He'd overlooked their terrible physical condition because he'd become so used to seeing thin people over the last few years. It was common enough. But their condition didn't look like it was caused by a lack of food. They looked sick... or drugged.
Moving more quickly now, Howell set his eyes on the edge of the work camp. He'd overstayed his time here. The guard he'd handcuffed to the tree was sure to be missed soon. Just then, a familiar odor tweaked his nose, the powerful smell carried by the breeze. He knew that smell all too well. The sickening odor only came from one source: the manufacture of methamphetamine. If there was a single disease in small town Appalachia worse than opiates, it was meth. Cheap, easy to manufacture, and seemingly impossible to stamp out.
He peered through the open windows of the meth lab. Men in Martin Hale uniforms worked at chemistry stations, monitoring vats of steaming liquids, and supervising prisoners who worked at various tasks. Prisoners standing at long tables ground the finished product up into a powder, then weighed and scooped the powder into plastic bags.
Now it all added up. The gaunt faces, the driven look in their eyes, and yet the wasted, exhausted bodies ready to collapse. These men were cranked up on meth and being worked to death in the mines by the Martin Hale guards. The prisoners were addicts, working just to get their fix, not even trying to escape. The drug was a more powerful means of keeping the prisoners in the camp than barbed wire or manned turrets. No fences or walls were required. The power of their addiction kept them in line.
As he peered through the window, a voice off to his right shouted at him.
"Hey! What are you doing there?"
Howell glanced over. It was the same guard that had made the callous remarks about the prisoner's in the cage going through withdrawal. The man wore a confused and angry look on his face.
"Took a wrong turn. I'm going back on duty now," Howell said, and began to walk away.
"Hold up a minute," the guard said.
Howell kept walking, ignoring the man.
"I said stop."
Howell ignored him again and kept walking. The man would either accept that Howell belonged here and wasn't obligated to respond to his commands, or the guard would see through his bluff. Either way the further away he was, the better off it would be for him.
"Stop now or I'll shoot," the guard said.
Howell slowed to a stop and turned around slowly. The guard stood there with his hand on the butt of the holstered pistol at his hip.
"I haven't seen you around here before. What's your name? Who's your supervisor?"
"I don't have time for this shit. Shoot me or don't. I've got a job to do," Howell said. He backed up a couple of steps, his eyes fixed on the guard's gun hand, watching it like a hawk.
Howell's hand hovered next to his holster like a tripwire, taut and ready to spring into action. He kept moving backward slowly, waiting for the guard to make a move. A few more steps and he'd be out of shooting range unless the guard was an excellent shot.
The guard drew his gun and brought it to bear. As his other hand came up to support the gun, time seemed to slow down. The guard aimed and fired off a round, the shot going wide.
Howell had sprung into action as soon as the man drew his gun. His pistol was out of his holster in an instant, and he had his weapon up to eye level. Holding his gun with both hands, he fired and the round took the guard in the chest, then squeezed off two more rounds, hitting the guard in the shoulder and his neck.
The guard returned fire, and the round hit Howell in the middle of his chest.
A force like a sledgehammer knocked the wind out of him, filling his entire chest with pain. Pushing through the pain, he brought his pistol up again and fired three more shots.
The guard clutched at his chest and fell to the ground.
Unable to breathe and wracked with pain, Howell clutched his chest as he staggered forward. His body was flooded with adrenaline. All he could think of was fleeing. His vision closed in, tunnel like. Spitting out a mouthful of blood, he made it to the tree line at the edge of the forest before he collapsed and tumbled into a gulley. The world grew hazy and dim.
Chapter 18
The riverboat's steam engine thrummed as it turned the massive paddlewheel at the rear of the boat, sending vibrations through the walls and floor of the small cargo bay. The room’s bay doors were propped open to allow the wind to reach the hold and cool the perishable goods, giving Kenny a clear view of the heavily forested shoreline. The sun had been up for an hour now and the crew was settled in. This was the moment he had been waiting for.
He left his hiding spot behind and prowled around the first floor of the ship. He moved quickly, but his footsteps were completely silent. Moving in silence was one of the many secrets Wyatt had passed on to him. Intended as a hunting technique to allow Kenny to move through the forest without making a sound, it worked equally well when you didn't want to be heard by other humans. He carefully placed the heel of his foot onto the deck, and then rolled the rest of his foot down until his toes touched as well. It took practice to get used to walking in such an awkward manner, but it worked.
Kenny crept around the deck, peering inside cargo bays, finding nothing more interesting than sacks of flour and crates of other goods. He hadn't seen a porter or security guard since the riverboat had left the dock, but knew they had to be on the boat somewhere.
Peering around a corner, he checked for guards and then moved into the central hallway in the interior of the ship. Both sides of the hallway were lined with closed doors, latched shut. He went inside the first room on his right.
Several women were shackled to wooden benches, similar to the prisoner transport car he'd been put into. All of them showed signs of abuse and had gags stuffed into their mouths. Bruised cheeks, swollen lips, and abrasions bore testimony to their treatment at the hands of the guards.
Kenny looked at the women's faces, frantically trying to find Sarah and Amy, but they weren't in the room. As the women realized he wasn't one of their captors, the space filled with their muted cries for help and rattling of chains.
"Shhhh! You have to keep quiet! I'm going to try to get you out of here, but I have to find my mother and fiancée first."
Their pleading eyes transfixed him, begging him to take action.
"I don't have a key to the chains. Just keep quiet and I'll be back for you," Kenny said.
He closed the door, heartbroken by the whimpers and cries of the women as he shut the door. He was near tears as he secured the latch and sealed the women into the dark space again, but he had to find Sarah and his mother first, then locate the key to the locks before he could help the other women. Questions filled his mind. Where were they taking these women? How did they think they could get away with it? How long had they been kidnapping people?
Kenny worked his way along the hallway, opening three more of the cells. All of the cells held chained women, but his mother and Sarah were still missing. Kenny worked his way through all of the cells on the right side of the hallway, and began to open the doors on the left side. Each cell he opened and didn't find Sarah, his stomach rose a little further into his throat.
Kenny was in a panic and threw open the next to last cell door. Relief filled him, and he exhaled the breath he'd been holding in. Sarah and Amy were chained to a bench like the others, their hands and feet bound with shackles. Sarah had a black eye, her face swollen and bruised. His mother's bottom lip was split open, and dried blood from the wound stained her chin. She had two black eyes, her nose looked broken, swollen and askew. The rest of her face was lacerated and puffy. She'd been beaten badly.
Both of them looked up when he opened the cell door as the small room was flooded with bright daylight. His relief to see that they were still alive was short lived. Adrenaline filled his body as rage took control of his mind. He wanted to kill whoever had done this and make them suffer. He pushed the anger aside, chiding himself that this was a rescue mission and not a quest for vengean
ce.
"Kenny!" his mother whispered urgently. "How did you find us?"
Sarah saw him and began to sob. "Kenny!"
"Sarah! Thank God you’re safe. I need to find the keys to the shackles and get you out of here. How many guards are there? Do they all have keys?" he asked.
"The two men who put us in here were the same guards from the warehouse. The one with a scar on his cheek and the big ugly one. There must be others, though. When the big one saw that I was a prisoner, he expressed his unhappiness about their broken fingers," Amy said.
Kenny's face flashed hot and his blood boiled. "He did this to you?"
"That's not important right now. Like you said, we need to focus on getting out of here first, and then get these other women get out of here, too. Do you have any weapons? Who else is with you?" Amy asked.
"I'm alone. I haven't seen any guards, but I haven't been on the second floor yet either. I've got a pistol with four shots left, nothing else. We can't shoot our way out. I'm going to try to get keys, quietly. Stay quiet until I get back."
"God bless you, Kenny. Good luck," Amy said.
Kenny left the cell and latched the door shut again, leaving everything exactly the way he'd found it. He needed a set of the guard's keys. He had no idea how he was going to do that without alerting the whole riverboat, but he had to try to find a way.
A wide staircase led to the second floor. He tiptoed up a few steps, but retreated when a man carrying a tray of drinks walked by the stairwell in plain sight of him. Kenny could hear voices talking loudly, their conversation carrying down the stairwell.
Heart pounding from the close call, Kenny resigned himself to the fact that he couldn't go up the stairwell to the second floor. It would be a suicide mission. There was no way of knowing how many guards were up there and whether they were armed or not. Searching the first deck again was the only option. He'd been through the outer and inner holds in the middle of the ship, but hadn't explored the front or rear.
He made his way to the stern, and finding nothing there, went to the front of the boat. At the bow, a single guard scanned the water in front of the ship, on the lookout for drifting logs or other debris that would obstruct the boat or damage its hull. The man hadn't seen him, intent as he was on the river ahead.
The guard had a club hanging from a leather loop, a holstered pistol, and a set of keys dangling from a belt loop. There was no way of knowing whether the keys were for the prisoner's shackles, but he had little to lose. Ascending to the second floor was a far riskier idea, and he only had one go at this. He had to get it right; Sarah and Amy's lives were on the line.
Kenny ran up behind the man and struck without warning, throwing his right arm around the man's throat, he put the guard in a headlock. He squeezed, applying as much force as he could, strangling him.
The guard spluttered and coughed. He threw his elbows back, hitting Kenny in the ribs. When that didn't work, the guard scratched at Kenny's eyes and tried to jab a finger into his eye socket.
Kenny closed his eyes tightly and dipped his head into the crook of the man's neck, protecting his vulnerable eyes. He twisted to the side suddenly, and threw the guard off balance, driving down him to the wooden deck.
The guard thrashed wildly, gasping desperately, pulling Kenny's arm away from his neck. With a wild burst of energy, the guard got to his feet and stumbled forward, carrying Kenny along with him, Kenny’s arms still wrapped around the man's neck in a chokehold.
The guard pulled a rope attached to a large bronze bell mounted on a wooden pillar near the front of the boat. He rang it wildly, jerking the rope again and again. Veins stood out on the guard's temples, yet he kept ringing the bell, despite being strangled, his face a deep purple color.
In a panic, Kenny squeezed tighter, giving the chokehold all of his strength. The guard finally fell to his knees, and collapsed from the lack of air.
Just then, three more Martin Hale men ran down the stairwell, yelling out as they caught sight of Kenny choking the guard. They pulled their pistols out, just as Kenny swiveled around, using the guard's body as a human shield.
Shots rang out, and Kenny felt the guard's body jerk and flinch as the bullets tore into him. The salvo of fire ripped into the man, and his body went limp in Kenny's grip. The guards blasted away, taking ill aimed shots from the hip.
Kenny pulled his pistol out and aimed carefully, making every shot count. He fired once, then again, and again, taking out two guards and wounding another. He dropped the dead guard and took the man's pistol from its holster.
Four more guards poured down the stairwell and spotted him. The men used the wall next to them as cover, ducking back behind it after firing several shots.
Kenny leaped behind a crate as they opened fire on him, bullets tearing chunks out of the wood.
Kenny fired back at them, but was forced to retreat from their superior firepower. He got up and moved several yards back behind the partial protection of a stack of cargo. Crouching down, he aimed the pistol at the corner of the wall the guards used for cover, waiting for someone to appear.
A few seconds later, a man darted out from around the corner, exposing part of his head.
Kenny waited, knowing that the man would grow bold and expose more of his body.
The guard darted his head out again, and then, just as Kenny knew would happen, he came around the corner, exposing his torso.
Kenny fired three times and hit the man center mass with each shot. The guard fell to his knees, clutching at his wounds, a look of disbelief on his face.
Kenny's pistol was out of ammo, and he dropped it to the deck. He took out the pistol seized from the dead guard. Fear gripped him. He didn't know what kind of gun it was, and had no idea how many rounds it held. He couldn't pull the magazine out and check, the guards might rush him at any second. Weighing his options, Kenny kept his eyes fixed on the wall, waiting for another guard to show himself.
A hard object pressed against the back of his skull. Kenny's blood ran cold as he registered the voice behind him.
"Freeze. Drop your weapon now," the voice commanded, shoving the gun for emphasis.
Caught flatfooted, Kenny dropped his pistol and raised his hands up into the air slowly.
"Now put your hands on your head and stand up."
Kenny did as he was instructed, making no moves that would provoke the man to fire his weapon.
"Got him, it's clear," the man behind him shouted.
Three guards came around the corner. Their eyes lit with recognition, and a sinister sneer appeared on their faces. It was the scar-faced man and his sidekick, the brute, still nursing his broken fingers, the digits wrapped in white cloth.
"Son of a bitch. Look who it is," the scar-faced man said. "Get him upstairs. The boss will want to see this."
They frisked Kenny and then shoved him forward towards the stairs. At the top of the steps, the second deck was open towards the bow of the boat, enclosed by a wooden railing. Tweed sat in a chair beneath an awning covering the deck.
"Well, I'll be damned. Look at you, kid! Come over here. What I want to know is how the hell you made it out of that railcar, and how'd you get this far? Impressive. How old are you, boy? Sixteen? Seventeen? You've got spirit, kid, but spirit ain't enough in this world. Money and power, that's what's important. You killed a few of my men, but I can always hire more. You... you’re all you've got. What can you do about it now?" Tweed asked.
"You're evil. That's the difference between you and me," Kenny said.
Tweed chuckled, shaking his head. "Boy, this is the way of the world. Can you believe that before the EMP I was a schoolteacher? Can you believe that? Everything was taken away from me. My family, my home, my future. And you know what I did once I hit rock bottom? I changed. I started something bigger than myself. I've bought up railroad companies, riverboats, and a hundred other industries that formed after the EMP. Big things are happening, and only the bold will reap the benefits. I was like you once.
I thought what you did mattered. I thought there was right and wrong. I realized there's no such thing. There are people who use others and those who get used. Let there be no misunderstanding between us. What I'm going to do with your mother and your little girlfriend isn't personal. It's only business."
Tweed took a sip of his drink and waved his hand. "Take him away. Lecture is over for today."
"What do you want us to do with him, Boss?" the scar-faced man asked.
Tweed rolled his eyes, and then looked apologetically at Kenny. "It's no wonder you killed so many of my men. I mean, really. Not a lot going on upstairs with this bunch, is there?" He turned to the scar-faced man. "Kill him, then dump the body overboard."
Strong hands gripped Kenny by the elbows and pulled him towards the stairs to the first deck. At the top of the steps, the guards spun him around.
"You remember me, right? Look at my hand you little punk. I'm going to beat the living shit out of you before I kill you," the big man said, holding his bandaged hand up for emphasis. "Careful, those steps are steep!"
The man kicked him in the gut. Kenny tumbled down the steps backward. The world was a blur as he went head over heels. He put arms over his head, instinctively protecting himself. His shins and elbows cracked into the hard wooden steps, sending jolts of pain up his limbs. At the bottom of the steps, he curled into a ball, his entire body wracked with pain.
Before he had a chance to stand up, his arm was twisted behind his back. It felt like it would be pulled from the socket. He cried out with pain, struggling to stand up and get his arm out of the painful hold.
"Uh-uh, you're not getting away this time."
The man twisted Kenny's wrist and put his heavy boot on his back, smashing his face into the deck. "Your momma is the one that deserves this, but Boss won't let us ruin the merchandise. Hold still, this is going to hurt." The brute forced Kenny to extend his other arm out flat on the deck.
EMP Aftermath Series (Book 3): Retribution Page 12
