Graham's Resolution Trilogy Bundle: Books 1-3 (40 page)

Marcy stared out the windshield as the storm blew around her. She chanted, “Seven, eight, nine, ten,” then honked the horn once, twice, and a third time. A desperation overtook her; her pulse accelerated. “Where the hell are they?” she yelled. Alone and terrified, she’d gone through the honking routine just like Sam said to, at least fifteen times now.

She shivered in the decreasing temperature, the vinyl seating crunching awkwardly as she adjusted her position. She considered going against all of Sam’s warnings about leaving the confines of the truck. “They’re probably already in the house, lighting a fire by now,” she reasoned aloud, aware of the tremor of fear in her own voice.
But no. They’d never do that, leave me here alone one second longer than necessary.

She’d scarcely formed the thought when the glass at her left shoulder caved in, small particles glittering in the glow of headlights reflecting back from the snow. Marcy ducked instinctively, rolled to the right, feeling the fury of the storm as it shrieked through the hole in the driver’s-side window.

In the months before—before the end—Marcy would have sat there stunned, immobilized in shock. But not now. Her response was automatic. She drew her weapon without conscious thought, continuing her roll toward the right side door, grabbing for the handle as snow and a rag-covered hand wielding a club invaded the break in the window.

Even as it swept toward her, she flung open the door and rolled out into the fury of the storm. She clawed her way to her feet and took aim. She didn’t scream. She didn’t warn. She fired. Once, twice, a third time. Just like Graham taught her. She heard a howl over the scream of the wind. Her attacker’s arm and club disappeared. He was either injured or dead. She was certain she’d hit him, but she wasn’t through with him yet. She had to be sure.

She kept to the side of the truck and edged her way around the back, not wanting to be outlined against the headlights. Damn! She saw her assailant fleeing across the blinding light and vanishing abruptly into darkness.

Marcy shook from adrenaline as much as cold. Anger flared through her.
How dare someone harm my family!
She had no doubt her attacker had hurt them before coming after her.

She ducked down to stay under the lights and felt along the front bumper for the rope. Letting it slide through her gloved hand, she waded blindly ahead, knowing the monster was out there, still alive and knowing the territory better than she did. She had to find the men. She had to get there before the killer. They might still be alive. If the killer’s only weapon was the club, they could just be unconscious, lying somewhere out here in the snow. She had to find them, so she forced herself forward blindly. Every few difficult paces, she stopped to listen for anything besides the howling wind, to search for dark movement against the swirling blizzard. Discerning nothing, she struggled on, then stopped when her boot hit something hard. She searched with both hands. A rifle! She swept through the snow, searching, hoping, but found no unconscious man.

Up again, she lumbered on with the rifle slung over her shoulder.

When the rope end disappeared from her hand, she stood suspended for a second in disbelief. She felt as if she’d been flying high above the storm and, all at once, stood untethered in midair, in the pitch black of night, all alone. Then, some instinct told her she wasn’t alone. Intuition made her whirl and jerk sideways as the club careened toward her face.

She lunged at the enemy. Hands smacking against a chest, sending the attacker sprawling backward to the ground. Pissed and frightened, Marcy would fight this person or die trying. She whaled at the attacker with the butt of her pistol, striking out again and again as long, cold fingernails grabbed at her in the darkness, tearing at her sleeves. A skinny, ungloved hand lifted the club. Marcy snatched it free, flung it away. A high, feminine screech rang through the air. “No! No! That’s mine!”

Then the woman scrambled up and darted away, and Marcy followed close enough to hear the grunts and cries of her attacker as she stalked her through the night.

“Where are you?” the woman screamed. Marcy crouched down and kept her eyes on the shapeless bundle of rags as the woman searched. For Marcy? For the club? Muttering as she moved in an aimless circle, quickly gathering snow.

Marcy kept her pistol ready in front of her, but soon the woman seemed to get her bearings and scurried off to the right. She followed as closely as possible, keeping the unkempt shape in sight until finally the house appeared dimly ahead of her. The house that first seemed a safe haven from the storm now appeared a malevolent hovel.

The raging woman screamed and mumbled words Marcy couldn’t understand as she ascended rickety stairs and crossed the porch. Faint candlelight glowed as the door opened into the lunatic’s lair. Marcy ran toward it, crept up the steps, hearing more incoherent ranting from inside. She crouched, weapon drawn, and kicked opened the weathered door of the madhouse.

The woman straddled Sam’s waist, about to plunge a large kitchen knife into his chest, and Marcy pulled the trigger.

The shot hit the woman in the back of her head. Blood sprayed—over the wall, all over Sam. Marcy took two long strides and kicked the woman off Sam’s chest and shot her again at point blank range, then a third time and then a fourth.

Sam moaned and Marcy turned. When the woman fell, the knife had continued, slicing into Sam’s chest. As she stared, it fell over and clattered onto the wooden floor. Sam’s eyes were wide open. He stared at her in amazement. “Nice shots,” he said. “Now untie me.”

“Where’s Mark?” she demanded.

“I don’t know, Marcy. Untie me.”

“Where
is
he?” Her voice went high.

“Marcy! Marcy, use the knife and untie me.” Sam rolled to his side, bringing his knees up to his chest.

“Mark!” she yelled.

“Marcy! Untie me, God dammit!” Sam yelled, then gasped as he moved, and she came out of it enough to listen to him. She found the blood-drenched knife next to Sam’s curled body and hacked into the tight bindings. Then, she went in search of Mark in the depths of the eerie, darkened rooms filled with litter.

She rushed past broken wooden chairs and couch cushions with their stuffing emptied all over the living room, past rat carcasses and parts of deer flesh, long spoiled, lying by the open fireplace.

She scuffed through litter into what had been a kitchen, then a bathroom, toilet broken, but the stench said the woman had continued to use it anyway. She ducked out of there quickly, then continued into a back bedroom, saw Mark, and screamed.

When Marcy screamed, Sam ripped at the ropes still tangling his feet. Blood poured from his chest. The room spun, but Marcy needed him. He got to his feet, balancing himself on a wall of the hallway, his shirt and coat quickly blooming with bloodstains. Dizziness sent him reeling. His hand came away from the back of his head wet and warm with crimson blood from the injury. Marcy continued yelling Mark’s name. The sound of her distress echoed loudly in his cranium. He squinted from the pain.

“Marcy, where are you?” he shouted.

“Back here! Hurry, Sam, I need your help!” Her high-pitched cry dropped down to horrible, hoarse sobbing.

“Marcy, I’m coming! Where are you?” He yelled it, trying to find her as he stumbled alongside a wall that defied its true angle. He braced himself against the illusion, as the rest of the room spun. He closed his eyes and tried to follow the sound of her voice because his eyes couldn’t pick a worthy direction. As he trailed her voice, his blood smeared along the dirty wall, trailing crimson waves.

“We’re in here!” she called.

When Sam finally found them, with difficulty, he blinked and shook his head to make the two images become one. Marcy crouched, untying Mark as he lay motionless on his stomach, his head in a puddle of blood. Marcy rolled him over, and his injuries were immediately evident. His nose lay at an unnatural angle, one eye was swollen shut, and blood drained out of his ear. Clearly, the crazed woman had clubbed him across the face.

“Mark, can you hear me?” Marcy sobbed, clutching at him, rocking back and forth on her haunches. “Mark!”

Sam staggered to them and dropped to the boy’s side. He reached for his neck to check his pulse, afraid of what he might find. Blinking his eyes several times, he tried to ignore the spinning and focused on the task at hand. Finally he was able to determine a faint thumping. “He’s alive,” Sam whispered hoarsely.

Marcy cried tears of relief. Sam patted her on the back and she leaned against him, pressing her cheek against his blooming blood-soaked shirt.

“She stabbed you,” she said, pulling away. Shock glazed her eyes.

Sam had to keep her with him. Though she’d just saved them all, she still had more to do, or they might yet die.

“I know, Marcy, but I’m okay. You need to listen to me now. Can you do that?” He held her by the forearms and shook her until she looked at him.

“Yeah.”

“We need to get Mark back to camp. The swelling in his neck could block his airway. Do you think you can drive? It sounds like most of the storm has passed.”

She nodded.

“Good girl. Let’s get Mark into the main room and get the truck up here.”

In no condition to help Marcy move Mark into the living room, Sam could only offer suggestions on how not to injure him further. She did the best she could as Sam followed, holding himself against the wall. She carefully laid Mark down on the floor in front of the entrance, putting a ratty cushion under his head for elevation.

As Sam passed the dead body of the woman, he could see with morbid clarity how she had died. When she’d returned to the house in a rage, she’d been bleeding from a chest wound. Then she’d attacked him with the knife, without thought to her own condition. Even if Marcy hadn’t shot her, she’d have died drowning in her own blood. He’d heard her wheezing, fighting for breath.

He worried about Marcy. She shot the woman at least once outside and then again in the house, but the third shot was unnecessary, as was the fourth. Now was not the time to ask her about her actions, but the effect worried him. She was functioning now, but he knew deeper shock would set in soon, and he needed to get her back before she had the opportunity to break down. He needed her to keep herself together long enough to get them home.

He peered at the front window and saw that the storm had calmed down enough for him to see the truck out in the frozen landscape. He tried to speak to Marcy, to tell her what to do, but the effort of walking had left him spent. Slowly, his back to the wall, he sank to the floor and realized he was passing out.

Dimly, he heard Marcy’s cry. “Sam!”

He had just enough strength to brush her hands away when she tried to apply pressure to the knife cut in his chest. “Sam, don’t . . . don’t leave me.”

“Girl, go get the truck. I’m fine. Dizzy as hell, but fine,” he said as he felt the shadows close in around him.

“Okay,” she said, and ran for the door.

He stopped her before she left and said with slow care, “Marcy, it’s stuck, remember. Put it back in four-wheel-drive, and follow the dropped wheel. Go straight into the ditch. Listen to me, go straight into the ditch and drive straight up and out to the curve in the road. Don’t turn the wheel or you’ll get stuck again. Do you understand me?”

“Yes, Sam. I’ll be right back.”

He nodded with his eyes half closed to keep the room from spinning. God, how he hoped she could do it. He didn’t want to be in that house a minute longer, and he really worried about the boy. Glancing in that direction, he could see Mark’s injuries were life-threatening. Even now his very breath seemed fleeting.

The warmth in the truck would also beat the drafty conditions in the shack. If they lost the boy, Marcy would be no good, and he needed to get her back to Graham in one piece. The fact that she’d killed the woman outright was impressive but a bit worrisome. He didn’t think she really knew she had committed the deed—not really, not yet. No doubt, the fact would hit her later. He needed Graham for that. It was only a matter of time before reality came to her.

Early the next morning, Tala rose before the others and barely made it to the bathroom before the heaving overtook her. The bile wouldn’t be held back this time. She hoped no one heard her, but the urgency couldn’t be helped. After cleaning up she talked herself into making the morning coffee and beginning breakfast, even though the smell drove her over the edge. Soon Bang’s little feet padded on the wooden floor. As always, he rose to meet her in the quiet of dawn.

“Good morning Tala,” he said, and poured himself a cup of coffee.

“I know Graham said you could have coffee, but a boy your age really shouldn’t be drinking that much caffeine every day. So go easy, okay? You might stop growing,” she warned playfully, then attempted to straighten his hair with her hands as she imagined his own mother would have done.

He smiled up at Tala, knowing she had tried to fool him. “If it’s good for Graham, it’s good for me too,” he reasoned as he added nearly as much reconstituted milk as coffee, and then added two heaping spoons of sugar. After observing this, she decided to give up on hassling him about the coffee, and instead, focus on good oral hygiene with so much sugar and no dentists around.

Once again, the coffee aroma threatened to send her to the bathroom, and Bang witnessed her recoil at the smell.

“Are you sick, Tala?” Fear came over his small face, and for good reason: he’d lost his entire family to the pandemic. She swallowed hard and recovered, then knelt down to him and brushed his hair out of his eyes once more.

“I’m fine, Bang. I’m not
that kind
of sick, so don’t worry about me, okay?” She handed him a bowl of grits mixed with some dried venison meat for extra protein. He accepted the steaming bowl and made his way to the table.

Tala had worked very hard to gain the boy’s trust over the past several months, and she didn’t want to jeopardize that bond in the least by keeping a secret. After all he’d been through, he deserved better. So did Graham. She would find a way to tell Graham, and soon.

Keeping the pregnancy a secret would prove to be impossible for much longer, especially with the tight quarters of the cabin eliminating most privacy.

She dreaded Graham’s reaction after his response to putting the girls on birth control. She would never agree to an abortion. Clarisse and Graham both believed terminating would be for the best in theory, but Tala would take her chances. She hadn’t slept a wink the previous night as she struggled over the decision. To her, abortion was murder; no matter the time of conception. Even with the virus still apparent and the unknown immunity factor, she still felt the child had a chance, a chance at life she was willing to take over a clear and decided death.

Macy was next up, and as usual, she cheerfully entered the kitchen ready for a new day.

“I beat Graham this morning?” she asked, surprised, and beamed a proud smile.

Macy’s competitive nature, her determination to beat Graham at everything, always amused Tala. She could almost outshoot him; she could definitely outrun him, and their competitiveness had become a source of entertainment for them all. Once she declared a challenge, it was on. She would practice endlessly and become quite skilled, well beyond her sister’s abilities. A strength this keen became essential to their survival.

“We were up a little late last night,” Tala said in Graham’s defense. “But it’s not even light yet. I think we’re all up a little early this morning.” She let Macy serve herself, and then poured Graham a cup of coffee. Again, she avoided the aroma after a wave of nausea hit her. Sheriff came ambling out of the bunkroom and almost knocked the coffee from her hands. When she finally made it past the doorway, Graham was, in fact, awake and watching over Ennis.

The look on his face took her aback. “Is he okay?”

“Yeah, he’s breathing. He was just mumbling a lot in his sleep last night.”

She handed him his coffee, and as he accepted the warm cup, she asked, “Does he have a fever?”

“He seems a little too warm, but not like yesterday.”

He motioned for them to retreat out of the room to let Ennis sleep longer. He looped his free arm around her waist as they entered the dining area.

“Let’s wake him in another hour, and get him to the bathroom,” Tala said.

“Yeah, but let me do it. Afterward, I’m going to take the pickup truck into town for a few things. I think we should have those painkillers here for him so he’s not in so much turmoil. We need a few other things, too, and I’ll check the post office to see if our Carnation boy has arrived yet.”

She pulled away, not daring to face him in case he detect her nausea.