Ally panicked. She wasn't sure what was going on, but she knew she couldn't let herself be found. She began running and within seconds was down again. This time her knees took the brunt of the fall. Ignoring the pain, she got up and ran, choosing the densest part of the forest to stay concealed.
She ran with limbs slapping her face and brush tearing at her clothes. The muscles in her ankle were burning from the fall, there was a stitch in her side that hurt when she drew breath, but she didn't stop, and she never looked back.
Just as she was reaching the end of her endurance, she saw the ATV. She didn't take time to push it out of the brush where she'd hidden it but instead leapt into the seat and started it up. Sobbing with relief as the motor revved, she put it in gear and took off.
The ATV flew out of the trees with Ally on it as if it had been shot from a gun. She went airborne over the ditch before landing hard in the road. It took all her skills to stay upright, and when she finally gained control, she rode off down the mountain as fast as the four-wheeler would take her.
One mile passed, then another and another, and just when she was convinced that she was going to make it, the engine began to sputter and the ATV began to slow, until finally it rolled to a stop.
"No, no, no," Ally muttered, and slapped the steering wheel with both hands.
She turned the key, trying to start it again, but all she got for her trouble was a sputter and a pop. That was when she noticed the fuel gauge. It was sitting on Empty.
She turned around, her heart hammering against her breast as she searched the road behind her. There was nothing there, but she thought she could hear the sound of a truck engine coming down the grade. Fear lent her new strength as she leapt off the ATV and once again rolled it off the road into the trees. This time, when she ran, she was running for her life.
It was almost one-thirty in the afternoon when Wes reached Dooley Brown's mailbox. He gave it a thump as he passed, then headed up the driveway, thinking of what he had in the refrigerator that he could eat without having to cook. He had the key in the lock and was turning the knob when he heard someone scream.
The skin crawled on the back of his neck as his mind slammed him back to the day of the bombing. Women had been crying and screaming then, but not Margie. She'd never had a chance to scream.
He turned abruptly, only to realize he wasn't at Fort Benning, after all. Instead, he was standing on the doorstep and watching Ally Monroe coming out of the trees. The braid had come undone, and her hair was flying out behind her like a sunlit veil. There was a tear in her shirt and blood on her face, but it was the terror in her scream that sent him toward her.
He caught her in midair, taking the full weight of her body as she clung to him in terror. Her arms were wrapped around his neck, her legs around his waist. Her breath was coming in short gasps and jerks, and she was trembling so hard that she couldn't speak.
"Ally! What happened? Talk to me! Did someone hurt you? Was it Storm?"
As soon as he mentioned the name, she moaned and hid her face against his neck. At first he thought she was just crying, but then he realized she was saying the same thing over and over again.
"Hide me," she begged. "Hide me...hide me...hide me."
Wes tightened his hold as he bolted for the house. The door was still ajar as he shoved his way in, then turned just as quickly to kick the door shut. He locked it behind him, then carried her to the sofa. Even as he was running his hands over her body to check for wounds, he could see that she was in shock. Her pupils were dilated, and she was bordering on unconscious.
There was blood on her shirt and scratches all over her face and arms, but he couldn't find a mortal wound anywhere.
"Ally...I need you to talk to me. Can you tell me what's wrong?"
"My brothers...dead birds...dead squirrels...dead rabbits and skunks. Big deer...all dead...everything is dead." Then she pointed toward the door. "He's coming. Hide. We have to hide."
"Who's coming, Ally? Is it Storm?"
She moaned and then covered her face.
He took that as a yes and ran to the windows. When he was sure both the road and the yard were still clear, he made a quick sweep through his house, making sure everything was locked down, then ran back to the living room.
Ally was nowhere in sight.
His heart stopped.
The doors were still locked, so she couldn't be gone. A sudden flash of fear jabbed deep in his gut as he thought about her dead in his arms. Then he cursed, frustrated with the part of him that kept shifting from past to present. That was Margie, not Ally, who was dead. He shook off the fear and ran through the house, calling her name.
He found her down on her belly beside the bed and at first thought she trying to hide beneath it. He dropped down beside her.
"Ally..."
"The rifle. Uncle Doo's rifle."
Wes's eyes widened. He'd been sleeping on a gun?
"Under the bed?"
"Yes! Yes!" Then she sat up and grabbed Wes by both arms. "Something's wrong up there. Something terrible that he doesn't want anyone to know."
She covered her face with her hands and started to shake.
Wes dropped flat on his belly, then reached beneath the bed. Within seconds, he felt the barrel of a rifle, then the stock. It was tied to the frame! He yanked at the ropes. The rifle fell to the floor. He dragged it out, only to find it was unloaded.
"Ally?"
She heard him calling her name, but she couldn't make herself focus enough to look up.
Wes grabbed her by the shoulders.
"Ally! The gun isn't loaded. Where is the ammunition?"
She pointed beneath the bed again, this time toward the headboard.
Within seconds, Wes was back on his belly. He felt the first box almost instantly, and as he was dragging it out, found a second.
He spilled shells out onto the floor and loaded the gun where he sat.
"Stay here," he said shortly, and moments later he was gone.
Ally heard the front door open, then she heard it shut. By the time she got to her feet and into the front room, Wes was nowhere in sight. Scared out of her mind, she dragged herself into the kitchen, got a butcher knife from the drawer and then crawled into the pantry. With the door slightly ajar, she would be able to hear.
Then a new fear hit her. Exactly what was it that she expected to hear? Wes coming back, of course, but what if he didn't? What if Roland Storm saw him first and ambushed him?
"Lord help us," Ally prayed. Besides being scared out of her mind that Storm might get to her, she couldn't bear to think of anything happening to Wes.
If only she had a phone to call the sheriff. Then she groaned. Exactly what would she tell him if she did call—that Roland Storm had hired her brothers to harvest a crop that had ants all over it? He hadn't threatened her. Truth was, he was the one who had a grievance. She had trespassed. She could mention the dead animals, but the sheriff would probably tell her to call the EPA in case there was bad water in the area. She had nothing concrete to tell him, even if she did have a phone. At that point, she started to cry.
"Please, God...keep my brothers safe—and let Wes Holden come back."
Wes ran out of his house with the rifle in his hand and ran straight into his past. Before he'd passed the mailbox, the trees and bushes had turned into sand dunes and the ditches had become bunkers.
He started up the road with the rifle held loosely at his side, running at a crouched lope. A small crop duster was buzzing the treetops as it made a wide loop to fly back to its target, but in Wes's mind, it was an Iraqi bomber. He looked up, watched the clouds turning into heat-seekers and went belly down in the ditch. The heat of the sun on the back of his neck turned into burns from a flash fire, and the screech of a hunting hawk turned into a dying man's screams. He buried his face in the crook of his arm, waiting for the barrage to pass.
His heart was still pounding as he raised himself up on his elbows, and as he did, a terrapin poked its head out of its shell only a few feet in front of him. For Wes, it was like turning off one switch and turning on another. All of a sudden, the bunker morphed back into a ditch, and the sand dunes into trees and hills.
"God in heaven," he muttered, and got up. He stared back at the house, trying to reconcile what was real with what was not.
Ally was real, and she was in trouble. There had been blood and scratches all over her face and clothes. She was hurt. Someone was after her.
Roland Storm.
He heard the sound of a truck engine coming over the hill, coming fast—too fast.
It had to be Storm.
"Please, God...if You're there, keep me sane."
He stepped out of the ditch and into the middle of the road, then took aim.
Storm was in a panic. Everything was going wrong. The brothers were out of control. He'd been about to send them home when they'd pointed out the bird in flight. Something had startled it from its roost, and while it could have been almost anything, at this point, he couldn't afford to take chances. He'd left Danny and Porter to themselves as he headed into the woods.
Once he'd broached the tree line, he'd been appalled by the number of dead animals. They were everywhere. All sizes and all species. From insects to birds to the warm-blooded mammals, they had all become infected.
"Oh, shit," Roland muttered. He'd been in the act of abandoning his search when he'd seen the first footprint. Then he'd seen another and another.
They were too small for a man, and there were no children on this side of the mountain. Then he noticed a distinct pattern in the steps. There was a step, then a drag mark—a mark that someone who walked with a limp might leave. A someone like Ally Monroe.
He didn't know where she was, but he would lay odds that she'd seen enough to ruin him. He thought about trying to catch her. She was lame, so he could easily outrun her, but she had that ATV. Last time he'd been right on top of her and she'd still eluded him. It wouldn't happen again.
He turned and started running for the house. He didn't notice that the Monroe brothers were no longer in the field, although his tractor and trailer were still there. He was too focused on getting to his truck and catching Ally. It was time for some damage control, and she was the first that had to go down.
Roland jumped in the truck and reached for the keys. They were missing. He slapped the steering wheel.
"Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!"
He jumped out of the truck and ran through the front door just as Danny and Porter went out the back. There was an odd scent inside the house, but Roland didn't take time to investigate. He had to stop Ally before she gave him away. He grabbed the keys from the dining room table and ran back outside. Anxiety made his long, jerky stride even clumsier than normal. Yards from his truck, he stumbled.
"Oh, n—"
Impact knocked the air from his lungs. For a few agonizing seconds he couldn't draw breath, then, when he did, it was a huge gulping gasp that ached all the way down. He rolled over on his back and stared up at the sky while his lungs reinflated in painful increments. As the pain began to ease, he absently noted a thin pillar of smoke drifting from south to north, then realized he'd lost the keys. He rolled to his hands and knees, and started a search.
One minute passed, then a second and a third, before he saw them hanging from the lower branches of a crepe myrtle bush.
He crawled over to the bush and grabbed the keys, then stumbled to the truck. When he jammed the key in the ignition, he smiled grimly as the engine fired.
Finally.
He put the truck in gear and spun out of the driveway, leaving a trail of flying debris and rocks as he went.
Above the trees behind his house, the thin pillar of smoke became thicker and darker, and at the base of the column, the fire that fed it began to spread. The first drying shed caught fire. Flying embers spread the fire to the second shed, then the third. As it burst into full flame, more embers drifted from the shed to the roof of the house. When the fire finally burned through the roof and dropped into the house below, the diesel fuel that Porter had tossed throughout the house ignited. Fed by the oxygen within, the fire rolled along the ceiling as if it was being sucked from room to room.
Beyond the house, the field was also aflame, the fire blessedly cremating everything in its path. When it reached the old tractor, the tires began to smolder as the rubber grew hotter and hotter. Suddenly the smoke turned to flame. Soon after, the fire reached the gas tank, and the old tractor blew, but Roland was too far away to realize what Danny and Porter had done.