by Shows, Greg
“Take this,” Sadie said. “It’ll tell you if there’s radiation. And keep that shotgun. You’ll have to find more shells, but it’ll kill anyone you’re close enough to shoot it at.”
Callie sat up again and hugged Sadie.
“Thanks,” she said. “You really should come with me.”
“I can’t,” Sadie said, remembering her own grandfather, and his land. She felt guilty that she hadn’t thought much about her parents, who might or might not still be alive in Texas. But before she allowed herself to get too far off into the horrible country called “Regret Land,” Sadie lay down on the mattress next to Callie, and smiled when Callie threw the blanket over the two of them.
“You won’t try nothing?” Sadie whispered. “I’m not your type, huh?”
Almost instantly she regretted it.
Callie had just lost her girlfriend to cannibals and been forced to see her butchered body. “Sorry. I didn’t think about Jenna.”
“It’s okay,” Callie whispered. “I guess I’m still in shock or something. I don’t feel much of anything. Except a desire to kill every last one of those bastards.”
Sadie was quiet for awhile, and they lay listening to the discussion around the fire. She was beginning to think Callie had fallen asleep when she whispered: “You’re my type. You’re a lot like Jenna. I’m just not your type. Besides. I’m not into hooking up and hauling ass.”
Sadie laughed softly. Then she snuggled backward until she was tucked against Callie, who responded by throwing her arm over Sadie and hugging her.
“When are you leaving?” Sadie asked.
“Soon as I wake up,” she said. “While the assholes are still asleep.”
“Wake me up before you go,” Sadie said.
“Okay,” Callie whispered, and Sadie felt Callie’s arm tighten against her, the kind of hug you give a lover. “Thanks for everything.”
Sadie was trying to think of something clever to say, some self-deprecating and witty response. But as soon as her head had touched the pillow, and she’d snuggled in close to Callie, she had lost most of her ability to think.
She closed her eyes, listening to the murmur of voices coming from around the fire.
It felt nice to relax. To let her guard down. To allow others to take responsibility for security.
The voices quickly became fuzzy and indistinct and Sadie fell asleep.
When she awoke it was to the sound of gunfire, explosions, and screaming.
Callie was gone, and people were scrambling around in the darkened courthouse, all of them confused and shouting.
Sadie sat up and pulled her boots on. Then she slipped into her parka and zipped it up. A quick shrug brought her backpack onto her shoulders. She hardly registered the severe pain that greeted her sudden movement, but once the pack was on her back and she tried to walk, her body let her know it wasn’t happy.
“What’s happening?” Sadie yelled.
“Attack!” someone shouted.
Sadie reached into her parka pocket to make sure her pistol was there, then rushed out of the courthouse and headed for the choke point entrance to the square.
The Honda was still there under a borrowed tarp, ready to go, her rifle leaned against it. To show his gratitude to Sadie for attacking the town’s enemies, Rich had gotten her a replacement air filter. Now she intended to repay the town for their hospitality.
She pulled away the tarp, slipped her pack off, reattached her rifle to it, and put it back on her shoulders. Then she climbed aboard the Honda and turned the key. The engine rumbled and caught, quickly settling down to a smooth idle.
“Hey!” someone shouted, but she didn’t respond. Instead she pulled her respirator over her face, kicked the bike into gear, and raced for the zigzag trail between the cars, slowing to a crawl as she maneuvered through it.
Her headlight was the only light she could see, and it seemed to draw all the fire from the people outside the town square. Bullets whizzed over her head and in front of the bike and clanged and thumped into the cars around her. Other motorcycles roared to life, their own headlights coming on and drawing fire from the inhabitants of the town square.
This was what Sadie had intended.
She leaned low over the bike, turned the throttle, and raced away from the fortress. In seconds, she was two blocks away from the center of town, looping around the side streets, working her way east, to the backside of the fortress, back to the neighborhood full of old people houses she’d been in earlier that day.
When she looked back she saw at least six headlights coming after her.
She smiled as more gunfire erupted and bullets came zipping in her direction.
They might catch her, and they might not. But if she had her way, they’d be too busy chasing her to concentrate on their attack of the fortress.
Maybe the folks in the fortress would drive away the remaining attackers, then hit the college, wiping out anyone who’d remained behind.
And who knew?
Maybe Sadie would escape. Maybe she could get out of town and get back to the road she’d seen earlier.
“And maybe you’ll be rescued by descending angels,” she heard her grandfather’s voice chuckle.
Chapter 12
Angels didn’t rescue Sadie. Instead, she reached the end of the same block she’d turned down earlier, the one she’d used to skirt the fortress at the center of town. She turned right again, and raced down the same residential street, realizing for the first time since she’d awakened that the lightning and thunder weren’t as intense.
The storm was abating.
She felt a spike of hope shoot through her, and as she’d done earlier, she throttled her bike higher and raced down the street.
The difference from her earlier experience was that now it was dark. Now she couldn’t see well. Now the kid’s bike in the middle of the road was a hazard she wasn’t able to avoid. The Honda’s front tire rolled over the dust-coated bike, and Sadie was in trouble.
The kid’s bike levered upward into the exhaust tubes, where it bent and curled under. The Honda’s rear tire rose high and threw Sadie forward and to the right. She tried to lean back and regain her balance but she shifted too far. The Honda tipped over.
Suddenly she was on the ground, skidding through the darkness on her belly, dust spraying up and coating her face shield as her body rotated slowly like a kid sledding on a frozen lake. Her belly cramped hard and all her fantasies of escaping the angry bikers disappeared.
Sadie’s consciousness threw up images of her naked body on a spit, turning over and over above an open fire in the library on the Blaine Technical College campus.
The images disappeared when she slammed into the side of a dust-coated car and came to a halt. The Honda came to rest a few feet behind her.
Before she could move a motorcycle skidded to a stop in front of her.
Sadie squinted into the headlight and said “I don’t suppose you’re from Triple A?”
The other bikers raced up one after another, each one spraying dust as their wheels locked up and they skidded sideways. One by one they turned off their engines but left their lights on.
All Sadie could hear was the sound of distant thunder punctuated by gunfire and shouting coming from the center of town.
An occasional flash of lightning would illuminate the sky and the faces of six men. They’d formed a semicircle that trapped her against the side of the car she’d crashed into, and now they stood staring at her, silhouetted in the headlight glow.
“This her?” a low gravelly voice asked.
“Yes sir,” another voice said. Sadie recognized it as the younger of the two boys she’d confronted in the cafe dining room at the college.
“You the one who killed my mother and brother and burned up our building and set our motorcycles on fire?”
“Yeah, uh,” Sadie said, “sorry about that?”
“My boy told me you was pretty,” the voice said as it grew closer. Sadie lo
oked up from big giant boots, but all she could see was the silhouette of a giant. “Git up and let’s see.”
“We should take her and get out of here, Bryce,” someone said as Sadie slowly got to her feet.
“Shut up,” Bryce said. “We got to decide whether we’re taking her at all.”
“Can I put my hands down?” Sadie asked. “My shoulder’s hurt.”
“Your shoulder’s going to be the least of your worries,” Bryce said, “time we get done rolling the train. But sure. You can take that pack and respirator off. The parka too. Then the shirt.”
Sadie dropped her hands to her sides, and she wondered if she should go for the pistol. She decided against it when she heard the hammers click back on several guns. Even if she dove sideways one of them would get her.
“You can take it off, or we’ll take it off for you,” somebody said after Sadie stood without moving for a few seconds.
Sadie shrugged out of the pack and set it beside her toppled Honda, looking down at the ground to let her eyes adjust. Then she dropped the respirator onto the pack. She slowed down to take the parka off, but she imagined there was only so much stalling she could do before they attacked her.
When she got her arms out of the parka she dropped it behind her, then pulled her shirt off, moving slowly, hoping someone from the town square would show up and give her a fighting chance. Now that she’d been caught, the bright idea to lead the bikers off on a distracting chase didn’t seem too bright at all.
“It wasn’t bright,” her grandfather’s voice chided her, “but you keep your eyes open and look for your chance. You’ll get one, so you be ready to take it.”
“Okay,” Sadie said as her shirt dropped onto her parka.
“Now the bra,” Bryce said. “And go as slow as you want. Stalling ain’t gonna save you, but it sure does heighten the anticipation. Right boys?”
“That’s right,” someone said.
“Yep!” another someone agreed.
Sadie’s skin prickled from the cold and the fear trying to overwhelm her. She pulled the sports bra up and let her breasts hang free, her nipples puckering immediately in the cold air.
“Whoo-wee,” one of the men said as she shrugged the sports bra over her head and dropped it behind her. Several others grunted.
“Son,” Bryce said, “she ain’t got no titties. And if there’s one thing I’ve tried to tell you all your life, if a girl ain’t got no titties, she’s gonna be bitchy and mean. A proper woman’s got to have titties. Am I right, boys?”
The men around Bryce laughed and said, “Yeah,” and “Hell yeah,” and “Fuckin’ a right!”
Sadie felt her knees go weak, and she nearly collapsed. Her vision tunnelled in and she realized she hadn’t taken a breath in a long time.
“Don’t you dissociate, girl!” her grandfather told her. “You stay ready. You kill these bastards if you can. They’re sure as hell going to try to kill you.”
“Now the boots and socks and pants,” Bryce said. “You’re gettin’ naked now, and there’s a good chance you ain’t ever going to need clothes again in this life.”
Sadie’s hands trembled as she bent and untied her boots. She wished she carried a knife inside one of them, though a knife wasn’t much good against a bunch of cocked and loaded pistols. She stumbled and nearly fell sideways as she pulled one of her boots off, but reached back and steadied herself against the car behind her.
She noticed for the first time the antennae sticking up on the front fender, only two feet from her hand. She wondered if she should go for the antennae and fight it out, or for her parka pocket.
An unhappy idea had begun to force its way up to her conscious mind—the idea that there was nothing she could do to save herself now, and she might as well try to kill or maim one of these bastards before she lost any possible opportunities.
She fought off the idea, knowing she’d be dead before she got a chance to hurt one of them, just like she’d have been dead if she’d gone for her pistol. She stepped out of her second boot, and pulled off each sock, and stood barefoot in the dust while the glare of flashlights and headlights blinded her.
She unbuttoned her pants slowly, her fingers trembling, her terror growing.
“Here it comes boys,” Bryce said, and she could hear the rising excitement in his voice. “The first little payoff before the party starts.”
Sadie pushed her pants down over her hips, trying to stare the men down, to remain defiant in the face of her imminent defilement and death.
Several of the men whistled, and one of them groaned.
“Can I fuck her first, Daddy?” Dave asked, and the other men burst out laughing.
“Sure, son!” Bryce said. “Long as you hurt her while you do it! She’s got a lot to answer for.”
Before Sadie could resist, two of the men were on her, each one grabbing an arm as Dave stepped forward and began to pull his own pants down.
“You shoulda let me be your boyfriend,” he said as the two men holding her arms pulled down hard against her shoulders and forced her to the ground.
Sadie choked back a sob, determined not to cry or show fear, and got ready to try to kick Dave in the crotch when he came at her.
That was when the man on her right slumped over on top of her face.
“Charlie?” someone said.
“What the hell?” Bryce yelled, and the rest of the men turned and pointed their pistols off into the darkness.
Sadie heard an engine start somewhere off to her right. Another engine came on from off to her left. Then came the “bang, bang, bang,” of a big automatic weapon. Sadie pushed herself out from under the dead man and sat up. Bullets interspersed with brilliant yellow tracers slammed into the motorcycles, tearing chunks of metal out of the gas tanks and steel frames of the bikes.
Bryce and his men scattered, diving for cover behind their bikes, or ducking behind the car next to Sadie. The engine noise grew louder as two Humvees rolled up the street from opposite directions. The two slowest bikers got hit by gunfire and went down in the street.
Sadie pulled her pants back up over her hips and buttoned them, then reached for her parka. She jumped up, pulling the parka on over her cold skin, sprinting around the front of the car and running for the gap between the two old houses closest to her
A pair of headlights appeared at the end of the street, and the roar of the engine grew louder.
“Don’t move!” someone said through a bullhorn,
The fifty caliber machine guns on top of the Humvee continued to fire, flicking tracers at the bikes and the men hiding behind them.
There was a “whoompf,” and a few seconds later an explosion went off among the bikes. One bike was tossed against the car and fell to the street on top of Sadie’s pack and respirator. In less than half a minute, all six bikes had been destroyed, and three of their riders had been ripped to shreds and slaughtered. The other three were gone, hiding or running for their lives or both.
Once she reached the shadows between the two houses she turned and look back.
“Cease fire,” someone yelled, and the guns fell silent as the two Humvees rolled to a halt, fifty feet from each other. In their headlight glow, Sadie could see three bodies in the street.
A few seconds later another pair of headlights appeared, coming slowly up the block the way Sadie had just come.
Sadie turned and ran again, making it to the alley and continuing across and into another yard.
That was as far as she got. Out of the darkness, something heavy and hard slammed into her from the side, driving her to the dusty ground.
“Ow!” she shrieked and kicked out, making contact with her tackler. The man, who’d wound up on top of her didn’t even register the blow. He flipped her onto her belly, jerked her hands behind her, and slipped a plastic zip tie over her wrists and cinched it tight.
When the black bag went over her head and she was wrenched to her feet, she screamed and cursed and used words she’d
rarely ever used in her life.
“Walk,” a man said to her, and shoved her from behind.
“The package is secure, General,” Blakely said as Titman’s Humvee rolled to a halt next to the Humvees that had assaulted the bikers.
“Excellent!” Titman barked into the Blakely’s ear. “Let the party begin!”
