Chapter 27
After Willis hotwired a green Subaru in
the police impoundment lot, they quickly headed north of out of town. “This
only has half a tank of gas but that will trim some miles off our feet at
least,” he said, speeding along the two-lane highway past sagebrush flats that
extended to the horizon. As they crested a steep incline, he slowed the vehicle
as they saw a vortex of black to their right. Thousands of ravens and vultures
were circling overhead near a small depression just below a low field of
boulders two hundred yards out from the road.
“Wonder what that’s about,” he said,
bringing the Subaru to a halt. He got out and raised his hand over his eyes to
block the sun. The raucous vocalizations from the birds was deafening as he
walked forward a few feet and stepped up on a slab of sandstone for a better
view. Eliza hopped up beside him.
“Is that what I think it is?” said Eliza
with her face contorted in fear.
Willis was silent and went back to the car
and pulled out his binoculars, scanning the sight of a distant mound that the
birds were gathered at. His cheek muscles grew taut with each passing second of
studying the sight below. He slowly lowered the binoculars while biting his
lower lip.
“Dear God.”
“What is it?” said Eliza, yanking the
binoculars from his hands and raising them up to her eyes. Before her was a
heap of men in cowboy clothing, their bullet-riddle corpses jumbled together
amidst their tangled limbs. “Jesus, there must be over fifty people.
They…they…” She swallowed hard and struggled to steady her breathing. “They
don’t even look like they had turned. Those men weren’t zombies.”
“This was a systematic elimination of the
able-bodied men in the region. I’ve seen this happen in other parts of the
world. Whoever did this had the numbers and the firepower to round everyone up
and dispose of those who would be a threat.”
“That army jeep back there and all those
spent rounds—I wonder if some group posing as the military came through here
and did this. That would have given the locals reason to lower their guard
enough.”
“By the looks of those bodies, this
probably unfolded in the last few days. We should be on the move tomorrow.”
“What about the women and children?” said
Eliza. “Where did they go?”
Willis looked at her and then back out at
the desert below. “There are some fates worse than death. When we get back to
Ft. Lewis and I can muster the forces, we’ll see to it that these
sons-a-bitches pay.”
As they turned to walk back to the Subaru,
the rumble of a heavy truck rolling up the road caused them to stop. Two hundred
yards away was an olive-drab army truck with a white star on the side door.
Willis and Eliza rushed for their vehicle. A burst of gunfire riddled the back
panel, flattening both rear tires as the large truck kept coming and plowed the
Subaru into a ditch.
As Eliza ran back alongside Willis, they
started backpedaling towards the rock slab they had been standing on as four
heavily armed men jumped out of the vehicle that had just come to an abrupt
halt.
“Admiring our handiwork, I see,” said the
lead man, who was clad in a leather bomber jacket with his pump shotgun held at
a low-ready. The other three wore a medley of ranching clothes but hardly
resembled cowboys. Each of them had an assortment of semi-auto rifles and their
disheveled, scraggly appearance gave them the look of flea-bitten hounds from a
shelter. They walked with the boldness of predators used to bringing down what
they caught in their sights.
“Hey, boss,” said a skinny man to the
leader’s right. “I get the cute hot-pocket when you’re done with her.”
“Shut up, that’s no way to talk to a
pretty lady. She looks scared,” he said with a gravelly voice and then glanced
at Willis. “But not him. He looks mighty unfriendly, like a pissed-off badger,
and I don’t like badgers very much.”
Willis and Eliza were half-squatting
behind the rock slab, which was only two feet high. They were each armed with only
their pistols. Before the four men could spread out from their initial
positions any further, Willis yanked his out and fired off two precision rounds
into the head of the leader, dropping him instantly. The other men, seemingly
unstartled, bolted to either side and began firing. Eliza fired at the skinny
man on the left, striking him twice in the chest as he shot his M4 in her
direction, sending a spray of rock shrapnel into the air beside her. Willis
dropped the third man with several rounds to the neck and chest as he was
wildly spraying his rifle in their direction, the bullets ricocheting off the
rocks near Willis, who let out a dull groan. As the fourth goon cut a wide arc
to the right of the slab, firing off a volley of rounds, Willis grabbed Eliza
and yanked her down on the ground below the rock. Willis heard the familiar
sound of a magazine reload and sprang up, firing off three rounds into the
chest of the goon. Willis staggered over, holding his side, and then dumped
another round into the head of the downed man, knowing they were probably all
wearing body armor. He checked on the other men while Eliza was standing over
the body of the skinny thug who was moaning in pain from the bludgeoning effect
of the rounds that had impacted his bulletproof vest. He was coughing and
curled on his side but still trying to reach for his rifle. She stepped on his
hand, crunching his finger bones as he wailed. She could see his meth-addled
teeth and saw a silver necklace comprised of a dozen or more wedding rings.
Her heart sank and she felt nauseous. Then
the man spit on her boot and cackled in between his moans. “You gonna kill me,
bitch? You don’t seem the type—more like a tame circus pony.”
Her hand was shaking as she raised the
pistol over his greasy face. She hesitated and glanced at the necklace and then
back into his empty eyes. “Then it’s good for me that looks can be deceiving,”
she said, pulling the trigger. Eliza felt her chest constrict and found herself
biting her lip. She forced herself to breath and then realized the battle was
over. They had made it. She felt torn between feeling a sense of gratitude for
Willis’ training and raw disgust at having killed someone in cold blood. She
knew the thug deserved the fate he met but it didn’t make dealing with the
aftermath any easier. She pulled away from the dead man and turned to see
Willis leaning against the rock slab, holding his stomach as blood soaked
through his coat.
She rushed to his side as he collapsed
next to the rock slab. He struggled to keep his eyes open, wincing as he
clutched his palm against his midsection.
Eliza kneeled down beside him and opened
his coat to examine the wound. There was a finger-sized puncture below his left
ribs and a fist-sized exit wound in his back. His breathing grew raspy and his
voice monotone as he tried to speak but only managed a whisper.
He ran his fingers along her face and then
up towards her hair, moving her dark bangs aside and looking into her eyes.
Then he reached for her hand and squeezed, sliding it down to her pistol. “Get
back to Ft. Lewis, where you belong. I’ll be walking alongside you the entire
way,” he said as he exhaled his last breath and his hand slipped off hers onto
the ground.
She sat motionless, holding him and not
feeling anything except rage. The rest of her soul was numb. She kept waiting
for tears to form and her heart to burst from her chest in anguish but the only
sensation that fueled her was a feral rage that was searing her insides.
Everything was gone. She was all alone for the first time in her life. Another
person she loved ripped away from her but all she felt inside was animalistic
rage. Eliza kept looking at him, wondering if he would come back and say
something inspiring or give her one last bit of advice but his lifeless eyes
only stared up into the sky. Her pulse was quickening and her fists kept
clenching and opening. She looked for something to pick up and shred to pieces
but instead forced herself to take a deep breath, then she lowered Willis’ head
gently to the ground. She passed her fingers along his eyelids to close them
and wiped a streak of dirt away from his cheek, running her hand along his face
until she no could no longer look at him.
Eliza removed his remaining weapons,
straightened his jacket, and then stood up. She couldn’t feel her legs or the
cold wind blowing on her neck or the tingle of the old wound on her cheek. Only
the incendiary sensation of pure hatred broiling inside her, permeating every
cell in her body like a rod of white-hot steel that has been removed from a
blacksmith’s fire.
“How dare you come into my world and
threaten everything that I love. I will fucking destroy you,” she said,
reciting Willis’ words like a religious mantra as she boldly walked to the army
truck on the road, her head tilted up. “Fucking destroy them all.”
****
The camp was located below a rocky escarpment
at the river’s edge. Eliza could see a single plume of campfire smoke issuing
skyward as the cliff walls on the other side of the river were painted orange
from the setting sun.
She didn’t stop to recon the area ahead.
It never crossed her mind, not at this moment in time. She didn’t think of her
own survival, or if she even stood a chance or what numbers of men were in the
camp. All that she saw was the view ahead through the windshield, her entire
being catapulted forward in an adrenaline-soaked rage that was like a splinter
in her mind. She ground her teeth together, letting out a guttural growl as she
thrust the accelerator into the floor, barreling the truck down the dirt road
towards the cluster of army vehicles ahead.
The five men were standing around the
campfire holding beer cans, their rifles resting on nearby stumps as they
casually talked and occasionally glanced at the returning vehicle making its
way back.
As the plumes of dust spewing out from the
truck’s rear wheels increased, she gripped the steering wheel tighter and
leaned forward, an animalistic growl emanating from her lips while she sped
past a stationary jeep to her right. The wide-eyed men began yelling and
waving, thinking it was one of their misguided friends, and then the bewildered
group began diving off to either side. As she dove from the moving rig, the
truck slammed into a cluster of aspen trees near the campfire while wood and
metal crunched and groaned. Eliza tumbled head over heels in the grass and came
up near the road, forty feet away. She removed her MP-5 and fired a volley of
rounds into the gas tank of the truck, watching it explode into a mushroom of
flame.
The two men nearest the blast were killed
instantly, their bodies flung into the burning trees. A larger man to her right
tried to reach for his rifle but backed away from the intense heat and ran for
a jeep. With a fevered stare, Eliza turned and strafed him in the ribs with a
dozen rounds. The man crumpled instantly and tried crawling into a clump of
bushes. Eliza darted over to him and viciously slammed the butt of her rifle
into the back of his head.
Above the roar of the fire, she heard the
crack of bullets sail by her head and slam into an oak tree behind her. She
turned and saw a barrel-chested thug with a .45 in his hand staggering towards
her. He was firing wildly and swearing at her. She swung her rifle and fired
but only heard the click of a dry weapon. Robotically, she flung it to her side
and smoothly withdrew her Sig-Sauer as she had done a thousand times in
practice. She squeezed off two rounds into the big man’s chest. As she
approached the downed figure at close range, leveling the barrel to his
forehead, she felt a sting on her left shoulder blade.
Eliza winced and dropped her pistol then
turned and saw a bearded goon with an upraised knife that was arcing towards
her face. She dropped low and kicked her attacker in the side of the knee,
causing him to buckle and fall to her right. The enraged man kept slashing at
her while trying to regain his footing. She blocked the first strike but his
next one caught her and the tip of the blade sliced along her right forearm.
Eliza sidestepped and then kicked dirt in his face. He swatted wildly, rubbing
his face. Then she dove for her pistol and turned around to stand up but the
man had already closed the distance and rushed her, grabbing the pistol with
one hand while he raised the blade to jab her face. She head-butted him,
hearing his nose cartilage crunch and then kneed him repeatedly in the groin
until he released his grip and crumpled to the ground. She swiftly lowered the
pistol and fired off two rounds into his head.
Eliza looked behind her for movement but
only saw the dance of flames upon the rock ledge, matching the fury inside her.
She walked over to the other bodies to make sure they were dead. Then she
headed to a jeep on the outskirts of the treeline and leaned against the front
quarterpanel, her body sagging as her hands went limp, barely noticing the sour
taste in her mouth. She tilted her head in a grimace, feeling the wicked sting
of pain emanating from her shoulder and forearm as the adrenaline in her ebbed away.
She slumped to the ground next to the tire and watched the conflagration for
what seemed like hours, occasionally closing her eyes, unsure if she had fallen
asleep or awakened in some distant reality.
In her exhaustion, she dreamt of people
emerging from the shadows, staring at her, whispering, pointing. She shook her
head and rolled her eyes until she could focus on the surreal world of
smoldering metal and charred wood before her. Then she realized the voices were
people tethered to trees in the woods to her left. She could make out two, no
three, maybe four sooty faces dressed in rags, wearing collars around their
necks. She stood up, wincing at the terrible pain in her shoulder and forearm.