Now God was going to shoot her down.
In the snow.
“Where are those snowmobiles?” Terry shouted.
Dean was pressed hard against the bus’s rear wall of boxes, nursing a cut on his cheek. Glass fragments dusted his clothes.
But Dean went back to his window post, squinting to see outside. A snowmobile was hazing them, moving too fast for him to target, pausing when it was out of range or behind another corner, and then coming at them again.
A two-man ride. Bright red. Dean had no idea of the maker, but whoever it was, they’d made ’em fast. The riders wore bulky coats and goggles, a passing blur. The passenger held a sawed-off shotgun with one hand, aiming directly at the driver’s side window.
“Duck!” Dean called out.
Boom!
The Beauty shuddered as a fistful of iron pellets slammed into the side. Dean peeked back out and saw the snowmobile disappear uphill, around the bulk of the tour bus. Thank God the shooters had to move in close with a shotgun. Dean wasn’t riding a snowmobile, so his aim would be steadier—if he could shoot fast enough.
“We gotta move,” Terry said. He sounded scared. He shifted gears, a tug-of-war. The Blue Beauty bellowed a complaint while the tire’s chains dragged across the asphalt, clanking to life.
Everything was too loud, too fast. No thoughts, only instinct.
Kendra was holding a 9mm from Ursalina’s backpack but hadn’t fired it yet. She might do more harm than good with her gun; the shapes she saw through the windows were moving quickly. Her impotence clouded her eyes with tears. She was letting her new friends down.
The bus moved, hitching forward. Trying to drag itself.
“Sonia’s under the bus!” Kendra shouted.
Terry shook his head. “She’s gotta move!” he said. “I’m starting slow.”
Kendra crawled down to the door well to yell outside. She expected to see Sonia’s lifeless legs crushed red beneath her, but found only white snow. From the corner of her eye, something bright sped toward her like a ray of light. A snowmobile.
“Sonia!” Kendra screamed.
Sonia rolled from behind the front tire, red-faced. She’d picked her moment and rolled free of the bus.
The snowmobile was louder, drawn by their movement.
Sonia thrust her gun toward Kendra, trying to gain her footing. “Take this!”
Kendra took the gun, flinging it behind her. Sonia leaped, reaching for her, and Kendra caught her hand. Sonia’s bare hand was as damp and cool as ice, but Kendra held on, bracing her foot against the door when she slid.
Kendra’s anchor helped bring Sonia to her feet. Two running steps, and she was on the bus, clinging to Kendra when her numb hands slipped from the metal bars.
The snowmobile was so close that Kendra saw the driver’s face speeding toward her: a windblown man, jaw set hard, teeth bared with determination, or a lopsided leering grin. In that instant, it seemed he could drive straight up to them and pull them both out of the bus. Was it a grin, full of anticipation?
Kendra’s blood crawled.
Deafening staccato gunfire from inside the bus changed the driver’s mind. Both of the Twins were firing at them, standing upright at their windows. The driver veered sharply away before his shooter could answer.
Sonia didn’t seem to have noticed the grin or how close the snowmobile had come. “I got one,” Sonia told Terry. Her teeth were chattering, but she didn’t seem to notice that either. “Piranha’s in the bus. He’s ready to help you get clear. Just honk.”
Kendra was heartened by the hope she saw flicker across Terry’s face. This was how they had survived, she realized. They fit together. They filled each other’s gaps. They had moved cars dozens of times.
The bus’s chains clanked louder as the Beauty picked up speed, climbing toward the tour bus. Kendra thanked God for sparing their bus long enough for the Beauty to drive away. If only their bus could move fast enough to push the larger one.
Abruptly, the gunfire went silent; like the end of a nightmare, or the new one waiting. The snowmobile was out of range, and the Twins had to conserve their bullets.
“I’ll give Piranha time to jump on,” Terry said. The plan sounded neat and ordered, as if it didn’t factor in the people shooting at him.
“You’ll try,” Sonia corrected him. Terry gave her a look but didn’t dispute her.
“Where’s Ursalina?”
Gunfire crackled from somewhere near the tour bus.
“Follow the noise,” Sonia said.
The giddiness snuck up on Ursalina. It was the last thing she was expecting.
Her right nostril and ear were plugged with snow; she’d buried herself in it a few yards from the bus. She’d timed her scurrying dig just as she’d heard the snowmobile winding around the far side of the bus, ready for another approach.
Now she was hunting, not running, and she liked it.
Sure enough, while one snowmobile had flanked the Beauty and the other circled the tour bus, she’d had enough time to make herself as close to invisible as she needed to be for the driver speeding up from the left, his eyes studying the Beauty’s windshield. The triggerman had picked his spot, and he was going for the driver—Terry. It was exactly what Ursalina would have done.
So she was ready for him. She was so sure of the shot, she barely had to look to squeeze the trigger. She visualized the shotgunner falling like a rag doll, and he did exactly that. The snowmobile plowed spumes of snow into the air as it wheeled around. The driver wasn’t the sentimental type. He barely slowed. He took another bead, raising his own gun—only a pistol, but he had first shot.
A bullet whizzed past Ursalina’s head, but she didn’t bother ducking. He was moving. She braced herself on one knee, drawing a bead even as the driver took another shot back over his shoulder, kicking up snow to her left. She squeezed the trigger.
The report was sharp. His head snapped back as if someone had slammed a two-by-four against his teeth. The snowmobile abruptly banked left, out of Ursalina’s view. Then a mechanical groan, and the engine died down.
One snowmobile left, one or two snipers. The odds were getting better.
Ursalina jumped to her feet and waved to Terry, unmistakable: Move.
Another snowmobile was coming around, heading back north to get behind them and swing around for another go. Kendra jerked her head back into the bus as the crimson flash careened along the western bank. A rifle shot. She swore that she could hear the supersonic whine as the bullet zipped past her head. The crash of gunfire in the confined space was deafening, ringing her to her bones.
She needed her gun.
As Kendra crawled back for her gun, images flashed to her sight: Hipshot’s nails scrabbling for purchase against the Beauty’s metal floor. Shell casings falling as the Twins fired, precious spent shell casings rolling at their feet. The gleaming of the glass as another window exploded.
“Ursalina needs cover!” Terry said. “She’s running for the bus!”
Kendra glanced through the windshield, and Ursalina was in a full run… from what seemed a football field away. She wasn’t waiting to catch her ride. She didn’t want the bus to slow down for her.
“Stay at the door,” Sonia told Kendra, tossing her gun to her. Sonia took a window post, sticking her head up to survey their predicament.
“Eyes open,” Dean said.
“I see her! Damn!” Darius said, and ducked back as a box next to his head evaporated into a shower of corn flakes.
Explosions filled the bus as they returned the gunfire. Kendra waited in the door well, holding the door open with one hand while she gripped her gun with the other.
Was it getting dark? It was so hard to make out shapes in the whiteness. The bus was still crawling, but picking up speed fast. Kendra watched for motion, kept the door propped open with her foot, her gun ready. She hoped the first face she saw would be Ursalina’s but was ready either way.
Anyone who tried to pull her
off this bus sure as hell wouldn’t be smiling long.
The Blue Beauty shook as Terry slammed the gear, taking control.
A flap of clothing appeared at the edge of the doorway—Ursalina! She ran too far and corrected herself, stumbling. Kendra missed her hand when she reached for it, but Ursalina grabbed a metal bar to swing herself inside.
Ursalina looked surprised to be alive. “Thanks for getting me out of the snow.”
She was looking straight at Kendra, but it sounded like a prayer of gratitude.
Still crouched low, Terry slammed the Blue Beauty into gear and headed uphill. The Beauty shook as the wedge-shaped snowplow made contact with the tour bus.
Terry peeked over the windshield as a bullet sparked off the hood.
He’d hit the Goliath clean, at a good angle to leverage his weight against the larger vehicle. Piranha, suddenly only a few yards away, gave him a thumbs-up. He mimicked steering a hard right, and Terry gave him a thumbs-up in return.
Terry had a driving partner.
The tour bus shuddered and made a grinding sound as the contact point with the crashed car scraped away. The long bus rotated clockwise as Piranha gave the wheel an easy turn. The bus moved like a dream on the frozen road, almost too well, slewing parallel with the bank of the road. The rear stopped short, but the nose had its own momentum.
A snowmobile whirred closer to Terry from his driver’s side. The tour bus began its slow slide down the hill, the tires rotating, then locking and sliding on the compressed snow, now almost as slippery as glass.
“Come on, Piranha…” Terry whispered.
Piranha waited a moment before he let go of the wheel and jumped out. The snowdrift that swallowed him was so deep that he nearly vanished from sight, but he dug himself out to run, scrambling toward the Blue Beauty.
The remaining snowmobile raced toward Piranha from his blind side.
“Ten o’clock!” Terry yelled, and a chorus of gunfire opened up from the Beauty as the others shot in all directions to cover Piranha. They might blow the last of their ammunition here, but so far Piranha was still on his feet. He might make it!
Behind Piranha, the tour bus’s wheels skidded on the snow, the bus sliding faster down the hill, a foot and a half of snow compressing into a slippery surface, spewing white plumes through the air as it careened.
Judging by the banks, Terry tried to keep the Beauty in the middle of the road. He took a chance to keep his head up and make a course correction, turning the wheel in the direction of the skid. More popping gunfire behind them—damn!
Where was Piranha? He’d lost sight of him.
“Charlie, come on!” Sonia called from the bus’s open doorway. Terry had almost forgotten Piranha’s given name.
There! Piranha emerged, his head bobbing in the corner of the windshield as he ran toward the bus door in a wild-eyed frenzy, spraying snow with each step.
The snowmobile’s driver fell in the covering fire. His bundled passenger tried to keep control of the snowmobile, but he finally screamed and fell while it sped on, crashing into a tree stump.
Darius joined Kendra and Sonia at the door well, and the three of them hoisted Piranha up the steps. Despite the cold, his face sopped with perspiration.
“Are we there yet?” Piranha gasped.
Terry floored the accelerator and rode the gear up the incline, urging the Beauty to find strength she didn’t know she had. Ignore your holes and that hissing sound, baby… Just get us through today…
Three cars and an SUV were parked along the ridge, safely out of sight from the northern side, crowded with at least twenty or thirty huddling people. Men, women, and children. No one fired at them from the vehicles, watching as they passed.
Were they captives? Slavers? A kind of gypsy pirate village?
Terry wondered, but not for long. He risked a glance in his rearview mirror, which still hung in place despite a bad diagonal crack. Behind the Blue Beauty, two small figures were shaking rifles at them, cussing at them into the wind, running back and forth like confused children. The bus rocked as Piranha, the Twins, and the girls crowded at the Beauty’s broken windows to shout epithets and taunts back at them.
It was probably too early to celebrate, but Terry couldn’t blame them.
At least he was awake now.
“We got company?” Terry said, his eyes back to the powdery road ahead.
“Not so far,” Piranha panted.
No snowmobiles. No engines but theirs. They were all right. The pirates had dead comrades to bury and something to remember.
California waited.
TWENTY-SIX
California
It took them an hour to get down out of the mountains, and they drove another arduous hour just to be certain no one was chasing them. They found a wooded turnabout with enough cover to conceal them, but not too tight for a quick escape. Terry pointed the Beauty’s nose toward the road and hoped she would start in a hurry if they needed her.
He hoped she would start, period.
A quick sweep of the bus’s exterior with flashlights showed them how lucky they were to be alive. The Beauty was so riddled with holes that she reminded Terry of the bus in a Clint Eastwood movie he’d seen once, The Gauntlet. One of the rounds had missed the gas tank by six inches, and the coolant tank had sprung a nasty leak. But the bullets could have taken the tires or sparked the gas tank.
Could have been worse.
Most of them camped on the bus, but Darius and Dean kept watch outside from strategic locations, out of sight and bundled tight. It was still cold, but the snow had stopped. Piranha and Sonia offered to share a shift with them, but they said they were too wired.
Nobody felt like trading war stories.
Terry slept the best he could, brushing glass shards from his seat while he tried to wipe away the chaotic memories. But as exhausted as he was, he barely slept, hearing gunshots in his dreams. Every time Terry woke, he noticed Ursalina staring out of her window, her gun in her lap. Almost like a guardian angel.
Speaking of angels…
Terry leaned over to try to see Kendra too, but her sleeping form was concealed by the darkness. He heard the steady rising and falling of her breath and wondered if she was cold. Wondered if he should have shared a seat with her to keep her warm.
Dawn came impossibly fast. There was no talk of building a fire to heat coffee, as they sometimes did. Breakfast and dinner were treasured traditions, milestones that gave their days a sense of accomplishment and routine. But in case the pirates were coming, they set out at first light. No time for a camp circle.
In daylight, the Blue Beauty looked like a rag. Dark liquid puddled in the melting snow beneath the engine block, something Beauty had puked up overnight. Terry couldn’t identify the scent.
When he turned the key in the ignition, she only choked and sputtered. How could he have thought she would start?
Terry didn’t think anyone was breathing behind him. Waiting.
He tried again, and this time the choking was in concert with a wounded whirring. Terry refused to panic. There’d be plenty of time to panic later. He could almost hear snowmobiles buzzing in the quiet morning.
“She needs to heat up,” Terry said.
“Or a body bag,” Darius said.
Before he tried the third time, Terry told himself they could make it on foot if they had to. The snow was already melting, so they could send Darius and Dean on to Domino Falls for help. Or they could hide the bus, carry only what they needed, and try to walk to Domino Falls until they could come back for their supplies. It didn’t mean death. That was what he told himself.
Terry turned his wrist, and the Beauty coughed to life. Weak life, but alive nonetheless.
“That would’ve been our asses,” Ursalina said.
Like she was resigned either way.
Someone had cleared the roads, and there was no more snowfall once they were out of the mountains. Kendra was so grateful, she wanted to cry.
Kendra hoped they hadn’t made a mistake when they crossed the border. But the radio kept promising them paradise, the signal growing stronger with each passing mile. California was also growing warmer, so the blown windows weren’t as bad.
After ninety minutes of driving south, Kendra spotted a pickup truck parked awkwardly at the trunk of an old oak tree, doors wide open. Empty. The truck was battered across the hood and doors, windows shattered. It looked worse than the bus.
Pale clothing flapping from the tree made Kendra look higher, and she gasped. Three freaks were nestled in the tree’s craggy branches! Could they climb trees, too? “What the—”
Not freaks, she realized. She saw three limp corpses—two big, one smaller—that might have been a family, nearly skeletal, their features eaten away by time. A dangling end of rope told her they had been bound up in the tree, or bound themselves. She blinked, confused.
“Looks like they climbed up to get away,” Terry said, as if she’d spoken aloud. He slowed the bus as he gazed at the tree too. “Damn freaks stopped the truck, maybe. They couldn’t get up there, but looks like the freaks might’ve waited them out. They sure beat that truck to hell.”
“Maybe they ran out of gas,” Piranha mused. “Or too many freaks in the road.”
“How long were they up there?” Kendra said, horrified at the idea. One of the bodies, sagging slightly left, seemed to be staring straight down at her. Kendra looked away. They easily could have been trapped too.
“Maybe days,” Ursalina said. “Maybe weeks. You can live a long time without food. But no water? Two weeks at best. Probably less.”
Devil’s Wake Page 19
