Three (Article 5) (6 page)

It was Billy—not too far away. A flush crept over my skin as Chase twitched in surprise, then shoved his shirt back over his head. My feet had sunk into the silt and pebbles, making it hard to move. It took some time to get our shoes back on, but after we did the seconds caught up, and we raced upstream to where Billy and the guys from Chicago had gathered.

At first I just saw the animal—a dark, filthy mutt. Pulse spiking, I scanned the area, ready for an attack from the rest, but they were nowhere to be seen. This one was probably an outcast. Closer, I could see its mangy fur, and how its belly was only half the circumference of its rib cage. It was clearly starving.

The dog had managed to step though a can, getting its paw stuck on the sharp, clean edge of the lid as he’d attempted to pull it out. It hurt him; he whined pitifully, then growled, and then whined again. I watched with a cringe as he tried to chew off the trap and found the metal barely rusted. It hadn’t been here long.

“I wouldn’t if I were you,” Chase told Billy when he crouched down and whistled. A low growl emanated from the animal.

“You’re
not
me,” Billy returned, fire in his glare. “I don’t walk away when something needs my help.”

Chase dragged a hand over his jaw but remained silent. I wondered if he could still see the flames tearing down the roof of the Wayland Inn, swallowing Wallace whole.

Rat chased the dog away before Billy could approach it, and crouched to pick another recently opened can off the ground. He tossed it to Jack.

“Let’s keep moving,” I said.

“They’re close,” said Billy. “They’ve got to be close. Why do we have to be so quiet? They probably think we’re an FBR tracking team or something. We need to call out to them, let them know we’re on their side.”

Jack was turning in a slow circle, eyeing the bushes as though something might pop out at any moment. The hairs on my neck prickled.

“You ever met the kind of people that live in the Red Zone, Fats?” he asked. “They’re not the type you invite to dinner.”

Billy groaned. “This is a waste of time! If the survivors don’t know we’re here, they’re just going to keep running!”

“Keep it down, kid,” said Rat dismissively. But part of me agreed with Billy. If there were survivors, they were either running from us scared, or not aware that we were pursuing them.

Billy pulled the gun from his belt.

“No,” he said. “I’m sick of you all acting like I’m some stupid kid. Wallace and me were running Knoxville while you guys were still in your pathetic blue uniforms.”

My pulse was pounding. “Billy, put the gun down. He didn’t mean anything by it.”

“Shut
up,
Ember.” His voice cracked. “Stop telling me what to do!”

Chase stepped in front of me. A sudden image of the young soldier in the rehab hospital flashed in my mind. Harper—scared, unable to decide whether he should turn us in or let us go. Billy was close to tears, his eyes were tinged with red, and his shoulders were twitching.

“What do you think we should do?” Chase asked. “Tell us, and we’ll talk it over.”

“This.” Billy tilted his chin up and shouted. “Hey!” He swallowed a deep breath. “
Is anybody out there?
”

Jack lunged toward him, but stopped cold when Billy lifted the gun. Blood screamed in my ears. Behind me, I heard Sean swear. Everyone went very still.

Billy raised the gun overhead. He fired once. Twice. The sound shattered the silence. Nearby birds took flight, their wings making a jumbled
thwap
sound. I hadn’t realized I’d ducked until the warm mud oozed between my fingers. Rebecca whimpered somewhere behind me.

“Put it down, Billy,” ordered Chase.

“Or what?” Billy’s voice was eerily calm. He did lower the gun, but there was something different about him, something that gave me chills.

He placed the gun in his waistband and gave me a strange look, as if I were the crazy one because I was on the ground.

No one asked him for the gun.

“You’re nuts, you know that, Fats?” asked Jack. He cracked a smile for the first time since before the tunnels had fallen. “You would have liked it in Chicago.”

“Yeah,” Rat said with a nod. “Yeah, he would have.”

We moved on.

CHAPTER

4

IT
was just after sunset when the second transmission came through. We had practically collapsed in the small clearing, collectively famished and exhausted. I’d tried to connect with the mini-mart again, but no one had answered. Either the battery in their radio had finally crashed, or they’d simply turned it off to save power.

When the blinking red light on the transceiver turned green, the others jumped into action. They gathered around where I knelt, creating a canopy of faces that looked down on me expectantly. With a surge of adrenaline, I unraveled the cord to the handheld microphone, dialed the knob to the correct frequency, and pressed the
RECEIVE TRANSMISSION
button.

“Go ahead. We’re all here.”

A wave of static came over the line.

“Is it too redneck to say you look sexy operating a radio?” Chase said quietly enough so that only I could hear. I was glad to see some of the worry erased from between his brows.

“You should see what I can do with a nightstick.”

He smirked, both of us remembering the time I’d clocked him in the side while swinging blindly to defend us from thieves. The expression disappeared as Tucker’s voice came over the line.

“Find anything yet?”

The marshland was alive with the buzz of insects and the croaking of frogs, and the others tightened the circle around the radio and me so they could hear.

I pressed the button on the microphone. “Not yet. Did you get to Grandma’s house?”

“They should be in Virginia,” said Chase. “That’s where they said they were heading first. Somewhere near Roanoke.” Sean nodded.

“Yeah. But she’s not home.”

The anxiety settled over us, heavy and palpable. My mind flashed to the Wayland Inn burning, to the Chicago tunnels bombed. Was our team’s first stop already discovered, or was there simply no one there?

“What’s that mean, not home?” asked Jack. He gestured for me to hurry up. “Ask already.”

“Where is she?” I asked.

“Not sure,” Tucker answered. “The house is still there, but no one’s inside. Our friend with the dental problems went to ask some questions.”

“Truck,” said Jack. “That has to be who he’s talking about.” Truck, the big musclehead carrier we’d met in Chicago, was missing a few of his front teeth. He and Jack were friends.

“How long has he been gone?” I asked. Chase nodded his encouragement.

There was a long pause. So long I thought maybe the line had been disconnected.

“Awhile. He said he’d be back by now. The other driver went to look for him.”

Tubman, the other carrier who we’d met in Knoxville. This seemed like a bad plan—Truck and Tubman were the people who carried messages between the resistance posts. If they were gone, the rest of the team wouldn’t know where to go.

“Something’s wrong,” said Rat.

“Any signs of trouble?” I asked.

Another pause.

“Got to go,” Tucker said hurriedly. “I’ll call tomorrow at dawn.”

“Wait. What’s going on?”

The line went dead. After a moment, I let the microphone fall into my lap. For a few seconds, no one said anything, then everyone spoke at once.

“Should have gone with them,” Jack was saying.

“Bad idea,” said another guy. “They’ll be strung up for this, you know they will.”

I had a sick feeling in my stomach. Chase took the microphone from my lap and wound the cord around the handle.

“What do you think?” I asked.

He shook his head, his expression dark. “I think we need to move on.”

He was right; exhausted as we were, it did no good sitting around stewing over Tucker’s call. We had to press on, even if it was only to verify there was no one who’d survived. We had to get back to the mini-mart. People were still depending on us. I kept the radio close though, just in case Tucker decided to call back.

At the end of the clearing was a raised walkway—left over from the national park—that crossed over a marsh to the woods on the other side. The boards were rickety, missing in chunks, and the handrails were mostly disintegrated.

Billy climbed the first step. It groaned beneath his weight.

“Hey, Fats,” said Jack. “Send a lightweight to test the bridge. You break it, no one’s getting across.”

Billy stepped back, grinning. “Rat, you’re up.”

Something stirred in the water. When I held my breath I swore I could hear the snap of jaws.

Rat swore. “Why don’t we just go around?”

“Scared the swamp monster’s gonna get you?” chided Billy.

“Bunch of babies.”

It was Rebecca that had spoken. She pushed between Billy and Sean and hoisted herself up the steps, relying mostly on her braces. Sean went after her, but when he grabbed her arm she shook him off.

“See?” She was breathing hard when she reached the top, and shoved the sweaty hair back from her forehead. “It’s fine.”

I bounced on my heels, waiting for Sean to follow, but he didn’t. He grumbled something I couldn’t make out, but stayed put as she took a few careful steps out over the water.

I wanted her to stop, for someone else to do this. It was risk enough without her stiff legs and uneven gait; she wasn’t even strong enough to react if her footing gave way. This wasn’t the right time to prove herself, and I was just about to go after her myself when I saw the grim determination in her face. She needed this.

It took a great deal of restraint to hold myself back. I scarcely breathed as I watched her take each careful step over the rickety boards. She made it ten feet, then twenty, and then went farther, and farther, until she was halfway across. There, she stumbled, and I bit down hard on my lower lip as one leg fell through a gap to her knee. A board came loose and splashed into the water below, but before any more followed, she caught herself on the braces, and hoisted herself back up. She took another step, as if it had never happened.

I almost cheered. Somehow this had become a test, and she was beating it.

“Looks like gimpy’s useful after all,” said Jack.

“Yeah, as gator bait,” snickered Rat. Billy’s shoulders jostled as he laughed along.

I was so infuriated that I didn’t see Sean lunge across me to tackle Jack until it was too late.

Too late to shove myself out of the way, I was sideswiped by a stray punch and fell back, scraping my hands on the pebbly ground. Beside me, Sean pummeled Jack with his fists, his face contorted with rage. When Chase tried to intervene, Rat and one of the others shoved him off to the side, and soon they were shoving each other, exchanging heated words.

“Stop!” I tried to rise but a scream, high and terrified, drew my attention back to the bridge to where Rebecca was now fifty yards out. I feared she’d fallen, but she was still upright—at least until a moment later, when she collapsed against the boards and curled into a ball.

“Rebecca!” I called, but Sean had already detached himself from Jack and was scrambling up the stairs. I followed him up the first two steps before the wood bowed and gave way beneath his right foot. He grabbed the guard rail, barely staying upright. Pieces of mushy wood splashed in the water, eight feet below him.

Rebecca screamed again, and my blood ran cold.

Something was wrong. From where I was I could see her, hugging an upright post, her head down close to the deck. A moment later a crack split the air; its reverberations slapped off the water.

Someone was shooting at us.

“Ambush!” I heard Jack yell. I tore my horrified gaze away from Rebecca, stuck on the walk, to search for Chase in the sudden commotion behind me. I couldn’t find him.

Male voices, raised in confusion, belted out conflicting orders. Ducking low, I sprinted back toward the woods, dropping the bag with the radio in my rush to find cover. Rat, face pale with panic, shoved past me, sprinting down the trail in the direction we’d come. I dove behind a fallen tree, and flipped onto my belly to peer out from beneath it. Chase was across the clearing, back pressed to a tree trunk. His gun was drawn and his face tilted skyward, and I braced myself for the possibility that the MM had found us and sent their bombs.

There was too much coverage from the canopy of leaves for a clear view of the darkening sky. The shadows had grown long and deep and played tricks on my mind.

Gunshots followed, yanking my gaze back to the ground. Three, in quick succession:
Pop! Pop! Pop!

Rebecca screamed again. Sean was trying to crawl toward her, but he was too heavy—the planks beneath him kept breaking.

“Hold on!” he shouted to her.

I was light enough to follow her; it had to be me.

I strained my eyes for any sign of our attackers. Was it soldiers? We could have come across anyone here in the swamps—holdouts from the evacuation, refugees, even the survivors. In the failing light no one would be able to see anything. I cursed Billy for firing his gun earlier in the afternoon. He’d given our attackers the advantage. He’d drawn whoever it was right to us.

In the clearing our belongings were scattered across the ground. Billy lay in the center, curled in a ball, arms wrapped around his head. Jack had ducked behind the walkway’s broken steps. He fired his weapon in the direction of the swamp.

The reeds were moving, the water rippling to the shore. The whole marsh seemed to bend to the breeze making it impossible to tell where our attackers hid, but from the sound of the sloshing water they were close, maybe twenty yards away. Moving closer by the second.

And then a black, shapeless shadow clinging to a support beam below the bridge burst over the edge of the deck and wrapped itself around Sean. I made out the figure of a man, and the flash of something metal, but before I could scream for Sean to watch out he dragged them both into the swamp with a huge spray of water. There was a struggle, and the black murky shell bubbled and churned, and finally went still. Sean didn’t surface.