The Impossible Future: Complete set by Frank Kennedy (e novels to read online TXT) 📗

don’t know what we’re up against. We’ve got to get off this beach and find a private place that’s safe. Where’s the boat?”

“Around the point.”

“We need cover. A few miles up Ginny’s Creek ought to do nicely.”

“That was where Sammie wanted to go when we were coming in, but I told her to land the boat near the point.”

Ben’s faced reddened at the mention of her name. He looked south along the beach and pegged squinted eyes on a new target. The boys followed his gaze. Sammie was making her way toward the threesome, one hesitant step at a time. She carried the pistol in her right hand pointed down. Ben let go of his support team, grabbed his rifle, and slung it over his healthy shoulder.

“She can’t be trusted,” Ben said.

Jamie wasn’t prepared to argue the point, but he didn’t expect the deep animosity in Ben’s voice. Sammie drew closer.

“You’re alive,” she said. “What about my parents?”

Ben winced as he tugged at his wounded shoulder.

“Tell her,” Jamie whispered.

Ben swallowed. “Your mother didn’t make it. I’m sorry.”

Sammie’s eyes hit the ground; her gun hand trembled.

“And Daddy?”

Ben shook his head. “I don’t know and I don’t care.”

Jamie pulled away, saw the mix of shock and dismay in Sammie’s eyes and wanted to level his brother. Ben straightened himself out, repositioned the M16 and continued forward unconcerned by his answer. Sammie raised her pistol and aimed.

“Did you do something to Daddy?”

Before Ben answered, Jamie stepped forward. “C’mon, Sammie. Put the gun down. Look, Ben, just fill us in. If you expect me to listen to whatever you got to say, then you’d better tell Sammie where her dad is.”

Ben gritted his teeth but did not stop walking. He was passing Sammie, her weapon still aimed, when he said, “Last time I saw Walt, he put two bullets in a cop point-blank. We had a falling out after that.”

Ben snagged the pistol before Sammie knew what came her way.

“You let your defenses down,” Ben told the girl. “The Unification Guard wouldn’t like that, especially for a rookie with Dacha training.”

Jamie saw similarities between Ben’s lightning-fast move and the one Sammie pulled earlier. He neither understood the Dacha reference nor cared, but he did catch the hostile – and alien – glare between his brother and the girl he might have loved. He reminded himself that they were Chancellors. He didn’t hesitate to accept when Ben handed him the pistol.

“You may need this more than her.”

Ben snarled as he moved ahead.

Jamie glanced over his shoulder as they advanced toward the point. Sammie stayed behind, a statue with eyes focused on the ground. She balled her fists, and Jamie didn’t know whether she was ready to fly into a rage or needed someone to stop and comfort her. He remembered the sudden emptiness of spirit when Sheriff Everson delivered the news about his own mom and dad, and the desire to lash out against the world.

“Where are your shirts?” Ben asked the boys.

“Bullet holes make a mess,” Jamie said.

Just like that, Ben slapped him across the chest. He insisted everyone shut up.

“Listen,” he whispered.

They heard the same rhythm at once. It stood out against the otherwise perfect silence of a morning where the wind died and the water was placid. Jamie knew the echo of the rotor blades, the background roar of the approaching engine. They scanned north along the shore.

Orange sunlight cast a metallic sparkle over the helicopter racing low along the shoreline, half a mile away and closing fast.

“Move,” Ben shouted.

They took off in a dead run, reaching the point within seconds. Only as they rounded the point and neared the first cluster of scattered trees, realizing they were still a couple hundred yards from thick cover, did Jamie look back. Sammie was gone.

Jamie shouted for her.

“Shut up and move,” Ben said, coughing between his words.

“I’m with Ben,” Michael yelled. “Get to the boat.”

“No,” Ben said. “No time.”

The roar of the chopper’s engine reverberated louder than Jamie remembered from the first encounter, and its echo bounced through the trees like the first cannon shots of a swarming enemy.

Leapfrogging over debris and clambering over logs slowed down all three, and twice Ben groaned as he jumped, the second time grabbing at his left side beneath his rib cage. Jamie and Michael tried to help him along, but he pushed them away, insisting they go ahead, that he could keep up. They passed the speedboat without a word as the roar grew.

Jamie flipped around for no more than a second, hoping to see Sammie right behind, but she was not there. Rather, the low sun seemed to fill the mouth of the creek, a wide, angry oval rising to punish the world.

“Ben, I don’t …”

He heard a curse, turned around to see the M16 flying forward, skidding off a log and onto a pair of rocks which were half-submerged in the water’s edge. Ben was writhing on the ground, grabbing his knee. Michael twisted about to help, and Jamie ran to his brother’s side.

“I can make it,” Ben shouted. “Get the gun.”

For an instant, they froze. The helicopter swung about as it reached the mouth of the creek, and they were blinded as the heart of the sun enveloped the approaching enemy. Michael and Jamie each draped an arm around Ben then stumbled forward.

Machine-gun fire burst forth from the chopper, the bullets spraying the water and, growing closer, the scattered debris along the shore.

As Jamie considered that he might not survive another ten seconds, he saw a shadow slip past. He heard desperate footsteps and lost control of his brother. The threesome tumbled. Jamie turned. Before he began to understand, Jamie grabbed his ears to muffle the sound of hell descending.