Fall of Man | Book 2 | Homefront

by Sisavath, Sam

  A flurry of black fur as the dogs entered the scene.

  The psycho with the baseball saw them first and stopped smashing his victim’s head just long enough to look up. The big man—Emily was too far away to know if it was one of her neighbors or not—began to flee, but it was too late. Two of the dogs were on top of him before he could take his third step.

  “Faster,” Emily said quietly as she watched the two escapees jump and began scaling the ten-feet-tall gate. “Faster. Faster!”

  They were doing a good job of climbing, but it wasn’t good enough. Two more black dogs appeared out of nowhere and lunged at the closest one. A woman. Emily only knew it was a woman because she screamed as she was pulled down by fangs that ripped into her clothes and the skin underneath.

  The other climber—possibly a man—stopped halfway up to freedom and glanced back.

  “No, don’t stop,” Emily said.

  The man didn’t listen and jumped down. Something sharp gleamed in his hand as he attacked the dogs while they ravaged the woman on the ground. He got one of them off her, but a second later he was on the ground.

  The dogs were big black Labradors. She could tell that much by their color and shape.

  Growling sounds from somewhere below her, outside the house.

  Emily hurried to the edge and looked down just in time to catch two—three—four of the Labradors as they rushed out of the house and flew down the driveway. They sprinted up the street, making a straight line toward the front gate.

  How did they know what was happening up there? She hadn’t heard anything that sounded like barks. And yet, the Cujos that had been waiting for her were racing to join the others in the attack.

  … the Cujos that had been waiting for her were racing to join the others in the attack…

  This was it. Her chance to get off the roof!

  She scrambled back to the opening she’d shot into the ceiling and eased her way through it. She landed inside the attic and crab-walked to the door, where she leaned against it and peered through the hole she’d made earlier.

  An empty second-floor hallway greeted her.

  The only evidence at all that there’d been dogs down there was the bloody patch the ones she’d shot earlier had left behind. That, along with the bullet holes she’d put into her floor.

  But no dogs, dead or alive.

  No dogs!

  Emily slung her rifle and pulled the attic door up and open, then pushed the stairs open. She didn’t climb down right away but stuck her head through the square hole first and glanced around.

  Empty!

  She breathed a sigh of relief and began climbing down—

  Then she was falling and crashing to the floor, the smell of dog blood invading both nostrils as she tried to breathe. It didn’t help that the sharp points of the SIG716 rifle seemed to have jammed into every vulnerable part of her back and side when she landed. She might have screamed but couldn’t be sure.

  A figure hovered over her, grinning down.

  Troyer.

  “Figured you’d try to come down after those dogs took off,” the deputy said.

  Almost the entire right side of his face was caked in day-old dry blood, but there was nothing wrong with his eyes—they were just as deep blue as the last time she’d seen him.

  “Troyer,” she managed to get out.

  “That’s my name, don’t wear it out,” he said, just before he punched her in the face.

  Chapter 21

  “You’re not a real cop, are you?”

  “What makes you say that?”

  “The fact you’re stealing diamonds, for one.”

  “Cops can’t steal diamonds?”

  “They’re not supposed to, no.”

  “Have you looked outside? People are doing a lot of things they’re not supposed to these last few days.”

  Even as he said it, she didn’t believe him for a second. Troyer—or whatever his real name was—couldn’t even lie to her with a straight face. He did it with a noticeable smirk as he wiped the blood off one half of his face with a soft plush pink towel. Hers. He’d bypassed Cole’s, either because he wanted to rub it in or he liked the color. She was guessing it was probably the former.

  They were inside the bathroom of the master bedroom. It was the only room on the second floor that still had a door, and Troyer had wanted to get her out of the open as soon as possible. She wasn’t sure how long he’d lingered around her house, waiting for the Labradors to leave, but he wasn’t taking any chances now that they had, and he’d gotten his opportunity.

  The deputy tossed the towel into the sink and checked himself in the mirror. There was enough light coming from the small window over the shower stall that she could see he wasn’t injured all that badly. At least it wasn’t a life-threatening wound. It’d looked worse than it was when she first spotted him, after he’d grabbed her off the attic ladder and slammed her into the floor. Something had glanced off his temple—something hard and strong enough to break skin and, possibly, dent his thick skull (or she was hoping for some of the latter, anyway)—and left him bleeding.

  He had found duct tape in the room that Greg and Barnes had been working on and was using a box cutter to slice off a small enough piece to cover up the gash. He winced, and she thought, I hope that hurts, asshole.

  But of course she didn’t say it out loud. Right now, she didn’t want to antagonize Troyer. He had the upper hand, and she…was stuck sitting in the corner of her bathroom with her hands duct taped behind her back as blood dripped down her face. Dripping, not gushing down, so she could be thankful for that, if nothing else.

  Her nose hurt, but she didn’t think it was broken. Troyer’s fist would definitely leave a mark, but at least she could be thankful he hadn’t struck her in the stomach. If he’d known she was pregnant, would he have done that, just out of spite? She wouldn’t put it past the man.

  Emily licked at some small trickles of blood that had gotten into her mouth and swallowed it. Her blood was nothing compared to the dog blood that covered almost her entire backside from when she’d landed in the second-floor hallway. The air was filled with the stench of blood—hers, dogs, and God knew who else’s.

  She stopped thinking about how she looked and smelled and instead focused on Troyer. He was, right now, the most dangerous thing in the entire house.

  “How did you get away?” she asked.

  Troyer picked her pink towel back up to dab at the area around his improvised bandage. “Ingenuity. Guts. And a whole lotta luck.” He turned around, tossing the towel into a nearby waste bin, before leaning against the counter. “Met that scrappy neighbor of yours again.”

  “Don?”

  “Uh huh. He took a swipe at me. Bugger was waiting outside the garage the entire time.” Troyer touched his duct-taped temple. “If I’d been a second slower, he’d have gotten me good. Fast motherfucker, that guy.”

  “But you escaped.”

  “Barely. He was occupied with other psychos. I took the opportunity to skedaddle outta there.”

  Troyer had been armed with a hammer when he ambushed her. It was hooked into his belt like a sword. There was blood on the steel head and splashes on the wooden handle. She thought it looked familiar.

  “That’s my husband’s,” Emily said.

  He smirked. “Mine, now.” The man picked up and slid the Glock G43 he’d taken off her into his front waistband, then snatched the SIG716 from the nearby wall and turned it over in his hands. “This is mine, too. Thanks for bringing it back to me.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  He grinned. “What happened to the other guy, anyway?”

  “What other guy?”

  “The big guy.”

  Emily didn’t answer right away, but she thought, Greg? Is he talking about Greg?

  Then: He was downstairs on the first floor. He was attacked by the dogs. I saw blood and flesh in their mouths.

  She had thought all of those things had meant Greg was
dead. Wasn’t he? Then why hadn’t Troyer spotted the body when he snuck up the stairs after the dogs abandoned the house?

  Emily studied Troyer’s face, trying to figure out if he was playing with her.

  He’s not. He really doesn’t know what happened to Greg.

  So what did that mean? Was Greg alive after all?

  “I don’t know what happened to him,” Emily said.

  “What about the girl?”

  “What about her?”

  “Where is she? In the backroom?”

  Emily shrugged. “Maybe.”

  “Yeah, she’s in the backroom. With the big guy, right? So they let you come outside on your own?”

  “Why don’t you go ask them?”

  “Because I’m asking you, smarty pants.”

  “I don’t have a clue.”

  “Of course you don’t.” He scrubbed at some dry blood clinging to his uniform and over his name tag.

  “What’s your real name?” Emily asked.

  “Troyer.”

  “Really.”

  He chuckled. “No.” He gave up trying to clean the name tag and peered across the small bathroom space at her. “Bowman. Henry Bowman.”

  “What happened to the man whose uniform you stole, Henry Bowman?”

  “He didn’t need it anymore.”

  “He’s dead…”

  “Him and pretty much everyone else at the police station.”

  “You’re a convict.”

  Bowman grinned. “Can’t be a convict if I haven’t been convicted yet. Not my fault the court system went kaput when all of this happened. I still maintain my innocence.”

  “Of course you do.”

  “Of course I do,” he said, and chuckled again.

  “Barton and Chrisman. They’re not cops, either?”

  “Nope.”

  “More innocent convicts.”

  “Hell if I know. I just met them the day this went down. Kinda glad I didn’t get to know that Chrisman guy all that well. Seemed like a bad seed, that one. Good thing you shot him dead; saved me the trouble of having to do it later. Barton, on the other hand… He wasn’t all bad.”

  Emily thought that made perfect sense. It’d struck her just how unemotional Barton (or whatever his real name was) and Bowman had been when they found out she’d killed Chrisman. While both men had questioned her story, she hadn’t really sensed any urgency or, indeed, commitment. In fact, they were so unbothered by it that they were willing to leave later even before Chrisman’s body was in the ground.

  Thieves. They’re just thieves.

  At least Bowman was. She had no clue about Chrisman or Barton. Chrisman, especially. That man still gave her the creeps, even dead.

  More importantly, though, Bowman was a thief with her rifle and sidearm. It didn’t help that she was being restrained with duct tape behind her back. He’d left her legs unbound, but that was probably because he had every intention of walking her out of the bathroom and to their final destination. Or her final destination.

  “Get up,” Bowman said now, gesturing with the rifle.

  Emily did, if slowly and clumsily. She had to brace her back against the wall and push up with her legs. “Where we going?”

  “The backroom.”

  “What’s there?”

  “You know what’s there.”

  “Your diamonds.”

  “That’s right. You’re going to get the girl and the big man to open the door for me. Failing that, I’m going to have to shoot my way through.”

  “No, you’re not.”

  He squinted at her. “And why wouldn’t I?”

  “Because the first time you squeeze that trigger, those dogs will come running right back here. Not to mention the psychos hiding in the area, waiting for their chance. Maybe even Don. I’m sure he’d want to finish what he started this morning.”

  “Maybe so, but unfortunately for your neighbors and those dogs, I got this now,” Bowman said, smacking the barrel of the SIG716.

  Yeah, he has a point there.

  “Can I ask you something?” she said.

  “Can I stop you?”

  “No.”

  “Then ask already, so we can get this show on the road.”

  “What exactly are you going to do with those diamonds?”

  “Huh?”

  “The diamonds. What are you going to do with them? I asked before, but you didn’t answer me.”

  “Because it was a stupid question.”

  “Was it? Is it, still?”

  “Of course. They’re diamonds. Duh.”

  “So?”

  “So?” He squinted at her again, as if he couldn’t quite comprehend where she was going with this.

  He doesn’t get it, Emily thought, wondering if her first impressions of Bowman was wrong after all. She’d thought she had seen intelligence in those eyes, but looking at him now, struggling to understand her…

  “You saw what’s going on out there,” Emily said. “Psychos. Rabid dogs. God knows what else is waiting for you beyond the gate. Do you really think diamonds matter anymore? Or money? Or gold?” She nodded at the rifle in his hands. “That’s all that matters now. That and the Glock and the ammo for them.”

  He opened his mouth to immediately respond…but nothing came out.

  Instead, Bowman stared at her, and she thought she could hear the gears clanking and crunching around inside his head as he attempted to process what she’d said. Either he’d never thought about it, even after she’d broached it last night, or…

  No, that was it. He’d never thought about it. The only thing he’d thought about was getting his hands on those diamonds. That was it. It’d never occurred to him what he would do with them afterward.

  I was wrong. He’s just another dumb asshole, after all.

  She didn’t know why she was so surprised. As far as she knew, Bowman was a lowlife criminal, and when the opportunity presented itself he defaulted to his natural instincts: Steal. It had never even occurred to him that there was no point anymore, that diamonds might have been a girl’s best friend once upon a time, but in the world they were living in now, it didn’t do diddly squat for survival.

  “Fuck,” Bowman said, and leaned back against the counter.

  He lowered the rifle until it was lying across the front of his legs as he continued to mull over what she’d said. Not that Emily thought she could make a move for the weapon. He still had both hands on it, and she had none to fight him with. The best she could hope for was to catch him off guard by barreling into him.

  And then what?

  No, there was no opportunity to get the upper hand. She had to wait for the window to open up.

  Or maybe she didn’t need to. Bowman clearly didn’t give a damn about Barton or Chrisman’s deaths. He’d come back here simply for his ill-gotten jewels. Punching her earlier was just out of spite, she knew that now, but from everything she’d seen of him since, he seemed to have gotten that out of his system.

  So what was left?

  Step one: Know your objective.

  Step two: Gather intel.

  Step three: Formulate a plan.

  And finally, step four: Execute that plan.

  Step one was easy: Stay alive.

  Step two was becoming increasingly clear: Bowman hadn’t thought through his crime.

  Step three was formulating itself: Determine if Bowman could be convinced not to kill her.

  And as for step four…

  “You can have them, if you still want them,” Emily said. “You can walk me to the backroom, and I’ll get the kid and Greg to open the door for you. If you want diamonds, you’ll get your diamonds.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “What bullshit?”

  “You expect me to believe you’ll be that cooperative?”

  “Why not? I don’t care about diamonds. Besides, they aren’t even mine. I don’t care where you got them. The owners are probably dead, like you said. Or running around out the
re trying to murder each other.”

  Emily could see it in his eyes: He was starting to come around.

  Step four…

  “Like you said, Troyer—or Bowman, or whatever your name is—I’ve seen what’s out there. I’ve been fighting it the last three days. Not just for me.” She put her hand on her stomach. “I’m pregnant.”

  His eyes widened in surprise.

  “Six weeks,” she said, deciding the truth was probably easier to convince Bowman of her pregnancy since she wasn’t showing yet. “The only thing that matters to me is getting my unborn baby through this alive. Do you understand?”

  He didn’t answer. But he also didn’t look away from her.

  She read his face: She was close.

  “Diamonds aren’t going to help me or my baby get through this,” Emily continued. “If you think it’ll help you…” She shrugged. “Hey, that’s your business. I just want to stay here and stay alive until my husband comes back. So you see, Bowman, I mean it when I say, I don’t care what you do. Or what’s happened until this point.”

  “Hunh,” Bowman said.

  Just one word: Hunh.

  She smiled. “So let’s make a deal.”

  He grinned. “A deal?” He held up the rifle. “You see this? This means I don’t make deals. This means I tell you what to do and you do it.”

  Emily sighed. It was probably a bit too dramatic, but she wanted him to know she wasn’t scared of him, even though she was. Not for her own life, but her unborn child’s.

  But truth wasn’t what was, it was what you could sell. And right now, she needed to sell another story.

  “Bowman,” Emily said.

  “What?” he said curtly.

  “Think about this.”

  “About what?”

  “You want the diamonds, and you don’t have any interest in staying here. I don’t want the diamonds, and I do want to stay here.”

  “Go on…”

  “So I’ll get you your diamonds. And everything else in the backroom you want.”

  “I want all of it.”