I crept back to the stump, crouched behind it and listened. Aside from the humming of the generators, I heard nothing. I saw no evidence of dogs. In the darkness, I couldn’t see cameras or any other signs of surveillance in the front yard or bolted to the roof, windows or gables. There was no one walking around. I had no clue how many people were living in the main house or the guest house, where everyone was, or if anyone was keeping watch. Since I saw no guards or security equipment, I had to assume that the people living here didn’t care if anyone was sneaking around their place. There weren’t many people sneaking around anymore, but that was no reason to let your guard down. The incident outside my grandparents’ house this morning reminded me how important it was to be on constant alert.
Using the trees as cover, I crept along the tree line that ran closer to the front yard. A huge pine tree towered over the others and stood directly in line with the eastern wall of the main building. The front door faced me less than a hundred feet away, behind a sloped, weed-ridden yard and remnants of a flower garden. A large bay window hid behind the weeds, about ten feet to the right of the front entrance. Light flickered weakly in the window. However, all the other windows facing the front were dark.
Where were the five young men who’d brought me here? Where was Simon? Was there a basement? An attic? A playroom?
Was Simon using the guest house as a playroom? Was he keeping Fields there?
It had been about an hour since the truck had brought me here. Had the fivesome gone to bed?
Why didn’t I hear or see anyone?
There was only one way to find out.
The weeds would conceal me in my crawl over to the house, but from there I’d be on my own. The flickering light behind the bay window suggested someone could be in that room. I’d be a fool to try a break-in that way. If I fiddled with a dark window somewhere else, someone might be sleeping in that room.
If I made any noise forcing open the window, all would be lost.
My only option was the most direct and also the most dangerous. The front door. I had to force it open, and quickly. But doing it this way would be very difficult, if not impossible, without certain tools. A crowbar would certainly help. So would a screwdriver. Hell, a battering ram would make life much easier.
I had to face reality. To force open that door, I had to rely solely on the strength of my shoulder and any momentum I could muster up. I’d forced doors open before, but under very different circumstances. I was twenty at the time, and usually had a battering ram in my hands, an assault weapon slung over my shoulder and armed backup going in with me.
Yes, this was very different. However, one aspect of the situation would balance the scales: Fields was being held inside, and because of that, I was prepared to risk everything, including my own life.
But what if she wasn’t? What if she was being held in the guest house? What if I couldn’t break through the front door? What if I broke through and found a dozen young psychos sleeping in the front room, all armed with assault weapons?
It didn’t matter. Fields was here and I was going to find her.
Nonetheless, I found myself gazing at the door, considering the odds. Should I do it? Or should I try the back? Forget the main house entirely and go for the guest house? Did it matter which building I tried first?
Yes, because no matter which building I broke into, once I’d invaded their world, there was no turning back.
I’d already decided there would be no turning back until I’d found her and brought her back home. If this meant killing everyone who got in my way, that was how it had to be. I didn’t even know for certain if she was still alive, but that didn’t matter, either. I sensed that she was, could feel it in my bones. I refused to believe we’d come this far just to see it all end this way.
My head swam relentlessly as I stepped closer to the pine and prepared to crawl through the weeds.
Don’t
, a voice told me.
I stiffened. My gut talking to me again? Or was this something entirely different?
I didn’t care; I was going in.
I slipped past the pine tree. At that same moment, as I raised my tennis shoe a few inches, I felt something catch my instep, and I nearly lost my balance. My heart skipped a beat; I fumbled for the penlight. Déjà vu slapped me in the back of the head. I knew what happened even before I shined the tiny beam of silver light on the ground at my feet.
A tripwire.
There
was
a security system after all.
Further thinking instantly dissolved. My reflexes kicked in, bringing me back flashes of the old days. I hit the ground and lay perfectly still in the tall grass.
I lay on the cold ground, listening, but heard nothing.
I began wondering if the tripwire was merely a battery-powered motion sensor, alerting those inside the house. As far as I knew, no booby trap had been activated.
However, that wasn’t the issue. Touching it set off the silent alarm. Now it was too late to retrace my steps, and the only option I faced at the moment was...
Someone’s behind you
, a strange voice inside me said.
Once again I was startled by this bizarre phenomenon. I realized this might be my gut communicating with me again, but the manner in which it had interrupted my thoughts alarmed me. It somehow felt like it did not belong to me, but someone else. If I didn’t know better, I would’ve thought some unknown presence was trying to get my attention. I knew the concept was crazy, but that’s how it felt.
Crazy. It hadn’t occurred to me before, but now this reasoning somehow made sense. This whole day had been so stressful, it was a wonder I could still function. In fact...
They’re now about twenty yards away,
the voice said, interrupting my thoughts again.
I continued lying motionless on the cold ground. If that strange voice was right, any sort of movement would get me shot. I was unfamiliar with my surroundings, had no escape plan in the works, and didn’t know where my stalker was. So I waited, my pulse racing wildly.
About thirty seconds later, leaves stirred among the trees twenty feet or so behind me.
I hoped the weeds would conceal me. The weeds and the darkness—as well as the element of surprise—were my only allies. If the stranger sneaking up on me knew where I was, the most dangerous thing I could do was let them know I was a threat. Even so, I knew I couldn’t stay hidden in the weeds forever.
The tactic of playing dead had worked in many instances, and since I had no idea who was sneaking up on me, I had to stay right where I was. As I lay, the Ruger in my right hand on the ground beside me, I carefully eased the tiny .22 Bobcat from my pocket, took it off safety with my thumb, pulled back the hammer, and held the gun firmly in my left hand. I kept my hand palm-down in the weeds, close to my head. Then I waited.
More rustling. I suspected my stalker was only a few feet away.
He’s on your right side
, the voice in my head told me.
How far away
? I found myself asking.
Ten feet
.
Ten feet was a good practical range for the Bobcat. If I had the chance, I was going to try to shorten the distance for an even more effective shot.
The rustling stopped. The clicking of a gun hammer thundered in my ears, yet I remained still. Then I heard the voice.
“I see you.”
It sounded like a young girl. I nearly choked when I heard it. But I knew better than move.
“You heard me. Get up, or I’ll shoot.”
This was not happening. A young
girl
? My God. Would the horrors of this new existence
ever
stop?
“I’m countin’ to three. One...”
“All right.” I raised my head. “I’m getting up.”
“Leave the gun. Hands up.”
I let go of the Ruger and pushed myself up into a kneeling position. Regaining my balance, I slowly raised both hands out to the sides and turned slightly to my right, keeping my left hand directly behind my torso. If she was going to shoot me, she would have already done it. She was probably supposed to bring me back to the house. This gave me the advantage.
As I turned to look at her, I noticed that the darkness of the woods behind her concealed her almost completely, but I could see that she was quite small and slender, probably not much taller than five feet. She held a pistol or revolver in her left hand, and it was aimed at me. In her right, she held a flashlight. The flashlight was pointed at the ground but wasn’t turned on. I suspected she was waiting to shine it on my face once I’d straightened.
She’d apparently moved another foot or so closer, which shortened the range of the Bobcat. I wasn’t wild about shooting a young girl but had no choice. If she was a member of Simon’s brood, she was probably just as much of a psycho as the two this morning, or the group looking for me in the woods. Society’s credo had become short and dangerously simple in the last few months: kill or be killed.
Just as I reached my full height, she said, “Whaddya doin’ out here? This is private property.”
Her cold, flat tone brought back the searing heat billowing within me, and suddenly I didn’t care how small or young she was. I turned another couple of inches toward her and made sure the Bobcat was hidden from her view. “I was just in the neighborhood and thought I’d stop by.”
She didn’t say anything at first. Then she shook her head. “
Huh
?”
“Aren’t you a little young to be pointing guns at people?”
“Fuck you. You ain’t s’posed to be here, dude. Besides, I’m good with this fucker.”
“Really? It’s bigger than you are.”
“Fuck you, asshole. Maybe Simon’ll let me use you for target practice.” She clicked the flashlight on and started to bring it up.
They’ve got Fields ... these psychos have got Fields!
The rage slammed through me. They’d taken Fields, and this arrogant little bitch was a member of the group responsible. I couldn’t let her blind me with that flashlight.
Just as the glaring beam reached my waist, I brought my left arm across my chest and emptied all eight rounds into the small, skinny body. She managed to get one off, but it was low and slapped the ground a foot or so to my left. The flashlight leaped out of her hand and splashed the woods and the dark, starry night in a wide, wavy arc before thumping to the ground and forming a lopsided halo in the weeds. She fell quietly to the ground and lay still.
I retrieved the Ruger and went over to where she lay. I grabbed my own pocket flashlight and shined it at her face. Nausea made me gag. I’d killed a young
boy
, and he looked no older than eleven or twelve.
“Jesus ...” My heart raced; I grew nauseous. “I just killed a damned...”
Later
, the voice in my head said.
There are more of them
.
My temples pounded deafeningly as I scrambled into the brush.
***
I stuck to the other side of the tree line, keeping low, while the growing beams of silver light waved in my direction. I counted eight beams, and guessed they were no more than a hundred yards away. They were spread out in a long, choppy line spanning the center of the woods, each several yards from one another, aiming their light at everything in their path as they moved toward me. I estimated I had no more than a couple of minutes before they reached me.
Another beam appeared, this one quite far on my left, and began closing in on the others. Moments later another one coming over from the right, on the far side of the tree line, jumped toward me. Directly behind me, two more beams of light coming from the front yard of the house hopped around in the tall grass.
A knot of cold fear grew heavy in the pit of my stomach. I was surrounded. I had the Ruger ready, its mag filled to capacity. The Bobcat, however, was empty, and I didn’t have time to reload. And the .38 held only six. Way too many odds against me. It was dark, my aggressors had lights, and there were entirely too many of them. Unless they were poor shots, they’d get me before I could pick off more than one or two of them. I hadn’t a prayer.
But I had to find some way of getting through this. Fields depended on me.
Straight ahead
, the voice in my head told me.
What
?
Straight ahead, about fifteen feet. Three trees down, you’ll see a log
.
Without hesitation I holstered the Ruger, dropped to my knees and crawled toward the dead log. As I moved, the flashlights continued drifting across the uneven brush toward me, jumping up into the trees and then sliding back down to the ground. I reached the log. The deadfall had once been a huge tree where a large section of bark had slid off, forming a crude cover between it and the dead limbs leaning against the pine tree a few feet from it. I found a depression in the ground directly behind the bark. Some sort of den an animal had once used, obviously. I couldn’t risk flicking on the flashlight and hoped the space was large enough to accommodate me. I also hoped it was vacant.
I squeezed into it and, lying on my left side, pulled the leaves carefully over me, until I was completely covered. To prevent dirt, leaves and twigs from getting in my eyes, nose and mouth, I grabbed the front of my jacket and covered my face.
The crunching of leaves grew louder. Footsteps smashed dead branches and crushed leaves directly behind me, and I could soon tell by the increasing vibrations in the ground that they were just a few feet in front of me. One of them jumped over my log and landed heavily on the ground a foot or so to my right. He stayed there for long, tense moments, shifting his weight as he moved his flashlight beam around. Then he stepped away.
I lowered my jacket about an inch below the level of my eyes and pushed a couple of dead leaves aside. Someone came into my sight, and then someone else, and finally two others. The foursome reached the tree line and stopped moving. Through my mask of dead leaves I could see them moving their beams toward the front yard then turning around and aiming the brightness directly into the woods. They were all slender—some tall, others short. Although I couldn’t see their faces in the dark, I could distinguish holsters dangling over skinny legs and rifles perched atop narrow shoulders. They were all young—probably around the same age as the one I’d just killed. The memory of that unfortunate incident forced the cold knot in my gut to grow into a heavy block of ice.
A blinding whiteness slammed into my hiding place. I closed my eyes, nudged the jacket back up over them and remained completely still. The light stayed on me, and I was certain I’d been spotted ... but I knew better than move.
They can’t see you
, the voice told me.
It didn’t matter; I did what my gut, as well as my training, told me.
Relax, don’t move, breathe slowly, and become one with your environment
.
Become the ground, the tree, the dirt. Above all else, survive.
After a couple of long, excruciatingly-tense minutes, the blinding white beam finally shifted, and the comforting darkness that had become my only ally rushed back to console me.
“Jackie’s dead!” whispered one of them harshly.
“Fucker got
Jackie
?”
“
Told
ya I heard eight shots. Sounded like a fuckin’ twenty-two.”
“Fuck!”
“Shit!”
“Simon’s gonna be pissed, man ... really and truly, man.”
“He’s got weed for days. He’ll be all right.”
“He’s got a little crank for tomorrow, too.”
“What about the stuff he got from Doc’s wagon?”
“Doc only likes Zanax and Vicodin when he really wants to get fucked up. Took Zanax this mornin’, when he found out Doc and James got capped. Doc had enough weed for a coupla weeks in the wagon, but you know Simon.”
“Yeah, he likes to have a month’s supply on hand for parties. And now
we
gotta find the stuff for ’im.”
“Yeah. Doc ain’t around no more.”
“
Damn
. Gotta find that stupid fuck.”
“That’s why we’re here, bitch.”
“Where the fuck
is
he?”
“Fucker’s gotta be here
some
where.”
Silence.
“Think maybe he circled back?”
“Fucker could be anywhere.”
“Dammit, Jackie, you stupid asshole!”
“Spread out, we’ll go back in and come out the other way. First one sees ’im, shoot the flare. ’Member, Simon wants this fucker alive!”
The lights scattered, and the boys rushed back into the woods.
I held my breath as two of them shuffled back, stopped about three feet in front of the pile of leaves covering me and slammed my area once again with a trio of blinding fireballs from their flashlights. Then they split up and went back to their hunt.
I didn’t start breathing normally again until the comforting silence told me they’d gone.
***
After a couple of minutes of heavy silence, I decided it was safe to leave my little nook. The hunting party would be looking for me at the other end of the woods. I had time to circle the property and find a way back through the back yard. If Fields was being held in the guest house, I had to get her out without alerting anyone in the main building. If she wasn’t there, I had to find someone who could give me answers. I didn’t have much time, and would have to resort to crude interrogation tactics. The thoughts of torturing a kid disturbed me, but I reminded myself that they were armed and dangerous, out of control and beyond hope. In this new world, everyone was doomed, especially children.