Rise of the Huskers (The Raven Falconer Chronicles) (16 page)

Thankfully, the reinforced cockpit of the police cruiser was built to withstand impacts greater than the one it had just experienced, saving the lives of Ziggy and the girls
, but not delivering them completely unscathed.

“Everybody okay?” Nowicki groggily asked.

The chocolate lab lay limp on Raven’s knees, the windshield broken above where the dog’s skull had cracked the hardened glass and killed her instantly.  “Pooch . . . Pooch,” Raven whispered, shaking her lightly.  “I . . . I think I’m okay, but we lost Pooch,” she said, unsnapping her safety belt and trying to push the door open.  “Hannah, Bobi, you okay?”

Groans emerged from the back seat as the friends regained a sense of composure and assessed their situation.  “We’re . . . oh, crap.  My arm is broken,” Bobi said, confirming the diagnosis by trying to lift the ill-fated limb for Hannah’s inspection.

“Yup, we’ve got a broken arm back here but I think, otherwise, we’re fine.  What happened to the rest of the group?”

Ziggy slammed his shoulder against the driver’s door and on the third try it broke free, toppling him on his side in the road. 
The car’s engine hissed and sputtered, adding to the squealing noise coming from the burrow pit, where the Suburban had finally come to rest.  “I think the others made it but they got our last truck.  See if you can get out.  Grab your guns . . . we’ve gotta leave, Darwin will be after us and he can’t be far away.  I’ll check on the other pickup.”

Officer Nowicki advanced on the GAW SUV, which had stopped running but was blocking the highway, crashed perpendicular to the road’s surface.  He held his pistol extended from his body, occasionally dipping and swaying, still feeling the results of the impact, but knowing they had no time to waste.  A pair of dark figures suddenly appeared, with weapons drawn, ready to fire from behind the SUV.  They shot quickly, their rounds kicking up sparks but sailing by, not striking the officer.  One of the two sprinted for the side of the road and was lost from view, narrowly missing Eli
, who knelt just below the highway’s edge.  Being caught off guard, neither man knew quite what to do, so they simply ignored one another and allowed the other to live.  Eli watched the dark-haired fellow scamper down the hill, eventually losing sight of him.

A second later, more shots rang out, and then silence.  Falconer listened and waited, wondering who had won the life and death struggle just a few meters away.  “Zig, you okay?” a woman’s voice shouted from the location of the first collision.  Again, she called out, nearly stopping his heart.  “Ziggy, we’re good.  We can move out,” Raven confirmed, following a wave from Nowicki.

“Rave,” Eli said, quietly.  Without thinking of his present appearance, he stood and walked toward the well-known tone, the axe dragging in the weeds.  His head, then shoulders, cleared the bank as he struggled to climb up the steep roadside.  Raven’s father looked for her, but suddenly came face to face with a husky man pointing a pistol directly at his head.

Falconer’s image, swollen eye and bloody splotches covering his exposed skin, repulsed Ziggy.  However, the officer was not surprised to see the character trailing an axe, obviously the same weapon he’d used to kill the woman at the gazebo and the blade that he’d wielded when he massacred the teenagers a few days ago.

A seething anger rose quickly within the officer and he tightened his finger on the pistol’s trigger.

“Don’t, I’m . . . ”

A gunshot cracked through the cool mountain air, dropping Eli to his knees.  Nowicki’s pistol was suddenly ripped from his hands, a 30-30 round catching the barrel and tossing it away.  When the ‘Husker’ had appeared at the side of the road, Raven pulled her rifle up to provide support for Ziggy.  She studied the figure, knowing there was something familiar: his hair, jawline, frame. 
I think I know this man.
  It wasn’t until she advanced a few steps that she recognized Eli Falconer.  Swinging her rifle to the right, she had fired without thinking, stopping Zig from killing her father.

“What the hell?” Nowicki bellowed.

Raven ran to his side and looked down at Eli, unsure if she dared get any closer.  “Dad, how is this possible?”

“Raven, my dear Rave,” he cried, dropping his chin to his chest.  “I thought I’d never see you again.”

“How did you survive?  You’re still sick,” she assessed, noting the swelling and redness.

“Dad?” Ziggy asked.  “I love a good family reunion but we don’t have time.  Mr. Falconer, are you infected and contagious?”

“I wish I knew for sure but I don’t think so.  I was sick but I’m getting better, and I can remember.”

“That’s good enough for me,” Raven said enthusiastically, before running to her father, and taking him in a warm embrace.

The three women, Ziggy and Eli slid down the embankment and headed away from the crash site.  From a thatch of overgrown brush near where the truck had come to rest, Nathan was savoring the soft cheeks of the man who had practically run into his arms.  Killing him had been swift and easy, and even now, the axe’s edge was stained with the GAW member’s blood.  Edwards watched the troop of men and women hobble by; content to enjoy his fresh meal but then . . . a flash of metal caught his eye.

Somewhere in the distant recesses of his mind, an action played out.  He lifted the rifle and felt the smooth stock, rubbing it from trigger to butt, relishing the texture and the ‘memories’ it stirred.  He knew this . . . he’d hefted it a thousand times.  It was part of him and part of who he was.  Glints of remote, forgotten images bounced in and out of his mind; they were never fully visible but spawned muscle memory, which pushed the stock into the hollow of his shoulder and leveled the sights with his eyes.

“Now what?” Hannah asked, doing her best to support Bobi and carry the assault rifles.

“Only thing around is the airport.  If we can make it we might be able to hide out or prepare some sort of defense.  I’d say Darwin’s plans have been set back and maybe he’ll leave us alone.”

Raven and Eli talked quietly as they trudged along, the two sharing events of the past week and Eli trying to explain the theory of his survival.  “What do you think?” he asked, knowing that Bobi had been able to overhear his explanation.

“I guess it’s possible.  I don’t know how probable
, but you’re walking and talking, so who knows?”  Bobi winced in pain, her mind doing flip-flops, thinking of ways to utilize the knowledge of Eli’s survival.

“Do you think they made it . . . Mick and the kids?” Raven asked.  An uneasy quiet hung in the air, while they each contemplated the answer to that troubling question.

“I’m sure of it.  What could have stopped them?” Hannah asked.

Several kilometers down the freeway
, a posse, including Darwin, Lou and a dozen other heavily armed and unhappy people, stood behind the vehicles, which blocked the highway.  The roadblock was perfectly positioned around a sharp curve, not allowing the oncoming convoy to turn around and make an attempt at escape.  The headlights of Willie’s truck slowly turned until they fell on the SUV’s and pickups blunting their progress.  A hail of gunfire blew out the engine of the lead truck, killing the Daniel’s couple, and pitching it quickly into the ditch.  The remaining vehicles skidded to a stop and waited.  Another pair of Darwin’s group appeared from behind, penning in and capturing the fleeing survivors of Banff, Alberta, including Mick and the children she’d tried so hard to protect.

“Too bad there aren’t any planes,” Hannah said, more to herself than the others, as a view of the airport came within sight.

Ziggy overheard the young woman and questioned her further, “What was that, Hannah?”

“I said, too bad there aren’t any planes.”

“That’s what I thought.  Why would you say that?”

“Isn’t it obvious?  So we could fly our way out of here.”  She looked at the others, as though it was self-evident.

“Yeah, but we’d have to find a pilot,” the officer suggested, thinking it would bring an end to the conversation.

“No we wouldn’t,” Raven confirmed.  “Hannah can fly.  Her dad taught her while they were living on a base back east.  Right Hannah?”

“Well yeah, at least some types but I know my way around most light aircraft.”

“Okay, why haven’t I heard this before?” Ziggy asked, sounding more upset than the others would have expected from such a casual conversation.  “We have a plane.  It’s been in that hangar over there for weeks.  RCMP uses it for speed control on the rural highways.  It’s a four-
seater but should be able to carry us.”

Shouts of excitement and joy filled the air as the little troop of family and friends picked up their pace, eventually arriving at the hangar.  It took some time to prep the plane and make it ready for flight but within thirty minutes they had pushed the aircraft from the storage facility and were aboard, ready for flight.  The engine hummed, vibrating the entire frame as it slowly rolled from the corrugated tin shed and started down the runway.

Lying on his belly a hundred yards away, Nathan pressed the rifle firmly to his cheek and lined up the taxiing plane with the rifle’s sights.  He slowly took the slack from the trigger and squeezed off a handful of rounds as the plane lifted into the air.

To be continued . . .