Cover Of Night

A heavy round punched at an angle through the walls of his living room, blowing splinters of wood over the pickup as it exited. Whoever was on the other side of the stream was systematically shooting into the houses.

From the bridge, the feed store was the third building on the right; Neenah’s house was the first, and was one of the most exposed. Creed had gone to her house, which meant Cal had to consider that his former commanding officer might be dead, or at least wounded. He couldn’t count on help from that quarter.

He rose to a low crouch, staying behind the pickup’s engine block, and jerked open the passenger door. The Mossberg shotgun was behind the seat, along with a couple of boxes of shells. He tore open the cargo pocket on the right leg of his pants, dumped the shells in it, then closed the pocket by pressing the Velcro tight. There was one other item he was certain would be needed, and he grabbed the small green tackle box containing his first-aid gear.

Almost drowned out by the rifle fire, shrill screams of fright and pain reached his ears. Everyone would have come out of their houses, he realized, maybe even been deliberately driven out of them. Now they were out in the open, and sitting ducks.

"Down!" lie roared as he angled back and to the right, trying to keep a building, a tree – anything – between him and where those rifles were situated. "Everybody take cover! Get behind your cars!"

There were fairly large open gaps between the houses; Trail Stop was a loosely constructed community. When he had to cross a gap, he put his head down and ran like hell, zigzagging like a champion tailback. One of the shooters picked him up almost immediately and sent a bullet whining behind his head. He rolled and darted and finally dived headlong behind the next house, scraping his arms on loose gravel and fetching up hard against an outdoor faucet that dug into his shoulder.

Fuck! The shooters had night-vision scopes, or maybe even infrared. What the fucking hell was going on? Who were these guys? Cops? Some kind of military action? Maybe some sort of survivalist group with a hard-on for somebody in Trail Stop? Didn’t matter. They weren’t just shooting blind. They could see him; they could see everyone.

They couldn’t see through walls, though.

To minimize their clear shots, he needed to get as many houses, vehicles, trees, any solid object at all, between him and their positions. That meant angling away from Cate, because the road didn’t bisect Trail Stop down the middle; it curled to the left, leaving two-thirds of the land – and most of the houses – on the right. There hadn’t been any plan for the layout for Trail Stop; people had built houses wherever the hell they wanted, without rhyme or reason.

He mentally placed all of the residences as he ran. Cate’s house was at the tipper left end of the community, the thinly populated side of the road, but it wasn’t completely exposed. Her garage was behind it; then there were two more houses stuck back there on the left. If she would just stay inside, on the bottom floor…

But her bedroom was on the top floor, and he didn’t know the exact angle of attack the shooters were using. Even now she could be lying on the floor in a pool of blood –

He gritted his teeth and pushed the image away, because he couldn’t function in a world that didn’t have Cate Nightingale in it.

The ground beneath him was rough, uneven, slowing him down, plus he couldn’t see shit. As he ran, he passed people who were coming from the outer rim of houses, going toward the gunshots and commotion. Almost everyone had a flashlight; some of them carried rifles or shotguns. "Turn off your flashlights!" he veiled at them as he passed. Don’t go any farther! They have night-vision goggles!"

The little group halted. "Who are you?" someone asked, half-alarmed, half-cautious.

"Cal," he yelled back at them. "Pull back! Pull back!" Then a lucky shot – God, he hoped it was lucky, he hoped none of the shooters had that kind of skill – blasted a tree just a couple of feet from him. Again he hit the ground rolling, blinking at the sudden sting of blood in his eyes, and put a large tree at his back.

A long splinter of wood had speared him just above his left eyebrow. He pulled it out and swiped at the blood with the back of his hand, the one holding the first-aid box, and the box banged him in the face. Good job, Harris, he told himself derisively. Knock your fool self out.

He was now afraid luck wasn’t with them. That had been a good shot, a damn good shot. He did a quick estimate of the distance. He was a good four hundred yards from the other side of the stream.

That told him something about the kind of rifles being used, and the skill of the people using them. It also told him he was at the outer limits of an infrared scope’s usefulness, and he was beyond the range of night-vision goggles. Any close shots now would be pure luck. That didn’t mean he couldn’t be hit; it did mean that none of the shooters could track him with their scopes.

He abandoned all of his evasive techniques, and simply ran.

* * *

Cate had gone to bed early – really early. She’d always had the twins to take care of and focus on, and without them there, it was as if her mind had suddenly told her body, "Okay, you can rest."

She had intended to spend the day getting out her winter clothing and washing it. Before packing it up, she’d washed everything, of course, but clothing always had a musty smell to it after being in boxes. She did get out one box and get everything washed and swapped out with a like number of summer garments from her closet, but then she couldn’t work up any interest in continuing the chore.

Then she thought about getting started putting rocks around the perimeter of her parking lot, but instead she picked up a book she’d had for a while and read a couple of chapters before dozing off to sleep. After an hour’s nap she woke up feeling groggy, and nothing seemed more important than watching television, which she usually never got to do. She discovered that the Saturday programs sucked.