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  I took a deep breath and rubbed my hands together, I could feel the excitement building in me. “Okay, this is what I think,” I said, noticing everyone locked onto my every word. “We can’t stay and fight and expect to win. If we leave, we are still vulnerable, maybe more so, right?” I asked, looking around as everyone confirmed what I said. “In addition we don’t want to give up what we’ve made here. I don’t know about you but I am very very proud of what we’ve accomplished.” Everyone beamed and nodded their heads in agreement.

  “So since we can’t avoid it, we can’t do neither, we will have to do both,” I said as I laid out my plans.

  Chapter Sixteen

  We spent the next week getting ready. Everyone busier than a squirrel getting set for a bad winter. Hector was real good about coming up with great ideas, really everyone contributed. We were all on the roof when I heard Shuck screaming, trying to get our attention. I’d set him up in the Cathedral tower as look out. He sat there all day like a sailor in a crow’s nest scanning the horizon for danger. Now he was waving his hands back and forth above his head then turning and pointing toward the river. Obviously our visitors had arrived.

  We weren’t ready, I don’t think we’d ever really be ready. I told Claire to get everyone to finish what they were doing and to start implementing the plan. She nodded her head then quickly turned away trying to make sure I didn’t see the look of concern on her face. We were all scared, but excited also, everybody’s attitude had gotten better once I’d laid out the plan. I’d even heard Margaret and Susan singing as they worked together. They all seemed to be accepting of our plans. I wasn’t so sure. I don’t think anyone in the group had any idea what we were in for. I don’t think Big Jake had any idea either.

  I left them and ran to the cathedral to get the latest information. Shuck was excited when I got up there with him and pointed out an electric car pulling a wagon with two men on the front bench and three more in the back. It had finished crossing the bridge, ten men on horseback road behind it in two disciplined columns.

  I brought the binoculars up to get a better look. The man riding in the wagon looked pretty big, a heavy guy with a black beard. As I watched he flicked a cigarette onto the road then turned and said something to the men on horseback who immediately moved in front of the wagon and into the park where they all dismounted. Each of them had guns on their hips and several with rifles and/or shotguns.

  It all reminded me of a western movie. Like something from two hundred years earlier. How had we gotten like this? I wondered. My ancestors put a man on the moon and here we were using bows and arrows against a bunch of horsemen with guns. It made me mad thinking about it.

  I didn’t waste any time, Shuck and I hurried down the stairs and back to the library. Claire met me and handed me my weapons. She carried a crossbow and had a huge hunting knife in a sheath on her left hip. I belted my machete and notched an arrow. She silently watched me get ready and then hugged me, grabbing me tightly, her arms wrapped around my shoulders. She smelled of honey and coconut oil and something else, something special that was Claire only.

  Before I could hug her back, she stepped away and looked at me with determined eyes and said “You be careful Kristopher Robertson, I’m not through with you.” She turned and scampered into the library to take her position. I felt sort of cheated that I didn’t get to hug her back. Like something was missing. A shiver slid down my spine as I worried that I might never get another chance.

  We’d built a five foot wall out of sand bags in front of the big library doors. Margaret and Susan had spent days making it. I stood behind the wall and waited. My arrow pointed towards the corner where I thought the men would appear. We’d made all of our plans with their guns in mind.

  I had to wait an hour before they showed up.

  A dozen men poured through the gate, ducking behind cars and slowly moving towards the library. They were led by a big bruiser of a guy who reminded me of the Bluto character from the Popeye cartoons, over six, six, and easily 350 pounds, most of it in a fat gut. A bushy black beard and huge arms that looked like they could pound a railroad tie into the ground. This must be the Big Jake guy everyone had talked about.

  The men gathered behind the abandoned cars on the other side of the street, some of them pointing their rifles my way, others crouching and scanning the building up and down the block for any sign of life.

  “Hey kid,” Big Jake yelled. “You want to come out of there. Bring the two girls and everything will be fine. I promise,” he said with the creepiest smile I’d ever seen. It reminded me of the feral dogs and the way they looked at their prey.

  I didn’t say a thing, didn’t react in any way, trying to buy time for Claire and the others to get into position. It sounded to me like he didn’t know about the rest of us. Was it possible I wondered?

  He was far enough away and aware enough that if I took a shot with my arrow, he’d have time to duck and I didn’t have enough arrows to be wasting them. I also knew that if he or one of his men shot, I wouldn’t even hear it before I died. I crouched a little lower behind the sand bags and prayed that they weren’t interested in killing me hoping that I was right in believing they wanted slaves, not dead bodies. That they hadn’t come all this way just to kill me.

  “Dave, Tom, cover us, the rest of you, let’s go” Big Jake said as he stepped out from behind the shielding car. The other men stood and started making their way across the street also. Each of them looked tougher than chewed leather and meaner than a pissed off grizzly bear.

  I couldn’t resolve on a shot, my bow and arrow shifting back and forth between the targets. Information Overload one of the books had called it. My mind raced with possibilities and ramifications. As I tried to decide what to do, a small wiry man made my decision for me as he broke from the group and started charging my position. He pulled a gun from the holster on his hip and yelled a strange, gurgled yell of “Argggggggg” as he ran.

  My mind relaxed as I let go my arrow and ducked behind the curtain of sand bags and crawled into the library. I heard someone, probably my target scream. Shots rang out, echoing off the buildings, whizzing overhead and ricocheting off the library granite walls. So much for wanting slaves. Cursing I slammed the front door closed behind me. I ran up the stairs and slid to a second story window so that I could watch the next phase of our plan.

  The men were gathered around the front of the sand bag wall when the first brick landed amongst them. Schick/Shuck were right on target. They’d been practicing for a week. I knew that they were on the top of the building lobbing red bricks and gray cinder blocks overhand over the lip of the roof,

  The men started yelling and pushing each other to get out of the way of the constant stream of bricks and rocks coming off the roof. As I watched a large terra cotta pot exploded between two men, showering them both full in nails and broken glass.

  Shots rang out as the men began to fire at the roof. My stomach felt like it was going to fall through the floor as I heard those shots.

  There was a man down on the street, he wasn’t moving and a pool of crimson blood was leaking out from beneath his head. I prayed that the boys were making sure to stand back far enough that the men couldn’t get at them with their guns. The man I’d shot at the beginning was limping towards the far gate, my arrow sticking out of his leg at ninety degrees. I was upset that my aim had been that far off, what can I say, at least he was out of action.

  The bricks and stuff continued to rain down. The men realized that the safest place was inside the library. I could see them gathering at the locked front door. One of them shot the lock and both doors were thrown open. Two men stepped into the darkened lobby of the building. The first man triggered a thin wire that released three pre-staged crossbows.

  One arrow hit the man in the shoulder spinning him out of the way of the second arrow which embedded itself in the door frame with a solid thud. The third arrow caught the second man two inches above his silver belt buckle
, just below his belly button.

  He immediately dropped to both knees and reached for the arrow in his gut. The look on his face reminded me of the man I’d shot in the park all those months ago. The look of shock and bewilderment was mixed with a sense of betrayal. This couldn’t be happening to him.

  I was exhilarated, as if I could fly across the room, maybe it’d work I thought. I didn’t feel any remorse about the guy getting shot in the gut like that. He was trying to enslave my family. Trying to take everything we had, to rape and murder to fill some crazy idea. I hoped they were all second guessing the idea of coming after us.

  I used the confused moment to duck into the second floor stairwell, slamming the door behind me to make sure they knew where I went. I ran up the stairs two at a time, hitting the wall on the midway landing before I twisted and set off up the second set of steps to the third floor landing. Susan and Margaret were both ready for the next part. They looked scared but determined.

  Susan had changed a lot these last few months. She no longer appeared remote and detached. She’d become a vital part of our group. Margaret focused down the stairs behind me, ready for whatever came next.

  Each girl stood behind a huge green rubber trashcan. As the downstairs door opened they got behind them and started to push them over. I reached out to help but signaled for them to slow down and wait until more men came through the doorway. I could hear them gathering down below. I knew that the crossbow incident was making them cautious. They slowly started up the stairs. I nodded for the girls to go ahead. Together we pushed over the trash cans and sixty bowling balls, each weighing sixteen pounds started bouncing down the steps. Clicking off walls and each other as they gained momentum. When they reached the first landing they careened off the far wall and down the next flight. I heard the first man yell as he tried to get out of the way. I don’t know what happened after that because the three of us started running up the stairs to the next floor.

  I could imagine what the men were going though as they tried to avoid the oncoming bouncing balls.

  If we were lucky we might have broken a leg or arm, anything to slow them down. The whole point of this plan was to make them realize the cost was too high. To give up and go home and forget they were ever interested in us. If that didn’t work, then we would take them out one by one without them ever getting a chance to get a shot in our direction. I knew we’d never beat them in a stand up fight. So then we weren’t going to have a stand up fight.

  Three fifty five gallon metal drums were ready on the fourth floor but instead of bowling balls, I’d a special treat in store for the men below. I told Susan and Margaret to go on to the roof, the three of us hugged each other and the girls ran up the stairs leaving the roof door propped open like we planned.

  My heart was going to burst out of my chest as I propped open the fourth floor door and listened for the men below. Every part of me was on full alert. I jumped three feet in the air and twisted around when I heard a noise on the stairs above me. It was Claire. “What in the hell are you doing here?” I whispered, trying to look down stairs for the men and back at her at the same time.

  “Everyone’s OK and in place,” She whispered back, ignoring my question totally.

  “Get out of here, they’ll be coming again in a second,” I said.

  “I wanted to warn you, Hectors electrical system got someone on the warehouse roof, so be careful crossing our roof. They might still be there.”

  Hector had stopped up all the drain spouts on the roof next door. He flooded it with about two inches of water and run a cable up from all the car batteries below. Someone must have tripped the switch lowering the cable into that water.

  “If they’re up there I hope they’re fried to a crisp,” I said

  As we stood there looking at each other, a large metal clang reverberated throughout the building followed by a man screaming. I smiled as I pictured the catwalk between the fire escapes letting go and someone dropping three stories to the cement below. I remembered how Schick had laughed when he had loosened that last bolt, I hadn’t thought it would work, obviously it had.

  “Go on Claire,” I said, forcibly turning her around. I was tempted to smack her on the butt to get her going, thankfully I was smarter than that and refrained. It was such a beautiful butt I thought as she walked up the steps. She stopped at the top looking back down at me then both ways before she sprinted out the door.

  A faint wisp of sound floated from the stairwell below, possibly a scrape of cloth against a wall. I ducked behind the metal drum and counted to thirty. I was pushing it with my shoulder when a man rushed around the corner and started up the stairs. He saw the barrel right when it started to tip towards him. The stairway exploded with the sound of his gun and the barrel next to me Pinged in my ear as my barrel finished going over.

  The man had to stop shooting and jumped back around the corner as I popped the lid of the barrel and let it go, fifty gallons of last week’s sewage poured down on him and his partners. The stink was overwhelming, I had to hold my breath as my eyes began to water.

  I took off the tops of the other barrel and sent it tumbling down the stair well also. All three of them rested at the bottom of the first landing having emptied their contents down the stairs.

  I didn’t wait to enjoy the cursing and screaming coming up from below. Instead choosing to scramble up the stairs and onto the roof to get ready for the next phase.

  Confirming that I was alone up there, the kids had evacuated like we planned. I leaned over the edge to make sure everyone was down and hidden.

  Pulling out my machete I cut loose the three rope Jacobs ladders at the back of the building. Watching as they tumble to the street. I then cut the rope bridge loose on the library side and watched it slam into the apartment building next door. We’d left it in place as long as possible in case we needed another exit. It looked like we were good to go.

  I glanced around at the gardens and felt a quick pang of regret. Would we be able to come back? And if we did, what would it be like. Would they destroy everything we’d accomplished? I couldn’t know the answer and it didn’t make things better by worrying about it. The pang however was still there.

  Every exit was gone, the only thing left was a zip line Hector and I’d rigged to the far corner. We’d pulled some telephone cable off of some poles and connected it from a stanchion in the corner of our building down to the pavement across the street and down the block a little ways. It’d taken us days to work out the angles and slack in the line to allow us to hit the street at just the right angle.

  I picked up a leather strap with two handles we’d made for the trip. Standing on the ledge of the building I threw the strap over the cable, grabbed it with both hands and looked at the roof door then waited.

  It wasn’t long before a man started to poke his head out of the doorway; he was covered in brown fluid excrement. I smiled thinking about it. He stayed inside the door well and scanned the area immediately outside, obviously looking for triggers and traps.

  I waited until he saw me standing there on the ledge. He started to bring his gun up as I stepped off the ledge into empty space. The ride was faster than I remembered, the wind blowing my hair back and whipping at my cloths. The leather strap made a zinging sound as it slid down the greased wire. Needless to say I was holding on for dear life as I watched the ground rush towards me. Within a few heartbeats I was down and running as my feet hit the concrete sidewalk.

  I turned to see several men on the roof including Big Jake. He was the only one not covered in grime and goop. They were looking at me in shock and I could have sworn Jake looked a little impressed when he smiled. This time the smile was genuine and not as creepy. Suddenly he started yelling at his men and pointing towards me. I ducked behind a brick storefront column and used a store window reflection to watch the men.

  As I watched, the little guy who’d shot the barrels earlier retrieved a leather strap and threw it over the cable like I’d done
a few seconds ago. He holstered his gun and grabbed the other end of the strap and stepped on the ledge. He looked at Big Jake for permission and when he received an affirmative nod the mad stepped off the roof.

  I’d waited for this moment, picking up the huge metal cutters we’d left in place. Reaching up I cut the zip line. The slick black line immediately went slack and I watched the man try to run in mid-air. He yelled all the way down. Wind milling his arms at the end trying fruitlessly to stop the fall. He hit the ground feet first and crumbled into a small pile of bone and blood. I think what might have been an arm moved for a second but stopped and everything was still.

  The men on the roof stood there in shock, looking back and forth between me and the new lump in the road. These were tough men and used to death, each of them started shooting as I dropped behind the pillar and crawled into the store, making sure not to expose any body parts.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Claire and the others waited for me at the back of the store. She threw herself into my arms and covered my face in warm kisses. Everyone was high fiving and hugging each other but I knew we weren’t done yet. “OK guys, you did great, now comes the hard part. Let’s go” I said.

  Schick/Shuck helped Hector pull the manhole cover away from the opening and started down the metal ladder to the sewer below. Claire held my hand as we watched each person climb down. She reluctantly let go and followed them. I looked around the street to make sure no one was watching then joined them in the dark damp hole.

  They were all clustered around the bottom of the ladder. The tunnel didn’t smell that bad, dank and moldy, but not too bad. At six feet in diameter, I could almost stand straight. It was built as a storm drain to collect and feed the rain runoff into the river. Susan had been the one to come up with it. She said she’d read all about the sewage system for a class project in high school.

  We’d stashed glow sticks and charged flashlights in readiness. I handed out a couple of the luminescent bars to each person and we started down the tunnel away from the river. Hector led the way and I brought up the rear. Claire kept looking back to make sure I was close and reached out a hand for me to hold as we followed everyone else.