Deep Trek

But the self-protection committee had decided by a small majority that they would maintain the patrol for another few days, until Christmas, then review the situation again before the New Year.

Henry watched the elegantly dressed old woman as she walked toward them, setting each foot carefully in front of the other as though she had some sort of crippling knee or hip condition. It crossed his mind that she might be a doctor. They didn’t have anyone with real medical training and they’d agreed unanimously that if a doctor or even a nurse happened to turn up, they’d be invited to stay.

His mouth was already open to warn the stranger not to get close, when he realized with a start that she was already very close. Asking them something about letting her have some water.

“That’s about—” began Henry, holding up his hand self-importantly.

“Far enough?” said Nanci Simms, her smile unchangingly bright and friendly.

It stayed friendly even as she squeezed the trigger on the Port Royale, on full-auto.

At the harsh, snarling cough of the machine pistol, Jeff Thomas rolled quickly out of the passenger’s door, the unfamiliar .38 in his hand.

He managed a clumsy somersault and came up in something approximating the gunfighter’s crouch that Nanci had managed to teach him.

Finger white on the spur trigger, he was looking for someone to shoot, but he saw only four men and one woman, all of them already in various stages of dying.

Henry Harrison got the first three rounds, each of the 9 mm rounds hitting him in less than a quarter of a second, all of them within an inch of his breastbone. The impact sent him staggering backward, almost running, before he tripped over his own feet.

Strangely his last coherent thought was disappointment that the elderly woman wasn’t a doctor after all.

His friends to left and right were shot at close range, all between throat and stomach, each one taking a 3-round burst of lead.

Nanci was skilled enough to control the spitting machine pistol, making sure that she had a single round left if any of her victims needed it. And there was always the P-111 automatic in the back of her belt. But her ability was such that she didn’t need to fire again.

“Judas on the tree!” exclaimed Jeff Thomas, rising cautiously from the crouch. He’d already dismissed as stillborn the tempting but transient idea that he should try to shoot Nanci in the back while he had a half chance, realizing that half a chance wasn’t anywhere near to good enough.

“Gas and food, Jefferson,” she said.

Within eighty seconds all of the five were finally still. One of them had carried on writhing and gurgling and bleeding longer than the others.

Jeff holstered his .38 and began the task of syphoning fuel from the two flatbed trucks into their own vehicle, while Nanci searched the corpses for anything worth the stealing. She found nothing beyond some extra ammunition for her two guns. Reloading the Port Royale, she waited for Jeff to finish refueling.

“Any spare cans, take them and fill them,” she said. “I’ll see what these friendly folk might have to offer us in the way of sustenance.”

There was bread, only slightly stale, and enough jerked beef to last the two of them a week. Half a pecan pie, which she ate without even offering any to Jeff, and three cans of cling peaches in raspberry nectar.

“Better than nothing. How are we for gas?”

“Tank’s full,” he said, spitting in the dirt what he’d accidentally sucked into his mouth. “And there’s about seven gallons spare in the back.”

“Good. They got some decent Mexican bottled beer in the cab of one of their trucks. Help yourself. It’ll get the taste of the gas away.”

“Are we going in to their township?”

“Why?”

“Might be more food and gas.”

“Why?”

“Well, we can’t have too much. Can we, Nanci?”

“Yeah, we can. What we want is always to try and keep just that little more than we need. Now, have that beer and we’ll get moving. Should reach Muir Woods easily tomorrow.”

They camped overnight less than ten miles from their destination.

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