“I’m going to hide Harry in that place we all found, then I’m coming to help.”
“I wish you wouldn’t,” Anna said, but she was exhausted from the adrenaline dump and pain. “Just wait. The group will be here soon.”
“And what are they going to do that the cops can’t?” Angelica cried into the radio.
“Mow the field,” Anna said. “If you have to, under my bed I’ve got an M4. I know you’re partial to your AR though.”
“You’ve been shot twice and you’re telling ME to get better guns?!” Angelica’s words came out in a desperate scream.
“Mom, I’ll be safe,” Harry said, a flashlight in his hands. Angelica held an electric lantern.
“I know you will Hun. If you hear anything, I want you to hide behind the holes back there. No grown-ups will fit in those cracks but me and Miss Anna.”
“I know, I’m not scared for me, but I want you to be safe. I won’t be worried once Dad gets here and shows those people why the goat humpers are so scared of him.”
“You’re amazing. I’m going to push the shelf as closed as I can. Remember, I’ve been practicing for this stuff too. I need you to hide and be safe so I can help our new family.”
“Love you, Mom. I’ll be ok.” Harry said.
“Love you son,” she said, mussing his hair. Then she stepped back and took hold of one end of the shelf and pushed, putting all her muscle and weight into it.
She normally would not be able to budge that much weight, let alone lift a corner, but adrenaline and the will to save her son had made her a lot stronger than she had realized. When the shelf was tight to the wall, she ran upstairs, grabbing the radio and putting her vest on as quick as she could.
She was not shooting an AR10 with 7.62x51/.308 like Anna was, instead she had some custom bullets made by Maker Bullets in 5.56 in her first magazine. They were solid copper bullets meant to expand to insane levels and not over-penetrate. She prayed she would not have to use it but knew she more than likely would have to.
Harry heard lots of things that scared him. Gunshots, screams. When some glass upstairs broke, he decided this was a good time to hide. He shut off the electric lantern and turned on his little flashlight and looked at the dark yawning hole that was behind the crevice, where running water could be heard. He had lied to his mom, he was scared, but he knew his mom wouldn’t let anything bad happen to him, which was why he was only mostly terrified of going into the dark cave with just a flashlight and a small electric lantern.
He figured the flashlight was not as bright and he could hide easier if nobody saw light behind the shelves, so he wormed his way through the cracks until he was on the other side. Behind the larger crevice was an area about four feet tall and about three feet wide. The rock was mostly smoothed by the running of the water that seemed to bubble up near the other crevice. Harry showed the light in the water and decided he was going to have to get wet to hide. His shoes were anyway. Not happy with just the light of the flashlight, he turned the lantern back on.
He stepped between the crevices, half crouched over to keep the spiderwebs out of his hair, and slipped, head facing the depths. The slight slant on the floor, the running water and slick stone acted like a slip-in-slide. The lantern fell out of his hands, but he desperately grasped the flashlight as he tried to slow himself down. Harry had been to space mountain a year ago at Disney, and for a moment he thought this was like that, but wet. Kicking out with his legs and hands, trying to stop himself, he did not see the rock until it hit him in the head.
“My wife is hurt,” Steven said. He was in full kit, with the entire group staring down three officers, one state boy and two sheriff’s deputies. “And this is my property.”
“The scene isn’t secure yet.”
“I’m going in for my wife.”
“You’re not going anywhere,” the state cop who had been with Sherry said with a sneer. “We can’t guarantee your safety.”
“We don’t give a fuck,” Grandma Goldie said, a Glock held loosely in her hand, pointed at the ground. “My daughter in law and grandson are in there. Move out of the way, or you will be moved.”
“You can’t make threats like that,” one of the sheriff’s deputies said.
“There’s six of us and three of you,” Curt said coldly. “We are going to make sure our family inside those gates are safe. You block us here, we will just go through our fence. Try to stop us.”
“I thought you said there were six?” the other trooper interjected.
Everyone started counting, but it was easy to figure out who was missing, instantly. Rob’s big form had vanished.
Rob knew his mother would be fine with their new family. He had ducked behind the fence while the cops tried to slow the group from mowing down anybody and everybody in their way. He was working his way closer to the trench he had seen a dog poking its head out of but could not break cover just yet. They had done their job of clearing brush a little too well, and he knew if Anna were still awake, she could mistake him for one of the protestors.
“Anna,” Rob called out, “it’s Rob Little.”
“Rob?” Anna asked, her head poking out of the trench.
“I’m coming over, is it safe?” he yelled.
“I don’t know,” she called back. “I was knocked senseless for a hot minute.”
“I’m coming outside,” Angelica called over the radio. Both of them, wearing near identical gear, tilted their heads.
“I hear you Big Momma,” Rob said. “I’m going to check on Anna, then make sure nobody else tries something cute by the fence before heading to you. You're still doing ok, baby?”
“Yes, I just hid Harry in that place we found that one time,” she replied.
Rob thought about that a moment and nodded. It had remained hidden long enough that even Dewey had not mentioned it to the group, so he probably had not known about it, or had forgotten about it.
“Moving,” Rob said, knowing his throat mic would pick it up. Then he ran to the trench and dropped in, stepping on something red and squishy.
The woman had never been a looker when she was alive, but in death, she was a grotesque parody of the human form. Her throat had been torn out, and that’s where Rob’s boots had fallen when he had slid in. Roscoe and Ranger both had bloody muzzles and were nearly sitting on a crying man near Anna’s feet.
“You ok?” Rob asked.
“I got shot twice and this asshole thumped me with the nightstick I think,” she said, rubbing the back of her head, trying not to get her head above the trench and berm of dirt.
“I can see a knot that’d knock a hat off. You have a scratch on the side of your neck. It’s not really bleeding badly. Where else are you hit?” he asked, his heart racing.
“Hit me in the trauma plate. I am ok, it knocked the wind out of me. Bruised my chest I’m sure,” she said. “I wish I had my camelback.”
“Wishes, wants, regrets,” Rob muttered. “Anna is ok, worst injury is a thump on the head,” Rob said loudly. “What are the police doing about the assholes at the gate?”
“They’re rushing in here, apparently the rest of us slipped the fence and didn’t listen to them, well, except Doc and Grandma.”
“Keep them safe,” Rob said.
“Rob,” Goldie’s voice came out of the radio, “you do your damned job or I’m going to light your ass up when this is all over.”
Rob had to smirk at that, then jerked when somebody from the other side of the razor wire started shooting. Glass broke behind him and he eased back up to see the cops fighting their way towards the shooter, hampered by the mass of bodies pushing against them. Rob saw the main raising what looked like 10/22 at them. As he started pointing the gun at Robert, Rob put his fingers on the trigger, letting the slack go out and--
BOOM
He startled as the man’s head exploded into a red gore of pink and gray mist, the gunshot having gone off to his right. Anna dropped back down.
“Fucke
r was shooting at the house and then us,” Anna said.
“Nobody in the house was near where he shot,” Angelica said through their earpieces. “I made it to the equipment barn, headed up to the loft window, north side.”
Gunfire erupted in the lines of protestors as somebody pointed a gun at the police and both sides started firing back.
Twenty-Six
Harry tumbled in the near darkness. His head hurt and he was wet and muddy all over. He had come to a stop in a shallow pool and saw something bobbing along behind him, lighting things up with a hellish glow. He reached out, groggy, and found it was the flashlight. He got it and marveled at how it had survived the wild ride through… wherever he was. His head hurt and he felt sick to his stomach, but that was nothing compared to what felt like a million paper cuts over his arms, back and butt.
“I want my mommy,” he said to himself quietly, before standing up and shining the flashlight.
He saw that where he had ended was mostly flat, the stream of water ending into the pool he was sitting in. The cave was maybe ten feet in a circle, with a low ceiling. He saw about five feet of what looked like dry ground and slogged his way over to it and sat down. Shivering, he realized he was cold. Should he stay where he was, knowing his mom and dad would eventually find him, or should he try to find his way out? He did not know, and he hurt all over. He was scared and confused.
Alone, wet and in the dark, Harry cried.
It seemed like every one of Arkansas’s police departments in their entirety had shown up. There were helicopters hovering overhead, and a nonstop line of ambulances, with triage starting at the side of the road. The police were extremely upset as two officers had been shot and killed by the protestors and another three were in pretty serious shape.
“Hey,” Dante said to one of the group of cops.
“I said, get back until we get a chance to process you,” one cop snarled.
“You want your boys to live? Am I right?” Dante said. “I’m a surgeon, my wife is a doctor. We have got a setup here. If we don’t perform surgery right now on the cop shot in the neck, he won’t make the trip to Fort Smith.”
“You’re set up here to perform surgery?” one of the EMTs asked.
“Yes,” Dante said.
“Let them through,” the angry cop snarled to the rest. “Get their vehicles inside the fence away from the shooting, and let's get a path cleared to their medical center.”
“Sarge, this is crazy,” another complained.
“He’s right though, Rainey won’t make it to Fort Smith and Luther’s got a round in his leg with a tourniquet on it. One of our guys has a sucking chest wound that the EMTs have Saran wrap on.”
“That settles it,” the angry sergeant said. “But if you’re lying to me…” he snarled to Dante.
“I’m not,” Dante said. “Just make sure we get our property back as soon as you can.”
They loaded the wounded, protestors, and cops alike, on the bed of a pickup truck. Those who could travel were sent to the hospital in Fort Smith for emergency surgery, but the four worst cases were being driven to the group's medical building, followed by three ambulances.
“This goes against everything we’ve ever been trained on,” one of the EMTs grumbled to another.
“They’re running the shit show, not us. The cops know what they’re doing.”
“I hope they do,” the first said. “But we’ll be there in case they change their mind… oh, wow.”
They drove up to the building that looked to be the size of some people’s houses. It had a metal roof in galvanized steel and a yellow coated galvanized siding. Two big air conditioners were running to the right of the dirt parking area on their own slabs of concrete.
“Through the roll up door on the left,” they heard the large surgeon yell.
Anybody who was there who had ever watched a surgery before, would remark that the husband and wife couple moved as one, barely talking to each other, just calling out stats while they worked. Dante and Leah worked on the man who’d been shot in the neck, getting the bleeding stopped and making him stable, but they didn’t have whole blood stored nor the time to get it tested for matching like they did in the hospital.
“Get me Curt and anybody else who’s O-Negative,” Dante said over his shoulder.
The police, who were watching him work without turning looked at each other, not understanding who he was talking to.
“Get the motherfucker named Curt in here, shitheads,” screamed the cop with a tourniquet on his leg.
“Just take it easy,” the EMTs who’d come inside said. “Let the doc work.”
“Who is Curt?” a different EMT asked.
“One of the guys who lives here. Real estate agent. He’s O-Negative. I need everyone who’s O-Negative, in here, right now,” Dante said. “I’m pumping up the volume with saline, but I need whole blood, and I need it in the next twenty minutes or this guy’s going to crash.”
“Hey,” Curt said bursting through the door. “I figured you’d need me.”
“Good timing,” Leah said, turning to him. “Shirt off, I need both arms.”
“I hate needles,” Curt whined, sitting on a stretcher the group had bought.
“This is only going to hurt a lot,” Dante said, turning.
“Hey,” an EMT said, ducking his head back in the medical center door, “we’ve got three more out here who can donate.”
“Perfect,” Dante said. “You,” he pointed to another EMT, “clean him up. You, get me supplies out of that beige cabinet there. I have to close a nick in this one’s femoral. Leah, now we have the worst one done, I want you to assist until I get the bleeder closed, then go onto the next without me.”
Angelica was back at the house, having seen Rob and the group through her lens as the last of the fight went out of the crowd. She had heard from the group over the radio that the all clear had been called and everyone with a firearm or weapon had been arrested or secured. Anna had been handcuffed and put in the back of a sheriff’s department SUV until they could do an investigation.
The dogs were tied off on leads near the fence line. Nobody wanted to get near Roscoe who looked like a hound dog on steroids and made the King Shepherd sitting next to him look tiny. Angelica had left her rifle in the loft, not wanting to totally disarm, and sprinted to the house and tore into the basement. She stopped, panting, in front of the shelf.
“Harry, I’m coming in baby,” she called.
He did not call back, and there was no light seeping from behind the shelf like there had been when she had left him.
“Harry!” Angelica yelled.
She did not wait, but neither did she hear him call back as she struggled to move the corner of the shelf. It started getting tippy on top and she put an arm out to stop the tumble and barely got it back before it fell. Once more she tried and pulled it away from the wall. The room was dark, but there was light coming from the crevice.
I pray he fell asleep inside there and this is all me being hysterical. My baby is ok. He has to be ok. Where is my baby boy?
Angelica turned on her radio. “This is Angel, does anybody copy me?” she asked.
“I got you,” Andrea said from somewhere behind the fence, waiting to be driven back in.
“Let the others know Harry isn’t in that place we found together. I have to go inside, but I don’t think I’ll have radio or cell service.”
“We know where you’re talking about,” Steven’s voice said over the radio. “Want me to join you?”
“Where I’m going, I don’t think anybody but me and Anna could fit,” she said simply.
“Grandma said she is sore, but says she’s headed that way.”
“I’m not waiting,” Angelica said, then turned on a penlight she had clipped to the inside of her left pocket and, with some wiggling, stepped inside the crevice. Right off the bat she found the lantern. It had fallen over on its side near the trickle of water, but there was no sign of Harry.
She almost threw up in her mouth at the realization that her son had been here, but now was not. She stepped into the water to grab the lantern, her feet slipping before she found her footing. Getting her hands on the lantern she held it up to the narrow roof of the cave and saw something further down snagged up on some rocks. She started towards it and saw it was a piece of cloth, the same color of Harry’s t-shirt. As she was stepping closer to get it, her feet started slipping on the slick rock the water was going over.
“He fell and went downhill. Like a slip ‘n’ slide,” Angelica muttered.
She debated scooting down on her butt as things narrowed overhead, but she instead decided to crawl headfirst.
“Harry!” she bellowed.
From far away, she heard somebody call back, “Mom, is that you?”
Harry was almost hoarse from yelling for his mom, listening as her shouts got closer. He had been about to have another cry when he had first thought he had heard his mom. Now that he was sure help was coming, he was bouncing in place, the flashlight making the light in the cave dance as it reflected off the water and the crystals in the limestone. He did not want to get very far away from the pool of water, but he did not want to be in the water anymore.
He was scared of what Miss Anna had called ‘rotten stone’. That water just stopped at the pool and he had no idea if it was just filtering into sand, or if it was like a bathtub stopper. If it was a stopper, how big was it, and would Harry fall through? So, he bounced on his feet to stay warm and waited and called until his mom’s light could be seen, a good five minutes later.
“Harry!” she screamed as the room opened up.
Harry nearly bowled her over in a massive hug that left both of them wet and filthy. Neither cared as they hugged each other, checking each other for injuries.
Behind The Curve-The Farm | Book 1 | The Farm Page 17
