Fight to Be Free

by Dave Bowman

  Bethany waved her concern away. “As long as it’s food, I don’t care. I mean, I don’t think we have any cheeseburgers or salt and vinegar potato chips, so this will have to do.” She began to eat, smiling up at Mia as the child sat on the opposite bed and looked at Bethany.

  “I didn’t see you at breakfast,” Mia said.

  “Yeah, I slept in again,” Bethany said. “I wasn’t ready to get out of bed just yet.”

  “Are you feeling all right?”

  “I’m pretty exhausted. All that craziness in Denver took its toll. But I’m okay. I just need to rest some more before we hit the road tomorrow.”

  Mia studied her face as the woman ate. The little girl had been watching Bethany closely since they had met. Mia was relieved to note that she never saw any trace of discoloration in Bethany’s skin. Her eyes were normal. None of that horrible bulging like Mia had seen in her parents’ eyes.

  “Is it warm in here to you?” Mia asked.

  Bethany looked at her. “Are you serious? It’s freezing! That’s another reason I don’t want to get out of bed.”

  Mia agreed: the room was chilly. So Bethany’s internal temperature regulation was working. The child tried to ask the next question as casually as possible.

  “You don’t have any joint pain, do you?”

  Bethany looked up mid-bite. “My ankles are pretty swollen, but that’s normal for thirty-seven weeks of pregnancy. Why do I feel like you’re giving me a prenatal check-up?”

  Mia forced a laugh. “I don’t know, I just thought someone should make sure you’re doing okay.”

  Bethany smiled. “Well, don’t worry. Everything’s fine. Baby is still kicking. And I’m hanging in there, too. I just get tired easily now.”

  Bethany finished her breakfast and set the bowl on the nightstand. “But I’m going to get up and cook lunch today. It’s the least I can do. I know everyone’s taking two or three guard shifts a day so that Charlie and I can rest. I feel guilty that I’m holding everybody behind.”

  Mia shook her head. “No, it’s okay. And it’s just a couple of days, anyway.”

  Mia figured that Bethany hadn’t heard the commotion of the visitors earlier that morning. She decided not to tell Bethany, either. No sense in worrying her.

  Bethany ran her hands over her belly and looked out the window. “I hope we can get to wherever we’re going without any more problems.”

  “Me, too.”

  Bethany grew quiet. She stared out the window, her eyes scanning the mountains beyond the hotel.

  “What are you going to name the baby?” Mia asked.

  Bethany turned to Mia, as if waking from a dream. “Nathan. After his daddy.” Bethany sighed. “I wish he would have made it.”

  She reached out to squeeze Mia’s arm. “No use in me getting wrapped up in the past, I guess. Thanks for breakfast.”

  “Sure thing.”

  “I’m going to walk around a little. Do you want to go check on Charlie with me?”

  “Yeah, that’s where I was going next,” Mia said.

  “Let me get dressed, okay? Meet me back here in ten minutes.”

  Mia nodded and left Bethany in the room alone, closing the door behind her.

  Mia darted down the hall and ducked into the library, where she pulled the medical journal out of its hiding place behind a stack of encyclopedias. She hadn’t wanted anyone to know she’d been studying the article on the effects of the Ebola virus on pregnancy. It would have been more stress for everyone, especially Bethany.

  The article was disappointing, though. It didn’t have much useful information for Mia about how viruses worked. No matter how many times she read and re-read the article, it didn’t answer her questions.

  Would Bethany’s baby – having been fathered by a Hosta victim – be born healthy?

  And would he be a carrier of the disease?

  These questions had been haunting Mia since she laid eyes on Bethany’s protruding belly. But the literature Mia had access to wasn’t enough to help her figure it out.

  The nine-year-old found herself at a dead end. Not wanting to bother anyone else, Mia was left to worry over these questions alone.

  6

  At midnight, Trina dragged herself out of bed and to the new guard station just outside the rear entrance of the kitchen.

  She pushed open the back door to see Charlie sitting in the chair outside.

  “Nick’s got you on watch, too?” Trina asked.

  Charlie grinned. “I wanted to. I felt so useless lying in bed all day.”

  He grimaced as he stood up, jostling his injured shoulder in the process. Trina moved to help him to his feet, but he waved her off.

  “Thanks, but I’m okay.”

  “How’s your shoulder doing?” Trina asked.

  “It’s all right, I guess. I don’t look at it when Jessa changes the dressing. I learned that the hard way,” Charlie said as he straightened out. “But it’s not infected, I don’t think. And the good news is that I can still shoulder a rifle on my right side.”

  “It’s the little things in life that count,” Trina said lightly.

  He chuckled. “Yeah. Well, you got this?”

  Trina nodded. “All ready to freeze out here for the next six hours.”

  “You know how important this is, right?” Charlie asked.

  “Of course I do.”

  Trina smiled at Charlie. She watched as he pivoted his boots in the gravel and shuffled back inside the kitchen.

  She sighed and settled into the chair they had stationed to be partially hidden in a stand of trees.

  She hadn’t wanted to leave the warmth of her bed that night. The three guards stationed around the hotel seemed like overkill to her. No one else was going to come through here. It was too isolated for the BSC to find them.

  In the morning, she and the seven others would hit the road for New Mexico. They should all be getting some sleep instead of sitting up outside all night.

  But it was more than guard duty that had Trina down. The truth was that she had been struggling. Now that the group had gotten to a safe place, she’d had time and space to think. And the more time she spent alone, the more she realized she couldn’t outrun what had happened.

  The events of the last couple of weeks had hit her.

  Hard.

  Her family was gone. One by one, they had gotten sick from Hosta and died before her eyes. Her two daughters, her son, her husband: her whole world. She was lost without them.

  Trina had been trying to hide it from everyone else, but she couldn’t deny it any longer. The crushing, unbearable grief had caught up to her.

  And then there was the matter of the run-ins with the BSC. Being captured by those two men, then running for her life. The horror of being attacked by so many gang members at Chris’s cabin.

  She had shot a man.

  It had been in self-defense, of course. But still, she had taken someone’s life.

  It was a lot to swallow. She didn’t know how life could ever feel good, or even safe, again.

  Trina spent the next couple of hours alternating between sitting and pacing back and forth behind the hotel. She fought back sleepiness and tried to remain alert.

  She sat down. Once again, her thoughts turned to her children. She saw her firstborn, her older daughter, when she was tiny and new. Her younger daughter dancing, her son cracking a joke. Her husband smiling at her.

  She closed her eyes and remembered them all, reliving those precious moments with her family.

  Her eyes flew open at a shuffling sound of the gravel in the parking lot. It was too close, too loud.

  But before she could even bring her rifle up, hands grabbed her. Something was stuffed inside her mouth, some kind of fabric, and it made her gag. At the same time, her rifle was removed and her hands bound behind her in the chair. She fought as best she could, but there were three people keeping her restrained.

  Everything was happening so fast, and she only saw fl
ashes. But the red hair whipping around and the plaid shirts were enough to confirm her suspicions. The three kids from earlier in the morning were back.

  Trina had been wrong about them.

  7

  “No one gets hurt, right?” Josh had asked before they descended on the hotel.

  Angie and Patrick nodded.

  “No one gets hurt. We just get some food, and teach that guy about generosity,” Patrick said.

  “Yeah, and if it’s so easy to find more food, then they can jump in any one of their trucks and go get some,” Angie said.

  That morning, they had parked the minivan out of sight on the ridge above the ski lodge. They walked through the woods to where they could survey the property and form a plan.

  Using a pair of binoculars Patrick had, they studied the movements of the people below. There seemed to be only five or six of them, because they all rotated through three different watch stations.

  Everything those people did was orderly and fair. They were organized and divided the work equally. The tidiness of the operations seemed to infuriate Patrick and Angie even more. The couple was determined to rob the group staying at the ski lodge.

  Josh protested as much as he could. He offered a hundred reasons why it was a bad idea, how it could go wrong, and what they could do instead. The two lovebirds refused to listen.

  After a while, Josh knew there was no way out of it. If he didn’t help execute the plan, the couple would kick him out and leave him to fend for himself. And where would that leave him? Deserted, starving and alone in the middle of the wilderness. No, he’d have to go along with the robbery.

  And at that point, he’d do almost anything to eat. The relief from the granola bar didn’t last long. Soon, the gnawing hunger returned. It was a painful, nauseating hunger. Each hour that passed without food made it harder to think clearly.

  They learned where the guard stations were. One at the back door behind the main hotel, and one at each entrance from the road. That jerk, when he was on duty, took the northern entrance, and either a woman or some kid took the southern entrance.

  It was the middle of the night when Patrick decided to make their move. The jerk and the skinny woman were by the front entrances. The woman who had given Angie some clothes was in the rear.

  Everyone on watch had a gun, it was true. But all they had to do was sneak up on one guard, steal her gun, and then they’d be home free. Patrick was the only one who knew how to shoot, so he’d be in charge of the rifle.

  The trio moved through the woods on the steep slope carefully. They had to be as quiet as possible, which made descending through the forest in the dark even more difficult. One bad step, and they could slip, which could mean the end of everything. Any noise would alert the people on guard below.

  Patrick led the way, placing his feet carefully, with Angie behind him. Every so often they would stop and listen, scanning their eyes to see any kind of reaction below. So far, there was none.

  They approached the lady at the back entrance. Patrick and Angie couldn’t help but grin when they saw she was sleeping.

  This would be too easy.

  They stepped lightly across the driveway, drawing nearer to the guard. When they were close enough to grab her, they flew into motion.

  In the split second before they grabbed her, the lady’s eyes flew open. Angie saw she wasn’t sleeping, after all. She was silently crying.

  A pang of guilt leapt up Angie’s throat, but there was no time for that. She pushed down any emotion as she stuffed a scarf in the woman’s mouth while the guys restrained her. She put a strip of duct tape over her mouth to keep her quiet.

  Josh and Patrick picked up the chair with the lady tied to it and moved her a few feet over to the woods where she wouldn’t be in the way. Angie lingered for half a second to watch as the woman struggled helplessly, fighting against the rope, then she spun around to help the guys.

  They walked in the back door to the kitchen, and Patrick clicked on a flashlight.

  Josh’s heart was pounding out of his chest. They could be caught at any minute. Maybe there were more people inside the hotel that they hadn’t seen. Maybe that guy with the semi-automatic would see the flashlight in the kitchen and come around to check things out.

  He couldn’t believe he was doing this, but he pressed himself on. Better to get this over with and try to get out of there.

  They didn’t have to go far before they found shelves full of food. Some of it was in cardboard boxes, which would make it easier to move. What items weren’t in boxes, Josh and Patrick began to load up in their empty backpacks. Angie had moved on to her next task: finding the truck keys.

  She took the flashlight from Patrick and swept it over the counters and the wall space above them. She just knew they would have the keys in some logical, orderly place. That was just the kind of people these were.

  The light panned over a rack with cup hooks full of keys. Bingo. Some sets belonged to the hotel, but the last four hooks held vehicle keys. And the very last hook held exactly what she was looking for.

  The Silverado keys.

  They had already decided the Silverado was the best choice. It had the most supplies in it, and it looked to be in the best shape, too. It would get them far away from these mountains and give them plenty of gear they needed.

  Angie snatched the keys off the hook and grabbed one of the boxes of food. The two guys followed her, moving swiftly but silently. Angie caught a glimpse of the woman they had left in the woods. She was still struggling to get free. Angie quickly looked away.

  They nestled the goods in among the gear in the bed of the pickup, and opened the cab doors.

  Josh took another deep breath as he climbed in the back seat. Once they started the engine, they would alert the very well-armed people of their presence. They would have to get out of there fast.

  Angie inserted the key and started the engine. The three of them closed their doors as Angie peeled off, steering around the back of the hotel and swerving as she pulled the heavy truck around to the front of the hotel.

  8

  Nick paced back and forth among the Douglas firs at the southern entrance. It was another long, cold night. Just a few more hours, though. Once his shift was over, he’d take a quick nap inside, and then he’d be ready for the long drive home.

  Home. He didn’t have much of a home anymore, not since the fire burned his lodge and property in New Mexico.

  But Nick was grateful for Daniel’s invitation to join the Watlah tribe in White Pine Falls. At least they had some place to live. It would be an enormous work to rebuild and replant, but they would have friends and a community to make the work that much easier.

  First, though, they had to make it alive out of Colorado.

  He heard a faint noise from Liz at the northern entrance. She was probably pacing back and forth like he was, trying to fight the drowsiness of the long, uneventful night. They had swapped entrances and moved their guard stations around. They had to keep it fresh.

  He thought he heard something from the rear entrance, but he figured it was Trina moving around. He wouldn’t be surprised if she had ducked inside the kitchen to grab a quick snack. But he couldn’t fault her for it. He might have done the same thing had he been on watch back there.

  But then he heard something odd. It sounded like an engine starting.

  That shouldn’t be happening.

  He immediately became alert, his body tensing as he brought his self-built rifle into the ready position. His eyes searched the parking lot, straining in the darkness to see any movement.

  The engine revved. It sounded like his Silverado. Then he heard the unmistakable sound of the truck speeding off from its parked position.

  He ducked behind a tree and looked through his scope again. It couldn’t be anyone from his group taking his truck out for a drive.

  He knew exactly who it was.

  The truck careened around the back of the hotel and came into view. Befor
e he could shoot, Nick had to be sure it was them. He had to identify them.

  Luckily, that didn’t take long. He saw the woman driving, leaning forward with a crazed look in her eyes. And her boyfriend was riding beside her with Trina’s rifle aimed out the window.

  In an instant, he knew everything. They weren’t just trying to steal his truck. They must have gone inside the kitchen to steal their food. These kids must have thought Nick owed them something. They thought they were somehow entitled to what Nick and his friends had worked so hard to find?

  They could think again.

  He switched off the safety and moved his finger to the trigger in one swift motion as the truck headed in his direction. He fired at the tires. But he must have missed his target, because the truck didn’t slow down at all.

  Suddenly the lights flashed on, blinding Nick temporarily as the high beams shone on him. The passenger fired at him, missing by a wide margin. The truck abruptly changed its course, swerving toward the northern entrance.

  Nick fired several more times, aiming at the tires, but the truck continued on. Liz opened fire on the truck, but she was no longer by her station. She must have run through the woods between the two entrances when she saw the thieves were headed in Nick’s direction with the intention of getting a better shot. But now, the trio had an unguarded entrance to use as an exit. Nick and Liz fired several more rounds, both of them moving through the woods to get a clear shot.

  But the truck was hard to see as it moved down the driveway with trees partially covering it.

  In no time, the Silverado turned onto the road, headed north. The tail lights soon disappeared from their view.

  They were too late.

  Nick felt a hot rage come over him as his heart continued to race.

  Liz ran up to him, carrying her rifle in her hands and panting for breath.

  “You okay?” he asked.

  She nodded, bending over to catch her breath. “They didn’t hit me. Are you okay?”

  “Yeah,” he said. “Let’s go find Trina. Those little bastards better not have hurt her.”