by AJ Rose
“Everybody single file, stay low, and we’ll try to hurry to the next group of trees. We should be home free after that, and then you can all bitch me out for going this way. Just… let’s all make it there so you can bitch me out.”
“Hell of a pep talk, man,” Brian said uneasily, scanning to his right, toward the house.
“Line up. Jason, you go first, Aaron, next, Jennifer, Tim, Charlotte, Riley, me, Elliot, and Brian at the end.” He hoped having a gun every other person, with the exception of the boy, would keep them protected in the open. “Ready when you are, Jason.”
“Aye, aye, Cap’n.” Jason gave a sloppy salute, made sure the coast was clear, and took a step.
A loud, high-pitched, almost siren-like noise blasted from their left, echoing over the expanse of land toward the patchwork house. They all ducked, watching the trees around them with wide, fearful eyes, but nothing moved.
“Air horn,” Aaron shouted.
Ash recognized the sound, but it mattered little at that point; their cover was blown. “Go! Go, go!”
Jason ran at a crouch, and the rest followed, Charlotte cursing with every step and Riley clinging to her arm in front of Ash, who kept waiting for someone to jump out at them or bullets to fly. The open length they had to cross was nearly two football fields end to end, and Ash was terrified they wouldn’t make it, that something or someone would keep them from getting to safety. He tried to take comfort in the knowledge that this far away from the house, they were probably running across fewer booby traps than they would if they’d tried to approach it. His heart pounded behind his ears, and sweat ran down his face, matting his hair and getting it in his eyes. He impatiently brushed it aside when there was an inhuman howl ahead.
“Oh Jesus!” Jennifer screeched. “Oh my fucking god.” She hopped around, flapping her hands, her face as white as the dog who galloped along with them.
Ash rushed to the front. “What?” he demanded, seeing Jason on the ground, his face scrunched in agony as he clutched at his leg.
“Okay, okay,” Aaron said, his tone calm as he knelt beside the fallen man.
“Jason!” Tim cried, dropping to his knees.
As Ash got close enough to see, his stomach dropped, and he nearly lost the tasteless eggs from that morning.
Jason’s foot dangled over a hole in the ground about two feet deep. Broken at the bottom were the remnants of a screen covered with clumps of dirt and twigs, partially wrapped around Jason’s boot heel. It was caught, along with his leg, in the steel jaws of a wicked bear trap, snapped shut on Jason’s lower calf. Blood freely flowed from the wounds and soaked his sock and the leather of his boot, his jeans shredded beneath the teeth, which had opened great gashes in his skin. It was also obvious by the angle of his foot that his ankle or lower leg was broken. He screamed, his mouth wide in a rictus of pain.
“Tim, I need you to help me,” Aaron said calmly, the medic in him taking over. Ash leaned over and breathed to keep his gorge down. Tim moved numbly to Aaron’s side, his eyes wide with fear.
“Brian,” Ash wheezed. “Get them to the trees. Get them out of here. Tread carefully.”
Brian herded the girls, Riley, and Elliot past the carnage. The dog barked at Ash, dashed a couple feet after Elliot, then barked once more for Ash, wanting him to follow. Ash waved him off.
“Go, boy. Go.”
The dog sprinted after the group ahead, and Ash was torn between watching to ensure they made the safety of the tree line—how safe can it possibly be on this fucked up farm of horrors?—to keeping his attention glued to what Aaron was doing in case he needed more help.
“There’s a catch right there, but I need to brace his leg with both hands and lift it free,” Aaron was saying. “You have to depress the catch and pry the jaws apart, and then we can get him out of here. Be careful not to cut yourself.”
Tim nodded, making no noise, but leaning into the little hole to do what he was told. They didn’t have the leverage to get it open, and their shoulders kept bumping as Tim tried to squirm into a better position and Aaron held his ground to keep his hands as steady on Jason’s foot as possible. Over their shoulders Ash saw the problem; the catch was on the opposite side of the trap, and if Tim leaned over any more, he’d fall in the shallow hole. Stepping behind Jason, Ash approached the hole from the back side, stuck his foot in, and stood on the catch. The jaws opened marginally, enough for Tim to get a good hold and pry them apart. Without the pressure switch engaged, the jaws wouldn’t stay open, so Tim held it apart with shaking hands. Aaron carefully lifted Jason’s leg, causing the man to scream again.
“Drag him,” Aaron said to Ash. Ash grabbed his backpack by the loop at the top and pulled, getting as far away from the hole as they dared without watching their footing for more traps.
When Aaron had room to maneuver, he dropped his pack and hefted Jason in a fireman’s carry. Ash, having shed his pack to carry Riley, shouldered Aaron’s.
“Go,” the medic huffed.
Ash went first, scanning the ground so as to avoid any more nasty surprises, and Tim kept to their backs, his hands out in case Aaron needed help carrying Jason, who was flat out crying in pain, saying “It hurts” over and over.
The echo of a motor reached Ash’s ears as they passed into the shadow of the trees, the others visibly horrified over the gore that was Jason’s leg. He could almost taste their terror of what more could be on the land they still had to cross.
“Someone’s coming,” Elliot said, pointing behind them at a smudge moving on the horizon.
“You good to carry him?” Ash asked Aaron.
“For a bit. Get us the fuck out of here.”
“Oh my god,” Jennifer chanted over and over, eyes glued to the approaching black spot. The closer it got, the more recognizable it became: a man riding a squat vehicle, like a four-wheeler.
“Run!” Brian urged, turning Jennifer away from the pursuer and toward what they all hoped was safety. They fled, crashing through the trees with little time to see where they stepped. A series of small bangs followed them to the next field, more of the loud but harmless firework trip wires going off, and once they passed into sunlight, they saw an elevated dirt road ahead. Scrambling for it, they ran flat out, reaching it after a couple minutes’ sprint. Aaron was the last to haul himself and his fallen friend up the steep ditch, and Brian and Tim each grabbed an arm to help him without disturbing his hold on the injured man.
“Sitting ducks up here!” Charlotte said. “Down the other side. Now.”
Ash still heard the engine, and they’d never outrun it if the guy didn’t stop at his property line.
Well, I hope that was his property line. Jesus fucking Christ, who is this guy?
“We need to hide,” he said urgently, pointing them to a drainage tunnel under the end of a driveway off the elevated road. “In there.”
They quickly hunkered down in the cool shadows of the tunnel, which was only as long as the narrow, one-lane driveway to which it ran perpendicular. A trickle of water snaked along the bottom, but otherwise, the tunnel was dry.
“We’re exposed in here,” Brian murmured while Aaron eased Jason down to assess the wound. “The guy has to know the layout of the properties around his if he’s crazy enough to booby-trap his land. This is the first place he’ll look.”
Brian was right, and Ash motioned for those with guns to stand guard at the mouth of the tunnel, taking up his own position just beyond the lip to watch the road.
Above them, the four-wheeler engine drew closer, but after a few minutes in which they all held their collective breath—except Jason, who bit into his hand to keep from yelling as Aaron peeled pieces of his jeans away from the gouges on his calf—the buzz of their pursuer began to fade. Guess he doesn’t care as long as we’re away from his land, Ash thought bitterly.
“Get me the medical kit out of my pack,” Aaron said. Jennifer rifled through the bag to find the battered box, then set it open beside him. He extract
ed scissors and cut the leg off Jason’s jeans. “We have to take your boot off. It’s really gonna hurt.”
“Here, bite down on this,” Charlotte said, putting a rolled up pair of clean socks in his hand. “Muffles your scream.”
The unmistakable noise of an ammo clip being jammed home caught Ash’s attention. He looked at Tim, who wore a grim expression as he strode toward the mouth of their tunnel, the muzzle of one of the Colts pointed down.
“Where the hell are you going?”
“I’m going to kill that motherfucker.”
“No you’re not,” Ash said, grabbing his gun arm to stop him. “No one’s going back there. We’ll be going after you with a body bag.”
“Nah, I’ll leave the guy’s body out in the open to rot among his traps. No body bag necessary.”
Aaron untied Jason’s boot and worked his scissors down along the side, cutting the leather to make pulling it off easier. Even so, when he slipped the shoe off, Jason screamed into the sock gag. Aaron made quick work of the bloody sock and exposed the foot to air. It was already swelling, the skin around the break beginning to bruise.
“I can’t set this ankle,” he said soothingly, patting Jason’s opposite knee. “It’s a bad break, and I could do more damage. We’ll have to get you to a hospital.”
“Where?” Charlotte cried. “We’re in the fucking middle of nowhere!”
“Go back to Omaha,” Brian suggested.
“No,” Jason panted. “It’s behind us. Forward, not back. Back is a waste.”
Tim stood in the sunlight at the tunnel opening, staring the way they’d come, and Ash’s focus pulled in multiple directions.
“Tim, if you go to that guy’s land again, you’ll get killed. That maniac is out there, looking for us,” Jennifer said, scrambling to grab his other arm.
“I have to pay him back,” he said, his voice strangely uninflected.
“Your friend needs you here,” Ash tried. “Jason needs your help.”
That got through, and Tim lowered his head, squinting his eyes shut. The only sound in the tunnel was the rip of packaging as Aaron readied gauze bandages and opened a bottle of rubbing alcohol.
“This’ll sting,” he said quietly.
“Do it,” Jason said, shoving the sock in his mouth again.
Aaron poured the alcohol over the gashes and Jason strangled out a moan that morphed into a scream as the pain ratcheted up.
“Mom,” Riley said, clinging to her arm and burying his face in her shoulder. She pulled him onto her lap and began rocking, stroking his hair.
“He’ll be okay, baby.”
Ghost licked Jason’s face as though he wanted to reassure the man, too.
“He can’t walk on this,” Aaron murmured to Brian. “We’ll need to build a stretcher.”
“Tim,” Brian called. “Help us find stuff to make a stretcher.”
Tim turned and studied them all, his detachment fading as he looked his friend over. Jason stared back, his face a mask of pain and determination.
“We’ll come back for him, okay?” Jason promised. “When I can walk again, and we have some shit with us, we’ll find him and make him pay. But it ain’t happening unless I get out of here. Help me get out of here.” Speaking that much took a lot of effort, even as it distracted him from Aaron’s ministrations.
Tim tucked the gun away and dropped to his knees beside his friend, taking his hand. Jason gripped so hard his knuckles whitened and their hands shook.
“Damn right, we’ll get him.”
“Tim, take Brian with you and see if you can find two live tree branches to cut down. About three inches around and as straight as you can get them. No dead wood.” Aaron worked while he talked, gently wiping alcohol-soaked gauze around the trap’s teeth gouges. “Cut them to about eight feet long and bring them back. Jennifer or Elliot, take the hunting knife out of my pack and get Jason’s sleeping bag from his. Cut the bottom corners off so we can thread the branches through. Be careful with the zipper so we can keep the side closed. When it’s zipped, we don’t even have to tie it down.”
The people he’d named sprang into action, Brian grabbing the hatchet from Elliot’s pack and following Tim. Aaron extracted two pieces of metal from his first aid kit, molding them into a cradle to brace Jason’s unstable ankle, and wrapped it tightly in an ace bandage. Jason’s backpack was propped under his knee and calf, elevating the leg, and Aaron had balanced an ice pack, the kind where breaking the center and shaking it activated the chemicals, on top of the ankle while he held another one to the outer side.
“Thank you,” Jason said, his breathing calming.
“I’ve got some painkillers but not a lot. I suggest you take two now and let them work before we get you on the stretcher, and by the time we get moving, you’ll be too looped to care about anything. Any allergies?”
Jason shook his head, and Aaron dosed him with a couple pills he didn’t identify.
“Where are we taking him?” Charlotte asked Ash.
He’d been studying the GPS to figure out where the nearest hospital was. “We have to go back. Both Lincoln and Omaha are behind us, but Lincoln is closer.”
“No,” Jason said determinedly. “I’m not going back. We have to cross that guy’s land again if we do.”
“We’d go way around it, buddy,” Aaron said.
“Which will take just as long as if we were to go forward to the next town.”
“The next town isn’t that big,” Ash said. “They may not have the right kind of help.”
“For a broken ankle?” Jason asked with disbelief.
“This is a bit more than that, Jason,” Aaron said simply. “What if you need surgery?”
Jason shook his head. “Bigger towns have military. You’ll all be caught. I won’t be the reason for that.”
“That’s all noble and good,” Aaron said, holding Jason’s hand. “But I won’t be the reason you lose your foot because you’re too stubborn to get the right kind of help.”
Ash looked helplessly at the map on his GPS. There was a function to search for hospitals, but all of them were behind them, and Jason was right about the military presence.
“Promise me you’ll go forward,” Jason said desperately. “Jennifer’s having your baby, Aaron. You can’t risk getting sucked into service.”
Aaron and Ash exchanged glances, then Aaron gave a reluctant nod, his lips pursed. “Fine.”
“Kid needs a mother and a father.” Jason’s head lolled back against the concrete of the tunnel, and he closed his eyes. Ash told himself not to be offended at the often-parroted reason so many people said same-sex couples were wrong or amoral. “Wish mine hadn’t left when I was a kid.” Now that, Ash could relate to.
“Your dad?” Charlotte asked.
“Mom,” Jason said. “Left me with a dad who did his best but to work, he had to push me off on neighbors and my grandmother a lot.”
“I totally get it,” Charlotte said. “Riley’s dad bailed as soon as he found out I was pregnant. Thankfully, my mom was there to help, and later, Ash. We haven’t done so bad, I don’t think.”
“Nah, you’re good,” Jason nodded, his eyes drooping. The drugs were kicking in. “You do right by him. Even if it means telling off a loudmouthed redneck asshole who steps in it.” He hefted a hand to wave in the direction of his foot. “Literally.”
“We’ll get you help, okay?” Charlotte said, grasping his hand. Whatever animosity had been between them, Charlotte wasn’t the type to ignore someone in need.
“I’m in good hands,” Jason said. “What about your dad? Where was he when Riley came along?”
“Killed in Afghanistan,” Charlotte said, and Jason studied her.
“Explains your take-no-shit attitude.”
“Hey, buddy.” Aaron spread Jason’s sleeping bag out, keeping it out of the water as best he could. “Let’s move you to your sleeper so all we have to do is thread the branches and lift. You’re about to go to la-la-land.
Ash, help me move him.” They maneuvered the injured man onto the bag, where he fell into a restless doze. Aaron set about using an adhesive spray from his med kit to hold the cut ends of the zipper together, then duct-taped it.
“Where the hell are they?” Jennifer muttered, keeping watch for the others.
Tim and Brian came through the opening at the other side a few minutes later, dragging four branches behind them.
“We didn’t know which would work best.”
Aaron tested them for flexibility, showing their tensile strength. Then with much care, he slid his chosen two along the inside edges of the sleeping bag and through the holes. With Jason’s weight on it, the sleeping bag stayed put.
“Where we going?” Aaron asked, positioning himself at the foot of the stretcher with his back to Jason, ready to lift. Tim moved wordlessly to grab the branches at his friend’s head. “One, two, three.” They lifted in one smooth motion, and Jason whimpered in his sleep.
Ash consulted his GPS again, still frustrated by the wide open spaces and Jason’s determination not to turn back. “Our best bet is Seward, I think. About fifteen miles southwest of here.”
“Lead the way. We got him,” Aaron said, and the group quietly fell into formation around the stretcher, Ghost in front to sniff out their path. Even the dog seemed to sense their urgency.
They reached Seward well after sunset. Bearing the stretcher required frequent breaks, and Tim didn’t help matters by asking repeatedly where they were, as if he were memorizing the route so he could return to the sadistic landowner’s property to mete out his brand of justice.
Farther up the block they trudged, with Ash and Brian on stretcher duty. The small hospital, a long, single-story red brick building, lay ahead of them. When they neared the emergency entrance, Ash knew it was a bust. No lights on, no hum of a generator, no people anywhere. That didn’t exactly mean there was no one to help, but it didn’t bode well.
Memorial Hospital of Seward is closed until further notice due to fuel shortage, a sign taped to the door read. In case of emergency, the hospitals in Lincoln are taking patients, as is the temporary shelter between Lincoln and Omaha, run by the National Guard. We are sorry for any inconvenience.
