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Josh made a worried face and left the kitchen, but he had had enough of hunkering down behind a hot counter. Instead, he sneaked up to the shattered glass door, peeked outside… and then made a wild run for it.
Cody and Ken, in the general store across the street, were too busy running their mouths, wondering how many more of their friends were going to die, to notice Josh escape. “I don't want to die,” Cody told his friend, wiping hot sweat off his forehead. “I know Mr. Frinton is a prophet and all, but he ain't keeping no one alive.”
“I know,” Ken nodded his bony head and looked across the street at the diner. Everything looked quiet, but two crouching lions were waiting to attack with deadly force. “Man, let’s just get out of town. Forget Mr. Frinton!” Cody slapped his buddy on the shoulder, ripped off the black robe he was wearing, and tore out of the back door of the general store and vanished into the corn. Ken followed, deserting his position for good, leaving Adam Frinton alone to fight Mack and Brenda.
Chapter 5
“Ken, come in!” Adam growled into a tired walkie-talkie. “Cody?”
When silence answered Adam, anger and rage scorched the man's eyes. “Idiots!” he hissed, standing on the roof staring across a dry street at a run down general store. The store, it appeared, was deserted.
“Ken, get back to me right now or you're a dead man, do you hear me?” The bright, blistering sun was settling down in the west, casting long, eerie shadows over the sea of corn fields. A hot wind wandered through the corn fields, shaking the corn stalks like a mad man trying to strangle an innocent victim.
“I ain't in the store. Cody and me getting out of town,” Ken's voice finally came back. “We ain't dying for you. Too many of our friends are dead already! You can… cram it, pal. You ain't no prophet!”
Adam eyed the general store and then threw down the walkie-talkie so hard that Mack heard the crash. “Keep giving away your position,” Mack whispered, using his hands to pull away the last of some dry, weathered plywood. The underside of old, dirty, roof shingles appeared. All Mack had to do was get rid of the shingles and then he would have a clear opening to the roof. “When it gets dark.”
While Cody and Ken ran out the back of the general store, Josh was running all the way home to a dusty, parched white farmhouse surrounded by corn fields. “Ma!” he screamed, bursting through a screen door. “Ma!”
Josh ran into a bland living room with mismatched furniture. A skinny, sick woman was laying on a threadbare brown couch holding a liquor bottle in her hand. “Ma!”
“What… who is it?” Josh's mother moaned, drunk out of her mind. “Who's there?”
“It's me, Josh!” Josh looked down at his mother's drunken face. “Ma… you drunk again?”
“Go… away, Josh… leave me alone!” Josh's mother dropped the empty liquor bottle, turned her face toward the wall, and began mumbling something about an old boyfriend.
“Oh Ma...” Josh knew his mother was done for. His thin cheeks flushed with anger for a split second and then he ran back outside and looked around. “I can't stay here no more. Those cops will help me. Ma don't care about me anyways.”
Josh took off running like a scalded cat, making his way back to town. As soon as he hit the end of his house’s long, sunburned driveway, he ran into a tall man wearing a gray combat suit.
“Going somewhere, son?” The man grabbed Josh by his arm before the boy could run. “What's the rush?”
“Hey, let me go!” Josh yelled.
Rhode glared down at the helpless boy with murderous eyes. “Sure,” he hissed as he used his left hand to pull out a vicious combat knife. “I'll let you go.”
Josh bit down onto the right hand of the killer holding his arm, and tried to take a chunk of flesh out. Rhode hissed and released Josh, tossing him off to the side. Josh managed to stay on his feet and immediately tore off into the cornfields, feeling certain that the man was going to either shoot him or run him down.
But Rhode had more important work. He looked down at his right hand and saw a large piece of flesh missing. “Stupid brat!” he growled. “No escaping the team though. He’ll get what he deserves.”
He yanked out a black rag from the cargo pocket of his combat pants and tended to his wound. Then he traded the rag for his walkie-talkie and said, “I'm at the Alpha location. Start exterminating the houses. We'll move into town at midnight.”
Rhode whipped out a Glock 19 with a vicious silencer attached to the barrel and calmly entered Josh's house. He walked into the stinking living and spotted a drunk woman mumbling to herself. Rhode aimed his Glo
ck at the woman and fired off three clean shots. The woman stopped mumbling and lay still. “Alpha location clear.”
“Bravo location clear,” a hard voice came back to Rhode. “A fat man missing two teeth. Looked like someone got him real good.”
“Charlie location clear. Exterminated two men who were trying to put a lot of marijuana into a farm truck,” a second voice informed Rhode. “Heard the men talking. Names were Cody and Ken.”
“Keep sweeping out the houses,” Rhode ordered, staring at Josh's dead mother. “All houses must be clear before midnight.”
Adam had no idea that Bruce's hit team was out in the corn clearing out each farm house. He was busy trying to create an attack plan. “I can't kill these cops alone. They're dug in tight.” Adam gritted his teeth and then decided to do some talking.
“You in there!” he called down from the front of the roof. Mack heard Adam’s footsteps move away from his position above the kitchen. “Can you hear me?” Adam leaned his head forward and eyed the shattered glass door attached to the front of the diner. “Can you hear me?”
Brenda heard Adam yelling. Mack stuck his head down from the ceiling. “See what he wants,” he grunted, dripping with sweat. “Maybe I won't wait until the sun sets. Keep him talking.”
