Part 46 (2/2)

”You're not going to die, Chuck.”

”Promise me you'll take care of them.”

The eagle blurred through my tears.

”I promise.”

Taking a deep breath, he put his arm back in its sling.

”Enough of that,” he said, getting up. The river gurgled and splashed. ”Let's get back.”

Wiping my eyes, I got up, and we silently began back up the trail.

The sun was going down.

Day 64 February 24.

I WAS OUTSIDE with Susie when I heard the trucks.

Lauren had found some old seed packets, carrots and cuc.u.mber and tomato, in a corner of the cellar. The packets were ancient and yellowed, but perhaps the seeds were still good. So we'd gone out and dug up a patch of ground, one that would get the most light, and started carefully planting them.

Chuck was inside, resting, and Lauren was making a fire to prepare some bark tea. Ellarose was lying in the gra.s.s on her back, staring up at the clouds in the sky and chewing on a twig Susie had given her. She looked like a hundred-year-old baby, shrunken and wrinkled, with red, peeling skin. She'd developed a fever and had been crying all night. Susie kept her close, always, never more than a few feet away. It was heartbreaking.

We'd given Luke his own small shovel, a rusty trowel, and he was industriously digging up bits of earth, smiling at me with every shovelful, when an alien growl floated up through the trees. A slight breeze ruffled the leaves, and I stopped digging, going completely still, and listened hard.

”What is it?” asked Susie, looking at me.

The wind died down, and there it was again-a low rumble, a mechanical rumble.

”Get the kids downstairs. Now!”

She heard the rumbling too, and she got up from her knees, grabbing Ellarose and then Luke by the arm. I ran to the house, jumping up onto the smashed back deck.

”Lauren, get downstairs!” I yelled as I entered through the porch door. ”Someone is coming! Get that fire out!”

She looked at me, shocked, and I grabbed one of the bottles of water from the counter and quickly crossed over to her. I dumped the water on the twigs she had lit and then kicked them apart, stamping on the cinders.

”Who is it?” she asked. ”What's happening?”

”I don't know,” I yelled back as I ran up the stairs to get Chuck. ”Just get in the cellar with the kids and Susie.”

Upstairs, Chuck was awake and already staring out the window.

”Looks like army trucks,” he said as I entered his room. ”I could just see them for a moment on the ridge lower down. They'll be here in a minute.”

I helped him down the hallway and stairs, grabbing the rifle as we pa.s.sed onto the front porch. Standing still for a second, we couldn't see them, but we could hear them, and the sound was getting louder.

”Leave me here,” said Chuck. ”I'll talk to them, see what they want.”

I shook my head.

”No, let's get in the cellar. They can't know we're here. We'll hide, try and see who they are.”

Chuck nodded and, with his good arm around me, limped down with me to the cellar doors. Susie had done a good job of rebuilding the doors from some plywood. As we reached the stairs down, the girls were staring up at us. Susie was holding a .38, and so was Lauren.

Hopping down the stairs, we closed the doors behind us just as we heard the trucks crunching on the gravel on the driveway. Quietly, I mounted the stairs, trying to get a view of what was happening outside through a crack.

”There are two trucks,” I whispered. We could hear the sound of feet hitting the gravel as the truck doors thudded shut. It sounded like there were a lot of them.

”Is it our guys?” whispered Chuck urgently.

”What do they want?” said Susie quietly, holding Ellarose in her arms, trying to keep her quiet.

Through the tiny crack I angled to get a view. They were wearing khaki-colored uniforms, but that didn't mean anything. And then I saw a face, an Asian face, and he looked my way. I ducked down.

”It's the Chinese,” I hissed, backing down the stairs.

I picked up my rifle and kneeled on the hard-packed earth floor. Above our heads we could hear m.u.f.fled voices and their boots walking around the house.

Chuck squinted in the dim light, listening. ”Is that Chinese?”

It sounds Chinese.

The boots stopped, and then we heard someone going up the stairs and then back down and out onto the porch.

”Maybe they're just having a look around?” said Lauren quietly, hopefully.

And then- ”Mike!” someone outside yelled.

Are they yelling my name?

I looked at Chuck, frowning, and he shrugged back. The voice was very familiar.

”Mike! Chuck! Are you guys here?” yelled the voice again.

I looked around the cellar at everyone.

Is that Vince's voice?

”We're down here,” called out Susie.

”Shhhh,” I said angrily, but it was too late.

Footsteps thumped across the gra.s.s, and then one of the cellar doors opened. Leaning back, squinting into the light, I pointed my gun at the door, just as Vince's head appeared.

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