Dead South Rising: Book 1 (47 page)

Stepping over Guillermo’s handiwork, the group passed the tin shed, and Jessica fought the overwhelming urge to glance behind her and confirm Randy’s presence. She thought she could feel it, sense him there, but couldn’t be sure. She gathered he’d made it off the driveway since Guillermo came back alone with his blade clean and pistol full. But just where Randy was at that moment, she could only guess.

She suspected growing paranoia from Sammy. As they started toward the west pasture in the direction of the pond, Sammy pulled her close to him, his gun stabbing her side. Gills had more-or-less done the same thing with David.

She attempted to pull away from Sammy’s grasp. “What are you doing? Let me go.”

“No dice, sweet tits. Sally’s out here somewhere. I know it. Ain’t gonna have him blow my head off while we go galloping through the cow patties. Nuh-uh. You stay close. If his shooting from the other day’s any indication, he’ll be too scared trying to shoot me while wearing you like a coat.”

He gripped her arm tighter, pulled her a touch closer, and she squirmed in protest to no avail, unable to escape his blue-collar grip. He was strong, much stronger than she was. He practically lifted her dainty frame off the ground, disrupting her gait, and she blundered through the grass and weeds and occasional rock as he dragged her along.

“Ow, shit, man!” she exclaimed. “Hold on! Stop!” She drew up one leg, groping for her foot while she hopped along on the other.

“Ain’t gonna work, sweet tits. Keep moving.”

“You drug me through a cactus, asshole.”

In a rare moment of compassion, Sammy obliged, and stopped. He sighed heavily. Behind him, Gills scanned the area, paranoia lighting his scarred face. He felt it, too, she surmised. Knew they were being watched. Followed. Targeted.

“Damn it,” Jess said, kneeling as she picked at her pants leg and shoe.

Sammy’s gaze scoured the area as well, his normally unshakeable cocksureness now visibly rattled. Without glancing down at her, he said, “C’mon, missy. Time to get moving. I’m sure Mitch is anxious to see ya.”

“Just wait a damn minute.” She continued carefully picking at the cactus needles, her fingers and thumb pinched and splayed like she was smoking a joint. “Shit, shit, shit. Thanks for nothing.”

Do it, Randy. Do it now. Now!

She glimpsed Gills, noticed he’d stepped farther away from David. He looked nervously around, like he expected an attack. From the living. And why not? The opportunity was perfect, and she suspected that it wouldn’t get much better than right at that very moment.

Fucking shoot, Randy. Dear God, please shoot them, already. Pull that trigger, big guy, pull it, pull it, pull it. Please pull it.

Willing the worst for Sammy and Gills, Jess closed her eyes tight against the anticipated spray of scarlet. She knew it was coming. It just had to be. She sensed it. How could it not? She and Randy had hurriedly discussed this exact and lucky scenario, taking advantage of the first window that opened, because there might not be another. This could be
it
. And
it
was slipping silently away along with the last light of the day.

“I said hurry up, sweet tits. Ain’t gonna tell ya ag—”

And then there it was. The unmistakable crack of a rifle shot echoing across the pasture. The earth seemed to stop spinning, in motion no more, the bullet having pushed against the rotating planet, bringing it to a standstill. The equal and opposite reaction. She half expected to float up and up and up, gravity relieved of its duty. At least for the moment.

Sammy belly-flopped into the dirt, his hand snapping to the side of his head, magnetized. His blood-stained cowboy hat sailed from his head. Tumbling from his grip, the Smith and Wesson thumped to the ground. And out of reach. His eyes bulged, streaked with terror and surprise.
 

It happened quick, not in slow-motion like Jessica had expected. Hoped. Everything was on super fast-forward. And she’d lost her bearings for a second, lost sight of Sammy’s pistol, a clump of weeds swallowing it, hiding it.
 

Gills spun to one knee, reaching behind him, drawing one of his handguns. Then fired a fusillade of shots at the shed. Metal slammed metal. Jess covered her ears. She could still hear bullets piercing and punishing the tin, even from as far out as they were.
 

David gave in to gravity, skipping to his knees, and face-planted in the field. Jessica guessed it was just too much for him, the physical and mental stress. But she slid over to him, a lightning-quick once-over, just to be sure a bullet hadn’t strayed, found an unintended target.

Even with her ears covered again, she heard another distinct rifle shot clap against the encroaching evening air. It meant Randy was still alive, and she breathed another breath for him.
 

She glimpsed Gills, expecting a cranial explosion at any second. Even shielded her eyes in anticipation. Hearing be damned. But the stout Mexican kept right on throwing bullets back at the building. He dropped to his stomach, popping off strategic rounds, careful not to expend every last one. Then she eyed his second, identical Colt 1911 holstered snuggly behind his back. One of his ‘wings,’ as he’d called it. If she could just … reach—

Then, silence, save for the ghosts of gunshots already fired lingering.

“
Goddamnit, son of a motherfucking bitch! Fuck!
”

Jessica’s gaze honed in on the source spewing the profanity, on Sammy. A very much
alive
Sammy.

No, no, no. Shit. Randy missed. He missed. Damn.

But Randy hadn’t missed. He just didn’t make the ever-important kill-shot.
 

Sammy rolled on the ground like wasps were swarming, his hands to the side of his head. And he cursed. And cursed. And then cursed some more. Loudly. He was livid, but not dead, the side of his face a slimy, bloody mess.
 

She couldn’t see the wound, what with him rolling and groaning and bitching and whining. But he’d been hit. To give Randy another chance, she scrambled away from the whining wounded duck.

When she did, the earth beside her spit soil and grass into the air. The echoing whip-crack of a rifle immediately followed. Randy had taken another shot, missed. The ground spewed more dirt and grass, another miss. Flecks of debris stung her cheek and temple, and she hugged the ground in a hurry. She wasn’t ready to chisel ‘collateral damage’ onto her own tombstone as cause of death.

Gills reciprocated, firing another round of shots. In between blasts, he glanced back at Sammy. “Yo Sammy! You bueno, brother?”

Sammy curled up into a fetal position. “No, bueno, mi amigo. No bueno. Motherfucker shot my goddamned ear,
again
!” His normally smart-ass, grinding tone had taken on feminine qualities. Jessica almost laughed at him.

Instead, she turned her attention back to Guillermo’s gleaming weapon holstered near the small of his back.

“Shit,” Gills exclaimed when another clod of dirt exploded near his face.

Randy was taking chances, just like she had ordered and urged him to do. Begged him to do. And for this, Jessica was most thankful. She just prayed he would hurry up and kill these bastards. Soon. She was all for chances, encouraged them, but unnecessary ones would kill them all. Eventually.

C’mon, Randy. You can do it. You can take them out. You can—

She heard the whizzing scream of a bullet above her. A little too close for comfort, as the old cliché went. Had she been on her knees, well …

Jessica couldn’t think about that. Couldn’t worry about being hit. Being shot. She’d have to trust in someone else, as tough as it was for her to do. She believed in feeding the universe what she hoped to get out of it. Right now, she wanted the deaths of two ill-intentioned thugs, and she wasn’t sure what she had to sacrifice to make that happen. Tit for tat, and all that.

Her limited options unfolded rapidly before her. Running away made the most sense. With Sammy squalling like a baby and Gills distracted by Randy the Not-So-Accurate-Sniper, she and David might have a chance. But David’s physical condition was far from conducive to a speedy escape on foot. He’d practically passed out on the steps before being dragged out here.

Scratch fleeing on foot.

The next (and more likely) option was to grab Guillermo’s second pistol, and blast these two assholes away where they lay. Save the day that way. She was a better shot than Randy, and being near point-blank range, their backs to her, she couldn’t miss. It’d be even easier than the damn fish in a barrel bullshit. Much easier.

Of course, her intuition and gut screamed at her to run. Randy could pin down Sam and Gills with sporadic gunfire. Hold them back. Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dumb would be so focused on suppressing the tin shed threat that she and David could scamper off into the wild dark-blue yonder, and out of range. Randy could fall back, get to the car, get the hell out of there. Then, they could all meet up later. Done and done. It could work out so perfectly, so flawlessly.
 

Except it couldn’t.

In her efforts to distract Sammy and Guillermo earlier, she’d pulled the keys from the ignition, to keep the outlaws from using the remote or key to open the trunk. A delay tactic. She’d wanted to stall them for as long as possible. And she’d succeeded. Phase one complete.
 

But now, as she covered her head and shielded her face from spraying debris, she reached to her pocket, finding what she’d normally be happy to find—the keys. The same keys that Randy would need to start the car and escape. She’d single-handedly just assured his fate by carelessly pocketing the car keys. And with that simple old-world habit, she’d failed him. Failed
them
.

She wanted to cry. A desperate situation with a glimmer of hope now reeked of helplessness. It could have worked out so damn perfectly. So smoothly. Now she’d have to take that risk. Steal a man’s gun. Kill that man with it.

Sliding snakelike toward Guillermo, she stretched her arm, and another divot of dirt hopped like a frog on fire. She trembled, and her breathing betrayed her.

David considered dying. Just letting go. Giving up. It would be the easy choice. The passive option. All he had to do was lie there, prone in the weeds and dirt and cow shit and sticker burrs and bugs … and never get up. With Randy’s horrible aim, a stray bullet would surely hit him. If he was lucky. And if a .243 caliber chunk of lead gone astray didn’t do him in, then Sammy would surely oblige. Happily. Then there was Guillermo, who could probably kill him with a well-aimed fist. David welcomed any of those options. Hell, all of those options. Simultaneously. Because it meant he could rest his tired mind and body, and possibly see his daughter again. That is if he went to the same place in death she went. Oh, how he missed her.

He’d resolved himself to death the moment they started marching through the field. Dead man walking, just like the shufflers that ambled about aimlessly day and night.

But while lying there face-first on the ground, ruminating on his own demise, something made him look over to his left. It wasn’t Sammy’s caterwauling or flailing about. He’d tuned that out already. And it wasn’t the pieces of pasture showering down on and around him with every ill-aimed shot from Randy’s rifle. It was none of those things.

It was a quiet resolve that caught his eye. A determination. A will to win, a will to live. It was Jessica’s stealthy, nerves-of-steel-slithering toward Gills that snagged his attention. And he realized what she was about to do.

And it did something to him. It was the kick in the soul he needed. That elusive spark of zeal. Despite bleak odds, she was moving
toward
the danger, toward the answer, toward their only hope of salvation and survival. The hard choice, but the right one.

Bryan’s innocent tone rang through the gunshots like a celestial trumpet:
Right, because we want to do the right thing. The right thing. Right. Thing.

David moved, spinning on his stomach like a helicopter blade, and faced the danger right along with his cousin.
 

Guillermo was on his belly and elbows, and Jessica’s hand was almost upon his second Colt 1911 when he instinctively (or coincidentally) reached behind him to draw it, his hand falling on hers. He turned his head, his black ponytail snapping the ground like a whip. And time seemed to freeze, his eyes alight and dancing with the realization that things would get very, very bad for him and Sammy should this petite woman succeed in pulling that fully loaded firearm from his holster.

Gills latched onto Jessica’s probing wrist, his teeth clenched and bared, veins bulging with determination and anger. And desperation. Jess didn’t even scream, all her energy funneled into getting the gun. Do or die, simple as that.

David did what he had to do, the only thing he
could
do. Though his broken ribs ground together like sticks sparking fire, though his face and muscles and lungs throbbed a torturous ache, he dug his knees and toes and fingers into the earth, a flying push-up of sorts, launching himself over Jessica and straight at the head of the man determined to win the weapon tug of war.

His elbow landed squarely in Guillermo’s ear, planting the Mexican’s scarred cheek hard in the dried-up ground. There was a grunt, and David’s advantage did not last long as the superiorly stronger Guillermo quickly bucked both David and Jessica off his back like a hacked-off rodeo bull.

David rolled to the side and onto his bruised back, hands clutching his torso while he grimaced in more pain and more damage done to his beat up body.

“You’re a deadman,” Gills promised through a glower. He was on his knees, pressing to his feet. His primary Colt 1911 empty, he tossed it aside, reached behind him to draw the other.

“No, you are,” Jessica said. She stood behind him, aiming the man’s own pistol at his back.

Gills clenched empty hands, turned to face Jessica. His expression decried an unfair defeat.

“Knife. Ground. Now.”

Slow and steady, he unsheathed the Bowie knife, held it a moment.