erupted.
“Looks a little smaller than the one I brought home yesterday,” Harley said, leaning up against the doorway, finally looking comfortable in clothing that wasn’t a uniform.
“It’s a bit shorter,” Rodney said. “But it’s most definitely thicker.”
Harley laughed and then helped Dana Miles set the table outside their little general store. Rodney had discovered that he liked hearing the old state trooper’s laugh, and he tried to elicit a chuckle as often as he could.
“You remember how to gut it?” Rodney asked as they approached Luke’s place.
“Yeah, I remember,” Luke answered, blushing as Sarah walked out of their first-floor apartment and planted a kiss on his cheek.
Rodney watched the pair embrace and smiled as he returned to his little one-room studio on the back side of Main Street.
He’d stopped staying at the cabin after the last group of survivors that came through three months ago. With the numbers that were coming in from the highway, they had a nice linked group of community members now. Good people. Rodney forgot how much he missed good people.
Rodney leaned his rifle in the corner between the front door and the side wall, and before he could wipe the blood off his hands, the watch horn blared.
As quick as a snakebite, Rodney snatched the rifle from the corner and hurried outside. A stream of people followed him toward the town’s entrance, all of them armed. They’d prepared for something like this. Another confrontation was inevitable. But they were ready to face it. Together.
Rodney met Harley with his newly deputized officers at the town’s entrance, moving the cars across the road to form a blockade. Dean Smultz sprinted down the road from his watch post, the sky turning a golden hue behind him as the sun set.
“What is it?” Rodney asked, elbows planted on the hood of a rusted Buick.
“Truc
ks,” Dean answered, sliding over the Buick’s trunk and repositioning his rifle. “They’re armed to the teeth.”
The town behind Rodney was quickly boarded up, everyone knowing their role. They had evacuation routes planned to the neighboring communities, and there was already a runner in the woods, sprinting to let everyone else in the other towns know that something was coming.
An engine rumbled, the noise foreign after so many months without traffic, and when the first truck made its way down the embankment, followed by a dozen more, Rodney tensed.
“If they charge, fall back!” Rodney said, his eyes still locked on the front grill of the first truck. “But do not fire until fired upon!” This was their group’s first real test of strength, and Rodney knew there was a flurry of nerves attached to those trigger fingers.
Through the scope, Rodney noted the soldier uniforms. They hadn’t had any contact with the United States military since the National Guard intervened, but he wasn’t sure how these fighters planned to greet them.
The lead truck slowed a few dozen yards before the barricade, and doors opened and two soldiers stepped out, brandishing their weapons behind the cover of their armor-plated cavalry.
“Drop your weapons!” But when the order wasn’t obeyed, the soldier scooted forward. “I said drop your—”
“Lieutenant!” The breathless voice was attached to a very small man dressed in a suit and tie, his glasses falling down the bridge of his nose, waving his arms. “Stop!” He slowed down at the convoy’s front, stepping between the two groups, arms extended to both parties. “We don’t need any bloodshed.” He looked at Rodney then at the lieutenant. “How about a show of good faith, huh?”
