The Siege Read online

  “How so?”

  “Hannah, I was a policeman for a lot of years. I’ve seen the evil that men like that are capable of. You are a beautiful woman. So is my Sami. I cannot bear to think what would happen to the two of you if you were taken alive by that bunch. It’s my hunch that you’d spend the rest of your lives being brutalized, passed from one barbarian to the next, until they just wore you out. Then they’d dispose of you like last week’s garbage.”

  “But…”

  “Let me finish. You need to hear this. We’re assuming that these men came from that prison in Eden. If that’s the case, then they were locked up for a reason. There are some bad sons of bitches in our prison systems, Hannah. Some of them did some very ugly things to get put there. And not all of them like women. Sadly, many of them prefer young girls, like your nieces.”

  He put emphasis on his last sentence.

  “Or little boys, like your Markie.”

  Hannah teared up at the thought. She was convinced. But she still didn’t like the idea of watching helpless men die.

  Mark took over again.

  “There’s another reason too, honey. These men were bad before. They’re still just as bad, only now they’re surely pissed off and desperate. We could dig from our end to help them. And as soon as we broke them free we would probably be rewarded for our kindness with a bullet to the head. And what would that solve?

  “And even if we did rescue them, then what? We couldn’t just let them go. They’ve seen what we have and they want it. And they’re probably the type of men who’d try to exact revenge upon us. If we let them go, they’d just rebuild, find more men. And then they’d come back at us even stronger. Only this time they’d know the layout of the compound, and know not to go into any tunnels.”

  Hannah gave up.

  “I know all that. And I know we couldn’t keep them prisoner for the rest of their lives. It’s just that… well, I don’t feel it’s our place to act as their executioners. That’s all.”

  She started to cry, and Mark wrapped his arms around her.

  “Honey, don’t you worry about those men. They signed their own death warrants when they stepped into that tunnel with the intent of killing us. We have the upper hand now, and we’re going to use it to reduce their numbers. Whenever you feel pangs of guilt, just remember John’s words. He was a cop for a very long time. He knows what he’s talking about.”

  He wiped her tears.

  “Honey, our son survived what could have been a terrible confrontation. He will live to see another day. And I’m sure he’s worried about you. And me. Why don’t you go get the children and the rest of the adults and tell them it’s safe to come out of hiding now. And tell Markie his Daddy loves him, okay?”

  Hannah’s tears kept flowing, but she didn’t argue. She nodded her head and headed to the back recesses of the mine.

  “Is she going to be okay?” Sami asked.

  “Yes. I knew from the beginning that she’d struggle with this. But she’ll be okay. It would help if you and Sarah spent some time with her. I sense that she needs to talk it out with someone who will listen to her arguments, and she knows my mind is made up.”

  “Well, my mind is made up as well, but I’ll let her cry on my shoulder. She’s like a flower when she’s stressed. So delicate, so sensitive. But she’s got a good head on her shoulders. She’ll agree with us in the end.”

  John said to Sami, “Go ahead, sweetie. Go find her and be there for her. I’ll have somebody relieve Sarah so she can join you.

  “And I think we need to keep her away from these monitors for the next day or two. It should be a moot point after that.”

  Chapter 6

  On Buena Vista Drive in north San Antonio, Frank Woodard had no idea of the troubles his friend John faced at the mine.

  Frank had met John while on a hunting trip near Salt Mountain. John had watched that day on his security monitor, as Frank drew a bead on a majestic white tailed buck just outside the compound’s walls.

  But Frank didn’t fire. As John watched him lower his weapon, he wondered why.

  And John, being a retired police detective and a curious man by nature, went outside the gates to ask him.

  “As desperate as my people are for protein, this is the only surviving buck I’ve seen. I’m afraid it may be the last one in the area. If I shoot it, I may doom the deer population in these parts to extinction. It was a beautiful animal, and it pained me to let it go. But I felt I had to.”

  The men became fast friends. Frank was also a retired lawman, and they had much in common.

  John made sure that Frank didn’t go back to San Antonio empty handed that day. To compensate him for the protein he’d given up when he lowered his rifle, he was given several chickens to take back with him.

  Later, they also shared some of their cattle, with the agreement that Frank would grow a small herd and then share a small number with another group of survivors.

  “Resist the urge to eat them all,” John had said. “Instead, let them grow, so that in a generation there will be small pockets of cattle all over the area.”

  The survivors on Buena Vista Drive now had a steady supply of milk and eggs, and a bit of fresh meat on occasion. Only Frank had ever met John personally, but to Frank’s people John was a saint.

  Frank still stayed in touch with John by ham radio, but hadn’t been able to reach him for several days. He was becoming worried.

  “Johnny Bravo, this is Frank Furter. Haven’t heard from you for awhile, just doing a check-up call.”

  He got no response, but he didn’t expect one. He and John never talked on the radio real time. They just left short messages, several hours apart. It was John’s idea, and the intent was to keep the government or anyone else with the ability to track radio signals to get a bead on their location. By talking only in short bursts, they’d hoped that outside tracking equipment wouldn’t have time to work.

  Normally, Frank would have expected to hear a short message from John a couple of hours after his own call went out. Usually, John’s message would sound something like, “Johnny Bravo to Frank Furter, all is well on this end, hope same is true for you.” The two were careful never to mention livestock, or crops, or anything else that marauders or looters might be interested in.

  Frank turned to his wife Eva and said, “I’m getting concerned, hon. This is the fifth time I’ve called in the past few days, and they still haven’t responded.”

  “Oh, don’t fret, Frank. This is about the time of year that farmers plant their crops. You said they had big fields to plant corn and wheat in. This is probably one of the busiest times of their year. I’m sure he just hasn’t had time to turn on his radio lately.”

  “But he said that his ham radio was on twenty four seven. And that it was in his security control center, which was always manned. Surely someone would have heard my messages and let him know I was calling.”

  “Honey, don’t be an old mother hen. If something was wrong with your friend, I’m sure someone would have let you know by now. Just keep trying. They’ll eventually answer, I’m sure.”

  “Maybe I’ll take another hunting trip up that way. Maybe check on the deer population and see if it’s growing.”

  Eva laughed.

  “The last time you went hunting for deer up there you came back with chickens instead. Why would this trip be any different?”

  “Because this time I could check on my friends.”

  It turned out that Frank’s words were being heard at the compound. But not by the good guys.

  Davey Douglas, a three time felon who was serving forty to life before the meteorite hit the earth and gave him his freedom, heard them. He was sitting in an easy chair adjacent to the security console and eating a sandwich when Frank’s concerned voice came across the airwaves.

  But they meant nothing to Davey Douglas. He was much more interested in his sandwich.

  Chapter 7

  Little Markie looked at Hannah
with the saddest of eyes.

  “Mommy, how long are we gonna have to stay here this time?”

  “I don’t know, little sailor. Why?”

  “I used to like it here. But now I don’t. I like the other place better. I like the grass. It was cool. Especially when you took me out to play with the Frisbee or Daddy played football with me. And I liked the swing that Uncle Bryan hung in the tree for me. There’s not much to do here.”

  “Oh, that’s not true. Everything you used to do before we left this place is still here. You can watch movies or read your books or play your video games. You can still play basketball.

  “I know how cool it is for you to run and play outside, because you weren’t able to do it for so long. But you’ll get to do those things again, I promise. Just as soon as it’s safe again.”

  “Safe from what, Mommy?”

  They’d been careful to shelter little Markie from the ugliness of the situation. He knew the basics, of course – that bad men had chased them out of their new compound. But he didn’t understand the whys and hows.

  Maybe it was time he did.

  “Well, honey, we’ve always taught you that you have to be careful in life, because not all people are friendly and good, right?”

  “Right.”

  “Well, some of the people who aren’t friendly and good saw that we had a nice place to stay at the compound. They saw that we had chickens to chase, and cows to look at, and that we grew lots of yummy things to eat.

  “And these bad people, well, they got jealous. So they didn’t ask us if we would share with them. Instead they just decided to take everything away from us.”

  “That wasn’t very nice, was it?”

  “No, sir, it wasn’t. Especially when they used guns and shot at us, and shot Sami in the shoulder.”

  “I love Sami. She’s nice and she always lets me win at checkers.”

  “Yes, honey. We all like Sami. She is a wonderful woman. That’s why we’re so mad at the people who shot her.”

  He seemed to sense that she was carefully selecting her words, and gave her time.

  “These bad people, Markie, they won’t just leave on their own.”

  “Not even if we tell them we don’t like them, and they have to go away?”

  “No. Not even then. We tried asking them nicely to leave, but they won’t.”

  “So how do we get them to leave?”

  A tear formed in her eye, but she tried to hide it.

  “We have to make them leave, honey. We have to use guns and other things, just like they did, to make them go away.”

  “Are we going to shoot them, like they did to Sami? That wasn’t very nice, when they shot Sami.”

  “Well, we might have to, honey. Sometimes, with some bad people… well, you have to be mean to them back.”

  “Will they shoot Sami again?”

  “Oh, honey, I hope not. But… well, it’s possible that some more people we love will get hurt too.”

  Markie pondered the thought.

  “I hope not, Mommy. I love Sami and everybody else here. But especially you and Daddy. You and Daddy won’t get hurt, will you?”

  “I hope not, little sailor. We’ll try our best not to.”

  “Mommy, can I ask you a question?”

  “Sure thing.”

  She braced herself for what she was sure was going to be a question about death, or dying, or angry men. But he surprised her.

  “How come you call me little sailor? I mean, I read books, and sailors have boats. I don’t have a boat. I’ve never even been on a boat, or seen the ocean or even a lake. So how come you call me little sailor?”

  She smiled, glad for the break in the tension.

  “Well, a long time ago, right after your Daddy and I first met, I was very much in love with him, but he didn’t know because I kept it a secret.

  “But he was trying so hard to make me fall in love with him. So this one time, not long after we met, he asked me if I wanted to go sailing. He was trying to pretend that he was a great sailor, but he really wasn’t. He was just trying to impress me.

  “When we were in the middle of a big lake, he stood up in the middle of the sail boat, just as the wind changed direction. The sail swung around and knocked your Daddy right off the boat and into the water.”

  Markie smiled.

  “And I laughed so hard, and I helped him back in the boat and he laughed so hard too. And then he looked at me with his beautiful blue eyes and said ‘I guess you can tell I’m not much of a sailor after all, huh?’

  “And I told him, ‘ya think?’

  “And we just laughed and laughed. And ever since then I’ve called your Daddy my sailor. And you, little sir, are just like your Daddy in every way. So you’re my little sailor.”

  “Daddy is pretty silly sometimes, isn’t he?”

  “You’ve got that right.”

  “Do you think I can ever ride on a boat someday?”

  “Oh, yes. Your Daddy and I will make sure of that.”

  “But I don’t want to fall in the water. I don’t know how to swim.”

  “Well, we’ll make sure to teach you how to swim too. As soon as we can find a lake and a boat, we’ll do both.”

  Markie was satisfied with that and went off to play.

  Hannah stayed behind, in deep thought, with a wry smile upon her lips.

  She was remembering that day on the lake, and the part of the story she hadn’t told little Markie. She hadn’t told Markie that once Mark was out of the water, he was chilled by the late afternoon breeze, and began to shiver.

  She didn’t tell Markie that his father’s apartment was many miles away, but that hers was close by. And that she offered to take him back to her apartment so she could wash and dry his clothes.

  Or that he walked around in her ratty old pink housecoat while the laundry was being done. The housecoat had once belonged to her grandmother, and she couldn’t bear to part with it.

  But she had to admit that it looked good on Mark that night.

  That was the night she and Mark had made love for the first time, and he didn’t go home until late the next morning.

  But that was a part of the story that little Markie didn’t need to know.

  Chapter 8

  It was the third day since the assault on the mine. Hannah hadn’t been back to the security console and still had mixed feelings about letting the men in the tunnel die. But she resolved to herself that she would not interfere. As guilty as she felt about men dying such a horrible death, she’d accepted the fact that they as a group were safer for it.

  And she owed her allegiance to her friends and family. Not to a gang of criminals who’d have done them harm.

  At the bank of monitors, Mark stood shoulder to shoulder with Sarah and Bryan, watching the camera feeds from the tunnel.

  There were only two patches of heat now. The others had died, and their bodies had cooled to the point that they simply vanished from the screen.

  They were unsure which two of the men were left. They knew none of their names, of course, nor their positions within their group.

  “We think the one on the left was one of the diggers, but we’re not sure. They kind of got mixed up when they started crawling around together at the end of the first day.”

  Bryan observed, “Well, whether he was a digger or not, he’s not digging any more.”

  It was a true statement.

  The two remaining men alive in the tunnel had given up and abandoned all efforts to escape what would soon be their tomb. Now they just sat in the silent darkness and waited their turn to die.

  Inside the tunnel, Alvarez leaned up against the side of the tunnel and dozed off and on. He’d scratched at the pile of rock and dirt and salt for twenty straight hours. He ignored the fact that he quite literally wore his fingers to the bone. The pain was inconsequential in his desperation to get out, and the dirt packed tightly against his fingertips helped deaden the nerves and slow the bleeding.
When it was finally apparent to him that he was getting nowhere, he’d taken a deep breath, cursed as loud as he could, and passed out.

  He came to some time later to find himself face down in the dirt pile. His nostrils were full of dirt, and of the dried blood rendered when he fell face first after passing out and broke his nose.

  Now the nerves in his fingers were wide awake and screaming. He knew his fingers were still there, though he dared not touch them to see how much was left. He was in agony, every muscle in his upper body stiff and sore and crying out in pain.

  His nose throbbed, and his head pounded.

  But what he wanted most wasn’t for the pain to go away.

  What he wanted most was a drink of water.

  Now, many hours after the explosions, he no longer felt his comrades bumping against him as they moved about in the tunnel.

  Blind, deaf, and in agony, he just wanted it to be over. His throat was so parched it hurt to swallow. The saliva in his mouth had become thick and sticky.

  He could no longer open his eyes. His eyelids were so dry they just stuck to his eyeballs now. So he just kept them closed. There was nothing to see but blackness anyway.

  He went in and out of consciousness. Each time he awoke he briefly wondered if he was dead yet, then quickly had his answer as the pain struck him anew.

  He just wanted it to end. He knew he was going to hell. He’d raped and robbed and killed. Men like him didn’t get to heaven. Oh, sure, preachers liked to preach forgiveness and second chances. But they just wanted suckers like Alvarez to come to their services. To fill their pews, and their collection plates. To help buy the preacher a new suit. To buy their way into heaven.

  But Alvarez wasn’t having any of that. He’d accepted long ago that he was hell-bound. In fact, he wore it as a badge of honor, telling the others that he feared no one. Not even the devil.

  Now he just wanted it to be over. In his mind, hell couldn’t be worse than what he was going through his last hours on earth.

  A few feet away from him, Rob Linkes was taking a vastly different approach to his impending death.