by Mike Kraus
The fire directed at the kitchen area stopped and Dianne used the opportunity to poke the barrel of her rifle through a gap in the splintered boards and fire back. The fire was mostly blind, though before she emptied the entire magazine she heard a cry of pain and withdrew, satisfied with at least wounding one of the attackers.
Wounding one of the six would only go so far. They were spread out, had apparently brought enough ammunition to keep up a continuous stream of fire for an extended period of time and had the advantage over those in the house. As Dianne ejected her spent mag and felt in her pockets for a fresh one, the memory of being dragged off by Nealson’s men flashed across her mind. It was immediately followed by the remembrance of Jason, Mark and Tina not being taken because they had managed to slip away into the basement and escape through the tunnel.
The tunnel. She looked over at the kitchen, where the door to the basement was closing and then looked upward and shouted at the top of her lungs. “Mark! Jason! I have to run an errand!”
***
“An errand?” Mark’s eyes widened as he looked over at Jason. “What’s she talking about?”
“No idea,” Jason shook his head before taking a few more shots at a target moving through the woods. “Your mom’s a smart woman, though and it sounds like she’s got a plan up her sleeve.”
Mark stood up from where he had been hiding behind a dresser and pulled back the bolt on his rifle. He inched along the wall before holding the gun out at arm’s length and firing blindly out into the drive. The recoil from the rifle was strong, but he managed to keep a grip on it as he tried to find a target without taking shots himself. Two of the rounds smacked on metal and glass instead of the gravel drive, and though he couldn’t see it, he had driven back two of Nealson’s men who had been gearing up to make a run for the front door of the house.
“Whatever she’s doing, I hope it works.” Mark squeezed back into his spot behind the dresser and flinched as more rounds came through the window. He fumbled with the magazine on his rifle as he tried to keep a calm, stoic face, but Jason could see quite clearly that the teen was terrified beyond belief. Terrified for his family, for himself, for what had happened and what could happen in the near or far future if they managed to survive that long.
“Chin up, lad.” Jason smiled at Mark from across the room. “We’ll get through this.”
***
“Move, move!” Dianne practically flew down into the basement, breaking every rule she had set for the children when it came to how to travel safely on staircases. Tina, though still in pain and unable to move for fear of hurting herself, watched Dianne with eyes that were still sharp and focused.
“Dianne.” Her voice was soft, but still possessed strength.
“Hm?” Dianne didn’t look back at Tina, too focused on unlocking and removing the chains around the tunnel doors.
“Be safe out there.”
Dianne pulled open the doors and took a few steps down before turning and nodding at Tina. “I will. Sarah, get them into the tunnel and then lock it behind you, okay? Don’t come out till it’s all clear.” With a final, loving look at Jacob and Josie, Dianne descended the rest of the stairs and took off at a run down the tunnel.
Chapter 17
Mount Weathers
Outside Washington, D.C.
“It’s no good, Captain.” The uniformed officer was breathing heavy as she took off her jacket and wrapped it around her waist. Beads of sweat ran down her head and neck, though the cold weather and sharp breeze were helping to alleviate her discomfort.
“Hammers give out again?”
“No, they just won’t budge anything. Whoever designed these doors wasn’t kidding around.”
Captain Lance Recker took a bite out of a stale energy bar and chewed slowly as he sat on the hood of a squad car. He and a couple dozen other officers were scattered around the entrance to the Mount Weathers bunker, which they had been trying to break into for nearly two days. The heavy equipment they brought from the city—the equipment that he had been sure would make short work of the bunker doors—had been thwarted by the thick, impenetrable steel.
A few of the officers stood around near the doors, pointing at the seams and mechanisms as if they could divine some way of opening the place up. Recker had seen enough to know that there was no way they would be getting through, not unless whatever had sealed the place up released its hold.
“Without power, how long do you figure they’ve got in there before the air goes bad and they all start suffocating?”
“Dunno, Captain. Can’t be more than another day or so at the most. There’s nothing we can do for them. All the vents we’ve been able to find are closed up and we can’t get those open, either. I hate to say it, but it’s possible that everyone inside is already… gone.”
Recker finished off his energy bar and slowly stood, picking up a medium-sized stone from the ground in front of the car. “We went through all this work to rescue them, brought in all the heavy equipment we could find and that’s it? We get nothing?” He chucked the stone in a high arc over the heads of the other officers, then turned away before it bounced off the bunker door with a low, metallic rumble.
Recker was about to get another energy bar from the back of the car when he stopped, realizing that the rumble from the stone’s impact wasn’t stopping—it was growing louder. He turned with the rest of the men and women there with him, watching as the mechanisms for the door began to move as they slowly moved the locks out of position.
“What the…” Recker stared at the door, taking a few slow steps toward it along with the rest of the officers. When the locks finally finished moving, a siren began to sound and Recker’s eyes opened wide.
“Get those cars back! Get the backhoes and bulldozer out of the way!” The officers scrambled to move under Recker’s order as the doors to the bunker began to slowly swing open a moment later. Figures began emerging out from between the double doors, waving their arms and stumbling as they tried to shield their vision from the intense sunlight after so long underground. Recker ran forward and caught a woman wearing a sweat-stained skirt and blouse as she tripped and nearly fell, easing her to the ground as she screwed her eyes shut.
“Medics, spread out! Help these people now!” He looked down and spoke softly to the woman as she gripped his arm. “Ma’am, it’ll be okay.”
“It was… it was horrible. The batteries gave out a few days ago. We’ve been in the dark since then.”
“What happened? Were you able to get the locks open from the inside?”
“No… a few minutes ago they just opened. We heard them from downstairs and crawled up.” A panicked look crossed the woman’s face. “There are dead down there… so many.”
Recker patted the woman on the arm and motioned for a nearby officer. “Move her to the staging area. And get a search team in there with lights; she says there are dead in the lower levels.”
As the woman was taken away and Recker stepped back to watch his people work, the officer who had been talking with him before the doors opened jogged up to him. “Captain, I can’t believe so many survived. Sounds like they were in the final hours before the air gave out, though. We’re lucky that the doors opened when they did.”
Recker snorted. “Luck had nothing to do with it.”
“You know what caused it, sir?”
Recker looked out in the direction of Washington, thinking back to the strange run-in he had a few days prior with two men and a young woman who were on their way into the city. “I’ve got a hunch,” he replied, scratching his chin as he stared off in thought. Finally, after a moment of silence, he abruptly turned to the officer. “What’s our total force strength stand at?”
“Including our officers here now and the few that went out with the civvies in search of supplies this morning, about fifty in total.”
“Good. Find me eleven of the best officers we’ve got; they’re coming with me on a little mission. You’ll be in charge
here till I return.”
“Sir?” The woman blanched. “What about this attack? The whole virus and everything?”
Recker smiled and looked back out in the direction of Washington. “It’s over. He stopped it and saved these people. And now we’re going to go find him and his crew and return the favor.”
Chapter 18
The Waters’ Homestead
Outside Ellisville, VA
“I just don’t understand why we’re trying to kill them. We need labor!”
Nealson’s eyes were practically glowing as he spat back at the man crouched next to him behind one of the trucks in the driveway. “Are you questioning me?!”
“N-no, I just—”
“You’d better ‘just’ keep them pinned down!” He looked around the truck and house, searching in the woods for a sign of the pair that he had sent out in a flanking maneuver. Without radios at hand, they would have to rely on visual communications to let him know that they were in position. A moment later, amongst the trees at the edge of the property, he saw the two emerge from the deep of the woods where they had traveled to avoid detection.
The pair stopped and turned toward Nealson, waving at him. He waved back and began signaling for them to move in on the back of the house when the color drained from his face and a look of pure rage passed over him. He began waving frantically, trying to get them to pay attention and look behind them, but he was far, far too late.
***
“Hello, boys.” The seething whisper from between clenched teeth reached out and enveloped the pair like a serpent. Before they could turn and ready their rifles, a pair of shots rang out and they dropped to the ground, blood pouring from the holes in the backs of each of their heads.
Dianne stepped over the men without a second thought, hurrying into the woods where they had come from as she heard Nealson screaming in rage from behind the truck in the front drive. At any other point she would have felt guilt over taking life, no matter how horrid it might have been. Killing the two men elicited no emotions except satisfaction over eliminating yet another threat to her family and getting one step closer to ending the leader of the continual stream of threats.
Nealson fired at the figure as it vanished into the woods, hitting nothing but air and trees in the process. While he hadn’t gotten a good look at the person who gunned down two of his remaining men, he knew without a shadow of a doubt that it was her. The same devil who had been plaguing him practically since the event started. He had done well after the event, first killing two of his neighbors and plundering their homes before heading south and connecting with old prison mates from years gone past. That had swiftly turned into setting up shop along a highway where he could sell fuel and other goods to the locals, though more than a few of his customers had turned into slave labor.
He had been doing well. Until she showed up in camp, killing and stealing and turning the place on its head. In another situation, at another point in time, he might have been impressed and tried to convince her to join him. But she wasn’t that type of person, so she had to die. Unfortunately, she kept slipping from his grasp. Not this time, though.
“Stay here,” Nealson growled to the man next to him, “I’m going after her.”
“Are you…” the man started to question Nealson but thought better of it, instead just nodding and turning around to unload another magazine into the side of the house.
Nealson took off through the woods, heading parallel to the driveway in an effort to intercept the woman before she could sneak up and surprise him. Wearing camouflage pants and a jacket with a dark shirt on underneath, Nealson slowed down and dropped to his knees once he got far enough into the woods to be invisible to those inside the house. His wound made it impossible for him to crawl along like he wanted so he settled for sitting down with his back against a tree and pistol in his hand, waiting for the woman to come wandering through the trees.
He didn’t have to wait for long.
Dianne walked quickly through the woods, heading for the driveway and a clear view on the side of the truck where she had spotted two men—one of them the leader of the group—hiding while they continued to shoot up her home. Nealson held his breath as she came close, his outfit concealing him neatly amongst the dead foliage. When she came within a few feet of him he lunged forward, ignoring the burning pain in his shoulder and arm. Dianne felt something grab onto her leg and for an instant thought she tripped on a branch. The loud growl as she fell to the ground and the feeling of someone jumping on top of her dispelled that thought, doubly so once she looked up and found herself staring into Nealson’s face.
His bloodshot eyes stared down at her as she recoiled, turning her head from his rancid breath and body odor, and he sneered at her, keeping his pistol pressed firmly against the side of her head with his good hand and arm. “Got you now, bitch.” He spat as he spoke, and though Dianne was terrified by him, she couldn’t help but make a face of disgust.
“You really need to brush your teeth.”
Without thinking, Nealson used his injured arm to strike her across the face, which caused him to grind his teeth together in pain. Dianne choked back a laugh, suddenly incredibly amused by the situation.
“Guess my son managed to wing you, eh? I bet that hurts.”
The pistol dug deep into her temple, sending waves of pain through her head. “Bet this’ll hurt more. Got any last words?”
A branch snapped behind Nealson and Dianne’s eyes flicked to the source, widening as her mouth fell open. “…you?”
A single shot rang out through the woods and Nealson’s eyes rolled back in his head before he could turn to see what Dianne had spotted. His limbs went limp along with the rest of his body and he sagged forward, rolling off of Dianne as she pushed him to the side.
She scrambled backwards through the leaves and dead underbrush, shaking her head and muttering, “no, no, no,” the whole time. After a few feet of backwards crawling she hit a tree that she pressed her back against, still shaking her head, unable to accept that the face she had seen in her dreams for what felt like eternity was finally real. It was still a dream; it had to still be a dream. For it to be reality would be asking far, far too much.
But her dreams had never spoken to her. At least not until now.
“Hey babe,” the figure was caked in dirt and sweat and spoke with a crooked grin and tear-filled eyes. “Miss me?”
Chapter 19
The Waters’ Homestead
Outside Ellisville, VA
Rick’s hand was rougher and older-looking than Dianne remembered. She stared at it as he held it out to her, standing over her wearing a pair of blue jeans and a thick jacket with a Capitol Police symbol emblazoned on the chest and shoulder. She took his hand slowly, feeling its warmth envelop her own as Rick pulled her to his feet. They stood there, standing and looking at each other for a long moment before she punched him hard in the shoulder, then grabbed him in a tighter hug than she had ever given in his life.
“Ow! What was that for?”
“For taking so long!”
Rick chuckled and wrapped his arms around her, enveloping her in an embrace that she had dreamt of nearly every night since the event. This time, though, there was no waking up in a dark room with a cold space next to her while feeling frantically for her pistol in case there happened to be someone in the house. There was only Rick, her husband and love who had somehow found his way back home. They stood there, together in the woods near the drive, until the sound of an engine and the snapping of more branches around them alerted Dianne. She let go of Rick and started diving for her rifle when he caught her and held her fast.
“Whoa! Easy there; these guys are with me.”
Dianne hesitated, still not completely convinced that she wasn’t having some sort of ultra-realistic dream. From the woods around her walked several more men wearing jackets like Rick’s and carrying rifles. One of the closer men looked at the body next to Rick and Dianne before glancing
at Rick.
“She okay?”
Rick nodded. “Thanks, Captain.”
A squawk came from Captain Lance Recker’s shoulder and he pressed a button on his radio. After a moment he turned back to the pair. “Ma’am,” Captain Recker looked at Dianne and nodded, “we’ve got two bodies in the woods on the east side and three more we just captured on the west side. There anyone in the house?”
Dianne’s heart flew into her throat and she gasped. “The kids! Jason, Sarah and—do you have a medic? We have multiple injuries inside!”
Recker glanced at Rick. “Lead us to them, ma’am.”
“Mom?!” A shout went out from the front door and Dianne turned to see Mark poking his head out, with Jason right behind him. “See,” he looked at Jason, “I told you I saw cops!” He burst out the door, his rifle slung over his back, and headed towards Dianne. When he was nearly there he stopped short, eyes wide at the sight of who was standing next to her.
“…dad?”
Seeing Dianne had filled Rick’s heart with joy, but hearing his son’s cracked voice whispering to him nearly broke his heart. Rick held open his arms and Mark ran forward, embracing his father and mother together, scarcely able to believe that the moment he had been hoping would come had finally arrived. Still standing at the door, Jason watched the commotion around the house with a slack jaw for a few moments before shaking off his surprise as two of the Capitol Police approached him, asking where the injured inside the house were located.
As Jason led the officers into the house, Mark finally let go of Rick and took a look around at the uniformed men and women who were traipsing through the yard and woods. Going from a frantic gun battle to being surrounded by—presumably, anyway—a veritable pack of allies was overwhelming, and the only thing he could think to ask was the obvious question.
