by Justin Bell
Rhonda broke free another section of the pitchfork and lowered herself into a crouch, with Tamar doing the same just behind her. He looked back over his shoulder to make sure the retreating guards hadn’t heard anything, but all he saw was their backs walking away, heading toward the farmhouse.
The two nodded to each other, then Rhonda looked over at the horse pen, but Winnie and Rebecca were still brushing the horses, seemingly none the wiser. Breaking to her right, Rhonda retrieved a bow from the man with the broken end of the pitchfork in his chest, then nocked an arrow, lifted the weapon, and let fly.
With a low whistle, the shaft arced high and straight, peaking, then dropping, hurtling toward the slanted roof of the horse stable. The arrow struck with a loud, metal bang as it rebounded from the tin roof and both Winnie and Rebecca swung around, eyes widening. Rhonda waved high, circling her hands in a “let’s go” gesture, and the two girls looked at each other, knowing what came next.
“It’s time!” Rebecca shouted.
Without hesitation, they both swung their legs up over the curved spine of the horses, tangling their fingers in the long manes, gripping and tugging, sending them charging forward. The first horse leaped, its front legs clipping the top rung of the fence and knocking it out of place, then landed gracefully, the second beast close behind. The two horses galloped loudly across the flattened grass and Rhonda ran to the fence.
“Fields!” she shouted and Rebecca turned. Rhonda jerked her arm forward, tossing the bow and Rebecca snagged it out of the air. Tamar threw her a quiver and she stretched from the back of the horse, the pack of arrows drifting low and too far right. She leaned as the beast ran and barely hooked her fingers around the leather strap of the quiver, snagging it just before it struck ground. Slinging it over her shoulder she shrunk down into the creature, clasped tighter to the mane and yanked.
“Hyaa!” she shouted and the brown horse bolted.
Winnie’s horse slowed near the pen.
“Go, go, keep going!” Rhonda screamed. “We’ll go get two more! Just keep going!” Winnie nodded and kicked the horse’s ribs with her heels, sending it barreling onward while Rhonda and Tamar dashed toward the pen, seeking out two other horses they could use.
Now things would be getting interesting.
***
Angel looked over at the large picture window, his eyes narrowed. For a split second he thought he’d heard something, a faint metallic sound out in the pasture. His eyes darted to the hooded men in the living room, but they didn’t appear to hear the sound, or if they did, they remained unconcerned. Through the large window, he could see two more men approaching, looking as if they’d been walking from one of the horse pens, and they also did not look particularly concerned about whatever sound had come from the fields.
He shrugged, looking back down at the eggs sizzling in the pan and worked a spatula into the thickening pile, starting to flop the yellow substance and mix it up. On the opposite wall, a door opened and the two men entered, conversing quietly with the men already there, heads lowered and voices quiet.
One of them broke away and headed toward him. Of the five hooded men, three of them had bows slung over shoulders, and two of them appeared to be unarmed, though Angel couldn’t tell for sure with the baggy, flowing robes.
“How are the eggs coming?” the man asked. He pulled apart his robe lightly, putting his hand on his hip, and exposed a sheath with a knife. The move looked somewhat threatening, though Angel wasn’t sure why.
“They’re almost done,” he said. “Is there a problem?”
“My friends,” the man whispered. “They say you’ve been watching that locked door over there. The one leading to the basement.”
“I apologize,” Angel said, holding a palm up. “Mere curiosity. Nothing more.”
“Well, muzzle the curiosity. Just worry about cooking the food. That’s why you’re here.”
“No reason for the hostility, amigo,” he said.
Behind the man with the knife, others converged, starting to move towar him. Angel looked from one to the other, searching for an exit, for some kind of way out.
Before he could even make a move, the picture window exploded, a glass shattering burst, spraying jagged, sun catch shards in a wide arc throughout the living room. Near the back of the group, one of the hooded men cried out, toppling forward. As if they were a single organism, the group spun, looking toward the window just as a second arrow screamed through the broken window and slammed one of them high in the chest, throwing him down to the ground.
Angel didn’t hesitate. Wrapping his fingers around the cast iron pan, he lunged forward, swinging with all of his strength, sending the heavy flat-bottomed utensil banging against the temple of the man closest to him. He stumbled and went down like a sack of rocks, his head rebounding off the stove top as he fell. Two of the remaining men in the group began to remove their bows from their shoulders, but Angel vaulted over the counter, sending his own weight crashing into one of them, knocking him forward just as Rebecca leaped through the broken window, bow and nocked arrow in her hands. She turned as she landed, drawing down on the last man who had his own bow out as well, and she fired, driving the shaft through his chest and out the other side, thunking into one of the kitchen cabinets, feathers quivering lightly.
“It’s time to move!” she shouted as Angel bounced the man’s head off the wood floor.
“Phil and the kids?” Angel asked, and Rebecca pointed out the rear window. Angel followed the direction of her finger and saw Phil climbing on a horse alongside Rhonda who was rearing up her own mare next to him.
“We’ve got it covered, come on!”
“Just a minute!” Angel cried and broke away, making his way around the counter. With the adrenaline already ebbing from his ramped-up heart, the dull ache of his shoulder re-emerged and even as he approached the padlocked door he winced visibly.
“Angel! The rest of them will be on their way! They probably already are!”
He didn’t listen, he lurched forward and kicked out with a boot, smashing into the basement door, and the frame around the knob exploded into a spray of wood splinters, but the padlock held. Angel pushed forward again, kicking again, this time striking higher and the door cracked apart where the padlock was bolted and the door sprung off its hinges, smashing and twisting, tumbling down the stairway.
Shouting voices were in the distance.
“They’re coming!”
Angel threw himself down the stairwell, taking steps two at a time as he ran, and Rebecca turned to look out the window she’d come in. Winnie was out on the front lawn on her horse, holding tight to Rebecca’s own mount and she was looking into the house, her face pleading.
“Come on, Rebecca!” she shouted. “Please!”
Slamming footfalls echoed in the stairwell and Angel appeared, with the duffel bag slung over his shoulder. Rebecca could hear the weapons clattering from inside and smiled, nodding softly.
“All right, let’s bolt.” She turned and ran back toward the window, leaping up onto the couch and using it to propel herself back through, landing in a crouch out in the grass. Angel clamored out after her, moving much more gingerly, and she waited for him, helping him up onto her steed. An arrow whistled through the air and punched into the wooden siding of the house, forcing Rebecca to draw back.
“This is how you repay our hospitality?” a voice screamed. Elias charged toward them on his own dark horse, hurtling at them as if leading a charge. He sat upright on his beast, holding the bow and arrow in two hands, then adjusted his aim and let another arrow fly, whistling softly through the sun-drenched air. The arrow struck Angel in the back, but it hit the weapon-filled duffel, clanged and rebounded off, ineffectual.
Rebecca looked and could see Rhonda, Tamar, Winnie, and the two boys charging away on horseback, growing smaller in the distance as they ran toward the road, toward their only clear exit from this makeshift prison. Behind Elias she could see the approaching h
orde, the charge that he was leading. There had to be fifteen or twenty of them running in a line, hurtling straight for them, far more than any of them could hope to take down.
“We need to run!” Rebecca screamed.
“They’ll just catch us!” Angel replied.
A deafening thunder of roaring hooves filled the air.
“How many of them are there?” Rebecca asked, looking back. Elias surged forward on his steed, holding the bow in one hand, reins in the other, snapping them up and down as his beast tore chunks of grass with pounding hooves. Just behind him a crowd of other horses neared, running at full gallop. The rumble and roar seemed to be coming from everywhere, but then Rebecca heard it, a clearer roar, coming from behind the farm house.
Then they appeared. A black and white tidal wave of cattle, charging across the ground, moving at a brisk pace, kicking up dust, dirt and grass, mooing and braying as they went. Elias looked over his shoulder, the moving mass of bovines just behind him, but slicing between him and the men on his tail.
“Watch out!” he screamed and already men on horseback were rearing back, hauling their reins, halting the horses, kicking their hooves in the air as the stampedes collided in a crushing collision of muscle and fur, neighs and mournful cries shuddering under the late morning clouds.
“Haha! Good timing!” shouted Rebecca at the sight of the animal wreckage, still seeing men flip forward over the heads of their horses, disappearing into the dust cloud at their feet. Elias continued charging. As he surged closer, he sat back up again, nocking another arrow.
“Still got him to worry about!” shouted Angel as he kicked the ribs of the horse, moving it faster. Elias fired, the arrow screaming through the air, slicing just to the right of their running horse, the streaking shaft startling the creature into a halting kick, then lurching left, losing its balance, toppling sideways and knocking both Angel and Rebecca from its back. Angel braced himself as he struck the ground, hitting it with his injured shoulder and he screamed out loud as he slammed into the dirt, then rolled clumsily over, the duffel bag swinging free and bouncing over the rough terrain. Fields hit next, breaking her fall with a bent arm, rolling over on her shoulder, but landing awkwardly.
“Well, isn’t this just too bad?” Elias hissed, slowing the horse and coming up on them, his bow and arrow still raised. “Your friends may have skated away, but I can still get my pound of flesh—”
A narrow whisking sound cut through the air and Elias turned just as the shaft of an arrow buried itself underneath his chin.
He gasped and groped, dropping his weapon and clawing at the rustle of feathers, but after a moment, he slid slowly off the horse and spilled over onto the ground in a dust covered heap.
Rebecca looked over in the direction the arrow came in and saw Phil approaching, running at a slow jog, a bow firmly clutched in his right hand.
“Rhonda gave it to me,” he breathed. “I told them to run for it when I was opening the cattle gate.”
“You can’t shoot a gun to save your life, but you can nail him in the neck with an arrow at a hundred yards?” Rebecca shook her head, a smile forming on her lips.
“Well, I was aiming for the horse. Figured I wouldn’t miss that big target.”
Rebecca and Phil moved toward Angel, helping him to his feet.
“You all right, tough guy?” Fields asked him and he nodded his head shakily, though he was favoring his arm. “Get on our horse, I’ll get on with you.” She turned to Phil. “Can you handle Elias’s big boy okay? Lord knows he won’t be riding it.”
Phil nodded briskly and approached the beast, grabbing the reins and lifting himself up into the saddle. He checked the placement of the bow over his shoulders and made sure the quiver was secure. Angel tied down the duffel bag in front of him and the two horses carried their three passengers from the sprawling farm complex and back out onto Interstate 76.
Chapter Six
Hooves clopped along the pavement, a sound nearly as foreign to the riders as the stark silence surrounding them beyond the trotting horses. Rhonda sat on a lead horse, a white and brown mare, her fingers tangled in thick hair, trotting at a gentle pace. Winnie and Tamar shared a second horse just to her right with Max and Brad on a third.
Phil still sat atop Elias’s black stallion, guiding it with reins, while Rebecca and Angel brought up the rear on a fifth creature, all of them moving in concert. The sky was darkening, not quite night yet, but approaching evening, the horses’ motions brought down to a slow progression instead of a full gallop.
“And you’re sure nobody at the farm will be following us?” Rhonda asked, turning back. Phil guided his dark horse closer to her.
“Elias won’t be following anyone,” he said. “I suppose some of his followers might muster the energy, but with him dead, I’m thinking they’ve got other concerns.”
“And 76 leads us right into downtown Philadelphia?” Winnie asked, coming up next to the two of them.
“Close enough,” Phil replied. “I think our map is still in the duffel bag, but we’re on the right track.” He gestured to the bag draped over the back of the horse in front of Angel, who was partially hunched over the bag, cradling his left arm slightly while Rebecca controlled the reins of the horse.
“We’re taking it awfully slow,” Max said. “Aren’t we trying to get to Philly sooner rather than later?”
Rhonda turned toward him. “You’ve seen those other cities, Max. We need to proceed carefully. We don’t want to run headlong into another war zone, do we?”
“Hey at least we got our guns back,” replied Rebecca, patting the curved edge of the duffel. “Thank Angel for that.”
“Thanks, Angel,” Max, Brad, and Tamar all said in light, airy voices simultaneously. Angel chuckled and Rebecca rolled her eyes.
“Okay, it’s getting a little dark,” Rhonda said, looking up toward the deepening darkness in the sky. “Let’s kick these beasts up a notch, okay? I’d like to get to the city before night fall, see if we can find a place to shack up before figuring out what to do next.”
She kicked lightly at her horse’s ribs and jerked her fingers in the creature’s mane. It neighed and charged forward, picking up speed, each other rider repeating the motion to get their own mounts going. Their surroundings blurred past as they picked up speed, the group of five horse riders belting over the smooth pavement of Interstate 76, looking like displaced cowboys running through time.
Up ahead they could see the Philadelphia skyline rising up high into the air, glass and concrete sentinels reaching up to try to touch the dark clouds. The sky was a dark blue shifting to black and Rhonda narrowed her gaze, picking up the pace of the group, then veered off the exit ramp, getting off 76 and working their way down into the city proper. Even just off the exit, cars and trucks of all types were congested along the city streets, a thick barricade of domestic and international steel, and Rhonda leaned right, angling her horse around the throng of vehicles, up onto the sidewalk. She could hear the rapid whacking of hooves falling behind her as the rest of the crew followed suit. Glancing to her right, she saw herself in the reflection of windows along the city street, bent low, fingers tangled in the mane, the muscles beneath the thin skin of the mare twisting with each rhythmic motion. She had a momentary flashback to her parents bringing her to a local horse riding camp, right there in Brisbee, a warm summer afternoon and she’d been allowed to take several laps around the pasture, riding on nothing but the cuved spine of the animal. It had been a magical experience, and one that she hadn’t thought of for a very long time.
She felt conflicted as she looked forward again, ducking lower. The good memories were in there somewhere, scattered remnants of a childhood not nearly as tortured as it might appear. Plenty of bad experiences, but plenty of good mixed with the bad, it’s just that the good ones were often outweighed and overwhelmed by the not so good.
Such was the way of things. Her arms tensed as she gripped the horse’s hair, her legs cl
enched tight around the slender, muscular body and she could feel the wind in her hair. Cars were everywhere she looked, but as of yet no people. It was a strange sensation that never left her, even after several months of living within this new world, the thick emptiness of the apocalypse.
She didn’t see them at first as she charged forward, too consumed by the feeling of the air and by the looks of the cars, but then, suddenly, two figures were before her, moving from a building up ahead, nothing more than shifting shapes. She gasped, bolting upright, jerking back on the horse’s mane.
The creature whinnied loud and long as it reared up on two legs, shifting left, and the two people shouted, jumping back, throwing their hands up defensively as if that would protect them from the onrush of the powerful steed. Rhonda lifted and lurched, directing the leaping beast to clear these strange newcomers, veering just around them, but the lack of saddle and reins sent her sliding, and she toppled from the horse, spilling down onto the pavement as the mare cried out in shock and anguish.
“Hold hold hold!” shouted Phil yanking on the reins, the rest of the riders repeating the motion and the horses neighed, rearing up and halting their progress, slowly dropping to a steady clop of scattered hooves. Phil swung his leg off of his horse and dropped down onto the street, heading toward his wife.
