Graham's Resolution Trilogy Bundle: Books 1-3 (30 page)

“What the hell happened?” Dalton asked Reuben.

“The girls went for a walk up the drive. Said they’d be back in twenty minutes. They were armed. They went off camera to the north. Everything was fine. The guys were shoveling the south trails and the old man was in the cabin. Shots were fired, and Graham took off through the west forest toward the north drive and off camera. Mark ran in the cabin and grabbed the truck keys and drove—I presume toward the shots. Then the next thing I saw was the twins and Mark return on foot,” Reuben said, taking a breath.

“In the cabin, they said something about the lake men taking Tala. I figure Graham must have taken the truck from Mark and gone after her. Macy’s injured, but she seems okay,” Reuben said.

“She get shot?” Dalton asked.

“No, it looks like the intruders manhandled her a bit, nothing too serious,” Reuben said.

“So the rest are in the cabin but, as we predicted, the intruders took Tala and now Graham’s in pursuit?” Dalton asked.

“That’s right. It’s just what we predicted and tried to prevent,” Reuben said.

“All right, dammit, what can we do?” Dalton was asking himself the question more than Reuben.

“Logically, we shouldn’t do anything,” Reuben said, then they both looked at the cabin screen, seeing the old man and four anxious kids waiting for news.

“Did you pull up the tracker?” Dalton asked.

“Not yet, I thought I’d wait for you. Plus, this is Rick’s department; I’m not fluent in human tracking devices.”

“Shit, he has three more days in the box,” Dalton said, and then added, “Patch in Clarisse.”

One moment later, Clarisse rigged in a patch for Rick to walk them through activating the trackers on Tala and Graham. Rick hadn’t a chance to activate them yet, thinking he’d have time once he was sprung from quarantine.

Three minutes after Rick told them how to activate the tracking, they could track the series of numbers on the screen indicating Tala being sped away, presumably to the intruders’ base camp, while Graham’s icon followed more slowly. Dalton knew Graham would follow the tracks to locate them. At least there would be a trail. But night was descending fast, and it would hinder his progress.

“Dammit,” Dalton said.

“What? What’s going on?” Rick demanded to know. His disembodied voice resounded through the tent. “God dammit, what’s happening?” he yelled again when no one responded.

As news got out about the situation, several of the preppers now hung in the background watching the situation unfold. For once, Rick wasn’t the one in the know, and it drove him crazy.

“They got Tala, and Graham’s in pursuit,” Dalton said.

“Kids all right?” Rick asked.

“Yeah,” Dalton answered.

“You got to go help him, Dalton. They won’t make it. You know that.”

“The risk of exposure is way too high at this point,” Reuben interjected.

“You look at those kids and tell me that,” Rick shouted back to Reuben.

“I
am
looking at them, and I’m looking at
mine
too, Rick. You know the rules, man,” Reuben said.

“Let me out, I’ll go,” Rick said after a pause.

“No. Dammit, Rick. No way!” Dalton said.

“Well, someone’s got to go. What’d we do all this for? You’re wasting time!” Rick yelled.

“I’ll go.” A determined voice spoke from the back and when Dalton looked behind him, he saw Sam already heading for the door.

Two minutes later, Dalton and Sam were suited up with Reuben’s help. They would intercept Graham and converge on the enemy camp, retrieve Tala, and be on their way. It was that simple—or so they hoped.

Tala fought the man holding her. They hadn’t slowed since they’d left and drove at breakneck speed along the slushy road in a small jeep. She was terrified, but thought that perhaps if they did crash it might be a better fate than what she knew awaited her.

Already the man holding her, grabbed her through her jeans and sweater. When she resisted him, he’d punched her from the left so hard that her lip bled freely down her chin. Tala tried to wriggle free from the beefy monster. “Please don’t,” she pleaded, but it was no use.

“Don’t let her freeze. Remember, I’m first,” the driver yelled to the bigger man. Tala shivered and cried, but he wouldn’t stop.

“I think we’re good. No one’s following us,” the driver said and reached one hand under her sweater.

She knew what was coming and could only take solace in knowing she’d saved Macy from these horrible beasts. Somehow she had to start calculating how she could escape—or kill these bastards. Tala closed her eyes and tried to detach herself from her body, thinking instead of the eagles she loved to watch, soaring over land and sea.

Graham raced, stopping every now and then to make sure he was on the right path. Thank God the icy snow tracks left an undeniable trail. With so few vehicles these days, he knew this was the right trail to follow and they did indeed go in the direction of the other side of the lake.

It was pitch dark now, and even though he had to stop occasionally to check to make sure he was still on course, he made progress, but too slowly. He pushed away his despair, and the anger over what he knew they’d do to Tala.

Just as he began to pick up speed, bright headlights dawned in his rearview mirror, flashing at him. They must have had their headlights off and only then flashed him, creeping up in the distance. It was too late for Graham to make a defensive move as the vehicle pulled around him, cutting him off. Graham grabbed his rifle, ready to shoot, when he realized it was the preppers, suited up, driving a Humvee. Dalton put up his hand in what he hoped Graham would take as a sign of peace.

“Get out of my way!” Graham yelled.

“We’re trying to help you!” the prepper in the passenger seat yelled back. Though the voice came distorted through the suit, Graham thought he recognized it. “Dalton?” he said, confused.

“Yes, it’s me. Get in the back. Hurry, there’s little time.”

Graham grabbed his rifle and ran over to the other vehicle. Some of the pieces of the mysterious prepper community were falling into place, but he didn’t have time to reflect on it now. He jumped into the backseat of the Humvee and they sped off into the distance without their lights on.

“I think I saw their taillights up ahead. You know they have Tala, right?” Graham asked.

“Yes. We’re tracking her now, so try to stay calm. We’ll get Tala back, but you need to let us help you. This is Sam, and—well, you know me,” Dalton said.

“Yes, I do, and later we will talk about why you didn’t say it was you in the first place,” Graham said, clearly upset. “Those fuckers grabbed one of the twins first. Tala traded herself,” he added, continuing to curse the situation.

“We’ll do what we can. You have to keep in mind, we’re still susceptible to the virus you carry so if something happens to either of our suits, do not approach us, all right?” Dalton said.

“All right.”

“Are there just the two men?” Sam asked.

“As far as I know. I don’t know if there are any more in their camp. Three came by canoe from across the lake one night, but we took one out. It seems you already know that though.
Son of a bitch!
This is my fault. I should have wasted all of them that night,” Graham said.

“Stop it, Graham. We’ve watched it all. This isn’t your fault,” Dalton said.

Graham went on torturing himself. “I should have kept them in the damn cabin!”

Sam spoke up then. “Look, Graham, can you see this screen?” He tapped a gloved finger on a glowing device on the front seat.

“Yeah?” Graham said as he watched two little sets of numbers moving forward, one gaining on the other.

“This one is Tala,” Sam said, indicating the farthest one out.

“And the other one is me? You shits!” Graham said incredulously. “You can’t just fucking tag someone just because you can,” he added.

“The point is, this one is Tala,” Sam said, and Graham was relieved to see some connection to her there.

“Here’s the plan,” Dalton said.

“Stop fighting me, bitch,” the big one said, as he tried to shove his hand down the front of Tala’s pants. Clearly frustrated, he yelled to the driver, “Hurry up, man.”

“I told you, she’s mine first,” the driver said, and shoved him to make his point, knocking Tala along with him. She leaned forward, grabbing the dashboard, trying to get away from the shoving match as the driver swerved and then overcorrected as they slid in the snow, causing the jeep to tip sideways as it careened off the road. It flipped over twice before coming to a complete stop, throwing all three occupants free. When it landed it caught fire.

~ ~ ~

Graham and the preppers saw the fire from a distance and sped faster over the snowy road, almost to the point of recklessness, saying nothing to one another. They didn’t know what to make of the scene before them, lit by the jeep fire when the three exited the Humvee. Tala lay face down in the center of the road, not moving. Her left leg was at an odd angle, definitely broken in the crash. Graham rushed toward her as Sam yelled, “Wait!”

They scanned the area and detected no movement. One man lay half under the burning jeep. On further inspection, he clearly proved to have died on impact, with his head gashed open and his brains exposed. There was no sign of the other. Dalton nodded for Graham to go to Tala’s aid, and Graham checked her pulse and found that she was breathing, but she had obviously been knocked unconscious from the accident. Graham was afraid to move her.

It was pitch dark in the perimeter around the burning jeep and headlights of the Humvee, so Sam stood guard. Dalton checked Tala out and decided it just couldn’t be helped. They needed to just lift her, despite the badly broken leg, and get her into the Humvee before she died right there.

Graham put his arm under her, and Dalton helped flip her over so that Graham could pick her up. She had a bad gash on her forehead that was bleeding copiously.

They started for the Humvee when the hair on the back of Sam’s neck started to rise. He turned around quickly and saw the second intruder pulling himself up, aiming at Dalton and Graham. Sam fired but not before the man also fired off a round, aiming at the last second for Sam.

“Sam!” Dalton yelled as he watched the man recoil from the hit. Graham saw the intruder aim yet again, but at Dalton this time. Graham dropped to one knee, with Tala to his left, and pulled his rifle up. He shot the other man squarely between the eyes, leaving no question of his death.

“I think I’m okay,” Sam said. Dalton looked at his side; the shot had clearly shredded his hazmat suit but hadn’t come into contact with Sam himself. “That’s a fucking miracle,” Dalton said, feeling pretty damn lucky. But before he got back into the truck, Dalton got the emergency tape to patch up the suit to decrease Sam’s risk of contamination.

Dalton drove quickly back to the preppers’ camp. They needed to assess Tala’s injuries and at least set her leg in a cast before they took her and Graham back to Graham’s camp.

“We have a decision to make,” Dalton said, looking at Graham in the rearview mirror. “We don’t take carriers into our camp because it’s too risky. I hope you can understand that.”

Graham just looked at the man through the rearview mirror. Cradling Tala in his lap, he’d managed to straighten up her clothes as best he could, anger curdling in his veins as he did. The swelling in her leg remained a problem, and she clearly had a concussion.

“Look, she’s hurt really bad. She might even have internal injuries. Is there someone you have who can look at her?” Graham asked.

Dalton looked at Sam. “Call Clarisse, Sam. Maybe she’s got a suggestion.”

“Hi, Dalton, what is it?” Clarisse asked urgently, knowing that if he summoned her it was a medical emergency.

“We’re going to need another quarantine room. Sam’s suit was compromised, but we don’t think he was exposed. It’s taped now, and the female has several injuries. She has a leg fracture, concussion, and possible internal injuries from a car accident,” Dalton said.

“Dalton,” she said in a soothing voice, feeling his desperation through the line. “You know we made rules against bringing them here. I’m not against it, but you know you’re risking direct exposure to us all. As it is, we only have three rooms. I’ll have to let the guys out early. You and Sam will need to have separate ones since he’s at risk. Then, she will need the last one. I don’t think that’s a problem, but where do we stop breaking the protocols we set in place for the carriers? Again, I’m not against this, I just want you to be certain that this is what
you
want.”

“I hear you, and I understand.” Dalton glanced back at Tala in the backseat. “Get it ready, please—and thank you, Clarisse.”

She ran the test again and again. Clarisse knew it wouldn’t come back any differently than the seven times before. She had to tell him now. She’d gone through every scenario, and there was just no other way. Dalton lay staring up at the ceiling. “Yes, Clarisse,” he said, knowing she was staring at him. He could always feel her presence, no matter where she was. He didn’t understand this, since he was a happily married man, but there it was.

“There’s news,” Clarisse said.

He knew something was wrong. She looked like she hadn’t slept in days, even though she was in quarantine herself. Having operated on Tala, she confined herself to the lab. Her chestnut hair hung loose down around her shoulders. He’d never seen it out of its tight bun.

“What is it?” Dalton said as he came to the window.

“Sam. He’s been exposed.”

“What do you mean?”

“He’s not showing symptoms, but he’s a carrier now,” she said.

“Are you sure?” he asked in disbelief.

“Yes!” she said, and broke down. He’d never seen that happen before.

“God dammit!” Dalton yelled, thinking of Sam’s now orphaned daughter.

“Does he know?”

Clarisse was still crying.

“Clarisse, does he know?” Dalton asked again.

“No,” she answered, shaking her head. “I thought I should tell you first.”