by R. J. Spears
“It looks like you have a gash on the top of your head,” she said, throwing the bandages aside. “I’m going to look at the wound now.” She reached her left hand to the back of his head, but when her hand touched there, she found a large knot, and her hand came away moist with blood.
Russell cried out in pain.
She started to lay his head back down when the back of her hand landed on something hard. She took a moment, cradling his head in her other hand, avoiding the bump, and discovered a very sizable rock embedded in the soil. He had obviously been struck by something, fell backwards, and smashed his head on the rock.
“Give me a hand guys. I want to shift him over a little.”
Jones and Del moved and gently lifted and shifted Russell over a couple feet, setting him back down.
Jo said, “I think you hit your head on the rock when you fell backwards.”
“Okay, I guess,” was all Russell could say, his words coming out a little slurred.
Jo reached into the backpack again, grabbed a flashlight, and handed it to Del. “Hold that on top of his head.”
Del clicked the flashlight on and pointed the beam onto the top of Russell’s head.
Jo gently parted Russell’s hair out of the way and saw a four inch gash running down the top of his head. It didn’t look deep but was bleeding in that way that head wounds do, profusely.
She guessed that a piece of metal had spun like a little saw blade in the air, buzzing through the hair on the top of Russell’s head, barely grazing his scalp but still opening the wound.
“It really doesn’t look that bad,” she said.
Jones spoke up, “Good, because we need to get on the move.”
Jo looked up to him, her mouth open in astonishment.
“We did this,” Jones said, pointing back to the blaze behind them, “to get their attention. Well, we have. I know it’s hard to hear, but that helicopter is getting closer, and we don’t want to be around when it gets here.”
Jo took a moment to listen, trying to filter out the sound of the fire, and after a moment, she did hear the beating of helicopter blades, but over the din of the blaze, she couldn’t tell how far away it was. What she did know was that her pulse quickened with the sound.
“Okay. Let’s get him into the truck. I’ll wrap his head inside.”
There was no time to be totally gentle, but the group did the best they could at getting Russell on his feet and headed toward the back of the truck. He made it two steps before he doubled over and heaved up the contents of his stomach on to the ground, with some splashing onto people’s boots.
“Well, shit the bed,” Del said, but he quieted when Jo sent him a withering stare.
They gave Russell a moment to recover, but the helicopter blades were much more distinct now. Jones and Del, along with Madison’s help, got Russell into the bed of the truck where both Jo and Madison stayed.
Jones moved toward the driver’s seat, while Del got in on the passenger’s side. Del kept his eyes glued on the night sky, expecting at any moment for a helicopter to appear and open up on them.
Jones wasn’t gentle with their departure and goosed the gas pedal, barreling them out of the little farm and the carnage they had left behind. The flames leaped fifty feet into the sky like a beacon. They left the gravel road and skidded onto the paved road in less than thirty seconds.
Del asked, “Where to now?”
“West,” Jones said. “We need to pull them away from the people back at the barn.”
Del’s eyes scanned the skies, watching for anything, but found looking into the darkness a near act of futility as the sky was one big black tapestry, spreading over them like an endless blanket. Still, he couldn’t help himself and couldn’t pull his eyes away. Just as they were closing on a long stand of trees off to the left of the road, Del thought he saw a large dark object moving across the sky a few miles away. He locked in on it and was afraid to say something but knew that was crazy because there was no way the pilot of the helicopter could hear him.
He reached over and tapped Jones on the arm and then pointed to where the object was. Jones slowed the truck down and peered out the windshield, looking to the skies. Within a few seconds, he looked to Del and nodded his head. Jones let his foot off the gas and slowed the trucked down to just an idle.
Del felt like they were in a race. If they could just make it to the stand of trees, they could hide in them, but the dark object in the sky seemed to be cutting the distance on them, moving on an intercept course.
Del heard someone tap on the window behind the cab and turned to look back. When he did, he saw Jo’s face looking in, her expression a question mark. He pointed skyward, and she ducked back and out of his view.
The helicopter was closing quickly, and the stand of trees seemed too far away. Del knew if they got caught in the helicopter’s sights, then they were cooked. There would be no evading one on the country roads. It would track them down and churn them to the mush with their big guns.
The stand of trees was getting closer when Del heard Jones shut off the ignition. Del jerked his head to Jones, who was rolling down his window.
“What are you doing?” Del asked in harsh whisper.
Jones turned back to him and said, “I’m not sure I could hear one over the engine.”
Del sat back in his seat, his heart hammering in his chest, knowing that it was all out of his hands and found that deeply unsettling. But that was life these days. He knew you really didn’t control shit. Anyone saying different was peddling snake oil.
The truck’s momentum slowed as they coasted along, the stand of trees coming up quickly. The only problem with that was that the sound of the helicopter was getting closer, too.
Simultaneously, the truck cut down the gap between them and the trees as they drifted along the road, losing speed with every second, and the beating of the helicopter's blades got louder as it got closer, too. Jones had his head out the window, listening with every fiber of his being.
Del felt like he was ticking off the seconds until the executioner pulled the handle to let him hang. His hands felt cold and clammy, and his mouth felt dried out as if it was filled with cotton.
The helicopter was hard to track visually, but the sound was unmistakable. Whomp, whomp, whomp, its blades beat the air. It was going to be close, and Del knew it.
Just a handful of seconds before the truck slid behind the cover of the trees, Del saw the dark shape pass over another stand of trees a half mile north of them, heading east and toward the fire they had created.
He let out a big breath of air that he didn’t realize he was holding, and he felt like they had barely dodged a bullet. What he did know is that one day they would probably run out of luck, and the devil would make them pay their due.
Chapter 19
That Feeling You Get When You Know You’ve Screwed Up
There were more than the three people that Naveen had reported. In fact, there seemed to be at least ten, and they had us surrounded.
I spotted the two men Naveen had mentioned by the garage. They peeked around the corner with a real lack of concern, fully aware that they had been spotted. I could see one had a shotgun and the other had a hunting rifle of some sort.
The other interlopers were similarly armed and were positioned at strategic points around our house. Two were stationed at the side corners of the house to our south, and one was inside the house to the north. I saw two people with rifles hiding behind cars on the street.
Effectively, they had any escape route cut off. Ineffectively, I had let it happen.
It was too late to mount an exhaustive forensic investigation of just how monumental a fuck-up I am, but I sure was trying. My mind mulled over every wrong thing I had done in the past couple days, and let me tell you, it was a pretty damning indictment. The list of mistakes was a mile long.
Fortunately, or unfortunately, there was no time for that sort of introspection, even if I wanted to wallow in self-
flagellation.
Brent leaned in near my face as I peered out the front window, watching the two men hiding behind cars. Both men had rifles. “What are we going to do, Joel?” His voice shook a little as he asked the question.
Well, wasn’t that the question of the moment? Here we were caught flat-footed with our asses hanging out, and I was in charge. I’m sure the next election would not be kind to me, but I doubted there would be a next time.
My mouth had gone dry and it was hard for me to talk, but I said, “We need to get anyone who can hold a weapon to get one and get to a window.”
I heard footfalls behind me and looked back to see Brother Ed, his hand wrapped in a binding bandage, carrying a rifle. He came in beside me and asked, “I’ve seen people with guns on our north and east. What is the plan?”
“We have the high ground because we are in defense,” I said. “That gives us an advantage.”
“But what if they wait us out? Or burn us out?”
Leave it to Brother Ed to look on the bright side.
I decided to brush it off and ignored my first impulse to speak the truth -- which was that we would die of starvation or be burned to death. That is, if they didn’t attack us first, which was more likely.
The bottom line was that, if they decided to wait us out, we’d have to mount an attack to escape. The best defense is a good offence, you know. And for just three easy payments of $39.95, I can sell my full line of bullshit.
The odds of success were small, but it was better than no odds. I decided to ignore the possibility of them burning us out, because it was too terrible to contemplate. At least, right then. I’d face it when they came with the torches.
“Brent, can Linda handle a gun?” I asked.
He audibly gulped. “I’m not sure, if you want to know the truth. Before…” he stopped, but then started again, “we were staunch anti-gun folks. After...well, we saw the necessity. That didn’t make either of us any good at it.”
They say it’s always good to know your weaknesses.
“Brother Ed, get guns in people’s hands,” I said, while still peering out the window. I caught another person looking around the corner of a house on the other side of the street. Oh goodie. More people to come and kill us. The hits just keep on coming.
Brother Ed paused for a moment, then asked, “What about Kara?”
That was a good question. I mulled it over for a few seconds, then said, “Give her one. She’d kill me if I left her defenseless, but tell her to stay put.” I knew that was a long shot because she was a hard woman to keep down.
Brother Ed left the room and disappeared into the house.
Things were moving fast. Too fast. My mind was still recovering from my vision, but the events outside weren’t going to let things wait.
I need to get better numbers on how many people were outside.
“Does this place have an attic?” I asked.
Brent replied, “I think it has an unfinished space up there. Jason stuck his head up there and saw a Christmas tree and some decorations. I think he said there are no windows.”
So much for having a higher vantage point.
“What about a basement?”
As their leader, I should have checked out the house, but I was either with Kara or searching for ways to make her better. That single focus was coming back to bite us in the ass.
“Yeah, there’s a full basement down there with some windows looking out on three of the sides, but none in the back,” Brent said. He was on top of me as he tried to look in every direction at once. “It looks like it was mostly used for storage.”
“I’m heading down there to see if I get any better angles on who is out there,” I replied. “Stay at this window and holler if they start to make a move on us.”
He looked at me, and his eyebrows slowly rose up on his forehead.
“Yes, they could attack us. We were attacked a few times by wandering marauders.” I paused for a moment and wiped a thin layer of sweat off my forehead. “You know, you’d think, with humanity circling the drain, that we might pull together in this whole shitstorm. But no. We do what we’ve always done and go for each other’s throats. But who am I talking to? You’ve seen the worst of it with Marlow.”
He nodded his head slightly.
“We need you ready for anything,” I said. “You up for this?”
It took him a moment, but he finally said, “Yes.”
It wasn’t a rousing speech, and I could tell he was about to piss down his leg with fear, but he was going to do what he had to do to protect his family.
I patted him on the shoulder and headed through the house and clomped down into the basement. Brent had been right. The place was filled with shelves and boxes. Whoever had lived here before had been thoroughly organized in an almost anal retentive way. The shelves were clean and the boxes aligned just right. Each box was labeled in large black, handwritten titles. Ben’s winter boots. Andrew’s baby clothes. Old Photos. Grandma’s Quilts. The boxes went on and on, and I got caught up mentally inventorying each one, as a sense of melancholy fell over me like a heavy blanket.
At first, I wasn’t even aware that I was captivated by them, especially in this moment of extreme danger. Then it hit me. The things they left behind.
We had all left things behind. People. Places. Lives.
But there was no time to be morose, so I pushed it back down with everything that was almost important stuffed in that little black box in the back of my head. One day that black box was going to break open, and God help anyone if they were around to see it.
I navigated through the shelves and made it to the front window first. The view was partially obstructed by bushes and had an oblique angle. The only positive was that I could see the feet of the guy hiding behind one of the cars. Not that we gained much from that. I scoped out the two side windows and came up with similar results.
The only advantage I could see was that they might not expect an attack from ground level. But being trapped in the basement if they caught the house on fire would be a death trap.
I hustled back upstairs, stopping by each room with a window. Brother Ed had the north side, Jason had the south, and Brent and Linda had the back. Kara stayed put in her bedroom but sat up with a pistol ready to go. That left me in the front room all alone.
My order for everyone was to shout out if they saw anyone advancing on the house. My second command was to shoot anyone who tried to get inside. Man, woman, or child, it did not matter. We couldn’t afford anyone getting inside.
Not much had changed out front. The two men hiding behind their respective cars shuffled around a bit, taking furtive glances back at us, then ducked under cover.
What were they waiting for? They had us outnumbered, and we were sitting ducks, but they held their ground. It was as if they were waiting for something or someone else to arrive and my only hope that it wasn’t a tank or someone with a bazooka.
The seconds ticked by and turned into minutes. The song says waiting is the hardest part, and let me tell you, I was almost ready to start firing blindly out the window, because the tension level was so high that it almost seemed logical to find some release valve, even if it made no sense at all.
“Maybe they aren’t marauders,” a shaky voice said behind me.
I turned to see Kara leaning against the doorway, her gun held shakily in two hands.
“What are you doing up?” I said.
“I couldn’t just lay in bed waiting for an attack,” she said.
“But how are you going to help us with...with..” I cut that off because I didn’t want to talk about the creatures working away inside her body.
“Yeah, we don’t want to talk about those critters, do we?” she said, a bitter smile coming across her face.
“You need to lie back down,” I said.
“Don’t tell me what to do,” she said. A hardness that I rarely ever saw set into her expression.
I started to reply when an a
mplified voice boomed loudly outside, causing me to jerk my attention back out the window.
“You inside, we have your house surrounded,” the voice said. It was a woman’s voice, but there was no telling the age, race, or much of anything. I didn’t even know where it was coming from, but it seemed like it was out in front of our house.
“Tell us something we didn’t know,” I whispered.
Silence filled the air, and I guessed this woman hadn’t worked out her script yet. I’d have to mark her down for lack of preparation.
“We don’t want any trouble,” the voice said again, echoing off the houses in the neighborhood.
“They all say that,” I said, keeping my voice low.
“Maybe, she means it,” Kara said in a hushed tone.
“They’d say that to get us to take our guard down,” I replied, not looking back at her, but scanned the houses out front for the source of the voice. My palms were moist with sweat, and I felt a tremor of anxiety run down my legs, making them feel like Jello. The old shaky leg is what my baseball coach used to call it, just after a pitcher threw one in, high and tight.
The voice spoke again, “We saw you earlier behind the gas station out on 52.”
Great, I thought. I guess they had seen me when I thought I was the world’s best ninja.
“Well, shit,” I said, feeling like a real loser, but then the only upside I could grasp onto hit me. “At least, it’s not Kilgore,” I added, directing my comment to Kara.
“How do you know?” Kara asked.
That was a good question. I had never met Kilgore, but I saw no military uniforms out there. All the men surrounding the house were dressed in street clothes. Besides, I don’t think it was Kilgore’s style to wait us out. If he had us in sight, I’d bet he’d go for stealth, then take us out in a Blitzkrieg attack.
“My vision had Kilgore and his men in uniforms,” I said. “No one outside has on a uniform. And besides, that’s a woman speaking, not a man.”
