The cafeteria lay just down the hallway to the right. I remembered seeing an access stairwell from the kitchen to the parking lot. That’s where I needed to go.
I slid across the floor. The voices had gone quiet again. Hand shaking, I turned the knob, cracked open the door and peeked out. The hall was empty.
Careful not to squeak the hinges, I slipped out of the room. More gunshots. I scrambled toward the cafeteria.
A cold, familiar voice stopped me in my tracks. “Hello, Sera.”
I turned. Cody Richmond and Luke Milton stood at the other end of the long hallway, holding handguns.
“We were hopin’ for your brother,” Cody sneered, “but you’ll do.”
I squeezed my eyes shut. I wasn’t ready to die.
Cody fired.
CRACK! The shot shocked me so badly I ducked. I felt the aggressive, violent sound deep in my teeth. The vinyl floor at my feet splintered.
Cody was a terrible shot.
I took off down the hallway at a full sprint. The boys kept firing, their bullets tearing up the linoleum and digging into the walls.
I reached the cafeteria, weaving around tables and counters, then dove through the creaky swinging door into the dark kitchen. The boys charged after me—I could hear them knocking over chairs.
I barreled past the row of ovens toward the exit at the back of the room. I found the door in the dark, grabbed the knob, and pulled. It didn’t move.
I used both hands, braced my foot, and pulled with all my might. It was stuck. I felt along the panel of the door and found a long board nailed across its width. The outside staircase, damaged in the quake, hadn’t been fixed yet.
I heard the creak of the kitchen door and shrank into the shadows. I folded myself up behind a wheeled metal rack stacked with boxes, covered my mouth, and tried not to breathe.
“Seee-ra,” Cody sang.
My heartbeat sounded like thunder in my ears.
I could hear more gunfire outside the kitchen. This was an organized attack. We’d been worried that Frank Skaggs and his people might raid the food warehouse, but it had never occurred to anyone that they would stoop to attacking a hospital full of sick people. Why not? Frank Skaggs was making good on his threat that only the healthy and strong would survive.
I shut my eyes against burning tears. Sharon’s dried blood itched on my skin. And then I heard Luke’s creepy whisper in my ear.
“Hey, Sera.”
I shrieked and turned my head. His gun was in my face. This time he wouldn’t miss.
“I’ll say goodbye to Micah for ya.”
I slammed my eyes shut.
BANG! BANG!
The smell of gunpowder filled the air. I waited to feel the searing pain of a bullet entering my brain. Instead, I felt the weight of Luke Milton toppling onto me and knocking me backwards. The metal rack tipped over, clattering to the floor. I stared into Luke’s dead eyes and screamed.
“Luke?” Cody sounded uncertain.
Two more shots cracked through the air. And then I was pulled out from under Luke. I fought and kicked at the dark form dragging me to the back of the room, but it did no good. I was shoved into a dark space between two stoves, where a shadow draped itself over me. It surrounded me. It shielded me. It could only be one person.
“Are you hurt?” Micah whispered softly.
I started to cry. “Micah?”
“Seraphina,” he breathed. “Are you hurt?”
“N-no,” I choked out.
The gunfire outside the kitchen grew louder. I heard running in the cafeteria next door and panic fired in my brain.
“They’re coming!” I rasped. “Micah, they’re coming!” My instinct was to run. But Micah had me trapped.
And then it was too late. I heard the squeak of the kitchen door swing open.
“Stay still,” Micah whispered. He pressed his forehead to mine; I felt his breath against my face. “Not a sound.”
There were footsteps all over the room. “There’s an exit here somewhere,” somebody growled.
“Find it! Before the sheriff and his buddies find us!”
I tried to push back further against the wall. I was tucked between the stoves, but Micah huddled in plain view, hidden only by changeable shadows. If they spotted him, we were both dead.
“Look at this,” a voice said nearby.
My breath caught.
“It’s the Richmond boy.”
They’d found Cody.
“The Milton boy’s over here,” another replied.
“Gonna be two pissed papas.”
“I told Skaggs it was stupid to do this in daylight.”
“Yeah, he’s not exactly all there these days.”
“Find the door.”
That last voice was so close it startled me. I twitched, slamming my elbow into the side of the metal stove. The sound boomed through the room like a drum. My heart stopped.
That was all they needed to pinpoint our location.
Shots exploded in the room. Bullets ricocheted against the stoves and the racks above our heads, embedding into cabinets and walls. I heard several dull thumps, felt Micah tense—heard him grunt—and knew he’d been hit. But he held his position in front of me.
The gunfire intensified, grew louder, more pronounced, like there were suddenly a hundred guns firing in the room. Then everything went quiet.
The smell of gunpowder burned my nose. I tasted blood. Was it Micah’s? Someone charged toward us. I squeezed my eyes shut against another barrage of bullets. A flashlight clicked on.
“Sera?” It was Grandpa Donner.
To my amazement, Micah stood up, tall, straight—uninjured. “She’s okay,” he said.
“Thank God.” Grandpa Donner lifted me to my feet and pulled me into his arms.
The kitchen lit up with additional flashlights as Don Chaney and Charlie Eagle came in. I saw five bodies laid out, including Cody Richmond and Luke Milton.
Charlie checked them over. “These are Skaggs’ men.”
I looked around the room, at the chaos, at the bullet holes in everything. Micah had saved my life.
I blinked at him. “Are you okay?”
He shrugged. “They’re terrible shots.”
“Yeah,” I said, feeling dazed.
Grandpa led me and Micah out of the kitchen. Bodies of the sick and the elderly were scattered throughout the long hallway. Betty Granger, Dean Lawson, George Ormann, Rose Myers. I grabbed my stomach, turned my face to the wall, and vomited.
We headed for the exit stairway as Mike Jorgenson and Ken Sheridan, armed with M16s, went room to room. They were looking for survivors and making sure all of Skaggs’ men had been cleared from the building.
Milly was waiting on the sidewalk outside, wrapped in a blanket. Her eyes rounded in horror when she saw me. I rushed toward her; we held onto each other and cried. David came bounding up with Tim and Vivica Davis. They stopped and stared at me.
“Sera?” David breathed. “Are you all right?”
“It’s not her blood,” Grandpa Donner told them. He wrapped a blanket around my shoulders. When I shivered, he pulled me in close.
I gazed around at the growing crowd, looking for Micah. I spotted him talking with the Ormanns. I still couldn’t believe he hadn’t been shot.
Deputy Hester came screeching up in his cruiser, lights flashing, siren blaring. He scrambled out of his car, weapon in hand, and ran toward my grandfather. “What happened?”
“Skaggs’ men hit the hospital. Micah sounded the alarm.”
“Abrams?” David blurted.
“How did Micah know?” Deputy Hester asked.
Grandpa shrugged. “Kid’s got a sixth sense.”
A large, frightened crowd was gathering. Word of the attack had spread fast through town. It seemed the war we all thought we’d avoided had started.
Don Chaney, Charlie Eagle, Mike Jorgenson, and Ken Sheridan came walking out of the building, looking glum.
“Survivor
s?” Grandpa asked.
Charlie shook his head. “They were thorough.”
Jenny Ormann fell into her husband’s arms, crying.
“We need to hit them back!” Robert Ormann shouted. “We need to attack their camp and kill every last Skaggs scum we can find!”
Many in the crowd shouted their approval.
Don Chaney leaned in to my grandfather and murmured, “Maybe he’s right, Sheriff.”
Mike Jorgenson agreed. “We need to protect our food stores.”
“If they take the food warehouse,” Charlie warned, “we’re done for.”
The crowd grew larger and more worked up. They raised their fists in the air, chanting, “Kill the Skaggs! Kill the Skaggs!”
“We have to fight back!” Robert Ormann shouted again.
As Grandpa Donner considered the options, a faint buzzing sound tickled my ears. Others heard it, too, and the crowd’s chanting died down. I looked up into the red sky and saw something I never thought I’d see again.
An airplane.
Big and gray, it came toward us over the treetops. I blinked, afraid I was seeing things, but everybody else was seeing it, too. We all watched, stunned, as it roared over our heads like a giant winged angel, then ejected a fluttering blue cloud in its wake.
The entire crowd erupted into cheers—Jenny Ormann even stopped crying.
We’re saved, I thought.
A cloud of blue leaflets fluttered onto our heads like bright butterflies. People jumped up, catching fistfuls of them in midair. Others danced in them, kicking up piles with their feet.
One fell on my shoulder. I pulled it off to get a better look. Big gold letters ran across the top of the paper.
EUROPA
HUMANITARIAN AID
Below that were words written in a language I couldn’t read. I handed the flyer to Grandpa. “Europa?”
He looked at it. “It’s German,” he said. “It says they’re going to give us food and water.”
The crowd exploded into whoops and shouts. The people started chanting, “Europa! Europa! Europa!”
Tim whistled, dumping an armload of fliers over my head. He and David did a do-si-do.
But my grandfather didn’t look happy.
“This is good, right?” I asked him.
“Depends,” he said thoughtfully.
“On what?”
He looked up at the plane quickly disappearing into the distant horizon. “On the price.”
Chapter Nine
“Take the weapon, Sera.”
I stared at the M16, my whole body shaking. I’d barely slept and hardly eaten for three days. The image of Sharon Webber’s face exploding played in a slow-motion loop through my head all the time, and I couldn’t seem to get the smell of her blood off my skin.
The Skaggs had only gotten bolder since the hospital massacre. They’d raided four homes in the past two nights, stolen everything not nailed down, and killed three more people. Their attacks made it clear that, no matter how many guards we posted on the food warehouse, they would find other ways to take whatever they wanted from us.
Now, with the Europa supply drop due in thirty minutes, my grandfather and I were in a standoff. He refused to let me stay home by myself, but he wouldn’t allow me in the truck until I took the M16 out of his hands. I didn’t want to carry the gun. I could barely stand looking at it.
“Sera,” Grandpa said patiently, “if you don’t take the weapon we’re gonna be late.”
If my grandfather arrived at the drop zone even a minute behind schedule, it could be disastrous for the entire town. No one had food. We were scratching by on rations from the food warehouse and those would run out soon. If the local communities didn’t show up in an organized force, with their sheriff leading them, the Skaggs would likely march in and take everything.
“Everyone else has a gun,” I complained. “Why do I need one?”
“Because you’re part of a team, Sera. A team where everyone watches everyone else’s back.”
David was tired of me. “Seriously, Sera. Stop being so dramatic and just take it.”
My brother, along with Tim and Milly, stared out at me from the bed of Grandpa Donner’s pickup. None of them were having any trouble holding their own weapons.
Even Tim was irritated with me. “We need to go now,” he stated.
David checked his watch. “Twenty-five minutes.”
“C’mon, Sera,” Milly encouraged. “It’ll be fine. We’ll stay together.”
I stared at the M16, hating it. I wasn’t capable of shooting anybody, but I also couldn’t be responsible for people losing their Europa supplies.
I took the weapon from my grandfather’s hands and climbed into the truck bed. I refused to acknowledge the cold, heavy weight of it. Instead, I stared off into nothingness as we drove away from the house.
By the time we reached the field of Cle Elem-Roslyn High School, several hundred people had already gathered. Instead of parking in the lot, Grandpa drove around the back of the school and parked on the baseball diamond. He opened the tailgate and everybody spilled out. I left the M16 behind in the bed.
Tim assessed the crowd. “Looks mighty peaceful.”
Grandpa wasn’t as optimistic. “Never underestimate a hungry crowd.”
He reached into the truck bed for the M16 and put it in my hands. “Keep it with you. Tim, you’re with me. Sera, Milly, David, stay with the truck.”
David gaped. “But—”
Grandpa cut him off. “This is no time for pride, son. Do what you’re told.”
David scowled as Grandpa walked away with Tim.
I watched them approach the churning crowd and fought down a rush of anxiety. The field was too open. Anything could happen.
Then I spotted Micah. He pushed past several people to shake hands with my grandfather. I relaxed a little. I hadn’t seen Micah since the hospital massacre, even though he’d tried to visit me several times. My brother would barely speak to me as it was; inviting Micah into our house would create more conflict than I wanted to deal with. But things seemed to work out whenever Micah was around. I leaned back against the side of the truck and tried to will my knees to stop shaking.
Milly moved up beside me. “It’s okay to be scared, Sera.”
It didn’t feel okay. It felt pathetic and weak.
“Mama says being scared just means you’re doing somethin’ brave.”
I opened my mouth to tell her I was getting sick of hearing what her mama said about everything, but then I saw my own fear reflected in her eyes. It reminded me that she’d been in the hospital that day, too, but, unlike me, Milly had gone back the next day to help with cleanup. Unlike me, she hadn’t hidden in the house for the past three days. This Texas girl had more grit than anybody gave her credit for.
“Watch it!”
I looked up, realizing I’d accidentally pointed my weapon at David.
He shoved the barrel away. “Do you even know how to use that?”
“Point and pull the trigger.”
Milly laughed.
“Give me that.” David snatched the weapon out of my hands. The thing was almost as long as he was tall. “Pay attention, before you shoot yourself—or me. You stand squared like this.” He illustrated the proper stance. “It gives you better stability against the recoil.” He pointed the weapon toward the tree line. “Your support hand goes on the forestock here. Keep your head up. Place the butt of the rifle near the centerline of your body, high on your chest. Press your cheek to the side of the stock like this. Look through the scope. Center the crosshairs on your target. And, when it comes time, press the trigger—don’t pull.”
I scowled at him. I wasn’t dumb enough to believe that his elaborate lesson was for my benefit. He wanted to show off for Milly, not to mention vent some of his anger that he’d only been given a handgun.
“I was in the same gun safety class as you.”
He shoved my weapon back into my hands. “I stayed
till the end.”
I clenched my teeth and sat down on the truck’s tailgate. My grandfather had made attendance in his weapons safety class the price of getting a gun from the armory. We’d all attended, but, at the first sound of a bullet exploding from the end of a gun, I’d run from the room in a panic. It was humiliating and David was a jerk to even bring it up.
More people filed onto the field, a large combined group from the towns of Lakedale and Driftwood Acres. Everyone seemed friendly. Some people even danced in a circle, singing about a big jet airliner. Everyone had agreed that all the supplies would be divided between the towns according to population and everybody seemed happy with that arrangement. But, as Grandpa kept insisting, hungry people were unpredictable.
The rumble of airplane engines rose in the distance. The people on the field, alerted, grew restless. They packed in tighter. I stood up in the truck bed to get a better view. Grandpa, Tim, and Micah were in the back of the large crowd from Roslyn congregated near the center of the field. The Lakedale and Driftwood Acres group had carved out a location at the back near the chain-link fence. Everybody searched the sky.
The heavy droning of the approaching propellers grew louder, until, finally, the plane appeared. A cheer went up as blue parachutes blossomed in midair. People separated from their groups, trying to predict where the crates would fall.
And then a large group of men emerged from the woods to the left of the field. My heart stopped. Frank Skaggs had come with about fifty of his people, all armed.
The Lakedale-Driftwood Acres group spotted them first and the atmosphere on the field changed instantly. Warning shouts rang out. The Roslyn group shifted, moving as one on an intercept course.
The violence was sudden and brutal. With the gently swaying crates hovering above them like dangling carrots, all three groups collided. I saw the impact of fist to jaw, rifle stock to skull. People I knew collapsed to the ground.
There was one gunshot—and then rapid gunfire. People fled in every direction like startled birds. The crates hadn’t even hit the ground yet.
The Goliath Code (The Alpha Omega Trilogy) Page 11
