by Caleb Cleek
Matt was kneeling beside the hysterical woman and was talking to her. She appeared to be speaking to him between wails. It didn’t take long to figure out the gist of her problem. She had been driving the other vehicle. After the collision, Curtis pulled her out of her minivan and drove off. Her distress was caused by the fact that her two month old daughter was still in the backseat.
Chapter 28
“Go get the truck,” Matt yelled. “I’m going to stay with her until you get back.” I tore down the street as fast as I could run. I didn’t hold anything back. I could rest while I drove. Based on the increasing levels of violence Curtis was displaying, there was no telling what he would do with the baby when he discovered he was not the sole occupant of the minivan he had acquired.
I was hoping to find Matt’s patrol truck drivable since it wasn’t governed at one hundred miles per hour like my pickup was. Curtis had a big head start and I wanted to catch him before he got on the ATV, assuming he was going to the cabin.
I rounded the corner and the trucks came into view. My heart was thumping away at close to two hundred beats per minute. I could feel each beat reverberate through my body, pumping enough blood to keep a horse alive. The problem was that my lungs weren’t able to move enough air to keep my blood saturated with oxygen. My legs were feeling weak and wobbly. My head was light and my extremities were tingling. I had held nothing back and now I was left with nothing to give. I wasn’t sure I was going to make it to the truck. I had to will my feet to take the last fifty steps, each one being an agony.
Somehow, I made it. I stopped and looked briefly at Matt’s truck. It was shot to pieces. Both front tires were flat, the windows were shot out and the engine compartment was full of holes. It wasn’t going to get us where we needed to go. Next, I examined my truck. Other than the windshield, it was undamaged. There were five bullet holes which partially obstructed the view, but looking from the outside in, I could tell I would be able to see out well enough to drive.
“Cindy, Matt and I need the truck to chase Curtis. He just stole a car and kidnapped a baby,” I explained between gasps for breath. “I want you and Kimiko to stay here with Harold. We’ll come back for you when we get Curtis.”
“We’re coming with you,” she argued, bordering on panic at the thought of being left again. She grabbed my forearm with her free hand as she pleaded
“This is going to end in a gun fight,” I said, still gasping for air. “You can’t come. Harold will take care of you until we get back. We don’t have time to argue. Get out of the truck now.” I said it more harshly than I meant, but every second we wasted, Curtis was getting further ahead.
Kimiko and Cindy slid across the seat and got out the passenger side as I cranked the engine. Cindy slammed the door in a panic. They both stood on the sidewalk, not moving. Cindy had the pistol I had given her in her right hand, hanging limply at her side. I looked in the mirror as I turned the corner to Lake Street. They were both still standing, unmoving, watching me drive away when I lost sight of them.
I pulled beside Matt and the woman who was now standing. She was still crying, but not hysterically as she had been when I left for the truck. Unlike Cindy and Kimiko, we couldn’t leave her behind. She had nowhere to go. With all the noise that had been made in the last five minutes, I couldn’t believe the streets weren’t filled with infected.
“Get in,” I said to her through the open window as I leaned across the seat and pulled the black plastic handle, which opened the door. “We’re going to get your baby back.” She climbed across the passenger seat and sat beside me, her straight dark hair clinging to the moistness of her tear streaked face.
Matt climbed into the truck after her and shut the door. I turned the truck toward the highway and pushed the accelerator pedal to the floor. Sager Road was off the main highway, about two miles out of town. It turned off the highway about half a mile prior to the Army roadblock.
“What are you thinking, Connor?” Matt asked loudly to be heard above the bawl of the diesel engine at high RPM. He was thumbing rounds from an ammo box into his rifle magazine to bring it up to its full capacity as he spoke.
“If we don’t catch up to him before we get to the trail to the cabin, we’re going to have to come up with another plan. Following him up that trail is suicidal. There are too many spots for an ambush.”
“I agree,” Matt said. “The best way to the cabin is across country. If any of the guys he runs with are up there, I’m sure they have the trail guarded. If we come in on foot across country, we can likely catch them by surprise,” he added as he twisted around and laid his rifle on the back seat so he had both hands free to check his pistol.
“You have to get my baby back,” the mom sobbed. “She’s all I have left. My husband was killed by those monsters last night. Please! You have to get her back.” Her body shook between sobs.
“Ma’am, we’re going to do everything in our power to get her back,” I said as the red needle on the speedometer hit one hundred and the engine stuttered as it ran up against the governor.
The terrain on the right side of the road began to rise steeply and I knew we were close to Sager Road. There was one more gentle curve to round and the turn-off would come into view a quarter mile ahead. I eased my foot off the gas and allowed the truck to slow for the curve. As the truck entered the right hand curve at ninety miles per hour, I could feel my body being pulled to the right side of the truck, toward the outside of the curve.
We exited the curve and I saw a tan object ahead of us in the middle of the lane. It took a moment for my brain to process the information it was receiving. When I realized what I was looking at, my foot began moving to the brake pedal even as Matt was screaming, “Brakes!”
I pushed the brake pedal to the floor. Even though I intuitively knew pushing harder wouldn’t help once the pedal was bottomed out, I pushed with everything I had. The ABS system kicked in immediately, keeping the front wheels rolling enough to allow me to steer. I yanked the truck to the left, into the oncoming lane. The right front wheel passed less than a foot from the car seat as the truck stopped.
Matt opened the door and slid out of the truck. The distraught mom moaned, “My baby!” as she followed after him. Matt bent over to lift the crying infant from the seat. The panicked mom rushed around his right side, reaching hysterically for the crying infant.
As she pushed passed him, her body jerked spastically toward the truck and crumpled to the ground. An instant later, an explosion shattered the morning silence like a sonic boom.
I fumbled clumsily for the door handle as a bullet ripped through the vertical pillar adjacent to where my head had been a second before. Leaning forward to open the door had moved my head just enough to take it out of the bullet’s path. I hit the door with my shoulder while pulling the handle. The door pushed open and I sprawled out of the truck and dropped to the ground.
I landed on my left shoulder, sending a jolt of searing pain through the joint. I lay stunned on the ground, trying to breathe. The stabbing pain took my breath away and left me immobilized. My mind was focused on a single point of convergence, the exquisite pain I was experiencing. I grasped at my shoulder with my right hand and didn’t find it where it should have been. I looked down and realized that my shoulder was now residing several inches lower and forward of where it had been two seconds ago.
Bullets continued to clink and clank against the side of the truck. Several zinged passed me as they ricocheted off the asphalt and traveled under the truck. They all whined away harmlessly.
I looked for Matt and saw that he was low crawling under the truck. Once he was clear, he knelt behind the rear tire. By this time, I had moved behind the front tire, hoping it would protect me from the barrage of bullets that were assaulting us. I eased my pistol out of its holster with my good arm and moved toward the front bumper, searching for the shooter.
I peered around the front of the truck and saw Curtis nestled behind an outcropping of rocks at the top of the f
ifty foot embankment. He was about a hundred yards away. With only one hand to steady the pistol, he was well out of my effective range. I could see Matt poised in a crouch, preparing to rush toward the cab to retrieve his rifle which was still lying across the back seat. The problem was that the passenger door was open which gave a clear view through the truck. He would be in plain sight with no cover.
“Are you hit?” he yelled across the nine feet that separated us. He must have seen the agony in my face.
“No,” I yelled back. “I dislocated my shoulder when I fell out of the truck.” The initial shock of the pain had subsided. The pain was excruciating, but I could still function. I realized I had to engage the shooter. “Give me a second. I am going to put down some covering fire for you,” I bellowed as I moved from a seated position to a crouching position in preparation to shoot over the hood of the truck. I quickly popped up above the hood and rested the handle of the pistol on the horizontal surface to steady my one handed aim. Aligning the front and rear sights above Curtis’ head, I squeezed the trigger. The front of the gun bucked, causing the handle to rise off the supporting hood. A split second later, it slammed back down onto the hood. I didn’t see any signs of the bullet hitting. I lowered my aim and squeezed again. A puff of dust popped up just below Curtis, indicating my shot was close. I adjusted again and fired. Another puff of dust erupted from the rock face he was using as a rest for his gun.
Even from that distance, I could see that I had startled him. He lowered himself even further, tightly hugging the top of the rocks. The muzzle of his gun moved in my direction as I released another round from the pistol. Once again it struck close, but didn’t hit him. Out of my peripheral vision, I saw Matt spring up and rush to the cab as I continued to fire.
Dust sprang up from the rocks as high pressure gas exited Curtis’ rifle barrel and expanded in all directions. When the pressure wave struck the rock inches below the barrel, it blew the pebbles and dirt that covered the face of the rock to the air.
A bullet struck the hood just in front of me and ricocheted off. Something hot bit at the top of my left ear lobe. I instinctively knelt down below the surface of the hood, rested the pistol in my lap and reached up with my good hand to examine my ear. There was a flat spot at the top where it should have been rounded. When I brought my hand back down, it was covered in blood.
After wiping my blood stained hand on my pants, I picked up my gun and moved a couple feet to the left and sprang up to return fire. I was immediately driven back down by a barrage of bullets. I glanced back at Matt. His rifle was empty and he had returned to his position of cover behind the rear tire.
With Matt and I simultaneously taking cover, the shooter also ceased fire momentarily. The echo of the last shot rolled along the hill behind us and disappeared in the distance. The stillness of the morning returned until it was violated by Curtis’ harsh voice.
“If you shoot at me again, I’m gonna shoot the baby,” he shouted. “This is going to be real simple,” his voice grated. “The two of you are going to place your guns where I can see them. Yours goes on the hood, Connor. Matt, stick your rifle and pistol in the bed. After that, the two of you are going to hoof it back to town. You aren’t going to come after me, either. I have enough manpower and firepower to make you sorry if you try. You guys leave me alone and I’ll leave you alone. I don’t want anything to do with that mess you have in town.
“As far as I’m concerned, that bawling little pile of flesh is better off dead, but the call is up to you. You have ten seconds to make up your mind.”
Matt looked at me. “It we leave cover we’re dead. If we die, the baby dies too,” he said as he swapped out his magazine for a full one. “But you’re the boss,” he continued. “I’m with you, whatever you choose.”
“He definitely has the better position,” I said, peering over the hood at Curtis’ stronghold. All I could see was the top of his head. It wasn’t much to shoot at from this distance. “Our only hope is that he doesn’t have enough ammunition to keep up the shooting. Otherwise, it’s only a matter of time before he gets us. Let’s make him work to do it.”
Matt’s face broke into a huge grin. “I figured that’s what you would say. You have a plan?”
“Yep, shoot straight.”
We both stood up to resume shooting. Curtis had anticipated our decision and was already aiming where Matt had last fired. Matt stood upright and I saw a burst of dust from the rocks as Curtis fired. Simultaneously, Matt stumbled backwards and fell on his back.
I emptied my gun at the rocks, sprouting mini eruptions of rock all around Curtis. The fragments must have pelted his face because he disappeared momentarily. As soon as my magazine was empty and my suppressive fire stopped, he directed his shots at me again. I ducked down into a crouch and ejected the spent magazine. I placed the pistol between my thighs, handle up, and squeezed my thighs together holding it in place while I retrieved another magazine from my belt. I placed it in the handle of the gun, slapped the bottom of the magazine to make sure it was locked in place, then picked the gun up again, pressing the slide release to drive another round into the chamber. I knew I was about to take a fatal shot, yet hoped to avenge Matt. As I was reloading, I could hear round after round slamming into the other side of my truck as well as ricochets slinging off the road. The right corner of the truck suddenly settled several inches after the front tire was hit by a stray bullet.
I quickly brought my pistol to bear and squeezed the trigger. Unlike the small bursts of dirt and debris coming from the rock face on previous shots, chunks of rock exploded from just below Curtis. It happened again and again as the rock face was demolished. Curtis quickly edged backwards out of view. I looked to my left and saw Captain Tuttle’s Humvee approaching with a soldier manning the booming fifty caliber machine gun turret.
Chapter 29
The fifty caliber continued to obliterate the rock face just below where Curtis had been. It was of no use. He was gone. There was a dirt road off Sager Road that led to the point where he had lain in wait for us. You couldn’t see the road from where we were, but I had no doubt he was already in the stolen van, on his way back toward the abandoned ranch.
That didn’t stop the Army. Captain Tuttle and the front seat passenger charged up the embankment, scrambling over the rocks. The turret gunner covered them as they advanced, daring Curtis to show himself and take a shot.
I was of no use to them with my dislocated shoulder. I moved to Matt. To my surprise, he sat up and looked down at his rifle. “I guess that one’s finished,” he moaned, holding the gun up. A bullet had hit the side of rifle. It had penetrated through one side of the receiver and bulged out the other side, but hadn’t passed completely through. “That’s about as close as it comes,” he said, rubbing his chest. The bullet impact had slammed the gun into him. His vest had absorbed most of the impact, but there was still enough force to knock him over and bruise his chest.
Tuttle and the other soldier reached the top of the embankment and yelled back down, “He’s gone! There’s still dust in the air along the road, but he’s not here.”
Just like Andy, Curtis didn’t have the stomach for a fight in which he didn’t have a huge advantage. He would happily put a baby in the road to ambush us, but as soon as that advantage was gone, so was he. “Connor, what is this?” Tuttle asked as he approached the dead woman sprawled out in the road. “What in the…?” he started in disbelief and drawled off without finishing his sentence.
I rounded the truck and realized why he had stopped short. The car seat was full of holes. The bullets that had been ricocheting off the pavement had passed through the car seat and the baby before they hit the pavement. True to his word, Curtis had shot the baby.
My stomach began to roil. Looking at the tiny miracle of life, punched through with at least a half dozen holes, caused bile to begin rising in my throat. I thought I was going to vomit from the rage that was overtaking me. Fifteen minutes ago, the two corpses befo
re me had been full of life and vitality. The mother was doubtlessly full of joy and pride in her new daughter. Prior to the death of her husband, the night before, the thrill and mystery of parenthood had still been fresh and exciting. The little girl had just embarked on the journey of life. She hadn’t even had time to realize what life had to offer her. Now, that vibrance had been drained dry for no reason. Curtis had gained nothing by his actions. There are a few people in the world who are pure evil at the core and Curtis was chief among them.
Killing the woman was an accident. She had the misfortune of stepping in front of a bullet aimed at Matt. The baby had been different. Curtis had intentionally aimed at the baby, putting himself in further danger by doing so. Every bullet he had fired at the baby was a bullet that could have been fired at Matt or me. Whether he had shot the baby out of spite toward me, or some other reason, there was no excuse. His actions were unforgivable.
“I’m going to hunt him down and kill him,” I said slowly as a promise to myself and anyone else who was listening.
Matt, who was now standing beside me looking at the baby, broke the silence after ten seconds. “I’m with you,” he said, his voice cracking. “He had a lot to answer for before today. With this act, he signed his own death warrant.”
“My orders haven’t changed,” Tuttle stated. “In a day or two they are going to be irrelevant, though. From what I heard this morning, the infection has breached our quarantine.” He looked down at the shredded remains of the baby still buckled in the car seat and then raised his gaze to me. “If you wait for a couple of days, I’m in, too. If you need to go after him today, I understand. This behavior has to be put to a brutal end or society is going to revert to complete anarchy. I’ll send a man or two with you if you feel like you need to go after him now.”
I was torn between my desire for immediate justice and the understanding that Curtis probably wasn’t going to leave the cabin for the time being. He had a secure position that he wouldn’t be in a hurry to leave given the crimes he had perpetrated. He knew we would be looking for him.
