Turning Point: Book 6 in the Thrilling Post-Apocalyptic Survival Series: (Darkness Rising - Book 6)

by Justin Bell

  Rhonda’s head snapped around. “We have not lost her, Phil! We haven’t!”

  “Then where is she, Mom?” Max asked, his voice trembling.

  “I’m here.”

  All eyes moved toward the barn door at the sound of the voice. Winnie ambled in, walking gingerly, but upright. Her left arm was in a handmade sling, which connected to a series of wraps around her chest, hugging her arm tight to her, looking like a mummy only partially clad in cloth bandages. Her face was gaunt and pale, her breathing steady, if ragged. But she was standing. She was walking.

  Rhonda’s eyes peeled into wide pools of white, her lips parting. “W… Winnie?”

  Phil jumped up next to her, running to his daughter, and Rhonda was on her feet shortly afterwards.

  “Don’t hug don’t hug don’t hug,” she said quickly in swift whispers, as she braced herself for the inevitable. Somehow her parents held themselves back and stopped short of a full-on embrace, instead clutching both her arms in eager hands to convince themselves that the figure before them actually was solid and not an apparition.

  “You’re okay?” Rhonda asked. “Are you okay?”

  Winnie nodded softly. “They have a doctor in there,” she said. “Or at least someone who claims to be one. Pulled the arrow out, got me stitched up. Hurts like crazy.” Drawing close, Rhonda could see tears forming in her daughter’s eyes.

  “Oh, sweetie,” she said softly. “My brave girl.”

  “I’m so glad you’re all right,” Phil said, giving her a kiss on the cheek.

  “I’m fine, Dad, okay? Don’t go overboard.”

  “If it makes you feel any better, I knew you were too stubborn to die,” Max said, though Winnie could see a relieved sparkle dance in his blue eyes.

  “If I did, I’d just come back and haunt you,” she replied.

  “Winnie!” She turned to see Tamar coming in through the barn door, a wide smile splitting his lips, his exhausted demeanor shattering apart in a burst of relief.

  “No hugs!” Winnie shouted, withdrawing slightly and Tamar clasped his hands around her cheeks and looked her in the eyes.

  “I was worried about you, Win.”

  “It’s okay,” she said. “I’m okay.”

  The five of them huddled together, talking softly to each other, soaking in the reality of Winnie’s survival.

  “I’m glad to see you’re all satisfied with the outcome.”

  Rhonda glanced toward the barn door as Elias entered, flanked by three men in dark hoods. “It could have gone far worse.”

  “Are you going to pretend to tell me you let her live on purpose?” Rhonda hissed.

  “Oh, I wouldn’t dream of it,” Elias replied. “But we did get her medical treatment when we could have just let her bleed out in the grass.”

  “I swear to God,” Rhonda started, but Elias held up a single palm.

  “Please. There’s been enough conflict for one day, don’t you think? As I’ve said before, the Unbound are about peace. Understanding. Willingness to work with each other, not against.”

  Rhonda chewed on her words, but swallowed them down and did not speak them.

  “There is much that we still need help with. Still many mouths to feed. I trust tomorrow we can agree on common goals and not revisit our issues from today?”

  “Or what? You’ll put an arrow in another child?”

  Elias firmed his lips. “That was your choice, not mine.”

  “Whatever helps you sleep at night.”

  He nodded and turned away, accompanied by the three other men. “Tomorrow morning, bright and early, my dear. Get some rest. No more days off for you.”

  As the sky shifted from indigo to black, the four men walked off into the darkness, becoming one with the shadows and leaving them to wonder what the next day would bring.

  Chapter Five

  The hay crawled over Rhonda’s feet as she trudged through it, the dried, pointed ends digging at her socks and bare skin underneath. Drawing back, she rammed the pitchfork deep into the thick sheath of hay, then picked it up and cast it aside into a pile near the left fence. She stepped forward and repeated the motion, looking to her right to see Tamar picking up his pile by hand, bending low to the ground, and wrapping the dried grass in his arms.

  She moved closer to the stables, her eyes lingering on a pair of archers who roamed nearby, men in dark robes with those all too familiar bows pressed tight to their backs with taut bowstrings. Each man had a quiver of arrows hanging from a shoulder strap and their alert eyes followed Rhonda and Tamar’s every move. Rhonda stabbed the hay again, lifting it up, then turned and walked back toward the fence. As she did, she saw Winnie and Rebecca in another fenced in area not far away. They both held small wooden brushes and were standing among a group of young horses, brushing out their fur and manes. Winnie was still moving slowly, the past week had done her good, but not good enough, and it was difficult for her to move quickly and she couldn’t lift her left arm above the shoulder. Rhonda had never gotten all the information about where she had been hit and what the extent of the damage was, and indeed, Winnie wasn’t entirely sure either, the whole event was a blur, but her daughter was alive and, for now, that was enough.

  “She lookin’ okay, Rhon-dawg?” Tamar asked as he approached on her right.

  “You must stop calling me that,” Rhonda replied, shaking her head. “Yes, she looks okay.”

  “She’s a tough chica.”

  “That she is.”

  “Musta learned it from her pops.”

  Rhonda laughed out loud and glared over at him again. “You’re really pushing your luck today, kid.”

  “Aw, you love me,” he replied. “I even let y’all use the pitchfork.” He turned and walked back toward the other side of the pen.

  “Less talking, more working,” one of the archers sneered.

  “Yessah, Massah,” Tamar barked, bowing his head in mocking respect. The man in the dark hood glared at him with pure menace in his cold, green eyes.

  “I’m not the only one you’re pushing your luck with, Tamar,” Rhonda said. “Watch it.”

  “Point taken,” Tamar replied, saluting briefly. He moved back to the hay while Rhonda angled back toward one of the archers, eyeing a particularly thick cluster of hay on the ground.

  ***

  “You want me to take a turn with the brush?” Rebecca asked, walking over toward Winnie. She held the wooden handled brush in her right hand and was softly flexing her bicep, trying to free up some of the locked muscles there.

  “I’ll be okay,” Winnie replied. “Really.”

  “You sure? Your mom will never forgive me if I let you work yourself to death.”

  “My mom worries way too much.”

  “Normally, I’d agree, but, I mean… you got shot with a freaking arrow a week ago.”

  “Yeah, yeah.”

  Rebecca walked toward a covered area at the north edge of the fence and lifted a shovel that leaned against the wooden slat wall there. She dug it into the ground, scooping up an impressive pile of horse manure and walked it out to the fence, angling the shovel to tip it over and out of the pen. She glanced up at the slanted roof of the stable area, the metal tin plate secured to it with several evenly spaced nails.

  “Oh I get it,” Winnie said. “You wanted to brush so I could shovel the crap. Nice plan, how did that work out for you?”

  “Not so good. I’ll have to be more subtle next time.” She leaned over and dug the shovel back in, then halted, drawing back and gasping.

  Winnie turned. “Are you all right?”

  “Yeah,” Fields replied. “My shoulder’s still nagging. We’re all in pretty rough shape.”

  Winnie nodded. “Speaking of rough shape, how’s Angel holding up?”

  “He’s doing just great,” Rebecca replied. “He’s so beat up that they’ve got him in the house cooking. He’s not even doing the hard work. Can you believe that crap?”

  “Man. It’s been at le
ast three weeks since he got shot. I got shot a week ago and I’m back out here busting my butt.”

  “No kidding. I blame affirmative action. They needed to fill the Mexican quota.”

  Winnie burst out laughing. “I’m going to tell him you said that!”

  “Go ahead,” Rebecca replied through a coughing fit of laughter. “He’ll probably agree with me!”

  Halting the brushing for a moment, Winnie looked over the fence, her eyes settling upon the pen not too far away. She saw her mother digging the pitchfork into the hay and Tamar carrying a load in his scrawny arms. The archers stood there watching them. They were never far from Rhonda, and they kept her close to Tamar so they could keep eyes on both of them. The strategy made sense, and so far for the past week, things had been quiet.

  With each passing day, Rhonda grew more and more uneasy, not just for Lydia, but for the potential impending doom of another nuclear detonation. Philadelphia seemed to be a hotbed, and they’d tracked the Kruellers there. If they couldn’t get there and find out what was really going on, it was just a matter of time before another explosion. And if another device did explode in Philadelphia, they didn’t have the time or the transportation to get far enough away. Everyone on this farm would be a dead man walking. Maybe not immediately, but soon after.

  Winnie could see the unease in her mother’s eyes. She’d learned to read her far better over the past several months than she ever had in her previous fifteen years of life. She was understanding her better, getting a taste of where she came from and what she went through.

  For most of her life, Winnie found her mom to be overbearing, over cautious, and over prepared. Now those qualities had saved their lives and kept them secure during the worst situations imaginable. She now found herself thankful for these qualities in her mother and not resentful.

  She looked over toward the pen again and saw Rhonda looking at her, staring at her from several feet away. Rhonda lifted the pitchfork in a mock wave and nodded in Winnie’s direction.

  Winnie returned the motion, then let her gaze drift to the perimeter of her own fence to make sure nobody else was watching. The last thing she needed was one of the hooded men storming over and telling her “less waving more working.”

  “Speaking of you being shot,” Rebecca continued, “you still holding up okay?”

  Winnie shrugged as she brushed the horse. “I guess. Good thing about their hand carved arrows is they don’t have those nasty hunting tips. I’ve got a scar, but there wasn’t too much damage done.”

  “Do you think that was on purpose?”

  Winnie looked at her. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, did they do it more to scare you than hurt you? I mean, they are looking after us here.”

  Bringing the brush down the length of the horse’s mane, Winnie looked away. “I heard you and Angel talking, you know.”

  Rebecca looked up toward her from down in a low crouch. “What do you mean?”

  “When we first got here. You guys were talking about how it wasn’t so bad and we were away from the violence. It sounded like you guys might be happy here.”

  The former FBI agent looked back down at the ground, resting her arms on her bent knees. Around them the world was silent, the only sounds the muffled noise of farm animals.

  “It is nice here,” Rebecca replied after a moment of quiet. “But that was before they shot you with an arrow, okay? We’re still on the same side here.”

  Winnie nodded. “I kinda agree with you,” she said. “If it wasn’t for Lydia, I could get used to this.”

  Rebecca stood and walked over to her. “It’s not just Lydia, though. There is a definite threat. The peace and quiet here will only last until these people attack the Summit, if that is what they’re planning.”

  “I know,” Winnie replied. “Still. Brushing horses. Feeding pigs. Working in the yard. It seems… normal. A lot more normal than the life we’ve been living for the past few months, anyway.”

  “And hey, what’s the occasional arrow in the back between friends, right?”

  “Very funny.”

  “All good things must come to an end, unfortunately.”

  “Ain’t that the truth.”

  Winnie looked up to the sky, running the brush through the long, soft mane of the brown horse, and waited for the next shoe to drop.

  ***

  “It’s almost lunch time, Angel, can you start getting the eggs ready, please?”

  Angel nodded to the young woman and moved toward the counter next to where he retrieved several eggs laid by some of the dozens of chickens in one of the various coops at the farm. The eggs were fresh, laid less than a few days previous, and Angel had learned through his time here that fresh laid eggs would last without refrigeration for a month or more, at least until they were washed. He moved toward a small, wooden bucket and began washing the curved, brown surface of the large, oval shapes.

  The farmhouse he was in was a relic from over a century ago; the outside made that perfectly clear, however it was evident that the inside had been renovated, quite possibly by hand, at least somewhat recently. Unlike many homes of the 19th century, the floor plan was somewhat of an open concept with a wide, rectangular living room and broad picture window looking out over the pastures. Two couches stretched along the far and right-hand walls, with a single island separating the medium-sized kitchen and the rest of the main level. Just to the left of the island was a stove top, the appliance itself of an older vintage, with cabinets along the right wall leading toward a locked door. On the wall behind Angel was an icebox, sink, and another counter, encircling him within a kitchen mixed with old school and modern amenities. Just to the left of the icebox, the kitchen went back a few feet, ending in a narrow window just to the right of the locked door, which stood in staunch defense of a stairway down to the mysterious basement.

  Angel moved back to the counter, his eyes roaming the interior of the house, picking out the four different men standing at all exits, quietly and subtly making sure he didn’t attempt to vacate the premises. With calculated precision, his eyes settled on each man, drew in the man’s size and the weapons they held, then moved on to the next. He began cracking eggs into a large bowl, dropping yolks, then casting the shell remnants into a nearby can where they would be later crushed and used to help fertilize the fields.

  A cast iron pan sat on the stove, and after beating the yolks into a milky, yellow swirl of a mixture, he dumped it into the pan and swished it around lightly.

  “Make enough for the ones tending to the animals,” the woman said. “We’re having a big lunch today. A time for all of us to come together. It’s been a week since the incident and we should celebrate our newfound family ties.” She smiled warmly at Angel who smiled back and nodded, walking back to the icebox. Looking to his left he saw a narrow window set on the wall of the house, next to the icebox. Through the window he could see Phil, Max and Brad working in the chicken coop, cleaning it and filling the food troughs. He shook his head as he watched. As a city boy in South Los Angeles, he never thought he’d see the day when he was watching chickens get fed and cracking their fresh eggs for a summer lunch. The smells and sounds of farm animals drifted into the kitchen through open windows, a mixture of pleasing and natural, with the pungent stench of manure. It was a unique combination, a sensory buffet and one that he enjoyed, in spite of himself.

  “We’re low on bread,” he said, turning to look over his shoulder. “Is there any in the basement?”

  The woman nodded. “You stay there, I’ll get it out of the basement.”

  “Newfound family ties, and I’m still not allowed in the basement?” Angel asked, his voice light and sweet, trying not to sound overly serious.

  “One can’t be too careful,” she replied, flashing him a smile before she broke left and went toward a padlocked door. She thrust a small key into the lock and popped the latch, then eased the door open and vanished down inside, swallowed by the darkness that con
sumed the stairway beyond. Angel focused on the eggs, but let his eyes wander to that door and linger there for a moment, though the shuffle of foot on floor drew his attention back to one of the hooded men who took a step toward him, seeming to read his mind.

  “Focus on the eggs,” he said. “Don’t worry about where she’s going.”

  Angel smirked and nodded, snapping another egg on the counter and dumping its contents into the hard, metal pan. The low heat of the stove began a hissing sizzle as the yolks slowly congealed into a thick, scrambled mass.

  Behind him the door creaked and slammed, the padlock jamming back shut and Angel looked over his shoulder as the woman brought bread and flopped it down on the counter.

  “There is your bread, Angel,” she said sweetly, smiling.

  “Gracias, Melissa,” he said back, returning the friendly facial expression. He kept his eyes on her as she left the kitchen, rounding the counter and heading over toward the stairwell to the second level.

  As she left his view, he returned the gaze to the cooking eggs, then let his eyes drift out the picture window, looking out into the pasture beyond. The sun was bright and the day looked warm.

  His lips spread into a low, subtle smile.

  ***

  Three. There were only three, and this was about the best chance they were going to get. She was hoping and waiting for a window closer to night, a time when darkness would be their ally, but she also had to play the cards she was dealt, and as two of the men in hoods drifted from the pasture and headed toward the farmhouse for lunch, she knew this was their best shot. Maybe their only shot.

  Rhonda looked over at Tamar who let a pile of hay tumble from his hands into the stable, and he glanced over at just the right time to catch her eyes. He nodded almost imperceptibly and took a short step toward the two hooded men by the stable, bending over to reach for some hay at their feet. Rhonda turned toward a stack of dried grass and cocked back the pitchfork…

  … then twisted sharply at the waist, whipping around and jamming the three long prongs directly into the chest of the nearest hooded archer. His eyes sprang open and his mouth parted, but no noise came out. She clasped her hands around the wooden shaft of the tool and forced him back and down to the ground as the other two archers spun on her, hands going up. Tamar moved quickly, swinging a foot around and doubling over one of the men near him. Rhonda lifted her leg, then snapped the pitchfork’s shaft with one harsh kick, removing the broken section and throwing it to Tamar, sending it spinning gracefully through the air. The last archer standing followed the trajectory of the throw and saw Tamar clutch it seamlessly from its arc, then spin and send the rounded end slamming into the bridge of his nose. He crumpled into the hay, noiselessly.