James Tabor - The Deep Zone

He laughed, but there was no humor in his eyes. “My English bad. But I am no stupid. Go on, puta .”

She marched, dazed and despairing. Even with all the risky things she had done, not once in her life had Hallie known, beyond doubt, that she was going to die. She did, now. Part of her looked forward to it. She was so exhausted, and hurt so much in so many places, that relief would be welcome, even if it was permanent. She began to think of all the things she would miss: her brothers, her mother, the horses, the water in Ginnie Springs, the ocean… The list went on and on and she just let it keep playing, and tears began to run down her cheeks at last.

“Eh!” Carlos grunted and threw a quick glance over his shoulder, but did not stop.

She turned to look. The big narco was a hundred feet behind them, lumbering head-down through the deep forest gloom to catch up, bandoliers like a cross of gold on his chest, the AK-47 a toy in his huge hand. The drunk narco in front and the one beside her didn’t even turn around. “Keep moving,” Carlos said. “He catch us.”

She walked again, uncaring. Something would happen, some opening, and she would seize it. Or not. Maybe she would just have to run. They would shoot and she would die, but she was going to die anyway, so she might as well do something, anything, that would give her even one-half of one percent of a chance. Better quick and painful than slow and painful. But not now, not just yet.

She plodded on. The thud of the big narco ’s feet grew closer, his jingling bandoliers reminding her of the bells on the sleighs when they hitched the Morgans up in one of Virginia’s rare snowfalls. She heard an odd, soft, high sound, a yelp like a small dog might make when kicked, and turned in time to see Carlos fall on his face, the handle of a knife sticking from the soft place where skull and spine met at the back of his head. The narco carrying her pack was also facedown on the ground, a knife handle sticking out of the side of his skull.

In his left hand, the big narco held a third knife, one with a stainless steel hilt and a vicious serrated blade, the kind divers used. She had seen that knife before, strapped to Bowman’s lower left leg in the black plastic scabbard.

They killed him , she thought, or found him dead and took his knife. But why…

The other drunk narco , the one in front of her, was spinning around, the muzzle of his AK-47 coming up. Small details began to take on immense significance and clarity for Hallie. She could see his finger, like a fat white worm, searching for the trigger.

She did not understand what was happening here, but she knew that dealing with one of these men would be easier than fighting two. So just as the narco ’s finger found the trigger, her hands found his eyes. She dug, felt her thumbs go in, heard him scream. She smashed her body against his, driving one knee into his groin, trying to wrench the rifle away. He pulled the trigger and the AK-47 fired on full auto, the recoil making the barrel writhe and jump like a crazed snake. Reports from the big 7.62-millimeter rounds sounded like dynamite blasts so close to her ears. Muzzle flashes burned her side, but she was not hit. The narco stumbled backward under the impact of her rush, blinded, doubled over by the pain in his groin. He dropped the rifle and clawed at his eyes. She scrabbled for the gun, found its forestock with one hand, its pistol grip with the other, and spun to shoot the big one. The wound on her palm had opened and was bleeding, but she ignored it.

He wasn’t there. A forearm that felt like a steel bar closed over her throat. Somehow the huge man had moved quickly enough to get behind her. She threw her head back, hoping to butt him, but hit only air. She tried to swing the gun around to fire back at him over her shoulder. He grabbed it just above the magazine and ripped it out of her grasp as though taking a rattle away from a baby. But that freed her hands and she clawed at the forearm, scratching it, drawing blood, snarling and biting, fighting now with the last of her strength for the last of her life.

“Hallie.”

It took several moments for the word to punch through her rage and terror. But then she came back to herself.

“Bowman?”

The forearm loosened, fell away. She sucked in cool air, turned.

“I really thought you were going to shoot me.” Bowman, grinning, rubbed his bleeding forearm.

“Bowman!” She put her arms around him, dragged him toward her. “Bowman, god damn you. I thought you were dead.”

They held each other tightly, her head against his shoulder, his arms completely around her, both of them panting, not talking. Suddenly she remembered the third narco , the one whose eyes she had gouged but who was still alive and could kill them with a pistol or machete. But she saw that he would never kill anyone again. He lay on his belly with the third knife, the diver’s knife, driven into his skull up to its hilt.

“Bowman. How did you …?” she started to ask, but felt a wetness against her chest, looked at him, saw his right sleeve darkening with blood.

“You’re shot!”

“Spraying and praying. Just one.” Through his right pectoral muscle, between his shoulder and nipple. He touched it, looked down without expression, shrugged. “Through and through. It’s okay. Missed the important stuff. Arm’s no good, though.”

“We have to do something for that.” She reached to take the shirt off, examine the wound.

He pushed her away, both hands on her shoulders. “Leave it. We—”

They both heard it then: a cacophony of shouts, men yelling, running, equipment clanking. Somebody fired off half a clip on full auto, a signal perhaps.

“That must be their main camp. It’s why I didn’t want to shoot these three and alert anyone else close by. Can’t be more than two hundred yards away. They heard that man’s AK for sure. We need to get back to the meadow. Do you have the moonmilk?”

“In the pack there.”

He retrieved the stainless steel cylinder, shoved it into her good hand, picked up Carlos’s rifle. “Run!” he yelled.

They took off back the way Hallie and the narcos had come. Bowman carried the AK-47 in his left hand, keeping his right arm tight against his belly. Louder shouts came now, mixed with the pounding thuds of booted feet.

“Run!” Bowman yelled.

They ran. Hallie’s soles were cut, her body slashed and bruised, and she was so tired that she had been able to doze while walking with the narcos . None of that mattered now. She sprinted, cradling the steel cylinder in her right arm like a football, gasping, looking over her shoulder to make sure Bowman was still there. He could have run much faster, she knew, but would go no faster than she could.

A burst of automatic rifle fire, then another. Bullets snapped past, hissing and cracking. Others clipped leaves and branches, thunked into tree trunks. She looked over her shoulder to make sure Bowman was not hit again. More rifle fire. Rounds kicked up spurts of dirt.

She felt herself going anaerobic, chest burning, muscles flooding with lactic acid, and it was as if she were running through mud, but there was no possibility of stopping. She heard a long burst of fire, Bowman shooting left-handed from the hip as he ran backward. Through the forest ahead she could see the meadow, then ran toward the light, pain blossoming in her chest.

She looked back at him again. He was clutching the AK-47’s pistol grip in his right hand, pressed against his body. In his left he held a black, softball-sized grenade, one of several that had been hanging from the big mercenary’s harness.