23
Kaylee insisted on a bedtime story. Violet grabbed one of her braille books. It wasn’t age appropriate, so she read about five pages from the middle then tacked on an off-the-cuff ending. Kaylee accepted it without complaint, but then she insisted on a bedtime prayer and a good night hug and kiss. When Violet obliged, she finally settled down in her bed. Violet tucked the blanket in all around her, brushed her hair off her face, and patted her hand. She heard Ruby and Bauer making little noises in the corner, probably lying down together as they often did at night when they were in the same house.
Violet was still fuming about not going to the meeting. Not a single person had come to her defense, except Corbin, but he hadn’t really pressed the issue. Did no one think she deserved to be involved in important decisions? Did nobody think she had anything to contribute? The pendulum inside her mind swung back and forth between fury and hurt. Ever since the power went out, people had started treating her worse, overlooking her more, and she had just about reached her limit.
With Kaylee finally settled down, Violet rose and moved toward the bedroom door. She wasn’t sleepy at all, and while she didn’t really want to play board games with Corbin, at least it was something to do. As she approached the door, she reached out by instinct and felt for the light switch. It was in the on position, and she flicked it off, realizing only after she’d done it that there was no point.
Sometimes, I still forget.
It occurred to her that Kaylee might have one of Grandma’s flashlights on. She turned to scan the room, but she couldn’t sense any light. That didn’t mean much. With her limited vision, she could only sense bright lights anyway.
As she reached for the doorknob, Violet heard the dogs rouse from their spot in the corner. Ruby, always quick to respond to anything out of the ordinary, padded across the room, but she wasn’t coming to the door. She started barking, but she seemed to be barking at the outer wall of the bedroom. Violet crossed the room as quick as she dared and reached out, feeling for her. Her fingers brushed across the top of Ruby’s fuzzy head and felt the curtains in front of the bedroom window.
Ruby was barking at the bedroom window. Bauer soon joined her. At the sound, Kaylee stirred and began to whine. Violet went back to the door and opened it. Immediately, the dogs raced past her and moved down the hall.
“What is it, Violet?” Kaylee asked.
“Nothing,” Violet replied. “Just the dogs being silly. Go to sleep. I’m not telling you another bedtime story.”
“Okay,” Kaylee said, sleepily. “I love you. Good night.”
“I love you, too.”
Violet left the bedroom and pulled the door shut behind her. It sounded like the dogs were in the living room now.
“Mom?” Violet called.
Instead of a reply, she heard a strange clanking sound. It took her a second to realize what it was: someone trying to open the sliding glass door. Apparently, it was locked.
Someone’s trying to get inside the house, she thought. What do I do?
She started to call for her mother again, but she caught herself. What if something had happened to her? Violet froze. The dogs were barking like crazy, but someone was still trying to get through the back door. Where in the world were Corbin and her mother? Finally, forcing herself to move, Violet crept down the hall. She knew where the guns were kept. She’d overhead her father and grandmother talking about it. She felt for the coat closet and opened it, reaching inside. They kept the shotgun and rifle on a high shelf, safely out of reach of Kaylee. Stretching up, Violet fumbled along the edge of the shelf until her fingers brushed the cold metal of a gun barrel.
It was the shotgun. Fortunately, Corbin had showed her how to handle all the guns in the house, so she was able to verify that the shotgun was loaded. She felt for the safety, which she knew was just in front of the stock and above the trigger guard, and flicked it off. At that moment, Ruby and Bauer came running back to her, no longer barking. Ruby had gone from warning to action. That meant a threat was imminent, and she was trained to stick by her owner’s side. With her free hand, Violet reached down and snagged Ruby’s collar, gently pulling her back down the hall. She led her guide dog into the bathroom, Bauer tagging along behind them.
“Stay here, Ruby,” she said softly. “Good dog. I know you want to help, but I don’t want you to get hurt. If someone bad is trying to get in, I might have to shoot them.”
As she backed out of the bathroom, Ruby tried to follow, but Violet gently pushed her and shut the door. Her heart racing, Violet moved down the hall, her finger slipping under the trigger guard of the shotgun. When she reached the living room, she heard the sound of duct tape ripping. Someone was forcing the cardboard out of the shattered back door. Violet was breathing so fast now that she’d become dizzy. She tried to calm herself, taking deep breaths, but it was no use. Fear had flooded every part of her body.
She could tell the bright light at the front of the living room was off. However, she remembered that Grandma had lit candles on the mantle, so she moved toward the fireplace, reaching out with her free hand until she felt the heat. Two candles side by side. They were both warm, so she picked them up one by one, turned them over, and smashed the lit end against the mantle to extinguish the flames. Then she moved into a corner beside the couch and aimed the gun toward the kitchen, hoping that the shadows were deep enough to hide her.
The cardboard finally fell against the dining room table. Violet recognized the sound as it flopped over with a final rip of duct tape and slid against the edge of the table before landing on the floor on the other side. A few pieces of glass followed shortly thereafter, possibly jagged remnants of the broken window. Then she heard heavy boots on the linoleum floor.
Where were Mom and Corbin? Had this stranger done something to them? She tried not to think about it. The possibility that they’d been killed threatened to turn her fear into a cold, paralyzing force. Violet aimed the shotgun in the direction of the footsteps, but then the sound spread out. One set of footsteps became three, as a group of people, almost certainly men, moved through the dining room.
“Are you sure they all left the house?” one of the men said. A rough voice, possibly damaged from years of smoking and booze.
“I watched everyone drive away,” said a second man, “except the two who are in the shed.”
As they moved into the living room, Violet heard one of them trip on something and stumble. That confirmed for her that the room was very dark. Moving as slowly and quietly as possible, she backed into the foyer and down the hall, trying to position herself to defend Kaylee if they headed for the bedroom.
Am I actually going to shoot them?
She raised the shotgun again, aiming it into the living room, her finger touching the trigger. Her own breathing sounded incredibly loud in her ears. The men were moving across the living room now, headed for the hallway.
You have to stop them, she told herself, willing herself into action.
“Freeze,” she said, trying to sound as authoritative as possible. Unfortunately, she had a high, thin voice, and there wasn’t much she could do about that. “I’m armed, and I will shoot. Don’t come any closer.”
The men stopped walking, but a bright light awoke in front of her. She saw it, a shifting beam, as if from a flashlight. It moved, became smaller and brighter, and she knew they were shining it directly at her now. For a second, the men were quiet. Violet heard Ruby and Bauer scrabbling against the bathroom door with their paws. She tried to gauge exactly where the man was standing based on the direction of the light, but it wasn’t easy. Fortunately, his rather loud breathing helped her narrow it down.
“Well, look at you,” the rough voice said. “Ain’t you a pretty little thing. Just like your mama.”
Another man laughed. “Oh, her mama had a good old time, didn’t she, Gunner? We heard the screaming and yelling. She put up a fight!”
Violet gauged the location of the second man by his voi
ce. They were standing within a couple feet of each other just past the couch. There was a third man as well. She’d heard the footsteps earlier, but she didn’t know where he was.
“I will shoot you,” she said. “I mean it. You’d better get out of here right now.”
They ignored her comment, still chuckling over the crude comment about Jodi. Suddenly, she heard a strange tapping sound on the linoleum at the edge of the foyer. It took her a second to realize what it was: her own guide cane. She’d left it in a corner of the living room. One of the men had apparently spotted it and picked it up, and he was tapping it in an exaggerated fashion now, which made the other men laugh.
“Look at what I found here,” he said. “It’s one of them blind people sticks.”
“Guys, I don’t think this kid can see,” said the first man—the one called Gunner. “I knew there was something weird about her eyes.”
“Help us, Lordy, it’s a blind kid with a gun,” said the second, which made the others laugh.
As each of them spoke, Violet shifted the shotgun ever so slightly, trying to hone in on their voices. Still, pulling the trigger seemed like such a monumental task. What if she missed? What if she hit one of them but the others charged at her? They were moving closer now. She heard footsteps in the foyer.
“Come on, kid,” the third man said. “You’re as liable to shoot yourself as one of us.”
“Maybe there’s braille on the gun sight,” said the second.
This made them laugh again.
“I told you to stop,” Violet said, her voice little more than a trembling breath now. “I warned you. You’re not getting past me.”
“Put down the gun so we don’t have to hurt you,” Gunner said. “It would bother me to kill a blind kid, but I’ll do it if I have to.”
His voice was dead center in the light. She knew she had him. At that moment, however, they rushed at her. She heard the sudden scuff of boots on the floor, the intake of breath, saw the slight wobble of the light.
Violet pulled the trigger. It was the loudest thing she’d ever heard, an explosive boom that seemed to shake the whole house down to its foundation. The shotgun kicked violently against her shoulder, spinning her into the wall as she struggled not to drop it.
And the first man, the coarse voice behind the light, Gunner, unleashed such a horrifying shriek of pain that a shiver ran down Violet’s back.
“Kill her! Kill her!” said one of the other men.
24
Shane had just shut the gate behind him when he heard the blast of the shotgun. He knew the sound, a deeper and angrier boom than the Glock. It seemed close, coming from somewhere just inside the house. Once he was through the gate, he reached back to shut it, but James had followed him. The sheriff had his handgun out. In the low light, it looked similar to Shane’s Glock 17, possibly a newer model, sleek and black in the moonlight.
James motioned for Shane to stay quiet as he slipped past him. In the process, the sheriff bumped the gate, and it tried to swing shut, but Shane caught it and made sure it closed with minimal noise, trying not to jostle the windchimes. Someone inside the house was screaming now, and it awakened a furious anger inside of him. Even the few seconds it took him to quietly close the gate seemed interminable. He’d rarely felt such violent rage. It was so intense he could barely think straight. When the sheriff turned and made some hand motions at him, apparently trying to come up with some sort of approach, Shane only saw him as if through a fog.
He pushed past the sheriff and approached the front door. As he did, he heard a second gunshot—not a shotgun this time, but some sort of handgun—followed by the distinct sound of Violet crying out. This broke through whatever last remaining bit of self-control Shane possessed, sending him into a blind rage.
My children are in there!
It took far too long to fish his copy of the house key out of his pocket. He heard his own heartbeat in his temples, felt the rush of blood and his own fast, shallow breathing. James whispered something from behind him, but he didn’t hear it. As soon as the front door was open, Shane flung it open and lunged inside, bringing the Glock up. The only thing he remembered in that moment was the grip Corbin had taught him: no tea-cupping, no crossed thumbs.
People were still yelling inside the house, and he moved toward the voices, trying to pick out targets in the darkness. As soon as he stepped from the foyer into the living room, he heard gunshots, the sound of bullets eating into the drywall somewhere behind him. The reality of his own recklessness hit him then, and he ducked down onto the floor.
Only then did he realize he had almost stepped on a body. She was sprawled half in the foyer, half in the living room, lying on her back. Violet, her right hand clapped to her left shoulder, blood seeping through her fingers—black in the moonlight. He was aware of other figures in the room, at least two moving in the shadows on the other side of the living room.
“Oh, God, Violet,” he said, his voice cracking. “Are you okay?”
He put an arm around her and pulled her toward the end of the couch, trying to slide her out of sight of the others. As he did, he realized there were actually three people near the dining room. Two of them standing, one crumpled on the floor. He heard another gunshot, loud as a thunderclap, and felt some of the stuffing from the couch splash across his face. Leaning in close, he tried to examine Violet’s wound, but it was too dark. She whimpered.
“Freeze!” James shouted from the front door. “You’re under arrest!”
This led to a burst of bullets, the air in the room convulsing from the sudden violence. Shane heard bullets eating into the walls, and he leaned over his daughter, shielding her as best he could. The shots seemed to be coming from both directions. Torn between protecting Violet and helping James, Shane thrust the Glock over the armrest of the couch and fired a couple of shots in the direction of the dining room.
The burst of guns might have lasted five seconds, but it seemed interminable. Suddenly, the room went quiet, and Shane heard strained breathing and muttered curses on all sides.
“We’re not going anywhere,” one of the men said. His voice was coarse and damaged, and he was out of breath. “Do you hear me? We’re armed, too, and we’re not going anywhere.”
Shane glanced over his shoulder and saw James peeking around the edge of the doorframe, his gun trained across the room. Unfortunately, Shane was pinned down, afraid to rise above the couch for fear of being shot. Beneath him, Violet continued to whimper in pain. He wanted to comfort her, but he didn’t want to speak and draw fire to his position. Easing to one side, he dared to peek around the side of the couch.
“If you guys want to get out of here alive,” James said, “you’d better throw down your guns and surrender. There are a lot more of us than there are of you.”
“I don’t think you got it so good, old man,” one of the men said. “Why don’t you get out of our way while you’re still breathing?”
Shane could see them, darker shadows against a background of moonlight from the sliding glass door. He could tell the cardboard had been removed from the shattered window, and a slight breeze whistled as it passed into the dining room.
That’s how they got in, he thought. They came in through the broken back door.
He made a mental note to fix and reinforce the door. As James and one of the men traded barbs, Shane poked the Glock around the end of the couch and aimed at the bigger of the two shadows. He took a shot at them and watched as the standing shadows parted, fleeing in opposite directions. One went around the dining room table, the other dove toward the fireplace. He couldn’t tell if he hit either one of them, but when they parted, he got a clearer view of the man on the ground. The wounded man wasn’t dead. Shane could see him writhing.
He saw a brief muzzle flash from the dining room and heard the bullet hit the wall just above the couch. He felt bits of drywall land in his hair.
Pinned down, he thought. What do we do now?
“You guys d
on’t know who you’re dealing with,” one of the men said. “You hear me? Now, we’re going out the back, and nobody’s going to follow us. You got that?”
“No, I don’t got that,” James said. “Throw down your weapons and surrender.”
Shane realized then that Kaylee was crying from down the hall, and it almost sent him into a panic. He had to end this, and he brought his right leg up, intending to charge out from behind the couch, gun blazing as he charged the men. Only a soft moan from Violet made him stop.
“Why don’t you guys throw your guns down?” one of the men said.
He had to get out of this situation. Violet was wounded and bleeding. She needed treatment. Kaylee was crying, and the dogs had begun to frantically bark. Shane peeked around the end of the couch again and saw the shadows coming back together as the intruders met in the entryway of the dining room. They were silhouetted in moonlight, one of them short and stocky, the other tall and thin. Moving as slowly as possible, he poked the end of his Glock out from behind the couch and pointed it at the bigger of the targets, aiming for the center of the stocky man’s shadow.
Before he pulled the trigger, the stocky man fired. It hit the couch so close to his position that stuffing burst out like a curtain in front of his eyes. Shane flinched and pulled the gun back.
“We’ll kill everyone in this house,” the rough-voiced man said, “unless you back off right now. You hear me?”
I’m just going to have to charge them, Shane realized, even if it puts me in the line of fire. Even if I get shot, I’m going to have to take them out. Everyone is at risk.
He gave Violet a gentle pat on the cheek, though this made her groan loudly. Then he brought his right leg up under him, ready to leap out from behind the couch. He gripped the gun, pointed it in front of him, and took a deep breath.
This is it. Do it.
Sudden movement beyond the sliding glass door caught Shane’s eye. Two figures slipped silently through the gap like ghosts. Shane knew them by their shapes: Owen and Mike. One moved confidently, broad-shouldered and big-limbed. The other was frail, almost boneless, weaving as he came. Together, they rushed the thin man on the left. The stranger started to turn, but Owen lunged at him and got him in a headlock, dragging him backward into the kitchen.
Surviving The End (Book 2): Fallen World Page 21
