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  “They’re trying to kill us!” Brad protested.

  “We won’t be trying pretty soon,” a voice hissed and Brad spun, Angel stepping back, trying to shove the child behind him. Two men stepped from the shadows, pistols in hand, taking firing stances at the fringes of amber light where campfires shone upon them. “Pretty soon you’ll just be dead. Paul says you’re not paying the toll. That’s not cool.”

  “What toll?” said Rhonda. “We have no money, and even if we did, what good would it do anyone these days?”

  One of the men nodded toward Brad. “He’s got a pistol. A Ruger by the looks. I’m betting the rest of you do, too. Hand over your guns, and you can pass right on through.”

  “We can’t do that,” Rebecca replied. “You can’t send us along unarmed. We’ll be sitting ducks.”

  The man shrugged. “How is that my problem?”

  As they spoke a few more darkened figures appeared, a couple of them also holding pistols. Phil, Rebecca, and Angel had stepped forward, converging, creating a blockade of sorts between the newcomers and the rest of the family. They seemed to be almost surrounded by them, a lazy half-circle of figures looming from the dark night, glaring upon them in judgement.

  “Yeah, these are them,” hissed Paul, finally showing himself alongside the others. “That one tried to throw down on me,” he hissed, gesturing toward Tamar. “I say we just kill ‘em all and take their crap. Forget the toll.”

  The man looked over at Paul, who was clearly several years younger than he was, and nodded softly. “That might just be what’s best for everyone.” He lifted his hand, finger tensing on the trigger of his pistol.

  ***

  When you get enough angry, desperate people together in one place with firearms, more often than not, someone is going to get hurt. Rebecca looked around the crowd, her eyes shifting from one figure to another, several of them carrying pistols. Their voices had an edge to them, a sense of menace and anger, and when you combine those emotions with weapons, things generally don’t end well. As a member of the Texas FBI with their SWAT division, she’d seen firsthand what that combination could lead to and already in her mind’s eye she saw the same outcome here.

  She couldn’t let that happen.

  “Max, Winnie, Brad, Tamar, get in the van okay?” she whispered, glancing back at the kids who were clustered behind her, Angel, and Phil. Rhonda was milling around with the kids as well, but hung outside as the children made their way inside the van.

  “Did they just listen to you?” Rhonda asked. “You need to teach me this magic.”

  Rebecca held her Glock with two hands, shifting it skillfully from armed enemy to armed enemy, just enough to keep them honest. To her left, Angel held his own pistol making similar motions. Phil’s Beretta was clamped tightly in his hands as well, though the weapon was pointed down toward the ground instead of at the targets around them.

  Rhonda tapped Rebecca’s hip with the barrel of her Colt, signaling that she was also armed and ready if necessary.

  “We start a gunfight now,” Rhonda whispered, “and we’ll be dead within thirty seconds. We do not have the high ground here.”

  Angel held up a hand. “Everyone just take it easy. We don’t want any trouble, okay? No trouble. We just need to get our friend to a hospital.”

  “You know,” Paul started, “a few minutes ago, we were happy enough to exchange weapons for safe passage through this area. But you know… I think we maybe changed our mind.”

  “We don’t have anything,” Rhonda pleaded. “We have no food, no spare clothing. Nothing.”

  Paul squinted at her. “Oh I can see something you’ve got,” he said quietly, but loud enough for both Rhonda and Rebecca to hear.

  “Oh is that how this is going?” Rebecca asked. “Really?”

  “I guess that’s up to you—”

  Rhonda didn’t need to hear any more. Her arm shot up and around Rebecca, the large Colt pistol clutched in her fingers. She fired twice, two swift pumps of the trigger, the weapon thrashing in her hands. Ten-millimeter rounds punched through Paul’s chest, throwing him backwards, his hat spilling from his head as his body slammed back first onto the grass behind him.

  “In the van now!” screamed Rebecca, and Angel and Phil were already moving, picking up Rhonda and shoving her backwards toward the black van, pushing her into the open side door. The attack had been a shock, stunning the men around them and amazingly none of them had instantly fired back. But as everything swirled around in slow motion, Rebecca turned, moving through thick syrup, and lumbered toward the van as arms moved around, fists clamped around guns, drifting toward her and preparing to fire. With one desperate lunge, she surged forward to the van, weapons around her suddenly exploding to life, a cacophony of roaring spouts of gunfire. A white-hot stab of pain laced her left shoulder, tearing through her entire left side, igniting muscles. She could actually feel the skin at her left arm tear away as a bullet ripped through flesh and muscle, spinning her forward and throwing her into the van. Pain ravaged her left arm, like her blood itself was set on fire and she pressed a firm hand to her upper arm, rolling into the van as gunfire exploded, sending sparks and bullets winging off the metal hide of the van.

  All around the van, the group converged, charging forward, weapons drawn.

  “They shot Paul!” one of them screamed. “Kill them all! Blow them away!”

  Inside the van, Phil tried to scramble to the driver’s seat, and one of the men fired his small pistol three times. Phil whipped suddenly to the right, his shoulder slamming into the passenger seat where Greer was laying, but he pushed off, throwing himself into the driver’s seat as the men grew closer. He shoved the key in the ignition, his vision fading, a red film covering his left eye and his entire head radiating heat and pain.

  “Rebecca’s hit!” he heard from the back.

  “They’re coming!”

  He glanced out the driver’s side window and saw them continuing to approach, holding weapons in firing position, moving closer, an entire group of them. The key turned, and the engine growled, but would not kick over.

  “Come on,” Phil muttered, his head swimming. “Come on!”

  “Get in the van!” one of the men shouted from outside. “Get in there and drag them out!”

  One of them took a long stride, up toward the opened side door of the vehicle, but Angel lurched out from behind the opened door with the stock of a weapon crashing down into the man’s temple, slamming his head around and sending him tumbling back out. As he fell to the ground, Angel spun the weapon around, holding the SG 716 battle rifle in a practiced two-handed grip. He fired three times, throwing two men down to the grass.

  “Back off!” he snarled. “Back off or I swear I’ll switch to full auto and tear this whole place up!”

  Outside the van the approaching horde hesitated just a moment, uncertain about proceeding, and finally the van’s ignition caught, the engine roaring to life, coughing a thick burst of blue exhaust from the rear. Not wasting any time, Angel swung the door closed before the group could rethink their hesitation and just as the door slammed, the van caught traction and lurched forward, spewing chewed up grass and dirt out from behind the rear wheels. It skidded briefly left, then charged forward, tearing through the lawn and hurtling back toward pavement.

  ***

  “Keep driving!” shouted Angel from next to Rebecca. He was crouched down on one knee between rows of seats, his hand pressed to her shoulder as she lay there on her back, eyes pressed closed and mouth twisted into a grimace of pain. There was blood flowing, a lot of it, some of it seeping up through Angel’s fingers as he desperately put pressure on the wound.

  Phil fought back another wave of nauseating dizziness, glaring through fogged vision as the van slammed down onto pavement. Behind them they heard the echoing reports of gunfire and the metallic bang of bullets rebounding off the metal hide of the vehicle.

  “Are any cars chasing us, Phil?” Rhonda yelled, sit
ting on a seat, and huddled over Rebecca’s form next to Angel. She heard no response. “Phil?” she yelled again. “Are they coming after us?”

  Phil shook his head to clear the cobwebs and looked at the rearview mirror, trying to peer through crimson hued eyesight. No headlights were there, no sign of any vehicles in pursuit at all.

  “Think we’re clear,” he said.

  “We need some pressure on this wound!” Rhonda shouted.

  “I’m pushing!” Angel said, forcing his palm down onto Rebecca’s shoulder.

  She cried out. “It hurts! It really hurts!”

  “I know it does,” Angel whispered. “I know.”

  “Here!” shouted Tamar, reaching up from his seat. He’d peeled off a long sleeve shirt he’d been wearing, leaving him in a black tank top, and handed it over. Rhonda snapped it from his hands and offered it to Angel.

  “Use this. See if you can get more pressure on it!”

  Angel nodded and took the shirt, wrapping it around Rebecca’s shoulder and collarbone, then tied the sleeves very tight, tugging the fabric. She groaned and winced as he tied off the sleeves, making sure the shirt was as snug as possible. Almost immediately the fabric of the shirt grew dark with soaking blood and Angel pressed his palms back on it, slowly pushing down, creating more pressure on the wound.

  Rhonda reached out and took Rebecca’s hand in hers, letting the former FBI agent squeeze, clamping the bones in her fingers together.

  “You okay, Phillip?” Greer asked, lifting his head off the seat and looking over at him. Phil was half slumped in the driver’s seat, eyes still open, hands wrapped around the steering wheel.

  “Alright,” Phil replied, his words slurring slightly. “I’m alright.”

  “Rhonda?” Greer called from his seat, as loud as he could. “You might want to come up here.”

  Rhonda looked over her shoulder, then back at Rebecca, slowly separating their fingers. Fields’ eyes were mostly closed, her lips pressed together, and it looked like she was starting to pass out. Standing from the seat, Rhonda worked her way around and toward the front.

  “What’s the matt—oh my God! Phil?” as Rhonda drew up toward the seats she glanced over and saw her husband forcing himself to stay upright. His hair was tousled and matted on the right side, soaked with dark red blood, which streaked down his right cheek, over his shoulder, and down underneath the flannel shirt he was wearing.

  “Phil! What happened? What happened?”

  “Dunno,” Phil mumbled. “Headache.”

  “Stop the van, Phil, now.”

  “Ninety is right up here. Let me get to ninety.”

  “Phil, you’re bleeding like a stuck pig!”

  “Uh oh,” Phil replied, looking out the windshield. Rhonda followed his gaze and saw what troubled him. Two cars had pulled to a V shape across the connecting road leading to the Interstate, and three men stood outside the vehicles, weapons drawn.

  “Not good,” Rhonda replied. “Angel!” she screamed. “Battle rifle!”

  Angel whipped his head up and turned his shoulder, keeping one palm pressed to Rebecca’s injury, but he swept up the 716 with his other hand and flipped it around, extending the weapon stock-first toward her. She reached and grabbed it, then shuffled to the side door of the van, unlatching it.

  “Hold on, everyone!” she shouted and whipped the door open about halfway. Swift pops of staggered gunshots erupted from the roadblock in front of them and Rhonda leaned out the door, holding the weapon in one hand. She eyed the three men quickly, then pulled the trigger several times, the weapon snapping back in her one-handed grip, nearly wrenching itself free.

  Through the windshield, Phil could see the men hesitate slightly, starting to move away as the weapon blasted. Rhonda’s one-handed firing didn’t come close to hitting any of them, but it surprised them enough that they hesitated and Phil floored the van, sending it charging ahead, the single headlight splashing the two cars and three men in a pale, accusatory eye.

  “Hold onto something!” he shouted, ducking down. One of the men got two shots off, the first one flying high, but the second drilled a small hole through the windshield, near where it met the roof, but it was the only impact before the van careened into the group. Two of the men scattered away, but the third, the one determined to get two more shots off, took a direct shot, slamming back against one of the parked vehicles, then the van continued onward, crunching into where the two cars met, blasting them apart in a rending scream of torn metal and broken plastic. The van shuddered as it barreled through, the noise inside a deafening orchestra of destruction, but after less than a second, the sound faded into sprinkling glass along pavement behind them, and the vehicle veered right, heading toward the on-ramp to Interstate 90.

  Phil maintained control, guiding the van up onto the Interstate, cutting left to avoid a cluster of abandoned vehicles near the entrance. The van brushed past one of the empty cars, scraping loud and hard on the right side, then bumped heavily over the median. Through the hazy cloud of his vision, Phil cranked the wheel right and brought the vehicle back onto the interstate where the glut of vehicles tapered off to a narrow grouping which they were able to split down the middle. The van continued on, unimpeded for a few moments until Rhonda finally put a hand on Phil’s shoulder.

  “I think we’re far enough away, stop the van, Phil, okay?”

  “I’m alright, Rhonda,” Phil replied, his words low and thick.

  “Phil, stop the van,” Rhonda repeated, more insistently.

  Phil nodded and eased off the accelerator, bringing the dark vehicle to a graceful stop in the middle of the two-lane road. The van was blocking any passage for cars behind it, but there shouldn’t be any coming and it was a chance Rhonda was willing to take. As soon as the vehicle stopped, she made her way forward, turning left and putting her hands on Phil’s cheeks, looking him in the eyes.

  “Phil, did you get shot?” she asked slowly.

  Phil nodded slowly. “Think so. Yeah.”

  Rhonda pushed his hair aside, some thick and clumpy as she ran her fingers through it, and when she eased away a lock of dark hair, she saw the deep, ragged gouge through the narrow flesh on his forehead. The skin there was cut through and separated, starting to peel away slightly from where the bullet had streaked through skin and dug at the bone underneath. Fresh, dark blood continued to seep from the narrow wound, running over the smooth contour of his forehead, then down over the protrusion of his brow like lava from a fissure.

  “How many fingers am I holding up, Phil?” Rhonda asked, flashing a peace sign.

  “Two, babe,” Phil replied, but his eyes were glassy and unfocused.

  “Okay, take your shirt off,” she said quietly, helping him peel his arms from the long-sleeved flannel overshirt he was wearing. She slipped it from him and straightened out the sleeves, then tied them tightly around his forehead to try to stop the steady bleeding.

  “Am I gonna die?” Phil asked quietly, staring off at nothing.

  “You’ll be okay,” Rhonda replied. “I think the bullet took a good chunk out of your skin. You’re bleeding like crazy, but you should be okay.”

  Phil nodded.

  “But I’m driving.” Rhonda helped him from the seat and back into the second row, leaning him carefully against the headrest. Winnie moved up toward him, placing a hand at his shoulder, gingerly stepping over Rebecca who was still on the floor.

  “You okay, Daddy?” she asked quietly. Phil nodded a response, but didn’t speak. He did place his hand over hers, closing tight and holding it to his shoulder.

  “Okay, everyone take a seat,” Rhonda said from the driver’s seat. “I-90 goes straight into Cleveland. That’s our next stop, all right? Buckle up and just sit tight, we’re moving.”

  Winnie nodded, sitting in the seat just next to her father, her hand in his.

  Chapter Three

  Had that day been rainy? Tamar didn’t remember completely, but his memory of it was clouded in a
dreary gray haze, rain spattering down on the pavement as he walked down the front steps from the Dojang, which he had learned over a year previously was a Korean word meaning “school.” Tae Kwon-Do class happened three times a week for someone of Tamar’s level, and at that point in his training, he was starting to teach some younger classes.

  “Good class today, Mr. Davis,” a young voice called out as the child dashed down the stairs to the sidewalk.

  “You, too, Francis,” Tamar replied. He had never gotten used to being “Mr. Davis” but honor stated that those at black belt or higher must be greeted that way by the younger students.

  “Yo, T!” another voice echoed from behind Tamar and he turned in time to see Luis barge his way out of the front door.

  “What up, Luis?” Tamar asked.

  “Man, why are you here? Why are any of us here?”

  “What do you mean?” Tamar asked. “It’s Friday, bro. Class day.” The two boys walked down the sidewalk, the Chicago skyline reaching up toward the thick gray clouds overhead.

  “Yeah, a Friday after the nuclear holocaust. What the heck?”

  Tamar shrugged as they walked. “Yeah, I know, I get it. Master Shields just tryin’ to keep some stability in our lives, man. I think it’s good. Keep our stuff centered.”

  “The city is losing it, Tamar. Losing. It.”

  As if on cue a chattering belt of gunfire echoed from a few blocks away, followed by a chorus of shrill shouts.

  “We’re safe here,” Tamar whispered. “That stuff went down out on the West Coast, all right? Yeah, our cable TV doesn’t work, and the Internet is slow as heck, but life goes on, right?”

  Two more gunshots seemed to shout in answer to the first.

  “Not for whoever’s gettin’ shot up over there. This isn’t good, man. When the sun goes down it’s like a war zone by my place. An actual war zone. My parents are talking about leaving town.”

  Tamar stopped walking and turned to face him, grabbing his arms. “Luis, you and your parents gotta do what you think is right, okay? My mom’s here. My brother’s here. They’re not going anywhere. As long as my bro is around, I’m around, got it? I’m the only one he’s got looking out for him.”