Day had completely given way to night thirty minutes earlier, but the birds still chirped and a lonely owl made its presence known about thirty yards behind him. He hadn’t spotted (or smelled) ghouls in the area. Not yet, anyway. Right now he was only concerned with menace of the human variety, but he was fully prepared for the other kind, too.
The cabin itself was pitch dark, with no source of artificial light of any kind coming from within or outside. Wash took out the ACOG he’d removed from the M4 and peered through it.
I guess they’re not so dumb after all, he thought when he saw the wooden boards over the windows.
He hadn’t seen them earlier when he was last here with the curtains pulled over the windows. Instead of repurposed security rebar for security, the homeowners had instead fastened blocks of wood that could be opened and closed as needed from the inside. They were closed right now.
Using the ACOG’s magnification, Wash could detect lights emitting from tiny slits along both front windows and the doorframe. He didn’t think the cabin would be empty, but there had been some creeping doubts when he saw how utterly pitch dark the building was to the naked eye. For a second or two, he had entertained the terrible possibility that Mathison had abandoned the building and taken off before Wash could return.
He lowered the scope and stared at the cabin.
He guessed two bedrooms plus a great room up front and a kitchen on the side. Then add a fireplace for the chimney. That wasn’t a whole lot of space for eight grown men and the three women they still had in their possession. Unless, of course, it was just Emily and something else had happened to the other two captives. Even then, Wash was looking at nine people—ten now, including Ana—crammed into a space-challenged property.
It would have been easy to smoke everyone out. Tossing an incendiary down the chimney would have accomplished that. He had a feeling that as tightly sealed as the cabin was right now, no one would notice his approach. The smoke alone would get everyone running out of there, and then he could pick them off one by one. It wouldn’t exactly be the fairest fight in the world, but what was fair when life and death were at stake?
Of course, the presence of Ana and Emily (and possibly the other two captives) took that strategy off the table. He was left with a much more dangerous option, but at least he still had one. A lot of it, though, would depend on how much Ana had already told Mathison about him, if anything at all.
Nothing. She wouldn’t have told them anything, because she would know better. Ana wouldn’t take away his element of surprise, his one advantage.
Then again, she might have, if she didn’t think he was coming back to rescue her. That was entirely possible. How much faith did she have in him? Was five days enough for her to believe he wouldn’t just abandon her at the first opportunity? He was, after all, going to have to face eight armed men just to keep his word. Only an idiot would take on that kind of challenge.
I guess I’m an idiot.
He didn’t see any other choices. It was either follow through on the plan he’d come up with on the way back here or retreat and figure something out later, but the latter meant leaving Ana in Mathison’s hands for another day.
He couldn’t do that. Not after seeing what Travis and the others had done to Teresa. What could they have been doing to Emily all this time? To the other two girls since Newton? Or to Ana, right this very second?
Emily was the wild card. He could count on Ana—she’d more than proven that over the last few days—but the sister was another story.
He replayed the image of the teenager coming out of the cabin earlier today. Was she going to fetch more water? But the bucket she was carrying was already full because of the way it splashed the ground when she dropped it. It didn’t make any sense. If she wasn’t a captive anymore, why didn’t the kid run when she saw Ana? It almost looked as if she had chosen to stay. With Mathison?
Then there was the status of the other two girls. Assuming they were even still there.
“Yeah, that’s Mathison; he’s a regular humanitarian, all right,” Travis had said about his former leader.
Wash didn’t believe that for a second. He’d crossed paths with plenty of guys like Mathison, like Travis, and the other two from the campsite. They were opportunists who would have been doing the same thing—if perhaps on a smaller scale—if The Purge hadn’t upended society and made law and order obsolete. The state of the world had just given them the opportunity to fully embrace their depravity.
“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”
It was a good quote, one that Wash had never encountered before. If the Old Man knew it, he’d never said it to him.
Wash didn’t consider himself a “good man” by any stretch of the imagination, but he wasn’t a despicable piece of shit, either. And that was exactly what he would be if he abandoned Ana and Emily and the other two Newton captives now.
Yeah, there were eight of them. So what?
You’re probably going to die. You know that, right? What about Texas?
Fuck Texas, he thought, and felt better.
He wasn’t sure why exactly, but just saying it out loud—even if it wasn’t actually out loud—made his decision all the more final.
He remained crouched within the safe space of the woods and watched the cabin under the moonlight. There continued to be no activities inside or outside, which lent credence to his theory that Ana hadn’t said a word about him, and Mathison’s men hadn’t found tracks of him in the woods when they were searching earlier. If they knew he was out here—if they knew he even existed in the first place—wouldn’t they take more precautions? But if they thought Ana had come here alone, there would be no reason for them to expect him tonight.
“That’s a lot of ifs, kid,” Imaginary Old Man said inside Wash’s head. “What did I tell you about putting your life in the hands of hypothetical situations?”
I don’t have any choice, old timer.
“Of course you do. Stop lying to yourself. You have plenty of choices. You just chose this one.”
Maybe you’re right.
“I’m always right,” Imaginary Old Man laughed.
I hate it when he’s right, Wash thought as he got up and began moving through the woods, sticking to the trees and keeping a generous distance from the clearing on his left.
The air around him grew colder, and his breath formed white clouds. He hadn’t felt the chill before, but it was impossible to ignore it now.
As he skirted the clearing, always keeping the cabin within sight at all times between the trees, Wash felt the familiar building up of adrenaline. It coursed through him, starting from the soles of his feet and traveling all the way to the top of his head. He embraced the overwhelming sensation, just like he did all the other times.
He was well camouflaged in the shadows, a place he had forced himself to become comfortable with years ago. You had to be, when you stalked creatures that lived and thrived in the darkness.
I’m coming, Ana. Stay strong.
I’m coming…
Twenty
Tick-tick-tick-tick …
The cabin was one story and constructed with hewn logs that interlocked at the corners. Moonlight gleamed off the solar panels on top, giving it the appearance of an unmoving surface of a calm lake. The windows were five feet from the door on both sides and five feet to the edges. The building was low to the ground, with no porch, and the closer he got to it the more he was convinced it was newly built, possibly in the previous few years, which would make it a post-Purge construction. It made him wonder what happened to the previous tenant. Or, to be exact, what Mathison did to them before he took over.
As he skulked around the darkness getting a better look at the cabin from multiple angles, Wash eyeballed the house as being almost as wide as it was long. There was a single window along the side, and like the windows at the front, this one was also covered by a board from the inside. The cabin’s space
s were probably halved—the living room and kitchen at the front and the bedrooms in the back.
Wash finally stopped moving and went into a crouch while staying well within the shadows. He was fully blended into his almost pitch-black environment as he gazed out across the clearing at the rear of the cabin.
Fifty yards or so separated him and his target, with a lone door in the middle. There were no lights back here, either, but a little bit more moonlight than at the front. The door seemed to almost glow invitingly through the lens of the ACOG, the result of lights from inside peeking through the slits underneath and along the doorframe.
Wash glanced down at his watch. 10:11 p.m.
He’d spent the last three hours methodically making his way around the cabin, and the only side he hadn’t gotten a good look at was the one that faced the stream. What were the chances there was anything out of the ordinary over there?
He unslung the Mossberg and held it in front of him. The shotgun had an LED flashlight attached alongside the barrel. It was turned off at the moment, but he felt good knowing he had the option of bringing light into the world whenever he needed some. The 12-gauge had a capacity of nine, and the shell carrier gave him an additional six rounds with which to reload it.
He still had the Beretta 9mm in his right hip holster. That was another seventeen in the magazine, and one in the chamber. Eighteen in all, and it was a lot easier—not to mention faster—to reload a sidearm. There were two spares for the sidearm in his back pocket, within easy reach. He had a backup piece behind him—a Glock 19. That gave him fifteen more bullets to fall back on.
If all else failed, he had the kukri on his left hip. For up close and personal. If and when he had to switch to the machete, it either meant Wash was almost done with what he needed to do, or he was almost done. Either way, it would be the signal that this whole crazy plan of his was at its end, or pretty damn close to it.
The rest of his arsenal was in the pouch just over the kukri; more gifts from the mountain men’s armory. He could have brought more but had to prioritize for weight. He was already too heavy, and that had shown in the negative impact on his side. The extra painkillers he’d found in Ana’s backpack had helped with that, and his wounds had mostly numbed over since he began scouting the cabin. Mostly.
The night around him remained as still and dark now as it had been when he first arrived back at his target. Without the ACOG, he couldn’t see any traces of light at all, which he guessed was the point. The builders had clearly designed the place to literally go dark at night so it wouldn’t attract attention.
A shaft of yellow light flashed in front of Wash’s eyes as the back door opened and a lone figure stepped outside.
Wash tensed and tightened his grip on the Mossberg’s forend.
Here we go…
The man left the door open behind him as he glanced around briefly before starting to unzip his pants. A lightbulb, likely the fruit of the solar panels on the roof, created an almost halo effect around the back of the cabin. The man found a spot in the shadows as he began urinating, so even with the ACOG, Wash had to mostly guess at the man’s appearance. He might have had the same build as Baldy; Wash couldn’t be certain. The man had also turned slightly, giving Wash an unnecessarily perfect view of the stream of urine arcing out from his crotch area.
After what seemed like five minutes, but was probably closer to one or two, the man zipped himself up and gave the surrounding woods a sweeping glance. A few seconds later, he turned around and disappeared back into the house, closing the door after him. Darkness once again swamped the rear of the cabin.
Wash glanced down at his watch again.
It was still too early. His original plan didn’t call for action until at least well past midnight, when all or most of the cabin’s occupants would either be asleep or getting close.
“Shock and awe,” the Old Man used to say. “Hit them fast, hit them hard, and take away their will to fight. That’s how you win a war. Next!”
That’s how you win a war, Wash thought. Hopefully I can keep the civilian casualties down at the same time—
The loud bang! of a gunshot interrupted his thoughts.
Wash stood up slightly just as two more—bang! bang!—rang out.
They were coming from inside the cabin.
Aw, hell! Wash thought, and was on his feet and running across the field before he knew he had made the decision.
Forty yards…
He was moving as fast as he could, but it didn’t seem to be nearly fast enough. His legs felt like they were stuck in quicksand even as a third gunshot—bang!—crackled.
Thirty-five…
His side was starting to throb again, and all Wash wanted to do was stop for a moment—a second, okay, maybe sixty seconds—and make sure he wasn’t bleeding down there. For all he knew, that wetness he was feeling around his waist was blood and not the condensation from the cold sticking to his clothes after being still for so long in the woods.
Thirty…
He was starting to slow down. He knew it was happening despite his best efforts. His legs were becoming heavier, his breath starting to hammer against his chest. He dug deep and found some willpower and pushed on, even as the throbbing increased. But he didn’t let that stop him and forced his legs to piston harder, faster…
Twenty-five…
He’d made it halfway to the cabin, running out in the wide open, and no one had come out of the back door a second time or appeared from the sides to prove that all of this had been a trick to lure him out. Granted, firing off guns inside a house wasn’t the most obvious of traps, but he’d seen crazier—
The pop-pop-pop of automatic rifle fire coming from the cabin interrupted his thoughts. It continued for a good five or six seconds, and during that time—
Twenty yards…
Fifteen…
He was almost there, so close that he could smell the ashes of the long-extinguished fireplace drifting from the chimney. Or was that something else? Another smell? Maybe—
The continuous clatter of rifle fire was answered by single gunshots from a handgun. And all of it was coming from the house directly in front of him.
Ten yards…
Was he listening to two sides exchanging gunfire? That was the only possible explanation. What else could it be?
There!
Wash aimed the shotgun at the door and fired even as he continued moving forward, his momentum slowing down but never stopping completely. His second shot went higher than the first, at about where a deadbolt would be just over the lever. Both shots were so loud he thought Marie back in Kanter 11 could probably hear them.
He’d put both shots where they needed to be, and the door was swinging open by itself as Wash stepped through, shouldering it open faster while racking the Mossberg at the same time.
His heartbeat hammered against his chest, his breath forming thick cloud bursts in front of him. All the running and adrenaline was coming to the forefront, pushing him forward even if every ounce of him wanted to turn and run. Or stop and drop, and lie down for a long time.
Get in there! Get in there!
He was just barely inside the cabin when he was confronted by a patch of brown hair and a man’s turned back. Wash saw it all clearly with help from the squiggly lightbulb on the ceiling almost directly over the man’s head; it wasn’t LED-bright, but it was more than enough to show Wash that there was someone standing right in front of him.
And that man was in the process of spinning around and giving Wash a glimpse of the AK-47 in his hands.
The boom! from the Mossberg sent two dozen .24-inch lead balls into the man’s back and side and dropped him like a sack of lifeless meat.
In the next two and a half seconds, Wash saw:
Three more men standing at the other end of a back hallway, hidden from Wash’s view until now. They were all armed—two of them holding AR rifles while a third, standing between them, clutched a large silver Desert Eagle handgun.<
br />
Mathison.
Or, at least, the man who Wash had concluded was Mathison. It was Baldy, and he towered over the two that flanked him. Mathison looked every bit like the alpha dog that he was, even more so now in the midst of his men—six-six with that bald head and his immaculately-trimmed goatee.
Wash’s eyes dropped to Mathison’s left hand, currently pushed against his waist. His fingers were covered in blood, and there was a trail from where he stood to the bedroom in front and to the left of Wash. There was a second bedroom to Wash’s right, directly opposite the first, but Wash didn’t pay any attention to it because its door was perfectly fine and not riddled with bullets like the one to his left.
The three men stood just beyond the corridor, and all their attention had been focused on the bullet-riddled door when Wash burst inside and dropped the man with brown hair. Now, all three pairs of eyes were trained on him.
“The fuck are you?” Mathison said, just before Wash racked the shotgun. He didn’t have to lift the weapon—it was already aimed and ready.
Mathison was the first to react out of the three, lunging out of the hallway opening on the first clack as the Mossberg’s forend slid back and a spent cartridge flicked out of the weapon’s side. The other two were in the process of jumping in the other direction on the second clack as the shotgun’s slide snapped forward, just a split second before a second thunderous boom! filled the cabin. Flecks of blood sprayed the air, but there were no signs (or sounds) of bodies falling, and Wash thought, Fuck!
Wash racked the shotgun and took a step forward when a new face appeared in the opening in front of him, leaning around the corner to get a look. He fired again, but his target jerked his head back in time, and Wash only managed to obliterate a large chunk of the hallway wall and filling the living room on the other side with splintered wood.
After The Purge: Vendetta Box Set [Books 1-3] Page 18
