“Maybe this isn’t the time—” Finn began.
“Oh, no, you started this,” Ava snapped. “Have the balls to finish it.”
“I find that statement gendered in its misogynistic implications,” Finn said after a pause. Her protest sounded automatic, almost reflexive.
Ava flipped her off and turned back to Parker. “The whole time you argued for your plans and kept us in New Albany, you were high as could fucking be.”
“You don’t have to be here,” he said. His teeth were gritted together now, tired of the abuse.
“Parker!” Finn said. She sounded truly shocked.
“No, no, Finn.” Ava put out the flat of her hand. “It’s okay. That’s what addicts do, right? They do shitty things, then say shitty things when they get called out. I guess I’m nothing; I can leave if I don’t like you lying and using us, is that it, Parker? After I risked myself to save you from these fucks we’ve been fighting all day?”
“We need to be on the move,” he said quietly, almost pleading with her.
“You wouldn’t have known where the Vineyard was without me,” Ava said. “But fuck me, right? I don’t have to be here. You would have been caught hoarding food that day if not for me, right? But fuck it, I deserved to be felt up, right? Because I don’t have to be here, right?”
He wasn’t that high, he realized. The amount he’d swallowed hadn’t blown up the top of his skull. He’d have plenty of nervous energy while it lasted, but he wasn’t spun and delusional. He realized what he was now, but, more importantly, he realized he couldn’t hide what he was. They knew, and he wasn’t lying his way out of it.
“What do you want from me, Ava?” he asked. “You’re right. I lost my daughter and I threw myself into my work. My wife left, and I drank too much. Then I killed someone who I should have been trying to save, and I ate Ativan until my head was filled with cotton and my insides were numb. But I came to help you and it was blood and thunder and fire and death the whole way. Then, I was only going to chill out, recover for a day or two before heading north. But I got shot up looking for antibiotics to help you, Ava, and FEMA was more than happy to ply me with Oxys and Ativan to help my pain.” He smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “Suddenly, a day or two became six weeks.”
“Eli was right about everything,” Ava pressed.
Parker nodded.
“And he paid a price for you, didn’t he?”
Parker looked away. Then he nodded.
“How much stuff do you have left?”
“Nothing,” he said. “The fuckers at the store took my pack, and I’d only swallowed a little bit of meth to take the edge off the pain when Finn walked in. I didn’t take more.”
“How about at the cabin?” Finn asked.
Parker nodded. “I have antibiotics and I have some Vicodin. But not much. You can’t get narcotics vacuum-sealed like the Cipro. It doesn’t keep in the same way. I’ll show you when we get there.”
“Parker, you’re flying right now,” Ava said. “You’re feeling good and you think you can do this. But you’re going to come down somewhere between here and there. When you do, you’re going to be spending a whole bunch of time explaining to yourself about why it’s okay for you to use one last time.”
“Ava,” Parker said. “I think we’ve reached as far a point in this discussion as we can. At the moment, anyway.” He waved his arm at the dark river floating past them. “Are we going to do this?”
“How are we going to deal with being cold as fuck in ninety minutes?”
Parker took a deep breath. “You aren’t going to like it, but we take off our outer clothes and put them in the garbage bags I’m hoping Finn still has in her pack since we don’t have ours,” he said. “We get out, put our clothes back on, and hole up through the next day, and then float again. Hopefully, we’ll spot a canoe or boat along the side of the river when it starts to get light.”
“In the meantime?” Finn asked.
“We lash together some of these limbs and hold on; let the river do the work.”
“Your leg has an open wound,” Ava pointed out again.
“Duct tape for now. I make it to the cabin, I can use broad spectrum antibiotics to fight it.”
“Infections kill,” Finn protested.
“So do bullets,” Parker said. “Look, seriously, we don’t have time to waste. We need to lash the limbs together while we can still see at all.”
“No,” Ava said. “Finn and I will gather what we need. You get up on the bluff and keep an eye out; rest your leg.”
Parker opened his mouth to protest, but Ava cut him off.
“Parker, I pulled that filthy piece of glass out with my teeth for you, remember? And you thanked me by doing meth. Can you do this for me?”
Parker pursed his lips, cut his eyes to Finn, and then looked back at Ava. He nodded. “All right.”
“Good,” Ava said. “So, let’s get it done.”
15
The Vineyard
Sara jogged along the dry creek bed. Behind her, she could hear Vineyard men calling to each other as they entered the woods. They weren’t close, but once they caught her trail they’d start moving fast. They had rifles, too, and she only a pistol with seven bullets. She wanted to be long gone before they figured out where she’d headed.
Coming up to a river birch with a piece of orange ribbon tied around it, she began searching in the fork of a branch. Orange tape was used to mark trees by State and Federal forestry agencies as well as by some lumber companies. It was hardly uncommon to see this type of flagging in the woods, but this close to her rendezvous spot with Eloisa, it was easy to pick out her dead-drop location.
In the pocket of the branch, she found wax paper and a waterproof pencil. Taking them down, she scrawled the word BOSCO across the first page and stuffed the notebook back into the protective shelter of the pocket. Next, she pulled on the orange plastic flagging wrapped around the tree trunk and broke it free. Working quickly, she re-tied it on the end of the lowest branch at head height.
This was the signal she’d left a message.
Behind her, voices started shouting, much closer, and angry now. They’d found Dexter’s body. She turned and began running. BOSCO was the agreed upon word for when her cover had been blown and she was running. Eloisa would know where to find her.
Sara could hear one of the section leaders barking orders, getting men to fan out and sweep the area. She ignored them and remained calm. She didn’t flee in a headlong panic, but now that she’d established a communication link, it was time to put as much distance between herself and the Church as possible, and as quickly as possible. Several minutes later, two men from the Church swept through the area as part of the search pattern.
Ten minutes after those men left, the Council sniper/observation team stirred. The designated defensive marksman performed overwatch as the observer, dressed in a ghillie suit and keeping a SCAR 17 ready, navigated to the dead drop. Retrieving the note, he retreated back to the blind and opened communications to pass on the information.
Deeper in the woods, gunfire erupted.
She was being driven forward like an animal.
Sara ducked off the path and darted in among the trees, worried about getting turned around but not about getting truly lost. Her dad had been very clear with her as a child. North was always north, and the sun always rose in the east and set in the west. That meant that as long as she could see the sun and knew if it was before noon or after noon, she knew her cardinal directions.
She needed to head roughly south by southeast until she hit the river, and then follow it downstream. But she needed to slip her pursuers first. They called to each other behind her, yelling instructions and directions like hounds baying on the scent. She tried moving to her left, escaping the line of searchers, but the flank gunmen cut her off before she could slip by.
They drove her before them, and her only hope was not to come up against some unavoidable obstacle like a st
eep canyon or rock wall, or more searchers waiting at choke points ahead. She thought the last option unlikely since this was obviously a hasty response to her gunshots and then finding Dexter’s body, but at the same time, she hadn’t been far out into the hilly woods surrounding the Vineyard before. Anything could be between her and the river.
She thrashed through some chokeberry bushes and stumbled down a hill. Tripping over a branch hidden in a patch of tall forest grass, she went down, bouncing hard off one hip and tumbling downward. At the bottom, she regained her feet and started running. Hearing a shout behind her, she risked a glance over one shoulder. A section leader named Oberst stood at the top of the hill she’d come down. He held a scoped deer rifle in one hand and was using his other to wave toward someone Sara couldn’t see behind him.
Vision was only worth about sixty yards in the woods, so she ran harder, her speed climbing to a sprint. She managed to slip between the branches of two slippery elms and enter a stand of tabletop pines. Green needles stabbing at her face and exposed flesh, she cut off her straight path of flight and tried outflanking the posse again.
Her toe slammed into a half-buried rock and she went down yet again, hands thrust out before her in an instinctive bid to break her fall. Her little finger caught on a fallen branch as her body weight slammed down, driving her hand into the earth. She moaned as the pinky snapped back and tears of pain filled her eyes.
She pushed herself to her feet moments later, shaking her hand and using the adrenaline of the pain to fuel her body. Racing on from the stand of pine trees, she found a path heading in the general direction she needed. Deciding the increase it gave to her speed was worth the risk, she sprinted down it for a twisting hundred yards or so, then turned off the trail and plunged over the side of another hill.
Turning sideways, she dirt-surfed to the bottom. She paused for a moment there to look at her injured hand, somewhat surprised that she hadn’t broken anything. She heard the echo of shouts, but behind her, and too far to the west. Up ahead, she saw a swift-moving creek and figured it must feed into the north fork of Wildcat River.
Panting, she began moving again, following the water downstream and winding her way farther away from the search party. Two hundred yards down, she spooked a doe and the deer bounded away, white tail flashing like a flag.
Wishing she could move like the deer, Sara pushed on.
Standing hidden in the tree line, she stared at the cabin as it glistened in the sunlight through the trees. It looked like a time capsule in her eyes—a picture from her childhood, from better times. They’d bought it from the original owner, and the man had been a gifted builder; the wraparound front porch alone was a work of art.
The door was closed, the windows dark; the whole place had an air of silence about it to such a degree that she felt sure it was empty. Still, it paid to be careful. Weapon ready, she warily moved around the perimeter to make sure no one could see her in the bright sunlight. It had to be four or five, she thought to herself, she should feel hunger pangs but all she felt was nausea. At the side of the cabin, she paused by a white oak tree that was four stories tall and took a knee.
The rock was there. Feeling a certain amount of déjà vu, she reached down and turned it over. Inside the fake stone was a hollow cavity holding a waterproof bag. Inside the bag was the key to the cabin. Turning over the rock and finding the key like buried treasure had delighted her as a little girl.
Nostalgia gripped her hard for a moment, and she blinked away tears. Those days were gone forever; she should let them go. The world was different now; she was different now. Keeping her pistol up and ready, she approached the front, and only, door to the cabin. The key fit the lock and it turned easily under her hand. Pushing the door open, she stepped through the entrance and peered around inside, letting her eyes adjust, but her eyes were clouded over with images from her memory.
Her dad had taught her to fish here, and had begun to teach her about guns and gun safety. She’d played in the woods with Georgia, their female border collie. Georgia was gone, hit by a car while Sara had still been living at home. She’d loved the dog. She’d loved a lot of things.
Stepping all the way inside and shutting the door gently behind her, she looked around. A combined living and dining area dominated by a massive stone fireplace greeted her. Furnished with a combination of Quaker-inspired and Adirondack furniture, it was a cozy space. On one side of the room, a waist-high counter separated a simple kitchen from the living spaces. On the other wall, a beam and plank staircase led up to the loft where the small master and smaller guest bedrooms were. The cabin’s only bathroom and shower were behind a door tucked beneath the staircase.
She was careful enough to check every inch of the place before relaxing but, overcome by childhood memories of security and happiness, she took her time looking at old family photos hung on the walls. Aware of the divorce as she was, she found it telling that her father hadn’t removed any of her mother’s pictures.
Finding a Coleman lantern in a closet, she lit it and set it on the Shaker-style coffee table set between the Adirondack forest sofa couch and the fireplace. The furniture had been her mother’s compromise with her dad’s wishes to keep the cabin rustic.
Locking the front door now that she’d assured herself she was alone, she returned to the couch and turned the lantern down. It had been hours since she’d heard anyone from the Church search party, but she’d been too driven to flee and hadn’t stopped running until she’d reached the cabin. Exhaustion was rapidly taking over. She needed rest, and she’d barely curled up before she was asleep.
16
Parker sat in the stern of the canoe and steered. He worked as anchor paddler while Finn and Ava switched out between paddling and guard duty with the AR. Since they were going downstream, the work was minimal in terms of pulling the paddles through the water, but nerve-racking in terms of navigating around obstacles in the dark. The steady, trickling drone of the river muffled Parker’s hearing until his brain played tricks on him, creating auditory illusions of people whispering on the bank.
Even once their eyes fully dilated and adjusted to the darkness, it was harrowing. The sound and smell of the moving river sweeping them along filled their ears and noses. It was a partly cloudy night and, except for bridges, they didn’t see many possible dangers until they were almost upon them. At one point, they laid low in the canoe as they passed in range of, and then under, a bridge as a convoy of Humvees and two-ton trucks passed by, headlights burning. A second time, they spent a tense two minutes, guns in hands, as they passed by three nylon tents set up in a flat spot off the road next to the river. Another time, only Ava’s sharp eyes saved them from striking into the dark hull of a low-floating barge anchored mid-river. And beyond the danger, only a few hours in the damp, chilly air had been enough to work the cold’s way into their bones; it wasn’t a comfortable trip.
By the time the sun began creeping its way up on the horizon, they were cold, tired, and a little nerve wrought. Following the river directly had saved them miles of extra distance, however, so that they were less worn physically than if they’d walked.
The real boon had been escaping the mounted patrols they were now sure had started scouring the countryside for them. Knowing patrols had to be well behind them, they were able to pull the canoe up onto the shore in a dense stand of bushes and trees, and get ready to bed down for the day while hidden from view.
They made cold camp, no fire, and talked little, eating the MREs Finn had with her cold and washing the food down with bottled water. Nobody had a lot to say. Parker’s admission about his problem had cast a deeper pall over an already tense situation. Finn whimpered in her sleep, clearly reliving past events. Parker, despite a satisfying ache in his muscles, couldn’t sleep. He yearned for an Ativan to bring him down. ‘Yearned’ was the word, too, he realized. He was like a lovesick teenager whose thoughts revolved around the object of his obsession.
His leg still throbbed l
ike one of Dave Grohl’s drum solos, even if he was thankful that his fever was down. Considering where he was, all things considered, Parker said a silent prayer that maybe he wouldn’t die, this time.
The woods echoed with screaming.
Parker jerked awake, realizing, belatedly, that he’d dozed off. The screams lingered in his ears and through his groggy disorientation. He recognized the voice as female. He came to his feet, weapon at the ready, and quickly looked around their little campsite. Both Finn and Ava were present, each of them sitting up and confused, but already reaching for weapons.
“What was that?” Ava asked.
“Most likely not our business,” Parker said.
The scream came again, but this time it was abruptly cut off before the voice reached a crescendo. Finn looked as if she’d been slapped.
“We aren’t going to ignore a human being in that kind of suffering, are we?” she demanded. “We’re not that far gone, right?” She looked back and forth between Ava and Parker. “Right?”
“The world’s already that far gone,” Ava said.
“If those are Council forces—” Parker began.
“Screw you both!” Finn snapped. Getting to her feet, she began moving out of camp in the direction of the screams.
Ava scowled, but didn’t hesitate to follow her, obviously more out of personal loyalty to Finn than concern for whoever was screaming.
Parker watched them go, torn down in his gut with indecision. He wasn’t a coward, he knew that. But for the first time since his daughter’s disappearance, he was actually close to finding her. People died in gunfights, and that was a brutal fact of life. Another was that good guys didn’t always win.
“Oh, fuck it,” he muttered.
Moving as fast as he could, he limped after Ava as she trailed Finn into the woods. Once they broke through the ever-present slippery elm and chokeberry bushes, the forest opened up into a stand of white birch surrounded by knee-high grass. Visibility was good, extending almost forty yards in every direction except through the line of thick bushes that lined the river in a screen.
Dead End (911 Book 2) Page 13
