“Foot off the brake!” she yelled.
Their brake lights flashed again.
“Off the brake!”
She reached through the opening between the two front seats, grabbed the doctor by the arm, and shoved the end of her pistol into the side of his head. Gardiner’s wife and daughter screamed.
“Off!” Chloe yelled.
“You won’t hurt me. You need me,” the doctor said.
Chloe glared at him for half a second, then let go. She reached across Emily and grabbed Kathy’s arm. “You’re right. But I don’t need your wife.”
Gardiner pulled his foot off, and the brake lights went out. “Don’t hurt her. Please.”
Without letting go of the woman, Chloe focused her attention on the trucks outside. The engine of the first one was fading as it continued down the road, but the second seemed to be slowing.
“Listen to me, very, very carefully,” Chloe said. “Drive onto the back street, go five blocks, then take us back over to Central. Not once will you touch the brakes. Understood?”
Voice full of fear, Gardiner said, “Yes.”
“Then move!”
The Yukon pulled away from the building and exited the parking lot at the back, getting onto the street that paralleled Central.
It wasn’t going to be a perfect getaway, Chloe knew. With the snow, their tracks would be seen and easily followed. But the big truck would not be the right vehicle to do that in, so if the people in it thought the Yukon was worth checking out, they would have to radio it in and request another vehicle be dispatched.
She didn’t let go of Kathy until they made the transition back over to Central. Behind them, she could see the lights of the second truck. As she’d suspected, it had stopped near the bank.
She looked out the front. No headlights coming toward them, only empty road.
As they passed a sign pointing toward the entrance to the interstate, she said, “Keep going straight.”
It wasn’t long before the unused space between buildings increased as the city thinned. At the Sun River, the road bent to the north, mirroring the contour of the waterway, then bent again before settling on a western direction once it finally crossed the water.
“Can I turn the lights on now?” Gardiner asked.
With the city truly behind them, there were no streetlamps to help with navigation.
Chloe thought for a moment, then shook her head. “Not yet. Stay in the middle. You’ll be fine.”
The decision turned out to be a good one. When the Yukon topped a slight rise, a lit-up barricade similar to the roadblock on the interstate came into view. It was about a half mile away.
“Foot off the gas,” Chloe said. “But don’t touch the brake.”
The doctor did as ordered, and the SUV slowed to a crawl.
Chloe brought up the map on her cell again, this time switching to satellite view. A glowing dot indicated their position on the map. Just ahead and on the right was what looked like a dirt road that ran up to a farm. It stopped there, but on either side were fields that ran along the highway for at least a mile.
“Okay, let’s go, but keep your speed way down,” she said. “We’re looking for a road on our right.”
The road was heralded by a large mailbox and an old sign that read FRESH EGGS. The ground was bumpy, so the doctor had to lower their speed even more. While the fields that surrounded the farmhouse were open, the home and the barn were fenced in on three sides. Unfortunately, the only way to get to the rear of the fields without being spotted from the road was through the farmhouse area.
“Keep to the right,” Chloe directed as soon as they entered the property. “Past the barn.”
The doctor followed Chloe’s directions, slowing as they neared the fence again.
“Drive along it.” Several seconds later, she pointed out the window. “There. Roll to a stop.”
As she’d hoped, there was a gate in the fence, no doubt to allow farm equipment in and out of the field.
Once the car was stopped, Chloe said, “Mrs. Gardiner, you’ll need to get out and open that for us. I know you might be tempted to run for help, but the moment you start doing anything other than what I’ve asked, we will leave you behind. If that happens, you will never see your family again. That’s not a threat. It’s simply a fact.”
“I won’t go anywhere,” Kathy said.
Chloe put a hand on Emily’s arm, just in case the woman had any plans to pull her daughter out with her. “Make it quick.”
Kathy opened the door, shut it again, and ran over to the fence. It took her a moment, but finally the gate swung open, and she hurried back into the SUV.
“Good,” Chloe said as the woman settled back in her seat. She let go of Emily and tapped the back of the doctor’s seat. “Stay to the back of the field as far from the highway as you can. Keep your speed down, but keep it moving. Go.”
She had not been willing to take the chance of letting the Gardiners grab their winter gear before they left, so it wasn’t surprising that Kathy was now shivering. Using her free hand, Chloe removed the few items she’d been carrying in the pockets of her own jacket, took it off, and handed it to the woman. “Here. This will help.”
“You should have given that to her before she went outside,” the doctor said, a touch of anger in his voice.
“You’re right. I should have. I’m sorry,” she said, meaning it.
She kept an eye on the roadblock as the Yukon bounced and dipped its way across the field. There were no signs of anyone getting out of the truck, no sudden spotlight streaking across the field toward the SUV, no warning shots booming through the air.
When the roadblock had receded to a distant halo of light behind them, Chloe instructed the doctor to head back to the highway. Five minutes later, they were on the snow-covered blacktop again, and able to increase their speed to twenty miles an hour.
“How much farther?” Gardiner asked.
“A ways.”
Silence.
“Is there really a sick man where you’re taking us?”
“Yes.”
“Then maybe we should let my wife drive. She grew up out here. She’s better in these kinds of conditions than I am. And I’m guessing you probably don’t want me to be dead tired when we arrive.”
It was the last point that sold her.
They stopped in the middle of the road, and the two older Gardiners switched positions.
“Can I turn the lights on now?” Kathy asked as she buckled in.
Chloe thought about it, then nodded. “Okay.”
Once they were moving again, the doctor said, “Mind if I try to get a little rest?”
“Go for it.”
“You look pretty tired, too. Maybe you should get some sleep.”
She gave him a humorless grin. “Nice try, Doc.”
December 25th
World Population
7,165,618,453
Change Over Previous Day
— 11,274,398
5
It was nearly four in the morning when they reached the turnoff for the Ranch. Trees grew right up to the edge of the long dirt road leading to the home of the Resistance, helping to limit the amount of accumulated snow so far. Still, it took them another fifty minutes before they reached the burnt hulk of the Lodge, which had been the Ranch’s main building.
“What happened?” Emily asked, unable to contain her curiosity.
“We had some unwanted visitors,” Chloe said. She leaned forward and pointed to where the road passed the Lodge and went back up a small hill into the trees. “Go up there, and stop right at the top.”