“Drop it, Son, or I’ll put you down the same way I put down your friend there,” James told him in a deep, authoritative voice.
Jake stepped away from James, his own rifle up and aiming at the young man. The woman who had been shot slumped to the ground. One hand clutching at the hole in her upper chest. A low moan of pain escaped her mouth.
The second young man looked as though he might do anything.
“I don’t want to hurt you, Son. There isn’t a reason to get yourself hurt. After all this, there’s been enough hurt,” James said reasonably.
“I didn’t know he was going to do that,” the young man said. He looked down at the crumpled body. “I didn’t know.”
“Nobody’s saying you did,” James said calmly. “Isn’t your fault. Just point that gun at the ground… Set it down. Don’t need anybody else to get hurt, right, Son?”
The guy nodded slightly, looked around like he was surprised to see that both of the women behind him were still holding their weapons, although they were both pointed at the ground. He finally realized how it might look to the man with the rifle. Sin was crazy, he told himself... Had been crazy. Sin was dead now. Crazy didn’t matter anymore. All that mattered was that Sin was dead. He was laid out on the ground, blood leaking from his mouth. His breath caught in his throat, a sob tearing from his mouth.
“He was nuts. They’ll tell you that,” he told James. He reached forward, leaned over and laid his rifle out carefully on the ground before him. “Nuts,” he said once more. He raised his hands over his head into the air, then thought about it and lowered them to his sides, finally clasping them in front of himself, unsure what to do.
~
When Conner turned into the asphalt area that fronted the factory, he knew that something was wrong. Sandy had one of the two way radios on and was listening intently. Conner reached for his own where it sat on the dashboard, mentally berated himself for not having checked in on it, although there had been no plans to do so, turned it on and listened.
Jake was talking calmly.
“…can’t reach them… Already tried.”
Conner keyed the button, “Jake, it’s Conner, what’s going on?”
“Jesus, Conner. I couldn’t reach you… We got ambushed. None of us got hurt, but we got one guy dead on the other side. A woman they shot looks awfully bad… And I got a guy I don’t trust and don’t know what to do with.”
“You want us there?” Conner asked.
“Yeah… And, hey, Sandy’s a nurse, right?”
“Yeah,” Sandy herself answered.
Conner got out of the truck. Behind him Aaron, Katie and Amy had switched the other radio on and were listening in.
“Maybe Sandy, you, Katie and Aaron,” Jake said.
“That’s all of our shooters, Jake…”
“Ah… Yeah…” Jake seemed unsure of what to say. He went on to explain what had happened and where they were.
“Jake, I’ll send Katie, Sandy and Aaron. That’s our best shooter. I can’t leave this place alone,” Conner told him. Katie nodded at him, he turned and caught Aaron’s eye who nodded. Amy looked worried, and her eyes slid away from his when he tried to make contact. Sandy was already nodding when he looked her way. “They know the place, and they’re on the way, Jake,” he finished.
He handed Katie the rifle he had been carrying. She hurried into the factory and came back out with her pair of Forty Five caliber pistols. She also came back with something that was advertised as a hunting rifle but looked more like an assault rifle and took a clip. She holstered both of the Forty Fives, tossed Aaron the rifle and set Conner's rifle between the seats in the truck.
Sandy climbed into the back as Aaron took the front passenger seat. Jake was speaking on the radio, giving Aaron directions. Katie was nodding, “I know where that is,” she said. She started the truck, dropped it into reverse and began to back away from the factory.
“Katie,” Conner called. He ran to catch up to her. She leaned partway out the window and he kissed her quickly. “I love you. Be careful,” he told her.
“I love you too,” she told him. “I will.” She took her foot off the brake, backed around in a tight circle and drove quickly away.
Conner and Amy walked to the fire where Jan still stood, radio in her hand, and began to wait.
~
The radio hissed silence for so long that Conner was convinced that they were probably trying to call and something was wrong with the radio. Maybe the batteries were dead… Something… Maybe…
“It hasn’t been that long, Conner,” Amy told him “It just seems that way.”
Conner smiled nervously, “Shows, huh?”
Amy shrugged. “All of us.” She looked over at Jan who continued to reposition slices of Venison on the drying racks. Her mouth was set in a tight grimace as if she was in pain. She looked up as though she had felt Amy’s eyes upon her and nodded. Amy smiled at her and Jan answered it with a smile of her own.
The radio crackled…
“Got them,” Aaron’s voice called over the radio as the static smoothed out. “Give us a minute or two.”
“Read you,” Amy told him.
“Okay,” Aaron’s voice came back. “All of our people are fine. The guy that started the whole thing is dead. You could say he’s not fine at all. There was another guy, but he took off. There are two women and two kids here… Oh, another woman took off… We’re coming back… The one woman’s been shot… Hang on a minute…” The radio switched back to choppy static then came back.
“Okay… We’ll talk about the rest when we get there… Uh, those other two aren’t armed… We don’t know where they went…”
The radio switched back to static.
“Be careful,” Conner told him.
“Oh yeah,” Aaron came back. “Oh yeah.” He clicked off.
~
The three waited silently by the smoky fire. None seemed able to meet the others' eyes. They were all worried about the same thing. Where were those other two? Those trucks could be sitting ducks if they were out waiting to shoot them up on their way back, running loose and still wanting a fight, but each of them knew there was nothing they could do but wait.
A half hour later, the lead Suburban pulled onto the pavement in front of the factory, cut a wide circle and parked nose out. The other vehicles pulled in and parked to one side of each other. Everyone climbed out of the trucks and gathered in front of the factory.
Amy walked over to Aaron and kissed him. James went to Jan by the fire, who only now seemed unable to hold back her tears, and pulled her into himself holding her tight. His own eyes seemed red and troubled.
One young woman and two small children stood off to one side. Sandy walked slowly up to Conner.
“The other one didn’t make it. I didn’t want to leave her there. She’s in the back of the Suburban,” Sandy finished. She had blood smeared across the front of her white nylon windbreaker and soaked into one leg of her jeans.
“All right,” Conner told her. “Are you all right?”
“Yeah… Pissed off, but okay.” Sandy answered.
Conner nodded and slipped his arm around Katie as she walked over to him, drew her to him and kissed her.
“Thank you,” he whispered.
She looked at him.
“For coming back safely,” he said quietly.
She hugged him back. Jake walked over. “We could take her to the Sheep Meadow,” he said.
“No… I think that’s a bad idea,” Conner said. “We’ve got to talk this out.” He raised his voice so everyone could hear him.
“Listen... If we’ve got people willing to kill us, we’ve got to take this a lot slower. We’ve got to sit down and talk this all out, talk it over, make some new rules.” He nodded his head. There were several murmurs of assent.
“Aaron, help me?” Conner asked.
He and Aaron walked into the factory and came back carrying a zippered sleeping bag. They opened the
rear of the suburban and carefully zippered the woman's still warm body into the bag.
“We have anybody who knows something to say?” he asked.` His voice was choked with emotion.
“I’ll say something,” Lilly said. Conner nodded to her. He and Aaron carried the zippered bag over to the edge of the broken pavement. The brown water roared past several feet below.
Lilly wore a serious face. She closed her eyes; her lips moved silently for a moment, and then she began to pray.
“Lord… Jesus, be with us. This body may not know you, but I know that you know her. Her name is Emma." Lilly then recited the Lord's prayer with nearly everyone joining in.
Conner and Aaron picked up the sleeping bag carefully, reverently, and as gracefully as they could, swung it outward toward the river so it would land in the fast flowing water and not tumble down the cliff face instead, and let go. The current grabbed it and it quickly sank out of sight.
Jake, Amy, Janna and Nell began to gather things for a meal. Katie walked Conner over to the two children and the young woman.
As the young woman looked up at Conner's approach, he realized that she was not much more than a child herself, a young girl closer to Dustin’s age. She had a hard, worried set to her face that made her appear much older than she really was.
“Allison,” Katie said, “This is Conner. Conner, Allison.”
Conner nodded. “Allison, nice to meet you,” Conner said. “You okay?”
“Yes, sir,” She answered.
“Just Conner,” Conner told her.
She smiled. “Just Allie, “she told him.
“Allie it is,” Conner agreed.
She remained grim, but the smile played around the edges of her mouth.
“This is Brian and Janelle,” she told him.
The little boy had large round eyes and a shock of thick blonde hair. The little girl had light brown skin and dark brown, nearly black hair. They both looked up at him with serious expressions on their faces.
“Sin shooted Miss Em,” The little boy said seriously. The little girl nodded her head solemnly.
Conner nodded back. “I’m sorry for that, but there isn’t anyone here to hurt anyone now.” He squatted down on one knee eye level to the children. “It’s okay now. No one can hurt you here, okay?”
They both looked quietly around, then nodded slightly, but didn’t say anything else.
“Allison. Allie?” Conner asked. The young girl raised her too serious eyes to his own. “If you want to, you can take them inside the factory. It’s warmer in there. You can get some sleeping bags, make a place to sleep. Katie will show you where everything is, okay?”
“Yes, Sss... Conner,” she said. She smiled like she wasn’t used to smiling at all. She took the little girl's hand as Katie took the little boy's hand. Her free hand slipped easily into Katie’s free hand and they walked off into the factory, talking low as they went.
Evening
Dinner was eaten without a great deal of enthusiasm. No one found themselves too far away from their weapons. Conner made a point of talking to everyone during the meal, just a few words to see how they were doing, what was on their minds, or at least the most pressing thing on their minds.
Everyone was concerned about what could happen next. Two people had run off. Yes, they had set their weapons down, but there were weapons everywhere that they could pick up any time they wanted, weapons much nastier than the ex-GI who called himself Sin had gotten for them.
Conner had looked the two rifles over. They were both the same. A rifle that held a fifty round clip and was either semi or fully automatic with the slide of a small button. If the first guy hadn’t gone right down, he could have cut down Jake, James and the others easily. The second guy had laid his rifle down without firing a shot. What if it hadn’t gone that way? What if it didn’t go that way the next time? Those were the questions that mattered to everyone.
The second man and the woman had turned and run. Jake had berated himself for not stopping them, but as everyone had pointed out to him during the evening, what could he have done? Shoot them? Certainly that was not an option, but then Jake had said what was on everyone’s mind. What if they came back? What if they came back with Machine guns? Hand grenades? Or even what they had the first time which were really very close to personal machine guns anyway, as far as Jake was concerned. Knowing that, and Jake had thought about most of that as they had suddenly bolted, but knowing all of that, that he or one of them may very well have to deal with those same two people again in the future, shouldn’t he have shot... To kill? To maim?
No one had answered at first when Jake had tossed his own doubts out and asked, but Conner had been about to. Before he could, Amy had spoken up.
“That’s a maybe, not a fact, not an absolute. And you can’t see the future. Maybe, maybe, someday we’ll have to deal with them. That doesn’t make killing them an option, doesn’t make it right. I mean, I’m scared too. They could come after us. Do they know where we are?” she lowered her voice which had risen with her passion, “It’s only fear. They might, they might not. If they do, I’ll shoot to kill, but until they do… Do something… I couldn’t,” she finished.
Conner had let the conversations run their courses and nearly everyone had had something to contribute, but it became apparent that after dinner was over they were going to have to discuss it more fully, decide what they wanted to do about the situation, what the group wanted to do.
Conner looked around. The sun was setting slowly in the North East. The day had been a long one with nothing settled yet. The trucks had been unloaded and the supplies carried inside the factory. The back of the Suburban had been cleaned up. Dinner was over. The dog, which was still lacking a name as far as Conner knew, was nosing around playfully with the two children, wagging his tail. The children were smiling, coming out of themselves already. Conner was surprised, but happily so. The chill of the night was moving in on the air that rose from the river and flowed across the asphalt and dirt at the front of the factory.
“Why don’t we take this inside?” Conner said at last. “We’ll all get comfortable and figure out what to do, how we want to handle this.” It seemed that everyone had been waiting for that announcement. Within just a few minutes everyone was picking up items and heading into the factory out of the growing darkness.
Conner watched the two children laughing as they ran into the factory with their newest friend close at their heels, tail thumping against their legs. Conner looked over to where Allison walked with Amy and Katie. She was smiling also, in spite of the day. In spite of the heaviness of his spirit, he felt a smile rise to his own face. He hurried to catch up to Katie and the others, walking into the factory with them.
~
Jake went first. It was obvious to everyone that he blamed himself for letting the two run off, but it was also clear that no one - some after hearing what Jake had to say, some after giving it more thought - had placed the blame on Jake, except Jake himself.
Janna Adams went on for quite some time about it in an obvious attempt to cheer Jake up, but that didn’t look to be possible, Conner thought. Then Nell spoke, relating what the woman who had been shot had told her before she had died.
“She told me he had been stationed at the base, but he’d been A.W.O.L. for quite some time before things went bad. No one knew his real name; he went by the handle Sin. The other guy, the one that ran off, called himself Death. It was some sort of private joke between the two of them,” Nell grimaced, as if to say she saw no joke, private or otherwise. “No one knew whether they had served together or only ran into each other once things got bad, but they had both been soldiers, and they decided to walk back out to the base for weapons.”
“They never did make it back out there though, but found the two rifles they were carrying somewhere in town. The other woman that ran off was Death’s woman. They all met each other on the street. Emma, and Wanda, the one who ran off, had met Death and Sin. The fo
ur of them had found Allison and the two smaller children a few days after that. She just kept telling me Sin wasn’t a bad guy, just wired,” Nell finished. A low murmur greeted her last words. Conner looked around.
“She didn’t say she thought that; she said the woman thought that,” Conner said. Allison spoke up in the silence that took over.
“Did a lot of cocaine,” she said quietly. “All the time. Death did a lot of speed. Between the two of them you never knew what they might do. Sometimes they mixed it. They tried to get me to do it...” Her voiced trailed off to nothing.
Conner shook his head, bad thoughts running wild through it. “There was nobody else, Allison,” he asked?
“No,” she answered.
“Well, that’s something,” James said.
“You think so?” Lilly asked. She looked pasty sitting next to Jake. Too pale. Too fragile. Too young to be involved in all of this.
“Well it’s only two is what I mean. And they saw there were more of us than them,” James finished.
“Maybe, maybe not,” Katie said. “They saw a few more. And they’re only two. There are probably others. That’s what we really have to talk about… others... the fact that we could’ve already had this problem several times over. Who knows how many little groups are wandering around out there? Are they all like that? Probably not, but how are we going to be now?” She looked around. “Trusting? Naive? I hope not either, but we will be some way. We have to be. We can’t close our eyes, and just tell ourselves there aren’t people like that out there, because there are.”
“So that’s it,” Conner said after a few moments of silence. “We need to discus it. What options do we have? Who has some ideas?”
“Better weapons,” Jake said.
“At least that,” Aaron agreed.
“No more going out on trips split up,” Nell suggested.
Earth's Survivors: box set Page 34
