Battle Lines (The Survivalist Book 5) (24 page)

When his arms became too heavy to lift, he stopped and stared down at the bloody mass beneath him. The man’s face looked like it had been eaten by a wild animal, the white bone of his skull peeking out between bloody flaps of flesh.

Tanner closed his eyes and took a deep breath. When he reopened them, he saw Samantha standing across the clearing, staring at him with eyes wide and mouth hanging open. She had retrieved her rifle, but it dangled limply in front of her. He swallowed hard. The kind of brutality he had inflicted on Bane was not something a child should witness.

He pushed off the big man’s chest and struggled to his feet. Tanner towered over him for a moment, letting Bane’s blood drip from the tips of his fingers. He felt utterly exhausted, defeated even. His arms ached, and his fists stung from a dozen cuts.

He turned to Samantha and spoke in a quiet resigned voice.

“I’m sorry you had to see that, Sam. Sometimes a monster comes out in me.” He looked down at the ground, certain that she would turn and run, perhaps from fear, perhaps just to get away from the beast he had shown himself to be.

Instead, Samantha did something completely unexpected. She walked over and took his hand in hers. He stared down at her tiny fingers, now smeared with blood, and tears welled up in his eyes.

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be,” she said, gently squeezing his hand. “Sometimes we need a monster.”

They stumbled back to the motorcycle, Samantha never once letting go of Tanner’s hand. He couldn’t remember ever being so tired after a fight, and he attributed the exhaustion as much to the emotional release as it was to the physical exertion. The image of the man preparing to violate young Samantha was as revolting as any he could conjure up. Death was too good for that son-of-a-bitch.

Tanner secured his shotgun to the handlebars and swung a leg over the bike.

“Are you okay to drive?” she asked.

He held his hands up. They had stopped shaking.

“Yeah, I’m good.”

As she set her rifle onto the floor of the sidecar, two men dressed in camouflage clothing suddenly rushed from the cornfield. Their timing suggested that they had been waiting for the most opportune moment. They held AR15 rifles pressed tightly against their shoulders.

“Let me see your hands!” shouted the lead man.

Tanner glanced at the shotgun. Grabbing for it would all but guarantee a bullet to the chest. He brought his hands up. Samantha slipped her small backpack over one shoulder and then raised her hands into the air.

The two men approached carefully, one going right, the other left. They stopped when they were about fifteen feet away—too far for Tanner to try to turn the tables. Embroidered nametags on their uniforms identified them as Clancy and Peterson. Neither man wore any kind of rank or unit insignia.

“What were you doing in the field?” demanded Clancy.

“Taking a leak,” said Tanner. “Is that a crime nowadays?”

Clancy studied him. “What happened to your hands?”

Tanner studied his hands. Both were stained red, like he had been mixing up a batch of blood sausage. He struggled to come up with an answer. It seemed like a good bet that the two men were somehow connected to the dead guy in the field. Not wanting to give them a reason to shoot him, he said nothing. When in doubt, keep your mouth shut. It was the best advice any man could ever receive.

Seeing that Tanner had decided to clam up, Clancy turned to Samantha.

“Is he your father?”

She looked over at Tanner.

“Yes.”

“Okay. So, I’ll ask you then. What were you doing in the cornfield?”

“It’s like he said. We were using the bathroom. I can show you where—” She stopped herself, realizing that if she took them into the field, they might discover something much more disturbing than a puddle of urine.

Clancy turned to Peterson. “Do you believe them?”

He shook his head. “Not really.”

“Me neither.” He turned back to Tanner. “We’re taking you two in. Duke will know what to do with you.” He used the muzzle of the rifle to motion for them to step away from the motorcycle.

They did as he instructed.

Clancy nodded toward a small dirt trail paralleling the first row of corn.

“That way.”

Tanner and Samantha started down the narrow trail. Like it or not, they had just been taken prisoner.

Chapter 17  

As Mason, Leila, and Bowie continued past the sprawling peanut butter plant, the devastation became more complete. Everywhere they looked, buildings were either destroyed or teetering like cardboard cutouts. An interior design center that had once been a beautiful architectural showcase was now a pile of brick, splintered boards, and flaps of shingles, towering twenty feet into the air. Across from the rubble, lamp poles leaned over the road, their electrical wires dangling like untied shoelaces.

A man’s legs stuck out from beneath the wreckage, and Bowie stopped to inspect them.

Mason shook his head. “Keep going. We can’t help him.”

The dog took one final sniff and then continued ahead, weaving his way under electrical poles and around overturned cars.

Winchester Road eventually forked left and right. To the left was Midland Avenue, and to the right was East 3rd Street. After a quick look at the map, Leila and Mason agreed that it made sense to veer left onto Midland. The first building they passed was a long sheet metal warehouse, smashed flat to the ground. Hundreds of green PVC pipes lay scattered all across the company’s parking lot, some of them sticking out of car windshields or shoved deep into the wreckage.

The body of a heavyset man sat leaning against the building. His face and arms were black and blistered, but not from the virus. His injuries were caused by exposure to heat from the blast. Mason couldn’t tell if he was still alive, but it didn’t really matter. Even the burn center at Johns Hopkins wouldn’t have been able to save him.

They continued ahead, saying nothing. Soon, they found themselves stepping over brick pavers, piles of stones, and sections of wrought iron fencing that had spilled out into the road from a nearby landscaping company. But a much bigger obstacle lay ahead. A three-hundred-foot-long concrete building had collapsed, and the enormous pile of rubble now blocked their way. Only ten percent of the structure remained, but that included a small service entrance with a sign that read
Herald-Leader
.

Mason stared up at the mountain of wreckage. All sorts of printing equipment poked out from between concrete slabs, including an elaborate printing press that must have weighed five thousand pounds. Scaling the debris would be both difficult and dangerous, but if they veered around it and lost sight of what remained of the road, they risked losing their way entirely.

By the look on Leila’s face, she shared similar concerns.

Mason unfolded the map and placed it on the hood of a nearby car. He ran his finger along Midland Avenue until he found the
Herald-Leader
newspaper company.

“We’re here,” he said tapping the map. He slid his finger over a few inches to the northwest. “We need to get there.”

“If it’s this bad a mile out, how are we even going to find the museum?”

He studied the map for a moment and then smiled.

“Look what’s next door to it.”

She leaned in and read the map.

“The Lexington Financial Center. Why’s that important?”

“It’s known as the Big Blue Building on account of the entire structure being covered with blue-tinted glass.”

“How’s that help us? The glass will surely be broken.”

“True, but the building is thirty-one floors high, and that means there’s a framework of steel behind it. Even close to the blast, some of the steel structure will surely be standing.”

“You really think there’ll be enough left to guide us in?”

“We’ll know soon enough,” he said, folding up the map.

Leila stared off to the northwest, trying to locate the financial center. All she could see was the huge pile of debris from the newspaper company.

“We’ll need to get by this before we can see what’s left of the skyline.”

“Let’s go around. It’s too dangerous to try to go over.”

They started across a grassy field, hoping to find an easy way around the crumbled building. They entered a subdivision of small single-story homes, nearly every one of which had collapsed. The nuclear explosion had done what the virus could not. It had destroyed mankind’s footprint, reducing houses and possessions to piles of junk that would slowly degrade into the earth.

Even though the entire neighborhood had been destroyed, the debris field was still navigable with a little caution. The gas and electrical services had long since been lost, so the biggest threats were nails, broken glass, and other sharp objects. Despite not having any idea of where they were going, Bowie led the way, occasionally glancing back to make sure they were still following.

After traversing a few hundred feet through the subdivision, Bowie stopped and began scratching at a pile of boards.

“I think he’s found something,” she said.

Mason hurried over and squatted down to inspect the debris. Other than a child’s doll, he saw nothing of interest. He pulled the doll out, brushed it off, and held it out to Bowie.

“Is this what you want, boy?”

Ignoring the doll, Bowie stuck his nose down into the hole, sneezed, and then continued digging.

Mason stood up. The only thing Bowie liked more than toys was food. Odds were that he had caught the scent of someone’s dinner.

“Come on,” he said, turning to leave. “We’ll eat later.”

Bowie watched as he walked away but didn’t follow.

“You coming?”

The dog whined loudly and then turned back to continue his search.

Mason returned to Bowie and looked again at the small hole. Even after pushing a few things out of the way, he saw absolutely nothing of interest.

“Are you sure?”

The dog said nothing as it continued scratching at the debris.

He sighed. Every minute lost was another minute they fell behind the soldiers. On the other hand, Bowie was a trusted member of the team, not to mention one that weighed a hundred and forty pounds. If he insisted they stop, there was little Mason could do to make him follow.

He looked over at Leila.

“Give me a hand, will you?”

“We’re going to dig up a collapsed house?”

He tilted up a piece of a rafter and shoved it over.

“We’re going to see what’s so interesting.”

They dug for nearly ten minutes, lifting out lumber, a kitchen countertop, and several cabinets. Mason was sweating and about to insist that they abandon the search when he heard a cry for help coming up from the rubble. It was so unexpected that, at first, he thought it might be an artifact of the wind whistling through the wreckage.

“Do you hear that?”

Leila set a board down and listened.

“Someone’s down there.”

Mason leaned down into the hole and shouted, “Hold on! We’re coming.”

They continued digging for another ten minutes, finally hauling out a large panel of sheet rock that revealed a two-foot gap leading down into a dark hole.

A teenage girl’s voice called up to them.

“Help us!”

“Are you injured?”

“No, but we’re trapped.”

“We? How many of you are there?”

“Just me and my little brother.”

“Lift your brother up to the hole, and I’ll pull him out.”

There was a pause as she considered his offer.

“I’m a deputy marshal. I’m only here to help.”

“Okay, Marshal, give me a second. I’ve got to put him on my shoulders.”

After a moment, small hands poked up through the hole. Mason grabbed them and carefully pulled the boy out. He weighed about forty pounds and was probably four years old. His brown hair was coated in dust from the sheetrock, and he had the biggest, brightest eyes that Mason could ever remember seeing.

“You okay, son?”

“I’m fine. Are you really a marshal?”

Mason smiled. “I am.”

“Can I see your badge?”

Mason unclipped it from his belt and handed it him.

“How about you hold it for me while I get your sister out.”

“Cool!” he said, staring at his reflection in the shiny silver star.

Mason turned and motioned to Leila. She quickly stepped forward and scooped him up.

Turning back to the hole, Mason said, “Can you find something to stand on?”

“I’m in a basement, and there’s nothing down here.”

“How far is it up to the hole?”

“Maybe three feet. Too far for me to jump.”

“Okay, hang tight. I’ll lower down a rope.”

He set his pack on the ground and fished out the bundle of paracord. With a tensile strength of over five hundred pounds, it was plenty strong. The problem was that the cord was only as big around as a pencil, which made it difficult to climb. He would have to make a ladder.

Mason used his knife to cut off about twenty feet of the cord. At intervals of every twelve inches, he tied an alpine butterfly knot, leaving a sturdy loop in which to place a hand or foot. It wasn’t ideal, but it was easier than trying to pull her out.