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Recker nodded. “Squad car with supplies will be here shortly.”
“Good. She needs to stay off of her feet as much as possible.” Jackson took in a deep breath and let it out slowly, glad to be free of the small shop and back out in the open again. “When do we move out, sir?”
“As soon as their vehicle’s ready.”
“Good, I don’t know how much longer those folks at the bunker can hold out if they’ve lost all power. The air circulation systems might be down, too.”
As Recker and Jackson became absorbed in their conversation, Rick tapped Dr. Evans on the shoulder and the two moved away, heading for the shop where Jane was still located. Once they were a short distance from Recker and Jackson, Dr. Evans whispered to Rick. “I can’t believe they’re helping us like this.”
Rick nodded. “Agreed. I’m not about to argue with it, though. They just seriously upped our chances of success and gave us a shot in the arm where we needed it the most. Now let’s go get Jane and plan our next move.”
Chapter 11
Blacksburg, VA
Dianne leaned on the back of her truck, chest heaving as she sucked in air, trying to recover her breath from the long run she had just endured. Her heart was still racing and she glanced behind, checking once again to see whether the men had caught up with her or not. Dianne’s relative nimbleness compared to her pursuers had served her well, allowing her to escape amongst the cars and ruined buildings while those behind her were slowed down. She soon lost them completely, though their superior numbers meant that they were undoubtedly spreading out to search for her. As soon as one of them figured out where she was, she would quickly be surrounded and flushed out of the enclosed parking area.
“Come on…” Dianne slung her rifle into the back of the truck, quickly reloaded a fresh mag into her pistol and then slipped off her backpack. She unzipped the top and gently fished through the contents, hoping that all of the jarring movement she had endured hadn’t broken any of the vials. The glass was cold and sleek to her touch, and she felt every vial she put into her bag, all intact and still nestled in the protective cushions she had made for them. “Hallelujah,” she whispered to herself. “Something didn’t go wrong for once.”
After retrieving her rifle from the back of the truck, she loaded it and her backpack into the rear cab of the vehicle and ran around to the driver’s door. She climbed inside, feeling her legs begin to shake as the adrenaline started to wear off. As she gripped the steering wheel, preparing to start the truck, she glanced at her right hand and arm. Most of the blood from the second man she had killed was dry, forming a thin crust of red that stained her skin and jacket sleeve even as bits of it flaked off with every movement.
Dianne stared at the red stain, transfixed by the sight. The first person she had killed—back home—had been from a distance.
She had shot him, his body had dropped to the ground and she had watched the life drain from him before digging a shallow grave in the woods and burying him without fanfare or even a marker. At the time, she thought that the experience couldn’t be worse. But she hadn’t gotten so much as a drop of blood on her back then, nor had she stared into his eyes from inches away, pressing down on him to keep him from making a sound as his life flowed out onto her hand and arm.
A distant, barely audible shout broke Dianne from her thoughts and she glanced around, her eyes wide with fear. The men were closing in on her, and she would have to move out or risk being trapped. With a deep breath Dianne turned the key in the ignition and the truck roared to life, the engine noise echoing loudly inside the parking garage. She hadn’t expected the noise to be quite as loud as it was and panic set in as she realized she hadn’t quite figured out how she was going to escape from the city.
Dianne scrambled to buckle her seatbelt as she pulled the truck forward, circling around to get out of the parking garage. Before she pulled out onto the street she glanced down at her pistol tucked between the seat and her leg, making sure it was still there so she could use it if necessary. As shouts echoed closer from outside the structure, Dianne gripped the steering wheel and pushed down hard on the accelerator, flying down towards the exit from the structure and out into the unknown.
Rubber squealed on road as the pickup truck emerged from the parking garage, the massive frame groaning and creaking as it slid during Dianne’s sharp turn of the wheel. She felt the left side of the truck just barely lift up off the ground before the turn was over and she muttered under her breath, urging the vehicle not to roll. While she couldn’t tell where the voices outside the parking garage were coming from, she knew that—based on how crowded the streets were—her only chance to escape would be to follow the path she had used to get into the city and to the garage from before. The vehicles driven by the men had, thankfully, not been parked anywhere in the vicinity, as they used part of her original path to drive to the facility but had parked in various small clear spaces just off of the main road.
The appearance of two men in front of her was not entirely unexpected, but Dianne had to fight the instinct to slow down or turn away to avoid hitting them. Years of driving experience had taught her to avoid running over pedestrians in the middle of the road, but considering that the pair in front of her were raising their weapons at her, she managed to overcome her initial urges and press down on the accelerator instead. One of the men barely managed to jump out of the way, the right-hand side mirror striking him in the back as he escaped. The other wasn’t so lucky, and Dianne winced as she heard a muffled scream from beneath the truck as the man was toppled over, his limbs crushed beneath the steel frame and rubber tires.
Gunfire ignited from behind her and Dianne ducked down low as a few rounds struck the back of the truck, though none of them passed through the back window. The other men who had been running toward the parking garage upon hearing her truck were firing at her from several positions around the street and buildings nearby as they tried to stop her from escaping. Like on the hill of the LTAC facility, though, as Dianne got farther away the shots waned, but just when she thought she might be getting into the clear, the sound of engines slowly began to filter through the noise of her truck.
“Not again!” Dianne glanced in the rearview mirror to see a pair of vehicles following behind, trailing the path she had originally carved through the city and was now using to escape. As the pair of vehicles drew closer the gunfire resumed, and though most shots went wild, a few landed home and rattled the vehicle.
“Stop shooting my truck, assholes!” Dianne shouted in frustration as she swerved around a pile of rubble in the street, the back of the truck giving a sharp thwang as it bounced off a chunk of a burned out car sitting nearby. She searched the streets frantically, trying to remember which way would take her out of the city when she spotted the next turn up ahead on her left. Another glance in the rearview mirror confirmed that the pair of vehicles were indeed getting closer, but the gunfire had stopped, and she figured it was because they were running low on ammo. The lack of attacks from the men gave her a sudden idea, though, and she took her foot off of the accelerator, letting the heavy vehicle slow itself down without touching the brakes.
Though the distances to the turn ahead and back to the vehicles behind her were hard to judge, Dianne let the truck continue to coast right up until she got close enough to the turn that she was nervous about whether or not she’d be able to make it. At that point the pair of vehicles behind were close enough that she could see the whites of the eyes of the lead driver. The car in front was only inches away from her bumper and it sounded like they were getting ready to ram the truck.
“Buckle up, buttercup.” Dianne held fast to the steering wheel and jammed her foot down on the accelerator. The truck took half a second to respond, but when it did it leapt forward. She spun the wheel at the same time, taking the left-hand turn at speed and causing the tires of the truck to squeal as the frame once again groaned in protest. While Dianne had been anticipating such a turn and had prepared by buckling her seatbelt and bracing herself, the drivers of the cars behind her had almost no warning of the maneuver.
If Dianne hadn’t been so focused on not crashing the truck that she could have taken a second to look behind her, she likely would have laughed at the expressions worn by the men in the two vehicles. As Dianne’s truck left the road and made a turn onto a cross-street, the lead driver was focused on trying to ram the truck and force it off the road. With that no longer an option and his prey suddenly pulling away, he accelerated more and then, upon seeing the truck turn, tried to turn as well. Without careful attention to his driving, though, the man quickly oversteered and slammed into a pair of charred vehicles at the corner, causing his car to spin around wildly and nearly flip.
Meanwhile, the second car—seeing that the truck and the lead pursuer were accelerating—did the same thing, and when both vehicles started to turn, the driver realized that he was not going to make the curve at speed. He slammed on the brakes, causing the poorly maintained vehicle to vibrate madly and begin to fishtail before it, too, spun out of control and t-boned the first vehicle. A single airbag in the second vehicle—on the passenger’s side—deployed at impact, though since none of the men in the vehicles were strapped in to their seats, it mattered little. Bone crunched and blood sprayed as the cars finally came to a halt with a sickening crunch, followed by screams of pain and frustration from the men inside them.
As Dianne increased her speed down the road, she chanced a quick look in the mirror and breathed a heavy sigh of relief. There were more men and vehicles that would be chasing after her soon enough, but even a few minutes of lead time would be enough for her to lose them… or so she hoped.
Chapter 12
Washington, D.C.
“You two suck.”
Rick and Dr. Evans smiled as they walked up to Jane, who was sitting on a folded blanket on the ground in front of the shop. Her legs were both covered in bandages and a pair of crutches lay next to her, a gift courtesy of Jackson.
“How are you doing, Jane?” Rick sat down next to her, wincing slightly as he looked at her bandaged legs.
