by Shows, Greg
The third tier of boughs was higher than the top of the fence, and Callie ducked beneath the dead leaves and broken twigs and branches and moved forward until she was only a few feet away from the top of the fence. The bough bent beneath her weight, and threatened to break and tumble her onto the razorwire.
She shrugged out of her backpack and leaned down toward the razor wire while holding onto a skinny branch above her head. She dangled the backpack above the razorwire spiral. Directly beneath her was a fence post, and Callie lowered the backpack down to it. When it had settled onto the wire, she let go of the strap and pushed down on the pack, trying to hook the razorwire into it. Then without hesitation, she stepped onto the pack until her bare foot had pushed the razor wire down to the top of the fence post.
She jumped.
“Whoa!” Sadie said when Callie’s feet came down with a thud on the shoulder of the freeway. Callie fell to her right immediately and dust geysered up in a cloud.
“Ouch,” Callie said.
“What?” Sadie asked as she zipped her pack closed.
“Nothing,” Callie said as she got up. She hobbled over to the concrete barrier and picked up her shotgun, still favoring the foot she’d injured during their run. “Come on.”
Sadie shoved her rifle under the fence, strapped her backpack on, and went to the tree trunk. She was startled when an explosion went off back in the market zone, and when she glanced toward the sound she saw black smoke billowing up into the sky.
“Hurry,” Callie said, and Sadie reached up and took hold of the first low branch.
“You did the right thing,” Sadie told herself. But the guilt wouldn’t leave. Especially when someone opened up with an automatic rifle. The fast, heavy “chug-chug-chug” was loud even though they were two hundred yards from the firefight. Another explosion boomed and Sadie winced.
“Come on,” Callie urged, and Sadie went into action, swinging up into the tree faster than Callie had. In less than a minute she’d reached the branch and stepped onto the backpack. She hesitated, but only for a few seconds. Two big men, both on the outside of the fence, were running at them from a hundred and fifty meters away. Both carried assault rifles slung over their shoulders, and one of them had a walkie-talkie in his hands. He was talking into it.
“Hold it!” the other one yelled, “Or I’ll drop you where you stand!”
Chapter 14
“Crap!” Sadie said, and unslung her backpack. She let it drop to the ground outside the fence, then jumped.
She rolled when she hit, and came up on her feet as the first bullets hit the ground next to her.
There was no cover anywhere close. The nearest abandoned automobile was at least a hundred feet away.
“Fire!” Sadie yelled at Callie, and she raised her shotgun and fired both barrels.
The recoil sent the gun flying upward, and before Callie knew what had happened she’d been knocked to the ground. Sadie watched to see if the wax loads had done any damage. They hadn’t, but the men had changed their minds about running right at the girls. Both of them dropped flat to their bellies, and pointed their rifles at her.
Not thinking much of the girls’ chances of harming them, the two didn’t bother to crawl for the cover offered by an abandoned pickup twenty yards to their right.
Moving fast, but not so fast she’d make a mistake, Sadie snatched up her rifle, clicked the safety off, and raised the stock to her shoulder. Through the scope she could see the two men sighting down the barrels of their own guns. Both of them were covered in gray dust, and both were scowling. The man on the right had a beard and tobacco juice trickling out of one corner of his mouth. Sadie smiled.
Some people make it too easy.
This guy wasn’t someone she would ever want to be friends with, even if there hadn’t been a civilization-ending crisis, even if they weren’t pointing rifles at each other.
Sadie thought about Callie, and what had been done to her in this little hostile hellhole. She thought about the tobacco chewer’s words to her as she pulled the trigger. Less than a second later she saw the bullet hit him, right at the corner of his mouth where the tobacco juice was leaking into his beard.
The damage was instantaneous and horrific. Blood sprayed upward in an aerosolized pink mist and the man’s jaw bulged out as the bullet shattered his jawbone and sent pieces of it slicing out through his cheek.
Sadie shifted her rifle toward the second man before she could register the rest of the damage her shot had done. This guy was on the walkie-talkie again instead of firing at her. As she studied his face she saw he couldn’t have been more than fifteen or sixteen. He was trying to grow a mustache, but all he could manage was a few blond hairs on his upper lip. Sadie slid the bolt back and rammed another round into the chamber before aiming at the walkie-talkie and firing.
The plastic rectangle exploded in the boy’s hand, and he wailed as jagged shards of plastic tore into his fingers and palm and wrist and face. One spear of black plastic had jammed itself into his cheek, and blood flowed over his jaw and dripped to the dust.
After the pain really set in, he howled and rolled over and over. Then he jumped to his feet and threw down his rifle and ran back the way he’d come.
“Damn, you’re a badass,” Callie said as she sat up.
“Hurry,” Sadie said, and shoved her arms through her pack. “Get your stuff.”
While Callie picked up her knife and mace and candy bars and MREs, Sadie sprinted the hundred yards to the rifle the kid had dropped. She picked it up and walked over to the man she’d killed.
She tried not to look at the mess she’d made of him, but blood had splattered the dust around him and splashed over the stock and barrel of his rifle—an AR-15, she saw now that she was close enough to examine it. She pulled the rifle out from under his head, wiped the stock on his pants legs, and ejected the magazine.
“You know how to use one of these?” Sadie asked as Callie came hobbling up.
“Point it and pull the trigger?” Callie asked.
“Something like that,” she said. She held it and the extra magazine out and Callie took them. Then Sadie rolled the man over and took his boots. “They’ll be too big, but they’re better than nothing.”
Callie pulled the man’s soggy socks off and grimaced as she pulled them onto her feet.
“Listen,” Sadie said. Callie looked up.
“I don’t hear anything.”
“No more gunfire,” Sadie said, “We’ve got to go.”
Callie nodded and pulled the boots on.
Sadie stood up and scanned the fence toward the bridge. She sighted on it with her rifle and felt her guts drop to her knees when she saw men on the bridge sighting on her through their own rifles.
“Run!” Sadie yelled, and didn’t wait for Callie. She sprinted north, away from the fence they’d just climbed, her boots crunching in the dust with every step. She felt a puff of air against her cheek and then heard a crack as the sound caught up with the bullet. Several more cracks followed, though none of the bullets came as close.
When she reached the railroad tracks beyond the shoulder of the road she ran up and over the rocky bed supporting the railroad ties. She dove down behind the tracks. Then she spun and chambered another bullet, and popped up long enough to fire at the men on the bridge. She watched them dive for cover through her scope.
“Thank God,” she said when Callie stumbled over the rails a almost half a minute later.
“This way!” Sadie said, and began to crawl along the railroad tracks. She was careful to keep her head below the tracks. The rocks were sharp and bit into her hands and belly and knees. The girls made it forty feet when Callie yelled “Wait!”
Sadie stopped and looked back.
“Look!” Callie said, pointing to the west, over Sadie’s shoulder.
Sadie looked. Then she picked up her rifle and sighted on the vehicle moving toward them as it weaved in and out of the abandoned cars nearly a mile away.
“Great,” she said. The vehicle was a Humvee.
They were trapped, with Steubenville to the south and the river to the north and east. The Humvee would be on them in minutes.
As if to point out that things could always get worse, the storm moving out of the north sent a jagged white fork of lightning down toward the land and followed it with an ominous rumble. Without hesitation, Sadie slid her pack off and dug into it, pulling out the smoke grenade and dropping it on the ground.
“We’ve got to cross here,” she said, and Callie nodded.
Sadie pulled off her boots, and set them next to the backpack. Then she dug out the MREs and tossed them aside so she could dig deeper. Titman’s goons had left her freezer bags and duct tape, so she dumped most of her ammunition into one bag, and dropped the magazines from Callie’s new-found rifle into another. Then she zipped them up so that she could stuff them down into the pack.
“Put the MREs in those,” she told Callie, and pointed at her feet. Callie nodded and pulled off the dead man’s boots and filled them. Sadie then tucked them and her own boots into the top of the pack. Next she took a freezer bag and slid the zipper open half an inch so that a tiny slit formed in the mouth of the bag. When she blew into the slit, the bag bulged with air. Sadie quickly slid the zipper closed before the bag could deflate. Callie, realizing what Sadie was doing, joined in. They quickly inflated more bags.
“Keep going,” Sadie said, and stripped off her parka and set her pack inside it so that she could zip it closed. She jammed all the inflated freezer bags into the space between the parka and the backpack, and used the paracord to cinch the parka down tight against the pack.
Finally Sadie taped bags to the choke of her rifle and the AR-15. She pulled out Frank’s pistol and tossed it aside. Then she shoved three cartridges into her rifle and sighted down the interstate. The Humvee was clearing the last few cars remaining on the interstate. It was less than three hundred yards away.
Sadie breathed deep a few times, calmed her mind and thought about the time she’d spent at her grandfather’s land in Texas, and the way he’d taught her to shoot. When the Humvee came around the side of a dust-covered pick-up and gave her a side view, she pulled the trigger. For an instant she felt as if she was back in Texas, on the long-ago afternoon her grandfather had talked her through the process of shooting.
The Humvee’s front driver’s side tire took the bullet, but nothing happened. The Humvee kept coming on its run-flat tires.
“Crap,” Sadie said, and chambered another round. She stared through the scope, sighting in and recognizing a face. When she pulled the trigger the shot hit the windshield dead center at the level of the driver’s head. Almost instantly, the bullet transformed the glass into a worthless map of white jagged lines. The Humvee swerved and braked, spraying up dust as it skidded sideways. Then it sped up and U-turned back toward the stalled cars.
Sadie smiled. She’d seen Mallick through her scope, and though she knew the hardened windshield glass would probably protect him, she guessed he was enough of a coward he’d run away.
With the seconds she’d earned from her accurate shooting, she secured both rifles to the parka with several loops of duct tape. Then she dropped the nearly depleted roll and looked at her work. The pack wouldn’t make a very good life preserver, but it might float her belongings across the river.
“Time to go,” Sadie said, and picked up the smoke grenade and pulled the pin. When she tossed it toward the bridge, the cylinder rolled down the river bank and settled in the mud. Gray smoke began to fill the air, and Sadie picked up the big bulky lump her pack had become and carried it to the river’s edge. With a quick nod to Callie, she stepped off the muddy bank and sank into the cold, scummy water.
Chapter 14
“It’s too far,” Sadie said as she tried to will herself across the river. They’d been in the water for what felt like hours, and Sadie was exhausted.
Her back hurt. Her muscles burned. It was all she could do to hold the backpack straps and keep her body flat on the surface as she kicked her legs up and down. Not to mention, the smoke had worked so well she couldn’t even tell if she was swimming in the right direction.
“Nah,” Callie said. “Give me the bag. We’re at least halfway.”
Sadie didn’t argue. She pushed the bag across to Callie, who seemed almost cheerful, thrust it in front of her and began kicking hard. Sadie had to work hard to keep up with Callie as she held the bag with one arm and raked her other hand along her belly.
Sadie rolled to her back and went into a backstroke.
“How do you know how far we’ve gone?” she gasped.
“I was a tomboy, remember.” Callie said. “Just keep stroking and you’ll get there.”
In spite of her overwhelming fatigue and her worry about the dissipating smoke, Sadie laughed.
“Why do I get the feeling you’ve used that one before.”
“Because I have,” Callie said.
They swam on in silence as the smoke fell behind them, and Sadie could see that Callie was right. They’d gone a little off course, but they weren’t far from the other bank.
The only problem was Sadie’s stomach, which was now nauseous from all the ashy water she’d swallowed. She hoped she wouldn’t vomit.
“Look,” Callie said a minute later. “The bridge.”
Sadie looked and saw that they’d swum out of the smoke. They had another fifty yards to swim and the men on the bridge were sighting on them. Her only comfort was the distance—a thousand yards, probably. Without a military sniper on it there was little chance of getting hit.
Then the first round came zinging in.
It was followed by the crack of the shot.
Water splashed ten feet to Sadie’s right.
Short, but he’s got us lined up.
“Go!” Sadie yelled at Callie. “Make him miss.”
But Callie didn’t need the advice. She’d already begun to put distance between herself and Sadie, and to angle away from the bridge, toward a coal barge tied up on the river bank. It would add a few yards, but would raise her probability of surviving it.
Sadie rolled over. She flung out her arm and shoved her face into the water and swam blindly, rolling her head up to breathe every four strokes. She quickly ran out of stamina, but she was close enough to make it if she didn’t give up.
Just as she was ready to quit and go under she felt Callie’s hands on her arms as Callie pulled her of the water. Another bullet whizzed in and slammed into the side of the coal barge with a loud “clang.” Even as she staggered to her feet and ran over the ashy clearing next to the river, Sadie couldn’t help but admire the skill of the shooter.
Then she glanced at Callie and saw her carrying the backpack and rifles in her arms. Her admiration for the girl’s toughness displaced any further thoughts of the sniper’s skill. It wasn’t skill that saved their lives in the river, it was Callie’s strength. The terrified girl who’d needed rescuing in Shanksborough was gone, replaced by a woman who was formidable.
Another rifle shot missed the running women by a wider margin, and then they were into the dead scrub and defoliated trees beyond the coal barge loading zone they’d run through. When they got far enough into the dead vegetation that they could no longer see the bridge, Sadie collapsed.
“Get up,” Callie said, and dumped the backpack to the ground. Sadie, summoning the last of her strength, crawled to Callie, who was panting hard. “We can’t rest here.”
“Why not?” Sadie gasped.
Thunder boomed in the north and they glanced at the darkening sky. White jagged threads streaked across the sky.
“Get your boots on and I’ll tell you.”
They ripped away the plastic Ziploc bags, and pulled their boots on. Then they reloaded their rifles with dry cartridges. Sadie had to fight the urge to go back down to the river and shoot at the men on the bridge. She dismissed the urge as foolish, since it might bring the men chasin
g after her. She slipped into her soggy parka instead.
As they north north toward the oncoming storm, Callie said, “Right over that hill is Marland Heights.”
“So?” Sadie said.
“So next to that is the Williams Country Club.”
Sadie stared blankly at Callie.
“They’re worse than Big Jim,” Callie said. “Some of the girls told me about it.”
Sadie nodded, though she couldn’t imagine how anything could be worse than what she’d seen at Shanksborough Technical College.
“What’re they doing?” she asked. “Running rape and murder contests?”
“Yes,” Callie said. “That’s exactly what they’re doing.”
Sadie couldn’t believe it, but when Callie picked up the AR-15 and crept forward through the dead scrub bushes and trees, Sadie followed without a word.
“How do you know where you’re going?” Sadie asked, but Callie ignored her. She led Sadie as if she’d memorized a map and was trying to find specific landmarks. The dead bushes and trees began to thin out as they reached a confluence of roads and industrial buildings. They squatted down and pushed aside the dead branches and leaves of a waist-high chokeberry shrub.
All the buildings they saw were covered in dust and ash, and many of the roofs had collapsed. A sign read “Coil Slitting.” Sadie wasn’t sure what it meant, but didn’t like the sound of it.
“We have to run for it,” Callie whispered.
“Run where?”
“Those dead trees are—...” Callie said, but was cut off by a white flash and an explosion of thunder. The storm that had been on the horizon was on top of them.
“We can hide in those trees,” Callie said. “Unless we get killed by lightning.”
Sadie sighted on the bridge, now less than eight hundred yards away. The men who’d been on it were hurrying toward land on the Steubenville side.
“This is good,” Callie said.
“How is that?” Sadie asked as the wind shook the chokeberry shrub and send dust spraying into the air.
