BANG!
"Shit, fuck, shit!' I said flailing in the bath tub. Liz had just walked in, the bang wasn't a gun but the sound of the door closing behind her.
"Oh my god, Connor are you ok?" She asked in a panic.
"I’m fine," I said, knowing I was probably as pale the ghost I had just seen. "What are you doing?"
"I was just checking on you," She said sitting on the toilet to talk to me. "You've been in here for two hours."
"Sorry, I- I must have fallen asleep." I replied, getting out of the bath.
"How's your arm feeling?"
"It's better" I said. I wasn't lying, I could move it without the pain being unbearable.
"Oh so apparently, Susan Thompson is the acting President now." Liz said as I dried myself off
"That might not be a bad thing, she had more balls than anyone else in that administration." I replied.
"Yeah, but the Joint chiefs of staff are split and are refusing to deploy to the area's she is ordering them to."
"You've got to be fucking kidding me."
"Nope, apparently they think it's more important to build up the forces than to help towns on the verge of being taken."
"That's no better than treason," I said seething at the thought of such cowardice. "There's no time for political bullshit."
"I agree," She said with an odd look. I knew this look, it was the one she got every time she didn't want to tell me something.
"Oh god, you're squinting." I said, "What is it?"
"Well, it's just that..." She said stammering, "We, uh, we think you should do something about it when we get to Seattle."
"Me? Have you lost it?" I said laughing. "What could I possibly do about it?"
"I don’t know," She said embarrassed.
"Hey," I said walking out of the bathroom "What do you clowns think I should do about the military? Tell the president and joint chiefs to kiss and make up?"
"Well no," Mike said, "or yes, I mean you could umm.. Well there's a lot of people out there waiting to hear from yas and they want you to help. I mean.."
"What he's saying" Jesse interjected "is that people are waiting for orders from you and you alone. They seem to have really gotten behind this whole resistance thing. You can force their hand and you know it."
"I see," I said taking a seat. Contemplating for a moment exactly what they meant. "What the fuck have I gotten myself into?"
"It's not always up to you whether or not yous get ta be a hero man." Mike said.
"All you've ever wanted to do is help people." Liz said "As long as I’ve known you, you've never questioned doing the right thing."
"I know," I said "But this isn't the same thing. Every time I do anything, I put people in danger, people keep dieing because of me."
"And they'll die even without you!" Jesse said angrily "Don’t you get it? It doesn’t matter, if you do something people are gonna die, if you don’t they’ll still die. All that matters is that you're at least trying to make a difference."
"Jesse.." I said before he cut me off.
"No you need to understand something," he said with tears running down his face. "I doubt there's another person in the entire world who is brave enough to do any one of the things you've done over the last few weeks. Yet, you keep doing them, you keep pushing. That's why you're in this position, because no one else is strong enough to do what you have done. You're that one person in a million with the tenacity to risk the impossible.
Do you think I blame you for my mom? Like I would somehow blame you for not being able to save her? That's bullshit, she may have died, but because of you I’m here and so are two dozen other people. Don’t try and pretend that one over-rides the other."
"Think about what you're asking of me." I said, slowly raising my head toward them.
"I know Connor, I know." Liz said, "but we're asking because we know you're strong enough to do it."
"I'll think about it," I said reluctantly "No guarantees."
"That's a yes." Liz said laughing.
"Hey Mike, is there somewhere we can plug in a laptop and a phone?" I asked
"Yeah, yeah it's over there" he said pointing to the corner. 'You knows I gots meat ready to put on the smoker outside too."
I grabbed the bag, taking a few pills while the others were in the back room so mike could show them how to use the shower and where the beds were.
"Ima go start the meat he said walking back outside with an armful of food from his chest freezer in the main room.
As I plugged in the laptop, my heart sank into my stomach. As I bent down I noticed something taped under the table. It was a long range 2 way radio. I could still hear them in the other room, as I tried to figure out what I had just found.
Without touching it, being careful not to mess up the duct tape, I inspected this radio. it definitely was not American. In fact, my best guess was that the symbols on it were mandarin. Mike wasn't the kind of guy who would just happen to speak Chinese. I had to assume that this radio had been hidden here for a reason.
It was there to communicate with somebody. Someone who spoke English and needed to be notified. There was only one real reason a park ranger from Boston in the middle of the woods would be so courteous while having a hidden Chinese radio.
I plugged in the laptop and the phone, grabbing my pillow out of the duffel bag. I would sleep here against the table, he wouldn't dare go near that radio with me around. I quickly made my bed on the ground and pretended to have fallen asleep. Out of the corner of my half closed eye I saw Mike talking to Jesse and Liz, they too seemed uncomfortable. They knew me well enough to know I wouldn’t fall asleep without securing the perimeter.
Fortunately they played it cool, Liz decided that she would take first watch outside, while Jesse and Mike slept in the room. They talked about various things ranging from television back to politics and eventually Mike gave up and went to sleep, insisting Jesse went to.
I was comfortable with the knowledge that Jesse could take Mike out and knew that he did not trust him. Unfortunately he and Liz never found a real opportunity to talk to me throughout the night.
Around 2 am a thunderstorm rolled in. They were rare in these parts. The torrent of rain roared down on the tin roof of the cabin. It was soothing, but still almost impossible to relax.
The next day as Liz slept near the table, pretending to have come in and fallen asleep next to me, she kept on eye on the radio and "slept" throughout the day. By this time, it was clear that Mike would betray us if he had the chance, in fact I was almost certain he had been threatened into doing so.
I knew this, but I had to do my best to manipulate the situation. I was starting to need the pain killers every couple of hours, they were beginning to interfere with my judgment. I knew what I needed to do, yet I kept finding myself wandering back to them. I could barely concentrate as they wore off each time.
Throughout the day, I had Mike help fill up our water supply and show us the trails surrounding the cabin. He had no idea I was looking for fresh tracks. If someone was in the area we would know because the mud was so fresh.
There were none to be found. I even managed to get him to show me where he hid the gator in the woods. It's gas tank was full and I had made a mental note of which trails he said would lead toward the road 35 miles from here.
By late afternoon he began feigning concern about Liz, that she had been sleeping so long.
"I needs to take a showa too." He insisted, "Ya, ya, I ain’t had one in almost four days now."
"I can tell" I said jokingly, he had given himself away.
The Chinese had made it to him before us, how far away they were was anyone’s guess. How long it would take them to get to us was the major threat looming over our head, now that we knew they had to be somewhere in the area.
We made our way back to the cabin, Mike talking about a shower more than any normal person would. Jesse pretending he was look
ing at trees and how tall they were.
"Oh, hey Liz musta went inta the other room." He said as we walked back into the cabin,
"ya, she's been asleep all day, she probably moved to the beds." I said playing along, I knew she was up to something.
"Hey Jesse can you go grab that meat off the smoka?" he asked nervously, "There's a big platter right there to put it on."
"Sure thing" Jesse said walking outside, he had never let his weapon leave his side, just like I had taught him.
"Say Conna, I don’t hear the wata" he said, his accent getting thicker, the more nervous he became. "Yous wanna check on her?"
"Yeah of course" I said, after I had seen Jesse duck below the window to the side. I knew Liz wasn’t in the bath.
"Hey Liz, are you ok?" I said in a sing song voice walking in the room. As I walked around the door she handed me a pistol. I kept walking, closing the door halfway behind me. She was behind the door with the machine gun in her hand. She was going to force his hand.
"The radio went off" she whispered in my ear, "it was in English, Connor. they know something is up."
"Good job," I said giving her a kiss on the cheek before I slung the door open with the pistol aimed at Mike's head.
"Don't move!" Jesse said sneaking back inside, his gun also aimed at Mike's head. this could become very unsanitary...
"Why are you doing this Mike?" I asked, he didn’t answer, "You seem like a nice enough guy. You even seemed sincere last night, asking me to fight back."
"They're gonna kill me if I don’t, then theys gonna kill my ex wife too!" He sobbed, " I ain't got no choice man."
"There's always a choice Michael," I said calmly, walking forward with my gun trained on his head. "When faced with certain death we have the choice to die with dignity or fall into cowardice and let others die with us."
"It ain’t that simple man," He cried "There's dozens of them. You can barely take a few of me injured that bad. How you gonna save us alls?"
"Maybe, I cant" I replied, "but you can be damn sure none of us are gonna live if you make that call Mike. Are you going to go out fighting like a man or will you trade our lives and countless others just to save your own?"
He didn’t respond, I could tell he was torn. the pain flowed with the tears from his eyes, he didn't want to die, but he would rather let us die in his place, as indicated by his constant glances and small jerks toward the table.
"THEY'RE HERE!! THEY'RE HERE!!" He screamed scrambling his hands under the table, ripping the radio out, "The general is he...!"
Chkaw, Chkaw, Chkaw! rang the machine gun in Jesse's hands.
Mike fell to the ground, his face mutilated by the three rounds that had entered it. The back of his head was one gaping wound, blood and brain matter scattering the wall. The wounds were tight all within a few inches of each other. Jesse had controlled the weapon better than most career soldiers could ever hope to. Barely a fist's size between the three entry points.
"Come on!" he yelled breaking our stunned silence. "We have to go."
"He's right..." Liz said quietly as her hand opened, the batteries from the radio hitting the ground with a quiet thunk as they rolled across the floor.
"You did the right thing," I assured Jesse, who probably didn’t need me to tell him this.
"He's right, they tried to radio three time's today." Liz said
"The gator is about thirty five yards from here, the gas is full." I said breaking their dazed silence.
No response from them, aside from compliance
"If they didn’t get radio contact, they sure as hell could have heard their own weapons firing." I said shoving our supplies in the bag. "Let's get the fuck out of here."
We rushed through the woods, barreling down the trail to where Mike had hidden his getaway vehicle. It was no bat mobile, but the gator was capable of forty five plus miles per hour on rough terrain. We only needed to get thirty five to forty miles to the nearest road and we would be free to get to Seattle from there.
We threw our gear into the back, it was like a golf cart-truck hybrid, but much faster.
"Connor..." Liz said terrified.
"I know, keep moving" We had heard the Chinese ascending upon the cabin in the distance. If we were lucky they had no vehicles. How could they if they controlled nothing north of these forests?
"Fuck you!!!!" Jesse roared, spitting shells into the distance to keep our enemy at bay. After such little time, I knew somehow I could trust the fact that he saw the enemy and that we needed to move. I would never question his judgment again, neither he would mine. I only wished I could have kept him from having to kill at such an early age, or ever really.
As we tore away down the trail, with Jesse laying down firing from the back like an experienced soldier, Liz clung to my side. She was hoping, praying I could get us out of this situation. The strain was becoming more apparent with each day, each passing moment. I didn’t know how much longer I could ask her to keep doing this. She was beginning to crack, and I might not be strong enough to hold myself together if she wasn't there with me. I was becoming so god damned selfish...
"Oh shit..." I heard Jesse yell faintly, moments later what seemed to be a shell from a bazooka or RPG flew past us, about ten yards from the side, exploding into a massive pine tree.
"Yeah, you wont get another shot mother fucker" Jesse said, I knew he had saved our lives in that instant. That he had hit a moving target nearly a hundred yards away causing the shell to veer to the side, barely missing us.
He was a better fighter that I could have imagined. I pitied him for this, and for what would inevitably follow because of it. I could feel his pauses between bursts as he locked onto each new target. Our pursuers couldn’t hope to return fire accurately while chasing us on foot.
"Hold on," I said "we've got a sharp turn coming up, we should be out of fire after that."
We were moving about thirty miles per hour in the diesel powered gator. Soon enough, we would be safely out of the line of fire with enough gas to take us to the highway that lay beyond these woods.
As we closed in on the turn, our pursuers let loose a volley in a last ditch effort to stop us. Branches were falling out of trees, bullets lodging into trunks. Some even ricocheting off the small bed of the tractor that Jesse was laying in returning their fire.
"Oh god," I heard him mumble. I looked at him through the mirror as soon as we were safely around the corner. He had rolled onto his side, clutching at his chest in a fetal position. he had been hit.
Chapter 15