Walking in the Rain (Book 1): Surviving the Fall Read online

  Now, Amy and I had a decision to make. West to Oklahoma, or further south into Arkansas? Those were the two options, and Amy grasped the pros and cons very quickly. West would add more miles to the trip, but offered a smoother passage. South, deeper in the Ozark Mountains, meant rougher terrain and what looked like more serious rivers that would need to be somehow forded.

  “West,” Amy finally said, giving me a shy smile as she spoke.

  “Yeah, that’s what I think too. Let’s finished getting geared up and hit the road.”

  “You mean the trees, right? We haven’t seen a blacktop road in a while.”

  I was gladdened by Amy’s banter as we tooled up and made for the fence line around the isolated property. A week ago, Amy was a terrified little girl, and now she could look me in the eye and not flinch. She could joke with me and not worry I was going to backhand her into a wall.

  Now she was wearing the little chrome High Standard revolver and walked with the lever action rifle slung over her shoulder. Amy also wore one of the fixed blade sheath knives on her left hip, and at first glance she looked a little like a badass. She was still scared, and made no bones about admitting that to me, but now at least she felt like she was allowed to fight back if necessary. I assured her our default setting for confrontation was to run away if we possibly could. We had no desire to get into a shootout with anybody. I noticed Amy had gone back to wearing her hair up under the ballcap once again to obscure her gender.

  One of my maps had shown a small gravel county road only two miles from the Turner place that would run southwest in a fairly straight line towards Oklahoma, so we struck out in that direction and made good time crossing the scrubby landscape. Amy saw it before I did, a narrow rocky track running up and down rather than through the countryside. The maps referred to this part of northern Arkansas as being on the edge of the Interior Highlands. I took that to mean hills, because we sure crossed a lot of them as we walked parallel to the minor road. We also waded a few creeks and filtered enough water to keep our containers filled.

  By noon we had covered about eight miles but had to slow our pace as we started seeing more houses in the distance and increased signs of activity. I pushed us out beyond the hundred yards to five hundred yards from the road to give us better separation. As we neared what looked to be an intersection, I left Amy to watch our bags in a copse of trees and crept up closer to see what I could make out. I carried the Mossberg shotgun and hoped to avoid using it since all I wanted was information.

  Half an hour later I rejoined Amy and took a long drink from my water bottle before spilling the beans.

  “Four miles to Harrison, just like you figured,” I told Amy.

  “What do we do?”

  Harrison, while not a big city, had a pre-Event population of around 12,000 according to the atlas we were using. Amy and I had bypassed several tiny villages in our travels together but this was her first time having to skirt a larger town. I was proud to see she wasn’t visibly frightened, just wanting to know the drill.

  “We’ll start circling south once we hit that next stand of trees. Just take it slow and easy, and stay close to the ground. If you hear shots, do like I told you.”

  My instructions for Amy, if she started taking fire, was to stop, drop, and roll. She gave me an uneasy grin as I recited those familiar words. Find cover and stay down. We hadn’t had time to do much in the way of tactical training for Amy, but then what the heck did I know anyway? Just some stuff my father taught me and things I’d read in books.

  On the other hand, I was still alive when a lot of other folks weren’t, so that had to count for something. Some of those dead men were soldiers, and I still somehow managed to put down a few of them. I never shared that story with Amy, for a couple of reasons, but I still had nightmares even a month later.

  This close to town, stopping for a meal would be unwise so Amy and I made do with some stale crackers and washed them down with the ever-present warm bottles of water. Not very filling and bland, but neither of us complained. We’d both missed enough meals so that actually having something in our bellies beat the alternative.

  As the day wore on, I kept us angled even further to the south as we kept bumping into more homesteads. This slowed our progress but Amy agreed that we did not want to accidentally run into anyone out here. Any homeowners who saw the pair of us might shoot first, without question.

  That thought barely had time to settle in my brain before I heard the shooting start up. I hit the ground without ceremony and glanced to my side. There was Amy, sprawled out on her belly trying to look inconspicuous. The shots weren’t incoming, but closer than I liked. By the sounds of reports, I gauged this was two or more rifles. Trying to guess the location of the shooters and their targets while cowering in the grass was harder than they made it look on TV.

  “You alright?” I asked.

  “Yeah, I’m okay. I..I think I peed my pants a little,” Amy replied.

  “Me too. Don’t sweat it.”

  Other than the tall grass, we didn’t have much working for us in the way of concealment. Despite our best efforts, sometimes there wasn’t any choice but to cross these fields and try to stay low. The closest cover I could see without “prairie dogging” it was roughly thirty yards to our left, and it was only a pair of straggly crepe myrtle bushes. Really, not much cover at all. Still, small limbs beat blades of grass, so I oriented my body in that direction.

  “Amy, we are going to crawl over there,” I gestured slightly with my head, nodding. “Elbows and toes, and keep your butt down. Take your time. I don’t think the shooters have even noticed us, so let’s keep it that way. You good to go?”

  With her grunt of a response, I started off, cradling the shotgun in my arms like an ugly baby as I drug my body forward on protesting elbows. The urge was there to use my knees, but I knew that doing so would lift my rear in the air, exposing not only my backpack but my rear to scrutiny. This was something my father taught me, a skill he’d learned in training and used in wartime. I hoped I was doing it correctly, but I feared a bullet would let me know if I failed.

  Once we gained the dubious cover of the bushes, which were on a slight rise, I could finally understand what I was hearing. Raising my binoculars cautiously, I made out the drama unfolding just a few hundred yards away.

  The house looked rundown and uninviting; a brick faced ranch style lacking even the hint of a porch or any decorative touches in front. Just a front door, wooden and sun faded, flanked by a pair of windows, and cement steps leading up from the graveled driveway. Out front, I could just make out three men hunkered down, rifles in hand, crouched behind a rusty old King Cab pickup. From my position, offset to the left, I watched the men take turns leaning out from behind cover of the truck to take shots at the house. Whoever was in the house did not waste shots returning fire, but with my binoculars I thought I saw a rifle barrel through one of the windows.

  They did not seem to be in a hurry, and I wondered at their plan. Either the three would try to wait out the people in the house, keeping the house under siege, or they had others in their party working their way around to flank the defenders. Or something else entirely was going on, and I couldn’t see it from my vantage point.

  Whatever the case, none of this was any of my business. Glancing over at Amy, I shook my head and eased back from the vantage point, slow and easy. No need to attract attention with quick movements, and this was something Amy and I could just crawl away from and get back on track. Bad things were going to happen at that house, and I felt sympathy for whoever might be trapped inside, but none of it was my doing or responsibility. Heck, maybe that was the local militia and the people trapped inside might be outlaws, I tried to tell myself.

  I would not risk Amy’s life, or my own, for that of a stranger. I hated to make the call but I was outnumbered here, and outgunned. I couldn’t exactly see what they were using, but it sounded a heck of a lot more powerful than a lever action rifle shooting pisto
l rounds.

  Then the baby started crying. The sound was faint across the distance, but I could tell it was coming from inside the besieged house. I felt a small hand latch on to my pants leg.

  “We have to help them.” It was a statement, not a question. Her voice came out in a hiss, nearly vibrating with tension.

  “There’s too many.” I replied. “Plus, they have real rifles, not like that little popgun. We don’t even know what’s going on, and I just can’t risk it.”

  “I’ll help, Luke. You know I can shoot.” Amy pleaded.

  I shook my head, glancing back at her face, now red with exertion and tension. Maybe anger as well. She had come a long way in just a short time from the frightened little girl I first met in that terrible bedroom.

  “Amy, honey, I know you might want to help. And if we could do something, we would. We don’t have anything with the range here to make a difference. Neither that rifle nor this shotgun has the range to take them on without just getting too close to them. You can take pot shots all day with that pistol, but you might as well be shooting straight up for all the good…”

  That stopped me in midsentence as an idea suddenly came to mind. Maybe we could do something to even the odds, and Amy could do her part to help, if she was willing.

  I quickly sketched out the framework of a plan and of course the girl agreed to do her part. Now I just needed to make this scheme work without getting us both killed.

  As I crept back with Amy in tow, I saw where I could place Amy, and a trail that might take me where I needed to go. That baby never did stop crying as I ghosted off into the treeline skirting the little homestead, reminding me the clock was already ticking.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  At the first crack of the little pistol, I dropped my head and waited while Amy slowly emptied the cylinder. On the third shot, I looked up to the see all three of the home invaders turning their attention to the north. Since I’d moved in a semi circle around the trees bordering the yard, I was slightly behind the three men sheltering near the truck.

  As a bonus, I now finally managed to make out what I presumed was the fourth member of their little team. He was low crawling through the scrubby grass of the back yard, and doing a poor job of it given how much of his body he left exposed. Four bad guys at least, maybe more if they had posted an overwatch, and I knew this was a bad idea. But, it was better than letting Amy get herself shot, I told myself.

  With no time to dawdle, I lined up my first shot and gently squeezed the trigger. I was in a semi prone position, belly down but with my upper body raised just enough to work the lever. The first raider went down with a bullet in his side, the round catching him right in the armpit at the edge of what I took to be a magazine carrier rig. I was a little over forty yards away and the 38 Special was not an especially potent caliber but the man still went down with a scream.

  I worked the lever action, barrel drifting to the side a bit as I fired again, this time my bullet catching the second raider with a hit to his left arm. Solid, but not a killing wound. I worked the lever again, and pushed myself into a roll that moved me about three feet from my previous spot.

  Centering on the wounded raider, I went for a head shot and saw blood spray. I was a little low, but the bullet seemed to carve a tunnel in the man’s neck, blasting out. I levered the action, lining up for the third raider, when an incoming round struck the ground inches from my face with a chilling crack. Crap, I thought. The backyard sneak was zeroing in on me.

  I rolled again, this time at an angle to gain more separation from the shooter. I dared not pause to even look up until I was crouched down behind a nearby tree trunk. I took a quick peek and dropped flat on my belly. The good news was both the raiders I shot appeared to be down for good, but unfortunately, I now had two more angry, rifle wielding thugs gunning for me. And they had me caught in a crossfire unless I bailed quick.

  Deciding a retreat was in order, I began to crawl away even as high caliber bullets began to rain down around me. I was outnumbered and outgunned, and I needed to get out of here. I could hear yelling but the words sounded failed to make an impression except that I thought they were advancing on me in a leapfrog fashion.

  Crap. That meant they probably knew what they are doing. One would fire and the other would dash forward ten or twelve yards, then drop. By alternating this pattern, one would be shooting while the other covered the distance. Soon they would have me.

  The grass was tall enough to give some cover but I feared once they got closer they would be able to catch the ripple of my movement in the sea of green. Pausing to take stock, I realized there was really no other option except to hold and fight. No way would I retreat back to Amy, not while these men lived. After saving her, I could not risk her life that way.

  With one on the right and the other my left, I waited for the left hand attacker to jump up, then shot him center mass. As my barrel skewed right I knew I would be too late, but still worked the lever frantically and squeezed the trigger. I couldn’t see the last raider’s face, but the man’s rifle was already coming to bear on me from barely twenty yards away. Before his barrel completed that arc, I heard another shot. Then a second, and what sounded like a shuddering sigh.

  Not hesitating for a second, I squeezed the trigger as soon as I had a sight picture, then fired twice more before going back to the first flanker and drilling a bullet into the top of his exposed head. He might have been dead, or wounded, but that insurance shot made sure short of the Second Coming, he wasn’t getting up.

  How long I lay there, dazed by the insanity of those few mad minutes, I could never recall. I was alive, and I didn’t expect to be. The next thing I knew, I heard a familiar voice calling out to me.

  “Luke! Luke! Are you okay?” Amy cried from some distance away.

  Not wanting to give away my position, I had no choice now that Amy was announcing her presence to the world. Muttering under my breath, I finally replied.

  “I’m fine. Calm down. Stay where you are and don’t say anything else.” I called out. “Stay still and I will come to you.”

  Sitting there, I realized the tubular magazine on the little rifle was almost empty and I started feeding spare rounds into the loading gate. By the time I was done, the shaking in my hands had nearly stopped. I felt tired and shaky from the adrenaline dump, but still forced my legs to work as I low crawled over to a fallen tree limb that offered some minimal cover.

  Daring to peek around at my surroundings, I saw several shapes that had once been men, but none of them were now moving. Three by the truck, including the man who should have killed me and a fourth corpse lying sprawled in the overgrown back yard. Nothing was moving, and the quiet was stifling after the barrage of gunfire.

  “Hey, mister, you okay?”

  The voice surprised me, but after a second I realized it was coming from the house. I looked closely at the front window I could see clearly, but no one was foolish enough to silhouette themselves. I thought about not answering, but I didn’t want the people in that house getting antsy now that the fighting was done. Or, at least, done as far as I was concerned.

  “Yeah, I’m good. Thanks for getting that last one. I just wasn’t fast enough.”

  “No problem. It was my pleasure, believe me. He was so focused on you he must of forgot I was here and armed too. Are you one of Dwight’s men?” The man had a deep, husky voice that sounded friendly enough, all things considered.

  “No sir. I don’t know any Dwight. My friend and I were just passing by and heard the shooting. And then the baby started crying. We didn’t know what was going on here, but anybody shooting into a house with a baby in it must be on the wrong side of things.”

  The pause that followed stretched on for over a minute before the man spoke again.

  “We thank you for the help. You could have just kept on going and no one would have known you were there,” he said.

  I decided to avoid mentioning my conversation with Amy suggesting we d
o that very thing. She was right because somehow we both managed to survive. There is a reason I try to hold to my rule of not taking on groups of more than three. The odds just don’t work out.

  “We would have known it, sir. A man’s gotta be able to sleep at night with what he’s done, or not done.”

  “Well, call your friend. Both of you are welcome to join us for lunch. We don’t have much but under the circumstances, how can we not share?” The man’s voice was softer now, and seemed to ring with sincerity. I decided to discuss the proposal with Amy first, so I called her to me by way of answering the man’s offer.

  In a few minutes, I made out the shape of my travelling companion creeping through the tall grass and making her way to where I had initially set up. I was impressed at how smoothly, and quietly, she worked her way across the terrain. Amy carried the shotgun with a competent, confident grip, barrel down but ready for use at a moment’s notice.

  I motioned her over to my new position and she reacted quickly, hustling over and taking a knee as she brought the shotgun to her shoulder, scanning her surroundings. I was so proud of her progress.

  “Are we going in there?” she asked softly.

  “We don’t have to if you don’t want. You know how I am, all ‘Stranger Danger’ about everybody we see. What do you say?”

  Amy gave me a crooked grin. “Hey, sometimes you just have to take a chance on people. Look what you did for me.”

  I had to bite my lip to keep from laughing.

  “I don’t know, Amy. I think the jury is still out on that one.”

  “Bite me, Luke. Just bite me.”

  With that, I couldn’t hold back the laughter another second.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Stan and Ruth Schecter, and their six month old daughter Sophia, had only been taking shelter in the abandoned house for the last two days. They’d needed the refuge after Stan, a short but powerfully built guy with hands like hammers, had sprained an ankle on a gopher hole. Or armadillo hole, he said. Either way, he was slowing them down and Ruth insisted they needed to fort up somewhere to let the swelling go down.