Chapter 5 The Soldier in the Checkpoint #3
“I’m Otto. We are not spacious.”
Lark glanced at Dane.
“I can ride back.”
“Can you shoot?”
“Yes.”
“Then you ride where you can shoot.”
That solved nothing physically, but panic made geometry flexible. Rosa took the passenger seat, rifle out the window. Nell and Otto wedged in the middle, cooler beneath Nell’s knees. Lark climbed into the cargo box with Elias, leaving the interior hatch open.
Dane got behind the wheel.
Silas stepped into view down the lane between barriers, holding a white cloth high in one hand and a pistol low in the other. His face was bruised worse now from the crash in Vesper, one eye darkened, but his voice carried clear.
“Dane! You keep finding ruins and calling them allies. That should worry you.”
Dane started the engine.
Silas continued walking, brave or certain he was beyond shotgun range.
“Give us Nell and the samples. Everyone else drives away. Even the soldier, if he wants. Reeve likes men with useful guilt.”
Lark appeared at the interior hatch behind Dane, face hard.
“Tell Reeve I still owe him nothing.”
Silas smiled.
“Lark Sutter. I wondered whether you’d ripened or rotted.”
Lark lifted his pistol.
Dane said, “Don’t waste the shot.”
Silas’s smile widened because he heard it.
“There is the practical man.”
Nell leaned forward suddenly, before Rosa could catch her.
“I heard Harbor Nine.”
Silas looked toward the cab.
Nell’s voice shook, but she made it loud.
“They said not to surrender me to corridor authorities. That means you.”
For the first time, Silas Pike looked genuinely displeased.
Then he laughed.
“Child, Harbor Nine will put you behind glass before sunset on arrival. We are at least honest about cages.”
Rosa aimed the rifle at him.
“Take one more step.”
Silas stopped.
Dane put Tomber in gear.
The path ahead was blocked by abandoned cars, but not sealed. The concrete barriers they had moved left just enough room for a reckless driver in an ugly truck with fresh fuel and poor regard for paint.
Silas lowered the white cloth.
“Last offer.”
Dane drove.
Tomber surged forward, heavy and loud, smashing through a folding barricade, clipping the rear of a sedan, shoving it sideways with a metal scream.
Rosa fired through the open passenger gap.
Lark fired from the cargo hatch behind them.
Elias cursed every time a bullet struck the truck as if each dent were a personal insult.
The Milemen scattered behind barriers.
Infected broke from the civilian line, freed by shattered glass and noise. One clung to Tomber’s hood until Dane swerved hard against a concrete block and scraped it off in a wet smear. The steering wheel bucked, nearly wrenching from his hands. His knee flared so badly his vision spotted white.
Nell saw.
“Dane!”
“I’m busy.”
“You’re hurt.”
“Still busy.”
Otto grabbed the dashboard with one hand and the cooler strap with the other.
“I would like the record to show that this checkpoint was not restful!”
A Milemen pickup tried to ram them from the side as they cleared the final barrier.
Dane braked just enough to let it overshoot, then turned into its rear quarter.
The repaired steering screamed. The pickup spun into a line of civilian cars, setting off a cascade of impacts and one ancient car alarm that began wailing as if civilization itself had returned just to be annoying.
Rosa fired once more.
The pickup’s windshield cracked white.
Then they were through.
The road west opened beyond Cedar Draw, rising toward low hills and a sky that had finally gone blue at the far edge.
Dane did not slow until the checkpoint had shrunk in the mirrors and the gunfire behind them became small, then scattered, then gone.
Inside the cab, no one celebrated.
Lark leaned against the open hatch, one hand pressed to his side, breathing through pain without quite hiding it.
Elias crouched behind him in the cargo box, clutching his shotgun and glaring at the new bullet holes in the walls.
Rosa kept watching the side mirror. Otto looked like he might either faint or begin talking for an hour.
Nell held the cooler and stared at the road ahead.
Dane drove until his hands stopped shaking.
Then Lark said quietly, “Harbor Nine won’t be what she hopes.”
Dane glanced at him in the mirror.
“You know that?”
“I know checkpoints. I know quarantine language. I know what people do when fear gets a badge.”
Rosa turned toward him.
“And what do you suggest?”
Lark looked at Nell, but not too long this time.
“I suggest we get her there alive enough to argue.”
Nell studied him, measuring the difference between being discussed and being respected.
After a while, she said, “I can argue.”
Lark’s mouth twitched.
“I heard.”
Dane faced the road again.
Tomber rattled, wounded but moving. The fuel gauge sat near full.
The steering held. In the cargo box rode a soldier who had refused one order and might yet refuse or obey another.
Behind them, the Milemen had learned that Dane Whitlock’s collection of strays now included a man who knew their methods.
Ahead, the horizon lifted.
For the first time, the land began to rise toward the mountains.