The Road to Hell- Sidney's Way

by Brian Parker

  “You know, for a split second, just the tiniest of a moment,” Katie held up her thumb and forefinger, “I thought about going with them when they asked.” Tears rolled down her cheek and her frown deepened. “If I had…”

  “Don’t think about what ifs,” Sidney interjected into the space left by the girl’s trailing off. “It’ll drive you crazy. Trust me.”

  “Yeah, but—”

  “Don’t do it,” Sidney asserted. “There’s nothing you can do about it. The only thing you can do is be thankful that you’re still alive, and you can mourn the loss of a friend, even if they turned to ungrateful shits during their last moments on Earth. We’ll bury them and I’m sure Vern will say a few words over their graves. He’s a very forgiving man.”

  “Yeah. I’d like that.”

  “It’s the right thing to do. Until today, they were our friends. They helped out around the farm and,” Sidney squeezed the girl’s knee, “Rob helped out inside the farm a little bit.”

  “A real little bit,” Katie said, smiling around the tears.

  “Oh. He had a little dick?” Sidney whispered, grinning.

  “Like smaller than the length of a dollar bill.” The smile widened. “The first time, I thought he wasn’t like fully hard or something.”

  “Man, I hate that.”

  “I wasn’t expecting it. As big of an ego as he had, I thought he would have had something to back it up. Nope.”

  It was Sidney’s turn to frown wistfully as she thought about Lincoln’s father. “It’s been my experience—and I’ve had a lot of it, let me tell you—that the big, boastful guys who talk about the size of their junk are the ones with the littlest dicks. They’re compensating for it.”

  “How many?” Katie asked, leaning forward.

  Sidney shrugged. “I don’t know. Let’s just say that I’m a free spirit. It’s just sex, y’know? It feels good, why deny yourself a little bit of pleasure in between periods of mind-numbing hours of work.”

  “Yeah, that’s true.”

  Movement outside the window brought her attention back to the task at hand and she turned her head. The trio had returned, coming up the driveway toward the house. They each wore a large camouflage backpack across their shoulders, while Sally and Mark carried an additional suppressed M-4 rifle.

  “Looks like your sister’s coming back,” Sidney stated. She scanned the road for movement, any sign that one of the infected still lived. There was none. “Let’s go down and see what they can tell us.”

  Katie shook her head. “No. You go. I’m going to go up into the crow’s nest to keep watch. We’ve worked too hard on this farm to let something like this mess us over.”

  She stood up and started to turn, hesitating for a moment. “Thank you, Sidney. I know that we’re all in a shitty situation here, but I’m thankful that we have you and Carmen now. Grandpa just doesn’t understand some of the emotional needs that we have.”

  Sidney got to her feet, grunting as her abs and leg muscles strained while she tried to keep the baby balanced perfectly in her arm so he wouldn’t wake up. “Katie, I’m glad we’re here too. I’m not a big believer in God and all that like Vern is, but I do think we were brought here for a reason.” She stepped forward and placed her free arm around the younger girl’s back, bringing her into an awkward half hug that Lincoln’s sleeping form necessitated. “We’ll be okay.”

  The embrace lasted a few seconds longer than Sidney meant for it to, but she could feel that the girl needed it, so she just let it happen. She tried to pass along some of her own learned and newly discovered strength to Katie through their contact.

  Finally, Katie pulled back and said simply, “Thanks,” before she walked through the door. Sidney grabbed her rifle and followed. In the hallway, Katie and Vern exchanged a few words before the girl went to the pull-down stairs to the attic so she could go out to the crow’s nest.

  Vern watched her go. When she was out of sight, his eyes found Sidney’s. “Thank you.”

  She ducked her head before stepping onto the stairs lightly. By the time she’d made it to the bottom, the front door was opening and Sally came through. The others followed her and placed their spoils in the hallway.

  “That was a quick trip,” Sidney remarked as the Campbell girl went into the kitchen to wash her hands.

  “There was nothing Carmen could do.”

  “They were probably dead instantly,” Carmen agreed. “That jet shot them with exploding rounds or something.” She held up bloodstained hands in the rough shape of a circle as big as a basketball. “The exit wounds were like this. Even if they’d survived, there isn’t anything I could do to save them from that.”

  Vern nodded. “Wounds from aircraft fire are particularly nasty. Saw the after effects of US close air support all the time in ’Nam.”

  “Why would the Air Force fire on the truck?” Sally asked, returning from the kitchen holding a hand towel. “The infected can’t drive, they know that. Anyone in a moving vehicle is obviously not an infected.”

  “I don’t think that jet was ours,” Vern stated, letting the words hang in the air as he set about making a new pot of coffee. “I think everyone’s gonna need some of this.”

  After a few seconds of waiting, Sidney couldn’t stand it anymore. “What do you mean, Vern? You think there are more Iranians around here?”

  He looked out the window for a moment before sighing and turning back. “Yeah, I do. That Taavi feller may not have said much while he was here, but what Grady said about the airport in town makes me think they’re gonna try again.”

  The old man picked up his empty coffee mug and leaned against the counter. “There are only two ways they can take over this country. They either push inward from the coasts, killing the infected as they go, or they land planes at airports to create all sorts of little bases that they can patrol out into the surrounding countryside, expanding their area of influence a little farther each day. We did the same damn thing in Vietnam—excuse my language. Lord, I’m sorry for that outburst.”

  Sidney rolled her eyes. It was just the word ‘damn’. “What do you mean?” she asked.

  “We had patrol bases, fire bases, camps, and airfields all over South Vietnam so we could affect the greatest area. We did the same thing in Afghanistan and in the Iraq war too. I think that’s what they’re doing. They already had one big cargo plane at the airport and they landed two jets there. I think they’re gonna keep trying to establish a base. That jet was probably just flying around looking for targets before they land troops.”

  “And it doesn’t matter to them if they kill civilians or infected,” Sally surmised.

  Vern cocked his finger and “fired” it at her. “Bingo, sweetie.”

  Lincoln stirred, first yawning and then whimpering in hunger. “So what do we do about it?” Sidney asked as she stepped over to the sink to fill a bottle.

  “First, we all drink some coffee because it’s gonna be a long night,” Vern replied. “Then we begin preparing a secondary position, someplace we can fall back to if this one is compromised. We need to have supplies stashed in the new location as well as backpacks with supplies for a few days here at the house so we can be ready to go at a moment’s notice.”

  Sidney grinned at the old man’s use of some of the larger words. She could tell they were ones he’d learned in the Army decades ago, but had never forgotten. “So a bug-out bag and all that stuff, right?”

  Vern shrugged. “I think so. Maybe? You kids make up all sorts of words for things these days. It’s something that I’ve been thinking about for a while. Just never had a pressing need to act on it before.”

  “So you want to abandon the farm, Grandpa?” Sally asked.

  Vern grunted. “If we have to, sweetheart. Being alive is more important than where you put your head down each night.”

  Sidney nodded. She understood his sentiment. “Okay, so where do you suggest—” She stopped mid-sentence and pointed out the kitchen window. �
�That looks like another cargo plane.”

  Everyone crowded around her to see out of the small window above the sink. Off on the horizon, in the direction of Liberal, a large plane flew slow and low. It looked like it was going to land at the airport.

  “Yeah,” Vern said. “That’s what I was afraid of. They learned a little bit from the first time they tried to land at the airport. Planes make a ton of noise, and draw a whole bunch of infected to wherever they are. That jet was cleaning up the area so the big cargo planes can land and the foreigners can start building their walls.”

  Sally frowned. “Is this how things are gonna be from now on? I mean, we’re the good guys, right? How are we the ones who are scurrying around, hiding from foreign invaders? Where are all of our allies?”

  Sidney pulled the bottle from Lincoln’s mouth and pointed it at Sally. “We view ourselves as the good guys, but most of the world doesn’t. They were happy to take our money, but wouldn’t have shed a tear at our demise.” The baby began to cry and she sighed, pushing the nipple gently between his lips.

  “Well, those days are behind us anyways,” Vern said. “I doubt there’s any country left that’s capable of doing much besides keep their head afloat under a sea of infected.”

  Even though Sidney had put the bottle back in his mouth, Lincoln still cried about the loss of his bottle. She wobbled it back and forth to let the baby know it was back in his mouth. His lips closed around the silicone and quiet descended on the kitchen once more. “So what do you need us to do, Vern?”

  21

  * * *

  NEAR LIBERAL, KANSAS

  FEBRUARY 24TH

  Miguel’s teeth chattered so loudly that Carmen was afraid the soldiers on the path would hear them. She pulled the children close to her for warmth. They’d been hunted from the moment they woke up that morning and the chase had seemingly come to an end. The men outside would kill them—or worse—and move on without a care in the world.

  Tears flowed down her cheeks. How had she allowed herself to get separated from everyone else? They’d been running to the hideout that Vern and the others spent the last few days preparing when she fell at the back gate, twisting her ankle violently. It may even be broken. Sidney tried to help her, but she became too much of a burden, slowing them down far too much, so they decided to leave her in a heavy thicket just inside the small copse of trees beyond the farm’s fences with the promise that they’d return for her as soon as the trucks carrying the soldiers had left the farm. Little Miguel and Patricia refused to leave their Mama, regardless of what she told them to do.

  That had been more than an hour ago.

  Carmen cursed herself. She should have worked through the pain in her ankle and forced herself to travel the two or three miles to the small, abandoned house they’d established as their first fallback position. But she couldn’t do it. The pain was too intense. Only her strong will and sense of self-preservation stopped her from crying out in pain any time she moved.

  Definitely broken, she thought, touching the outside of her boot tenderly. She knew if she took it off, the swelling would be too much to put it back on. For now, the only thing she could do was keep her children quiet until the soldiers went away and Sidney could come back to her.

  But she knew that wasn’t going to happen. They all knew that wasn’t going to happen. It’d been abundantly clear from the moment they started planning that once the soldiers found the farm, they wouldn’t leave it alone. Vern could disable the power by flipping the breakers at the solar panels, but there was simply no hiding the cattle and the chickens—or Sidney’s stupid cat that had run away from her when she tried to put it in the carrier. The invaders would know instantly that the farm had recently been occupied and they’d search until they found the occupants.

  Vern’s idea to set up the different safe houses and rendezvous points was just to make them feel better about the inevitable. Now that the soldiers had come, the farm was lost and they had to leave the area.

  “M-M-M-Mama,” Miguel stuttered through the full body shakes. “S-s-s-so c-cold.”

  She stroked his head through the beanie hat he wore, trying to soothe him. “It’ll all be over soon,” she assured him. The thick rubber grip of the Gerber knife in the small of her back reassured her. She knew what she needed to do.

  During this entire ordeal, she’d only killed one person: the employee she’d seduced to allow her and the children inside the warehouse. He’d gone to investigate noises on the loading dock a couple of weeks after they arrived and was bitten. She’d killed him with a screwdriver through his eye. Because Ben had been her protector, she didn’t see a need to have a weapon before he died. After that, she’d opened one of the packages in the camping section and taken the orange-handled knife as a last resort weapon. She’d never needed to use it, until now.

  Carmen had seen internet videos of Islamic extremists and knew what those animals were capable of. She wouldn’t allow her children to be taken as sex slaves by the foreigners or skinned alive for sport. God have mercy on her soul, she would spare them that horror.

  The crunch of boots on the pathway’s crystalized snow made her stiffen. She forced herself to look through the twisted jumble of leafless brambles to the path where six men made their way toward her hiding place from the direction of the farmhouse. In the distance, she could hear the low rumble of a diesel engine as whatever transport truck they’d brought with them followed along unseen where it could watch over the patrol.

  Cold, rigid muscles protested as she reached around to pull the knife from her back pocket. The entire thing came out, nylon case and all. It took her a moment to fumble with the Velcro fasteners that kept the sheath closed around the knife blade.

  Scrrtch!

  The sound of the Velcro echoed across the morning stillness, telling every one of the cursed soldiers exactly where they lay hidden. As one, the men’s postures changed. They hunched down, their leisurely stroll through the woods had turned into a predatory prowl. They were the hunters. Carmen Agusto and her children were the prey.

  “Not today, you bastards,” she screeched, pulling Miguel’s head toward her to expose his neck as the Gerber descended downward to take her son’s life.

  “Y’all set?” Vern asked the small group of women and the teenager, Mark, as he pulled the small pair of folding binoculars away from his eyes.

  One by one, the four heads nodded. The old man didn’t like what was about to happen. Their actions would set loose an unstoppable tidal wave—one that they may survive initially, but it would inevitably be the death of them all.

  That’s just how these things went. His granddaughter’s assertions that they were the good guys and should be on the moral high ground were the ramblings of a liberal arts major. His son had wasted good money sending those girls to that stupid university that filled their heads with all sorts of non-practical nonsense. Being the good guys only went so far when it came to the real world.

  Yes, they’d all end up dead, but hopefully the Good Lord would weigh their actions along with the sum of their daily lives and grant them passage through the Pearly Gates.

  “Good,” Vern mumbled, lifting the binoculars up once again. The soldiers below were overly confident that all they had to deal with were the infected. They strolled casually, none of them even wearing the blue helmets that they had looped over the canteens on their hips or any type of ballistic vest. “I count six of ’em, all on foot,” he continued. “They don’t have any backup that I can see—wait. No, they have a truck of some kind. There’s a machine gun up top.”

  He dropped the binoculars. “That’s it. The mission is off. We don’t need to throw our lives away uselessly.”

  “And what about Carmen?” Sidney snapped. “And those two precious babies?”

  Vern grunted and pointed at the bundle beside her. “What about your baby? We do this and they open up with that machine gun, we’re toast.”

  Sidney stared at him, chewing her bottom l
ip gently. “Let me see those binoculars.”

  He lifted the strap from around his neck and passed them to her. She adjusted the focus for a moment after she put the rubber cups against her eyes, then panned down to where Carmen and the children lay behind the thicket. They were incredibly exposed from the back side. Vern hoped they were more concealed from the front.

  After watching the injured woman for several seconds, Sidney slid the binoculars along the path back toward the farmhouse. She stared, unmoving for a long while. Without removing the binos from her eyes, she said, “I’ll take the shot.”

  “What?” Vern asked, genuinely surprised.

  “There are six men on foot,” she stated, loud enough for the others to hear, “and two men in the truck—one on the machine gun and the driver. My weapon is zeroed out to…well, I don’t know. Jake never got that far in our sessions, but I know I can hit a man-sized target on the far side of your first field. That’s about where the truck is now.”

  “Hitting a stationary target and hitting a man, killing him in cold blood, while he’s riding in a moving vehicle, are two completely different things. We weren’t expecting them to bring the truck. We should pack it up and save it for another day.”

  “No,” Sally said.

  “Yeah, Grandpa. No way,” Katie echoed. “We’re gonna save Carmen.”

  “Or die trying,” Mark finished the group’s input.

  “Are you people off your rockers?” Vern huffed. “This isn’t some game. Those soldiers down there aren’t some group of dumb-dumb infected that will wander into your line of fire. They will shoot back, and they’ll be tryin’ to kill y’all.”

  Sidney frowned. “Vern, I hope that you’re just worried for your grandchildren’s safety and not thinking straight because of it. Otherwise, you’ve got a lot of soul-searching to do, old man.”