Sunrise

It had no top. I lifted my lantern, letting light spill into the box. Inside were hundreds of cartridges—for rifles, handguns, and shotguns—in a bewildering assortment of calibers. Some of the cartridges were shiny yellow brass, others gray—steel, I figured, although I wasn’t sure. The other two crates held the same chaotic mix of loose ammo.

“We can work with this,” Ed said.

“It’s going to take too long. It’s almost dawn. Let’s carry a box to the east gate and sort it while we wait for Darla and Nylce to get back.”

“Yessir,” Ed replied.

“Don’t ‘yessir’ me,” I said.

“Nosir.” Ed gri

I laid six of the best-looking rifles on top of the wooden ammo crate. Ed grabbed one of its rope handles, and I grabbed the other. It was heavy—barely manageable between us. We trudged to the gate, reaching it just as the black sky began to fade to the yellow-gray of morning.

Steve McCormick was there with another guy. They were working on the gate, trying to complete a jury-rigged repair of the hinges Darla had shattered when she rammed it. “All quiet?” I asked.

“So far,” Steve replied.

Ed and I knelt in the packed snow behind the wall and started sorting ammo. I found five cartridges for one of the bolt-action rifles we’d brought with us. It looked like a twin of Uncle Paul’s hunting rifle, and I’d learned to fire that over the last year, although Darla was a much better shot than I was. “I’m going to go check on the patrols and the west gate. Get as many rifles ready as you can—we’ll need them when Darla gets back. If you see anyone coming, fire two quick shots. That’ll be the signal that you need reinforcements. I’ll tell everyone.”

“Got it,” Ed replied.

“If it’s Darla and the truck, fire once.”

“Yessir.”

I rolled my eyes at his yessir—a useless gesture, given how dim the early morning light was—and took off jogging alongside the car wall, looking for our patrols.

It took me almost two hours to find everyone. We were spread ridiculously thin—seventeen people to patrol a town that still held hundreds of terrified residents. I ended up back at Doctore s mansion. Our captives were sprawled across the living room, their arms and legs bound. The two guards I’d left there were sitting on folding chairs near the door, overseeing. The prisoners had been complaining about the lack of breakfast. I told our guards to gag anyone who got too a

Just as I finished that unpleasant conversation, I heard a gunshot—not from the east gate, but closer. Did it mean Darla was back? If so, why wasn’t she at the east gate? I left the mansion, ru

I caught up with one of our patrols about two blocks off. “You guys fire?”

Kyle Henthorn, a burly, red-faced guy in his early thirties, replied, “Had to fire a warning shot. Guy came out of that house.” Kyle gestured with his rifle at a house across the street. “Didn’t want to go back in. Had to put a little scare—”

A rifle shot echoed across Stockton, and Kyle fell suddenly quiet. There was a short pause, and then two more shots rang out, coming from the direction of the east gate.

“The attack signal. Come on!” I dashed pell-mell toward a side street that would carry me in the direction of the east gate, with Kyle and the other patroller close behind me. We had to get there fast—if we were being attacked, there was no way Steve, Ed, and one other guard would be able to hold them off.

It seemed like it took forever to get back to the gate, even though it couldn’t have taken even five minutes. Stockton’s not that big of a town. I didn’t hear any more shots, which I took as a good sign.

As I approached the gate, I saw the pickups pulled up just inside the wall. Darla was back! I slowed to a trot—I was exhausted and starving. I’d had next to no sleep the night before and no food for nearly two days.

The people on the wall were silhouettes in the dim, morning light. I tried to pick out Darla; I hoped she was still in the truck, but I couldn’t see through its windows.

Knowing Darla, she’d be on the wall, even though she had to be at least as tired and hungry as I was. And I knew she was still weak from her injuries at the hands of the Dirty White Boys.

As I scrutinized the figures on the wall, one of them turned toward me. She—I thought, although I couldn’t tell who it was—raised her arms over her head, waving them back and forth frantically What was wrong? I broke into a sprint.

Chapter 10

The woman abruptly quit waving. Everyone on the wall fell flat all at once. I ran even faster.

Darla had obviously brought two full truckloads of reinforcements; there were about twenty people crouched behind the wall or the low log gate. Every one of them had a long gun—Ed must have gone back to the warehouse for more—and were aiming at the road beyond the gate.

Several hundred yards past the gate, I saw a panel van slewed diagonally across the road. Behind it, the top of a semi was visible. Dozens of figures were clustered around the van and spread out to either side, aiming rifles back down the road toward us.

“Get your idiot ass out of the middle of the road,” Darla shouted.

“Take cover, sir,” Ed yelled at the same time.

I veered—putting the edge of the car wall between me and the guns—and sprinted the rest of the way to the gate.

“What’s going on?” I gasped.

“Right after I turned onto Highway 78 about halfway between here and Warren, a line of trucks came over the hill north of me,” Darla said. “They chased us all the way back here.”

“How many?”

“Two panel vans and nine semi tractor-trailers.”

“Same ones that were loading the pork from the warehouse in Warren?” Ed asked.

“Must be,” Darla said.

“This doesn’t need to turn into a fight.” I pulled my coat, sweater, and shirt up from my belly. My undershirt rode up too, exposing my skin to the frigid air. I yanked the undershirt down and started trying to tear off a hunk of it.

“What’re you doing?” Darla asked.

“I need a white flag,” I said.

“Are you crazy?” Darla exclaimed. “You’re not going out there.”

“We’ve got their leader, they’ve got our food.” I struggled with the shirt. It wouldn’t tear. “Someone’s got to go explain things—work out a trade.”

“Someone,” Ed said. “Not you.”

“I’m not asking anyone else to take a risk like that! What if they start shooting?” The shirt was incredibly frustrating. No matter how hard I tugged, it wouldn’t rip. I took the knife off my belt.

“I’ll go,” Darla said.

“No!” I jerked the knife so hard that I nicked my belly.

“That’s no good either,” Ed said. “Say they take you hostage. He’ll do anything to get you back.”

Darla scowled and stepped away, moving along the inside of the car wall.

“He’s right,” I said as I finished cutting off a chunk of my T-shirt.

Darla had reached an old Chevy Silverado. She grabbed a piece of conduit, ripping it free of the brackets that held it to the underside of the car. The wires inside the conduit didn’t break, though. “They made these old trucks too dang well,” she muttered as she yanked on the conduit, trying unsuccessfully to break the wires.

I stepped over to her. “He’s right, you know. I’d do anything to get you back. Anything.”

“Let me see your knife.”

I handed it to her, hilt first. She took it and started sawing away at the wire. I stood and watched quietly.

The chunk of conduit came free, and Darla handed back the knife. Our gloved fingers touched as I took its hilt. “I know,” she whispered.

“I’ll go,” Ed said. I hadn’t even noticed him following us. He grabbed one end of the hunk of cloth I was holding, but I didn’t let go. “If they take me hostage, nobody’ll care.”