Brett Battles - No Return

Wes heard sharp, raised voices, but couldn’t make out the words. Then the driver’s door of the truck opened, and Lars stepped out, his arms above his head.

“On your knees!” a single voice barked, just loud enough for Wes to hear.

Lars immediately complied.

The men surrounding him began closing in, their weapons still drawn. When they were within ten feet, two of the men behind Lars rushed forward. They grabbed Lars’s arms and shoved them down. One of the men pulled something out of a pocket and secured Lars’s hands, then they yanked him to his feet.

More voices as most of the guns were lowered. One man walked up until he was standing just a few feet in front of Lars. Even at this distance, Wes recognized Lieutenant Jenks.

After about a minute, Jenks looked back at the other men. As one, the remaining guns that had not been stowed were lowered. More talk, and then Lars was led to one of the sedans. Jenks opened the rear door and guided Lars’s head as he climbed in, then Jenks got in after him. Two others got into the front. The doors were barely shut when the sedan made a quick U-turn and sped off the way it had come.

Wes watched the twelve remaining men, willing them to get into their cars and leave, too. But instead, they gathered together. When they finally split, two went over to Lars’s truck and began searching through the cab. Six others headed to the first-floor breezeway of the building, disappearing from view. And while the final four men got into a sedan, instead of leaving, they began driving between the buildings, stopping every once in a while to shine a handheld searchlight at one of the structures.

After several minutes the car disappeared behind the buildings on the far side of the road. Just when Wes was beginning to think maybe it had driven off, headlights swept out from around the end of the building to Wes’s left.

The sedan now drove slowly along the edge of the raw desert, the spotlight beam pointing into the wilderness as the vehicle drew closer and closer to Wes’s position.

Run! The word reverberated in his head. But he held his position, knowing that if he did take off, there was no question he’d be spotted.

The sound of an engine roaring to life caused Wes to look back toward the buildings. It was Lars’s truck. The headlights were on, and the two men who had been searching it were sitting inside. Someone trotted out of the building and over to the truck, the headlight temporarily lighting him up.

Wasserman.

He leaned in the open window for several seconds, then turned back to the building as the truck drove away.

Wes cursed silently. There had been a small part of him hoping they would leave the truck behind. He’d been toying with the idea of using it to get out of there.

He looked back at the sedan with the spotlight. It was almost parallel to his position now.

Again the urge to flee nearly overwhelmed him. But he resisted. He wasn’t simply trespassing on private property. This was a military base. If he ran, there wouldn’t be a shout ordering him to stop. The only shout would be from the gun firing the bullet aimed at his back.

When the spotlight touched the bushes only a few feet to his left, Wes tucked his head down as far as he could, burying his face in the dirt.

Five seconds passed. Then ten.

With each breath, he felt like he was inhaling more dust than air. But he didn’t move, not even a fraction of an inch. He waited for the sound of car doors opening, then shouting and weapons being drawn, but the only thing he heard was his own heartbeat.

Finally, when he was sure he should have already been spotted, he twisted his head to the right and opened an eye. His view of the world was limited to sky and the edge of the shallow ravine. But it was all dark.

He listened intently, trying to pick out the sound of the sedan. After a moment, he heard the tires passing over dirt, faint and getting fainter.

The relief that coursed through him was tempered by the knowledge he wasn’t out of trouble yet. He held his position, and counted off the minutes in his head, telling himself he’d take another look when he reached ten. Then when he did, he made himself take another five just to be safe.

Once that had passed, he carefully raised himself up so that he could see above the crest of the depression.

Unbroken night on all sides.

He focused on the buildings. Both the sedan that had been circling with the spotlight and the ones that had still been parked were gone.

He did a full scan, examining every inch in case this was some kind of trick.

No one.

He was alone.

In many ways, the journey to get off the base was more nerve-racking than lying in the ditch waiting to be caught. Keeping at least twenty feet off the road, Wes paralleled the route the sedans had arrived on, hoping that if he suddenly needed to hide, he could do so without being seen.

He had determined his location first by spotting the distant shadowy line of the Sierra Nevada Mountains to the west, then by the much closer form of B Mountain-so called because of the white B painted on the front each year by the Burroughs High School senior class-just to the north.

The quickest way to the fence would have been to take a hard left to the south, toward the highway to Trona, where he could probably hitch a ride. But going in that direction would have meant crossing a couple of miles of untouched desert. Not necessarily an attractive option.

If he went west, though, he would not only be heading in the direction of the motel, but also toward a portion of the fence where he felt confident he could find an easy place to get over.

So onward he hiked, ever mindful of any light he saw or sound he heard.

An hour later, he reached the road that led up to where his house used to stand. It was on this very strip of asphalt that he’d first gotten behind the wheel of a car. It had been his mom’s 1975 VW van. Red bottom, white top, with a stick shift longer than his arm. He’d stalled twice, but eventually got it to the top of the incline.

Now he ascended it on foot, then crossed into the area that had once been the neighborhood he’d grown up in. Just that afternoon he’d looked at it from the other side of the fence, but now he was actually standing on the same streets where he’d played.

Angling southwest, he headed toward the fence that separated the area from the high school. Teens had been hopping that particular section since before Wes was born. That meant there’d be at least one spot along the expanse that could easily be scaled.

It wasn’t until he’d already passed it that he realized he’d walked right through the space where his family’s home had been. But as he turned back to look, what caught his attention wasn’t the structural ghost from his childhood, but two sets of headlights moving quickly up the hill, one right after the other.

“Dammit.” He started running.

He had to assume he’d been seen. The problem was there was absolutely nowhere to hide in his old neighborhood. His only hope lay with the high school on the other side of the fence.

There was no time to hunt for the easiest section, so Wes headed straight for the expanse closest to him. When he was three feet away, he leapt, his hands reaching for the support rail that ran across the top. As soon as he clamped on, he pulled himself up and over. But while he might now be on the town side of the fence, he was still in plain sight.

Wes ran, his eyes desperately searching for a place to hide. The closest structure was the school administration building, but he wouldn’t be able to reach it without being seen first. He glanced left and right, trying to locate an alternative.