The Remaining: Refugees (46 page)

Eventually
they came to a
rural road, off of which a nondescript dirt road would lead them to the bunker. Here
Lee found the familiar bucolic setting to be slightly different.
T
he road stretched narrowly, the trees crowded in on either side
, with no open fields
to let them breathe
. The shoulder was sharp and the culvert deep and marshy with overgrowth,
leaving no room to turn around.

They turned right onto this road.

At the corner, a weathered street sign rose from coils of brown creeping vines, stalwart in its losing battle against the relentless advance of kudzu. The name of the narrow road
, according to this sad signage
, w
as Devil’s Tramping Ground Road.

Lee grimaced at the road name and pressed down on the accelerator pedal, at which point several things happened at once.

The engine wound up, as though to accelerate as normal.

Then the hood of the Humvee very sudden
ly warped, changing shapes in front of his eyes.

The entire vehicle
jolted violently and Lee felt it all the way through him like the crack
of a baseball bat in his hands, felt the shockwave in his chest like getting the wind knocked out of him.

And then the engine lost power.

CHAPTER 21:
IN THE WOODS

From the cab of the LMTV directly behind Captain Harden’s Humvee, Wilson not only heard but
felt
what sounded
like a hammer striking an anvil, bu
t louder, more overpowering.
Wilson wasn’t sure whether he had imagined it, or whether somehow his eyes had
zeroed in
on just the right
focal
plane at just the right moment, but he would later
swear that he saw the bullet that took out Captain Harden’s engine block, or at least
the path of spatial distortion left in its wake.

To his right, his passenger, Zack, stared slack-jawed, his face more confused than scared.

Odd
, intrusive thoughts collided in his brain in that half-second as
Captain Harden’s
Humvee swerved wildly in the road
and began to slow as it lost power to its drive. The
thoughts
were calm and meticulous
, calculated and rational
, a
nd he thought this was very odd.

.50 BMG is
one of
the only bullet
s
capable of reliably taking down an engine block.

7.62 and 5.56 just don’t cut it—not enough mass, not enough velocity.

But
the avera
ge .50 BMG FMJ projectile is approximately 650
grains, delivered with over 13,0
00 foot-pounds of muzzle energy.

A single shot? Could be from a Barrett, or a McMillan.

But you can also shoot a single shot from an M2.

Snipers in the Korean War would put telescopic sights on the
ir
M2s.

“What the fuck!”
Zack wailed.

Zack’s scream snapped Wilson back into real time and he slammed on the brakes.
The LMTV’
s tires
groaned and chirped across the asphalt and they came to a halt there in the middle of the road.

“Get out! Get out!” Wilson
reached across and shoved Zack towards the pass
enger side, trying to get him to open his door and run.

A
sudden, incredibly loud whine, alm
ost simultaneous with a
snap-clap-crunch
sound.

Wilson felt a
pressure
in his hand and when he looked
the first thing he
saw
was
that Zack’s head and neck were lolling, almost detached from his torso
, exposed muscle fibers twitching
about madly amid jutting bone.
In
the slopping mess of Zack’s avulsed upper torso
,
his own hand was shaking about, his ring finger and his little finger missing at the first
knuckle
.

Small arms fire from ahead.

Wilson looked up, his
mangled
right hand still
lying
on Zack’s body. The Humvee was turned almost sideways in the left shoulder and Captain Harden and LaRouche were crouched at the front end, using the engine block for
cover
. LaRouche
fired
blindly over the hood of the Humvee while Captain Harden
yelled at the rest of the convoy
to get the fuck in the woods
.

Wilson turned and grabbed Zack’s arm with his injured hand, and took ahold of his rifle with the other. “I got you, buddy. Hang on.”

He kicked his door open and heaved himself backwards. He felt the seat disappear underneath him and he fell backwards to the ground, losing his grip on Zack’s arm. His head bounced off the concrete, bringing stars to his vision, but he clambered quickly to his feet
, still holding his rifle
.

Jim was suddenly there beside him,
hauling
him up. Wilson reached back into the cab, looking for some part of Zack to grab so he could haul him out of the truck.

Jim’s hands
grabbed his shoulder, staying him
. “Get into the woods!”

“I gotta get Zack!” Wilson shook
Jim off
and reached over the driver’s seat
to
where Zack’s body was collapsed in a strange contortion
across the seats
. “
Where’s Julia?
Maybe if we just stop the bleeding…”

Wilson felt himself being yanked out of the cab.

Jim was in his face. “Get into the woods!”

Wilson bellowed back. “I’ve gotta get Zack!”

“You let me get Zack!” And then Jim turned him roughly, and shoved him hard in the back
.

Wilson stumbled, but recovered, and continued into the woods.
W
hen he looked back, Jim was right behind him. He hadn’t rescued Zack at all. He’d lied to him!

Wilson stopped ten feet into the woodline and turned. “What the fuck are you doing?” he screamed at Jim and launched himself back towards the truck. Jim was having none of it, and tackled him straight to the forest floor.

“He’s dead! H
e’s dead!” Jim barked at him. “Now k
eep your head down!”

Wilson laid his head back into the leaves, and that was when the pain finally surfaced. It welled up so suddenly, he just started breathing rapidly and then finally pulled his hand in front of his face, could see the little white shards of bones
sticking out of the meat
, could see the tendons flicking back and forth as his hand trembled
, and he screamed:
“My fingers! My fingers are gone!”

***

Lee hit the woods with LaRouche close behind him.
Deuce had made it out of the Humvee with them, but then he’d sprinted off into the woods and Lee couldn’t see him anymore.
Another
zip-snap-BOOM
and a small sapling suddenly splintered into pieces to his right.
The time between the impact and the report was negligible—t
he shooter was
within
a few hundred yards
of them
.

He didn’t stop until he could just barely see the road, and he hoped to God that it meant whoever was shooting at them wouldn’t be able to see him. Then he slid to the dirt and came up on his knees, his chest heaving, and sweat beginning to break out over his
face
.

LaRouche leaned against a tree, gasping. “Fuck me! Was that a fifty?”

Lee nodded. To their right, he could see the others huddled maybe a few dozen yards from them, but still far enough into the woods to be relatively safe. “Jim!” he shouted in that direction. “Jim!”

The tall man suddenly appeared from off the ground, seeming to
emerge from
an invisible hole. He scanned around and when he saw
them ran over,
hunched
low
,
with
his rifle in hand. He pulled to a stop in front of Lee.

“What the heck
was that?”

“Fuckin’ ambush.” Lee grit his teeth. “They must have realized we were g
onna try to run through it—FUCK
!” Lee put a hand on Jim’s shoulder.
“Y
ou and LaRouche need to get back up to the vehicles.
Do not let them take
any more
vehicles out.
I can’t stress that enough. Wherever they’re shooting from, they’re close, so if they can see us, we can see them. Keep them busy, try to see where the shots are coming from, and start laying into that position on the ma-deuce.” Lee looked them both in the eyes. “Do not fucking get yourself killed. Do you understand me?”

They both nodded.

“Where you going?” LaRouche asked.

“
You guys hold their attention, I’m gonna shoot them in the back.”

Lee didn’t wait for further discussion, because there was no time for it. He turned, facing perpendicular to the road and sprinted deeper into the woods.

He slipped through the
trees
, just pumping blood and gulping air.

The sameness of the forest
became soothing in its monotony, almost hypnotic like the lines on a highway. The ground dipped down now—that was good: it would cut off the line of sight even better. At the bottom there was a stream. He headed for it, angling to his right a bit. He didn’t want to be in the stream, because it would be freezing and also because it was noisy. But the low point of the banks would keep him out of sight.

The earth was squishy beneath his boots as he ran along the banks
. The extra power it took to keep up his pace made his thighs burn and his lungs stretch out for more oxygen. He had to balance speed and stealth. He wanted to come in from behind these guys, and his best guess was that they were in the woods, maybe two or three hundred yards out from where
they had stopped their vehicles
.