The grenade blast which had thrown her against the prison wall had sprayed the side of her body with cuts from thin splinters of metal. Somehow, though, she found after a swift body search that she was basically okay.
She dumped the uniform in the closet and set about searching the house for any medical supplies she could find.
Of course, there was nothing. The farmhouse had already been looted, and she realized she’d been lucky to find blankets and spare clothing.
Sara drank some water, collected her thoughts as best she could, and headed out again, through the black ash and brush alongside Clear Creek. It would be quicker to walk on the road, she knew, but there would be patrols looking for survivors of the raid, so Sara couldn’t risk sticking to the blacktop. At some point, she would have to change her boots for something more civilian, but right now they were helping her make better progress through the forest than sneakers ever would.
Traveling, it was all Sara could do to hold herself together. She’d only allowed herself a brief cry, back at the house, but she could barely breathe for the pain in her heart. Everything had changed so quickly. The sense of failure was acute and shameful, and she mourned the fighters she had led to their deaths. The image of Ava flying backwards, three heavy rounds smacking into her, kept flashing before Sara’s eyes. That wonderful woman, who had believed in her completely, wiped out of existence in a matter of nanoseconds.
No battle plan survives the first engagement, she remembered Parker telling her outside the cabin, and she felt the razor truth of his words with every step that took her further away from the prison, away from Ava, and perhaps away from her dad.
Dazed, Parker was pushed back down the corridor to his cell as a bulldozer moved in to dump a huge bucket of lime into the pit outside and push in the mounds of earth pyramided at the sides, drowning the bodies in a mass grave.
Once the gunfire had stopped, the silence that descended was complete and all-encompassing. It was a physical silence; the silence of evil left to run its course unchecked.
Parker’s heart and head ached with it, cold and impotent.
In his head, he ticked off the well-established historical atrocities. Nazi Germany, Cambodia, former Yugoslavia, Syria… but never in his darkest and most gnawing nightmares had he imagined that he would see it here in the United States. This couldn’t even be chalked up to war or terrorism—it was Americans turning against Americans. Replaying the images in his mind eclipsed his own loss; it put a perspective on events that stretched with raw agony to every horizon of his internal landscape. As the marshals released him from his bonds in his cell and he fell on his bunk, the clang of his cell door closing sounded to him like God’s heart breaking. And it felt that final.
Parker had seen some things as a cop—the likes of which he hadn’t thought humanity was capable, until witnessing them with his own eyes—but tonight he had seen into an insanity so massive that he felt like an ant crushed beneath the whole weight of the world.
Never before had he craved human contact so much.
And never before had he so needed to feel the warmth and love of his daughter in his arms.
Parker had only one eye through which to cry, but it shed enough tears for a thousand eyes as the night wore on. A thousand eyes that wished never to look again upon anything like what he had been made to witness that night.
Sara pushed on as the sun rose on a cloudless day.
She was thankful the weather was holding, at least. Although it was chilly and fresh, it was dry enough to make travel fairly easy-going. A road bridge crossing Clear Creek had briefly shown Sara an F-250 with mounted 7.62 mm M240 machine guns moving slowly across it. She’d ducked into the long grass around a copse of chestnut. The FEMA soldier in the back of the truck had looked briefly in Sara’s direction, she was sure of it, but had also looked right through her. The F-250 carried on across the bridge, though, and Sara struck out again. She didn’t know where she was going, beyond moving forward. Part of her wondered if a concussion was driving her, more so than any plan, but any time she thought seriously about what came next, images of Ava and Crow assaulted her. So, she kept going, making her feet move her forward—to somewhere. Anywhere else but what and where she’d come from.
Eventually, exhausted, she fell to her knees and crawled into a tangle of shrubbery. Beneath the white, flat-topped flower clusters in a thick grove of southern arrowwood, she sank into a fitful, troubled sleep.
19
Ava fell to her knees, with the taste of blood in her mouth and legs like cramped stumps of pain.
She had run as far and as fast as she could.
Ava’s escape—dressed as she was in the ACU, and weighed down by belts, clips, guns, and webbing attached to the IOTV—had become a shaking, numbing, headlong sprint of purgatory. Her lungs were as raw as uncooked steak that had been beaten into ragged strips by an insane chef wielding a steel-headed tenderizer.
The prison was many miles behind her, though, and she felt sure she hadn’t been followed.
Ava rolled onto her back, sucking huge gulps of air into her beleaguered lungs. She knew that, if she was to make it back to Billtown, she’d have to ditch the uniform and find some transport. But that could come later. Right now, her priority was to slow her breathing to a human level and stop her heart from spilling out of her mouth, waving a white flag.
Images flashed through her mind as she lay among the trees. Sharp bursts of light, and those bullets crashing into her chest. The blood dripping out of dead Marty Smith’s broken mouth. Ava playing dead beneath three bodies until the attacking FEMA soldiers had disappeared down the corridor. They’d been intent on catching up with Crow Michelson.
But Ava was still alive.
Dead fighters had saved her life by shielding her with their bodies. The grenade detonation had thrown their fried corpses on top of Ava, taking the full force of the blast. She’d been crushed beneath their weight, already winded and in agony from the three MP7 rounds that had smashed into her chest. The IOTV had done its job and stopped the bullets with its Kevlar inner lining, but the close range of the shots had thrown her off her feet, and the grenade had covered her in other fighters’ flesh and blood.
But it was the human shield of her dead compatriots that had saved her life the second time, as the FEMA soldiers had run off in pursuit of others, not thinking to check her status at the bottom of a pile of broken, twisted torsos.
Ava had known immediately that she didn’t have any time to waste and begun wriggling out from under her dead comrades. As she’d gotten up, the sound of distant gunfire and explosions had increased in intensity. Whatever had happened to turn the tables on the operation had been reaching a climax, and surviving had meant she’d have to find a way out of the prison, and fast.
When she’d made it through the destroyed doors of the building and into the quad, she’d seen that the firetruck had been blown apart and was burning. Bodies of resistance fighters hung out of the doors, their clothes on fire and their faces accusatory grimaces of pain. The FEMA soldiers she had followed down the internal corridors leading to the goldfish bowl office had already left the quad. Through the swirling smoke coming off the firetruck, Ava had seen them running at full tilt to join the battle against the remains of Margret’s team.
For a moment, Ava had thought that she might do the same, to help her comrades, but by the time she’d passed the outer prison gates the firing had stopped, and she’d seen three fighters—one of them could have been Margret—forced to their knees and executed with single shots.
She’d known that, if she attacked the FEMA troops now, she’d surely suffer the same fate, and it would serve the memories of their fallen comrades better if she lived to avenge their deaths, rather than senselessly throwing her life away now.
So, Ava had lit out East, relying on her invisibility in the darkness. She’d stayed off roads, heading into the trees once she’d made it across the vast area of grassland on that side of the priso
n. She didn’t know if Crow had managed to get Sara away, but she prayed that he had. At some point, she hoped they would be able to meet up to take stock of the situation back in Billtown.
Having breathed through her memories of the night and slowed her heart rate, Ava stood up and rubbed her face hard with her palms to revive the urgency that had dissipated as fatigue set in. On some level, she knew she was in shock from all that had happened and from the pain in her bruised ribs where the bullets had hit the Kevlar, but she couldn’t let any of that stop her. She’d be caught if she did. With her face and mind set, she struck out through the trees again.
Ava couldn’t keep the killing pace of a full pelt, so she jogged as much as she could over the boggy ground. Two hours later, she paused, her hand against the trunk of a tall black ash tree. She’d stopped because something large was moving up ahead, and she heard an engine idling.
Fuck.
Were the FEMA troops on her trail? Were they getting ahead of her and waiting for her to emerge from the trees? In the far distance, she thought she heard a dog barking, but couldn’t be sure. Ava got down on her belly, inching through the grass and mud.
As she got closer and saw what was through the trees, the sense of relief she felt was so overwhelming that she almost burst into tears.
Sara awoke in the late afternoon, under a much-changed sky.
Clouds were glutting what before had been a clear blue bowl. As she rolled from beneath the arrowwood bush and sat up, she winced. As if things weren’t bad enough, she had a bad crick in her neck. Sara rubbed at it and rolled her head around her shoulders, but nothing would shift the nagging pain.
There was the distinct possibility of rain in the air as the weather rolled in from Kentucky across southern Indiana. She wished that she’d at least kept the top half of her ACU to wear beneath her sweater, but it hadn’t occurred to her that she’d need it for warmth. She hadn’t wanted to risk being picked up with the uniform on her person. Though now, with the change in the weather and the first thin spray of water peppering her back, she’d have to make finding shelter a priority. If she didn’t find somewhere dry, a miserable night awaited her—with no warmth, out in the elements and covered in wet clothes.
Through the gloom, Ava saw an ancient turquoise Chevy Silverado—like the firetruck, it was primitive enough not to have been affected during the EMP Event. There were a bunch of camouflage decals on the doors and the side of the beast, designed for hunting, Ava surmised. Two men were in the cab, smoking, the red glows at the ends of their cigarettes moving like fireflies. Not military. Hunters, probably in the woods to get a fresh kill for their families.
Something was amusing them. Ava heard them laughing inside the cab. She saw one of the men raising a small bottle of liquor to his lips. Maybe they weren’t hunting; maybe they were just shooting the breeze and having a good time.
It had been an age since Ava had had anything even approaching a good time, and for a moment she felt a pang of envy. What would it have been like if she hadn’t joined the resistance? If she’d tried to carve a life out of the apocalypse as best she could? Found someone to love—maybe even learned how to farm… Perhaps… No. Ava squashed the idea. You don’t give up. You do not give in.
This fight matters. And it must continue…
Within three minutes, she was driving away in the Chevy, the two near-drunk hunters’ hands tied behind them, on their knees in the mud.
Ava had left their feet untied so they’d be able to walk back to their homes, but taken their guns and their bourbon.
Ava drove hard, west out of Terre Haute. Most of the highway in this area had already been cleared of dead cars and the going was easier than she’d expected.
She sped through Seelyville, momentarily thinking of stopping to see if Mace and Jessica had clothes she could change into, but realized those clothes would probably have belonged to Mace’s dead wife. With that in mind, she thought better of asking.
Ava reached the golf club and parked her stolen vehicle behind a building where it wouldn’t be easily seen. There had been a skeleton crew of defenders left at the club, with the majority of families living life as best they could in the nearby towns and settlements around Billtown. The lack of anyone challenging Ava was evidence of complacency, and perhaps hubris—no one had spent any time considering that the mission could fail. The two or three usually solid guys who should have been on sentry duty had wandered off to relax elsewhere.
Ava had been able to drive onto the golf course and get into the clubhouse without anyone stopping her, and the ease of it made her blood cold. The resistance, if indeed there still was a resistance, one with the belly still to take on the regional authorities, would require a higher level of paranoia.
Cozy resistance was over.
Ava went inside the clubhouse, sat at the meeting table, and tried to conjure up the words that would convey how their world had shifted terrifyingly on its axis.
Sara figured she’d made a good ten miles from the Wabash along the banks of Clear Creek. As she began to walk again, her chin buried in her chest against the worsening rain, she resolved to get to a road as soon as she could.
Meanwhile, she’d look for shelter in any abandoned property she came across. She estimated the time was after four in the afternoon, which would give her a good four hours of light before darkness fell again, but as the wind whipped up at her back, the sense that she would need shelter long before nightfall sharpened her thinking.
After another thirty minutes of slogging through the grass and brush, the rain started to fall in sheets. In no time at all, Sara was drenched, and no amount of army gear would have saved her from the onslaught. The wind had picked up, too, and Sara considered finding a tree to sit beneath, but even if she did, the rain was gusting in horizontal lines, splashing off the tree trunks and whipping at foliage. Wherever she sat now, there would be no respite. So, the only thing to do was to keep walking.
The rain battered her back and whipped her hair, but Sara’s legs moved like clockwork. The only comfortable parts of her body were her feet in the standard issue army boots. The boots were tight, secure, warm, and proofed against the rain. What she wouldn’t have given now for a pack containing wet weather gear, rations, and a means to get a fire going. Another thing her father had gifted her with—the know-how to make do with the barest of supplies. But she didn’t even have those at the moment.
She didn’t see the house until she was almost upon it.
It was a one-story, ranch-style dwelling, probably built in the sixties. There was a curving dirt road leading from it into the wood, heading toward the nearest highway, she guessed.
The windows looked secure, and on the porch were two rocking chairs being lashed by rain.
Although the windows were unbroken, the house still had a dilapidated look about it—as if the owners hadn’t cared that much for it before the EMP hit. It had a homely but tired air. There were no ready signs of occupation, so Sara approached across the overgrown yard and climbed the three steps to the porch.
Because of the driving rain, Sara knew that she wouldn’t be able to hear if there was anything going on inside the property, but she placed her ear against the door anyway and tried to listen.
Nothing.
Tearful, cold, hungry, exhausted… she could either take the risk to see if the house was unoccupied or move on into the worsening weather, hoping she might find a shelter before nightfall.
Sara took a breath, steeled herself, and knocked on the door with three curt raps.
Then, she waited. The porch roof served up no protection against the pelting rain, and from inside the house, there came no answer. Sara knocked again as her skin began shivering beneath the freezing moisture; she was soaked through. This time, she hit the door louder and harder, hurting her already bruised knuckles.
Nothing, still.
Lightning split the sky overhead and thunder boomed almost immediately, heralding the proximity of the storm.
Sara decided she wasn’t going to wait any longer. She opened the unlocked door.
The inside was dark; the windows had blinds drawn and only their edges showed any light. Beyond the front door, as the light from outside spilled into the room, Sara saw a large family room which didn’t show signs of abandonment. In fact, as her eyes grew accustomed to the grayness, what she had initially thought was an empty pair of boots suddenly moved toward her, revealing blue jean-clad legs. And a shotgun.
A man was bringing both barrels up, cocking the gun. He was aiming the gun at Sara’s heart.
Ava sat with the now-woken sentries and families of the people who had been killed in the raid.
She knew they were in shock, but after that would come the inevitable anger—and she was preparing herself for it. She had been one of the greatest supporters of Sara and her mission to release the people of the prison. At some point, these families would turn on Ava. Not because she embodied the failed action, but because she had survived.
Ava’s apologies had sounded thin and lame. The words that she’d used seemed, even to her, not to offer an ounce of comfort to the assembled groups. Two or three people had already stormed out of the clubhouse, gotten into their cars or onto their horses, and made for their homes.
And, of course, all the while, Ava had been trying to hold down the grief in the room, to be a presence and anchor for these people. She was hurting deeply, too, but there was nothing to be done for it. Not for any of them. Ava didn’t even know if Sara and Crow had survived, or the extent of their injuries if they were still out there and breathing. She’d asked if anyone would come with her in the Blazer to look for any signs of them, but no one would even consider the idea.
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