***
So close, she thought as she came to. One, maybe two guys left. Opening her eyes, she saw she was still in the barn, with her wrists fastened painfully to one of the supporting posts. The baling wired that confined her also cut off her circulation, and both hands seemed completely numb. It felt like the .45 in the back of her belt had been taken away, but at least she could breathe now. The Plague had done its work.
Whoever had tied her up must have thought she was not going anywhere, lung-shot and concussed. He would be coming back for her and the rest for sure, with reinforcements.
She also felt as if she was starving. Fortunately she had put on some fat during her enforced inactivity, but she felt it draining away as her body scoured itself for available materials and calories.
That was a secondary issue, though, compared to survival.
Jill began working at the wire, moving her arms and body in an attempt to bend the metal. Unlike rope, steel would fatigue if she could work it back and forth, twist it enough times. It would be a long tough job, but she knew she could eventually do it.
If she had enough time. She wondered where the last man had gone.
Someone appeared in the doorway. Jill tried to focus on whoever it was, and then realized she must be concussed, because her vision blurred and it appeared she was looking at an angel.
Then the figure stepped closer and out of the sunlight. “Jane,” Jill said with relief. “Get this wire off me. What happened to the rest of the security men?”
“A healthy one drug a couple wounded men into the smaller truck and drove hell-for-leather on down the road.” Jane dropped to her knees and began to unwrap the steel wire. “Even if they have a radio, we should still have at least fifteen minutes before anyone can get here, thirty if they don’t.”
“Unless they have helicopters. We have to get everyone away, up to the caves.”
Jane looked at her in surprise. “You know about them?”
“Jimmy showed me today. Good thing, too. Come on, hurry up.” As soon as she was free, she laboriously climbed the ladder with her feet and elbows, already knowing what she would find. If Jimmy had been able, he would have been the one setting her free.
Jill’s faint hope she would find him alive but incapacitated was dashed when she saw the young man’s head shattered on the loft floor like a dropped melon. One of the hundreds of bullets that had been fired blindly into the upper room had taken him down. It was just bad luck, and she let loose with a stream of profanity worthy of a drunken sailor, to cover the anguish she felt at his loss.
“Jill!” Jane cried. “What…is it Jimmy?” She began to climb the ladder, but Jill pushed her back down.
“Yes, and you don’t want to see. He’s dead for sure.” Jill stepped off the ladder and hugged the girl. “Leave him there as a testament, to show these people the price they’re going to pay for what they’re doing. Besides,” she said, picking up her fallen assault rifle, “there’s no time to mourn. We have to go now.”
The two ran across the yard, past the lone truck. Dead and wounded men littered the area, and Jill felt sick with reaction and the killing, more so than she had after similar firefights with insurgents. “Go see to your family, Jane. I tried to infect them with the Eden Plague.”
As Jane ran to the house, Jill took out her knife and gashed her left index finger’s tip, then methodically dripped blood into every man’s mouth she thought had a prayer of living. Though several were conscious, none resisted, watching her like mice in fear of a snake. “If you’re lucky, the Plague will take hold and you will live,” she announced loudly, “but I wouldn’t go self-reporting as Sickos if I were you.” She could think of no better punishment.
Jill turned toward the house, to see the McConleys emerging from it. Big Jim and Sarah stood and walked without difficulty it seemed, and Owen…did too. His eyes and his expression seemed clearer, and full of wonder. His parents each tightly held a hand, and the smiles on their faces contrasted strangely with their current plight.
“He’s getting better already, praise the Lord,” Sarah called when she saw the realization come over Jill.
“That’s great, Sarah,” she replied, “but we have to go to the caves, now. Get some walking shoes on and we have to get going.”
“She’s right,” Big Jim rumbled. “Jane, watch Owen. We’ll go in two minutes, out the back door.”
He led them inside, where he grabbed an old canvas bag and began throwing items into it – fresh food, a blanket, clothing, shoes and sundries. Sarah did the same with a pillowcase, handing one to Jill. Soon they all were laden with as much as they could carry.
“Let’s go,” Big Jim said, seeming stronger by the minute.
“What about Jimmy?” Sarah asked sharply. “Where is he?”
Jill and Big Jim exchanged saddened glances. She knew the big man had already figured it out. “Jimmy’s gone, Sarah darlin’,” Big Jim said gently, wrapping his wife up in his arms. “Him and Miss Jill done the best they could, but now we got to go.”
Silent tears leaked from Sarah’s eyes, but she nodded and picked up her load. “All right. I’m ready.”
“Then let’s get goin’. We’ll eat as soon as we’re out of sight.”
This reminded Jill of the sharp pain in her belly as her need for food made itself felt. She picked up the pitcher of lemonade that stood by the sink and drank as much as she could hold, easing the problem somewhat. She passed it around.
Owen spoke, suddenly. “Klutz,” he said, pointing at the faithful canine lying on the rough wooden floor, then sinking to his knees to cradle the dog’s head. His four-footed friend ran his tongue over the boy’s hand one final time, then he went slack with a sigh.
“I’m sorry,” Jill said, her voice cracking. “I guess the Plague doesn’t work on animals.” Owen began to cry softly. “We have to go,” she said. “We don’t have time. Whoever comes here will take care of Klutz.”
Jane pulled Owen away, speaking softly in his ear, and then they left out the back.
“Can’t we take a pickup?” Sarah asked.
“No,” Jill answered before Big Jim could. “They’ll follow fresh tire tracks, and if they get a helicopter up here they may find it. Much better to go on foot.”
Into the tree line they hiked, retracing Jill’s route as she flanked the barn. She detoured to take a look at the two men she’d shot there, finding the younger one staring sightlessly at the tree branches above. The older one, the veteran, was not where she’d left him, and she lifted her assault rifle, looking around. Hopefully he’d run off, or been one of the ones that got away.
“Stop,” she heard a man’s voice from behind her say.
Damn. Slowly she crouched and laid the assault rifle and the stuffed pillowcase on the ground, and then held her hands out to her sides before she turned.
The man sat propped against a tree, with brush on either side of him. She’d walked right past him, for he’d chosen his spot well. He held a rifle trained on her, braced on his knee.
The man looked to be in bad shape, Plague or no Plague, but his grip on the weapon was steady. “What did you do to me?” he asked. “I should be dead.”
“Would you rather be?” she retorted. “I gave you the Plague to save your life. You’re a Sicko now. An Eden. We’re the same, you and me. I am…I was a Marine. You’re a combat veteran; I can tell. Do you like what your country has become?”
“I’m not a traitor,” he ground out.
“Then shoot me. What’s stopping you? And then when your buddies return, they’ll lock you away, because they won’t see you anymore. All they’ll see is a Sicko. Just like every time this ever happens – Japs, Jews, blacks, Bosnians, ragheads – dehumanize the enemy, then round him up and murder him. Well I’m still human, and so are you.”
His mouth worked, then he turned the weapon away from her. “You got a point. So what now?”
“Right now you can let us go and take your chances, or you can com
e with us.”
“Jill!” Sarah said from behind her, where she and the rest of the McConleys had been watching the tableau. “We can’t trust him. And he killed my boy.” She burst into tears, falling to her knees with her pillowcase sack.
“Miss Jill is right,” Big Jim said to her as he squatted down. “Everyone with the Plague is now on our side. We’re all runaways together. We lost Jimmy. Maybe this man can help fill his shoes.” The older man stood up and stepped forward, dropping his sack and shifting his shotgun to his left hand. “What’s your name, sir?”
“Clayton, sir. John Clayton.” He rolled painfully to his feet, supporting himself on the tree he had been resting against, and stuck out his hand. “And I’m powerful sorry for my part in this. I know it’s no excuse, but…well, when the shooting starts, you shoot back at the guy shooting at you.”
Big Jim wiped his hand on his trousers for a moment, then set his jaw. “I understand, John. I forgive you.” He glanced at Sarah. “Jimmy’s mother’s gonna have a mite harder time, though.”
“I want him with us. Someone go get him,” Sarah wailed.
“We’ll do what we can,” Jill broke in. “We really have to go. Clayton, can you walk?”
“Not very well yet.” Clayton looked around. “Are there any more of us alive and infected?”
“Yes, back by the truck there are two or three.”
“I have to help them.”
“Dammit, we don’t have time,” Jill said.
“Just tell me where to go. We’ll follow after you.”
Jill cursed again, but fully understood the man’s loyalty to his brothers in arms. Turning to Big Jim, she said, “Go ahead. Jimmy showed me the cave. I’ll stay here with these men and lead them in. And we’ll take care of Jimmy.”
Big Jim nodded to her. “Give me that sack. You gather all the guns and ammo you can and bring everything with you, hear?”
“Got it, boss.” Jill agreed, grimly satisfied now that everyone’s goals aligned. She watched for a moment as the McConleys started the hike up to the caves, then turned to Clayton. “Come on, John. You got any rations in that truck? You’re gonna get damn hungry soon.”
She helped him limp back toward the mess in the center of the farm, leaving him to talk to his men when she realized the one Jane had clobbered hadn’t been dosed with the Plague. Fortunately he was still out, so a quick cut and a few drops of blood solved that problem. She dragged him back over to dump him with the rest.
Five SS troopers had survived to become Edens, including Clayton. One she recognized as the man who had shot Klutz. “You,” she said, pointing with her assault rifle. “You see this dog you killed?”
“Yeah,” he replied, clutching his healing stomach. “Sorry.”
“You want to stay to be interned, or you want to come with us?”
His mouth worked, and finally he said, “I’ll come with you.”
“Then here’s your penance. You’re gonna pick up that dead dog and carry it all the way up to our hideout, and when we get there, you’re gonna bury him in a nice grave so that a twelve year old boy can grieve properly. You got me, soldier?” At that moment Jill felt as close to troop abuse as she’d ever gotten, and he must have seen it in her eyes, for he lowered his own and nodded, clearly ashamed. He got up and began wrestling the ninety-pound corpse up onto his shoulders.
“All right, men,” Clayton spoke up. “Like the lady said, you can stay and get locked up, or you can come with us, because I’m going with her.”
The other three looked around at each other, then as one stood up from their resting positions. “We’ll go,” one said. The others nodded.
“Good. Then grab all the weapons and ammo you can carry and bring them to the barn. There’s one more thing I have to do.” Jill left them to their salvaging, walking resolutely over to the barn.
Inside lay two dead cows, and the barn cats were already sniffing around at the smell of fresh meat. Jill opened the henhouse and let out all the chickens, then did the same with the rabbit hutches, taking no more than a minute. Then she began breaking open hay bales and scattering the straw.
Next Jill steeled herself, and then climbed the ladder. She forced herself to look at him one more time, with the flies gathering already around the sticky, blood-soaked boards. Blinking back tears, she picked up his beloved Browning, and the shotgun he died clutching, and then backed down the ladder.
On the ground, she grabbed a fuel can and opened it, waiting for her little squad. Once they arrived laden with weapons and ammo, she upended the gasoline onto the straw, tossing it into the pile, then took another and began to lay a line of flammable liquid out the back of the barn. “Get on ahead of me,” she instructed, and when they were all a hundred feet away, she asked for a lighter.
A moment later, fire streaked toward the barn, sending the barn cats running. A muffled whump and a puff of smoke signaled the structure’s ignition. “Viking funeral,” she whispered. “Best I could do. Goodbye, Jimmy. Hope you find that Heaven your ma talked about.”
Less than a minute later, flames had engulfed the old wooden structure. “Come on, men. Even discounting your former buddies, the smoke will draw people from miles around.” Jill turned toward the hills. “Follow me,” she said.