Crisis Event: Jagged White Line (14 page)

The only problem was Sadie’s stomach, which was now nauseous from all the ashy water she’d swallowed. She hoped she wouldn’t vomit.

“Look,” Callie said a minute later. “The bridge.”

Sadie looked and saw that they’d swum out of the smoke. They had another fifty yards to swim and the men on the bridge were sighting on them. Her only comfort was the distance—a thousand yards, probably. Without a military sniper on it there was little chance of getting hit.

Then the first round came zinging in.

It was followed by the crack of the shot.

Water splashed ten feet to Sadie’s right.

Short, but he’s got us lined up.

“Go!” Sadie yelled at Callie. “Make him miss.”

But Callie didn’t need the advice. She’d already begun to put distance between herself and Sadie, and to angle away from the bridge, toward a coal barge tied up on the river bank. It would add a few yards, but would raise her probability of surviving it.

Sadie rolled over. She flung out her arm and shoved her face into the water and swam blindly, rolling her head up to breathe every four strokes. She quickly ran out of stamina, but she was close enough to make it if she didn’t give up.

Just as she was ready to quit and go under she felt Callie’s hands on her arms as Callie pulled her of the water. Another bullet whizzed in and slammed into the side of the coal barge with a loud “clang.” Even as she staggered to her feet and ran over the ashy clearing next to the river, Sadie couldn’t help but admire the skill of the shooter.

Then she glanced at Callie and saw her carrying the backpack and rifles in her arms. Her admiration for the girl’s toughness displaced any further thoughts of the sniper’s skill. It wasn’t skill that saved their lives in the river, it was Callie’s strength. The terrified girl who’d needed rescuing in Shanksborough was gone, replaced by a woman who was formidable.

Another rifle shot missed the running women by a wider margin, and then they were into the dead scrub and defoliated trees beyond the coal barge loading zone they’d run through. When they got far enough into the dead vegetation that they could no longer see the bridge, Sadie collapsed.

“Get up,” Callie said, and dumped the backpack to the ground. Sadie, summoning the last of her strength, crawled to Callie, who was panting hard. “We can’t rest here.”

“Why not?” Sadie gasped.

Thunder boomed in the north and they glanced at the darkening sky. White jagged threads streaked across the sky.

“Get your boots on and I’ll tell you.”

They ripped away the plastic Ziploc bags, and pulled their boots on. Then they reloaded their rifles with dry cartridges. Sadie had to fight the urge to go back down to the river and shoot at the men on the bridge. She dismissed the urge as foolish, since it might bring the men chasing after her. She slipped into her soggy parka instead.

As they north north toward the oncoming storm, Callie said, “Right over that hill is  Marland Heights.”

“So?” Sadie said.

“So next to that is the Williams Country Club.”

Sadie stared blankly at Callie.

“They’re worse than Big Jim,” Callie said. “Some of the girls told me about it.”

Sadie nodded, though she couldn’t imagine how anything could be worse than what she’d seen at Shanksborough Technical College.

“What’re they doing?” she asked. “Running rape and murder contests?”

“Yes,” Callie said. “That’s exactly what they’re doing.”

Sadie couldn’t believe it, but when Callie picked up the AR-15 and crept forward through the dead scrub bushes and trees, Sadie followed without a word.

“How do you know where you’re going?” Sadie asked, but Callie ignored her. She led Sadie as if she’d memorized a map and was trying to find specific landmarks. The dead bushes and trees began to thin out as they reached a confluence of roads and industrial buildings. They squatted down and pushed aside the dead branches and leaves of a waist-high chokeberry shrub.

All the buildings they saw were covered in dust and ash, and many of the roofs had collapsed. A sign read “Coil Slitting.” Sadie wasn’t sure what it meant, but didn’t like the sound of it.

“We have to run for it,” Callie whispered.

“Run where?”

“Those dead trees are—...” Callie said, but was cut off by a white flash and an explosion of thunder. The storm that had been on the horizon was on top of them.

“We can hide in those trees,” Callie said. “Unless we get killed by lightning.”

Sadie sighted on the bridge, now less than eight hundred yards away. The men who’d been on it were hurrying toward land on the Steubenville side.

“This is good,” Callie said.

“How is that?” Sadie asked as the wind shook the chokeberry shrub and send dust spraying into the air.

“No one’ll be out in this but us.”

“Which means we’re the most likely people to die from it.”

“Come on,” Callie said, and she shoved through the chokeberry branches and stepped out onto the dusty road. Sadie followed, and when no one attacked them or shot at them, she began to jog, heading straight for the dead trees. Sadie glanced back at the bridge, but the men who’d been on it were gone. For as long as the oncoming storm raged, Sadie thought, they would be safe.

Chapter 15

    “You sure you won’t stay?” Sadie asked as flames flickered in the fireplace. “Till the storm’s over?”

Callie told Sadie she wanted to be miles away from Steubenville by next morning.

“Those people are crazy,” she said. “They got at least a hundred women. You’re lucky they didn’t grab you.”

“They’d have paid for trying,” Sadie said.

Callie smiled.

“Yeah, they would’ve,” she said. “And then you’d have died.”

Sadie nodded.

“You got what you need?” Sadie asked. “Take whatever you want. And if things don’t work out, come to Texas.”

Callie hugged Sadie and kissed her cheek. “Maybe I’ll see you at your grandfather’s house someday.”

Sadie nodded as Callie stepped out of the farmhouse and into the darkness. Lightning flashed and thunder exploded, and for an instant Sadie saw Callie’s back moving south across the scrubland. Then the night went black and she was gone.

The old farm one-story farmhouse they’d found was dilapidated and nearly falling down...a ghostly memory from another time. Its driveway was overgrown, and before the dust had killed them, several mulberry trees had grown up so close to the house that their trunks had shifted the eaves and torn up the roof. But the house was at least off the main roads, and most of its windows were intact, and it was five miles south of Steubenville—farther than any of the guards were likely to venture.

While the storm had raged and climaxed, the girls sat together on a dirty old couch, exchanging more details about their lives, and promising to visit each other—if life ever returned to some semblance of its past normalcy...maybe someday...years in the future.

Remaining unsaid was the truth both of them already knew: life would never return to any semblance of its past normalcy. Not in their lifetimes. Maybe not ever.

As she sat and thought about what she should do next, the overwhelming fatigue creeping up on her since her swim came back to her. Before she could even change from a sitting position to a prone one, she fell asleep.

She dreamed of sunshine and Callie and her grandfather on his land, riding a tractor through the trees as they toured the acreage, checking fences and coyote traps. She felt happy as the wind whipped her hair around her face and her grandfather shouted parodies of poems or made up his own doggerel on the spot.

Then Blakely appeared, fully armed and angry-faced, blood pouring from a wound on his forehead. “Deserter!” he screamed, and Sadie awoke, not knowing where she was. But then the adrenaline kicked in, and she jumped up from the couch, her rifle at the ready.

The house was dark and quiet, the fire having died back so that only a few small flames remained among the red glowing coals. Whatever sound had awakened her was gone. All she heard was the wind blowing in through a hole in the window of the kitchen—the room next to the one Sadie was in.

Sadie took a step, feeling her way forward with her boot, trying not to make the floor creak. She stood waiting, her legs trembling, for what seemed like an hour before taking another step, and another, until she reached the door leading into the kitchen.

I’m going to kick your butt if you’re just scaring yourself.

One more step pushed her rifle barrel into the kitchen, which was the moment Blakely had been waiting for. He snatched the barrel and shoved it up toward the ceiling as he stepped around the corner. Then he swung his other hand into Sadie’s chest in an open hand strike he hoped would stun but not actually hurt her.

Sadie fell backward, letting go of the rifle and reaching back to keep herself from falling hard as she went down to the floor.

Lightning flashed outside, illuminating the dimly lit room, and for a brief instant Sadie saw the blood on Blakely’s face and hands and chest.

“Oh my God!” she said, looking up at him from the floor.

    “That wasn’t a very nice thing to do back there,” Blakely said, his voice raspy and weak.

Then he took a stumbling step forward and dropped Sadie’s rifle as he collapsed to the floor and lay still.

“Oh boy,” Sadie said, and scrambled over to Blakely, wondering, as she reached for him, what she was going to do now.