“You ain’t gon’ try kill any more a’ us?” the man asked.
“No. We just want to get out and get as far away from this place as possible. You can have the town; we just want to leave.”
“An’ what do you want me to do?” the man grunted. “Take you to our snowmobiles an’ just fuckin’ hand ‘em over to ya?”
“We’ll take one, that’s all we need,” Jack said. “You help us do that, and I’ll let you walk away from this.”
“Mark won’t,” the man muttered. “If he found out I helped y’all, he’d rip my nuts off with a pair a’ rusty pliers. An’ I ain’t even jokin’, man. He already done that to a fella named Phil who tried to screw him over. Tore the motherfucker’s balls right off. I ain’t never seen a man scream like that … I’d rather die a’ thirst in here than end up on Mark’s bad side.”
Jack thought about that for a few moments. As disgusting and loathsome as this man was, Jack knew he would have to help him if he wanted to get himself and his family out of this situation alive. He also knew, of course, that he couldn’t trust this man as far as he could throw him … but he figured he could think up something that would end up being beneficial for both of them.
“Kate,” he eventually said, “go wake up Nick and Susan, and get everything packed and ready to go; we need to leave as soon as possible.”
“Right now?” she asked.
Jack nodded. “Yeah, right now.” Then he turned to the man. “And as for you, you’re going to help us get out of here, and I’m going to help you make sure that Mark doesn’t find out you did it.”
“How the hell you gon’ do that?” the man asked.
“I’ve got a plan,” Jack muttered. “Yeah, I’ve got a plan…”
33
“Are you sure this is gonna work, Dad?” Susan asked anxiously. “I’m scared.”
“And there’s no way we can trust that disgusting slimeball,” Kate said. “I don’t like this, Jack, I don’t like this at all.”
“We don’t have any other way to get out of here,” Jack said grimly. “And as despicable a specimen as he is, he knows he’ll die if he betrays us or tries to lead us into a trap. He knows I’ll kill him for the sake of protecting my family. And he knows if he does exactly what I told him to, Mark won’t know he helped us. I think that’s what he most afraid of, this Mark character punishing him. But he understands that if he does everything I told him to do, Mark won’t find out. He doesn’t want to help us, of course, but he knows his skin is on the line, and he’s a coward. The guy will do whatever it takes to save his own hide. And since, in this situation, that means helping us, I’m pretty sure he’ll do what I said and won’t try anything stupid.”
“All right,” Kate said, not sounding entirely convinced. “Well, I guess we’d better get going then, while it’s still dark out.”
“Yeah,” Jack said. “I would have liked a few more hours of sleep, but that isn’t gonna happen. We have to go now.”
They woke up Susan and Nick. Susan was groggy for a while when she woke up but mostly rested. Nick, however, was in a zombie-like state. The infection in his wounded ear, combined with everything he had suffered through over the last day and night, meant that he was in a terrible state. He was caught in the grip of a potent fever, alternatively shivering violently and then breaking out into flushes of heat and gushing sweat, and muttering deliriously, staring all around him with a vacant look in his eyes. Susan wanted to cry when she saw him, and Jack simply shook his head grimly. He wasn’t sure the young man would make it through another night. He had to try, though. Jack had to try to get him to Arthur. If there was just one spark of hope left, that was enough to fight for.
When they were ready to go, they took the prisoner up to the town hall's bell tower. It was a place that could be seen from all over town, as it was one of the highest points in town. That was crucial to Jack’s plan—and the gamble he was taking, that the prisoner would not lead them into a trap or betray them.
Jack and Kate lifted the big man’s bound hands above his head while Susan kept a gun aimed squarely at his belly. Jack tied him to the chain which held the huge brass bell up, then used the fireman’s ax to smash out some of the slatted wood panels that enclosed the bell tower, exposing the bell—and the prisoner tied to it—to the outside world. It was still dark outside, but the wind had stopped blowing and the snow was no longer falling.
Once Jack had finished smashing out the wood paneling, he set down the gas lamp in front of the prisoner, so the man was illuminated and could be seen from anywhere in town.
“Remember,” Jack growled to the prisoner, who had duct tape over his mouth as a makeshift gag, “I can see you from anywhere in town, and if you’ve lied to us about where your snowmobile is, or you manage to get yourself free and you start hollering to your buddies, I’m gonna put a bullet in your stomach. I’m a real good shot, and I promise you I can hit you exactly where I want to. I’ll make sure that bullet goes where I want it to go. Not in your head or chest, but your guts, so you die slowly and painfully. You understand? You can make all the noise you want when you hear us start that snowmobile, but if you try to screw us before we get to it, you have my word that you’ll die an agonizing death.”
The man mumbled a muffled agreement and nodded. Jack had taken the snowmobile keys out of the man’s pocket, and everyone was now ready to go. They scanned the town, able to see most of the snow-thick streets from this high vantage point and did not see any sign that Mark or any of his marauders were on the prowl. They had to sleep sometime, after all, and now, in the darkest hours before dawn, it appeared that Mark and his brutes had finally slunk off to whatever shadowy places they had slept in.
“Let’s go,” Jack said.
They went to one of the lowest balconies and jumped off it into the thick drifts of snow. Nick barely made the jump, plunging face-first into a massive pile of snow. Had the snow not been there to cushion the impact of his fall, he would surely have broken his neck. Jack and Susan helped the ill young man out of the snow to his feet, and Susan helped him by allowing him to lean on her as they walked. Despite her slim, petite appearance, she was a lot stronger than she appeared and had plenty of solid core strength from her dancing. And even though Nick outweighed her by at least fifty or sixty pounds, she was able to effectively support his weight as he lurched and staggered like an inebriated drunk.
The cold outside was fierce and intense, but since they were all wearing dry clothes, they were able to bear it with far less suffering than before, when they’d had to fight through the terrible cold with icy, wet clothes sapping their strength.
“He said the snowmobiles are parked in a workshop on the western side of town. It must be Macready’s Motors,” Jack said. “It makes sense. It’s got that big open section at the front, where the snowmobiles would be sheltered from the weather.”
“He said his was the red Polaris,” Kate said as they moved quietly but swiftly through the deserted streets, knee-deep with snow. “I hope we can all fit on it.”
“If we can’t, they may have left keys in one of the other snowmobiles,” Jack said. “You still remember how to drive one, right?”
“It’s been a few years, but I think I can handle it,” Kate said uncertainly. “At least, I hope I can…”
Jack took a look at the man through his rifle scope. The bell tower, with the light burning in it, and the prisoner tied to the bell stood out like a sore thumb in the thick darkness of the night. Jack saw the man was standing still and hadn’t tried anything. He knew he was being watched and knew that Jack was dead serious about putting a bullet in his stomach in the event of a betrayal. Jack was thus confident that the man had told them the truth about the snowmobiles.
Even though there were no signs of life in the town, the snow piles were high outside most buildings, and no lights were on except the one burning in the bell tower, Jack and his family felt as if they were being watched. Every step they took felt as if it could b
e their last. All of them waited for the enemy to burst out from some nearby hiding place with guns blazing. They moved through the town with their hearts in their mouths, their senses on full alert for any sign of danger.
The journey to the west end of the town felt like it took hours—with the perceived length of the tortuous, suspense-filled journey only making things more agonizing—but finally, they reached Macready’s Motors street. The sky was still black, and there was not yet any hint of gray on the horizon, so dawn was still an hour or two away, Jack surmised. He peered through his rifle scope at the prisoner in the bell tower, who he could hardly see from this distance, and saw that the man was still silent.
They trudged quietly through the dark, snow-thick streets, getting closer to Macready’s Motors. When they were near enough to see clearly through the darkness, they saw a couple of snowmobiles parked beneath the shelter out front. Jack used his rifle scope to scout out the place. There didn’t seem to be anybody nearby or anyone guarding the snowmobiles, but he wasn’t about to take any chances.
“We have to be absolutely silent until we’re ready to ride,” Jack whispered to the others. “No talking from this point on.”
With their hearts hammering in their chests, they crept over to the snowmobiles. As the prisoner had said, one of them was a red Polaris, an early 70s model. Jack whispered to the others to wait while he went and tried the key he’d taken from the prisoner in the snowmobile. It fit the ignition switch perfectly, and he breathed out a sigh of relief. They were almost free, almost…
Jack waved his hand, signaling to the others to come over. They hurried and quietly pushed the snowmobile out of the shelter out into the snow. It was a tight fit, but he managed to squeeze everyone onto the snowmobile. The time had finally come to flee the town and get to Arthur.
Jack turned on the ignition and started up the motor. The headlamp seared a tunnel of light through the dark night. The two-stroke motor sputtered, then roared to life with a howl that tore through the silence of the night like a bomb going off. With all pretense of stealth dropped, Jack yelled out to the others, “Hang on tight!”
He cranked the throttle, and the snowmobile surged forward across the snow. He set off at high speed, heading for the main road that would take them out of town and into the mountains … and the moment he got onto it was when the first of the pillagers came running out into the street from one of the dark buildings, screaming gutturally with wrath as he fired his shotgun at the fleeing fugitives.
There was no way for Jack or any of the others to shoot back; all they could do was hang on for dear life as Jack blasted through the streets at breakneck speed. Another man threw open a window and fired a few shots at them with a big caliber revolver … and one of the bullets punched through the snowmobile’s gas tank.
Gasoline started gushing out of both the entry and exit holes the bullet had left, and Jack, racing through the streets with the throttle pinned, watched in dismay as the gas gauge began dropping precipitously. “No,” he moaned as he watched the precious fuel draining rapidly away. “No, no, no!”
He swung onto the final stretch of road that led out of town, sliding the snowmobile through the curve with the throttle wide open. Freedom and life lay ahead, with death and torture snapping at his heels … and the gas gauge was showing empty. Jack gave the throttle a crank, but instead of a roar from the motor, there was nothing but a weak, impotent splutter … and then the motor died.
Dozens of furious men came running through the darkness, their guns aimed at the fugitives on the snowmobile. “Hands on your fuckin’ heads!” one of them roared. “Do it, or we’ll gut the bitches in front of you! All a’ you, hands on your fuckin’ heads!”
Nick, overcome with weakness from his infection, dropped face-first into the snow. Jack realized there was no escape and bitterly raised his hands, as did Susan and Kate. It was over; they had been captured.
34
Jack’s nose had been broken, and blood was trickling out of his nostrils and running down his jaw into the stubble of his five-day-old beard. He could feel that one of his teeth was loose, a molar on the left of his jaw, where Mark had punched him. His mouth was full of blood, but he couldn’t spit it out because of the duct tape across his face as a makeshift gag. He, Kate, Susan, and Nick had all been tied to steel pillars in an empty workshop. Mark and his goons had given Jack and Nick a good beating, and both men’s eyes were swollen and purple, their faces cut up and bruised.
They hadn’t done anything to Kate or Susan, but Jack knew that his wife and daughter weren’t going to be safe for much longer. Mark had gleefully explained in great detail, though, the disgusting and perverted acts he and his men would perform on Kate and Susan the next day, though—acts that Jack and Nick would be forced to watch.
It wasn’t the pain of his injuries that hurt Jack the most. Instead, it was the knowledge that he had failed to protect his wife and daughter, and because of that failure, he would have to watch unspeakable things be done to them before these men would torture him and Nick to death. And with this cursed duct tape over his mouth, there wasn’t even anything he could say to Kate and Susan, who were both weeping softly, their cries and gasps muffled by the duct tape over their mouths.
He wondered bitterly if things wouldn’t have gone better for them if they had simply stayed put in the city. They would all have died eventually, of course, but starvation and thirst would have perhaps been kinder ways to go than what was about to happen.
All of them had been stripped of their weapons and most of their clothes, so they were sitting here shivering, beaten black and blue and bloody, in their underwear. Mark and his men had returned to their beds to sleep off their hangovers—they were all heavy drinkers, it seemed—and had left two men to guard the captives. Mark had promised his prisoners that he would be back to deal with them by midday, though.
They sat in somber, morose silence in the dark workshop, shivering against the cold, while the drunk guards leered at them and made macabre jokes about what they would do to them when Mark returned.
All hope was lost; there was no possible escape from this situation. Jack was highly intelligent and had been racking his brain for hours for a solution, for a way out, but there was none. That was it … this was the end.
The hours trickled by, feeling like days. Time felt, bizarrely, both sped up and slowed down simultaneously. Jack could barely bring himself to make eye contact with his wife and daughter, knowing the terrible things that were in store for them.
Finally, a few hours after soft gray light began to filter in from the outside world, Mark and his men—nine of them, making a total of thirteen including the guards—walked into the workshop.
Mark was a large, heavyset man with a barrel of a paunch and thick limbs. In his late thirties, it seemed, he was bald on top, but long, greasy, red hair, streaked with gray, grew from the back and sides of his head and hung about his shoulders. He had a face that was scarred on one side from a bad burn, with his skin looking like molten plastic, and the few teeth he had in his wide gash of a mouth were yellow and crooked. A big, bushy, red beard covered the top half of his chest, and his small green eyes were bloodshot and full of cruelty and malice.
“Top o’ the morning to ya, sunshine!” he said, smiling mockingly at Jack. “I hope you’re ready for one hell of a show,” he said. “I had me a good rest, an’ now I’m hungry, but it ain’t meat an’ potatoes I’m hungry for…” He stared with unabashed lust at Susan and slowly licked his lips.
Jack tried to roar out a cry of naked fury and struggled with all his might against the ropes that kept him bound, but his efforts were futile; there would be no escaping his bonds.
Mark slowly circled the two women, like a wolf circling its prey. “Now, how should we start this?” he asked, smiling evilly. “Maybe you boys should go to town on the woman while I watch, get me in the mood for what I’m gon’ do to the girl, huh?” He paused here to chuckle, while his men chortled and loose
ned their belts, all staring at Kate with lust dripping from their cruel eyes. “Although,” Mark said, stopping next to Susan and softly stroking her hair before sliding one of his hairy, greasy hands inside her bra, “with tender young flesh like this, I don’t need no show to get me in the mood…”
Susan screamed, her cry muffled by the tape over her mouth, and tried to writhe away from his pawing hand. Jack roared and tried to thrash and struggle, but the ropes held him fast.
Mark chuckled and withdrew his hand. “Don’t act like you don’t want it, lil’ bitch,” he whispered into Susan’s ear. “When I’m done with you, whore, you gon’ be beggin’ Daddy Mark for more, I promise you that…” He then stood up and turned to address his men. “I’m gon’ go get some whiskey an’ beer from the liquor store,” he announced. “Who wants what? Y’all can get started on the mom while I’m gone.”
He took some liquor orders from his men and then walked off, giving Susan one last grope before he left. After that, the men cut the ropes from Kate, who struggled desperately, like a trapped mountain lion, against them, kicking and screaming, but there were simply too many of them, and they pinned her down on top of a table and started pawing at her underwear.
Tears burned at Jack’s eyes as he watched this terrible act unfold, helpless to do anything to stop it. The guard nearest him laughed maniacally … but then, suddenly, the man’s laughter turned to choked gargling. Jack turned and saw the man staggering forward, gripping his throat, from which blood was gushing. A broadhead arrow had skewered it.
The moment the next guard spun around in surprise as he saw his friend pitch forward onto the ground with an arrow through his throat, another arrow came thrumming through the air from the dark shadows at the back of the workshop. It thudded home through the guard’s eye socket, and he was dead before he hit the ground. The third guard fell with an arrow through his chest.
Survive the Day Boxset: EMP Survival in a Powerless World Page 70
