The Remaining: Fractured (11 page)

Wilson just shook his head.

Jim reached the vehicle first. He shifted the little girl on his arms and opened his door. LaRouche and Wilson pulled up right behind him and just before Jim set the girl in the Humvee, she yelled again, and this time LaRouche heard what she yelled.

“They’re gonna hurt Daddy on the cross!”

Jim put her in the vehicle and closed the door.

With the girl in the car, LaRouche could hear something he hadn’t been able to hear before, but it was short lived as though the sound had been carried to him on the wind, and it died as quickly as it registered with him. Coming from the direction of the columns of smoke, LaRouche heard people screaming.

Then nothing.

He brought a hand to his head, raked his fingers along his scalp.

“LaRouche…” Jim said.

“We gotta do something,” Wilson jumped in.

LaRouche didn’t argue with them this time. He felt shaky. Liquid on the inside. He just hissed through his clenched teeth and looked back down the road. He knew this was going to happen. He fucking
knew it
. That’s why he didn’t want to mess with the little girl in the first place. You couldn’t just mess around with
parts
of the problem. You had to tackle the whole goddamned thing.

Jim put a hand on his shoulder. “It’s the right thing to do.”

Without responding, LaRouche turned and opened his door. He leaned in and snatched the radio handset from its cradle and brought it up to his mouth. “Lucky and Joel. Up front. Now.”

Down the convoy, two doors opened and the men piled out and came running.

LaRouche moved to the rear of the Humvee and opened the fastback. He reached in and grabbed his pack and then slammed it closed. By the time he situated the straps on his shoulders, Lucky and Joel stood next to him. An interesting combo with Lucky’s bright red hair and Joel’s white-blonde Q-tip top.

He pointed to Lucky. “You’re with us.” He turned to Joel. “Joel, you’re gonna drive this thing. There’s a little girl in the backseat. Go up to 7 Pines Road and make a left. Pull off and wait for us there. If we’re not back in an hour, or if you guys start taking contact, move back to the warehouse we slept in last night. Understand?”

Joel nodded quickly. “I got it.”

LaRouche shouldered his rifle and turned to his three companions, Jim, Wilson, and Lucky. “Alright. Let’s move.”

***

LaRouche led them into the woods on the right-hand side of the road, plunging in about a hundred yards until they could barely see the road. They skirted along as quickly but as quietly as they could, urgency pushing their footsteps faster and faster until they were almost running.

LaRouche couldn’t hear the screams anymore. Wasn’t sure if he’d ever even heard them in the first place, or if he’d just imagined them. Whether he’d heard them or not, now it was eerily silent ahead of them. Silent like a spider in a web.

Maybe he was being paranoid…

A single gunshot cracked through the woods.

LaRouche’s first instinct was to hit the dirt but he stopped himself at a half-crouch. He knew what a bullet sounded like when it was aimed in his direction, and what he heard was not that. What he’d heard was the clear and singular
pop
of a pistol round, and no hiss or zing or splitting branches that he would’ve heard if it were aimed at him.

He looked back at the others. They had followed his lead and crouched down a couple yards back from him, all three sets of eyes stretched open wide. He motioned with his head to keep moving, then rose out of his crouch, pushing on while the others fell into step behind him.

He shouldn’t be scared, he told himself. He’d been here before. He’d been in bad situations. He’d been in combat. He’d battled enemies and shot them dead. Nothing different about this, was there?

Was there?

Another gunshot.

Straight ahead of him through the thinning trees, the scene came into view as suddenly as if a curtain had been lifted. The forest stopped abruptly about fifty yards in front of them. A road. A narrow slab of blacktop extended out in either direction. There was an old passenger van, and a small pickup truck behind it. Huddled to the rear of the pickup were perhaps five or six men. They all stood with stooped shoulders, their hands wringing, looking about with worried eyes. Four men with rifles surrounded them. On their arms they wore the white band with the red cross-and-circle. The symbol of The Followers of the Rapture.

There was another man there, standing apart from the larger group. He was a tall man with a wiry head of gray hair and—oddly enough—a clean-shaven face. He wore an old pea coat that seemed a size too small for him, his pale wrists extending past the cuffs several inches. He held a pistol in his right hand. Kneeling on the ground before him was another man. The kneeling man wore a bright red knitted cap that stood out like a beacon.

The tall man in the pea coat began speaking. LaRouche signaled for the others to stop. He leaned up against a tree, turning his head just slightly as he tried to listen. The tall man did not yell, but his voice carried. He projected, like an orator. Like a preacher behind a pulpit.

“You have repented for your sins,” he said to the man in the red cap. “You have renounced Satan and all of his evils of this world, and you have accepted Jesus Christ and God as the true ruler of this earth. Is this true?”

Red Cap nodded, burbled something that LaRouche couldn’t hear.

The Tall Man smiled and raised the pistol. “You have sworn to cleanse this earth. Will you do The Lord’s work?”

Red Cap began to shake violently and weep.

The Tall Man bent slightly at the waist. “Will you do The Lord’s work?”

Red Cap spoke, loud enough for LaRouche to hear. “Yes,” he sobbed. “I will.”

The Tall Man straightened. “Good.”

Red Cap leaned forward, reaching for something. LaRouche couldn’t see what it was, so he stood up behind the tree, trying to gain a better vantage point.

There was a body on the ground. Not dead, LaRouche realized as it moved. It was lashed to a two-by four, the beam stretched across its back and extending a foot past each hand. Coils of some sort of cordage LaRouche could not identify bound the man to the beam at his wrists and at his shoulders.

Red Cap picked something up off the ground.

The man on the beam began to shake his head. He struggled against his bindings. “Come on, man! Don’t do this!”

“I’m sorry,” Red Cap’s words were detached. “I’m so, so sorry.”

“Please! Steven! Think about what you’re doing!”

“Just…be quiet,” Red Cap begged the other man.

“Don’t do it!”

“Be quiet!”

“Please don’t do it!”

Red Cap raised his hands and LaRouche could see what he’d picked up. A long nail and a heavy mallet. Red Cap set the nail to the other man’s wrist. He did it quick, nervous. Scared of what he was about to do. He raised the hammer above his head, his face contorting, and he swung down hard. The sound of metal striking metal. And then screams.

LaRouche was not given any time to think. Abruptly, Wilson charged forward through the trees, firing his rifle. The percussion of gunshots slapped the side of LaRouche’s face, branches twirling and chipping off of trees, and The Tall Man stumbled, his right leg blooming red. His face bore a look of surprise, and then it was gone, his entire face just disappeared into red muck.

Wilson’s shots were wild after that, striking trees and dirt and pavement. One of the guards took a bullet to the chest and pitched backward, and then one of the captives behind him received the next two bullets. The other captives either hit the ground, or started running for the woods, away from the sound of gunfire. The three remaining guards all reacted differently. One tried to grab some of the captives as they ran. The second dove for cover behind the pickup truck. The third just stood there in the road, his rifle raised, but without any idea as to what he should be shooting at.

 LaRouche hauled himself out from behind the tree, pulled his rifle up and sighted down the barrel. The guard that stood in the middle of the road suddenly fixated on him and began firing. LaRouche watched the muzzle flashes, the puffs of gray smoke bursting out at him. For some reason he didn’t register the sound of the shots, but he could see the branches splitting all around him as the rounds passed within inches of him.

He cringed, pulled his trigger as fast as he could, and prayed to God,
Please kill him before he kills me! Please kill him before he kills me!

Something nipped him in the side.

He looked down, seeing only torn fabric low on his left hip. No blood.

When he looked back up the man he’d been shooting at was slumped in the middle of the road. The man screamed and stared down at his opened belly. LaRouche sighted again and fired twice more. Slow, even, well-aimed shots. The first hit the man in the upper chest and knocked him back. LaRouche couldn’t tell where the second shot hit, but he saw the body jerk and then lay still.

LaRouche ran for the road. There were bodies on the ground, men running and screaming, men tied to two-by-fours struggling to their feet, trying to escape. The two remaining guards huddled on the passenger side of the pickup truck, trying to use it as cover. One of them stuck his rifle out and fired blindly over the bed, the rounds hurtling off harmlessly into the woods. The second scrambled for the passenger door, ripping it open and diving inside.

LaRouche ran for the truck. To his left he could hear Lucky screaming at the top of his lungs, “Get outta the truck! Get outta the truck!” but the guard didn’t listen. Lucky’s rifle cracked a half-dozen times, the bullets punching neat holes through the sheet metal door. LaRouche fired along with him. One-two-three, and painted the inner windshield red.

The other guard went for the cab of the pickup, only to find his comrade killed. Lucky fired a barrage at him, but the engine block soaked up most of what he gave out. The hood of the pickup rumpled and flexed as round after round struck it. The windshield turned abruptly opaque, run through with a million tiny cracks, then began to collapse.

Lucky’s gun went dry. He looked down at it and didn’t seem to know what to do with it. He stood in the middle of the street, less than ten yards from the front of the pickup truck and began fumbling with his gun like he no longer knew what it was.

LaRouche wanted to yell at Lucky to get his fucking gun up, to quit fucking with the thing and reload it. But there wasn’t time. And he knew that if he said it, it would only distract Lucky further and take precious seconds away from him. So LaRouche cut right, flanking around the back-end of the pickup truck.

He heard two shots just before he cleared the tailgate.

LaRouche cleared the back-end just as the shooter threw his rifle down and began running for the woods. LaRouche’s jaw clamped down. He raised his rifle to shoot, aiming for the running man’s back. His finger touched the trigger, but then suddenly Wilson was in his sight picture, tearing after the man on foot. The man kept running and looking behind him as Wilson gained on him. Fear in his eyes.

LaRouche pulled his rifle off the target. Wilson would handle that motherfucker.

He turned to his left and jogged around the front of the car. “Lucky?” he called out. “You okay, bro?”

Lucky was still in the middle of the road. Down on one knee. His face pinched in intense focus. He didn’t seem to register LaRouche calling out to him. He was still trying to grab the magazine, but it was like his entire body rebelled against him. His fingers kept sliding off the magazine like he was unable to produce the grip required to pull it from his pouch.

“Shit…” LaRouche felt numb. He looked at the other man, saw the blooms of red spreading across the front of his jacket.

Lucky finally got his fingers around the magazine and ripped it from its pouch. Then he began stubbornly trying to seat it in the mag-well, almost oblivious to the wounds in his midsection. Like he refused to acknowledge it. Like something in him had just decided that if he got his gun reloaded, everything would be okay.

“Lucky!” LaRouche slung his rifle and ran for him. “Talk to me, Lucky!”

Whether from shock or rapid loss of blood pressure, or just the dangerous blast of adrenaline, Lucky was losing his fine motor skills, including the ability to speak clearly. He spoke through clenched teeth. Sounded like his mouth was full of marbles. “I’m fine…’m okay…think ’m okay…”

Lucky managed to get the magazine into the well. He slammed it up until it clicked, but never charged the next round. He raised the rifle weakly and began pulling the trigger, though LaRouche wasn’t sure what he thought he was going to shoot at. Lucky frowned at the rifle when it didn’t fire.

“Shi’s not workin’,” he mumbled.

Then he tilted unsteadily and stumbled into the bullet-riddled hood of the truck.

LaRouche grabbed him by the shoulder so he wouldn’t fall over. “You’re hit, man, put the rifle down.”

Even leaning against the truck, Lucky tried to get the rifle up to sight through, his mouth hanging slack as he very deliberately closed one eye. “No…I’ma fuckin’ kill ‘im, Sarge. I gottem.”

LaRouche took the rifle out of his hands and it wasn’t until the weapon left his grip that Lucky seemed to realize what had happened. His eyes became wide and concerned and his hands fluttered to his belly. He looked down, saw the holes in his jacket and touched them gingerly with trembling fingers.

“Oh no. Oh no.”

“It’s okay, Buddy. Calm down.” LaRouche slipped his arm under Lucky’s and righted the sagging man. “Come on with me. Come with me. One foot in front of the other.”

But Lucky was transfixed by his wounds. “He shot me!” he said, indignantly. “Asshole shot me! He shot me, Sarge.” Lucky looked drunkenly at LaRouche. “D’you see it? D’you see ‘im shoot me? Fuckin’ asshole…”

LaRouche strained as he half walked, half dragged his burden to the back of the truck and opened the tailgate, trying to move as quickly as possible. “Don’t worry about that shit now, okay, Buddy? Wilson’s gonna beat the fucking shit outta that guy for you. So you just relax.”