Chuck Logan - Homefront

Broker nodded, going numb. He saw the blood crystallizing, freezing in the snow outside the door, a lot of it. Then he saw the tracks. The basement window hanging open. Looked up. Nina was in. Started after her. She met him at the door to the kitchen. “Don’t come in here,” she said, looking him dead serious in the eye.

“Kit?” His knees buckled, then he recovered and surged past her. Saw Griffin sprawled on the floor next to the Roberts. Saw the AR-15 on the floor behind the body. Had a magazine in it. The operating handle angled back loose.

“I told you not to come in,” Nina said. “Stay here.” She darted away. He heard her dash up the stairs, rummage though the upstairs, come back down the stairs. Doing something in the living room.

“Kit?” he shouted.

“Not here.” Nina reappeared, handed him the.12 gauge, a box full of shells.

“Basement,” Broker said, pointing to the bloody steps as he jammed shells in the shotgun and racked the slide. Then old reflex kicked in. “Don’t touch anything.” He stuffed more shells in his pocket. “I’ll be outside.”

Nina skipped down the stairwell, avoiding the bloody steps. Broker turned toward Griffin. Do something. Shut his eyes . Shook it off. Totally on automatic. Don’t touch anything. Don’t think .

“Not here,” Nina yelled.

“I’m outside,” Broker yelled, going back out the garage. When Nina came out, he pointed to the tracks leading off across the lawn. “She got out the basement window. Those are her boots. The shooter’s following her. Let’s go.” Then he froze, and his voice failed as it hit him. He swallowed to clear the roar in his ears. Through the explosions of their crystallized breath, he said, “He loaded the AR, Nina. I left him with a piece that didn’t work…”

She pounded him hard on the chest. “Do your job! He did!” she shouted in that fierce voice, indicating the blood trail. “Now you do yours!”

They moved off in unison, running on either side of the tracks leading across the field. As he ran, Broker tore out his cell and punched 911.

“Nine-one-one, is this an emergency?” the dispatcher answered.

“This is Phil Broker. Fire number 629, on the lake. Harry Griffin is dead, shot by an intruder in my house. My eight-year-old daughter is missing. Put me through to Keith Nygard.”

“Stay on this connection.”

“Get Keith!” Broker shouted.

“Stay on the connection,” the dispatcher repeated.

They were approaching the tree line. Nina shouted over her shoulder, “Griffin hit him hard. All this blood. This guy ain’t going far.”

They ducked into the trees. The dispatcher came back. “Hello?”

“Keith?”

“He’s already in his car, on the way,” the dispatcher said. “We’re starting EMT…”

“Start everything !” Broker yelled.

“Calm down. We’re sending all we got. Now, Keith wants you to end this call. He has your number off our system. He’ll call you back on your cell. Do you copy?”

“Copy.” Broker ended the call, ran holding the cell phone up in his left hand, the shotgun like a dueling pistol in the other. They were moving fast, staying wide of the meandering bloody trail, with an eye for taking advantage of potential cover, aware that the bleeder at the end of these tracks was armed, had killed.

“Broker…,” Nina called out, a ragged edge to her voice. He saw what she was pointing at. More tracks, animal tracks, a lot of them. Too big for coyotes. When he looked up, he saw Nina sprinting ahead, arms pumping, charging headlong.

Broker tried to keep up, felt something, looked up, and swore, “Shit!” Not only were they losing light, but the top tier of the trees shivered and bent. Then the snow went off in his face like a white phosphorus round. Blinding.

Heard Nina’s muffled scream. “I saw them. They ran. I can’t tell…is it…” He ran forward to the sound of her voice. Found her dancing back and forth, peering down at… Oh, no. Without hesitating, he stepped forward, kneeling in it, checking the gristle of the face, clenched teeth showing two inches of bone top and bottom, the nose and lips chewed away.

Stood up, shook his head. “It’s the shooter. Griffin got him. C’mon,” he yelled, grabbing her as he went by. Dragging her away from the partially devoured corpse. His heart pounded hot as he pushed her forward. “See, look, look! There’s her tracks. They keep going…leave that for the sheriff,” he panted. Then he realized that Nina was crying, the tears freezing on her cheeks, yelling sweetly, “Harry!” over and over as she ran. Suddenly she stopped, raising her free hand cupped, like she was trying to hear.

“What?” he yelled.

“Phone,” she yelled.

Christ, the phone was ringing in his hand. He fumbled with freezing fingers; neither of them were wearing gloves. Hit answer. Heard Nygard yelling:

“Broker, it’s Nygard. Where the hell are you, man?”

There was a jagged adrenaline surge to Nygard’s voice, but also a touch of deference. “Not sure,” Broker stopped, looking around, trying to get his bearings. “Somewhere north of the house, in the woods between the lake and the road. Where are you?”

“At the foot of your drive. Tell me quick,” Nygard said.

“We followed a blood trail from the house and found a body. Griffin fought…” His voice failed.

“Broker, you still there?”

Now stronger. “ Griffin got the guy , he was following my kid, judging by the tracks, and he bled out.”

“Where’s your daughter?”

“In the woods, still running, We’re on her tracks, but the snow…” Broker stumbled. Nina was dragging him by the arm, trying to stay on the fading tracks.

“I’m out of the car. I’m coming in,” Nygard said.

“No. Give me lights and flashers north along the road. Maybe we can pick you up, talk you in. We need a search party in here.”

“On my way. Stay on the phone.”

Almost immediately they spotted the blue-red slap of lights blooming faintly through the ghostly swirl of trees and white.

“Good girl. Good girl,” Nina yelled, pulling on Broker’s arm. “Look. See. She’d headed toward the road…the lights…”

Moving at a jog, watching the lights move away up the road, Broker shouted into the phone. “Nygard?”

“I’m here.”

“You still going north?”

“That’s affirm.”

“Turn around, you’re about two hundred yards past where we’re coming out of the trees onto the road.”

They broke from the trees bent double, trying to see the tracks. Nina was going back and forth, frantic, searching. “They end here. They end here.”

With the snow and the wind, they couldn’t read the ground.

“I’ll check the other side.” Broker crossed the road, peered along the shoulder into the impossible mix of descending night and flying snow. Nothing. They needed lights.

Lights were coming, blue and red strobing the sides of the road as Nygard skidded the cruiser to a halt and jumped out. He paused for half a second, blinked once, seeing Nina standing oblivious to the cutting wind in the flimsy Army running suit, the big Colt hanging in her hand.

“We came out on her tracks. She came out here,” Broker yelled.

“Okay,” Nygard shouted, voice charged, swiftly walking along the far side of the road, holding up a service flashlight, scanning the shoulder. “We got people coming from all over. We got experts in this up here, winter searches. Take a breath…”

More lights, really coming fast. Jesus, real fast , like ninety-plus on the snow. They all instinctively moved to the side of the road as a maroon Minnesota State Police Crown Victoria slewed sideways in a not quite controlled skid, tires crunching to a halt in a shower of snow.