Still, with all the tension and trouble around his presence would’ve been a comfort. It didn’t seem fair that she couldn’t at least say hi every once in a while, let him know she was still alive and doing okay. And since she was avoiding him it was awkward to hang out with his family, too, so that was more of her close friends she was isolated from. Even being with Linda wasn’t like it had been, although the girl wasn’t the easiest friend at the best of times.
Regardless of how people walked on eggshells around Deb, not to mention acting like her emotional baggage impacted her ability to think, she wasn’t stupid or a child. She knew Linda well enough to know that when the girl had come to warn her about Trev’s intervention, the truth might be slanted by Linda’s perspective. Deb could also guess at where the girl might’ve smudged the facts.
Yes, Trev’s family were nice people and they cared about her. They might be worried for Trev, but they wouldn’t leave Deb out for the wolves even if they thought it was the best thing for him. Which they didn’t. They just saw a problem and agreed it needed to be addressed. Which Deb was just fine with, since she wasn’t blind to the problem either.
In a way they really had helped her by suggesting she and Trev take a break. It had given her a chance to straighten out the parts of her thinking that’d been going bendy. And hopefully before too long she could try again and things would work better.
Although now wasn’t really the time to be thinking of all that.
Not that the four men huddled around the newly started campfire a few hundred yards away looked like too much of a threat. None of them were armed with anything more dangerous than a sturdy walking stick, and all looked dirty and hungry, bracing themselves for the night’s chill as the sun sank towards the horizon. They’d set up camp beside a convenient copse of tangled evergreens, which had given them easy access to plenty of deadwood for their fire.
Brandon led the way as the patrol cautiously approached, weapons ready. At the sight of them the refugees warily came to their feet, hands held out unthreateningly to the sides. That made Deb feel even more confident that this wasn’t going to turn violent.
“No need to arrest us,” one of the men called. He had an ugly fading bruise across one cheek, as if he’d been struck hard in the face within the last few days. That tickled Deb’s memory for some reason, although she wasn’t sure why. Or maybe it was just the open indication of past violence. Still, it put her slightly on edge as he continued. “We’re just camping the night.”
“Fair enough,” Brandon called back. “But you’re too close to Aspen Hill. I need you to pack up and head north, and not stop until you’re at least a mile away.”
The men grumbled amongst themselves. “We didn’t know,” their spokesman whined. “We don’t want any trouble, we’re just trying to get by.”
Brandon shrugged. “That’s fine. Just go ahead and move on, and stay at least three miles away from town in the future.”
“How do we even know how far the place is?” another refugee cut in. “We haven’t even seen this mythical town of yours.”
Deb tensed, hefting her weapon even though it seemed impossible that the men would try anything. The patrol was more than far enough away to respond in time if the refugees charged them. So why were they being so cantankerous?
“You don’t need to know. If you’re worried about getting too close you can give us a wide berth and make things easier on both of us.” Brandon was obviously losing patience.
“Yeah but we didn’t know we were getting close,” the spokesman said, still whining. “You’re going to make us pack up after we’ve already got a fire going and everything, with sundown only a few hours away?”
Brandon waved his gun to indicate for the refugees to get going. “Yes you didn’t know, you’ve already told us. That doesn’t change the fact that you can’t be here. You’re too close to Aspen Hill, you need to move now.”
“Why?” the refugee shouted, going from petulant to angry himself in a flash. “We’re just sitting here around a fire trying not to starve and freeze to death! You’re already keeping us out of your town and not giving us anything, why do you have to harass us way out here?”
The patrol leader sighed, anger giving way to weariness. “Look, you can just as easily camp a mile north of here, outside our patrol range. Then we wouldn’t have—”
Brandon’s words cut off in a grunt, followed by a terrible gurgling sound. Deb turned and saw in blank horror that he had an arrow buried in his neck and was slumping to his knees, rifle clattering to the ground as he lifted his hands towards the wound in stunned incomprehension.
Feeling a sort of numb disbelief, she turned away from the fire towards the nearby copse where the arrow had come from. To her shock she saw over two dozen men with crude weapons like baseball bats, golf clubs, and metal pipes with tape handles had burst from hiding places and were closing the distance towards her patrol, already more than halfway to them.
Screaming a warning to her three remaining companions, she lifted her AK-47 and snapped off a shot. A man went down clutching his stomach, adding his own screams to the confusion. Deb started to aim for a man carrying a baseball bat who’d nearly reached her, but he swung and managed to hit the end of her rifle, knocking it out of her hands.
Somehow she was able to duck away from the bat’s backswing as the man stumbled past, diving for her dropped weapon. Around her she heard a few brief spats of gunfire, quickly followed by thuds and screams as her patrol was overwhelmed and beaten to the ground. And the original four men at the fire had also joined the fray as soon as her and her companions’ backs were turned.
It had been a trap, and they’d literally walked right up to it.
Before Deb could reach her gun a solid kick to her side knocked her away. She curled up around the agonizing injury, thoughts of going for her weapon momentarily forgotten in a haze of pain as more kicks followed to her thighs, hips, butt, lower back, and finally a vicious one to her crotch from behind.
That last one made her involuntarily flip over onto her back still huddled in a ball, tearing a cry of pain from between her clenched teeth. She looked up dazedly to see the man with the bat looming over her. He’d been happy to kick and stomp on her with his boot, but now he hesitated in bringing the bat down on her head.
Not from any kindness or unwillingness to seriously hurt her, of course; he was leering down at her with the same expression the blockheads who’d taken her prisoner had worn. The look she’d seen far too often during those nightmarish first days in their hands, which she remembered only as a horrific blur she did her best to avoid thinking about.
He wanted her relatively unharmed for his own sickening reasons.
But his moment of hesitation was all she needed. The other bandits were still swarming around the rest of her patrol mates, swinging their brutal weapons long past the point of being necessary to the accompaniment of noises she didn’t want to think about. Another horrific event that would feature in her nightmares if she survived this.
And if she wanted to do that then this would be her one and only chance, since once they’d played out their aggression on the bodies of her friends they’d turn their attention on her for other malevolent desires.
Her attacker shifted the bat to one hand, reaching for her with the other. “Don’t struggle, and maybe you’ll—”
Deb drew her pistol from its concealed holster behind the waistband of her jeans, disguising the motion with the all too sincere cringing she was doing. Before the man even realized what was happening she shot him in the face point-blank.