Ryan Westfield - Defending Camp

It wasn’t like she could do anything herself. She was tied up.

But Dan figured he had nothing left to lose.

“Hey, buddy,” said Dan, calling out loudly to the soldier.

“What’s up, kid?”

“I was wondering if you’ve always been this ugly.”

“What’s that?”

“You heard me,” said Dan, speaking loudly and clearly. “I was asking if you were always this ugly. Or if it’s something that happened to you after the EMP. You know, all this rough living and be hard on someone’s looks, if they’re, you know… delicate.”

“I’m not delicate, kid. You’d better watch your mouth and shut the hell up. I’m the one with the gun, remember.”

“Yeah,” said Dan. “But I also know I’m supposed to be some child laborer in a mine somewhere. If you don’t deliver me alive, you’re not going to get your reward, whatever that is. Maybe you’re dumb enough to think money still means something.”

That was too much for the soldier. He was growing reddish in the face. He stood up, a little wobbly on his feet, since the truck was, after all, moving.

He moved rapidly towards Dan.

Maybe it hadn’t been the best plan.

At the last moment, right before the soldier reached Dan, the woman sprung up.

Somehow, she’d gotten out of her ropes. They lay, torn apart, on the metal bed of the truck.

She sprang up and forward, throwing herself against the soldier, like a vicious, wild animal.

She knocked him down and they fell together.

A gunshot rang out.

But the movement didn’t stop.

Dan couldn’t see what was happening. They were a tangle of bodies.

The soldier screamed.

He stopped moving.

The woman rolled off from on top of the soldier, revealing the soldier’s bloody throat with a slit running right across it from end to end. The woman held a bloody knife and her arm was bloodied. She’d been shot in the upper arm.

She crawled over to Dan quickly.

She cut the ties that bound him rapidly.

“Did they hear the gunshot?” she whispered. Her voice was frantic.

Dan shook his head. He was stunned.

But not too stunned to act.

“We’re still moving,” he said, glancing down again at the dead soldier. “They would have stopped if they’d heard it.”

Dan didn’t know how they couldn’t have heard it. But there wasn’t time to figure that out.

“We have to jump,” he said.

The woman nodded at him.

“We don’t have much time. You go first. I’ll follow.”

They were at the very edge of the bed, looking down at the pavement rushing beneath them.

“I need you to push me,” she said, glancing up at Dan with fearful eyes. “I can’t do it myself.”

After slitting a man’s throat and not being fazed by getting shot in the arm, she still couldn’t jump.

There wasn’t time to wait until they slowed down to take a corner.

They had to act now.

Dan put his hands on her, his palms against her shoulder and her back, and he shoved.

He didn’t wait to see what happened to her. He jumped too. Maybe he could roll with it, like in the movies. Probably not, though.

He hit the ground hard, his shoulder ramming into the pavement.

It hurt. But not as much as he’d expected.

Maybe it was the adrenaline keeping the pain away.

He didn’t wait to see if the truck was stopping.

The woman was lying on the pavement, face down. Dan grabbed her and pulled with all his might, trying to drag her.

But he couldn’t do it. He wasn’t strong enough.

“Come on,” he hissed at her.

She was groaning in pain. But somehow, with Dan pulling on her, she managed to push herself up into a standing position.

Dan seized her hand and pulled hard as he rushed to the side of the road.

It didn’t seem like they were in the city, but the homes were close together. They were small and run down, with peeling paint and decorative shutters that had long since fallen off and disappeared.

The only thing Dan could think about was getting to cover, getting between two of the houses, out of sight of the truck. It still hadn’t stopped, but that didn’t mean it wouldn’t.

“Come on,” hissed Dan, pulling harder on the woman’s arm. She was dragging her feet. Maybe she’d hurt her ankle in the fall. Her face was bloody, and the blood ran into the hair that fell around her face. She’d probably broken her nose.

Finally, they were at the house, having made it down the short driveway.

Dan pulled her down. She couldn’t go any farther, so they sat there, side by side, backs against the cheap siding.

Dan was breathing hard, completely exhausted.

He listened carefully for the rumble of the military truck and for any sounds that would indicate that the pickup was coming back for them. But the rumble faded gradually down the street.

“They’re not turning around or stopping,” said Dan.

The woman didn’t answer.

“How hurt are you?” said Dan, kneeling down in front of her to examine her.

“I’m… alive…” she said. “I’m… OK…”

“You saved my life,” said Dan.

The blood made her face and nose look worse than it was. It was probably just a broken nose. It’d be fine on its own.

“Are you injured anywhere but your arm?” said Dan, tearing the sleeve of her shirt apart with his fingers to get a better look at the wound.

“My… ankle…”

Dan didn’t know if it was broken or sprained. She seemed to be in considerable pain.

The gunshot didn’t seem to be bleeding as much as Dan would have thought.

Dan’s mind was racing. He knew he had to get the bullet out of her. But before that, he needed to get them somewhere safe.

There wasn’t any point in asking her if she could walk. They wouldn’t be able to get far with that ankle of hers.

Dan looked around him. Houses all around. They looked empty.

Their best course of action was to get into one of the houses and hole up there, hiding away while Dan tried to work on the woman’s arm. He didn’t have any idea how he’d get that bullet out, but he put that worry to the back of his mind.

Since they hadn’t been seen jumping from the truck, the soldiers wouldn’t know where on their route to look for Dan and the woman. They’d be safe in the house. Hopefully it’d be too much trouble to go looking through each house along the route once they discovered that their prisoners had escaped.

“Come on,” said Dan, reaching down and grabbing the woman under her arms. “We’ve got to get you inside in case someone comes along. You’re going to be fine. Don’t worry.”

But Dan didn’t know that everything was going to be fine.

Provided they were safe in the empty house, and provided he could treat her wound, what was next? He had nothing. No gear and no plan. He didn’t even know where he was.

He’d have to improvise.

James was running as fast as he could. He’d left the mob behind. But he could still hear the gunshots ringing out behind him. They were growing less frequent. Hopefully that was a good sign and not a bad one. But he couldn’t worry about his mother and John and Cynthia now. He was focused on Sadie with all his might.

But he’d lost sight of her.

He stopped in the middle of a thicket of evergreens, bending over almost involuntarily from his exhaustion, panting heavily from exertion.

He’d lost her.

He’d lost his sister.

It was his own fault. She was too young and too small to not have someone looking after her in the middle of the most intense fight they’d encountered yet. He should have been keeping a better eye on her. He should have watched her more carefully.