Endless Winter (Book 2): Rain & Ruin (13 page)

I try and ignore Sasha’s sobs and the burning rage that’s a ball smoldering in my gut as these two animals push us down the trail. I try and keep my cool and be smart. I let my feet catch on every rock and root so that I do more stumbling than walking. Anything I can do to slow us down and give our people time to catch up with us will help.

I let the toe of my boot catch on a root and control my stumble into the man in front of me who keeps putting his hands on Sasha every chance he gets. We both tumble to the side of the trail but it has the desired result of removing his hands from her and delaying us a few more precious minutes. The cuff across the side of my face in payment for my clumsiness is worth it.

I keep my mouth shut and let the rage simmer. I’m almost as mad at ourselves as I am at these two freaks. We were so stupid and careless. Seven years of watching our backs and taking every precaution to stay safe and the minute we get a few comforts, it’s all washed away with the hot water of our first shower.

Popper and his partner enjoyed telling us just how easy it was for their group to find us as they herd us forward with the threat of a very large hunting knife and one small hand gun.

Once their gang had taken over the hotel and town, they had started scouting out the area and immediately saw the huge smoke clouds from all the fires our group had made to stay warm before Skylar had let us inside. It was only the luck of the rain that kept them from moving on us right away. We would have been sitting ducks if they had found us all out in the open. When there was a break in the weather, a group of them had come up the mountain to search for us but had only found what was left of the camp we abandoned when Skylar opened the door for us. None of us even thought about the trail of tracks over a hundred people would leave, leading straight into the side of a mountain wall.

It took them a few days to figure out but eventually they started pulling off the false front of rock and then tried to break open the solid steel door. When the leader realized it wasn’t going to open, he left these two to sit and wait for someone to come out.

“You two are going to be our can openers! HAW HAW HAW!”

Popper’s laugh is the sound of a dying goose and it makes my teeth ache every time he let loose with it. Apparently, I’m not the only one bothered by it because his partner sticks a dirty finger in one ear and wiggles it around.

“Will you shut up with that stupid laugh, already? Man, I can’t WAIT to get back to the hotel and get away from you! Seventeen days stuck with your dumb ass. What the hell did I do to Gail to deserve this punishment?”

“HAW HAW HAW, don’t you remember? Last raid you only brought back that one skinny kid. He wasn’t even enough for a snack for everyone! She was maaaad at you! HAW HAW HAW!”

I have to swallow hard to push the vomit back down at his words but Sasha loses it and starts to heave. She manages to turn to the side of the path and lean over before she throws up again and again.

I close my eyes and wait for her to finish as the sound of Popper’s honking goes on and on. I know our people will get to us in time but after that we need to exterminate every single one of these freaks. No one can even think about rebuilding a world with their type in it.

It doesn’t take much longer after we get moving again before we stumble out of the dead trees and onto pavement. This is the road that will lead us into town and the rest of the gang, so I know that if the rescue is coming, it will have to be soon.

We’ve only walked about a hundred feet down the road when I catch the faint sound of engines. It’s hard to tell but it sounds like a lot more than just one. I know Skylar has a truck so it’s probably her and I don’t want these idiots to have any warning so I start making noise.

“Hey, hey! Why are you guys doing this? With the weather finally clearing, we could start rebuilding. We could plant crops and grow as much food as we need! You don’t need to resort to this kind of thing anymore! Everyone will have to come together to start fixing things!”

“HAW HAW HAW, who wants to work at that? This is way more fun! We get to do anything we want now and no one gets to say no!”

“Will you two SHUT UP! I can’t even hear myself think with all your racket!”

Sasha thinks I’m actually trying to persuade these morons to work with us and finally finds her voice after spending the whole trip sobbing.

“No, no, it’s true! You can join us. Back at the bunker there’s all kinds of…”

I jump in and cut her off before she can give them information I don’t want them to have. I can’t believe she’d be that dumb to tell these guys about what’s inside.

“You shut up! You don’t get to be a part of this conversation! It’s all your fault we were outside to start with! Don’t you say another word!”

I try and signal her with my eyes not to say anything else but her betrayal from before is still too fresh and she takes my words personally and starts to cry again. I blow out a frustrated breath but at least she’s not telling them about the goldmine of supplies inside anymore.

Popper’s partner gives me a shove to get me moving again and in the quiet I can no longer hear the sounds of engines. They must be coming the rest of the way on foot so I stay tense and ready for the moment when I’ll grab Sasha and dive to the ground but we keep walking and nothing happens.

Thirty minutes later and I’m starting to freak out. We’re almost to the edge of town and if these two join up with others in their gang then the rescue is going to get a lot harder. My head shoots up from the road disappearing under my feet when I catch the faint sound of voices ahead. We’re on a curve in the road and as we come out of it I see a group of six men walking towards us. My whole body droops. Too late, eight men instead of two will be very dangerous.

When the group meets up with ours, I shuffle closer to Sasha and put an arm around her. We keep our heads down and try and stay on our feet as the new group pushes and pokes at us while making it clear exactly what’s going to happen to us when we get into town. I clench my teeth and try not to look around desperately for the help I’m starting to think isn’t coming. Sasha finally can’t take anymore and she buries her face against my chest as she wails.

The men think this is hilarious but finally stop taunting us and instead push us down the road. We shuffle along as fast as we can with me practically supporting all of Sasha’s weight and I try and listen to their conversation to get as much information as I can.

“You guys are lucky you caught some game! Jerod sent us to come bring you back to add to the menu. There’s only three meals left in the pantry and Gail’s starting to froth at the mouth! You know how nasty she gets when she’s hungry so these two should calm her down a bit, especially if there’s more where they came from.”

Popper bounces around the group and lets out his god awful laugh.

“HAW, HAW, HAW, I’m too stringy for you guys to eat!”

There’s a unanimous roar from the men. “SHUT UP!”

Popper’s partner shakes his head. “Even if they tell us everything that’s in their hideout, we might need a bomb to get that door open. I can’t see the people inside just opening it up for us to raid.”

One of the newcomers speaks up. “No problem! We found a couple of crates of dynamite at a construction site. We’ll have that door open with one big BOOM!”

A shiver wracks my body as cold sweat runs down my back. I don’t want to die and be a meal for these freaks but I’m ok with it if I know my family and friends will be safe. I’m pretty sure those bunker doors are meant to withstand a nuclear blast but I don’t know for sure.

The road breaks out of the trees and onto an overpass so I’ve got a good view of the town below. Everything looks the same as the last time I was here but I don’t want to think of the misery that awaits us. The overpass we stand on goes over the main hi-way that bisects the town. Standing here looking east, I can see quite a ways in the distance. Above is a few black and dark grey clouds against the blue sky but far to the east covering the horizon is a solid line of blackness. It almost looks like dirty smoke but the wind is blowing in the wrong direction for me to smell anything.

Popper points towards the horizon and asks, “Is that a storm coming?”

One of the men shakes his head. “No moron, storms don’t come from the east here. They come from the west or north! We don’t know what it is but it started yesterday and it’s growing and getting closer. Some of us thinks it’s a wildfire.”

The men don’t really seem all that concerned as they shove us deeper into town and closer to the hotel they’ve taken over, but my eyes stay on the blackness. Something’s coming and in this world we now live in, it’s usually not good.

“On three, then heave. One, two, three!” Lance grunts out before heaving his end of the dead tree to the side of the road.

I grit my teeth to stop myself from screaming in frustrated rage. I left it up to Lance and Ethan to decide if they wanted to take my Dad’s truck or the ATV’s and they had chosen the truck. Lance wanted us to stay together and keep the engine noise to just one. Everything was fine until we made it half way down the overgrown track and came to the first downed tree across it. Six more trees blocked the way and Ethan guessed that the rain had weakened the soil enough for the dead trees to finally fall.

I turn my back to them and try and take a deep breath. The amazing feel of the sun on my face has lost its charm with how long this has taken. We all know we will never catch up with Rex and Sasha before they are taken into town. Our only hope is that they aren’t killed right away because of the information the gang will want from them about the bunker. This rescue has now become much, much more dangerous. Even with all the firepower we’ve brought, we will still be greatly outnumbered and we’ll have to go right into the lion’s den to get our people back.

With the track finally cleared and the pavement in sight we all move to load back into the truck. Just as I’m about to open the truck door, I hear something out of place. I look at Marsh and see he’s got his head cocked to the side with a frown.

“Do you hear that too?” I ask him. He looks over at Lance who starts nodding.

“Engines and more than one but not close by. They could be anywhere. Sound travels further now with no background noise. I didn’t see any vehicles up at the resort when I scouted it out but they may have had some I didn’t see. We’re going to have to be very careful once we hit the main road.” He gives us all a grim look. “Be ready to shoot if we run into any of them.”

We keep the trucks windows down with our eyes and ears open but see nothing as we get closer to town. Just before we come to the end of the tree line and the overpass, Lance turns down a rutted overgrown siding and edges the truck in under the trees as far as he can. We spread a grey tarp over it and pile as much brush as we can find over it. From here on out, we go by foot.

We stay off the roads and parallel the town inside the tree line until we start to hear noises. Using the binoculars from the Go bags we all crawl right to the edge of the trees and scan the buildings in front of us. I haven’t been in this town since my Dad drove us through the day the bombs dropped but the others have lived here for the last seven years and know what they’re looking for.

“Looks like they took over the hotel and made it their base.” Lance grunts out.

I scan the buildings until I see an old faded sign for what used to be a higher end hotel. The parking lot has been cleared of cars and they used them to form a crappy barricade along the perimeter of the property. It’s not going to stop anyone on foot from going over and that’s exactly what we are going to do because being shoved across the parking lot, past a blazing bonfire is Rex and Sasha. My eyes follow them to one corner where they’re pushed into the back of a cargo van. When the overhead door slams down, I can’t help but track back to the oily smoke floating up over the fire and to the “thing” that’s being turned slowly on a spit over it. When I get a clear look at exactly what is being cooked I drop my binoculars to the ground, lurch backwards on my hands and knees until I can’t control it anymore. The hot acidic vomit sprays out of me while rage fills me and tears slide down my face.

When my body stops heaving and I catch my breath, I wipe my mouth with the sleeve of my jacket and turn to see that the other guys have pulled back too. I meet each one of their gazes and feel my expression harden.

“We are going to kill them all!”

No one disagrees with me. We pull back from the tree line and discuss our options. The only real plan we can come up with is to wait for dark, create a distraction and then sneak in and try to free Rex and Sasha. The main thing we all agree on is to kill as many of them as we can while we’re at it.

Lance draws a rough outline of the hotel and grounds with both Ethan and Marsh filling in details. He taps on one section of the map.

“This is the generator room. We know Ted was abandoning ship because there wasn’t any gas left to pump the water, but these guys must have gas or they wouldn’t have set up shop here. It would be too far to haul water for that many people. If we can get in to that room and cause it to blow up or start a fire, they should all come running.”

Marsh makes a humming noise in his throat and shakes his head.

“No way, that’s under the main lobby. There’s going to be way too much activity in that area to sneak in and then out undetected and it’s pretty close to where they put Rex and Sasha.” He taps on a different area of the map. “No one but us were using this wing of the hotel so most likely the gang would have settled in the area where the rooms were already set up from before. There’s a better chance of that wing still being empty. Ted pulled a lot of our supplies from our rooms after he kidnapped Ethan and Belle, but there was still a lot left when I was sneaking around before we all evacuated for the mountain. All the batteries and some of the gas cans were still in the janitor’s closet we used for our storage. If these guys haven’t found them yet we can use that stuff to set the wing on fire. It’ll pull people further away from the front and we have a better chance of getting in and out without getting caught.”

Lance rubs his chin and nods. “Yeah, I like that better. As long as the fire is big enough, all eyes will be on it or they’ll be racing inside to pull out and save whatever supplies they have in the main hotel. Once it gets dark enough, we’ll all move up and find cover at the back of the hotel. Marsh, you and I will go in and start the fire. Ethan, you and Skylar will stay outside and make sure no one decides to come into that wing from outside. Once the fire’s set, we all meet back up and circle around to the side the kids are being kept. Two things worry me though; one - getting the cargo van door open, it looked like they put a pad lock on it and two - we have no way of knowing if there are people living in that wing. We could be walking into a hornet's nest completely outnumbered. If we start firing our weapons the element of surprise goes right out the window.”

I lean over the drawing and make a curved arrow with my finger. “If we come around this area we would be at the end of the wing we need to get into. It would give us a better view of both side’s windows. We’d have to wait until it’s dark but anyone in there would have some kind of light source we could see from the outside. No light, plan’s a go. If there are lights, we think of something else. What’s on that side of the hotel we could use for cover while we wait for it to get dark?”

The others lean back and think about the area around that wing before Ethan answers. “I remember there was a fast food restaurant and a gas station on that side but that’s it for me. Marsh?”

His son points to the area on the drawing. “Yup, burger shack, gas and go and then offices. Across from that is a strip mall with a ski rental place, hair salon and I think a real estate office.”

Lance nods. “Ok, we go for the strip mall for the best view.” He glances up and looks at the setting sun and I follow his look.

This is the first sunset I’ve seen in seven years. It should be momentous but the danger we are about to walk into makes me think it also might be the last one I ever see.

“We should go now and start circling around to the other side. We need to get this done early enough that they aren’t inside getting ready for bed. The more of them out in the courtyard we can see the better. After they go in, anyone can just look out those windows and see us. We wouldn’t even know we’ve been spotted. It’ll also mean more of them distracted by the fire. Let’s get back to the truck and dump our bags. The faster we can move the better and the bags will just slow us down.”

We reach the truck quickly and pull what we need from them before leaving our bags in the bed. I spot the tool box and remember Lance’s other concern. He sports a grin when he pulls a pair of bolt cutters from the box. Goodbye padlock!

I try and stay focused as I follow Lance and Marsh, with Ethan behind me bringing up the rear, but my mind won’t stop thinking. There’s a very good possibility that I won’t make it back up the mountain tonight. This isn’t a TV show or a movie where the good guys always win. This is real life and in this life a lot of people have died and are still dying. I know Belle will watch over Ben and keep him safe inside but it breaks my heart that I might not be around to see him grow up into a man.

We make it to the back of the strip mall without being seen and as soon as the sun dips behind the mountains in the west we slink around the side and slip into the middle business that was once a hair salon. There’s still a faint smell of hair chemicals and perfume in the air and when I see the row of stylist chairs in front of shattered mirrors, I raise my hand and touch my hair. It’s completely surreal to me that a few hours ago I was having my own hair styled for the first time in my life and now I’m getting ready to kill a bunch of strangers. My fingers find the yellow ribbons that are still weaved into the waves of my hair. As we hunker down and wait for full dark, I can’t help but smirk. If I die tonight, I’ll die with kickass hair!