Dead End (911 Book 2)

by Grace Hamilton

  Rolling back again, he slid through the opening in the floor, his feet searching for purchase on the rings of the short ladder. Tossing his last M18 smoke grenade into the center of the room, he took a final look at the cabin that had featured so prominently in his memories of happier times. The fuckers had destroyed it. Fueled by the purest hatred, he fired a long, ragged series of bursts in the direction of the front door, in the hopes of delaying possible entry. Finished, he ducked down and locked the trapdoor with a series of heavy bolts from the cellar side. It was time to make his ex-wife as comfortable as possible as she died.

  The downstairs chamber was the most impressive room in the cabin. It served as supply cache, arms room, medical center, emergency larder, workshop, and equipment storage room.

  Among other things, there were two generators and a HAM radio in homemade Faraday cages, two metal cabinets filled with firearms, a reloading bench, and a worktable below a wall of hand and power tools. In another corner, two industrial model water purifiers stood next to a six-foot-high pallet of MRE boxes.

  Ballistic vests hung on the wall beside high-end Zeiss binoculars and tactical web gear built to hold pistol holsters, spare magazines, and various other items. On shelves built into the walls, rows of freeze-dried and canned goods stood as pristine as if they’d just been delivered to a Wal-Mart. Next to those shelves was an open locker stacked with clothing. It looked as if he’d bought stock in 5.11 Tactical, too, as he had several Gore-Tex windbreakers, dozens of pants, BDU tops and shirts, as well as three boonie hats.

  In the final corner, a pristine coal furnace sat next to a chute sealed and rubber-fitted by a metal plate. Beneath it were several dozen fifty-pound bags of clean-burning coal.

  “I’m not sorry…” Maggie said, coughing and then grimacing in pain. “For anything.”

  The vehemence of her words took Parker aback. He hadn’t intended to chastise or recriminate her now; it wasn’t the time, in about a dozen different ways.

  “It doesn’t matter now,” he said, his voice surprisingly gentle.

  She shook her head and then spent eight or ten seconds coughing before she swiped at the blood on her lips. Her eyes were fever-bright.

  “It matters, to me,” she said, her voice a heavy whisper. “Marr was right. I was right.”

  “You could have told me,” he said.

  He made to look at her wounds, but she pushed his hand away, her strength almost gone. Her clothes were so soaked with blood that she looked like a butchered animal.

  “You wouldn’t have believed.” It was a flat, declarative fiat. “And it would have been worse if you had because you were part of the system, and you still believed in that, too, and any whisper of the Church’s true purpose would have been the end of our marriage.”

  “So you stole our child and hid her from me,” Parker replied. “And you still left me. How was this better?” His anger was returning.

  She nodded. “And I’d do it again,” she told him, ignoring his question. Even in her weakened state, she sounded resolute, as if her decision was somehow mightier than any question of family or love. She tried to sit up, but collapsed back to the floor. “There’s no time for that discussion anyway.”

  He looked her in the eyes, hating her, and in a way, still loving her. “No,” he said. “There isn’t.”

  “The Church has a way out,” Maggie told him.

  “Way out of what, Mom?” Sara asked. She held Maggie’s hand.

  “The country,” Maggie said.

  “Across the border?” Parker asked. “To Canada?”

  “Yes.”

  “How?” Finn asked.

  Parker cocked his head. Above them, the shooting had stopped, and he heard a garbled voice over the bullhorn, the words unintelligible.

  “We don’t have a lot of time,” he said, his voice soft.

  Sara looked up, her eyes burning with fury at the implications of his words, but Maggie squeezed her daughter’s hand.

  “He’s right, baby,” she said. “And I’m so, so sorry I didn’t protect you better.” The tears building in her eyes were not from physical pain. “Everything I did, I did for you. You have to believe that.”

  Unable to speak, Sara nodded quickly, her own tears spilling down her face.

  It’s a time of blood and tears, Parker thought suddenly.

  Maggie spoke more rapidly, though the effort obviously cost her. “Listen,” she said. “Because the provisional government has the need for so many electronic parts, they’re allowing the UN mission in Canada to ship relief supplies in by a single railroad system. The train is part of our underground and will smuggle you across the border.”

  “Ava,” Parker said, snapping her to attention, “we have to beat the clock. We’re taking carbines and 9 mm pistols so we’re uniform and can each load out of the other’s kit. I want vests, web gear, and those North Face daypacks along with the water camels. Finn, help her. Ava, load magazines as Finn gets med kits, MREs, and compasses. We have to travel light, so don’t over-pack. Take several packs of socks each. There’s unisex clothes on the shelves over there in sizes medium and large. Take two pairs of pants and shirts each; we’ll wear the dirty ones during the night when we move and the clean to sleep in. You’ll have to do without underwear because there isn’t any that will fit you. Hurry, hurry,” he urged.

  He turned back to his ex-wife. “Maggie, how do we make contact with the train?”

  Maggie coughed again, blood coming out of her mouth. She swiped at it, slapping more blood onto her already soaked shirt.

  “Around my neck,” she whispered.

  Hands shaking, Sara reached out and gently removed a steel beaded necklace from around her mother’s neck. It was identical to the chain soldiers carried their dog tags on. Maggie flinched and moaned even at the slight touch required to remove it.

  “They stop for fifteen minutes at the coordinates stamped on the back of those tags. There’s a second supply train heading north at the same time, and they have to switch tracks. The train is half a mile long, and security around it have gotten lazy. There’s a slight bend in the line around a wooded hill that leaves the last five cars out of sight for a brief period.”

  Above them, they heard a muted explosion. Parker’s head came up.

  “They breached the door,” he said. “They’ll find the trapdoor soon enough. We should be good until the smoke clears. After that, they’ll blow it.”

  Behind him, Finn frantically filled the four day-packs she’d grabbed as Ava methodically filled M4 magazines with .223 civilian ball ammo.

  “There’ll be a brakeman on the north side. He’s Canadian intelligence, or a cop—something. Show him this. The Church has been working as coyotes, ferrying people out a few families at a time.”

  Above them, men shouted and loud footsteps sounded against the ceiling.

  Sara glared at Maggie. “You were getting people out, but you left the people at the Vineyard? You left me?”

  Parker pivoted and pointed his weapon at the trapdoor. “Ava, Finn, wrap it up,” he urged.

  Maggie looked at Sara, her face ashen from shock and blood loss. She was fading right before them.

  “The National Church Council knew the Vineyard was under surveillance. We just didn’t know you were on the inside, or if anyone was on the inside. We had to wait; I’m sorry, baby. I love you so much.” Sara nodded, a numb expression on her face. “I know I didn’t do things right,” Maggie continued. “But Marr was right about all of this.”

  The light went out of her eyes as if someone had flipped a switch. The slackness of her features wasn’t the relaxation of sleep, it was the profound relaxation of death.

  Sara moaned, and Parker was overcome with a sudden hollow feeling.

  “Parker!” Finn hissed. “We have to go! Parker! How the fuck are we supposed to get out of this hole in the ground?”

  He turned toward Finn’s voice. Blinked. Something in his mind, the part that makes you a survivor, chang
ed gears with a clumsy but powerful clunk, like clockwork machinery starting up after sitting idle.

  “Call it a symptom of toxic masculinity,” he said. “But I had to have an escape route.” He pointed. “Take that crowbar right there and pry that hatch off the wall.”

  “Escape route?” Ava asked. “Damn, this really is the batcave.”

  “The cabin was built during the Depression and had a coal furnace. Deliveries went down the chute, which opened outside the house. I boarded it up, but we can still get out that way. We crawl up the chute and knock the boards loose while there’s still chaos outside.”

  “What about Mom?” Sara demanded.

  “Baby—” he began.

  “No! Dad, no!” her voice was raw and fierce. “We’re not leaving her here. I won’t leave her here for them to find.”

  Ava and Finn attacked the panel with the crowbar while Parker gently put his arm around Sara. “We won’t leave her for them. I promise,” he said. He nodded to one of his stacks of supplies. “I have ammonium-nitrate-rich fertilizer bags; I’ve got plenty of cleansing powder, diesel, and jerry cans filled with gas. When I set it off, this place will burn hot and it will burn long.”

  “Like a funeral pyre,” Sara said.

  Parker nodded. “It’s the best we can do. It’ll burn clean.”

  Eyes spilling tears, Sara nodded quickly and then wiped them away. Behind them, the metal plate cover popped off and fell to the ground. Gathering himself, Parker walked over and inspected the chute.

  It ran up into the earth at a forty-five-degree angle; coal dust so old it had turned gray spilled over the edge of the lip and across the basement floor at his feet. Cobwebs clung in thick curtains at the corners of the chute.

  “Couldn’t have swept it out before you boarded it up?” Ava asked him.

  Stepping forward, Parker waved the still warm barrel of his M4 through the mess. Webs clung to the barrel, encircling it like cotton candy. Spiders the size of his thumbnail scurried out of the opening, and everyone took an unconscious step back. Bending down, he looked up the chute, seeing the lesser areas of dark where the wood he’d used to board up the opening had separated with age. He could make out moonlight peeking through the cracks lighting up the clog of dense spider webs, making it a thoroughly unappealing escape route, but it was what they had.

  “I’m not squeamish,” Ava said.

  “Speak for yourself,” Finn told her, shuddering.

  “I was,” Ava replied, “but you didn’t let me finish; that’s some nasty looking crawl space you got there.”

  Parker eyed the chute. There were only two species of spiders in Indiana capable of inflicting harmful bites to humans. With its dry, dusty interior, the chute was a prime habitat for both the brown recluse and the black widow. Thankfully, neither were particularly aggressive, but a bad bite would slow them down. There were no ERs, no urgent care clinics, and no venom medications in their supplies. A bad infection could slow them down, burn them up with fever, and cause aches in their joints that would make travel very hard. His leg had shown them that much. Combined with severe pain, trouble breathing, and dizziness and nausea, it would reduce anyone’s combat effectiveness. It wasn’t a minor issue, he realized.

  Of course, the other option was instant death.

  “Step back,” he said.

  Grabbing a push broom, he turned it around and stuck it inside the chute and using a side to side motion, quickly brushed out part of the inside of the chute as old coal dust rained down on top of him. Fighting a sneeze, he pulled the broom out.

  Holding the broom up, he was relieved not to see any spiders on it and hoped that was the case farther up the chute. “That’s the best I can do. Whomever goes up first should push the broom ahead of you to brush the remaining cobwebs out of the way and hope not to piss off any spiders.”

  “Let’s go,” Finn urged.

  “Go,” Parker said. “The climb is short and the incline isn’t too bad. You get to the top, listen; if no one is nearby, push through and move quickly. There aren’t any doors or windows on that side of the cabin, so if we’re lucky, there won’t be anyone over there. Use the cover of darkness to your benefit.”

  “Where do we go?” Finn asked.

  “Crawl straight out from the cabin and head immediately into the brush behind the house,” he said. “You’ll go down a hill and into a hardwood marsh behind the house. I’ll meet you there.”

  “What are you going to be doing?” Ava demanded.

  “Yeah,” Sara echoed.

  It almost made him choke up to see the concern on his daughter’s face, to hear it in her voice. It filled him with energy, and with a renewed sense of purpose. He smiled, gesturing toward his supplies.

  “I’m not letting those fuckers get my stuff; I’m leaving them a little surprise. I’ll be right behind you; now, go.”

  All three of them hesitated, unsure about what came next. “Go!” he urged them again.

  As he began preparing his surprise, they each grabbed a pack and, holding it in front of them, slipped one by one up the chute until he was alone in the room. Working quickly, he ripped open the tops on several containers of lawn fertilizer and laundry soap. Pouring them together, he up-ended two liter bottles of engine oil and then five gallons of diesel, followed by ten gallons of regular gas. The fumes made him dizzy.

  He knew his proportions were way off for any kind of explosion of real impact. However, the whole noxious mess would burn and smoke like mad. He plucked a nylon climbing rope off a wall mount and threw it on the ground, and then he took the last jerry can and dumped it over the rope until it was soaked.

  He left one end on the floor and ran the other through a loop in his pants before he tied it off with a quick, easily undone, square knot. He kept himself from looking as the spilling lake of noxious flammable liquids reached Maggie and began soaking into her clothes. Soaking into her hair.

  He grabbed the pack Finn had left for him, paused for a moment before the chute, and then turned back around. She looked peaceful enough in repose, he decided. But she didn’t look like she was sleeping.

  “I’m still mad,” he said, his voice soft. “I’m still mad as hell, but I know you think you did what you did out of love for Sara, no matter how fucked up it got.” He cleared his throat. “I’m still angry as hell, Maggie, but I’m sorry.”

  Then he turned and climbed up the chute.

  24

  Parker began inching his way upwards. His pant leg caught on a jagged section of welding residue and he jerked his leg to clear it, ripping his pants in the process. It was a close, fetid journey, and when he reached the end, he twisted his body, pinning his hips and knees against the side of the chute to complete knocking bits of wood from the opening. The girls had managed to knock most of it off, but given his larger size, he needed more room to get out. He worried about the flash having attracted attention and hoped that, in all the chaos, no one had noticed. No matter what, without back-up, he knew he was vulnerable when he emerged, and only felt thankful that the sun had long set.

  Pushing his pack out ahead of him, he came out into a world of confusion and noise. The smoke from the grenades had dissipated, but combined with the shoot-out, the smell and taste ran acrid in his throat, coating the inside of his mouth.

  Reaching into his pocket for the meth lighter, he pulled the nylon rope free from his pants. Lighting the rope, he watched as it began to burn, the flame creeping slowly along the rope line. Holding it high, he stepped directly to the opening of the chute and dropped the burning rope back down into the cellar, whispering a quick prayer that this would work—but he wasn’t going to stick around to find out. He began crawling forward through the brush behind the cabin, his rifle resting in the crook of his arms. Around front, he heard men shouting, urging subordinates on with orders and reporting updates to superiors. Pulling himself up tight against the Black Walnut tree that had once been home to a tire swing for Sara, he held his breath and waited as thr
ee men pounded by him at a jog only a few feet away.

  The skin of his elbows and knees was gone by the time he made it to the edge of the brush line and slipped into the trees. Trying to remain quiet, he crab-walked over the decline and scrambled down.

  Below him, a man shouted, angry and surprised, and Parker heard three M4s fire in their distinctive, high, sharp, cracks. He pushed himself forward, quickly. Behind him, he heard the unmistakable voice of Spencer shouting orders in response to the gunfire. What the hell was he doing here? He was a warden in New Albany.

  At the bottom of the little rise he’d traversed, the ground immediately became softer and wetter as he entered the river bottom. He heard a noise and looked over. A soldier crouched over the body of a second man in uniform. That man gasped, holding his hands over several wounds.

  Before Parker or the soldier could react, three muzzle flashes erupted out of the dark and the crouching soldier went down, too, jerking under a multitude of impacts. Above them, someone opened fire with an M249, spraying bullets over their heads.

  “Parker, run!” Finn shouted.

  Sprinting forward, he caught a flash of movement and realized the girls were splitting apart, so he veered off as men began spilling down the hill behind him. We can’t outrun them, he thought.

  “Get down!” he called to them. “Fire on my command!”

  Parker pushed his back up against a tree, breathing hard. His leg ached, and he felt the duct tape pulling at the skin of his leg; he wished that they’d had the time to put in stitches as he imagined the ugliness of the scar that would eventually result from the wound, assuming he survived. Behind him, he heard Spencer shouting commands.

  “Spread out!” the man shouted. “Wedge formation; advance at an even pace.”

  In response, Parker rolled onto his stomach, swinging the muzzle of his assault rifle around the tree. We’re in it now, he thought, suddenly wishing for some of Eli’s sage advice.