by Nick Randall
Sam and Linda were talking quietly on the couch, arguing about what they were going to do in the long term. Linda was getting irritated, and Sam was close to losing his temper. Jeremy was sitting on the floor, playing with a small penguin toy that had once rolled around and sang. The boy had to resort to pushing it himself now.
Suddenly, Jeremy stood and kicked the plastic toy across the living room. It skittered across the floor and disappeared through the darkened doorway to the kitchen.
“Jeremy!” Linda scolded.
“I hate it here,” Jeremy shouted, bunching his fists by his side. Tears welled up in his eyes. “I hate it! There's nothing to do. This isn't like camping like you said, daddy. You come home from camping. This is stupid!”
“Keep your voice down,” Sam said roughly.
“No!” the five-year-old cried.
“Jeremy...” Sam warned. “Don't make me say it again.”
“I hate hate hate this! I hate you! It's your fault I can't play outside!”
“That's it, young man.” Sam stood, just as the living room window shattered. The plywood nailed against the window thudded loudly as something heavy struck it.
Sam was already dropping to his knees beside Jeremy, clamping a hand over the boy's mouth. He motioned to Linda, who quickly turned off the lantern.
“There's someone in there alright,” said a deep voice outside. “I told ya I saw some light.”
“I don't see nothing,” another voice answered. “Yer crazy, Jacky.”
“That's 'cuz it just went out. Come on, let's get inside.”
In Sam's arms, Jeremy was shaking with terror. Warm tears pooled against Sam's hand where it was pressed over Jeremy's mouth.
“Upstairs,” Sam whispered. “Now!”
Silently, Linda took Jeremy's hand and led him up the carpeted stairs. Sam slipped into the kitchen to take the loaded pistol off the fridge, then followed them up. Linda had already swung open the bookcase and she and Jeremy were slipping into the gap in the drywall when Sam caught up to them. Sam handed Linda the handgun. Downstairs, another window shattered, accompanied by a plywood thump. Jeremy whimpered. Sam pressed a finger to his mouth, shhh.
Jeremy nodded, still crying. He twisted an imaginary key over his own lips, then quickly twisted it back.
“I'm sorry, daddy. I don't hate you. I'm sorry.”
“I know,” Sam whispered. “I know you don't. You have to be quiet now, okay?”
Jeremy locked his lips again and handed Sam the key. Above his pale face, Linda's eyes glittered with teary determination. Sam kissed her, smelling perfume and fear.
“Keep him safe,” he whispered.
“Keep yourself safe,” Linda whispered back. “And come back to us.”
“Aways,” Sam whispered. He held her eyes a second longer, then stood abruptly and swung the secret compartment closed, and then swung the bookshelf into place on top of it.
They'd be safe. Sam pulled the handgun from the holster on his waist and cocked it. Whoever was outside, on the other hand, was in for a world of pain.
On light feet, gun aimed at the floor, Sam skipped down the dark stairwell and slid up to one of the living room windows. He lifted the small cloth flap stapled over the eyehole and peered out into the front yard. Three dark shapes moved through the yard outside, picking at the trash in the yard. A fourth one suddenly walked right past the window, inches from Sam's eyeball.
Sam had a clear shot at the three figures in the yard, but he held his fire. They might still decide to leave.
Just then a fifth person, who Sam hadn't been able to see, struck the front door, rattling the doorknob. Another blow shook the door, followed by a curse.
“Deadbolted. Locked tight,” said a raspy voice. “There's someone in there for sure. Probably holed up with all kinds of food.”
“Food sounds mighty fine,” snarled one of the men in the yard. “Blast it open, Shakes.”
The metallic crunch of a shotgun slide loading a shell made Sam's heart plummet.
They were going to force their way in. Well, he had a few surprises for them. Sam slipped his handgun into the second hole in the plywood and lined up his shot.
“Knock, knock,” said the raspy voice by the front door.
Sam pulled the trigger at the same time the shotgun roared. In the foyer to Sam's right, the wooden door splintered, and the brass doorknob bounced across the floor, knocked completey free of the door. In the yard, one of the men fell to the grass with a soft cry and rolled around, holding his arm.
“Got it,” said the raspy voice. “Let's go...hey, what's up with Jacky?”
Sam watched the other two figures in the yard turn toward their fallen friend. One knelt and prodded the body. Sam squeezed the trigger again, and the man spun around at the sound. Sam swore under his breath. It was difficult to aim through the plywood.
“Shit! They're shooting!” The second guy dove away, making Sam's third shot also go wide. Sam spun away from the window and sprinted lightly to the living room. Behind him, a shotgun blast ripped a hole in the plywood and chicken wire, sending shards of wood biting into his back. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a massive shape step in through the front door and kick aside the now-useless 2x4 brace.
“If they're shooting, they're defending something,” one of the men shouted gruffly. “And we're not leaving 'til we get it.”
“Yeah,” replied a weasily voice. “You hear that in there? You're dead, jackoff.”
Sam pressed his back against the kitchen wall, trying to calm his breathing. His heart was beating like a high school drumline. He had only traded gunfire once in all his years as a police officer, and that had been years ago, just before he was discharged from the force. The same cancerous wave of fear, adrenaline, and nausea that he'd felt then swept over his entire body now.
In the brief silence after the shouted threat, Sam heard a footstep creak in the entranceway...then a crash and an earsplitting scream.
“My foot! Oh my God, my foot!”
Yeah, he had a few surprises. Just inside the front door, Sam had pulled up the floorboards and laid down a welcome mat – a strip of plywood hammered through with nails, sharp ends up. Then he'd cut a few lines into the floorboards so they'd break under someone's weight and put them back in place.
From the sounds of the man's screams, it had worked like a charm. Through the cries, Sam heard the man slump forward onto the floor, followed by off-balance steps as the man limped into the house, muttering threats. Just on the other side of the kitchen wall, the man pumped another shell into the shotgun.
“Where you at, you son of a bitch?” the man snarled. “You coward, get out here.”
He limped to the dark kitchen doorway. With his back still pressed tight to the wall, Sam raised the nine-millimeter, letting his arm slide against the drywall, until the barrel was aimed at the doorway beside him.
“Right here,” Sam whispered. He squeezed the trigger just as the man poked his head through the doorway. The bullet ripped through the man's skull and exited the far side in a puff of blood and the intruder dropped to the floor with a thump.
One confirmed down, one wounded, Sam ticked off in his head. He let a brief thrill of hope course through him. I can do this. His training was kicking in full-force, pushing aside the fear. He slid away from the wall and moved to circle around through the dining room when a gunshot blared on the other side of the kitchen wall. Sam felt the breath get knocked out of him, and he stumbled. Even in the darkness, he saw a black hole in the dark gray of the drywall where a bullet had punched through the wall.
That was close, he thought, then fell to his knees as his legs gave out.
In the adjacent living room, light flared. A silhouette filled the doorway and Sam wrestled the gun into the air and let three rounds fly. He smelled the powder burn, but could barely feel the kickback. His arm seemed to be going numb.
The shadow cried out, then slipped on the blood leaking out of the body on the f
loor. He smacked the blood-streaked linoleum right in front of Sam, hands clawing the floor. Sam sank onto his side and watched him struggle in what seemed like slow-motion. It was like the whole world had been flooded and he was fighting to move underwater.
The man on the floor had an elaborate sun-shaped tattoo on his neck that ran up to his jawline, and his eyes were filled with rage. He slid himself over the corpse of his friend and pulled a razor-thin knife from his waist. His upper lip sank back into a feral sneer.
Slowly, too slowly, Sam forced his arm to move. The man with the knife wriggled closer and slashed at Sam, cutting his leg. Sam gripped his right arm with his left hand and used both to swing the gun up. It took every ounce of strength in his body to pull the trigger. This time, he didn't even hear the report. He just saw a spray of blood fountain from the man's neck, just before someone ran up behind him and kicked the gun out of his hand.
Sam struggled to keep his eyes open. The kitchen was dimming. Two hulking shapes loomed over him, saying something...Sam couldn't make out the words. “Skags had it comin',” maybe. One of them had the same sun-shaped tattoo high on his neck and a low, reddish Mohawk. He was holding a can of creamed corn, drinking it straight out of the can. The other was holding onto his arm with a bloody hand. Behind them both, Sam saw a moving shadow outlined on the far wall of the living room. The tattooed man spat on him, then kicked him in the side.
Sam's vision blurred as pain lanced through him. He gasped. Someone brought a lantern closer.
And then, as if from the depths of Sam's nightmares, a single, high-pitched word cut through the house, perfectly clear: “Daddy!”
Sam shut his eyes, tears streaming down his cheeks. “No, no, no no no NO!”
The man with the tattoo squatted down beside Sam and grinned. Flecks of corn were stuck in the gaps of his yellow teeth.
“Oh, yes,” he said. “We're going to get whoever that was, too.” Then he pulled a crowbar from behind his back and swung it down on Sam's head.
Chapter 3
Sam dreamed that he was surfing. He'd never been within twenty feet of a surfboard, but that's what he dreamed anyway. He was paddling out on a vast sea, no land in sight, with waves crashing down on his head. He knew he had to get somewhere, knew that someone would die if he didn't get there, but he couldn't remember who or where, and every time a wave pounded over his head it seemed to push him back even farther. No matter how hard he paddled, he just kept drifting back, the waves pounding, pounding onto his head.
Sam came to with a gasp, reeling with nausea and bunched up from unbelievable pain in his left side. It felt like someone had poured glass slivers into his stomach and was grinding them around with a boot. His head throbbed in regular pulses (like a wave, Sam thought for a second, then couldn't remember why he would think that).
He was lying on the kitchen floor, which was sticky. The house was dark.
“MmmphaaAAHHHH!” He tried to speak, but the resulting contraction in his abdomen sent him swirling into agony, and all he could do for several seconds was cry out wordlessly, pitifully, like an animal.
With a flash, it all came back to him – the intruders, the firefight, Linda and Jeremy. Jesus, Linda and Jeremy! Jeremy had called out for him, just before that man with the tattoo had knocked him unconscious with a crowbar.
Sam made an effort to stand and instantly doubled over again, pulling his shirt away from the sticky kitchen floor. Blood. It was covered in blood. His? Theirs? The two bodies were still lying where he'd shot them, slumped one over the other in the kitchen doorway. Their buddies had left them there like so much useless trash. Sam felt a surge of anger flow through him and used the rage, harnessed it, to flip over onto his back.
In that position he was able to carefully touch his stomach with his hands. He winced. The pain was excuciating, but he had to know how bad he was. With two fingers, he gently felt along the left side of his abdomen, feeling the slickness of the blood, until he found the gash. It was large and circular, about the width of a quarter. Sam let his fingers slip down to his side and found a second hole there. This one was larger, with flaps of skin hanging loosely around it.
The exit wound. The bullet had passed through him. Hand shaking, Sam raised his blood-covered hand to his face and sniffed. As a cop, he'd once been the first responder to a scene where a middle-aged woman had been shot in the gut. The bullet had punctured her intestines, and the smell of vomit and acid bile emanating from the wound had made him retch. He'd never forget that smell, and he didn't smell that here.
No bullet to dig out and no stomach fluids leaking out of him. Was that karma going easy on him for whatever had happened to Linda and Jeremy? Sam squeezed his eyes shut and felt a hot tear roll down his cheek. He had to find out.
Shaking violently with the effort, pushing the pain down as far as he possibly could, Sam rolled onto his stomach and began to crawl over the bodies heaped in the doorway. He made it to the carpeted living room and found that it was easier going without his elbows slipping in blood. A streak of dark blood marked his slow passage across the living room, the way a slug leaves a trail of slime. The room seemed to stretch on forever, but finally Sam reached the far wall. He reached up and fumbled at one of the electrical sockets set low in the wall. His fingernails scraped at the drywall and hooked in behind the plastic plate, sliding it out of the wall. It was a fake outlet, another little prepper trick that Linda had rolled her eyes about.
Inside the fake outlet was a small compartment, just five inches deep, holding a Ziplock bag. Sam ripped the bag open, spilling a book of matches, a miniature, airline-size bottle of vodka, and a compact first aid kit. Sam put the first aid kit in his mouth, gripped the vodka bottle in his right fist, and painfully turned around and began crawling back through the living room.
In the end table beside the couch, Linda kept a small sewing kit her mother had bought her several years ago. She never used it – Linda never sewed – and Sam prayed that she hadn't thrown it out during one of her occasional cleaning spurts. He reached up and slid the drawer out of the end table. It clattered to the ground, and Sam's breath hitched in his chest for a second...and then he saw it – a little blue plastic box with a snap lid.
“You can do this,” Sam urged himself, spitting out the first aid kit and scooping both that and the sewing kit over in front of the sofa. Sam grunted and heaved himself up until he was sitting with his back against the front of the sofa. Only then did he notice the propane lantern lying on its side under the end table.
“Damn it,” he whispered. He could see dim shapes, but for what he was about to do, he needed light. With a snarl that reminded him eerily of the intruders, Sam rocked forward onto his knees, gripping his side tightly. Icy pain lanced through him. He felt nauseous, but didn't dare vomit in case something inside him ruptured. Gingerly, he leaned forward until his fingertips touched the lantern, then sat back with another grunt and fumbled with the gas knob until the internal spark clicked.
The sudden light seared into his retinas, and for the first time he saw the turmoil in the living room. The looters had ransacked almost the entire place, tipping over chairs and furniture as they went. He also saw the bright red blood trail he'd left across the carpet, and that weird, queasy rage came over him again.
Grimly, he set to work. Using the small stainless steel scissors in the sewing kit, he cut away his shirt, exposing the two wounds. They were about four inches apart, a glancing blow that could have just as easily missed him as stuck him straight through the gut. He used an alcohol swab from the first aid kit to clean the entry wound, followed by an iodine swab.
Then, he selected a long, thick needle. Fingers quivering, he bent the steel needle into a curve. It took him six tries to stick a piece of thread through the eye, then he twisted the cap off the miniature vodka bottle, took a swig, and used the rest to douse the needle and the spindle of thread.
Sam took a deep, shuddering breath, thought of Linda, and plunged the needle into his
skin.
He had no way of telling how long it took, but Sam eventually got both of the bullet wounds sanitized and sewn shut. It still hurt like hell, but he wasn't leaking blood anymore, and he found that he could move a little more freely.
He struggled to his feet, fighting the wave of dizziness that swept over him. With the lantern in one hand and the other hand firmly gripped on the railing, Sam started up the stairs. Possibilities swirled through his head. Maybe Linda had gotten Jeremy out of the house. Maybe they were still in the hideaway closet, never discovered. Maybe...
Sam planted another foot, grimacing with pain. There were too many maybes.
And yet none of them prepared him for what he saw when he rounded the doorway and stepped into the bedroom. He fell heavily to his knees. The lantern rolled away, still burning. A sob escaped him, and the lantern finally came to a stop against a small, pale hand, lying still on the carpet.
For the second time that night, Sam crawled. He crawled to his wife and son and pulled them to him, and wept.
When he could move again, he buried their bodies in the backyard.
Dawn found Sam still struggling in the backyard. The agony in his side seemed strong enough to tear him in half, and still Sam pushed on, praying that it would. That it would split him in two pieces so that he could tumble into this grave and stay with them forever. He prayed for death, but mercy favors the weak, and so he kept right on living, kept shoveling mounds of dirt over the faces of his wife and son until there was nothing left of them but a raised mound of earth in front of him and an aching hole in his stomach that had nothing to do with a bullet.
He sank to the ground and dug his fingers into the dirt. The wind whipped his hair around his blood-streaked face and he raised his face to the sky and screamed.
“They'll pay for this,” he told the sky. “I'll pull them apart one inch at a time and they'll feel your suffering a hundred times over. I promise...” Sam's throat spasmed with a sob, “...I promise you'll get your vengeance. I love you, Linda Porter. I love you, Jeremy. I love you so much.”
