Apocalypse Law 2

by John Grit

  Farther upslope, it got dryer and the brush grew thick. Now Nate turned and began to circle back and come in from the side. While waiting, he removed the magazine from the M4 and put it in his back pants pocket, then inserted a fresh one. Sweat dripped from his face and mosquitoes droned around his head. Dead tired, he waited to see if they were still hunting him. His chest heaved.

  I’m too old for this shit.

  Nate hoped they would keep hunting him and moving away from Deni so he could circle back later and rejoin her. Then, together, they could lose the soldiers for good.

  More than an hour later, Nate listened to them come, following his trail. He crouched low in heavy brush, keeping behind bullet-stopping cover, and watched one of them slink by. The others were too far into the brush for him to see, but he could hear their progress. He waited several minutes, and then crept away, heading back to Deni.

  The bodies of the men Nate shot had been stripped clean of weapons and ammunition. The armor had been taken, but he suspected they hid it nearby, as it would be too heavy for them to carry on top of everything else.

  “Deni.” Nate spoke before approaching the log’s opening.

  “Get me out of here. I’m stuck.” Her calm voice did not mesh with her predicament.

  Nate put his arm in, but he couldn’t reach her boots. He took his pack off. His shoulders were too wide, and he still could not reach her. “Hold on, I’ll get a pole to reach in so you can grab it.”

  Deni yelled out, “That won’t work.” The sharpness of her now-higher-pitched voice was dulled only a little by the hollow space that kept her pinned in. “You need a rope.”

  “Calm down. I have a rope in my pack. I’ll tie it to the pole so you can hold it while I pull you out.”

  His KA-BAR sliced into a young tree three inches thick near the bottom. Bending it over made cutting into the wood easier, and he had it down and limbed in less than five minutes. He left a stub of a limb two inches long near the end to hook his rope. After tying a loop on the end, he hooked it on the pole and carefully pushed it in.

  “Watch for the pole with the rope on the end. It’s coming in above you.”

  “I got it.” Her voice seemed calmer.

  He pulled the pole out two feet. “Tie the rope around your waist with a bowline knot.” He knew she had to know what a bowline was because of her Army training.

  She huffed inside the tight space. “Damn it. There’s not much room to move my arms and work the rope around under me.” After several minutes she said, “I got it.”

  “Okay, grab hold of the pole with both hands. We’ll use both the rope and pole to get you out.”

  Holding the pole above her, he pushed it back in so she could reach it. He had to work blind, because it was dark inside the log.

  “I have a good hold on it,” she said.

  He reached in, wrapped the rope around his left hand, and grabbed the pole with his other. “Kind of squirm a little while I pull.”

  When her boots appeared, he let go of the rope, took the pole out, and pulled her out by grabbing her legs.

  Deni sat on the ground, soaked with sweat and obviously in distress. Her eyes told him she barely had control of herself. She looked around, blinking in the sunlight. “It stopped raining,” she said.

  “Yeah, an hour ago.” He kept his eyes on her.

  She swallowed. “Go ahead and laugh at me. You can see I was scared you weren’t coming back.”

  He saw her eyes were wet.

  “I heard the shooting,” she said. “For all I knew, you were dead.”

  “I’m sorry,” Nate said. “I thought that log was plenty big enough.” He reached over and touched her face lightly, then let it fall. “Nobody’s laughing. Maybe in a year or two, we’ll both think it’s funny, but not right now.”

  Her chest began to convulse with restrained laughter. She shook her head. “You bastard. The log gets smaller farther in.”

  Nate clenched his jaw and looked down at the mud. “Why don’t you get a drink from my canteen, while I get your pack?”

  Working blind, he used the pole to hook a strap by twisting until the short branch he left on the end tangled in the cloth and got it out in less than a minute.

  Deni looked around as she drank. “What happened?”

  “Three are dead,” Nate said. “About eight more are still hunting me. We need to get downriver a-ways, and swim across.”

  She stood and slipped her pack on. “Let’s go. I need a dip to cool off anyway.”

  Nate slid into his pack and grabbed the M4. “Okay.” After handing her one of the full magazines he took off the soldier, he said, “You’re tough.” He pointed at his head. “Here.”

  She rolled her eyes, but could not hold back a tight-lipped smile.

  “I’m a little claustrophobic myself,” Nate said. He led the way downriver.

  Forty minutes later, Nate found a firm sandbar that made it possible to walk across with his head above water. Being shorter, Deni had to swim part of the way. Nate made two trips. First, he helped her keep her wounded arm out of the muddy water as she crossed, then he went back for her pack. She overwatched for security during his second trip, her carbine shouldered and ready.

  Later in the day, Deni looked up at the sun. “The road is north. You’re taking us southwest.”

  “Yep.”

  “Why? We can’t fight them from miles away.”

  He kept walking.

  She gave him a dirty look he did not see. “What’s going on?”

  Nate stopped and turned. “I’m afraid the ones we’ve been fighting until now were just a scouting party. The real threat has arrived. We met some of them this morning.” He sighed. “We can’t take on a platoon or company of veterans. Dumbass cutthroats, yeah, but not military-trained cutthroats.”

  “So why didn’t we just head home?”

  “I’m still thinking on what we can do to slow them down a little more,” Nate said, “that’s why.”

  “The answer to that is get ourselves killed.” She shook her head. “You’re not able to make a decision on this for some reason.”

  Nate smashed two mosquitoes on his right cheek while looking off into space. “Those trucks and motorcycles―we could shoot them up. If I had ammo for my M14, I could shoot up the engines, but that’s out.” He looked her in the eye. “These little carbines can take out their tires. I doubt they have many spares.”

  Her face told him she was not impressed. “It’s just as dangerous to get close enough to shoot at their tires as it is to shoot at them.”

  “True enough. I’m just thinking out loud.”

  Deni came closer and spoke in a tone he had never heard her use before. “You’re desperate, grasping at straws. And that’s more dangerous than anything we’ve done so far.”

  Nate stifled a laugh. “We’ve been desperate since the shooting started.” He rasped on his dirty face with his knuckles. “I’ll go in from their rear and kill a few of them tonight. Tomorrow morning, we’ll cross the river and head home. In the meantime, you come with me and take that chainsaw and can of fuel I stashed back to the sandbar where we crossed before and wait.”

  “What’s the chainsaw for?”

  He looked away. “On the way home, we’ll cut trees across the road several places until we run out of gas.”

  She tilted her head and gave him a look he could not read.

  “I’m not giving up until I’ve done everything I can,” he said.

  “You mean we, not just you. And cutting trees across the road is hardly worth the bother. It won’t slow them down much.”

  Nate looked her in the eye. “As long as you know I don’t expect you to stay. You can go anytime.”

  Her jaw set. “That’s a hell of a thing for you to say. Don’t you know me better than that by now?”

  Nate suddenly found the ground between them interesting. “I just didn’t want you to think…” He looked up, his eyes locking with hers. “I trust you with my lif
e, and there is no one I’d rather be here in this mess with.” He looked up at the sky. “So leave it at that.” He walked by her. “Come on, it’s getting late in the day. We might as well get closer to the road before we rest up for tonight.”

  ~~~~

  Nate shook Deni awake.

  She stirred, opened her eyes.

  “Time to go,” Nate said. “I plan to have you heading for the river with the chainsaw and fuel can by two hours before sunset. It’ll give you time to just about get to the sandbar before it’s too dark to see.”

  Deni stood and put her pack on. “Ready when you are.” She checked her carbine. “We’re not exactly overloaded with ammo.”

  “No.” Nate handed her his last spare magazine. “And you’re not going to have fun toting that saw and gas can so far. And if you get shot at, it might catch one and soak you with gas if you carry it in your pack. I think you should carry the saw in your pack and the can in a hand. The saw might even stop a bullet.”

  “Well,” Deni said, “there’s plenty of room for it since I’m also nearly out of food and water.”

  Nate stood there for a few seconds looking at her, not moving or saying anything.

  “What?” Deni asked.

  “I think my idea is not so bright. Forget the chainsaw. Let’s go home.”

  She threw her hands up. “Oh, hell. I wasn’t bitching. I was just saying there’s plenty of room in my pack.”

  “That’s not it.”

  “What then?”

  “I changed my mind.” Nate’s Adam’s apple moved up his throat. “I’ll stop them on the road some other way.”

  Deni leaned her carbine against a tree and stared at him. “One thing I’ve never seen you be—until lately, that is—is indecisive.”

  “Maybe I’m getting too old for this. Let’s go.” He walked away.

  “That’s all bullshit, but I guess you’re not going to tell me what’s really going on in your head.” She snatched up her carbine and followed.

  ~~~~

  They came to the place where rain had washed a deep gully across the road. The bulldozer'd had little trouble traversing it on their way to the bridge, but the raiders’ trucks could not get across without a lot of shovel work.

  “This is where I’ll make my first stand,” Nate said.

  “I don’t get it,” Deni said. “If you were going to continue to try to stop them, why didn’t we just stay at the bridge and fight them there?”

  Nate took his pack off and untied his empty M14. “Give this to Brian.”

  “Okay,” she said. “But you might as well keep it and give it to him yourself.”

  Nate’s face hardened. “You go on back to the farm, feed and water the chickens and cow, eat and rest up, and fill your pack with food and water. There’s plenty of ammo for your AR under the couch in the living room. Then you go back to your camp where you hid before you joined us. Get away from the farm before these bastards arrive. I’m not going to get them all.”

  Deni stood silently, staring at him for so long that Nate started to speak. “Go on,” he said, “I’ve got to get—”

  “No. Hell no,” Deni said.

  Nate sighed. “I need some of your ammo.”

  Deni’s voice rose. “You’re not listening. I said I’m not leaving you.”

  “This is not a survivable scenario. There’s no need for both of us to die.”

  “No!” Deni’s voice echoed in the woods. “Brian will be okay even if we don’t stop them. They will never find that bunker. But he won’t make it without you.”

  “And how long will he survive after they raid the farm?” Nate’s voice was flat and hard. “He, you, and the others will starve when Mel’s supplies run out.” He looked her in the eye, showing no emotion. “You don’t want to be at that farm when they come, so—”

  She yelled, “Shut up and listen!”

  “So you will have to wait until it’s over before you or anyone can go back to the farm. In the meantime, stay hidden in the woods.”

  Anger contorted her face. She stood there and said nothing.

  “You can be pissed if you want, but there’s no reason for you to stay,” he said. “You’re not standing between them and your son. Those people back there are your friends, but you don’t love any of them.”

  “Oh?” She stared him down. “Don’t tell me what I feel. And Brian won’t make it without you. None of us will.”

  “I know you will take care of him.”

  “Okay,” she said, “then you go—and give me your ammo. You take care of him. It’s not like I can’t fight.”

  Nate stepped back, turning his eyes away. “I can’t.” He recovered and looked at her, his face unreadable again. “That would be more cowardly than both of us leaving. The fact is, I am standing between those killers and Brian. I’m the one who has to stay.”

  Deni tilted her head, staring at him, her face a question mark. A gradual realization washed over her, changing her eyes.

  Nate pretended he did not notice. He took all his .44 magnum rounds out of his pack and put them in pants pockets, filling all four.

  She watched, not saying a word.

  He looked up from his pack just before standing and slipping the straps on his shoulders. “You need to leave now, while you can.”

  Deni stood there for half a minute. Finally, she said, “I won’t go. Now what?”

  “You owe me that.”

  “Yeah, I owe you.” She held her chin up defiantly. “But maybe you’re asking too much. Maybe there’s another way.”

  Nate pointed down the road toward the bridge. “They’re coming, my son is back there” He pointed toward the farm. “—and I’m here. That means I’m staking claim to the ground between them and Brian, and I will keep it until they kill me.”

  “I think you’re letting your feelings cloud your judgment.”

  “No kidding.”

  “Not just Brian. Ever since I got this shiner, you’ve been different. One thing I liked about you and Brian is you treated me as a friend from the start—one of the guys. Well, I am a friend, just like Sam was.”

  Nate scanned the woods for danger. “We barely knew him.”

  “His life was no less important than mine. Now stop worrying about me, just because I’m prettier than Sam was, and act like the father I know you are. Concentrate on Brian. He is your responsibility, not me. If Brian is your main concern, you should accept my offer to help save him. If you’re willing to sacrifice your life for him, you should be at least willing to let me stay and help.”

  “You know what will happen if they catch you alive?” Nate stared her down. “Even if you’re only a little alive, they will make you wish you weren’t.”

  She swallowed. “Stop talking as if I don’t know all that already.”

  Nate blew out a lung full of air and waved her off.

  “And stop thinking of me as a woman—I’m a soldier.”

  “Yeah, right.” He blinked, looked down the road, and turned back to her. “I’ve asked you to go, and you say you won’t. Well, I can’t make you, but if you stay, just understand fully that this is not a survivable battle. We can’t win. All we can do is slow them. Maybe there is someone chasing them, but we can’t be sure of that, and we have no way of knowing how far behind they are. All I do know is they are not going to get to my son and my farm and my friends without killing me first.”

  Deni gave a half-smile. “I saw wheels spinning in your head a second ago, just before you looked down the road. Tell me what you have planned.”

  Chapter 10

  Night sounds, frogs along the riverbank and a whippoorwill on a tree branch, drowned out the sound of Nate’s knife slicing into the man’s kidney. His cry was muffled under Nate’s hand. He was the second one to die by Nate’s knife.

  Nate had ammunition now, seven full magazines for the M4.

  The killers had already repaired the bridge enough to get several motorcycles across, now parked less than fifty ya
rds down the clay road. He planned to take one; the rest he rendered useless by slashing the tires.

  Son of a bitch. Nate kicked to start the old Harley three times and it did not even stutter. He heard men coming down the road, as he made sure the gas valve was on.

  Someone yelled at him, “Where the hell are you going?”

  The motor roared to life. Nate turned on the seat and sent a flurry of shots toward the bridge, killing two.

  From two hundred yards down the road, Deni fired into a rushing mob.

  Nate immediately rode the Harley into a ditch and opened the throttle, fishtailing, throwing mud, leaning low over the handlebars. The ditch deepened and he was behind cover, safe from a now-growing hail of bullets.

  Despite all of Deni’s efforts to provide covering fire, the men on the bridge increased their fire.

  He rounded a curve and slid to a stop. Deni came running out of the thick gloom of night-darkened woods, huffing. “I’m out…of ammo.”

  “Hop on,” Nate said.

  Deni sat behind him and held on with her left hand; the other held her carbine.

  They rode several miles, headlight bouncing, revealing dangerous washouts just in time for Nate to brake and swerve around.

  Stopping at the deep ravine Nate had dug deeper with the dozer, he said nothing; he reached over his right shoulder to hand her fresh magazines for her carbine.

  Deni got off and jumped into the deep chasm, then dug her boots in, climbing up the other side onto the mound of dirt piled high by the Caterpillar.

  He revved the bike’s engine and headed for the ditch again, going around the worst of the washout, but still nearly going over backward when he climbed the other side.

  She was waiting for him, her carbine already loaded with a fresh magazine.

  He got off and held the Harley up until she was seated. “Ride safe. You have plenty of time. I doubt they will be coming after us until tomorrow morning.”

  Deni slung her carbine from her neck across her chest so she could use it in a hurry. “Don’t lie. They’ll send a hunting party out on each side of the road through the woods tonight. But I won’t push it, don’t worry about that. Just take care of yourself.”

  Nate watched her take off, shifting smoothly, throwing dirt behind her, looking small on the big bike. She wasn’t lying. She has ridden a Harley before.