Chapter
27
Matt and I rushed out of the kitchen without saying anything to each other. We were both drawn to the sound of gunfire like buzzards to carrion. As I approached the door, I could identify the distinct sound of at least two different guns. One was a rifle and the other was a shotgun. I stopped as I reached the front door. I carefully peered around the door jamb to see who was shooting and what their target was. Matt put his hand on my shoulder to let me know he in position and then squeezed to alert me that he was ready to move.
As I peered around the corner, I saw a red 1980’s Oldsmobile Cutlass which I knew belonged to Curtis. It was stopped next to Matt’s truck. Curtis was at the wheel. Nick, whom I recognized from pictures in Harold’s house, and another of Curtis’ worthless buddies, Andy Whitworth, were out of the car unloading rounds into the patrol vehicle. As I brought my rifle to bear, Andy turned his gun toward my truck. While I focused on the front sight, my peripheral vision saw the windshield turn opaque as a hole appeared on the left side. More holes dotted their way across to the right. Each hole had a spider web pattern of cracks radiating out from the center to the edge of the windshield.
Rage began to boil up from deep within as I squeezed the trigger. Watching Andy smile as he fired at the two helpless women in my truck was more than I could handle. I inadvertently pulled the gun slightly down as the round exploded in the chamber. I knew I had jerked the gun off target as soon as I pulled the trigger. Andy still went down, but I couldn’t tell where I hit him. My best guess was that the bullet had taken him in the guts. Wherever it had hit him, it wasn’t a killing shot. He scrambled toward Curtis’ car, half crawling and half running, his left hand clutching at his stomach, confirming my suspicion that I hit him in the guts. I fired again and missed.
Nick turned his shotgun on me as he retreated to the car. He fired as the barrel was moving horizontally in my direction. The gun went off too soon, harmlessly peppering the side of the house with lead shot. I returned fire as he dove into the front seat. Andy had nearly reached Curtis’ car when I heard the engine rev and the tires squeal. The car accelerated down the street, leaving Andy screaming for help as he tried to chase it down. I turned my sights to the car and fired again and again. After each round went off, I heard a
clang
confirming I was hitting the car, but I couldn’t tell where I was hitting it. I heard Matt fire to my left. Andy went down. I kept firing, aiming further ahead of where I wanted to hit as the car continued to accelerate.
I fired the last bullet in the magazine as the car squealed around the corner, turning onto Lake Street and disappearing from sight. I could hear the engine bellow through the custom exhaust as I reloaded. Tires squealed again, followed by the sound of metal scraping against metal; more squealing followed and then the sound of metal crushing. The engine went quiet. Matt was approaching Andy, using his truck for cover. I followed behind Matt. I realized that Andy had dropped his AK style rifle after I shot him the first time. He was lying on his side, curled up in the fetal position in the road.
The rage inside of me continued to grow. I was on the verge of losing control. I raised my rifle and put the red dot on Andy’s head. My finger tightened on the cool, smooth metal of the trigger.
And then I stopped.
I moved my finger off the trigger and rested it on the side of the receiver. Andy was no longer a threat. No matter how badly I wanted to finish him off for what he had done, it was wrong.
Andy cried as he begged for help. Once he was alone and faced with someone who could fight back, he revealed himself for what he was: a bully and a coward. He gurgled as he choked on his own blood. Andy died alone and abandoned by his friends. As Andy’s body relaxed and embraced death, I turned my eyes back to my truck. Through the shattered windshield, I saw Cindy and Kimiko’s heads peak up over the top of the dash.
“They’re okay!” Matt yelled. “Curtis crashed around the block. Let’s get him before he escapes.” We both sprinted down the road. When I rounded the corner onto Lake Street, I could see Curtis’ car four blocks ahead. The car was up on the sidewalk and the right side was wrapped around an oak tree like a horseshoe.
A woman was standing in the middle of the road with her hands on either side of her head, looking east down Hill Street. She suddenly screamed, “Alayna!”
A block away, Matt and I slowed our approach. There wasn’t much cover and we didn’t want Curtis to catch us by surprise. We moved out of the street and into the yards to the right. The houses provided decent cover if Curtis suddenly appeared and still wanted to fight. So far, there was no sign of him. There was at least one person still in the car. I couldn’t see whether there was a second.
The woman became more and more hysterical. Her vocalizations became incoherent. It sounded like she was trying to say words, but they came out as screeches. She sank to her knees, prostrating herself with her forehead on the ground, wailing.
We cautiously approached the car. The only thing holding the windshield together was the safety glazing. When I got close enough to see inside, I realized Curtis wasn’t there. Nick was slumped over in the passenger seat. Slivers of glass clung to his hair like shiny pieces of Velcro. Bark from the oak tree was imbedded in the right side of his cheek and the right side of his head. His right ear was missing and blood oozed from where it had been attached. The front of his face had hit something solid; his nose was smashed flat. He had what appeared to be a bullet wound in his left shoulder, which was suffused with blood. Amazingly, he was still conscious. The damage to the car, the skid marks, and broken glass in the street told the story of what had occurred.
Curtis had accelerated around the corner and didn’t take his foot out of the gas until he realized, at the last moment, that another vehicle was approaching the intersection. He slammed on the brakes, laying down a dark set of skid marks that extended across the white limit line at the stop sign and penetrated into the intersection.
He was going way too fast to stop. The front corner of his car slammed into the back of the other car in the intersection, shattering the lens cover over the brake light as well as the headlight and turn signal on his own car. Broken pieces of red and yellow plastic were scattered across the intersection, intermingled with pieces of clear glass from the headlight. The glancing blow wasn’t enough to stop Curtis’ car, but enough force was transferred to the other car to cause the back end to rotate around to the right. The other car’s back wheels laid down a black arc of skids as they pivoted sideways across the abrasive asphalt.
Curtis’ skids continued from the initial point of impact with an immediate change in direction after ricocheting off the second car. Two additional skid marks developed as Curtis’ car began to spin and the front wheels were no longer skidding in line with the rear wheels. The marks rapidly got very wide as the car spun sideways and then they came back together as the rear of the car came back in line with the front wheels. For a short distance, there were only two black marks, then front and rear wheels came out of line again and two more skid marks appeared. As the rotation continued, the marks widened a second time just before the car hopped the curb at the far side of the intersection and the passenger side hit the hundred year old oak tree square on. The rest of the car didn’t realize that the middle of the car had come to an abrupt stop. The front and rear continued forward, carried by inertia. They didn’t go much further, just far enough to wrap around either side of the oak.
The only question that remained was where the other car had gone.
“Nick. Nick!” I said louder as I crawled across the driver’s seat toward Nick’s broken body. “Where’s Curtis?”
“I don’t know,” he mumbled.
“What were you guys doing at your grandparent’s house?” I questioned.
He slipped out of consciousness.
“Nick! Wake up.” I shook his shoulder, not really concerned about neck injuries. He was hurt badly and there was nobody left at the hospital to care for him. His chances of recovery were slim. My only concern was gleaning whatever information he had.
He opened his eyes and lifted his head slightly.
“Nick, what were you doing at your grandparent’s?” I questioned again.
“Last night after we left my grandparents, Curtis got worried. All night he ranted about how we shouldn’t have left them alive… If they got free, they would report his robbing them to the cops… That would put him in town at the time he killed Gordy in the pharmacy,” he said, half coherently. “He said they could finger him and we had to get rid of them in case somebody found them alive.”
“Do you know where Curtis is going?” I prodded, hoping for some information that would lead me to him.
“Probably to the…” He drifted off again.
I shook him again. He didn’t respond. I shook harder and he opened his eyes. “Where is Curtis going?”
“The cabin.” His eyes rolled back into his head. His eyelids remained half open with only the whites showing.
“What cabin, Nick?” I asked, shaking him again. “Wake up, Nick. What cabin?”
His pupils reappeared as he came to again. “Tell my grandparents I’m sorry.” He stopped for several seconds as the pain completely overwhelmed him. “Tell them I love them. I’m sorry about what I did to them.” His eyes rolled back in his head again as he slipped from consciousness.
“Wake up Nick. What cabin are you talking about? Where is the cabin?”
Either the shaking or yelling brought him back again. “It’s on the abandoned ranch… off Sager Road. It’s where he makes meth… says it’s a good place to hide out.”
I knew the place he was talking about. There was a ranch in the hills that the environmentalists had shut down fifteen years ago. Some sort of endangered something or other lived in the area and the cattle had allegedly been destroying the habitat they required to survive. The only thing the land was good for was cattle. The owner abandoned the ranch when he could no longer make a living on it. High school kids started going there for parties and other activities they didn’t want their parents to know about. It was a long way out of town. As gas got more expensive, the kids found closer places to perform their illicit activities.
Sager was a dirt road. It ran close to the ranch. There was a four wheel drive trail that went the last two, rough miles to the cabin. By the time I came to town, kids were no longer partying out there and there wasn’t any reason to patrol the area. I had only been up there once when I first moved to town. The deputy who oriented me to the area said I should know where it was and took me out there. After that, there was no point in going back. A few months ago, somebody bought it and, I was told, had placarded the entire perimeter of the ranch with no trespassing signs.
There was no way Curtis’ Oldsmobile would have made it on the old jeep trail. He probably had an ATV hidden near the road. “Who else is there with him?” Nick didn’t respond. I shook him again to no avail. “Nick, wake up.” I realized I could no longer hear his raspy breathing. I placed two fingers on his neck, searching for a pulse. He was gone.
I crawled back out of the car, careful not to cut myself on the broken glass, and exited the driver door. At least we had something to go on now.
Matt was kneeling beside the hysterical woman and was talking to her. She appeared to be speaking to him between wails. It didn’t take long to figure out the gist of her problem. She had been driving the other vehicle. After the collision, Curtis pulled her out of her minivan and drove off. Her distress was caused by the fact that her two month old daughter was still in the backseat.
Chapter
28
“Go get the truck,” Matt yelled. “I’m going to stay with her until you get back.” I tore down the street as fast as I could run. I didn’t hold anything back. I could rest while I drove. Based on the increasing levels of violence Curtis was displaying, there was no telling what he would do with the baby when he discovered he was not the sole occupant of the minivan he had acquired.
I was hoping to find Matt’s patrol truck drivable since it wasn’t governed at one hundred miles per hour like my pickup was. Curtis had a big head start and I wanted to catch him before he got on the ATV, assuming he was going to the cabin.
I rounded the corner and the trucks came into view. My heart was thumping away at close to two hundred beats per minute. I could feel each beat reverberate through my body, pumping enough blood to keep a horse alive. The problem was that my lungs weren’t able to move enough air to keep my blood saturated with oxygen. My legs were feeling weak and wobbly. My head was light and my extremities were tingling. I had held nothing back and now I was left with nothing to give. I wasn’t sure I was going to make it to the truck. I had to will my feet to take the last fifty steps, each one being an agony.
Somehow, I made it. I stopped and looked briefly at Matt’s truck. It was shot to pieces. Both front tires were flat, the windows were shot out and the engine compartment was full of holes. It wasn’t going to get us where we needed to go. Next, I examined my truck. Other than the windshield, it was undamaged. There were five bullet holes which partially obstructed the view, but looking from the outside in, I could tell I would be able to see out well enough to drive.
“Cindy, Matt and I need the truck to chase Curtis. He just stole a car and kidnapped a baby,” I explained between gasps for breath. “I want you and Kimiko to stay here with Harold. We’ll come back for you when we get Curtis.”
“We’re coming with you,” she argued, bordering on panic at the thought of being left again. She grabbed my forearm with her free hand as she pleaded
“This is going to end in a gun fight,” I said, still gasping for air. “You can’t come. Harold will take care of you until we get back. We don’t have time to argue. Get out of the truck now.” I said it more harshly than I meant, but every second we wasted, Curtis was getting further ahead.
Kimiko and Cindy slid across the seat and got out the passenger side as I cranked the engine. Cindy slammed the door in a panic. They both stood on the sidewalk, not moving. Cindy had the pistol I had given her in her right hand, hanging limply at her side. I looked in the mirror as I turned the corner to Lake Street. They were both still standing, unmoving, watching me drive away when I lost sight of them.
I pulled beside Matt and the woman who was now standing. She was still crying, but not hysterically as she had been when I left for the truck. Unlike Cindy and Kimiko, we couldn’t leave her behind. She had nowhere to go. With all the noise that had been made in the last five minutes, I couldn’t believe the streets weren’t filled with infected.
“Get in,” I said to her through the open window as I leaned across the seat and pulled the black plastic handle, which opened the door. “We’re going to get your baby back.” She climbed across the passenger seat and sat beside me, her straight dark hair clinging to the moistness of her tear streaked face.
Matt climbed into the truck after her and shut the door. I turned the truck toward the highway and pushed the accelerator pedal to the floor. Sager Road was off the main highway, about two miles out of town. It turned off the highway about half a mile prior to the Army roadblock.
“What are you thinking, Connor?” Matt asked loudly to be heard above the bawl of the diesel engine at high RPM. He was thumbing rounds from an ammo box into his rifle magazine to bring it up to its full capacity as he spoke.
“If we don’t catch up to him before we get to the trail to the cabin, we’re going to have to come up with another plan. Following him up that trail is suicidal. There are too many spots for an ambush.”
“I agree,” Matt said. “The best way to the cabin is across country. If any of the guys he runs with are up there, I’m sure they have the trail guarded. If we come in on foot across country, we can likely catch them by surprise,” he added as he twisted around and laid his rifle on the back seat so he had both hands free to check his pistol.
“You have to get my baby back,” the mom sobbed. “She’s all I have left. My husband was killed by those monsters last night. Please! You have to get her back.” Her body shook between sobs.
“Ma’am, we’re going to do everything in our power to get her back,” I said as the red needle on the speedometer hit one hundred and the engine stuttered as it ran up against the governor.
The terrain on the right side of the road began to rise steeply and I knew we were close to Sager Road. There was one more gentle curve to round and the turn-off would come into view a quarter mile ahead. I eased my foot off the gas and allowed the truck to slow for the curve. As the truck entered the right hand curve at ninety miles per hour, I could feel my body being pulled to the right side of the truck, toward the outside of the curve.
We exited the curve and I saw a tan object ahead of us in the middle of the lane. It took a moment for my brain to process the information it was receiving. When I realized what I was looking at, my foot began moving to the brake pedal even as Matt was screaming, “Brakes!”
I pushed the brake pedal to the floor. Even though I intuitively knew pushing harder wouldn’t help once the pedal was bottomed out, I pushed with everything I had. The ABS system kicked in immediately, keeping the front wheels rolling enough to allow me to steer. I yanked the truck to the left, into the oncoming lane. The right front wheel passed less than a foot from the car seat as the truck stopped.
Matt opened the door and slid out of the truck. The distraught mom moaned, “My baby!” as she followed after him. Matt bent over to lift the crying infant from the seat. The panicked mom rushed around his right side, reaching hysterically for the crying infant.
As she pushed passed him, her body jerked spastically toward the truck and crumpled to the ground. An instant later, an explosion shattered the morning silence like a sonic boom.
I fumbled clumsily for the door handle as a bullet ripped through the vertical pillar adjacent to where my head had been a second before. Leaning forward to open the door had moved my head just enough to take it out of the bullet’s path. I hit the door with my shoulder while pulling the handle. The door pushed open and I sprawled out of the truck and dropped to the ground.
I landed on my left shoulder, sending a jolt of searing pain through the joint. I lay stunned on the ground, trying to breathe. The stabbing pain took my breath away and left me immobilized. My mind was focused on a single point of convergence, the exquisite pain I was experiencing. I grasped at my shoulder with my right hand and didn’t find it where it should have been. I looked down and realized that my shoulder was now residing several inches lower and forward of where it had been two seconds ago.
Bullets continued to
clink
and
clank
against the side of the truck. Several
zinged
passed me as they ricocheted off the asphalt and traveled under the truck. They all whined away harmlessly.
I looked for Matt and saw that he was low crawling under the truck. Once he was clear, he knelt behind the rear tire. By this time, I had moved behind the front tire, hoping it would protect me from the barrage of bullets that were assaulting us. I eased my pistol out of its holster with my good arm and moved toward the front bumper, searching for the shooter.
I peered around the front of the truck and saw Curtis nestled behind an outcropping of rocks at the top of the fifty foot embankment. He was about a hundred yards away. With only one hand to steady the pistol, he was well out of my effective range. I could see Matt poised in a crouch, preparing to rush toward the cab to retrieve his rifle which was still lying across the back seat. The problem was that the passenger door was open which gave a clear view through the truck. He would be in plain sight with no cover.
“Are you hit?” he yelled across the nine feet that separated us. He must have seen the agony in my face.
“No,” I yelled back. “I dislocated my shoulder when I fell out of the truck.” The initial shock of the pain had subsided. The pain was excruciating, but I could still function. I realized I had to engage the shooter. “Give me a second. I am going to put down some covering fire for you,” I bellowed as I moved from a seated position to a crouching position in preparation to shoot over the hood of the truck. I quickly popped up above the hood and rested the handle of the pistol on the horizontal surface to steady my one handed aim. Aligning the front and rear sights above Curtis’ head, I squeezed the trigger. The front of the gun bucked, causing the handle to rise off the supporting hood. A split second later, it slammed back down onto the hood. I didn’t see any signs of the bullet hitting. I lowered my aim and squeezed again. A puff of dust popped up just below Curtis, indicating my shot was close. I adjusted again and fired. Another puff of dust erupted from the rock face he was using as a rest for his gun.
Even from that distance, I could see that I had startled him. He lowered himself even further, tightly hugging the top of the rocks. The muzzle of his gun moved in my direction as I released another round from the pistol. Once again it struck close, but didn’t hit him. Out of my peripheral vision, I saw Matt spring up and rush to the cab as I continued to fire.
Dust sprang up from the rocks as high pressure gas exited Curtis’ rifle barrel and expanded in all directions. When the pressure wave struck the rock inches below the barrel, it blew the pebbles and dirt that covered the face of the rock to the air.
A bullet struck the hood just in front of me and ricocheted off. Something hot bit at the top of my left ear lobe. I instinctively knelt down below the surface of the hood, rested the pistol in my lap and reached up with my good hand to examine my ear. There was a flat spot at the top where it should have been rounded. When I brought my hand back down, it was covered in blood.
After wiping my blood stained hand on my pants, I picked up my gun and moved a couple feet to the left and sprang up to return fire. I was immediately driven back down by a barrage of bullets. I glanced back at Matt. His rifle was empty and he had returned to his position of cover behind the rear tire.
With Matt and I simultaneously taking cover, the shooter also ceased fire momentarily. The echo of the last shot rolled along the hill behind us and disappeared in the distance. The stillness of the morning returned until it was violated by Curtis’ harsh voice.
“If you shoot at me again, I’m gonna shoot the baby,” he shouted. “This is going to be real simple,” his voice grated. “The two of you are going to place your guns where I can see them. Yours goes on the hood, Connor. Matt, stick your rifle and pistol in the bed. After that, the two of you are going to hoof it back to town. You aren’t going to come after me, either. I have enough manpower and firepower to make you sorry if you try. You guys leave me alone and I’ll leave you alone. I don’t want anything to do with that mess you have in town.
“As far as I’m concerned, that bawling little pile of flesh is better off dead, but the call is up to you. You have ten seconds to make up your mind.”
Matt looked at me. “It we leave cover we’re dead. If we die, the baby dies too,” he said as he swapped out his magazine for a full one. “But you’re the boss,” he continued. “I’m with you, whatever you choose.”
“He definitely has the better position,” I said, peering over the hood at Curtis’ stronghold. All I could see was the top of his head. It wasn’t much to shoot at from this distance. “Our only hope is that he doesn’t have enough ammunition to keep up the shooting. Otherwise, it’s only a matter of time before he gets us. Let’s make him work to do it.”
Matt’s face broke into a huge grin. “I figured that’s what you would say. You have a plan?”
“Yep, shoot straight.”
We both stood up to resume shooting. Curtis had anticipated our decision and was already aiming where Matt had last fired. Matt stood upright and I saw a burst of dust from the rocks as Curtis fired. Simultaneously, Matt stumbled backwards and fell on his back.
I emptied my gun at the rocks, sprouting mini eruptions of rock all around Curtis. The fragments must have pelted his face because he disappeared momentarily. As soon as my magazine was empty and my suppressive fire stopped, he directed his shots at me again. I ducked down into a crouch and ejected the spent magazine. I placed the pistol between my thighs, handle up, and squeezed my thighs together holding it in place while I retrieved another magazine from my belt. I placed it in the handle of the gun, slapped the bottom of the magazine to make sure it was locked in place, then picked the gun up again, pressing the slide release to drive another round into the chamber. I knew I was about to take a fatal shot, yet hoped to avenge Matt. As I was reloading, I could hear round after round slamming into the other side of my truck as well as ricochets slinging off the road. The right corner of the truck suddenly settled several inches after the front tire was hit by a stray bullet.
I quickly brought my pistol to bear and squeezed the trigger. Unlike the small bursts of dirt and debris coming from the rock face on previous shots, chunks of rock exploded from just below Curtis. It happened again and again as the rock face was demolished. Curtis quickly edged backwards out of view. I looked to my left and saw Captain Tuttle’s Humvee approaching with a soldier manning the booming fifty caliber machine gun turret.