Samantha's Talent (41 page)

Elaine heard her husband's shout but she didn't run. Or rather she did, but it was toward her suitcase where she had stowed the handgun Gene had loaned her. She had just grabbed it and turned when Kristov ran into the room. They fired almost simultaneously. Kristov's shot was hurried. It hit Elaine in the upper arm, the one holding her gun, rather than her chest. Her own aim was better. Kristov fell, a bullet through his chest that punctured his heart. He would be dead within a minute or two but he was made of tough material. He managed one more shot from the prone position. It very nearly missed but managed to plow a furrow across her forehead just above her right eyebrow. She fell, momentarily stunned. Boris gasped once and died.

Samantha had heard her father's shout. Shufus began growling and Fussy hissed and spat in response to the growl and her scream when she heard the shots from the front of the house. "Shufus, Fussy, come!" She ran out the back door and slammed it behind her. She charged around the corner of the house, just in time to run squarely into Kailey Ledbetter, who was racing toward the back to prevent anyone trying to escape after Ronald's warning. The woman was heavier. Her weight knocked Samantha sprawling, while she staggered but kept herself upright and held onto her gun.

"Gotcha!" she said, a bit prematurely. Then she pointed her gun at Shufus, who was still growling.

Samantha had never thought so fast in her life. Rather than subject the two larger animals to gunfire which they couldn't avoid, she ordered them to stay, then called as loudly as she could while still on her back with arms and legs akimbo. "Caw-Caw! Caw-Caw! Help! Help!"

Her ploy worked. Kailey looked from side to side and then glanced behind her for an instant but could see no one. She never thought to look
up
. The next instant a huge crow flew into her face. It was so large that the impact hurt, but not enough to keep her from focusing on her mission. That changed almost instantly as it began pecking her with its sharp beak.

"Eyes, Caw-Caw! Get her eyes!" Samantha cried to the crow.

Caw-Caw was clinging to the shoulder of Kailey's blouse and pecking furiously at her cheek. Hearing Samantha's shout about eyes, she moved slightly. A beak that could have snapped walnuts stabbed at her left eye and closed on it with savage force. Blood and ocular fluids burst from Kailey's ruptured eyeball. Caw-Caw moved her neck and head while clinging to the woman's blouse. She wrenched the remains of the orb from its socket. The woman screamed shrilly, a horrible high screech of unbearable pain. She reached up and clutched at the crow. Despite its size, Caw-Caw was as fragile as any other bird. Her hand clenched as tightly as a weightlifter's grip on a bar. Caw-Caw's bones snapped and her internal organs ruptured from the unrelenting embrace of her closed hand, made even tighter by her pain and fear. She flung the mangled body of the crow away from her. One eye was blind and her other eye was watering furiously with sympathetic tears.

"Shufus, Fussy! Kill! Kill her!"

The two animals needed no further orders. Shufus leaped for her throat and Fussy was right behind, claws extended. Kailey screamed again as she tried to fend off the animals she could barely see. It took her a second or two to remember she still held a gun. Fussy was the closer of the two. She fired at his blurry form seen through the copious moisture of tears from her remaining eye. The bullet made a deep thunking sound as it impacted Fussy's chest and blasted its way out through his spine. By then Shufus was at her throat, ripping and tearing.

Samantha got to her hands and feet then stood upright. She ran at the woman just before she would have managed to shoot Shufus and grabbed her gun hand. She rode it to the ground as Shufus' weight tipped Kailey backward. The big German Shepherd's teeth reached her carotid artery and jugular vein at almost the same time. Blood poured from her throat in a gushing red stream. The blood loss quickly weakened her enough that Samantha could wrench the gun from away from her. She pointed it back at the woman's head and pulled the trigger. Bone and bits of skin and blood splashed back into her face. The woman's body went limp, the remains of her mouth hanging agape.

Samantha was dazed at the rapidity of all that had happened. She didn't know what to do next except to wipe at the odious matter from the woman's exploded skull off her face. She stood up and shook her head, trying to clear her mind. She looked around and saw Fussy's body and an instant later the crumpled remains of Caw-Caw. Seeing the bodies of her animal friends made her furious. She suddenly realized she still held the woman's gun in her hand.

"Shufus, are there any more of them?"

"One comes,"
the dog replied.

"Where, Shufus?"

"Door."

He must mean the back door
, she thought. "Watch out for a gun. Don't let him point it at you, Shufus."

"Kill?"

"Yes. We'll kill him." She stepped quickly to the side of the house, and stopped at the corner. She was out of sight from the back door and hoping the man Shufus knew was coming would choose her side of the house to look at first. She heard the back door open, then cautious steps going the other way.

"Come on, Shufus," she whispered. Her hands were trembling. She tried to stop the shaking but it proved impossible. She went on anyway, turning the corner just in time to see a man with a gun peek around the other corner. Apparently seeing no one, he then began turning to come back her way. She pointed the gun at him and fired. Her trembling hands caused her shot to miss completely, but by then Shufus was running toward her opponent, weaving away from the path of the pointed gun. She fired again and this time she saw her bullet impact his middle. As he wavered Shufus made a mighty leap and was at his throat.

Samantha ran forward, knowing he would try to use his gun to kill Shufus, but she couldn't shoot again for fear of hitting him instead of the man. She needn't have worried. Shufus' fangs closed on the man's throat and ripped deep before he leaped away. The man staggered and his shot went wild. Samantha fired again and missed. The rogue operative was gushing blood from his throat and bleeding from his middle but he still had enough strength to aim his gun at her.

Before he could fire another shot, Shufus returned, this time hitting him from behind and closing his teeth on the back of his neck. The big dog's teeth ripped through his flesh and grated on bone. The impact of the German Shepherd's weight knocked him to the ground this time. His gun came loose when he struck the earth. It discharged harmlessly as it hit the back sidewalk. Shufus was on him again in an instant and this time he didn't leave until he had chewed almost completely through the man's neck.

"Shufus, enough! Good dog!" She praised him as she picked up the gun. She was afraid someone else would be coming to get them.

Just then Ronald staggered through the back door, gun in his hand, looking for either Samantha or anyone who might be threatening her. He braced himself against the door jamb and stared at the carnage.

"Dad!" she yelled with relief and rushed to him. "Where's Mom? Is she okay?"

"She's hurt and too stunned to make it outside but she's okay. What happened here?"

"That man was trying to kill Shufus and me. Shufus killed him instead."

Ronald eyed the dead body with the hole in his middle, still smoking slightly from the singed material of his shirt, and then at his daughter who was still holding a confiscated gun in each hand.

"I think Shufus must have had a little help."

"It all happened so fast, Dad." She pointed with one of the pistols. "There's a dead woman at the side of the house." She broke into painful tears that wrenched at her emotions like her heart was being pulled from her chest. "She killed... F..Fussy and C... Caw-Caw but they saved my life. Then I... I shot her and... and shot the man there and... Shufus... " It all hit her simultaneously, what she had done, what her animal friends had done to save her life by giving up their own, how she had shot and maybe helped kill two people. She collapsed into her father's arms sobbing helplessly and feeling as if she would never be able to stop. Then she thought of her mother again. She sniffed and tried to stop crying.

"Are you sure Mom is okay? You said she was hurt."

"I'm sure, baby, but let's go back and check on her. Are
you
sure the woman around the corner is dead?"

"Oh, y... yes. Shufus t... tore... her throat out and I shot her in the head." Remembering the bloody wreckage of a body they had left she was abruptly sick. She leaned away and threw up while her father supported her and gently removed the pistols from her hands.

Just then Elaine appeared. She came out the back door by bumping it with her shoulder. She was holding a towel to her arm to keep pressure on the torn muscle. The furrow above her eyebrow had stopped bleeding but clotted blood was spread down the side of her face in a thick smear of red sludge. The first thing she noticed was all the blood on her daughter. "Sammie, baby! How badly are you hurt? What did they do to you?"

"Nothing, Mom. Shufus and... and the others protected me. I'm fine, but you look horrible, Mom. What's wrong with your head? And your arm?"

"Just flesh wounds, as the old maxim says, but I have to admit they hurt like hell. Are you sure you aren't injured somewhere?"

"No, but Mom, they k... killed Fussy and Caw-Caw. They both saved my life and now they're d... dead." She began crying again, unable to prevent the emotional flow of more tears for her friends.

Gene came through the back door and found Elaine and Ronald hugging Samantha and Shufus on his hind feet with his front paws and head inside the circle of one of Samantha's arms. They were all huddled together like refuges from an enemy bombardment.

"What in God's name happened here?" he asked. "I thought me and Jennie were going to be too late after we found the two dead deputies in the ditch beside their patrol car."

"Dead deputies?" Elaine and Ronald asked together. Samantha was staring at Gene as if he had been materialized by a magician.

"Gene! Where's Jennie?" Samantha asked.

"She's making some phone calls. What happened? I thought whoever had bugged your house was killed in the shootout at the Zimmerman place."

"Ray! Did they hurt him?" Samantha had to ask. She never had got to talk to him after the family's decision to leave.

Gene came to the three. Shufus dropped to all four feet but kept himself so close to Samantha that their bodies were touching. Gene reached down and placed his large hands on Samantha's shoulders, covering them completely. "Sammie, I hate to tell you but Ray is dead and so is his father. Jennie found out with some phone calls after we found the deputies."

The announcement brought on a fresh flood of tears. Samantha thought for a moment the whole world was going crazy. Then Gene said, "Sammie, we're almost certain he was trying to get some help for his Dad and at the same time was coming to warn you that some really bad people were after you. He was riding Thunder with a broken leg. He reached the county road between his place and here but that was as far as he could go.

He made a heroic ride that few men I know could have managed. His last few words were about you and his father."

She buried her head against Gene's massive chest and let his shirt front soak up the seemingly endless supply of moisture from her eyes. A moment later she felt a soft hand on her shoulder.

"Sammie, it's me, Jennie. Everything Gene said was true. I'm sorry about your pets. I was just inside the doorway listening while I talked to some people. They were heroes, too."

"They were my... my friends. Not pets. Can we bury them?"

Gene gazed across the top of the heads of Jennie and Samantha and met Ronald's eyes. "Ron, Elaine, we have to get out of here, and I mean right now. The officials and law officers will be looking for us very soon. We've done nothing wrong, but if we get tangled up in the investigation we'll never get away from here. All it would accomplish would be to give more people like those monsters that killed the Zimmermans and the Deputies, and tried to kidnap all of you, more chances to succeed. Grab your suitcases and let's go. Don't even stop to do anything but wash the blood from your faces and don't linger doing that. We have very little time." He turned his attention to his wife. "Jennie, did you manage our arrangements?"

"We need to get to the Sanctuary landing field. A plane is on the way for us. I'm sorry to rush you but Gene is right. If we stay we'll be stuck here for no telling how long."

After the battle with the three rogue agents, and hearing the news of the Zimmermans and the deputies, it didn't take any more convincing. Fifteen minutes later they were on the way, with the Douglas family wearing their bloody, sticky clothes. Elaine's wounds still not properly bandaged and Ronald had a massive headache and a cut on his scalp from being hit twice with brutal force.

Gene had patrolled the area often, looking for strangers or homes which had long been empty suddenly being occupied, and for any other oddity or change that might portend a threat to the Douglas family. He used that knowledge now, taking back roads and trails that bounced the occupants in the big SUV around despite their seat belts. Most of the way he kept to areas that were heavily forested, making the roads almost invisible from the air in case of a search for them by that means was underway. It took over two hours before they arrived at the obscure little Sanctuary landing field. There was no one normally there unless the field was in use, and so it proved then. Inside the air control office, Jennie made a quick phone call. When she couldn't get through she used her notebook as a phone. She spoke only a few minutes before closing it. She smiled at the bedraggled group. "The plane will be here shortly but if you hurry, I think you have time for a quick shower and a change of clothes. There'll be a doctor coming with the pilot who'll get you properly attended to, Elaine."She could not have spoken more welcome words if she had tried. The little building had no hot water for the two shower stalls but it was summer and the water was just cold enough to hurry them through their cleansing, though not enough time to thoroughly dry their hair.