by Sam Sisavath
“No, but take my word for it. There’s one down the street.”
“What happened? Who ambushed you?”
“A lady and her two kids.”
Margo stared at him.
Smith grinned shyly back at her. “Honest to God.”
“And they took your guns and supplies? This lady and her two kids?”
“They were going to do more than that.”
“Like what?”
“More than that. As to what, specifically, I don’t know. I didn’t feel like staying to find out. But I’ll tell you one thing: We shouldn’t go down that side of the street.”
“Jesus. They really scared you, didn’t they?”
“Scared me? No. I’m just being cautious.”
She narrowed her eyes at him, clearly not believing what he’d just said.
“Besides, that’s the direction Freddy went, too,” Smith said.
“And it’s not only because of this woman and her two kids?” Margo asked.
“Of course not.”
Margo smiled.
“What?” Smith said.
“Nothing,” Margo said, but for some reason Smith didn’t believe her.
Sixteen
After the first two hours expired, they waited another thirty minutes because, well, why not? When that came and went, too, they finally decided to leave.
They turned left after the Archers parking lot, walking along the feeder road until they could find a ramp that would take them up onto the highway. The elevated height gave them a better vantage point of Mist City. Not everything—that was impossible, given the conditions—but it was an improvement over the lower level, where it was like staring up at a cloudy sky thirty feet in front of you.
As they maneuvered around the unending string of cars left behind on the highway, Smith gave serious thought to ditching the trio. No, that wasn’t true. He wasn’t thinking about it, he was just trying to find the right time to do it.
He had no reasons to stick around. At least, not anymore. In fact, Margo, Donna, and Clark had become a liability, especially if they should run into Freddy and company again. Right now, Smith was free to roam. Although there was still the chance of a random encounter with Freddy, it would be less likely than if he stuck around.
He was trying to decide the perfect time to get the hell out of Dodge even as he slowed down, and soon Clark and Donna—who had been trailing behind him—caught up to him. Margo was well ahead of the group, having taken point without bothering to ask if any of them wanted the job. Smith was more than happy to let her assume command. The mist greatly limited their visibility, and he didn’t fancy walking into a bullet if one happened to be waiting for them up ahead.
Another reason to get out of here soon…
When he was walking beside Smith, Clark said, “So you were Black Tide?”
Smith nodded. “You were Mercerians.”
“Margo told you?”
“We didn’t have a lot to do last night.”
“I guess not.” Clark nodded. “Yeah, we were Mercerians.”
Then the big man stared at Smith as if trying to gauge his reaction.
Smith shrugged. “I’m not Black Tide anymore.”
“Why is that?”
“The same reason you and Margo and Freddy took off from Buck’s crew. It’s all bullshit.”
Clark chuckled and seemed to lighten up when he said, “Yeah, it is. It’s definitely all bullshit.”
“What’s all bullshit?” Donna, walking on the other side of Clark, asked.
“The world. Everything,” Clark said. Then, without missing a beat (and probably to not-so-slyly change the subject), “How’s your shoulder?”
“It’s okay,” Donna said. “Still hurts if I move it too much.”
“So don’t move it too much.”
“I’m trying not to.”
“Try harder.”
“Nag, nag,” Donna said.
Smith still didn’t know the two’s relationship. They really did sound and act like father and daughter, but that couldn’t have been it or Clark would have made the connection obvious right away. If not Clark, then Margo would have definitely mentioned it.
So what were they? And what was Clark’s relationship with Margo, for that matter?
All of those questions swirled around in Smith’s mind as he let Clark and Donna walk on ahead of him. They were still talking, oblivious to the fact that he had slowed down and was getting farther and farther behind.
Smith glanced back, just to make sure there was no one at their six o’clock. The fact that Freddy would surely pursue them once the man figured out they’d abandoned the Archers left him a little paranoid. Which was another good reason for him to leave the trio as soon as possible…
“Where are we going?” Donna was asking Clark up ahead.
“Don’t know yet,” Clark said. “We’ll just walk for a while.”
“Isn’t this the same direction we came?”
“You noticed that, huh?”
“Getting shot didn’t make me blind, Clark.”
Clark chucked. “Yeah, this is the same direction we came in yesterday.”
“Where’s Mags?”
“She’s up ahead.”
“I can’t see her…”
Clark and the girl stopped, and the big man glanced back at Smith. “You see Margo? She’s up ahead, right?”
Smith nodded. “Last time I checked.”
“I can’t see her,” Donna said. She was trying to peer through all the mist.
Clark had unslung his rifle when he turned around and called out, “Margo! Hey, Margo!”
His voice echoed for a moment with no response.
Two seconds…
Five…
Smith started reaching for his own holstered sidearm, alarm bells starting to ring inside his head, when they finally heard Margo’s voice calling back, “Yeah!”
Smith breathed a sigh of relief.
Clark did, too, because Smith could hear it in his voice when he shouted back, “Dammit, Mags.”
“What’s wrong?” Margo said. They still couldn’t see her but could hear her just fine, if slightly echoey with all the metal on the highway with them.
“You might wanna slow down,” Clark called back. “No one can see shit in this thing, and we lost sight of you.”
“I’m right in front of you,” Margo said.
“You can see us?”
“Barely, but I can hear you fine. Follow the sound of my voice.”
“Will do,” Clark said. Then, to Donna, “See?”
“I was scared for a moment there,” Donna said as she and Clark continued walking toward where they had heard Margo’s voice, but they could not see her.
“There’s nothing to be scared of,” Clark said.
Well, that’s not exactly true, Smith thought as he kept track of the pair as they walked alongside a black van, just before disappearing past its chrome back bumper.
Smith stopped completely when he couldn’t see them, then turned and jogged over to the side of the highway. He climbed over the guardrail and slid down the slanted grass on the other side, fighting for footing against the damp ground until he was finally on the sidewalk below. He jogged across the street, using the Walmart sign in the near distance as a marker. It had come out of nowhere, providing him with a nice beacon in all the mist.
Smith had no intentions of trying his luck inside the big retail store, of course. That was borderline suicide these days. Still, it was nice to have something standing out in all the fog to focus on.
If Margo, Clark, and Donna realized he had slipped away, no one chased after him. He didn’t even hear their voices, and certainly no one was calling out his name. Smith suspected that Margo quickly realized what he had done and was either unwilling to risk making a scene to relocate him, or she wasn’t interested in doing so. She had to know there was no longer any reason for him to remain with them. She wasn’t a dumb woman, after all.
/> In a way, he probably did both of them a favor by acting first. After last night, even she would realize their partnership had run its course and might have been trying to figure out a way to get rid of him.
You’re welcome, Margo.
Still, he couldn’t quite push away little pangs of guilt for ditching them the way that he did, without a good-bye or howdy-do. He’d liked talking to Margo last night despite the ugly and uncomfortable subject. Clark hadn’t been too bad after all. And the girl, well, she seemed like a good kid.
But he didn’t see any future in sticking around them. The only thing that would have happened was that they became friends.
And right now, Smith wasn’t looking for friends.
Keep going, chum. Don’t look back. Don’t look back…
He was doing exactly that, walking across the Walmart parking lot and not looking back, when he heard the first pop-pop-pop of gunfire coming from behind him.
He spun around.
The shooting came from the highway and slightly up the road, which would be about where Margo, Clark, and Donna would be right this second.
Smith didn’t know why he did it, but he was suddenly racing across the paved lot and back toward the highway. He hadn’t even thought about it, hadn’t taken a second to ponder the consequences. He had simply broken off into a mad run even as the clatter of gunfire grew…
…and grew still…
Pop-pop-pop!
Pop-pop-pop…!
Seventeen
Pop-pop-pop!
Ping-ping-ping!
Semiautomatic gunfire and the unmistakable sounds of bullets impacting metal. Smith heard the echoing cacophony as he ran back to the highway, the pack thumping against his back. He was moving too slowly (Faster. Gotta go faster!) and considered the pros and cons of ditching the bag.
Pop-pop-pop!
Ping-ping-ping!
Then he was running across the street and hopping onto the sidewalk and was already scaling up the slanted ground to reach the elevated highway. It would have been much easier if he’d gone for a ramp, but that required searching for one first. And in all this mist, he had no idea if he should run right or left. So he went straight up.
Pop-pop-pop!
Ping-ping-ping!
He had to fight for his footing every inch of the way, the Merrells doing a commendable job keeping him upright against the wet ground as he struggled his way up the incline. All the while, the clap of gunfire and echoes of bullets hitting cars continued from in front of him.
Pop-pop-pop!
Ping-ping-ping!
He didn’t hear voices, and he wasn’t sure what that meant, if anything. It was likely that Margo and Clark were too busy returning fire. Likewise for the ambushers, whoever they were. Was Donna also in the thick of it? Had she even rearmed herself this morning before they left the Archers? Smith couldn’t remember.
Pop-pop-pop!
Ping-ping-ping!
He was moving too slowly, having to fight way too hard against the slanted and dew-covered ground. He was only a quarter of the way up when Smith shouldered off the pack and let it drop, and did the same to the shotgun. Now free of the superfluous weight, he began to make better progress, using his hands to look for handholds—anything that he could grab a hold of to help propel him up faster, faster, faster.
And he was, moving steadily up.
Halfway…
Pop-pop-pop!
Ping-ping-ping!
Three-quarters…
This latest round of shooting was coming from in front and slightly to the right of him. That was because Smith had angled himself toward the ambushers instead of heading back to where Margo and the others would be. That had cost him additional time, but it was necessary. If he had guessed correctly—and he was sure he had (Mostly)—he would climb onto the highway behind the ambushers instead of in front of them and their guns.
Smith only slowed down when he finally (Finally!) reached the metal guardrail. He crouched in front of it in order to listen to the back and forth. He couldn’t see much of anything thanks to the mist, but there was nothing wrong with his hearing.
Pop-pop-pop!
Ping-ping-ping!
The closest gunfire, like before, was coming from in front and to the right of him. That would be the ambushers. Margo and the others wouldn’t have gotten this far up the highway before everything erupted.
There, return fire coming from farther down the road. That would be Margo and her friends. Unless, of course, his mental map of the structure was all wrong. That was possible, but Smith didn’t think so.
While he waited and listened, Smith took the opportunity to catch his breath. Now slightly less winded, he threw one leg, then the other over the railing and stepped onto the smooth pavement on the shoulder.
Smith put one hand on the butt of his holstered SIG (He briefly considered swapping out the silver-tipped bullets in the magazine with regular rounds, before remembering that the spares were in the pack he’d tossed earlier.) as he walked forward, the mist revealing a little more of the highway at a time.
He stepped around cars, using the rattle of gunfire up ahead as a guide. A couple of bullets pinged! off vehicles nearby, some shattering glass. The rounds had come from Margo’s side, which made him slightly hesitant to keep going. What were the chances either Margo or Clark (or maybe Donna?) had spotted him and thought he was one of the ambushers? How ironic would it be if he got shot by the people he was trying to save?
More like a fucking tragedy.
For me, anyway.
Smith started moving again anyway. He’d come this far; it was too late to turn back now. Well, not really. No one had seen him yet—that he knew of, anyway—and there was still ample opportunity to turn around and leave this alone. He could abandon the highway and let Margo and whoever she was fighting (Freddy. It has to be Freddy. Who else would it be?) kill each other. What did he really owe her?
He sighed and took three more steps. The mist shifted again, this time revealing a black-clad figure crouched behind a gray sedan that was conveniently parked vertically across the lanes, giving the man a perfect cover to shoot downstream behind. The man was reloading an AR rifle when Smith spotted him.
The shooter was slightly turned, and either he heard Smith coming or sensed him. However he knew Smith was there, the man began getting up before turning around even as one hand pulled back the charging handle on his rifle.
Smith couldn’t see anyone else in the mist, but he could still hear the shooting. The pop-pop-pop of someone firing nearby—about twenty meters farther across the highway—and the resulting ping-ping-ping! of those rounds hitting metal farther down.
But none of that mattered, because all Smith could see was the man in front of him.
He wore a black vest over a black shirt, and once upon a time there was a big, bright circled M in the very center. The letter and circle had either faded or been mostly scrubbed away, leaving behind just a slight reminder. Smith might not have even known what it used to be if he hadn’t had that talk with Margo last night. The man was ex-Mercerian, which made it pretty damn obvious to Smith why he was here.
The chank! as the charging handle snapped into place and the man began lifting the AR.
Smith drew and shot him in the throat with one smooth motion.
The man gagged, dropping his rifle and falling to his knees, hands grabbing at his throat as blood spurted free. He looked determined to keep the fluid inside, but he might as well be trying to hold back a leaking dam.
Smith hurried past the man and around the sedan.
Zip-zip! as two rounds nearly took his head off. Both had come from farther down the highway.
Shit!
Smith quickly got down on one knee. He didn’t blame the trio for targeting him. There would be no way for them to know he was back here. There was so much mist that Smith could barely make out a black van directly in front of him—
Two ghostly figures came around the vehic
le, parting mists in their path.
Hello, boys!
One of the newcomers was struggling to unjam an AR rifle while his partner was squeezing rounds down the highway as he moved. Like the first one Smith had killed, these two were also wearing black assault vests, except theirs didn’t have any telltale signs of what used to be emblazoned on the front.
“I’m jammed, I’m jammed!” one of them was shouting.
“Then fucking unjam it!” the other one said just before he fired off two more shots—pop-pop!—and ducked down behind the hood of the van.
Ping-ping! as two rounds returned fire, drilling into the other side of the vehicle.
“I’m trying—” the one with the troubled rifle said when he looked up.
Smith strode toward them and shot the one with the working rifle through the back first. Then, as the man staggered into the front part of the van while trying to turn around, Smith put two more shots into his gut.
The other ambusher gave up on his weapon and dropped it, then went for his holstered sidearm. He’d gotten his fingers around the butt of the pistol when Smith shot him once in the face.
The man fell but somehow continued to move on the pavement. Smith walked past him, but not before putting two more bullets into the wounded man’s spasming backside.
Ping-ping-ping! as bullets punched into the other side of the van. Two buried themselves in the vehicle, but the third smashed through a window and zipped a few inches from Smith’s head.
Jesus Christ! Almost got me again!
He ducked behind cover, sucking in an exasperated breath. The more he waded into this, the more trouble he was begging for. Chances were pretty good now that he was just as liable to get shot by friendly fire as by the enemy.
So how was he going to change that? There was only one way he could think of…
“Margo!” Smith shouted. “Clark!”
He waited for a response, but there was just silence.
He tried again: “Black van! Don’t shoot the black van! That’s me!”
Then, from somewhere to the left of him—and close enough to his current position that Smith was taken aback—a voice said, “Who the fuck was that?”
