by Alex Mersey
“You didn’t give me any choice,” Chris muttered, shaking his arm free from the man’s grip. “It doesn’t matter. Williams is armed.”
“Sounds like he’s got this, then,” Sean said. “Chris, listen to me, your friend Williams seems like a capable man.”
“I told him there were two men. That’s all we saw. But what if there’s more? Williams is capable, the best, but he’s not a one-man army.”
Sean cursed under his breath.
“Yeah.” Chris walked faster. “Fuck.”
Sean caught up again. “When we get there,” he said, breathing hard, voice strained from the exertion, “you stay back, let me and Williams handle this.”
“What are you doing?” Chris sent him a look, astonished at the offer, more so since the man looked like he was half a step away from falling flat on his face. “This isn’t your fight.”
The seconds grew into minutes before Sean finally said, “Doctor Jeffries told us that Alli’s body had gone into toxic shock. He had to give her an adrenaline shot.”
“Alli? The girl in the clinic?”
Sean nodded. “If Private Ritter hadn’t stopped to help us, she might not have made it through the night.”
“I see.” Although he didn’t, not really. “Then you owe Private Ritter one, not me and Williams.”
“I’m not paying back a debt,” Sean said. “I’m passing it on. And then maybe one day you and Williams will pass it on. And maybe, just maybe, that’s how more of us survive.”
Chris slowed his step so the man had less trouble keeping up. “Frank and June Henderson gave us a ride into Little Falls. Williams was also hurt, he needed a doctor. And Nathan, Doctor Jeffries, took us into his home.”
Sean seemed to understand. “You’ll get your chance to pass it on.”
They didn’t say much more until the clump of familiar oak trees came into view.
“The farm is nestled in those trees,” Chris said, pointing. “It’s not visible until you get right up close, and I don’t think they can see anything approaching either.”
“Unless they have a lookout.”
Chris scowled into the trees. A slight breeze had picked up, brushing over the tops. Hiding a lookout? He shook his head. “If they had a man in there, Williams would have seen.”
“He’s that good?” Sean asked skeptically.
“He’s that good.”
They passed the stain Bran had left on the road, followed the trail of blood to the gate, still unlatched, hanging open.
“Okay,” Sean said, “this is as far as you go.”
“Not happening,” Chris muttered, stomping ahead. “I’ll stay back in the tree line.”
“Getting shot once a day isn’t enough for you?”
“Apparently not.” Careless words, when his stomach was in knots. But he just had to focus on the now, not think too hard about the last shootout or what might still come.
They kept off the farm road, walked through the pasture to the tree line.
Sean put a finger to his lips as they slipped into the shade of clustered oaks.
A flutter disturbed the branches above, sent a jolt straight through his heart. His eyes flashed up. Saw nothing. A bird? The wind?
Sean’s rifle was up, the barrel leading the way as they weaved a sure-footed, wary path through the trees.
Sounds reached them. Laughter. Gruff. Male. Voices.
Sean glanced back at him, whispered, “That’s coming from the farmhouse.”
They advanced with even more care, flattening themselves to each trunk before creeping around it, and then there was no more tree cover, just the square of dirt and rutted road that ended at the farmhouse.
Chris peeked around the tree that hid him for a better look. One man on the porch, same rocker chair. Bald on top, black beard. Not Stetson or grizzly. He poked out as far as he dared, but couldn’t get a view around the side of the farmhouse. The woods directly across were thick, dark, still.
Where was Williams?
A pulse beat at his throat as he fell back to Sean’s tree so they could put their heads together, speak low. “There’s a different man out on the porch.”
“So we’re dealing with at least three?”
Chris nodded, opened his mouth to give a definitive yes, and that’s as far as he got. The brush of warmth at his back sent shivers down his spine. A hand clamped his mouth, silencing his startled cry.
Click.
The barrel of a cocked gun pressed to Sean’s temple and then, before any real terror could set in, the all too familiar low, timbered voice, “Do not move a muscle.”
Sean peeped out the corner of his eye. “It’s us.”
“I’m not blind.” The barrel tipped downward, but didn’t go away. “Want to tell me why you brought Chris here?”
For goodness sake! Chris tugged at the hand over his mouth until Williams relented and loosened the clamp. “I brought him.”
Williams lowered the gun. “And now you’re both getting out of here.”
“Did you see that man on the porch?” Chris said, didn’t wait for an answer. “He’s not one of the shooters. There’s more, Williams, we don’t even know how many.”
“Five,” Williams said bluntly. “One on the front porch, two messing about in the chicken coop behind the barn, one in the kitchen and one sleeping on a couch in the lounge. Oh, and a body trussed in the back yard. The dairy farmer, I presume.”
“Is he okay?” Chris asked.
Williams squared a look on him, shook his head slowly. “Sorry, Chris.”
“Are you sure?”
“Bullet in the chest,” Williams said. “Yes, I’m sure.”
“Bastards,” Sean muttered. “Who are these people?”
“They’re not going to live long enough to tell us.”
“Okay, wait.” Chris struggled to swallow, his throat suddenly tight, his saliva too thick. “They killed the farmer. And now…now you’re going to kill them. That’s a lot of killing.”
“Chris, listen to me.” Williams put a hand on his shoulder, tilted his head to look Chris in the eye. “I don’t know who these men are, or where they come from, but they’re no strangers to cold blooded murder. They didn’t have to kill that farmer. They could have tied him up and held him in the barn while they took over the farm. They could have fired off warning shots to scare you kids off, but they didn’t. And this close to town? They’re too dangerous, Chris, I don’t trust them to stay here on the farm and not cause any more trouble.”
“He’s right,” Sean said, drawing the words out on a slow breath. “We have to do this.”
“I have to do this,” Williams corrected him.
“How?” Sean said. “You can only take the first one by surprise.” He nudged a look at the gun in Williams’ hand. “How many bullets do you even have in that cartridge?”
“More than I need.”
“Don’t be stupid,” Chris said. “Why don’t you just let Sean back you up?”
“Because an unreliable back up is worse than none.”
“My aim’s just fine,” Sean said. “Ninety-eight percent fine, according to my average score.”
“Target shooting?” Williams said in the kind of tone that usually went with something like, Are you fucking kidding me?
“Clay pigeons,” Sean groused. “Give me a little credit, would you!”
“Have you ever shot a human being?”
“No.”
“Well, it’s not the same when that rifle’s pointed at flesh and blood, trust me.”
Sean’s jaw firmed. “I was at ground zero.”
“What the hell is that?”
“Manhattan, when the Silvers arrived in the skies,” he said, and Chris’ eyes grew wide. “They blew New York City up around me and left nothing behind, not even the bones of our dead. This morning I was caught in another attack, a hospital near Livingston. They exploded the damn building out from under me, sent me hurtling in the air to crash land on a car. I’ve
had two guns pressed in my face in the last two days, three if I were to count yours, which I won’t. And now these men, they killed a farmer to take his land. They shot at innocent kids.”
Sean adjusted his grip on the rifle, sinking a hard look into Williams. “Don’t you worry about my nerves holding steady.”
Chris picked his dropped mouth off the ground.
Even Williams looked impressed. For about two seconds. Then his arched brow flattened. “Okay, you’re with me.”
He turned to Chris.
“I’m not going anywhere,” Chris said first, wired from Sean’s speech. “If you really want to protect me, you have to let me start learning to protect myself. I’m not useless, Williams. Use me, or I’ll just get in the way.”
Williams rubbed a hand over his eyes, gave a slow shake of his head, but when he finally looked at Chris again, he said, “You do exactly as I say.”
“I swear.”
A few minutes later, they had a plan.
Williams stole through the trees, making his way to the chicken coop behind the barn. Sean retreated toward the gate so he could cross the farm road and come back down in the press of oaks directly opposite from Chris.
While Chris waited for them to get into position, he gathered a handful of fallen acorns and weaved a path through the trees until he was within throwing distance of the porch. His pulse raced, his heart kicked, he did not have Williams or Sean’s nerves of steel, but he could do this.
He saw movement across from him, tracked Sean’s shadowy form as the man went down on a knee with his rifle.
It’s time.
Chris sucked in a deep breath, released it slow. Shook out his good arm. Now you’re just stalling.
“Okay,” he whispered to himself, and stepped out a fraction from behind the tree to line his swing up with the porch and throw the acorn, ducked back quickly. The acorn landed short with a plop in the dirt, but it was enough, or maybe the man had seen the flash of movement.
Chris held his breath, listening to the floorboards creak as the man stood. He squinted across the clearing, couldn’t see Sean’s face or where he was looking, but he hadn’t moved from his firing position.
More creaking.
The man was walking up and down the porch, not coming out.
Damn.
Sean, hopefully, already had a good aim on the man, but the plan was to get him to make some noise, get at least one more out of the house and into the open. Chris took two acorns into his hand and, not stepping out this time, flung them in the direction of the porch.
“Hey!” the man shouted. More creaking, heavier, stomping… “Who’s there?”
Come on. Come on.
“Marty?” A second voice.
Chris peered around the tree and… Shit. The bald, bearded man was off the porch, running straight at him. That wasn’t part of the plan, giving his exact location away.
A shot blasted the air.
Chris reeled back, took another moment to realize he was okay, he hadn’t been shot. Bald head was down, rolling on the ground, grunting and cursing.
“Jesus…” That other voice. “Marty!”
Another shot ripped the air.
A blood-curling scream of agony and fury.
Emboldened, Chris surged forward again to look, just as Sean emerged from his hiding spot. Another round of gunshots. Two. From the back of the farmhouse. Williams. But the men out front weren’t too dead to shoot back. One halfway off the porch, reaching for the shotgun that had gotten flung aside when he’d fallen. The other rolling over and onto his feet, raising the shotgun at—
Sean aimed and fired. The man spun backward, hit the ground, stayed down. Without taking a second to assess, Sean cocked another bullet into the chamber as he turned toward the porch. Aimed and fired.
Dead.
Dead.
Chris’ heart beat like the tattoo of rapid-fire machine gun inside his chest as he watched, open-mouthed, stunned and in awe and sick to the bottom of his stomach. Dead. Dead. He understood what Williams had said. They were too dangerous to be allowed to live. But death was death. Final. Gone.
Another blast and his focus snapped like a fragile twig. He didn’t know where to look, where the shot had come from, what was happening— Sean! Fuck. Why was Sean on the ground?
And then he saw.
Stetson.
Standing by the railing on the porch.
Shotgun raised at shoulder level, sighted on Sean, finger on the trigger… Chris jumped out of the tree line, every bone in his body shaking as he drew his arm back and flung the rest of the acorns.
The shot went off, wide, and Stetson’s thunderous face turned to him. “You!”
The rifle swung his way and Chris froze.
“We should have finished you—” Stetson jerked forward, a loose puppet-on-a-string motion, and then he flopped forward.
Williams walked up behind him, gun pointed at the man’s head, but he didn’t shoot again, just stood there, his gaze searching and targeting.
Chris.
Dead man.
Sean.
Dead man.
The dead man at his feet.
He kicked Stetson to make sure and then, satisfied, tucked his gun away at his hip and called out to Chris, “You okay?”
Chris nodded, his tongue too glued dry to form words.
“I’m okay,” Sean groaned, rolling onto his side, sitting up, one hand grabbing at his other arm. “The bastard just grazed me.”
“So you decided to play dead?” Williams drawled, strolling up to him.
“Maybe he knocked the wind out of me, too,” Sean admitted. “Shit, this is one day I sure as hell should have stayed in bed.”
Williams went down to take a look, then straightened, offering a hand as he delivered the verdict, “You’ll live.”
“Thanks,” Sean muttered sarcastically, but he took the hand to help pull himself off the ground, and lost some of the sarcasm to add, “I guess you just saved my life. Thanks.”
“Chris saved it first.” Williams hung his head at Chris, approached with a slow stride. “That was quick thinking, throwing those acorns.”
There wasn’t much thinking involved. Chris took one look at Williams’ tempest expression and decided to keep that to himself. “What now?”
“You froze,” he said. “The next you find yourself looking down the barrel of a smoking gun, you zig zag the hell out of there, dive for cover, even attack as a last resort. If they’ve pulled the trigger once, negotiations are over and you’re nothing but a standing target.”
Chris choked down an indignant retort.
As always, Williams saw straight through that. “If you want to learn to protect yourself and others, Chris, I will teach you, but there’s no soft-padding. You can’t pat yourself on the back when you’re dead.”
“I get it,” Chris said, and he did. A little praise would be nice, but it wouldn’t keep him alive. Still… “I froze. It won’t happen again.”
The intensity of Williams’ stare eased. “It wasn’t all bad.”
“And I’m alive to do this.” Sean winked at Chris and made a show of patting him on the back. “There’s that.”
- 26 -
Sean
The morning brought a hot, sticky wind, the air thick and charged with static, and more aches than Sean remembered going to sleep on. He was the last one awake and out the small tent they’d been assigned. Probably not intended as private sleeping quarters, but with the two cots reserved for Beth and Alli, his people filled it.
The camp was up and about, all thirty-five army personnel. When Private Ritter said ‘small unit’, he hadn’t been kidding. The facilities were basic, dug-out latrines with biodegrading tablets, a bucket for water in each sleeping tent instead of a shower area, but no complaints about the mess tent. Rehydrated scrambled eggs and a tin mug of lukewarm coffee, the best offer Sean had had in days. He grabbed a tray to serve himself from the counter and carried it over to Lynn, sea
ted at one of the four long tables by herself.
“Looks like a storm’s on the way,” he said as he slid into the chair opposite her. “Have you heard anything about Alli?” Glanced around at the virtually empty tent. “Where’s Johnnie?”
Lynn sipped her coffee and rolled her eyes. “Do you always wake up with a mouthful of questions?”
“Sorry.” He planted an elbow on the table and dragged a swallow of coffee through his teeth. Black, bitter and strong enough to put some hair there.
He must have pulled a face because Lynn laughed. “We do have milk, you know, thanks to your antics yesterday.”
“No, this is good.” He took another gulp to chase the bitter aftertaste. “And it wasn’t my antics. I just tagged along to make sure that kid, Chris, didn’t get into trouble.”
“From the way you told it last night, he had to get you out of trouble.”
“Hey, I never pretended to be damned Rambo.” Sean dug into his heap of eggs with a fork and lifted it to his mouth.
“You do okay in my book,” Lynn said with a soft smile, then looked away, sipping on her coffee. “Johnnie’s with that girl, Rachel, you remember her?”
“Chris’ friend?”
“Yeah, we ran into her earlier, she was checking on their other friend, Brandon, in the medical tent. She took Johnnie with her for a walk in the woods, some cave out there along the river where she said they could swim.”
That raised Sean’s brow. “You let him go?”
“He needed the wash. And some downtime from everything and…me, I guess. I’ve been a little intense with him. Anyway, it’s safer out there than here, right?” she added with an edge to her tone. “That is what you think.”
Sean chewed on his eggs, not sure how to respond. Yes, he’d much rather they all disappeared into the scrub of the land as soon as possible. This town, this camp, was a target with a big, fat X struck through the middle. But they had no choice right now. Beth and Alli had stayed in the doctor’s clinic last night and he was under no illusions that Alli would be able to travel today.
“We’ll be okay here for a while,” he finally said.
“You were up half the night sky gazing,” she retorted.
