Barren Waters - The Complete Novel: (A Post-Apocalyptic Tale of Survival) (14 page)

“Drop it sir. Drop it and place your hands above your head.”

Olivia shrank from the scene. She could feel Liam’s rising panic as he tried to lean over and shelter her with his body.

“Sir, the gun,” the officer was repeating, “I need you to drop it now. I won’t ask you again.”

The moment hung in the air, heavy and tense until a sob tore from the gunman. He lowered his weapon, but didn’t drop it completely, and cupped his left palm to his knee. “Laura,” he moaned.

With the man’s head now slightly bowed, the policemen cautiously advanced in unison. The one who’d fallen had scrambled to his feet and was now seizing the opportunity to make a personal connection.

“What about Laura, Sir? Is she in need of medical assistance?”

The man shook his head and moaned. “Laura. My Laura.”

The cops exchanged glances. A tall, slim officer with salt and pepper hair moved cautiously for the door and peered inside.

“Ma’am? Can we offer you aid?”

Olivia could see his startled expression even before he’d said the words. He pulled his head back from the window, his hand cupped around his nose. “There’s a kid in there! In the back! Jesus, I think the woman’s dead.”

Salt and pepper moved for the backseat and tore at the door handle, but didn’t get far. Smoothly, the gunman lifted his weapon, leveled it on the officer, and pulled the trigger.

The shot was deafening and Olivia didn’t even realize she’d screamed until Liam was practically on top of her. Her voice sounded shrill in her ears as she struggled to untangle herself from his crushing arms. From the right corner of her front window, she could see the rear passenger door opening and a tiny child stepping onto the road.

“Let me…see,” she complained as she pushed at Liam’s chest. “Liam, I’m fine. Let me see.”

He lifted from her, though only slightly, and she craned her neck in an effort to see the small child. Quite thin, and obviously frightened, he could be no more than three or four. He clutched tight to a blanket, thumb planted firmly in his mouth as he moved to his mother’s door. His small hand began fumbling at the handle and Olivia’s eyes darted to the officers. She didn’t think they’d yet seen.

The salt and pepper officer was clearly dead, his body bloodied and crumpled on the ground. Olivia tried to swallow but her throat had gone dry. There was just too much blood. Too much. The other officers were tense, all previous attempts to make empathetic connections with the gunman now abandoned. The blond cop found his voice first.

“Drop your weapon sir or we’ll be forced to shoot you down. Do it now. I won’t ask again.”

The man sobbed as he peered at the dead officer on the ground. “I can’t do this by myself,” he muttered to himself. “Can’t raise him alone. Can’t give him a good life. Not without her.”

Time seemed to move ponderously slow as he raised the butt of his gun to his own temple. The blond officer advanced a half step, his voice softening. “Sir, you don’t want to do that. Come with us and we’ll figure all of this out together.”

Olivia was amazed at the depth of the policeman’s professionalism. Even after the man had gunned down one of his own, he was somehow able to master his emotions. Let the bastard kill himself, Olivia thought savagely. He was obviously crazy.

The blond officer continued to speak in even tones. “Sir, drop your gun. We can figure this out. Why don’t you just tell us what happened to her. Lower your gun and let’s talk about it.”

Olivia heard a faint click as the man cocked his weapon to load the chamber anew. She cast her gaze back to the young boy who’d somehow managed to open the car door and was now tugging on his mother’s sleeve and sobbing quietly. Scanning the scene once more, Olivia returned her gaze to the boy and began to feel an impulse swell within her. It was an overwhelming urge, a force more powerful than fear.

Now
, she though insanely.
Go now. While the gunman’s not paying attention
.

Without a moment’s hesitation her hand found the door handle and with a low click, the door opened. Cautiously she leaned against it and slowly slid from the seat.

Liam lunged for her. “What the hell are you doing?”

His voice was crazed and the depth of fear in his eyes broke her heart, the terror and shock within them momentarily holding her captive. Her mind whirred and caught on the possible consequences of her actions.

“Liam, I-” What was she doing? Indeed what the hell? Her thoughts were wild and tempestuous, and she found that she couldn’t find her voice. “The boy …” She turned back toward the child and slid fully from the seat into an awkward crouch, the door now her only shield.

“No,” Liam hissed. “Get back in here.” He cleared his throat and began fumbling for the catch on his seat belt. “Get back here now. Olivia, please.”

She turned from him and edged further from the safety of the vehicle as she kept her eyes fixed on the child. She called to him softly.

“Hey. Son. Over here.”

She motioned with her hands, kept her movements tiny to keep the others from seeing. She caught his attention and he turned to meet her gaze, but he wouldn’t let go of the hand he was holding. It was macabre, that hand, the appearance of its flesh a contrast between life and death. The hand appeared heavy and lax, the skin unnaturally pale with just a hint of bruised blue. She pushed past her revulsion, motioned to the little boy, and whispered to him in even-keeled tones.

“Stay with her. It’s okay son. I’m just coming over to visit, all right?”

She crept toward the front of their vehicle as Liam tumbled out of the passenger door behind her. He was struggling to keep his voice quiet. “Olivia, you need to come back here now.”

She ignored him and peered around the front of the car to the man who’d caused this catastrophic scene. Again, he was bent at the waist, hands braced on his knees, and she could see the tears that streamed down his face. He’d moved the gun away from his temple, but she could see that his fingers were clenched so tightly to the handle that they were white around the knuckles. She flinched. If he were even to make a quarter turn to the right, he’d catch her.

Olivia froze as one of the policemen dared a forward step. “That’s it, Sir. We’ll help you. Just come with us and we’ll sort all this out at the station.”

The man shook his head and moaned. He was muttering to himself in a voice that seemed too high, too extreme. “There’s no fixing this. No going back. She’s gone.”

The officer was persistent. “We
can
fix this. We will. Come with me. Set down your weapon and raise your hands above your head.”

“My weapon?” the man murmured the question under his breath. He raised his hand and peered at the gun in his hand, as if he were seeing it for the first time. “My weapon,” he said, this time with more conviction.

For Olivia, his next motions were hallucinatory, the images bright and jagged against her eyes. With a smoothness and calm efficiency that ran contrary to his erratic behavior, he lifted the gun once more and placed it firmly against his temple. She gasped, a tiny yet discernable sound that caught his attention. He turned to her, met her gaze, then pulled the trigger and was gone.

In that instant, Olivia lunged for the boy. Somehow she lumbered across the distance in several lurching steps, swept him into her arms, and shielded his eyes from the carnage on the other side of the vehicle. She pushed his face into the crook of her neck and ran for the shoulder of the road. Liam’s heavy steps thundered behind her, his voice now loud and insistent, but the danger had passed, she knew, and now all that was left was this tiny little soul. She carried him to the grass, dropped to her knees, and set him to his feet. He seemed uninjured as she searched his body. Somehow he was healthy and whole. Perfect. And utterly defenseless. Though she’d set him on his own two feet, he clung to her pants in desperation as silent tears tracked his cheeks. He raised his face and his arms to her, a wordless plea for the shelter of her embrace, and so she willingly obliged and nestled him against her breast. She turned to Liam.

“Do you think they were his parents?”

“What the hell, Liv? You could’ve been killed.” He was breathless and angry, his face red and blotchy in his outrage.

“I’m fine,” she insisted. “We need to go speak to those cops.”

He shook his head. “No. You need to stay here and
I
need to go speak to those cops. Can I trust you to stay here?”

“Liam, the danger’s passed.” She covered the boy’s right ear with her hand, his left crushed against the curve of her throat. “The man is dead, Liam. I hardly think there’s danger. What we need to do is figure out who those two people were to this boy.”

His mouth was set firm. “No, Liv. What we need to do is get in our car and head back to the last exit. What we need to do is get to a hotel room and work on obtaining copies of our paperwork so we can cross the border into Tennessee and get to our home before we find that we’re unable to make it there at all.”

She tightened her arms around the small child. “I won’t leave him, Liam. You know it’s not r-“

“Excuse me, ma’am?” The blond cop had left the scene, his eyes now fixed on the child in her arms, and Olivia recoiled at the small specks of blood that dotted his face and uniform. “Ma’am, I’ll take the boy now. You and your husband can return to your vehicle. If you’ll just show me your papers you can proceed into Tennessee.”

He reached for the child, but Olivia held him firm. “I think he wants to stay with me for now.” In response to the conversation, the child’s arms snaked around her neck and locked behind her ears.

The officer surveyed both woman and child and seemed to come to a decision. “Follow me please.” He turned to Liam. “I’ll need to see your license and car registration. The two of you might as well give us statements.”

They followed the officer to the back of a police vehicle where an EMT waited, and Olivia perched on the edge and turned the child around. She turned his face toward the EMT, settled him on her knee, and held tight to his waist while the blond officer crouched beside them.

“Hello son. Have you been traveling with your mother and father?”

The child’s eyes were wide and Olivia worried that he was going into shock. The EMT must’ve shared her concerns. He laid the back of his hand against his small forehead and draped a blanket around his back.

Olivia wrapped him in its folds and snuggled him under her arm. “I don’t think we’re going to get much out of him right now.” She peered over at a paneled police van and could make out several occupants within, their hands bound and cuffed behind their backs. “Interesting day, officer.”

He sighed and lifted his hands to his brow. “Yeah. That’s an understatement.” Reaching for a pen and note pad from his back pocket he asked, “Can you give your names please?”

Liam took over. “Liam Colt and this is my wife Olivia. We own a home in Tennessee, and from the looks of all this, once we get there we’re never going to leave it again.”

“Smart thinking.” He returned his gaze to the boy. “So I take it you don’t know this child.”

Liam met Olivia’s gaze and she knew he understood what she wanted. “No,” he answered, “we don’t know him. But I have a feeling we’re about to get to know him better.”

A third officer interrupted them, his expression morose, and held out his hand where a tiny vial glinted in the sun. “There’re needles inside the women’s purse, Rob. Lots of them.”

The blonde’s brows furrowed. “She’s an addict? She dead?”

Olivia clutched the child closer to her breast in an attempt to shield his ears from their harsh words. An addict? Not many people could afford drugs these days.

“Dead, yes,” the other answered sullenly, “addict, no.” He held the small bottle to the light and turned the label toward them. The remnants of a clear liquid were gathered at the bottom. “Insulin.”

Rob lifted his brow. “She’s a diabetic?”

“
Was
a diabetic,” the other officer corrected. “Not anymore.” He lifted a wallet from an evidence bag at his hip and rifled through the folds. “Found this too.”

Olivia’s heart broke as she laid eyes on the small photograph. A beautiful family of three smiled back at her and she felt her throat catch. The child on her lap reached his small hand toward the photo, snatched it, and brought it wordlessly to his chest. He clutched it and wept quietly, and she met the officer’s twin gazes. “I think that answers that.”

They nodded. “I don’t suppose we could convince you to come to the station with us?”

Liam answered boldly. “I don’t suppose you could let us pass through Tennessee without paperwork?”

The cop known as Rob smiled. “I think we might be able to make an exception. Stay here and let the EMT check you out while we clear the scene.”

Together, they watched the cops return to the bloodstain in the middle of the road. The gunman’s body had already been removed.

The EMT crouched and gently palpated the boy’s body.

“I think he’s all right,” Olivia offered. “Physically at least.” She lifted him from her chest and set him on her knee. Liam crouched low beside her as the EMT moved off, and together they made their introductions. “My name is Olivia,” she whispered. “And this is my husband Liam. Can you tell us your name?”