by Chris Pike
Billowing smoke rushed out of the observation deck and filled the sky, clearing immediately. This meant the doors of the observation deck were now open.
They had seconds before the rope was discovered.
Amanda spotted two men below them. They were facing outward toward Uncle Billy’s position, and then one saw a shadow and looked up. Amanda answered with a long burst, putting both of them on the ground.
“We need to move fast. Hold on!” Chandler’s warning was followed by a sharp and long drop. He was worried that the freefall might be too long for the rope, then he saw heads peering through the opening in the safety grate. One last desperate belay on the figure eight caused both of them to feel like they were riding a whip.
Thankfully the rope held.
Chandler lightened his grip until they were safely on the ground.
Puffs of concrete erupted all around them. Chandler grabbed Amanda’s hand and pulled her off to the side of the Tower.
* * *
John, Tatiana, and Uncle Billy breathed a sigh of relief. John and Tatiana stood up and began walking toward the fountain where Billy was waiting. The rescue was almost complete.
A loud voice broke the moment of silence. “Drop your weapons now!” Kurt Durant ordered. He was backed by nine thugs, all armed with fully automatic M-4 carbines. They had been hiding south of Inner Campus Drive, waiting for the rescuers to commit and show themselves.
Uncle Billy had to jump back into the fountain to avoid being completely exposed. John and Tatiana’s weapons were outclassed. Chandler and Amanda each had three magazines left. The outlook did not look good, but surrender was not an option. If they were to die, they would not go alone.
“No, you drop your weapons!” Uncle Billy shouted back defiantly.
His order was met by hundreds of 5.56mm bullets. Chunks of stone broke away from the fountain.
Kurt’s men had hit the dirt, making smaller targets of themselves.
John and Tatiana dropped to the ground, but had their field of view blocked by the back of the fountain, requiring them to move to a better position.
“Switch!” Chandler yelled. Amanda passed the M-16 to him and she covered him with the MP-5, knowing he needed to handle the tricky shots.
Chandler placed single shots through the gaps in the fountain and wounded a few of Kurt’s men, keeping them pinned down until his parents could relieve Uncle Billy. Then he would move.
No fire came from Uncle Billy’s position.
A wall of lead exploded toward Kurt’s position. His men were taking fire from behind. Kurt wheeled around in time to take a slug to the stomach. He stumbled back and clutched the mortal wound to his mid-section. He fell to the ground and writhed for a few seconds, stiffened, then was still.
The relentless fire continued until the M-4s spoke no more.
Chandler recognized the sound of the guns used by his new allies. He jogged toward the fountain and joined his parents. They were relieved when Uncle Billy popped his head above the lip of the fountain.
“Thank you, Sassy boys!” Chandler yelled.
Six men and two women appeared, dressed in clothes better suited for a western. Some had Winchester rifles, others had a Colt Peacemaker or clone. Two had a six shooter in each hand.
Chandler glanced back to the main building to see the workers had picked up guns and were now taking Zack’s men from the Tower into custody. It looked like UT’s future would be in good hands.
* * *
“Chandler, you owe us about five pounds of lead,” Ralph, the patriarch of the Sassy boys, chortled.
“I’ll get busy on the press. Forty-five Long Colt?” Luke asked, having finally arrived at street level.
“Don’t forget .357 Magnums for my Marlin!” Ralph’s wife demanded, shaking the rifle in one hand.
During the celebratory back-slapping and high-fiving, nobody noticed the man lying on his back move.
Kurt Durant opened his eyes and looked around. A few steps in front of him was Amanda. She was the one who caused all this. Damn her. His gut felt like it was twisted and on fire, and if he was gut-shot he was a dead man and he knew it. He planned to take someone with him and let the others watch.
He drew his 1911 and forced himself upright. Unnoticed, he stumbled over to Amanda and clasped a bloody arm around her throat, shoving his 1911 against her temple.
Amanda screamed.
Chandler whipped around. “Don’t hurt her!”
Amanda’s eyes pleaded with Chandler to do something.
“Shut up.” Kurt shoved the 1911 harder into Amanda’s temple, forcing her head to the side.
Chandler took a menacing step forward.
“Stay back!” Kurt ordered. “I swear I’ll kill her.”
“Just let her go and we’ll take you to the hospital. You’re wounded and you’ll bleed out if you don’t get help.”
Kurt snorted. “Like I believe that.”
“Kurt, please,” Amanda begged. “Let me go. It’s over.”
“Shut up! You ruined everything. If only I had gotten you at your grandpa’s place, none of this—”
“What?” Amanda asked. Then a moment of clarity came to her. “That was you shooting at us? You killed my grandpa?”
“As per Zack’s instructions,” Kurt said triumphantly, dragging Amanda further back.
Chandler mirrored the steps.
By now Kurt’s adrenaline rush waned and whatever superhuman strength he thought he had started to dwindle.
Chandler noticed him wobble, and Amanda felt his grip on her throat loosen. She kept her eyes on Chandler and when he nodded ever so slightly, she took that as a sign to do something. She thrust her hand palm side up to the side of her face and knocked the 1911 away from her temple.
Kurt’s arm flung away and he discharged the 1911.
Amanda ducked and ran to Chandler. Before he could draw his weapon, Ralph sent Kurt a .45 semi-wadcutter straight to the heart. Kurt fell back, discharging his .45 ACP into the air. He was dead before he hit the ground.
Ralph went to Kurt and tapped him on the arm, looking for movement. Satisfied the guy was dead and all threats had been neutralized, he turned to Chandler. “Now where were we before we were so rudely interrupted? Ah yes, how about we take the M-4s?”
“How about we split it all down the middle? We were here a little longer than you,” Chandler said.
Ralph returned a grin. “Sounds like a plan.”
Chandler put his arms around Amanda. “We made it, unharmed, and it looks like none of us took a bullet.”
Uncle Billy chimed in. “Maybe not all of us,” he said, waddling toward the group while holding his backside.
“Where’d ya get shot?” Chandler asked.
“Where the sun don’t shine.”
“Leave it to Uncle Billy to get it in the butt,” Luke complained sarcastically.
“And a cute butt it is.” Amanda laughed. Looking up at Chandler she said, “Must run in the family.”
“I don’t know about you, but I’ve had enough fun to last me a while,” Chandler said.
“You call this fun?” Amanda asked. “I think I need to teach you a thing or two.”
“Still sassy after all this time.”
“And don’t ever expect that to change.”
“I wouldn’t want to change one thing about you,” Chandler said. “Come on, everybody, let’s head home.”
The End
The Lake
(A bonus scene)
Five years before the EMP
Under the cover of darkness, a man with inked arms and a snake tattoo on his neck crawled down the embankment leading to the dark, languid waters of Lake Travis. Created by the impounding of the Colorado River by constructing Mansfield Dam circa 1940, Lake Travis at its deepest was two hundred and ten feet, and had two hundred and seventy miles of shoreline—a perfect spot for what he needed to dispose of.
He had driven along the winding RR 620, then parked his car in a rem
ote section of a park located near the lake on the outskirts of Austin. He cut the engine and the lights, and rolled down the window. The summer heat immediately dispatched the air-conditioning he had been enjoying on the thirty minute drive from his dilapidated house to the park.
It was quiet and dark at the late hour.
Without any streetlamps or ambient light from shopping centers or houses, it took a few seconds for his eyes to adjust to the inky blackness. The sliver of a moon sat low in the sky; twinkling stars glittered. He let his eyes roam over the parking lot and the thick bramble of cedars and scrub oaks dotting the limestone hillside, prevalent in the Hill Country of Texas.
A lone camper was the only other sign of civilization.
The primitive spot would work well.
If he had been inclined to, and if the baggie in the glove compartment wasn’t beckoning to him, and if it had been light, he would have ventured onto the hillside looking for fossils of the Cretaceous or Mesozoic Era.
It was difficult to fathom the central part of Texas being a primitive inland sea some 140 million years ago, (give or take a few million years) making it the former home to prehistoric creatures and fish. After the soft tissues of mollusk-like marine animals decayed, sediments filled the internal cavity and over eons of time, hardened fossil trophies remained.
But fossil hunting would have to wait. He reached into the glove compartment, grabbed a pre-rolled joint, and struck a match to it. Taking a deep drag, he expanded his lungs, held his breath, then exhaled.
Several drags later a warm fog washed over him.
Sitting there alone in his car, the man with the long stringy hair and tat-covered arms briefly thought about the contents in the back seat.
Always a loner, the man had been a perfect match for the once small reptile which had been smuggled into the states at a great cost. For years the man had toiled to create an environment which mimicked the natural habitat from which the python had been liberated. One room of his old house had infrared lights, a large kiddie pool with a filter system that put the best pools too shame, jungle worthy foliage, and a boulder for the reptile to sun on.
The years passed, and the cute twenty-four inch reptile had grown into an unmanageable, five foot strong coil of muscle and teeth. The last straw was when the man came home from work to find his cat missing and a large bulge in the snake’s midsection.
Reggie the snake was no longer welcome.
Without any further hesitation or thought, he finished the joint, pinched the end, and put the remainder in his pocket for later use. He retrieved a burlap sack from the back seat, shut the door as softly as he could, and began the arduous task of dragging the heavy sack across the pavement.
Salty sweat beaded his forehead and trickled down the sides of his face and into his eyes, stinging them. He drew a hand across his forehead, wiping it away.
Stooped over and breathing hard, he struggled to drag the burlap-enclosed python across the bumpy terrain, picking his way around the Christmas-tree shaped cedars and thorny cactus. The python hissed at the thrashing from the hard limestone rocks and thorny cactus.
The air was hot and still, and the man sneezed violently from the cedar pollen blanketing the ground in a yellow haze.
At last he came to the hillside, and with gravity as his friend, the steep slope toward Lake Travis wasn’t quite as daunting to navigate. To keep his balance, he had to sit on his rear and scoot down the dark hillside, feet first.
Coming to a limestone ledge, he heaved the burlap sack in front of him.
A wave of nostalgia overcame him, but he shook it off once he remembered the bulge in the snake’s belly. His cat didn’t deserve to die like that.
He flicked open a knife and cut the strings, loosening them until the sack was open. He cursed at not bringing a flashlight and was surprised at how dark the hillside was. Lights across the expansive lake twinkled, and mumbled voices and laughter drifted along the surface of the dark water.
Satisfied he was alone, he bent at the waist and reached into the sack—
The python rocketed out of the sack, opened its mouth and sunk its teeth into his shoulder.
The man dropped the knife and it clattered on the limestone rock. Dazed at the strike and the needling pain, he stumbled backwards off the limestone cliff and into the hard limbs of a cedar tree.
The snake held steadfast, dangling from his shoulder. Its tail whipping the ground, the snake instinctively curled its body around the man’s waist and one of his legs, pinning an arm.
Tighter the snake coiled, squeezing.
The man screamed into the black void. He balled his fist and pummeled the snake in the head.
The snake dug its fangs deeper into the man’s shoulder.
He screamed in pain.
Off balance from the massive reptile hanging from his shoulder, the man fell to the dark soil peppered with cedar berries and saw-toothed leaves embedded in and around chunky limestone rocks.
He struggled and thrashed, rolling around on the sloping hill, perilously close to the edge of the limestone cliff, only to hit his head on a larger rock. His free hand swept the ground, searching in vain for a rock, a stick, or anything to loosen the snake’s grip on him.
Breathing became difficult and he took several shallow breaths. With tremendous effort he managed to stand up, which only caused blood to rush to his head. He wobbled on unsteady legs. His eyes rolled up and he fell listlessly upon the sloping cliff. His body tumbled along the limestone, washed smooth by eons of rain and erosion.
The man and snake fell thirty feet through the air, and hit the cold, dark waters of the deep lake.
The jolt of falling the equivalent distance from a three-story building and hitting water shocked the man back to reality and he instinctively held his breath.
He struggled to loosen the snake, his arms thrashing the water.
He was vaguely aware of sinking deeper in the water. He kicked his legs, dropping deeper still until the pressure popped his ears.
He desperately needed to breathe, his body screamed for oxygen, and for seconds that seemed like hours the man fought the urge to inhale. His body’s need for oxygen overrode all other senses and the man inhaled a lungful of water.
His body convulsed and for a brief moment of clarity he realized he was drowning.
After that, there was nothing, no consciousness, no witnesses to the life or death fight, only blackness and the ripple of water at the surface as the dark lake swallowed him.
The python uncoiled from the lifeless man. It felt no emotion or remorse, or joy at being the victor, only a reptilian need to live.
An expert swimmer, the python glided to the surface of the lake where its nostrils and eyes breached the surface. Flicking its tongue, it took in its surroundings, tasting the air and forming an image of the lake and land using an organ to sense infrared thermal radiation.
The hazy waters bobbed and ebbed, and the python let its body move with the waves instead of fighting them. Soon it came to an inlet of the lake where the grassy land sloped gently, meeting the water.
The python’s sensory system detected movement on the shore and its primitive brain expertly formed a thermal image of the animal foraging for food. The ten pound animal about the size of a raccoon remained clueless that a predator lurked in the water.
The snake slithered closer.
Remaining perfectly still, the python floated, keeping to the rhythm of the waves lapping the shore, biding its time as the hapless animal came closer to the water’s edge.
The water erupted and in the second it took the animal to react, the python struck with lightning fast speed, sinking its fangs into the neck of the animal. The animal, now in the deep throes of fight or flight, let out a surprised squeak. Its heart raced, and it jerked and thrashed to free itself from the unknown predator, but the snake only sank its fangs deeper into the warm flesh. It squeezed harder, more, until the animal was completely encased in the coils of the python. No lon
ger able to breathe, the animal went limp and lost consciousness.
Death came quickly.
The python began the difficult task of positioning the animal headfirst for consumption. Like something out of a horror movie, the python contracted its strong muscles to swallow the animal inch by inch, and when the tail disappeared down the python’s throat, the reptile relaxed.
Hours later and with a bulging midsection, the python searched for a cove where it could hide, away from civilization, away from the species which had imprisoned it.
The scenario played out repeatedly over the years, the python snatching unsuspecting wild animals or pets. It rested, hid, and digested its meal until the urge to hunt struck again. It hibernated during the cold winters and when the waters warmed, it emerged, searching, always on the hunt.
Five years from when the man met his own death in the dark waters of the deep lake, the python had grown into an impressive and massive reptile, one which the wild animals of the lake shores had come to fear and respect. It cruised the shoreline and the coves, and at times ventured into the tributary of the lake—the Colorado River, which was also the southern boundary of the Big View Ranch.
* * *
During the months after the shootout at the Tower, Chandler convinced Amanda to stay at the family compound, and the EMP survivors gradually became accustomed to the new normality of life without modern conveniences.
Each family member had their own task to complete during the day. As matriarch of the house, Tatiana managed the food supply, which she rationed with an iron hand.
Luke and Chandler were in charge of hunting and firearms training, so each family member became familiar with the different types of pistols and rifles.
John and Uncle Billy managed security for the house and for the neighborhood.
Amanda used her gardening abilities to plant seasonal vegetables, and with Tatiana’s help they canned the vegetables the family was unable to consume.
