The day after: An apocalyptic morning (102 page)

              "Now as I've said before," Barnes told the men as Jean sprayed Windex on his large screen television set and wiped it down, "don't underestimate these people, even if we do outnumber them, even if they are using a bunch of bitches for soldiers. The minds behind those bitch soldiers are clever ones indeed. This Skip Adams that that bitch we picked up on the road told us about used to be a member of the 3rd ACR. They were second in to Saudi Arabia back in 1990, right behind the 7th. I fought with them there and they were a badass group of soldiers. This man knows what he's doing and he knows how to lead troops. And then there's this Paul character. He was never in the military apparently but he's not an idiot either. Without any formal training of any kind he was able to lead and set up a halfway decent defense plan for that town. He was smart enough to come up with that little night vision camera trick, so keep that in mind."

              "Night vision camera trick?" one of the platoon leaders asked.

              "He mounted a standard top-end video camera equipped with a crude night vision setting on the end of their bridge approach," Bracken explained. "They ran wires from it all the way to the other end of the bridge and monitored it from a television set at night."

              "That is pretty smart," the platoon leader agreed.

              "It's so smart," Barnes said, "that we're going to begin doing that ourselves on our close approaches as soon as we scrounge up enough power and coaxial cable. But anyway, my point is..."

              None of them happened to be looking at Jean at that moment or they would have seen that she had stopped in mid-wipe, her eyes growing bigger in their sockets. Night vision camera system? Night vision?

              Ten minutes later she was talking to Anna, who had been cleaning in the hallway downstairs. "I have an idea," she said quietly.

              "An idea?"

              "Yes. Do you think we could get our hands on a camcorder?"

              Three nights later, everything came together perfectly for the two women. The garbage truck next to the high school had been driven to the landfill and dumped the day before - apparently without anyone discovering that there was a little more than garbage in there. Bracken was sleeping with Kelly that night, which meant that the informer of the family was safely tucked away with Asshole. Sharon was no longer in the picture. After one last rape of her shapely body three nights before, Bracken had had her "put out of her misery" by means of a bullet to the back of the head. Her body had then been dumped unceremoniously over the bridge and into the canyon.

              "Are you ready for this?" Anna asked Jean at 1:00 AM. She had just crept into the other woman's bedroom after putting on her warmest, thickest clothing. "We could still back out you know."

              "No," Jean said, touching her hand in the darkness. She was dressed in two layers of her warmest clothes as well. "Let's get the hell out of this place. It's time."

              Slowly they eased out of the room and out into the hallway. It was pitch black in the house and they moved slowly, operating primarily by feel, until they got to the linen closet. Slowly they removed four of the thickest blankets in there and rolled them up into two tight bundles. They moved to the kitchen next and removed two of the large, plastic garbage bags from a drawer. As quietly as possible, they stuffed the blanket rolls into the garbage bags and secured them into bundles by using twine that they had stolen from the supply room and hidden in the back of the drawer. They now had watertight packs for their blankets and their food when and if they recovered it.

              Holding hands they walked slowly out of the kitchen, down a hallway, and into the living room. As in Garden Hill the daily laundry was hung and drying in this room and they had to duck under it in order to get to the front door. They both pulled their rain jackets down from the hooks by the door and put them on, buttoning them up and then pulling the hoods tightly over their heads. Two more steps brought them to the front door.

              "This is it," Anna said softly. "Open that door and there's no turning back."

              "Open it," Jean said without hesitation.

              Just as her hand reached out to grasp the handle, there was a click next to them and suddenly, shockingly, they were being illuminated by the beam of a flashlight from less than five feet away.

              "Going somewhere, girls?" Kelly, the holder of the light, asked them.

              Jean was paralyzed with fear, unable to talk, unable to move.

              Anna jumped in fright but quickly recovered, willing herself not to panic. "Kelly," she said slowly, her mind whizzing as she weighed their options. "You scared me half to death."

              "I thought I heard someone creeping around out here," Kelly said with feigned sweetness. "It looks like my little co-wives were thinking about trying a little escape."

              "Escape," Anna said, as if that was the most ridiculous thing she'd ever heard. "Don't be silly. We were just... uh..." She could think of nothing else to say. After all, it was perfectly obvious what they were doing.

              "Come with me," Kelly told them. "Let's go wake up husband dear and see what he thinks about all of this. I don't imagine he'll be very happy with you two."

              "Listen, Kelly," Anna said pleadingly. "Can't you just..."

              "No, I don't think he'll be happy at all," Kelly went on. "In fact, it might just be that the two of you will be hanging from a rope by breakfast tomorrow. And then I'll have him all to myself."

              "Kelly," Anna said. "If we get away from here, you'll still have him all to yourself."

              "Yes," she said, "but then he'll blame me for letting you get away. He may even suspect that I helped you. Oh no, I'm not playing that game. Now shall we go upstairs peacefully or shall I start screaming for him now? It doesn't really Micker to me."

              Anna started to tense up. They were trapped. What was there to do? Her mind screamed at her just to run out the door, dragging Jean by the hand, and to hide out in the town somewhere until they had a chance to slip out later. It was a ridiculous plan - one that almost surely would fail - but what else was there to do?

              Jean kept her from implementing it. Her initial panic had subsided, allowing a cooler, more calculating part of her mind to take over. In a low, quiet voice, she said: "All right, we're caught. Let's go face the music."

              Anna looked at her in disbelief.

              "Maybe he'll be lenient with us," Jean said softly. "Maybe he'll give us another chance. Let's throw ourselves on his mercy."

              "Oh I doubt he'll be lenient," Kelly said with delight. "But anything's possible, isn't it? Let's go." She gestured with the flashlight, waving it towards the stairs.

              "Jean," Anna said fearfully, knowing that if they went up those stairs they were dead women. Escape attempts by women, by anyone, was not tolerated.

              "We'll be okay, Anna," Jean said carefully, looking steadily at her lover. "Let's just follow Kelly upstairs and confess. Okay?"

              Something in Jean's tone convinced her. As Kelly turned towards the staircase and as Jean stepped towards her, Anna followed.

              It happened with shocking speed. Kelly made it three paces back towards the hallway before Jean, moving faster than Anna would have thought possible, was upon her. She grabbed her by the hair, yanking her head viciously backward, and then, before she had a chance to cry out, threw her arm around her neck and tightened it. The flashlight dropped from her hand with a small clatter and rolled a few feet.

              Jean, though not fat, was not small either. She was a solidly built woman of farm-girl proportions. Kelly, on the other hand, was a petite wisp of a girl, built more like a model than anything else. She kicked and twisted in Jean's grasp, she grabbed at her arms, she stomped on her feet, but she was unable to get free. Jean pushed on the choking arm with her free hand, tightening it even further, and, within a second or two, Kelly began to jerk spastically against her, her eyes rolling back in her head, her limbs flailing as if in seizure. And still Jean held onto her.

              Anna watched opened-mouthed as Kelly's struggles suddenly ceased, her body going limp in Jean's grasp. And still Jean held onto her, keeping the tension tight around her neck. "Jean," she whispered in horror, "what are you doing?"

              "I'm killing her," Jean said with surprising calmness. "If I let go of her now, she'll just wake up again in ten minutes or so."

              "Oh my God," Anna cried, starting to tremble. The reality of what was going on hitting her. "Killing her?"

              "She was going to have us killed," Jean replied. "I couldn't let that happen, Anna."

              "Oh my God," she said again.

              She held her for almost five minutes, maintaining the chokehold upon her. Finally she lowered her to the ground and let go. She leaned down and put her mouth near Kelly's ear, listening for respiration. "Nothing," she said blankly. She picked up her wrist and felt for a pulse. "Nothing," she repeated. "She's dead."

              "Jesus, Jean," Anna said, still standing in the same place. "How did you... I mean, why did you... I mean... oh God."

              Jean stood up, walking over to the flashlight and picking it up. "I grew up with an older brother," she said quietly. "I learned how to wrestle by the time I was four years old. I accidentally choked him out one time by grabbing him like that. My dad told me I should never grab anyone around the neck that way because it makes them pass out in a few seconds and if you do it long enough, you'll kill them." She took a few deep breaths, starting to feel the aftereffects of her actions now. "I guess Dad was right, huh?"

              "I guess he was," Anna agreed.

              "Now we really can't turn back," Jean said, starting to tremble.

              "No," Anna said. "I guess we can't. Let's get out of here."

              They listened for a moment, reasonably sure that Bracken had slept through the entire incident since he hadn't stormed down the stairway, but wanting to be sure. The reassuring rumble of his snores continued to drift downward towards them. He would have quite a surprise when he finally did wake up.

              Anna opened the door and stuck her head out, her eyes searching the rainy darkness outside. All of the surrounding houses were occupied, mostly by other high-ranking members of the militia and their wives, and she wanted to make sure that no one else just happened to be out and about. This was an unlikely possibility at this ungodly hour of the morning, but a possibility nevertheless. She saw nothing - no lights on, no faces in the windows (not that she could see the windows very well). "It looks clear," she whispered to Jean.

              Slowly, holding hands once again, they slipped out onto the porch and closed the door behind them. Stepping out into the rain, they walked down to the sidewalk and turned left, easing down the street. Three doors down was a metal box sticking up from a lawn. This used to be a communal mailbox back in civilized days, the place where the twelve houses on this end of the street had sent and received their correspondence. Anna, the night before, had pried it open from the back with a screwdriver and placed a very special package inside for hiding.

              "Is it still there?" Jean asked nervously, knowing that without it, all hope was lost.

              "It's here," Anna said with relief as she pulled out the small Sony Camcorder and three spare batteries she had stolen from a locked supply room. They were wrapped in plastic to protect them from the rain and all were fully charged thanks to the power supply at the high school. Anna opened the package and turned on the camera, switching it to the night vision setting. "Let's get out of the open now."

              "Right."

              With Anna looking through the viewfinder, she was able to see a black and white view of the area directly in front of her. The range on the night vision was only about twenty feet but it was enough. Jean held onto the back of her rain jacket, staying as close as possible to her, allowing herself to be led blindly along. They started moving.

              They made their way out of the populated part of the town as quickly as possible, moving silently but speedily along the sidewalks. It was not the most direct way to the east side of the town, where they planned to make their egress, but they figured it was best to get away from the occupied dwellings. They passed through a derelict industrial section and a small commercial strip mall before making their way into a lower class residential neighborhood that no one had bothered taking up housekeeping in yet. Once, just near the end of this section, they had to hide behind an old dumpster when they saw the bobbing flashlights of the interior patrol making their rounds. The two-man team passed within thirty feet of them and continued down the street.

              "That was close," Jean whispered fearfully.

              "Too close," Anna agreed.

              They were forced to skirt the edge of a more populated area in order to access the freeway at the Foresthill onramp. They moved on the far side of the street during this stretch, noting in alarm that one of the houses was still lit from the inside. Why were they still awake in there? Would they step outside and spot the escapees? They did not, at least not as far as either woman could tell and five minutes later they were walking up the onramp to Interstate 80, Anna following along the white line in her viewfinder.

              At the top of the onramp, as they stood on the surface of the freeway itself, they paused, each taking a few uncomfortable breaths. They were now within sight line of the two guard posts that watched over that side of town, protected from view only by the darkness.

              "Here comes the hard part," Anna said.

              "Yeah," Jean agreed. "Let's get it over with."

              They walked slowly along the freeway, drawing ever closer to the guard positions with each step they took. Anna kept her eye glued to the viewfinder tightly, both to see where she was going and to keep the minute amount of light that leached out of the rubber gasket from giving them away. Jean, still holding tight to her friend's rain jacket, still completely blind in the darkness, followed along behind her, concentrating on each step that she made to keep from making any noise.