Slow Burn: Bleed, Book 6 (20 page)

Choices?

Jump into the water, confirming my presence for Bill and Karl while putting myself at risk of drowning. What would my next step be after that? My life jacket and fins were gone. I’d have to shed all of my equipment to make the swim back to shore. Risky, but doable.

Or, I could creep back down the wall far enough that the guards wouldn’t hear or see me in the near pitch-black night. But a cloud might move out of the way and let a little of the sparse moonlight through, enough for one of them to see me clinging precariously to the wall below them. Then I’d be back to option A, only with a much higher risk of being shot.

Or, I could try to scramble up onto the ledge. It was covered in loose gravel and sand with nothing there to grip. It would be a slow and noisy endeavor, one that would lead to certain discovery. If I got lucky enough to avoid a bullet or a knife during that attempt, I’d likely end up back on option A.

All of my choices sucked, but I still had an advantage—with my night vision goggles I could see in the dark. And I had a silent weapon that I wouldn’t mind using on Bill or Karl’s ungrateful skulls.

So, I got a solid grip on a piece of rock, and with my left hand I slowly drew my machete while I listened to the crunch of cautious foot steps from my left and watched Karl on the right. The sound of tearing paper on my left caught my attention. When I looked at Bill, my intended first victim, his rifle was dangling from a strap on his shoulder and his hands were busy with what at first glance I thought was a stick of dynamite. But as the incongruity of that sank in, I realized it was a flare. Bill ignited it, flashing my vision to white through the goggles, blinding me.

But, as I’d done on so many occasions, I skipped right through the panic step and chose risky, swift action.

Karl, surprised and still a dozen feet to my right, said something.

Startled, Bill grunted, and I heard the flare hit the ground.

Bullets would come before I was able to see again. I raised my machete and I leapt laterally across the face of the wall, swinging at the place Bill had been before my vision flashed white. Blade hit bone and stuck, a familiar sensation. For a fraction of a second, all my weight was hanging from my grip on the machete handle. I felt the blade wrench through a shinbone, and I heard Bill scream. Gunshots blasted through the air. I bounced against the wall, knocking the night vision goggles off my head. And in the red blaze of the flare, I fell as Bill fell over the side of the cliff above me.

I splashed into the water with the machete in my hand and a lungful of air. Bill splashed in just to my right. I rolled in the water and grabbed at what I could get a hand on, the near severed leg.

Under the weight of my equipment, we were sinking fast. My eardrums started to hurt, and I blew a bit of air through my nose to equalize the pressure. Bill was struggling above me. He’d hit the water while screaming. Screaming was just noisy exhalation when you stopped to think about it. Bill’s lungs were empty when he hit the water, and with me gripping his wounded leg, causing him even more pain, I heard his muffled scream continue under water until it cut short abruptly. Panic and habit overrode his logical processes, and he’d come to the end of his air and breathed in for another wail only to get a lung full of lake water.

I let go of the dangling leg. My work with Bill was done. He’d successfully completed his first attempt at drowning all on his own.

Professor Zed gives you an A, Bill.

I relaxed and looked up at a red glow above the water’s surface—the flare. I heard a few pops of rifle fire and saw bubbled trails of bullets drilling three or four feet into the water above me.

I wasn’t in need of air—well, not desperate need. I figured I’d been under less than thirty seconds. I took a moment to sheath my machete while I rolled over and started swimming into the blackness along the wall, feeling my way as I dragged my hand along the limestone cliff.

Karl, I guessed, would keep an eye on the spot where I’d gone into the water, a spot illuminated by the flare Bill dropped on the ledge, and a spot I intended to be well away from when I came up for air. I swam in Karl’s direction, then guessed that I passed beneath him. Pressure on my ears told me that I was getting deeper, not something I wanted. I was already well deep enough to avoid bullets. I kicked a few more times and came to the point where I was running short on air myself.

I reached out for the wall and started an underwater climb upwards. Patient and slow at first, I moved faster and faster as my lungs cried out to breathe. The blackness above glowed into a brightening red. I saw the underside of the wavy surface, and my head broke through. I inhaled.

Looking up, and with my night vision goggles somewhere on the bottom of the lake, I couldn’t see Karl on the ledge above. The red glow of the flare was far to my left. A few men shouted angrily from somewhere. All along the lakeshore, five-hundred feet behind me across the water, Whites howled. The flare and gunfire had piqued their interest.

I pulled a deep breath, let the weight of my equipment pull me under, and swam along the wall in the direction I’d already been going. Getting as much distance from my last known position would only work in my favor. When I came up for the second breath, I felt almost safe, at least from Karl, who I assumed was still up on the ledge looking in the other direction for me.

An explosion rumbled on the other side of the island.

I was out of time.

Feet ran by on the ledge at the top of the cliff. Karl. Far to my left, the flare still spewed red fire and smoke. A fifty-caliber machine gun was peeling off volleys on the far side of the island followed by another explosion from the grenade launcher. Dalhover and Murphy were busy and probably both grinning like twelve-year-old boys with their first BB guns.

Knowing I had to hurry, and having lost my fear of drowning under the weight of my weapons, I abandoned any thought of caution and started up the slanting cliff face as fast as I could move. I reached the top in what felt like seconds. The adrenaline was pumping, and I was surfing on a wave of confident invincibility.

In the glow of the flare I was able to see up and down the length of the wall. I was alone. Out on the other side of the island, the shooting came to a stop. At least the shooting from the grenade launcher and the fifty-caliber had. A few other small arms popped off shots.

Our plan had been to fire the MK19 and the fifty-caliber machine gun from boats out in the darkness, and then to reposition before any bullets came back their way. Of course, as it was explained to me, the range on both weapons was beyond the effective range of nearly every rifle on the island; moving was more a precaution than a necessity. The goal of the whole exercise was to sink a few of the houseboats in dramatic fashion in hopes of intimidating Jay with our firepower.

From the cloaking safety of the darkness, Gretchen would then use a bullhorn to dictate the terms to Jay. The terms were simple. Free Steph, Amy, Megan, and any other islanders that might be disillusioned with Jay’s leadership style, give them as many boats as they needed, and let them go. The alternative, Murphy and Dalhover would systematically sink every boat anchored near the island. After, they would lay siege to the island, basically by floating offshore with their weapons ready in case anyone decided to make a swim for shore. Oh, and by the way, she’d tell him about the night vision goggles. Jay had no cards to play. He’d give up the girls. He’d give up anyone who wanted to leave.

At least, that’s how it was all going to work out according to the consensus among the boathouse gang. Unfortunately, reasonable people often have difficulty anticipating irrationality from unreasonable people.

I heard the sound of Gretchen’s voice, amplified by the bullhorn and carrying across the water. I couldn’t make out what she was saying, but I already knew the content, so it didn’t matter.

With Gretchen’s voice booming, all eyes on the island would be looking into the darkness on the other side, and nobody was likely to be looking my way, depending on how disciplined Jay’s thugs were. Of course, Karl would be inside the wall by now, telling anyone who would listen about Bill and…and what? What would he tell them? A White attacked? A commando attacked? He didn’t know.

He might come back with reinforcements if they suspected they were being attacked from the rear while Gretchen held their attention on the other side.

I scanned up and down the length of the wall. It was rough in spots and looked—

What was that sound?

I looked out toward the lakeshore. All I saw was black. But I heard the splash of a few hundred hands clapping the water.

The Whites were swimming toward the island.

The gunfire, the flare, the fire from a houseboat burning on the other side of the island was drawing them in. That was a kink in the plan that nobody had anticipated.

I decided that the best place to make my entrance into Jay’s compound was through a window on the back of the chapel, roughly ten feet up. The wall below the window was in rough shape with plenty of places to hold while climbing up. So, I ran down to the chapel wall and went to work as the sound of splashing in the water drew closer.

I slipped a few times when stones gave way and came loose, but I didn’t fall. I got a hand to the edge of the window, got another hand up, and pulled myself up to the opening.

A few candles burned inside the chapel. I saw the places where residents had made their beds on the floor, stacks of supplies, but no people. The old oaken double doors on the front of the chapel were swung open. The light from blazing houseboats poured in, dappled by the shadows of people moving around in the courtyard.

A rifle cracked from somewhere relatively close by.

Up in the bell tower.

But what could he be shooting at? Gretchen, of course, but why shoot randomly into the darkness?

Another shot followed. It didn’t seem like a random shot at all. I guessed aimed patience. And that immediately led me to a guess as to why Bill and Karl were waiting for me at the wall. I’d been spotted. One of the guards had a night vision scope on his rifle. And now he was using that scope to shoot at my unsuspecting friends out in the boats.

Null Spot the Destroyer was going to have to pay Mr. Sharpshooter a visit.

I pulled myself through the window and tumbled, landing roughly on the floor. I rolled back up to my feet and ran across the small chapel to an open doorway at the base of the bell tower. Inside, a spiral staircase made of steel had been installed so visitors to the island could climb and see the lake from the high vantage of the tower.

Another gunshot sounded from above.

I pulled my pack off my back and knelt on the floor. I reached in, took out a pistol, and tucked it into my belt. I fished around for the hand grenades, four in all, and put them in my pockets—two in the baggy pockets on the front of my pants, two each on the large thigh pockets. Those would beat up my legs if I had to run, but if I found myself in the position of having to run, those grenades would likely already be in the air toward my pursuers.

The rifle upstairs fired again.

Still being barefoot turned out to be an advantage for silence. I stepped onto the spiral staircase, started up, machete in my right hand, grenade in my left.

On the way up, I thought about whether a threat with the pistol from behind the snipers upstairs would be enough to quell their resistance, but my second thought won out. Some fucker was up there shooting at my friends, some fucker who knew Gretchen’s voice, who had survived on the island with her and Paul through all those weeks since the plague hit Austin. But despite all that, the guys had no qualms about betraying her to the point of killing her.

So fuck those dudes.

I pulled the pin from a hand grenade and slipped the pin into my pocket. I didn’t want to drop it and possibly alert the snipers with the tinkling of the metal pin bouncing on the spiral staircase.

I hurried up the stairs. As I neared the top, there was almost no light coming in from the burning houseboats in front of the island. I reached up and touched the bell tower floor above my head. Steel. A very nice modern upgrade. Leaving the old oaken floor up there for tourists to fall through would have been a bad idea. So, the park service, when they installed the stairs, had also installed the steel floor. I just hoped it was thick enough to protect me.

The rifle fired again.

Okay, buddy. Yours is coming.

I reached up through the stairway hole, put the grenade on the floor, and then gave it a hard push across the metal floor. It clinked on the metal above my head as I took off down the stairs.

My bet was on the table, my dice were rolling. If one of those guys up there figured out quickly enough that a live grenade was on the floor and had the presence of mind to kick it back down into the stairwell, I’d likely die.

I was almost halfway down the stairs, running and nearly falling as I went, when an explosion boomed through the stairwell and knocked me off my balance. The air was immediately full of dust. My ears rang. I coughed, but I was alive.

Expecting something to fall from above, I stumbled down the spiral stairs and reached the bottom. I tripped on something and rolled through the door into the chapel with a villainous grin. I didn’t have a count on the number of Jerry’s hardcore thugs, but now there were three less of them alive than when I’d arrived at the island.

I scrambled to my left, stepping through what I was coming to think of as post-apocalyptic floor crap. Survivors tended to leave their useful belongings in whatever bag they carried, or they left it scattered near whatever passed for their bed. They were the usual sorts of things—blankets, jackets, and foods packaged in a time before the world went to shit. The other class of post-apocalyptic floor crap was those things that ended up on the floor of a ransacked house, things of no use in a survival situation, or things too heavy to carry. Scavengers didn’t tend to tidy up after themselves when they were searching houses for something to fill a belly that had been empty for days.

Anxious hollering from outside made it clear to me that curious armed men would very soon be coming to investigate what was going on inside the old church. I tucked myself into a shadowy corner piled with a bunch of floor crap and drew a pistol. I had no confidence that I could hit anything that wasn’t already in machete range, but if I found myself outnumbered by Jay’s thugs, noisy gunshots and a hail of bullets would put enough fright into my attackers to ruin their aim.

I heard Gretchen’s amplified voice echo through the open door, telling Jay to come to a decision or another houseboat was going to sink in flames.

Jay hollered something angry in return. Then his voice changed. He was ordering his people around, though I couldn’t make out what he was saying, at least not enough of his words to make any sense of it. Two explosions, one rapidly following the other, cut him off. Flashes through the open front doors cast the chapel interior into sharp shadows.

No one came in, though. Jay must have guessed the bell tower had been taken out by the grenade launcher.

Good for me.

I ran back into the bell tower and wound my way up the spiral staircase, not pausing at all when I stepped up through the metal floor at the top level. I didn’t think either one of the men who’d been up there could have survived the grenade explosion. It turned out to be a good guess. I only saw one mangled body, so the other must have been blown out. Just as well—the forty-foot fall would have killed him even if the explosion hadn’t.

I stood behind a roof support column and peeked out over the compound. Two houseboats, one anchored next to the second, fifty yards offshore, were both aflame. For the moment, the gunfire had ceased, the explosions had stopped. The splash of swimming infected seemed to be coming from all directions, though I could see nothing out in the darkness. Then I heard the howls—close by. Some Whites had made it to the bottom of the cliff and were scaling it just as I had. Soon, they were going to come over the wall and into the compound, and that was going to be bad for everyone.

Jay’s voice yelled back across the water. “Here are
my
demands.”

I looked down at the courtyard.

Shit.

Jay understood he was in a losing position and had apparently decided that no price was too high to avoid defeat.

A row of islanders was on their knees, facing the water. Jay stood at one end of the row with his pistol pointed at the back of little Megan’s head. Next to her knelt Amy. Next to her, Steph’s hair glowed red in the firelight. Three of Jay’s thugs stood behind the row, looking out into the darkness. Karl was a fourth, talking to one of them and gesturing toward the back of the compound, telling his companion about me, no doubt. The companion wasn’t interested though.

Jay yelled, “I’ll trade you these three twats for that fifty, that grenade launcher, and all your ammunition. And if you don’t scoot those boats up in the light where I can see you and do it in the next sixty seconds, I’m going to start shooting. And this little twat goes first.” He looked down at his watch.

“Don’t, Jay,” Gretchen called back through the bullhorn. She said some more things. She thought talking might help. I knew words were a waste. Jay was as ruthlessly smart as he was crazy.

But I was too.

I turned and went flying down the spiral stairs as fast as I could go. At the bottom, I leapt through the door and into the chapel. Outside, Gretchen was still talking. I crossed the floor toward the back wall of the chapel and spotted exactly what I hoped to find there—fissures in the old wall where stones had fallen away. I took a grenade and jammed it into the first fissure that looked like it was large enough to wedge the device inside. No luck. I tried another. Too small.

A gun outside fired a single shot.

Gretchen’s amplified voice turned frantic.

My rage boiled; I knew what Jay had just done. I found a fissure in the stone where the grenade fit. I jammed it in and pulled the pin.

Dammit.

The hole was too small and held the spoon down as if it were still in my hand. It’d never explode that way.

I quickly found another hole, large enough. I lay the grenade inside, and I ran to the other end of the chapel, diving through the door at the base of the bell tower.

The grenade exploded. Rock flew all through the chapel. Whites howled. A dozen voices out front were yelling at once. I peeked around the door hoping, hoping.

Gritty, thick dust blew through the chapel on a breeze that seemed to come from where the back wall had been. There was a hole, a massive hole, larger than the double doors at the front of the chapel. Through the hole, all I saw was black.

C’mon, Whites.

I still heard the howls. They were still out there.

I drew my pistol, ready to coax them in with the noise of a few gunshots. But I didn’t need to. They started to pour through the hole in the wall, running toward the light they saw through the open double door, running toward the people outside.

Nothing happened for a long, frozen moment. Everyone was still trying to process the sound of the explosion and the screams of the oncoming Whites. They were all a tad slow in realizing just how fucked they were. Then the gunfire started. The screaming followed. Someone shrieked, and I ran out of the bell tower enclosure and joined a line of Whites running out of the chapel.