But not too stunned to act.
“We’re still moving,” he said, glancing down again at the dead soldier. “They would have stopped if they’d heard it.”
Dan didn’t know how they couldn’t have heard it. But there wasn’t time to figure that out.
“We have to jump,” he said.
The woman nodded at him.
“We don’t have much time. You go first. I’ll follow.”
They were at the very edge of the bed, looking down at the pavement rushing beneath them.
“I need you to push me,” she said, glancing up at Dan with fearful eyes. “I can’t do it myself.”
After slitting a man’s throat and not being fazed by getting shot in the arm, she still couldn’t jump.
There wasn’t time to wait until they slowed down to take a corner.
They had to act now.
Dan put his hands on her, his palms against her shoulder and her back, and he shoved.
He didn’t wait to see what happened to her. He jumped too. Maybe he could roll with it, like in the movies. Probably not, though.
He hit the ground hard, his shoulder ramming into the pavement.
It hurt. But not as much as he’d expected.
Maybe it was the adrenaline keeping the pain away.
He didn’t wait to see if the truck was stopping.
The woman was lying on the pavement, face down. Dan grabbed her and pulled with all his might, trying to drag her.
But he couldn’t do it. He wasn’t strong enough.
“Come on,” he hissed at her.
She was groaning in pain. But somehow, with Dan pulling on her, she managed to push herself up into a standing position.
Dan seized her hand and pulled hard as he rushed to the side of the road.
It didn’t seem like they were in the city, but the homes were close together. They were small and run down, with peeling paint and decorative shutters that had long since fallen off and disappeared.
The only thing Dan could think about was getting to cover, getting between two of the houses, out of sight of the truck. It still hadn’t stopped, but that didn’t mean it wouldn’t.
“Come on,” hissed Dan, pulling harder on the woman’s arm. She was dragging her feet. Maybe she’d hurt her ankle in the fall. Her face was bloody, and the blood ran into the hair that fell around her face. She’d probably broken her nose.
Finally, they were at the house, having made it down the short driveway.
Dan pulled her down. She couldn’t go any farther, so they sat there, side by side, backs against the cheap siding.
Dan was breathing hard, completely exhausted.
He listened carefully for the rumble of the military truck and for any sounds that would indicate that the pickup was coming back for them. But the rumble faded gradually down the street.
“They’re not turning around or stopping,” said Dan.
The woman didn’t answer.
“How hurt are you?” said Dan, kneeling down in front of her to examine her.
“I’m… alive…” she said. “I’m… OK…”
“You saved my life,” said Dan.
The blood made her face and nose look worse than it was. It was probably just a broken nose. It’d be fine on its own.
“Are you injured anywhere but your arm?” said Dan, tearing the sleeve of her shirt apart with his fingers to get a better look at the wound.
“My… ankle…”
Dan didn’t know if it was broken or sprained. She seemed to be in considerable pain.
The gunshot didn’t seem to be bleeding as much as Dan would have thought.
Dan’s mind was racing. He knew he had to get the bullet out of her. But before that, he needed to get them somewhere safe.
There wasn’t any point in asking her if she could walk. They wouldn’t be able to get far with that ankle of hers.
Dan looked around him. Houses all around. They looked empty.
Their best course of action was to get into one of the houses and hole up there, hiding away while Dan tried to work on the woman’s arm. He didn’t have any idea how he’d get that bullet out, but he put that worry to the back of his mind.
Since they hadn’t been seen jumping from the truck, the soldiers wouldn’t know where on their route to look for Dan and the woman. They’d be safe in the house. Hopefully it’d be too much trouble to go looking through each house along the route once they discovered that their prisoners had escaped.
“Come on,” said Dan, reaching down and grabbing the woman under her arms. “We’ve got to get you inside in case someone comes along. You’re going to be fine. Don’t worry.”
But Dan didn’t know that everything was going to be fine.
Provided they were safe in the empty house, and provided he could treat her wound, what was next? He had nothing. No gear and no plan. He didn’t even know where he was.
He’d have to improvise.
28
JAMES
James was running as fast as he could. He’d left the mob behind. But he could still hear the gunshots ringing out behind him. They were growing less frequent. Hopefully that was a good sign and not a bad one. But he couldn’t worry about his mother and John and Cynthia now. He was focused on Sadie with all his might.
But he’d lost sight of her.
He stopped in the middle of a thicket of evergreens, bending over almost involuntarily from his exhaustion, panting heavily from exertion.
He’d lost her.
He’d lost his sister.
It was his own fault. She was too young and too small to not have someone looking after her in the middle of the most intense fight they’d encountered yet. He should have been keeping a better eye on her. He should have watched her more carefully.
James stared down at the ground.
That was when he saw it.
Footprints in the damp ground.
They led off to the east.
Ignoring his exhaustion, James set off at a full out sprint, his arms churning at his sides.
He had no weapon, but he’d figure out something. He had to.
He was running so fast that the sounds of the world seemed to drop away, leaving only his own panting.
He glanced down at the ground as he ran, making sure he was following the footprints.
James saw her about a minute into his sprint.
Her yellow sweater was unmistakable.
She was standing still, not moving. Something was in her hand.
Something lay at her feet. A body.
She didn’t seem to be in danger. Relief washed over James.
James slowed down his pace so he could get a better look around, making sure there weren’t any other threats.
“Sadie!” he called out.
Sadie didn’t move.
“Sadie!” he said, finally reaching her.
She was holding a bloody knife in her hand. The body at her feet was that of a woman, her torso punctured by countless stab wounds.
James took the knife from Sadie’s hand gingerly. He put his arm around her.
“It’s going to be OK,” he said.
She moved, looking up at him. “I didn’t want to do it,” she said. “But she was trying to kill me and telling me I was her daughter.”
“She’d gone crazy. She didn’t know what she was doing. No one wants to kill. I know you didn’t, Sadie. Come on, we need to get back to camp.”
James checked the dead woman’s pockets and belt, looking for weapons he might take back.
“We need to get back to camp quickly,” he said, breaking into a jog and pulling Sadie along with him.
As they ran, Sadie seemed to snap out of the shocked daze she’d been in.
“Is Mom OK?”
“Let’s hope so.”
They ran through the trees. The closer they got, the more James expected to hear gunshots. But he heard nothing but silence.
They passed by the area where James had been attacked, w
here he now spotted his handgun in the hand of a dead man. He paused, reached down, and took it from the still-warm hand.
It didn’t take long to get back to the fire pit where they’d made their stand. He saw his mother looking tall as she stood there, rifle held in one hand.
“Mom!” shouted Sadie, who sprinted forward, despite her apparent exhaustion.
James was more hesitant, looking carefully around him.
The fight seemed to be over.
Cynthia and John were sitting on the ground, and Cynthia was leaning heavily on John’s shoulder.
There were bodies scattered everywhere on the ground, in all manner of positions. Some had been shot in the head. Others had been shot multiple times in the torso. And many others looked like they’d received simple blunt trauma.
There were about fifteen bodies around the camp. James could have sworn there’d been more. Maybe it had been the fog of war that had rolled in. Maybe it had been the intensity of the moment, making him overestimate the numbers.
“Everyone OK?” said James, walking up to his mother and Sadie who were hugging.
“For the most part,” mumbled John.
“He got stabbed,” said Cynthia, concern apparent in her voice.
“Nothing major,” said John. “We’ve already patched it up.”
Everyone was too exhausted to speak much, and James found himself almost falling to the ground where he continued to lie, letting the cold ground soothe his burning muscles. It seemed to take forever for his heart rate to start to slow down and for his breathing to return to normal.
“All right,” said his mother. “We can sit around all day and wait for the next one, or we can get to work and get ready.”
Cynthia groaned, but she stood up slowly, using John’s shoulder as support. The rest of them followed, and they looked to Georgia for instruction.
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About Ryan Westfield
Ryan Westfield is an author of post-apocalyptic survival thrillers. He’s always had an interest in “being prepared,” and spends time wondering what that really means. When he’s not writing and reading, he enjoys being outdoors.
Contact Ryan at [email protected]
Defending Camp_A Post-Apocalyptic EMP Survival Thriller Page 17
