by Harley Tate
“What happens if a fire starts?”
Doug glanced up as he picked his way through the wreckage. “Without a fireman’s jacket or any gear? We hope to hell we can get everyone out and we run.” He disappeared around the front of the truck and Dani held her breath.
A muffled curse carried on the wind.
“Doug?” Melody called out from the road. “Are they alive? Can I help?” She picked her way around the wreckage and stopped within view of her brother before stumbling back. She landed on her butt on the asphalt as the color drained from her face.
Oh, no. Dani couldn’t believe it. They weren’t all dead. They couldn’t be. She rushed forward, heedless of the debris or the risk or Doug’s harsh reproach.
“Is Colt—” The sight of a bloody arm, severed at the elbow joint and lying a few feet from the cab, choked off her words. Dani covered her mouth. She recognized Gloria’s wedding ring.
From her vantage point, all she could see inside the truck’s cab was blood. It splattered against the tan roof and dashboard and dripped over the branches tangled in the windshield. So much freakin’ blood. Was Colt in there somewhere? Was his life mixing with that of the Wilkinses as it congealed in the cracked vinyl?
She swallowed down a wave of nausea and regret. What would she do without Colt?
Melody picked her way down the slope and pushed past Dani. “We can’t leave them in there. Doug, you have to get them out. You have to try to save…Oh my God.”
Doug reached out and grabbed his sister as she sagged to the ground. That afternoon’s lunch of oranges and canned beans tumbled from Melody’s lips as she heaved into the weeds.
She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. “Have you checked for a pulse?”
He shook his head. “There’s no point, Mel. They’re gone.”
“Please, Doug. Just do it.” Melody gripped her thighs as she heaved again and Doug let her go.
He eased around the side of the truck, bending the stunted trees to make a path. The truck groaned as he climbed aboard the mangled front fender and balanced on one leg as he straddled a hunk of hood. Smoke wafted around him from the engine area, but Doug pressed on, scaling the wreckage until he could grab ahold of the roof.
With one hand gripping where the windshield used to be and one holding fast to a bent side mirror, Doug slipped down into the cab.
Dani waited, holding her breath while Doug maneuvered in the tight space. In the time between watching the crash and now, hope dwindled. The odds of anyone surviving were slim. Nonexistent, maybe. There was nothing left of the truck bed. The cab had been crushed on all sides. The four of them would have to find a way to carry on. They would have to for—
“I’ve got a pulse!” Doug’s shout carried from inside the cab. “Harvey’s alive!”
Dani rushed up to the truck and found a foothold on the exposed underside. She hoisted herself up until her fingers found purchase on the door frame. She cleared the side as Doug’s head came into view. “What can I do?”
He glanced up in surprise. “We have to get him out, but I don’t have any gear. He could have a broken back or neck.”
“If we leave him he could bleed out.”
Doug frowned. “Even if we get him free of the truck, we can’t carry him all the way back to the Humvee.”
“We can use the hood of the Camaro.” Larkin’s voice made Dani jump and she almost lost her footing.
He traipsed out of the trees and stopped on the other side of the truck. “It flew off in the crash and is mostly one piece on the road.”
Doug nodded. “That might work. Dani, can you and Melody get it?”
She nodded and climbed down from her perch before grabbing Melody and heading for the road. Dani spotted the silver metal a hundred feet down the pavement. She jogged to it with Melody on her heels. If Harvey was still alive, maybe Colt was, too.
Together the two women dragged the hood down the embankment. It slipped and skidded and almost cut Dani’s finger off, but they managed. As Doug and Larkin pulled an unconscious Harvey from the cab, Melody held the makeshift litter steady.
Blood coated the side of Harvey’s head, but he didn’t appear to have any other injuries. The second Doug set Harvey down, she asked the question burning a hole in her heart. “Is Colt dead?”
Doug shook his head. “I don’t know. He’s not in the truck.”
Her eyes widened. “Are you sure?”
Larkin stood up and wiped his bloody hands on his pants. “He’s not on the road. He must have been thrown from the truck when it flipped. Driver’s dead in the car or about to be.”
Dani didn’t wait another second. She climbed back up the embankment and began a search, scanning this way and that every step, searching for any sign of Colt. If he was out there, she would find him.
Bits of metal and shards of glass glinted in the afternoon sun and Dani sidestepped the biggest pieces. Debris covered the asphalt, but nothing showed signs of life. Every step brought her closer to the muscle car. It sat upright, crumpled in on itself, but not destroyed.
Dani approached with caution. Could Colt have been thrown back toward it? She didn’t understand force or velocity or any of those physics terms she glossed over in class. As far as she knew, he could be anywhere, bleeding out while she searched in the wrong places.
She eased up to the car. Broken valves and tubes hissed as the car cooled. The driver’s-side door hung open forty-five degrees. A boot was perched on the road.
Dani froze. Was the driver still alive? She eased the rifle off her shoulder and checked the safety. They were running so low on ammo. A bullet was now worth more than food or water. Only fire if desperate.
Stepping slowly enough not to make a sound, Dani cleared the driver’s door. A man was slumped in the driver’s seat like Larkin said. Blood pooled on the asphalt by the door and dripped off a jagged wound in his arm. Plop. Plop. Plop.
A beard coated his jaw and his neck, hiding pale skin and a sagging wattle. Dani stepped closer. She poked his shoulder with the barrel of her rifle.
He groaned.
Crap. All the time she’d stared at his body, she wished for a corpse. From the amount of blood spreading across the ground, she wouldn’t have that long to wait. She eased closer. Empty passenger seat. Dani bent to see past the driver.
What is that?
She leaned closer. Luggage. Piles of duffels sat in the back seat, one on top of the other. Anything could be inside. Drugs. Money. Guns.
Dani glanced at the driver. After the first groan, he hadn’t made a sound. His chest barely moved. She examined the passenger side. That side of the car took the worst beating, crumpling in on itself from the impact with the truck.
She couldn’t get in any other way but past the driver. Stepping back, Dani glanced around. Where was Colt? Melody and Doug and Larkin still worked on Harvey on the side of the road, each one bending over the car’s hood as they tried to keep him alive.
She needed to get on with her search, but she couldn’t leave this man here. What if he had something they could use? What if he woke up and got away? She turned back to face him. Melody would hate her for the thoughts running circles inside her brain, but she couldn’t turn them off.
He killed their friends. Whether it was an accident or intentional, Dani might never know, but the truth remained. Gloria and Will and maybe Colt were dead because of this man. She didn’t need to agonize over the decision. Dani brought the rifle up and aimed at the man’s head.
No. She wouldn’t waste a bullet. She lowered the gun and reached into her pocket for a hunting knife. One of the few things she’d managed to save from Colt’s haul at the sporting goods store in Eugene. She’d kept it in her pocket ever since the run-in with Jarvis and Captain Ferguson.
It had always been a weapon of last resort. Now it would be her first choice. Dani flicked out the blade. Four inches long and sharpened to slice through a kill like hot butter. She eased up to the driver. Sucked in a breath.
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This is the right call. I’m doing the right thing. She shut down her emotions and her nerves and forced her panic to subside. I can do this.
One quick jab and twist and even if the bastard woke up, he’d never make it. Dani exhaled and stepped closer.
“What the hell are you doing? Trying to get yourself killed?”
Dani spun around. Colt stood ten feet behind her, using a tree branch as a crutch.
“You’re alive!”
“Seems that way.” He winced instead of smiled. “But my knee is jacked up and my brain auditioned for a spot on a roller derby team.”
“Did your brain make it?”
He snorted and hobbled toward her. “Is he alive?”
She nodded. “For now.”
Colt pulled his Sig Sauer from his holster. “I’d step back.”
Dani did as she was told and watched as Colt pulled the trigger. The gunshot echoed down the street and the second he lowered the gun, she rushed him.
Her arms made it three-quarters of the way around his shoulders. “I thought you were dead.”
“Me, too.” Colt hugged her back with one hand as Larkin stopped beside them.
Dani pulled back and wiped at her face.
“Anything I should know?”
Colt tilted his head. “I’m alive and that guy’s dead.”
Larkin nodded. “So are Gloria and Will. Harvey’s hanging on, but I don’t think for that much longer.”
Colt sagged. “I saw it too damn late.”
Dani spoke up. “Did you see them tailing us?”
“What?”
Dani glanced at Larkin. “I don’t know if it was the same car, but I caught a glimpse of one on a frontage road. It stayed with us for a while, then disappeared.”
Colt shook his head. “We were too far ahead of you. I didn’t see it. Do you think the same one?”
“Maybe.”
Larkin clapped Colt on the back. “Either way, there was nothing you could do. It was barreling through the intersection. Had to be going a hundred, maybe more.”
Colt nodded. “Still sucks.”
“You’re damn straight.” Larkin stepped up and eased his shoulder under Colt’s arm and took the tree branch. “Let’s get you checked out. Melody’s about done with Harvey.”
Dani stood beside the car, hesitating.
“Are you coming?”
She glanced at the dead man. “There’s one thing I want to check out.”
“Be careful, Dani.”
She watched Colt and Larkin shuffle away before turning back to the car. Holding her breath, she crawled over the man who now sported a bullet hole in the center of his forehead. He stank like beer and bodily fluid.
With one hand on the seat, she reached out for the closest duffel. It didn’t budge. She would have to crawl all the way into the back. Wedging herself between the dead man’s thigh and the passenger seat, she managed to crawl in far enough to reach a zipper.
Dani tugged, hoping for something they could use. The bag fell open and her mouth followed suit.
Chapter Eighteen
COLT
Highway 58
Northwest California
7:00 p.m.
Everything hurt. Colt tilted his head to the right and his brain sloshed like unset Jell-O. He waited for the world to stop spinning.
“You’re damn lucky to be alive. I scoured the pavement looking for body parts.” Larkin plopped down on the asphalt next to Colt. “Didn’t expect to find you in one piece.”
“I bounced around inside the cab like a pinball until the windshield shattered. One of the rollovers must have thrown me out.”
“I’m surprised you’re not impaled on a branch or head-first in the middle of a tree trunk.”
Colt rubbed at his sore shoulder. “Feels like I did both, but I came to facedown in a weedy ditch. If it had kept raining, I’d have drowned in the muck.”
Larkin held up his hand. “How many fingers?”
Colt squinted. “Too many to count.”
“You’ve got a concussion, that’s for sure.”
“I’ve lost more brain cells than Mayweather last season.”
Larkin chuckled. “At least your sense of humor’s still intact.”
Colt grew somber. “I tried to avoid the Camaro. It came on so fast, I couldn’t—” He glanced at Melody’s hunched-over form behind him, wincing as his back twisted. “I should have seen it.”
He thought about Gloria and Will and their last moments on earth. Fear and pain and agony. He didn’t wish it on anyone. And now Harvey clung to life. Even if he did survive, once he found out his wife and grandson were dead…
“Stop beating yourself up. We watched the whole thing. It was unavoidable.”
“I should have done more.”
“Unless one of those bullets you’ve stopped lately infused you with super powers, you did all you could.”
Colt rubbed his eyes. He knew Larkin spoke the truth, but it didn’t matter. Gloria and Will would stay with him. After surviving Jarvis and the house fire and an assault on the militia’s stronghold, to die in a car crash didn’t seem fair. “How’s Harvey?”
“Barely breathing.” Larkin leaned back on his hands, his face grim. “Even if we had antibiotics and the best medical care—”
“He wouldn’t make it.”
“Not a chance.”
Colt exhaled. “Does Melody know?”
Larkin glanced at the makeshift litter where Harvey still lay unconscious. “If she does, she won’t admit it.”
“Doug?”
“He knows. He’s not an EMT, but he’s seen more car accidents than either of us.”
“How long?”
“A few days.” Larkin scraped a hand down his face. “But Harvey will be in agony. He’s got a broken leg, ribs are smashed all to hell, and there’s a nasty gash above his eye. Who knows about internal injuries. If he survives the night, the pain will only increase.”
Colt nodded. He’d seen his share of injuries in conflicts as a SEAL. The first few days were cruel in their optimism. Hope bloomed in the inexperienced when sailors with catastrophic injuries regained consciousness and seemed to improve.
When infection set in, everything flipped. Weak smiles turned to screams. Optimism turned to horror and pity. Without a hospital, Harvey would suffer right up until the end. “Do we have anything?”
Larkin knew where Colt was going. He’d been in combat as gritty and violent as anything Colt had experienced. “Not even a bottle of whiskey.”
“It’s not going to be easy.”
“Nothing will.” Larkin stretched his feet out in front of him and let his shoulders sag. “If you haven’t noticed, we lost all the food.”
Colt raised his head. He’d been so focused on the Wilkins family, he’d not stopped to think about the living. “All of it?”
“We packed it all in the pickup. As soon as the Camaro hit it, the garbage bags went flying. Everything canned exploded on contact with the road, the potatoes splattered, the water jugs burst.” He shook his head. “We might be able to salvage a handful of oranges, but—”
“They were almost rotten to begin with.”
Larkin nodded.
Colt glanced up at the darkening sky. “So we’re up shit creek.”
“Without a paddle.”
No food. No water. A handful of bullets and a man too injured to move. Not a recipe for success. Colt didn’t know what to do. Ordinarily he was a take-charge kind of guy. A problem was a challenge to solve, not an insurmountable obstacle. But he’d never been faced with something so grim.
Missions ended. They failed or succeeded and he was either extracted or they’d recover his body. But there was always someone out there, somewhere, who had his back. Not this time. They were on their own.
No stores. No aid. No government to help them. Colt, Larkin, Dani, and the Harpers would live or die on the backs of their wits and strength. Nothing more.
He pus
hed himself off the ground, wincing with the effort. “How much farther can the Humvee go?”
Larkin stood and focused on the tan beast of a vehicle. “No more than fifty miles, I’d say.”
Great. Add no real transportation to their list of bad news. “Then I guess we’re making camp. We can all pile in the Humvee for the night to stay warm. Set out in the morning.”
“Harvey won’t fit. One of us will have to stay with him and keep watch.”
“There isn’t any way to get him in there?”
“Moving him is a bad idea. If his back is broken—”
Colt held up a hand. He knew the drill. “Then we need shelter and we need it fast. There are enough trees around here. We can strip some branches and make a lean-to.”
Larkin nodded. “I’ll ask Doug to help.”
As he turned toward the woods, Dani caught his eye. She lurched toward them, half-carrying, half-dragging a duffel bag along behind her. She stopped in front of them both and dumped the bag on the ground.
“What’s in the bag?”
She wrapped a hand around her middle as she sucked in a few lungfuls of air. “Open… it.”
Larkin crouched and unzipped the bag. “Whoa. You see this, Colt?”
Colt bent to inspect the contents. “There have to be twenty guns in there.” He counted a dozen Glocks of various sizes, an armful of rifles beneath them. Even a few defensive shotguns for good measure. He stood up in a rush and the ground wobbled. “Where’d you find these?”
Dani jerked her thumb toward the smashed-up car. “In the backseat of the bastard that hit you. There’s four more just like it still in there. A bunch of ammo boxes, too.”
Colt met Larkin’s heavy stare. They were thinking the same thing. No one transported this much weaponry by themselves. A few dozen guns and hundreds of rounds of ammo? Not a chance. The dead man in the Camaro was now a much bigger problem.
“Get Doug to help you unload the car. Take all the duffels and ammo boxes to the Humvee and load them in the back.”
“What are you going to do?”
