The Benders (19 page)

A jet thunders over. The engines buzz close, closer than when they dropped that bomb on the Hercules. We must be under attack again.

“Hey!” I yell to whoever might be around. “What’s goin’ on?”

Something explodes. The boom is loud and the ground rumbles. Are they droppin’ bombs?

“Hey!” I yell. “Hey!”

Another explosion. This one’s closer. I smell smoke. Outside, soldiers yell and run down the hallway.

I can’t be locked in here. Not like this.

The door bursts open. I tense my body, ready to fight. Nessa runs in. Her hair’s wild, her eyes too. She holds a pistol in one hand and keys in the other. Without a word, she begins unlocking my ankle cuffs.

“What’s happened?” I ask. One cuff comes off, but before the other is free she snaps what feels like another cuff on the ankle she just released. “What the hell?”

“It’s a remote-operated cuff. If you try to run or if I don’t enter my pass code in every ten minutes, 100,000 volts goes from this”—she holds up a little black remote— “to this.” She taps the device strapped to my ankle. “Same idea if you pry the cuff off.” Then she undoes my other ankle. “Let’s go.”

I stand up, my legs shaky and weak. I give them a couple good pumps and look at Nessa. Another bomb explodes, closer this time, close enough to rattle the whole room.

“What the hell’s goin’ on?” I look toward the open doorway.

Nessa digs out another pistol and hands it to me, but not before trainin’ her own on my chest. “No funny business. Fight for our side or we’ll all be dead. Got it?”

I nod, though my brain is practically smokin’ with all the thoughts of escape. Can I shoot off the cuff? If I shoot Nessa before she can reach her gun or use the taser remote, what then? I’ll have ten minutes to somehow get the cuff off, but the black band looks impenetrable. I don’t have time to contemplate the rest. She pushes me out the open door and into the hallway.

This building is eerily silent and dark. Like the power’s gone out. Moonlight streams in from the open front door. Men in uniform stream past as we step out. Everyone is runnin’ in different directions. Who’s in charge?

“They’ve bombed us twice and both were direct hits on officer housing. Somehow they knew.” She grimaces, her pinched face makin’ her look older. “We think they’re out of bombs. Our intel says they’re going to make a frontal assault on the main gate. If they come in here…” She sighs and pulls another pistol out of the holster under her arm. “Clay, they’ll wipe out everyone. Us, Betsy, Cole.”

“Ethan,” I murmur, staring toward the front gate. “What kind of fire power they got?”

“Whatever they can get their hands on. How they got bombs and planes operational is beyond me, but then I’m not in the briefing meetings.”

Gunfire erupts in the distance. She tenses and jogs forward. “Follow me.”

I watch my mother run down the moonlit street, gun in hand, and wonder what the hell I should do. I could run, find Ethan, and try to get out, but the place is a madhouse and if she’s tellin’ the truth, we’d drive into a bigger nightmare than we’re already in. Plus, if I don’t follow, she’ll tase me and probably leave me to die. My only chance is to follow Nessa, assess the situation, wait ’til she’s distracted and run. I jog after Nessa, testin’ my injured hand around the heavy metal grip. It’s still slow. Better, but slow. I switch over to my left.

Damn, it feels good to have a gun in my hand.

The smell of gunpowder and the clatter of artillery snap my brain into fighter mode. Down the street the grunts have set up a makeshift barricade at the front gates. Tables, planks, even large sheets of siding from some of the abandoned buildings are stacked up at the entrance. Men are stationed at intervals behind it, rifles and pistols pointed through the holes. A couple of Jeeps are also parked with more grunts behind. I do a head count and come up with about forty men. Where are the rest of ’em?

If this is their defense force, me with one goddamned pistol ain’t gonna do a damn bit of good. I should get Ethan and find me a back door.

Nessa spots me and waves me to where she’s crouched behind a huge wooden table. When I pause, she holds up the cuff remote and points to it. I jog over, rollin’ my eyes.

“If you expect me to fight, woman, don’t wave that remote in my face.”

She frowns. “You looked like you needed reminding.”

I laugh. “You can’t afford to tase me. You got a handful of men and they look about ten days outta diapers.”

“These maniacs,” —she says, gesturin’ wildly toward her enemy— “will show no mercy.”

I don’t know if this is another lie or not, but I’ve got no way to find out. I pull my gun up to my chest and nod to a kid beside us who’s not much older than Ethan. “Where’s everyone else?”

She frowns, combing her fingers through her ginger hair. “I don’t know.”

Gunshots crack out from the darkness beyond the barricade, and two bullets smash into the Jeep ten feet from us. All the grunts tense and aim for the darkness.

“They’re just testing us,” Nessa calls out to the men. “Save your bullets.” Then she looks back at me. “Most of the boys here have only begun arms training. Keep an eye on them.”

“Me?” I look around at the pale-faced boys hunkered down around us. “Why me?”

She looks me over before answerin’. “Because you’ve seen battle and you know what to do.”

“What about you?” I ask.

“I’ll have my hands full.” With that, she slinks around the barricade and creeps off into the shadows. Where’s she goin’? Then I think, I could run now. Run and get Ethan and find a back way out. Would she know to activate the cuff?

That’s when the shootin’ begins.

Orange streaks blast into wood and metal with awful shreddin’ noises. The Jeep’s windshield shatters, sending the fresh-faced boys cowerin’. A boy beside me drops his gun on the concrete and hides behind the Jeep. My pa woulda answered that sloppiness with a smart punch to the jaw. His desperate eyes meet mine. He’s maybe seventeen, with cropped blond hair, pointed nose, and a thin mouth. His uniform is splattered with something that stinks. Vomit? Probably his own. I pretend not to see it.

“Don’t lose this.” I pick up his gun and hand it to him. “Looks like you’re gonna need it.”

His lower lip trembles. “How many are coming?” He points into the dark where more orange streaks scream toward us and crash into the barricade.

I shake my head. “Take it one at a time.”

He nods, turns back toward the darkness, and cracks off three shots.

Shootin’ into the dark ain’t my style, though. I watch from a hole between a table and a huge piece of aluminum siding. They’ve got to reveal their position somehow. Only then does it make sense to fire.

More bullets ping into wood and metal. More terrified boys shoot into the dark. Where in the hell is someone to tell these greenies what to do? It’s every goddamned man for himself.

At the deep rumble of an engine, everyone holds their fire. I slip my head up over the Jeep hood and peer into the dark. In the cloud-speckled moonlight, a large shape moves up the road, headin’ directly for our barricade. Grindin’ gears and crunchin’ pavement means it’s a big vehicle, but what in God’s name is it?

A red flare bursts to life in the distance, illuminatin’ the beast. A true-as-life tank churns up the road, creakin’ and growlin’, the long barrel aimed at our pile of junk barricade. And runnin’ away from the flare that gave us a peek? Nessa Vandewater, her hair flyin’ like red fire, tearing into the darkness.

She did a brave thing, runnin’ into enemy lines to let us know where they are, but then I think of the taser anklet I wear.

Guns fire on all sides. My mother dives off and disappears. And I have something to shoot at. I turn and aim at the enemy.

There’s thirty, forty, fifty odd men in various states of dress and armament marchin’ alongside the tank. All wear white surgical facemasks painted in grotesque colors. Some look like animal mouths, some like red splashes of blood. I see rifles, handguns, crossbows, hatchets. So they aren’t as well-armed as I first thought. I suck in a deep breath. It’s been a while since I had myself a good ol’ fashioned gun battle.

Then all thought drops away as the tank’s rifle swivels toward us and takes aim at our barricade.

“Run!” I yell.

I sprint sideways and grab the collar of the grunt boy beside me and haul him along. Several others have the sense to follow, but a few just stare as we bolt for cover.

The tank fires.

The explosion is huge; a blast like a giant hand swats me forward. I fly into the concrete and tumble. When I roll onto my back, I lay for a moment, tryin’ to breathe, tryin’ to hear. The tank fired on our barricade. Slowly, I push up to my elbows and peer over.

What used to be our barricade is an open mouth scattered with wreckage. One Jeep lies on its side, top tires spinnin’ uselessly. A few men lie dead and charred on the pavement. One poor soul with his legs missin’ below the kneecaps screams for his mama. I drag my eyes away from the carnage to the enemy tank. The rest of their army cheers and surges toward the now-open gate. They’ll be on us in seconds.

“Get up!” I push to my feet and drag up two stunned soldiers, then a third. I shake them and whirl them around. “Those bastards are gonna kill you. Kill them first.” The boys nod, pull out guns, and take aim. I find my pistol, blown a few feet away by the tank blast, and take cover. I crouch up behind a Jeep and wave the men over. All accounted for, there’s six of us. I see another group linin’ up on the other side of the gate. Two dozen remaining men is not enough to defend against this army, but it’s all we got.

The tank grinds closer.

“Listen,” I say, wipin’ sweat from my face with my sleeve, “we gotta get this right the first time. No second chances. When you see an enemy face,” I point, “put a bullet in it. Got that?” The boys nod. The one closest to me is cryin’ quietly, but he nods.

“These guys comin’ in ain’t been trained like you. They’re green. Inexperienced. If we take ’em out before their numbers can overwhelm us, we’re gold.” I stare into each boy’s eyes with determination. “But we can’t fail. We can’t let ’em swarm in here and tear us up. Shoot smart. Shoot straight. Don’t waste bullets. Aim, breathe, and pull. Then reload and do it again. Don’t think. Just shoot.”

A boy in the back, maybe eighteen, with narrow eyes and a nasty scar on his chin, raises his hand. “Sir?”

“You don’t have to
sir
me. Just make it fast.” I glance over my shoulder. The tank’s barrel crests the gate, its tires crunchin’ over debris, bodies, everything in its wake. The rest of the army will be visible in seconds.

“So we shoot or die?” he asks, goin’ white.

I stare at him, steely eyed. “Ain’t that the way it always is?”

We crouch behind the Jeep, guns at the ready. Just as I’ve predicted, they let the tank through the gate first and use it as cover. The first face appears at its flank, a pudgy man with glasses above a soft body. He holds a double barrel shotgun and I can see he ain’t afraid to use it to blow my head off. I aim, take a breath, and make sure he doesn’t.

My gun cracks, offerin’ the sweet smell of gun powder, and then a hole opens up on the pudgy man’s temple. His arms go wide as if pulled by strings. When he topples, the man behind him steps up. As he aims, I put a bullet in his chest. His gun falls unused as his body falls backward.

“Wow,” the boy beside me says, eying me like I’m a wonder.

“Don’t watch me!” I turn back to the fight. “Shoot.”

After the first two, it gets harder to pick off the enemy. Nobody pokes their head past the gate for a few long minutes. The tank sits inside the gate, idlin’ and doin’ nothing. If they had more fire power, they’d have blown us to Timbuktu by now. We wait and wonder what their next move will be.

A gun cracks and a bullet buries itself into the boy beside me. He falls, gushin’ blood and is dead before he hits the ground. I whip my head up to the top of the wall and see eyes and a gun aimed at me. I shoot without a thought.

Two bullets wing out at the same time. One slams into the dirt beside me, blastin’ dust into the air. The other blows off half of my enemy’s skull. He disappears behind the wall; blood and brains dribble down the white paint.

“You two watch up there!” I say to the two boys at my right. “The rest of us keep an eye on the gate. Remember, put bullets in faces. Any faces.”

Our enemy grows tired of this hunt-and-peck game, and a surge of bodies pours through the gate. They yell some sort of battle cry and crack off shots.

I take out three militants with three quick bullets. The boy beside me misses twice, but manages to take out two at the front before they crest our Jeep. The others also shoot well, but there’s too many faces and not enough bullets. I empty my clip into the crowd. When the dry click greets me, I toss it into the dust.

“Another gun!” I yell to the boys.

Someone tosses me his. I take it and fire on a man with a giant beard. His body falls into the dirt beside us, kicks out once, and is still. Another follows on his heels and grabs one of our boys as a human shield. The boy shrieks as the man brings a knife up to the boy’s throat.

“Don’t shoot,” says the man with road goggles and a blood speckled facemask, “or I’ll—”

I pull my trigger and the goggle man’s face caves in. The boy stumbles out, crawls toward me, and hunkers behind my back.

“Up!” I shout. “More’s coming.”

Men spill over the Jeep like a tide. I shoot one, two. A man in green shoots at me, and I feel a punch in my shoulder and then heat and pressure. Luckily, it’s my right arm with its healin’ hand. I lift my left and plug a slug into his forehead.

The heat and pressure in my shoulder throbs. Warm wetness dribbles down my arm, but I can’t focus on that now. Another man with a crossbow runs ’round the Jeep and aims at a boy on the ground. I use my last bullet to stop his heart and ruin his shirt all at the same time. The man’s dead weight falls onto the boy in a mass of blood and bone. The boy scrambles out and comes to stand behind me like the other.

More enemies run at the Jeep.

“I need another gun!” I toss away the empty one.