“They can fend for themselves. I’m going to save Coop, and you’re going to help.”
She twisted her panicked expression between Jamie, the gun, and the eastern shoreline.
“Help me, Sammie. Now.”
“I’m sorry,” she said. Her voice cracked when she added, “Forgive me. I always loved you.”
She grabbed the pistol from his hand and dropped the flashlight in a move so fast he didn’t have a chance to blink. She ran toward the lake house. Jamie lost his hold on Michael, and they crumpled to the ground together. Jamie shouted after Sammie, but he didn’t expect her to respond. He held tight to the last person in the world he could trust.
22
J AMIE MANAGED TO reach his feet and shoulder Michael onward while keeping a wobbly flashlight focused on the trail. He sobbed because he didn’t see how help would come soon enough to save his best friend.
“I can’t let you do this, dude,” he mumbled, his voice choked. “If I’d just let them kill me when they had the chance, you’d be OK. Please, Coop. Don’t do this.”
Jamie’s lungs resisted his every step. The weight seemed overwhelming, as if Jamie never exercised a day in his life. Michael weighed ten pounds less, so Jamie didn’t understand at first why his runner’s body no longer had the stamina to move faster. Then he remembered what everyone told him about the program running through his DNA. If it was reshaping him, perhaps it was tearing down his organs.
A minute after Sammie turned and ran, Jamie heard gunfire from behind. The bursts of machine-gun blasts splintered across the still waters of the lake like hundreds of small explosions, each muffled and somehow drawn out as if delivered in slow motion. At times the gunfire snapped the air like thunder from a distant storm.
Jamie didn’t turn around. He thought of Ben but couldn’t bear to consider what might be happening to those left behind. The chaos droned for a seeming eternity, as if whole armies were battling to the death. He cared only about Michael, so he trudged onward.
He panted. “They’re killing each other. It’s what they deserve.”
The lake bent to the north, and as the trail wound around, Jamie grabbed a flicker of hope. He saw a pale night light, perhaps no more than a hundred yards ahead, atop a pole at the foot of a dock. Trees blocked his view up the slope, but Jamie knew he was approaching the Hugginses’ closest neighbor. He remembered the house from his summer hikes.
“They’ll call 911, Coop. We’ll get help.” Jamie didn’t believe his own words. “We’ve gotten out of a mess before, Coop. We’ll do it again. Dude. Just hang with me.”
Jamie pressed onward, trying to block out the insanity behind him and focusing instead on the last great escape he and Michael made together.
“Remember that night, Coop?” He whispered. “Autry’s body shop?”
Jamie focused on the terrifying thrill of an adventure they experienced two days after Michael’s fourteenth birthday. In the middle of the night, they ducked as they raced between cars – some of them heaps of junk – behind the decades-old body shop on Coverdale Street.
“There it is.” Michael pointed to a 1979 brown Impala. “Just came in yesterday.” Michael kept track of the inventory as he walked past each day to and from school. The boys’ decision to become car thieves was easy, after countless plays of a video game called Grand Theft Auto and any movie with “fast” and “furious” in the title. On this first escapade, Jamie brought along a coat hanger. He claimed the driver’s seat.
Jamie removed the casing under the dashboard and spent five minutes trying to rearrange the wires. The engine kicked in on his fifth try. He placed his hands on the wheel, registered a deep sigh, and froze.
“So, uh, tell me something, dude. How do you drive a car?”
Michael busted out laughing. He couldn’t control himself and banged his head against the passenger window.
After Michael’s shorthand course – finger-pointing while referring to gears and pedals as “this here” or “that there” – Jamie shifted out of park, pressed his foot on the gas and rammed into the back-right corner of a 1985 Chevy pickup. Five minutes later, the Impala found its way to Highway 39.
After a half mile, Michael switched the headlights on.
Their first twenty miles, most of which they spent on unpaved back roads, were easy. They switched roles several times, experienced the joy of driving on the wrong side of the road, and concluded they would become outstanding car thieves. They ignored speed limit signs when they returned to Highway 39 - until they passed an Alabama state trooper. They knew they were in trouble the instant the trooper hit the brakes and swung about.
Michael made a simple plea. “Dude, this ain’t the way to start our career. Hit it.”
Jamie forced the car to give all it could. That was enough to top 90. Fear and exaltation fueled Jamie as he gripped the wheel with frozen hands.
Michael told Jamie they had to lose this trooper before reaching town, so he hatched a plan. With bulging eyes, Michael told Jamie to get ready to tap the brakes, surge around the bend coming up and be ready to make a hard left into Haley Watson’s cornfield.
Jamie’s exhilaration blocked out the blurry shapes whipping by on either side of the road. He rounded the bend, waited for Coop’s instructions, and turned the wheel hard. The Impala launched for a second, swerved as it slammed to the ground, and weaved across Haley Watson’s front yard. The boys screamed and whooped as Jamie regained control, spun out the car and hit the gas. He found Watson’s road to the back fields.
Jamie felt like any slew of good ol’ boys he’d seen on television escaping from a dumb Southern sheriff. Not bad for a 14-year-old, he thought. Not bad at all.
He took a hard right into the pea fields, swerved again and drove the Impala into a shallow ditch and left it there, idling. They took off on foot. Only when they left the farms behind and found themselves in Michael’s neighborhood less than two blocks from his house did they stop to gather their breath. They knocked fists and smiled.
“They’re gonna lock us up one day,” Jamie whispered.
“Gotta catch us first,” Michael said. They couldn’t stop laughing.
Jamie treasured that night. They were partners in everything since the day they met on the Alamander River, and Jamie refused to allow that partnership to die. He trudged onward lakeside, even as the gunfire stopped, not thinking of the possible carnage.
His lungs burned. He heard footsteps. Suddenly, Michael became much lighter, and Jamie’s knees stopped wobbling. He shined the flashlight across his friend’s chest.
Trails of tears fell from Sammie as she reinforced Michael.
“You were right,” she said, her lips trembling. “There’s nothing I could do.”
She held the pistol in her right hand, pointed to the ground. Jamie wanted to lash out, but her tears reminded him of someone he grew up with, someone fragile and loyal, sensitive and shy. She was his angel at the window three hours ago, and now she stood where he needed her.
“Jamie, I’m …”
“Don’t say a word. Just help me.”
They powered through the final distance. The neighbor’s house sat on a slope fifty yards above them. They saw no evidence of life from inside, only another pale nightlight beside the driveway, which was empty. They laid Michael down and searched their surroundings for options. The dockside light illuminated an outboard.
“Stay here,” Sammie said. “I’ll see if anyone’s home.”
The deadened look in her eyes told Jamie what he already assumed – they weren’t going to find help here. As Sammie disappeared around the side of the house, Jamie scanned the lake shore as far as he could see. The nearest lights were a quarter mile off. He turned the flashlight on Michael and placed his fingers over his friend’s neck. He knew he’d find no pulse.
Instead, he felt a beat. Michael’s chest rose and fell. He was alive, but this couldn’t last forever. That’s when Jamie realized what he had to do. Just before Sammie returned, yelling that no one
was home, Jamie gathered up Michael and moved him toward the dock.
“What are you doing?” Sammie said as she helped. “There’s nowhere else to …”
“Austin Springs. There’s a hospital. Right?”
“Yes. I think there’s a small one. But that’s too far. It’s on the south end of the lake.”
“Right. About what … five miles?”
Jamie pointed to the outboard. Sammie shook her head.
“No, Jamie. This won’t work. It’s too far. We don’t even know if there’s enough gas. I’ll run to the next house. We’ll have better luck.”
“Forget it, Sammie. We’re doing this. You coming or what?”
She didn’t have a chance to answer. In the blink of an eye, the sun rose. A second later, the ground shook.
23
A GATHA WITNESSED HER plan unfold perfectly. Jonathan and Christian fed the lakeside house full of bullets, a swarm of death descending from the sky, while Agatha and Arthur waited behind parked cars, their rifles aimed at the front door. The rousing stir of weapons fire percolated Agatha’s blood and energized her in a way she had not felt since combat decades ago in the Unification Guard. The inhabitants fled the only way they could. When Walt and Ben raced outside into the shadows, Agatha fired. Arthur Tynes and Dexter Cobb followed suit.
Their targets stumbled. Ben appeared to fall down the steps, and Agatha was certain of a hit. Walt sprayed automatic fire in return then leaped and disappeared behind the steps. Agatha ducked as the glass from the car’s windows flew in shards all around her. When she rose and aimed, she couldn’t find her targets. She called Jonathan.
“Cease fire,” Agatha yelled. When the guns went silent, Agatha continued, but at a whisper. “Bring the helicopter over the house. Focus on the front entry. Our targets are pinned down. Finish them.”
The chopper’s roar, somewhat muffled from the lakeside, now exploded with intensity. Agatha shielded her eyes as the searchlight showered them. Above, pilot Jonathan redirected its beam to a tiny area, bathing the deck and steps in light that rivaled the sun at high noon. Machine-gun fire resumed, splintering wood planks and shattering glass from the front windows.
Agatha watched with an uncomfortable blend of relish that no human could survive such an onslaught yet with considerable remorse that a diplomatic resolution was never found. She walked around the car and exposed her position, her weapon chest-high.
She yelled into the phone. “Cease fire. We’re done.”
The hail of bullets ended. A few shards of glass tinkled to the ground. Only the rhythmic roar of the chopper broke the night air. The threesome paused as they approached the deck. Arthur dropped, his weapon extended, preparing to fire beneath the deck. Dexter raced past and aimed his rifle into the back corner where his targets were pinned. Agatha thought about who would be lying dead inside. Her heart skipped as adrenaline surged.
“The future will not be served this way, Walter,” she said.
However, anxiety set in as they prepared to enter the lake house. The men who were pinned down vanished.
They examined the foundation beneath the front deck and found an opening just wide enough for a man to squirm through. Boards lay next to a camouflaged secret entry to a bunker. They entered the house with weapons chest-high and found Arlene in the back bedroom. The discovery shook Agatha to her core.
“This was not deserved,” Agatha said in a somber tone. “I should have sent you straight to the fold, sweet one. I apologize.”
She refused to surrender to emotion. They raced through the bedrooms, back to the kitchen, flinging open every door, their fingers pressed against the triggers. Agatha saw a final opportunity in the kitchen, not more than eight feet from Grace Huggins’ body. A white wooden door, shot up badly and still clinging to its hinges, hung ajar. They looked at each other.
Agatha mouthed the word, “Bunker.”
Dexter entered first, shining his light at the same level as his M16. He sprayed the beam across the cellar. He didn’t need ten seconds to complete his survey.
“Nothing, Agatha. A few shelves with jars. Looks like food storage. No place to hide.”
Agatha cast her own light on the subject and turned to Dexter. “Are you blind?”
She focused her light on a door at the back wall. A chain was cut and a padlock lay on the floor. Agatha should have known he would have an escape route. He was always too detail-oriented and far too paranoid of an attack by The United Green.
She ordered Arthur back to the car, to examine the maps they confiscated from the park ranger’s office and consider the best strategy for pursuit. Then she stepped out onto the deck overlooking the lake, putting her own thoughts in order and phoning Jonathan.
“Begin an aerial search. They’re underground, but they have to emerge.” Then it hit her – the obvious twist she should have seen from miles away. Her words fell from suddenly trembling lips. “Walter would not create an escape tunnel unless he …”
She heard Dexter yell from the cellar.
“Going after them. We have to move.”
Her trigger hand shook, the rifle slipping from her grip. Time stopped, and blood drained from her face. The phone dropped to the deck as she turned and yelled, but she knew her effort would be futile. She spent years assuming Walter would betray her one day. Now she felt powerless.
“Dexter, no …”
The light could have blinded her, but the concussion of the blast ensured Agatha wasn’t on her feet long enough to see anything. The house disintegrated in fire. Agatha took flight, her body thrown end-over-end without malice into the lake. The instant she smacked the water face-first, Agatha fell into a deep, dark and unfamiliar peace.
24
A FTER BEN FELT a bullet rip through above his right collar bone, Walt grabbed him and dragged him beneath the front deck. As bullets ricocheted around them, Walt pulled away a fake front. Walt grabbed his rifle, tossed it through the hole, and ordered Ben to move. Ben pushed himself through the opening and fell to the floor of the cellar. The cellar glowed thanks to a gas lantern on the work table.
Walt grabbed the lantern and a small sack beside it. “Grace’s final sacrifice,” he said with no emotion. “She’ll be remembered.”
Ben ignored the warm blood rolling down his chest or the throbbing pain in his chest as Walt handed him the lantern, removed bolt cutters from the sack and proceeded to break the chain on the metal escape door’s handle. When the chain snapped, Walt gave a simple order.
“Move.”
The earthen tunnel was not wide enough for two men to run abreast. Walt told Ben to keep the lantern and take point. They sprinted. Weapons fire disappeared. Ben’s amazement grew the farther they ran. He felt the tunnel shifting upward, matching the local topography if headed inland. They ran for five minutes before reaching the end. A metal ladder greeted them, leaning against the tunnel’s face, its top rung only a couple feet beneath a door. Or so Ben thought.
Walt set down his rifle and the sack then ascended the ladder. He braced his head against what Ben now realized was a sheet of wood. The hulk of a man spread both hands and heaved. He grunted as he forced the wood away from the opening, which was no bigger than the fake front on the lake house. Walt backed down halfway and ordered Ben to hand him the lantern and sack.
Ben saw stars in a clear sky. When he rose to his feet, he was lost. They were in the woods, surrounded by low brush.
“This way,” Walt said, motioning them forward.
Ben stared out at Lake Vernon, still cast in darkness. However, the first pale inkling of dawn emerged from beyond the eastern shore. What got Ben’s attention, however, was the familiar roar of a helicopter. He glanced off to his right then down through an opening in the trees. The chopper that shot up the lake house hovered, its searchlight a narrow, evil beam. Ben saw part of the house, though most of it was shrouded behind trees.
Walt reached into the sack and removed a metallic device with a single red button in the center.
Ben recognized it immediately.
“So much for the quiet life,” Walt said before extending an antenna.
That’s when he pressed the button.
Ben shielded his eyes at the initial blast. When he lowered his arm, he saw a yellow glow where the lake house once stood. A few flames rose as high as the trees. Thunder cracked all around, and Ben felt the concussion. His jaw dropped.
“Holy mother …” he whispered. “What the hell did you use?”
“Enough to do the job.”
Walt revealed a pair of binoculars, yet another goodie from the sack of surprises. The giant man turned his attention away from the former lake house and focused the lenses east. The helicopter was flying erratically, no doubt impacted by the force of the explosion. It spun, the searchlight rotating like a lighthouse beacon. In seconds, however, the helicopter stabilized and returned to a position above the fiery ruins, no doubt scanning for survivors.
“Time to move,” Walt said, dropping the binoculars around his neck and turning. He raced back through the woods, not bothering to ask whether Ben planned to follow. They ran past the tunnel entry, where Walt snagged the lantern. “This way.”
“Give me a clue, Walt. What’s the plan? How did you know …?”
The lantern’s light fell upon the answer. They passed through the brush into a clearing that Ben first took to be a hiking trail. He didn’t need long to realize this was too wide and well-managed. A one-lane road disappeared to his left down a gentle slope. Moreover, Ben couldn’t believe what he saw to his right. A wood-plank structure looked to be a storage shed, but its isolation made no sense. The road ended here, as if at a cabin. Walt dropped the lantern beside the door, took out his keys, and opened the lock.
“This is yours, too?” Ben asked. “You own …”
“Yes,” Walt said, his sigh of annoyance obvious. He opened the double doors and shone the light on a black SUV. “Time to go, Sheridan.”
“But … Huggins, where are we gonna go? Huh? We just gonna keep running? We don’t even know where Jamie and Sammie are, or if they’re even alive.”
The Impossible Future: Complete set Page 11
