by Dave Conifer
Twenty-five
Getting back to Savoy Street wasn’t going to be easy, Nick realized. He’d had a hard enough time getting out of there just a few minutes earlier. Now he had to find his way back through enemy lines that were thickening with more men by the minute.
He was amazed at how many operational vehicles these people had. They had them at Tabernacle, too, of course, but not nearly as many. Knowing how difficult it was to keep them running and fueled up, he worried about the strength of these adversaries. Anybody who could keep a fleet that size on the road was going to be a formidable foe.
He considered waiting for the cover of darkness, but that was a couple hours away. A lot could happen in two hours, most of it bad. He’d have to go now, or there might be nothing left on Savoy Street to get back to. And if he was going, the sooner the better before all the other side’s reinforcements were in place.
Much had changed in the minutes since he’d entered the church. Fernway Avenue, the street on which the church fronted, was no longer barren and quiet. The inevitable overflow of men and machines had quickly made it a much busier place. Nick was forced to slip out a side door and run behind the buildings and houses to stay out of view. After a hundred yards he crept to the street, saw nobody and decided it was safe to cross.
He repeated this pattern long enough to get across two more streets safely. At the third, just as he was about to sprint to the other side, a truck appeared from a cross street and turned in his direction. He had just enough time to dive into an overgrown flower bed and flatten himself in the dirt before the truck eased to a stop at a house across the street. The driver, who Nick couldn’t see except for his boots under the truck, exited and stepped over the curb and onto the sidewalk. It seemed odd to Nick until he heard a steady splattering sound, and knew why the man had stopped. No wonder he hadn’t heard the truck door slam closed. This man was in too much of a hurry.
Nick realized that this was an opportunity, and he wasn’t going to pass it up. For the fifth or sixth time since leaving the church he checked his rifle, making sure it was ready to fire. He wanted that truck. It would provide both transportation and cover. As long as he was willing to risk having to gun down the driver, it could easily be taken. He hated to take a life, if it came to that, but doing so would help him preserve many others, including his own. The time to act was now, while the man on the sidewalk had his hands full.
After one last look up and down the street, he scampered across as quietly as he could. The man had just finished and was zipping up when Nick burst onto the sidewalk with his rifle aimed squarely at the man’s gut. “Don’t make me use this,” he warned. “Get up against the house, turn the other way, and drop down to your knees.” When he saw the fear on the man’s face he added “Do that and I won’t shoot you.”
“Where’d you come from?” the man asked. “Who are you?”
“You all are bullies,” Nick said. “And we’re your worst nightmare. You have five seconds to get where I told you to get. But first, throw that cowboy hat on the sidewalk. It isn’t yours anymore.”
Once the man had complied, Nick wasted no time. He picked up the cowboy hat and jammed it on his own head before sliding behind the wheel of the truck and pulling the door closed. He knew he should have killed the man. God knows what he had done in that town to deserve it. But he didn’t know for sure. Even though he wouldn’t tell anyone about this, he had no regrets about letting him live.
Now all he had to do was find his way back to Savoy Street. The only route he was confident of remembering involved passing back through the town square, but those roads would likely be riddled with the enemy. Instead, he guided the truck down the street in the other direction. Eventually he’d find Savoy, he was sure.
As he turned the next corner his heart stopped when he saw four or five men in the street. A truck and a motorcycle were parked nearby. Trying to look like the man he’d just taken the truck from, he pulled the brim of the cowboy hat so low that he could barely see and continued to drive at a gentle pace, determined not to look out of place. At the same time, he kept the rifle on his lap, ready to raise and fire.
As he got closer, the men all turned and watched him approach. None of them had firearms on them, at least that Nick could see. He considered sticking his own out the window to mow them all down, but decided against it. Instead, he nodded at them from under the hat, turning his face away as best he could.
When one of them stepped into the roadway and signaled for him to stop, Nick made a quick calculation and decision. He still had the draw on these guys. If at any point it appeared that they were on to him, he’d take as many down as he could, both with the rifle and the truck itself. But for now he’d try to talk his way through this.
When he was close enough, one of the men slapped the hood of the truck and came around to the window after Nick eased to a stop. Another stood in front and squinted at Nick. “Hey, you’re not Jerry,” he said. “Who are you? Where’s Jerry?”
“He had to take a leak,” Nick explained. “I’m picking him up on the way back.”
“Who are you?” another man said. “I’ve never seen you before.”
“That’s your problem,” Nick answered.
“Pick him up on the way back from where?” the first man said suspiciously.
“I ain’t allowed to say,” Nick told him. “Seeing as how I have no idea who you are.”
The man laughed from his belly. “That’s rich,” he said, stepping back to let Nick pass. “We’ll catch you on your way back through, then.”
Nick breathed easier. Several men were off to the side, looking curious but unconcerned. They were going to let him through without incident, he decided as he maintained his ready grip on the rifle in his lap. They were clearly confused, but so far hadn’t done anything about it.
“I see you got your trigger finger ready,” a third man said from the passenger side. He was leaning inside, one elbow posted on the door. Nick had been so engrossed with the men on his left that he didn’t notice this one as he came over from the other side.
“Can’t be too careful,” Nick answered. “I’m surprised you don’t have your weapons ready,” he added, fishing for information. Sweat trickled down his chest inside his clothing.
“Who says we don’t?” he answered. When he reached inside his jacket, Nick had seen enough. He jammed his foot down on the accelerator pedal, which was exactly what the man in the passenger side window, as well as the one still lingering in front, didn’t need. The tires squealed briefly until they gained purchase on the asphalt. The truck fishtailed and then shot forward. Nick felt the sick thud as the front grill smashed the man in the road, who immediately disappeared from view. Meanwhile, the other hung onto the frame of the passenger window as long as he could until he was sucked beneath the truck.
Without so much as a glance in the rear view mirror, because there was nothing good for him to see there, Nick weaved through the city streets, the tires squealing noisily with every change in direction. Shots were fired, but none hit the truck. Turning corners on two wheels, he drove to where he thought Savoy Street had to be. As soon as he was close he parked the truck and climbed out, remembering that the enemy was most likely all around him. He’d sneak the rest of the way on foot. The oncoming darkness was now his friend.
When he recognized the block behind the northern side of Savoy Street, including the shed where Dewey had taken shelter, he noticed dozens of men he’d never seen before loitering behind walls and beneath trees and bushes. They were there to fight, but it appeared that they didn’t expect to start doing it for a while. He carefully made his way undetected around their flank and back to Savoy Street, mostly on his hands and knees.
Now it was his own side he had to worry about. He knew John had given the order to shoot to kill. Just like last time, when he’d returned with Dwayne and Dewey, he slung his rifle over his shoulder and raised his arms to show that his hands were empty, and walked deliberately do
wn the block.
~~~
The stillness was understandable. They were hiding in those houses, preparing for a fight. He wondered how many eyes were trained on him from windows as he walked. He fought the urge to bolt into the shadows, because sudden movements like that invited the danger of being mistaken for the enemy. The hardest part of that was the knowledge that in doing so, he was making himself vulnerable to the real enemy.
He trotted up the steps of the last house he’d been inside of before leaving for the town square, relieved to get out of the open. When he’d left several hours earlier, of course, it was only to run across the street to confer with John Markle rather than trek all the way to the square. Clearly, the situation had changed since then.
“Hello?” he yelled after stepping inside. “Nick here!” When there was no response, he readied the rifle. “Where is everybody?” he asked himself aloud. This was unexpected. He walked through the house cautiously, afraid of what he might find. There didn’t seem to be anybody there. He was still trying to understand what had happened while he was gone when he heard a salvo of gunshots from somewhere outside.
Twenty-six
He ran to the front window in time to see four figures sprinting toward the door. Each carried a rifle, none in firing position. Dwayne was one of them and Elise was another. He ran down the stairs to open the front door in time for the three to spill inside before throwing it shut.
“What’s going on?” Nick asked. He looked at the elder of the unidentified men in an unspoken request for him to identify himself.
“Kevin Conners,” he said, before doubling over with his hands on his knees to catch his breath. Like most Lockworth residents, he was in no shape for the sprint down the block that he’d just been a part of. Nick guessed that he was about fifty years old. He was gray everywhere; his ragged clothing hung from his emaciated frame. Elise didn’t look any better, Nick thought as he shook Kevin’s hand.
“This is my son, Curt,” Kevin said. “I didn’t want to bring him, but he insisted. I guess I should be proud that he wanted to man up, even if he’s only seventeen years old, right? But I wish he wasn’t here. This isn’t worth it.”
“Gee, thanks Dad,” Curt said sarcastically.
“Good man,” Nick told Curt. “We’ll get through it. So who’s shooting out there?” Nick asked. “Were they shooting at you?”
“No,” Elise answered. “John had somebody fire some decoy shots to distract them while we were out there.”
That was a lot of rounds wasted, Nick thought. But I’m glad to hear he’s still alive. “So where is everybody?” he asked. “I came back and everybody’s gone!”
“John moved everybody down to the four houses on the end of the block,” Dwayne said. “He’s already calling it ‘The Compound.’ He was worried that they’re just waiting for dark before they attack us, so we couldn’t pick them off so easy. They’re gonna’ be mad now that we took a few of ‘em out.”
“I got a few more of ‘em on my way back,” Nick said. “Couldn’t be helped.”
“It was John’s idea to move,” Elise said. “We can’t defend twenty houses if we can’t see who we’re defending against. He said if we concentrate everybody in four houses, it cranks up our firepower ratio and cancels out the darkness.”
“Dear Lord. Firepower ratio,” Dwayne said with obvious skepticism. “He’s just makin’ stuff up, I’m pretty sure.”
“I can see how it makes sense, though,” Nick said. “We can aim a lot of guns at a smaller space that we have to defend. Or something like that. I’m too tired to think.” He thought through what he’d just learned. “But how did you get everybody down the street without getting anybody shot?”
“We didn’t,” said Kevin, who was still bent over as he sucked in air. “We lost a few. Two moms and one kid.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Nick said. “Anybody I know?”
“I doubt it,” Kevin said. “But I knew them.”
“This whole area is loaded with bad guys,” Nick said. “Didn’t they notice eighty people walking down the street?”
“Nah,” Kevin said. “Of course we didn’t send everybody at once. They went in little groups, and we told everybody to keep their heads down. There’s a good chance the enemy thinks every house still has somebody in it. Your man John thought that would buy us some time, before they get to the end of the street where we really are.”
“We saw you pass by on your way here,” Dwayne said. “And we knew you’d get here and be like ‘what happened?’ So we thought we’d come fill you in.”
“I really need to get to John and Jim,” Nick said. “I was over to the square and back. A whole bunch more guys just rolled in from wherever they come from. This battle’s a whole new ballgame now.”
Nobody answered. There’d been enough bad news for one day already. But the tranquility was interrupted by the violent sound of men on the porch. Everybody was still grabbing at their rifles when the jamb around the front door splintered with a loud crack. The door flew open and two men, armed with nothing but a sledge hammer, burst through and stood in the doorway. A third hovered behind them. Nick could see in their eyes that they knew they’d made a grave error. A split second later, riddled with rounds from at least three different rifles, the three men collapsed into a bloody heap. The third man had been armed with a tire iron, which clattered to the floor harmlessly.
Nick ran to the door with his weapon ready, straddling one of the bodies after skidding to a stop on the hardwood floor in a growing pool of fresh blood. Slowly, he stuck his head out and peeked in both directions. “Let’s get this door closed!” he said, before leaping over the other bodies onto the porch. After satisfying himself that there were no other attackers, he dragged the dead men inside by their ankles. Dwayne and Kevin were already pulling a bookcase over to the doorway. They threw the door closed and jammed the bookcase up against it.
“Why’d you bring them in here?” Kevin asked. “I don’t want to look at that.”
“We don’t want anybody knowing which house we’re in,” Nick explained. “The bodies are a dead giveaway, don’t you think?”
“I never shot nobody before I came here,” Dwayne said. “Now I got two. It feels weird.”
“You picked a good time to start, I’ll tell you that,” Elise said.
“These guys didn’t get the memo,” Nick said. “The natives aren’t defenseless anymore.”
“What else is going on out there?” Kevin asked. “Curt, run upstairs and have a look, before it gets too dark to see anything.”
“Good thinking,” Nick said. “We should get somebody in a window on every side of the house, too. Just in case they’re not done with us.”
“Are you kidding?” Kevin asked. “They’ve just started. Again.”
“Aren’t we going back to the compound?” Elise asked.
“I’d like to,” Nick said. “But it just got a whole lot more complicated.”
Both suggestions from Kevin and Nick were quickly followed up on. Elise, Kevin, Nick and Dwayne each grabbed a window. When Curt returned, he reported to his father. “I couldn’t see too much,” he said. “But it looked like the same thing is happening at the other houses. Three men breaking down the front doors. Then they go inside.”
“How long before they figure out that they’re all empty?” Nick said loud enough to be heard by the others. “Except for the four in the compound.”
“And this one,” Dwayne said.
“You know, they might have a lot of men,” Elise said. “But think about it. None of these three guys here had anything more than a hammer and a crowbar. I don’t think they have as many guns as we were thinking.”
“Yeah, really,” agreed Dwayne. “They wouldn’t be sending them house to house with some tire iron nonsense if they had something better.”
“When they attacked before, it seemed like there were guns everywhere,” Elise said. “But that was because we didn’t have any. Now that
I think about it, most of them had baseball bats and spears. I think we have more guns than they do now.”
“All the more reason for abandoning ship,” Kevin said. “I say we rejoin the others. We can make it. We made it down here alive, didn’t we? And we did it all for one man,” he added spitefully.
“How bad did it look out there, Curt?” Nick asked.
“I couldn’t tell for sure,” Curt said. “But they’re attacking almost every house.”
“I don’t think we should leave,” Nick said. “What does everybody else think?”
“What do you want to do, then?” Kevin asked. “Stay here? Easy for you to say. If not for you, the rest of us would still be down the street, safe and sound.”
“Easy, easy,” said Dwayne. “You volunteered, remember? I was there. You didn’t have to come. And you know what? If not for Nick, none of us would have come here at all to save your sorry town. Where would you be then? Huh? Where do you think you got that gun in your hands from?”
Nick was stunned by Kevin’s remark. Besides being below the belt, it didn’t tell the whole story. It wasn’t like he’d been wandering around away from the rest of them for no reason. He’d taken serious personal risks by sneaking to the town square and back again, because he thought it would benefit them all.
Nick heard Elise speaking quietly to Kevin, and decided to leave it with her. “Well, if we can’t leave this house, then we have to fight,” Nick said. “Everybody stay at your posts.”
“Don’t tell me or my son what to do,” Kevin snapped. “Why would any of us follow your orders after you’ve got us in this mess?”
“Watch yourself,” Dwayne told him.
“The same goes for you,” Kevin told him. “Me and Curt are going back. Curt, get your gun.”
“Dad, are you sure?” Curt asked.
“Get your gun,” Kevin repeated. “We’re going back.”
