45
While ‘the calm before the storm,’ had become a cliché, fewer people talked about the calm
after
the storm. But people who had seen active duty in war zones understood it. There was a moment in every battle, whether it be when the enemy was dead, or you were being carried home on a Black Hawk, when reality snapped back in place. Some men wept. Some told jokes. Peter usually fell asleep, whether he was in a foxhole or riding in a chopper. Once safe, his body forced a recharge. Sometimes he fought it. Stayed awake because danger could rear up again. But he always felt the Sandman tugging him toward slumber.
But now, twenty minutes after leaving a second farmhouse in shambles, he was still on high alert. There had been no sign of pursuit and no danger on the road ahead, that he could see. He wasn’t sure if it was just the nature of what they’d just faced, or that he’d killed his wife, or that Ella had been taken from him, but his nerves weren’t settling.
And neither were the kids’. He glanced over at Jakob, whose wide eyes scanned back and forth. The boy gripped a shotgun the way little kids do their teddy bears. An M16 sat between the seats and two spare magazines lay in the center console. The girls in the back both had handguns and spare magazines, all of it resting on the seat between them. Anne hadn’t spoken a word since leaving, and Alia only offered the occasional direction, keeping them off the main roads.
Peter felt a strange parental need to start up a conversation, to help the kids normalize after seeing their parents killed or kidnapped. But the only words that came to mind were things like, ‘Give me a sitrep,’ or, ‘Everyone report in.’ He was in full military mode, his mind reverted back to his CSO training—except the three people sharing the homemade technical with him were children, not warriors.
Calm down
, he told himself, realizing that what he was feeling might be his old PTSD rearing back up. But the danger he felt was real. It was constant. The ‘P’ no longer stood for ‘Post.’ The danger was Present. And the stress was necessary.
It sharpened the senses.
Made him more aware.
And that was how he knew they were coming. He felt the slight pulsing in pressure before the sound actually reached his ears. The helicopters were coming back.
Coming for Anne,
he thought, glancing back at the girl who still hadn’t heard the approaching choppers.
“Alia,” he said, trying to sound calm. “Is there a town around here?” They needed to get off the road. The trees lining the winding road would provide some cover, but not for long if the choppers were flying high. With nothing else moving on the roads, they would be easy to spot.
Alia leaned forward, looking out the windshield. “Take your next right. Not far after that. Maybe a mile.” She leaned back in her seat, back to watching the passing trees and strips of different crops growing between them.
Anne showed no reaction at all.
But Jakob knew something was up. Peter looked at his son, and feigned a cheek scratch, then he tapped his ear. Jakob didn’t move, but sucked in a quick breath. He heard it, too.
Peter took the right turn and accelerated, pushing the needle past what he thought was a safe limit, but he did it slow enough that it went unnoticed. He was hoping to find a place to hide before the girls knew they were in danger.
But that wasn’t going to be possible.
He glanced in the rearview and saw three dark specks in the distance. The pilots would have already seen them.
Should have stayed straight,
he thought, but there was no way to know where the choppers were.
“What’s that?” Anne sat up straight, looking both ways.
“Company,” Peter said, trying to sound nonchalant.
Anne turned around in her seat and looked out the rear window. “It’s Mom.”
“And the men with her,” Peter said. “We’re going to hide.”
“Wait,” Alia said. “The town is to
hide
in?”
“Yeah,” Peter said, but then he didn’t need to ask why. The trees cleared, and the small town came into view. The word ‘small’ didn’t do it justice. There was a brick town hall, a combined convenience store and gas station, a few storefronts converted from houses lining the street and a small brick church. Corn grew from the flat roofs of the gas station and the city hall. The wooden structures looked ready to crumble, and probably were before the Change. There was only one option: town hall. The building would most likely have a fallout shelter, so it was more of a last-stand location than a place to hide, but it was better than facing them out in the open. And they had enough guns to make it one hell of a last stand.
“Listen up,” he said. “Girls, take the pink backpacks and plastic bags. Jakob, you take the duffle bag. I’m going to—” Peter glanced in the rearview, expecting to see the three helicopters rushing toward him. Instead he found an open pair of long-toothed jaws reaching out for the back of the truck.
“Whoa!” he shouted and crushed his foot down on the gas pedal. The big truck lurched forward as the teeth snapped together behind them. He put them on a course straight through town and accelerated while weaving in and out of abandoned vehicles. A second look back revealed three Stalkers, giving chase, leaping obstacles, their chests expanded and armored plates waving back and forth. But the creatures maintained a safe distance.
When they cruised through the town’s only intersection, where a now-dead yellow light hung, he looked left and right. To the left, a large, lone Stalker kept pace. On the right were two more.
We’re being herded.
But toward what?
Then he saw it. The inevitable structure residing in or near the center of every town. The red brick church with a white steeple looked like the most well maintained building in town...until the walls crumbled out into the road, shoved by a thirty-foot-long Stalker with a broad, powerful chest, wicked teeth and ten foot, rigid sails down its back. It stepped into the road while the steeple crashed down behind it.
Their path had been blocked, with Stalkers on all sides. These things were human once, and it still showed.
The big Stalker stared the truck down and let out a bellow that shook Peter’s insides. He considered ramming the thing’s leg, and probably would have if he were alone, but the moment the truck stopped, he and the kids were screwed.
He slowed the vehicle as the smaller Stalkers closed in. “Windows down!”
Wind blasted into the cab as all four windows descended. “Pick a target!”
Driving while aiming an M-16 across his lap at the Stalker on his left wasn’t easy. It would be even harder once he pulled the trigger. But he didn’t think Alia, who was sitting behind him, would get the job done with her handgun. And he needed the Stalker on their left to be gone in about five seconds, so he could veer away from the big one.
He opened his mouth, then shouted, “Now!” but the word was drowned out by the sudden arrival of the three helicopters and the rattle of their machine guns. The Stalker on the left burst in a cloud of red, cut down from above. He heard bullets rake the ground to the truck’s right, but he didn’t see whether the Stalkers had been hit.
He cut the wheel hard to the left and hit the brakes. Tires squealed as they started to pull off the road into a field of corn that might have once been a park. But a fresh barrage of gunfire pinged against the truck’s bed and struck one of the rear tires. There was a loud hiss, and then a grinding of the rim on pavement. He braked hard, hoping to spare the axel from permanent damage. If the spare was still in one piece, they could have working wheels inside of ten minutes, assuming they survived that long.
The big Stalker charged from the side, head lowered, jaws opened wide enough to engulf a portion of the cab. It would peel back the ceiling like a pistachio and find the meat inside.
Bullets traced a line across its snout, making it wince and pull up short. A helicopter roared past, and the monster leapt at it, snapping at the air. But then it turned and fled as a second barrage of gunfire opened up. Four Stalkers took off running, cutting through the fields that they were now too big to hide in, heading toward the distant woods. Two of the choppers peeled away in pursuit, firing at the creatures, driving them away. The third, the blue Black Hawk holding Kenyon and Ella, was landing behind them.
“What are they doing?” Alia asked. “Are they saving us?”
“They’re here because of me,” Anne said, coming to the same conclusion Peter had.
“We can rush them,” Jakob said, pumping the shotgun. “Hit them before they land.”
It was a simple plan, and it would work. But Ella was in the helicopter, and the moment they opened fire, the other two would swing back around. And there would be no hiding from them.
“You have to give me to them,” Anne said.
“No way,” Jakob said.
“Not going to happen,” Peter added.
“Then what?” Anne asked, indignant. “We’re just going to sit here and see what they do? You know how this is going to end. The only way of avoiding it is to let me go.”
So much like her mother...
When he didn’t reply, she grumbled something, grabbed hold of the ceiling-mounted handle and lifted herself up. She swung out the window, feet first, landed on the pavement and headed for the settling chopper before Peter could reply.
He and Jakob exited the truck in unison, Peter with the M16, Jakob with the shotgun. Both took aim at the chopper, one protecting his daughter, the other his sister. They’d both lost and gained a family member today. Peter was determined not to lose another, and he could see the same determination in his son. Jakob had changed a lot. Was becoming a survivor. But unlike Ella’s breed of survivor, neither of them wanted to let go of the things they loved.
The side of the chopper slid open. Ella climbed out first, followed by Kenyon, who had a knife to her throat. Mackenzie, the Marine, was the last out, looking uncomfortable, but aiming his weapon just the same.
“Same rules as before,” Kenyon said. “I take what I want. You and your boy get to live.” He glanced at the corn fields where the choppers were still chasing the Stalkers.
Chasing, but not killing. They’re letting the Stalkers live so they can kill us.
It was a cruel fate. A bullet would be merciful in comparison to being eaten alive.
“Deal,” Anne said, hands raised.
“Stop,” Peter said to her.
“Sometimes, to survive, you have to—”
“Bullshit,” Jakob said.
“Boys,” Kenyon said. “If you don’t play along, everyone dies. Well, maybe not me, but everyone you care about, including yourselves. So, they can come with me, live cushy lives back in San Francisco, and you two can live for however long you manage, or you can all become juicy Rattletail snacks.”
“I said, ‘
deal
.’” Anne continued forward. “I can speak for myself.”
Ella said nothing. She just watched her daughter, their eye-contact never wavering.
Damn it.
Peter couldn’t think of a solution beyond the options Kenyon had laid out. With Anne along for the ride willingly, there was nothing he could do to stop them. If he fired at Kenyon, he might hit Ella. If he fired on Mackenzie, Kenyon still had Ella as a human shield. But if he let them leave, the Stalkers would likely return before he finished changing the truck’s ruined tire. In both scenarios, he, Jakob and Alia died. But in one of them, Ella and Anne lived.
Jakob lowered the shotgun. Even he knew they had no choice.
Anne walked behind Kenyon, stood beside Mackenzie and stood like an at-ease soldier, hands behind her back.