Working as quickly and quietly as she could, Ro dropped onto her right hip and kept her left ankle off the ground. Shrugging the pack off her shoulders, she dragged it around beside her. There was an ace bandage and an instant ice pack in the first aid kit. Trying to keep her movements silent, Ro unzipped the backpack and pulled out the smaller red bag that contained first aid supplies. She paused just before squashing the instant ice pack between her palms to start the chemical reaction. Was she supposed to take off her hiking boot and wrap the ice around her ankle before shoving it back into the boot and then trying to walk on it? Or was she better off leaving it tied up tightly in the high, leather hiking boot? At times like this it was clear that med school would have been a much better investment than law school. Ro rubbed her face with both palms in frustration, before realizing her hands were covered in dirt from catching herself as she fell. And now so was her face. Ro tried to take a few deep, calming breaths, and didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Dead tired, running from crazy, scary, possibly murdering rednecks, and likely suffering from a sprained ankle. What a fucking disaster. She’d been so proud of herself for making it this far. Rather than lose her ever-loving mind, Ro opted for the mental pep talk: Maybe it’s not that bad. Just a slight sprain. I could just pull some brush around me for cover, lay low for the night, and hope like hell the creepy trio gives up looking for me. And be on my way well before they could possibly find me in the morning. Good Lord, that sounded like a whole lot of hope, and Ro much preferred to deal in realities.
Brush rustled. Ro froze. Oh fuck. They’re here. Ro waited, heart pounding, to hear another sound that would indicate the presence of another person. Nothing. A gust of wind barreled down through the woods. The leaves clattered, and the trees swayed. Ro couldn’t discern any other unusual noises. Come on nature … throw me a bone here. Her eyes darted right and left, trying to make out anything in the darkness, holding the rest of herself completely still. And then she felt a presence behind her. She went for the Ka-Bar strapped to her belt. But before she could reach it, a large hand clamped over her mouth.
Fire watch was the most boring fucking job of all time. Before the events of the last week, Graham hadn’t kept watch in years. Just one more reason it was good to be in charge. No shit jobs. But after the grid went down, every man living at Castle Creek Whitetail Ranch pulled his weight on fire watch. No exceptions. Which meant Graham was back on rotation. With ten men, and three or four on watch at all times, no one got a pass on that shit. It wasn’t easy to patrol the ten-foot perimeter fence that surrounded the 660 acres of woods, hills, fields, creeks, and living compound that made up one of the most exclusive, if rustic, whitetail deer hunting outfits in the state. With the security system they had set up and a few other tricks, they were pretty well locked down. But Graham knew they couldn’t afford to take chances. Especially six days into the biggest goat fuck anyone had ever seen in the good ol’ US of A. Inhabitants of third world countries might be accustomed to going without power and running water, but that was because they were either (a) too poor to have power and running water in the first place or (b) they’d had the shit bombed out of their homes. The average U.S. citizen was soft. Not used to going without the luxuries that had become so common and forgettable. Sure, everyone had watched the towers fall on 9/11, but from the safety of their living rooms, on big screen color TVs. Graham could imagine the chaos that had broken out in the last six days across the country—if, in fact, the whole country was affected by what he and his team were pretty damn certain had been an electromagnetic pulse, or EMP. The cause of the giant burst of electromagnetic energy that had knocked out the electrical grid and damaged unprotected electronics was still up for debate, though. It could have been a nuke detonated high above US airspace, or a solar flare that finally didn’t miss. The ham radio that Ty kept screwing around with stayed mostly silent. There’d only been a few transmissions in the last week, giving the term ‘radio silence’ a whole new meaning. Each one of those transmissions had confirmed what they feared: no functioning electrical grid reported anywhere.
Every fire watch rotation that Graham had taken during the last week had been uneventful, but tonight’s watch was shaping up to be a little more exciting. A signal had pinged in the command post, indicating that a sensor on the outermost perimeter, fifty yards outside the fence line, had been tripped. Command had radioed the men on watch, and everyone was on alert. Graham had climbed into a treestand that doubled as an observation post to try to get a better look at what was going down outside the fence.
Graham trained the night vision scope of his M4 carbine rifle on the break in the trees where he could hear snapping branches and crunching leaves. Whoever had tripped the perimeter sensor and headed toward the fence wasn’t even attempting to be stealthy about it. Someone was plowing through the woods like a gut shot deer. Either the person was an idiot or he had no clue he was running straight toward a fence that stretched for a square mile.
A body burst through the tree line just beyond the fence. Graham sighted in his shot, rested his finger on the trigger. A ponytail. Shit. Female. Sliding his finger away from the trigger, Graham kept her in his crosshairs. Spending any amount of time in the Sandbox taught you that women sure as hell weren’t all innocent. He’d seen more than one with a bomb strapped to her chest, hoping to take out as many American troops as possible. They also made good bait for a trap. This one wasn’t paying attention to where her feet were landing and went down hard. She didn’t get up.
Graham scanned the tree line behind her. No sign of anyone else.
“Got a live one about twenty yards out from the southwest perimeter fence,” Graham reported to the team through his radio. “Possibly injured. I’m holding position.”
Graham watched as she maneuvered herself onto her ass, clearly trying not to jar her left ankle. “Scratch possibly. Female is definitely injured.”
“Say again? We got a chick running around out there tonight?” Jonah’s voice shot back through Graham’s earpiece.