Crisis Event: Jagged White Line (5 page)

“Here, pussy, pussy, pussy,” Getter said softly as he stared down at Sadie. “Come and get your treat!”

Getter chuckled some more, and tucked the glowing device into his jacket pocket. He tried the truck’s door handle, and when it wouldn’t open Blakely said, “Any reason I shouldn’t just put you down now?”

Getter froze, then turned to face Blakely, his hands in the air.

“Oh come on,” he said. “The general would have your ass.”

“The general wants the package more than he wants you raping civilians.”

“Now, now,” Getter said. “No reason he can’t get both.”

“Walk toward me,” Blakely said. “Slowly.”

“Sure,” Getter said. “Just remember the general’s the reason I’m out here. He wanted to make sure the tracker’s still working.”

“Is it?” Blakely asked.

“Good as can be expected,” he said. “Pretty limited range.”

“Now you know,” Blakely said. “So get lost.”

Getter smiled behind the half mask.

“All right, Rambo,” he said. “You keep that pussy for yourself, for now.”

Blakely, not trusting himself to speak, stood silent for a few seconds before saying, “Move on.”

“Okay,” Getter sneered as he walked toward Blakely. “But you better watch it. Wouldn’t want anything bad to happen to your little soldier boys.”

“In a fight between you and my soldier boys,” Blakely said as he stepped back to let Getter pass, “I’m gonna go with the soldier boys every time.”

“Ooooh,” Getter said over his shoulder. “Blind loyalty is sooo sexy. I bet Little Miss Hot Pussy loves that.”

Blakely remained silent as Getter kept up a one-sided conversation.

“Yessiree, boy. She’s almost as kinky as little Melinda Forchet was. What a mynx that little thing was. You should’ve heard her moan when we played “This Little Piggie!’ with her toes. I’ve got video if you want it.”

“Keep talking,” Blakely muttered, keeping his voice flat and fighting the urge to kill Getter. “Just do it somewhere else.”

Getter chuckled and moved off, waiting until he was fifty meters out before trying to radio Titman.

“This is Raging Hard-on” he said. “Raging Hard-on calling Snatch Stuffer. Over?”

These guys were unbelievable, Blakely thought. What the hell had they been doing before the Crisis?

Blakely followed Getter with a hundred meter lag between them, and he trailed him nearly half a mile. When he was sure Getter was really leaving, he stopped and stood next to a UPS delivery truck. The back doors were hanging open and the cargo had been emptied. Why it had been abandoned was one of those mysteries that would never be solved. It was the only vehicle pointing west toward Shanksborough. All the rest of the traffic had been heading east.

Blakely scanned the landscape. His goggles showed him a few small animals at work in the fields and scrub and trees. Mostly there was nothing to see.

Then he heard a metal clang back the way Getter had gone.

“I thought I told you to get the fuck out of here!” Blakely said as he stepped out from behind the UPS truck.

Someone darted across the road. Instantly he went for his rifle, swinging it up to point at where he’d seen the crossing. There was no one to shoot at. Instead he heard a sound like a bicycle chain being whipped into a car windshield, and a bullet smacked into the side of the UPS truck, missing his chin by less than three inches.

He dove for the ground, asking himself how he’d been flanked.

    “Maybe I’m not a badass,” he said as he rolled for the ditch, wondering who could be firing at him.

    He heard the bicycle chain sound again and another bullet smacked into the road next to him. It came from the other direction and hit so close to his right shoulder that he wondered if the end of his life had arrived.

    He tried to recall if Sadie had said or done anything to signal the sheriff in Shanksborough, but under the pressure of enemy fire, couldn’t focus. He rolled down the incline to the bottom of the ditch, throwing dust and ash everywhere as he cursed himself for his carelessness. Then he began crawling back the way he’d come—toward the enemy who’d fired the first shot. An enemy who was now between Blakely and the girl he was supposed to keep safe.

Chapter 6

When she heard the muffled gunshot Sadie sat up. She pulled her respirator over her face, then grabbed her backpack and rifle off the passenger floorboard.

“Wait,” she told herself, and paused for a few seconds. The second muffled shot got her moving again.

She grabbed the metal window lever and spun it so that the glass beside her dropped down.

Not that she could see in the darkness.

The distant lightning flashes in the north gave her brief seconds of dim light, but told her nothing about what might be going on.

Seconds later a rapid series of gunshots sounded, unmuffled and close. She wasn’t sure how, but she knew it must be Blakely.

Instantly she threw the door open and leapt out. She ran east, away from where she thought the shots had come, flicking on her flashlight and leaving the road to sprint northward into the dust-coated scrubland.

She knew it was stupid to show a light, but decided it was the lesser of two evils. Running in the darkness was a sure way to break an ankle or gouge out an eyeball, and she needed to get out into the middle of a woody area so she could hide—in a tree, or beneath a bush, or inside a log.

More suppressed gunfire erupted behind her, from three different directions, a series of rapid, repeated “clangs” that sounded out then died.

The image of the old farmhouse she’d passed two days earlier appeared in her mind, its bristling rifle barrels pointing at her. It couldn’t be more than a few miles behind them. What if the people in that house had seen her and Blakely passing? What if they had followed, hunkering down during the storm and attacking in the middle of the night.

She clicked off the flashlight. She’d gone at least a hundred yards into the scrub and trees, and if she could hide well enough, she might be able to get her ankle bracelet off and slip away before the general and his men could find her.

But she knew her plan would never work.

Whoever was attacking them had followed and waited until the middle of the night to attack. They had night vision scopes or goggles.

Sadie ducked down behind a stunted tree and looked back toward the road. Another barrage of gunfire shattered a short quiet period, and she saw muzzle flashes, which were followed by a bright explosion and a boom that rolled over the land as loud as any thunderclap, but  more percussive. Sadie felt the rumble through her boots. Sharp flashes of red and yellow sparks sprayed up from the ground. The “clang-clang-clang” of suppressed automatic rifle fire sounded immediately after their appearance

As Sadie watched the road, another flare of red and yellow sparks ignited, and then another, both followed by Blakely’s gunshots.

When the fourth flare ignited next to the truck she’d been sleeping in, Sadie realized Blakely was looking for her, driving back their attackers and trying to use flares to disrupt his enemy’s optics. Whether or not he was doing this because he cared about her safety or was merely doing his soldierly duty was something she wondered about for all of two seconds. Then she realized she’d been given a perfect escape opportunity.

As she turned her head slightly and scanned the road with peripheral vision, she reached for her multitool and brought it out. It was time to cut the ankle monitor off and run. She’d just gotten the knife blade open when she caught a flash of movement coming her way.

“Git up from there!” said a redneck voice. “Before I put my horsewhip to you.”

Sadie dove sideways and tried to roll up to her feet so that she could see if someone were to attack. Before she could get anywhere she heard a loud “crack” and felt something slap into her backpack.

She knew instantly the guy wasn’t kidding about the horsewhip. The tip of the whip swung over her torso and slapped into the top of her right thigh.

“Ow!” she yelped as she got to her feet. She lunged forward with her multitool thrust ahead of her, its point aimed at a shadowy figure she could barely see.

    “Hahhh!” the voice in the darkness said just as someone out in the darkness let loose with three quick shots. “You better put that down, ‘less you want a wedding day more painful than usual.”

    Sadie ignored the man’s threat and lunged forward again, her knees bent and her elbows at ninety degrees.

    “Don’t say I didn’t warn you none!” the man said and Sadie smiled. It was the same thing the cannibal cop had said before she’d killed him.

But then came another whip crack.

This time the leather struck her hand and wrapped around her forearm like a coiling ribbon of fire.

    “Ahhhh!” she shrieked. She dropped the multitool and without thinking grabbed the whip with both hands and pulled. At first there was resistance, but then it was gone and Sadie fell back, the whip still coiled around her wrist.

    Sadie hit the ground. Her pack slammed into her back so hard she grunted. She tried to roll onto her side, but it took an eternity, and by the time she’d managed it a boot slammed into her ribs.

“Uhhhlll!” she grunted.

“You gon’ have to learn how to act, little girl,” her attacker said.

Sadie was about to gasp out an obscenity when her respirator was jerked off her face and over the top of her head. A second later a fist slammed into her gut.

She clutched at her belly with both arms.

“Now you gon’ get yourself up and put your hands behind your back, and we gon’ walk.”

“Where?” she wheezed.

“Right into God’s will,” he said, and jerked her to her feet.

At first Sadie refused to put her hands behind her back. But when the man pulled a pistol and shoved it against her temple, she relented. Her guts clenched when the metal handcuff bracelet snapped around her wrists.

“Move” the man said, and he shoved Sadie forward, away from the gunfire.

“You got him Samuel?” a woman’s voice crackled through a tinny speaker.

“He ain’t trying to fight us,” the voice whispered. “He’s just running.”

    “You take him down, now,” the attacker said. “Don’t disobey me.”

    “Yes sir,” the voice responded and the crackle disappeared as the attacker turned down the walkie-talkie.

Sadie shuddered at the idea that Blakely might die. She wasn’t sure exactly what this man wanted with her, but if Blakely was killed she’d have to either get herself free or hope for help from Titman—who might or might not be able to find her, and who might or might not go back to torturing her instead of trying to achieve his military objective.

Sadie and the man kept walking, moving parallel to the road, following a trail worn through the hilly scrubland. The suppressed gunfire faded from her hearing and Blakely’s shots grew distant.

“Heavenly Father,” her attacker said suddenly, “We thank you for sending this daughter, soon to be baptized Ruth in honor of that precious ancestor of David, so that we might fulfill your command to go forth and be fruitful and multiply.”

“Where are you taking me?” Sadie asked, but the man ignored her.

“We praise you, Father, for providing this vessel for our seed, and ask that you continue to provide for our needs as you pour out your wrath on this land.”

“Hey, Asshole,” Sadie yelled, and instantly wished she hadn’t. The man sent his horsewhip whizzing at her. Sadie felt the leather lash against her buttocks, just beneath the bottom of her backpack.

“Ow!” she yelped.

“I don’t know how you was raised, little girl, but you gon’ have to learn respect and decency if you’re gon’ to be a part of our family.”

“I’m not going to be a part of your family, you idiot,” she said, but regretted it when the tip of horsewhip cracked and a burning a ring of pain encircled her left calf.

Sadie tripped and fell and dust enveloped her face.

“Upon thy belly shalt thou go,” the man said. “And dust you shall eat all the days of your life.”

“Oh my God,” Sadie said, and coughed and swallowed hard. The handcuffs and backpack made her lean forward to keep her balance, which made her back hurt. She was almost grateful when they topped a hill and came down upon  an open, flat spread of land. It stretched out, gray and endless into the darkness.

“What is this?” Sadie asked. She thought it might be cropland, but the lack of rows suggested otherwise.

“A mine,” the man said.

Then Sadie knew she was walking across what was likely once a hill or low-altitude mountain. One that had been bulldozed down and dug out and refilled after the stone and dirt had been processed for coal or lignite or other minerals or metals people wanted. They walked for half a mile before they left the flattened area and re-entered the scrubland.

    “You boys get him?” the man asked. The radio crackled and a voice came through.

“We got him,” the voice said.

“Is he dead?” the man asked. There was a pause, and then an answer.