Gaby exchanged a nod with Nate, and he hurried into the back where they were keeping Mason. She snatched up her rifle leaning against the counter and grabbed her tactical pack from the floor. The weight of the ammo in the bag instantly reassured her.
A soldier who complains about too much ammo is a dead one, right, Will?
Danny was still peeking out the blinds, looking in the direction of the gunfire. The familiar crack of the high-powered rifle, followed by the torrent of pop-pop-pop of automatic return fire. Someone, somewhere, was wasting a lot of ammo. Will, she thought, would never approve.
“Danny, anything?” she asked.
He shook his head. “Can’t see shit, but they’re not outside, and that’s the good news. The bad news is that I can’t see shit from in here. Did I mention that?”
“It sounds like it’s coming from the highway. You think it might be Mercer’s people?”
“That would be my guess.” Danny glanced over as Nate brought Mason out from the back, keeping the shorter man in front of him. “Looks like we might be putting your supposed importance to test sooner than you think, Mason ol’ chum.”
“Looking forward to it,” Mason said.
She looked past the collaborator and at Nate behind him. “Ready?”
“Good to go,” Nate nodded.
Nate’s pack jutted out from behind his back, making him look like a hunchback. Unlike hers, his was bulkier, because aside from his own ammo, he was also carrying most of their emergency rations. They had more supplies in the truck outside, but they had learned the hard way it was a good idea to carry whatever you could on top of that because you never knew when you might lose your vehicle to an A-10 Warthog on a strafing run.
“Okay,” Danny said, “let’s blow this three-horse town.”
He rushed into the back hallway, Nate and Mason turning and following close behind, while Gaby brought up the rear. She glanced behind her at the closed blinders one last time before crossing the lobby after the others.
Outside the bank the firefight continued, the booming crack! of a bolt-action rifle now overlapping with the pop-pop-pop of return fire. Whoever was out there, they sounded determined to end one another.
Better them than us.
It was an older model red Toyota pickup, one that Danny had found in someone’s garage after the vehicle they had been using since Starch died on them. The Toyota looked nearly as beat up as the building it was hidden in, but its owner had kept it in good condition and it worked without any trouble once they replaced the battery and fed siphoned fuel into its tank.
It was still parked behind the Gallant First Bank where they had left it, dented cab hood reflecting back the sun. It wasn’t exactly the prettiest thing in town, and even before The Purge most thieves wouldn’t have looked twice at it.
Nate opened the back door and shoved Mason inside, then slid in beside him. Mason’s legs were free, but his wrists were bound with duct tape to keep him from getting any ideas. She kept expecting the man to make a run for it a dozen times since they began their trek, but he seemed oddly content to be their hostage, though she didn’t for one second believe that.
Don’t trust him. Whatever you do, don’t trust him.
Gaby tossed her pack on the floor before climbing into the front passenger seat while Danny settled in behind the wheel. He put the key in the ignition but didn’t turn it right away. Instead, he rolled down the window and listened, except there wasn’t anything to hear.
It was suddenly very quiet again.
“Sounds like someone finally won the brouhaha,” Danny said.
“I don’t hear any running vehicles,” Gaby said.
“If they called for reinforcements, it would take a while for them to get here,” Nate said. “Port Arthur’s a long way off.”
“Unless they have people closer…”
“There’s always that.”
She looked over at Danny. “Maybe we should be gone before they show up.”
“Works for me,” Mason chimed in from the backseat.
“Shut up,” Nate said and slapped Mason in the back of the head. “When we wanna hear a peep out of you, we’ll ask.”
Mason grunted and looked as if he wanted to say something back, but clenched his teeth in silence instead. Gaby smiled. It was a rare thing to see Nate so aggressive, but she couldn’t help herself; she liked it when he was.
Danny still hadn’t turned the key in the ignition. He continued leaning against the steering wheel and staring out at the empty street in front of them. Until the gunfight a few minutes ago, Gallant was the definition of a dead town. They hadn’t found a single soul living here when they arrived, not even an animal or two.
“What are you thinking?” Gaby asked.
“Cheeseburgers,” Danny said.
“Cheeseburgers?”
“With chives. And bacon.”
“And how does that help us?”
“It doesn’t, but you asked what I was thinking, and I was thinking about a nice big juicy cheeseburger.”
“With chives and bacon.”
“Yup.” He sat back, the car’s torn upholstery squishing under him. “When this is over, I think I’m going to open a cheeseburger joint. Call it Danny’s Cheeseburgers.”
“A little on the nose, don’t you think?”
“What can I say, I like to make a splash,” Danny said just before he turned the key in the ignition.
The truck didn’t roar; it meowed to life, but with the absence of any other sounds at the moment, the churning engine might as well be a loud monstrous bellow alerting anyone with ears to not just their existence but their location as well.
“Eyes wide, ears open, and guns hot,” Danny said as he put the truck in gear and slowly eased it out from behind the bank, peeking left then right at the empty streets, before turning right and pointing them south.
They hadn’t gone more than a mile down the road, passing a series of empty buildings and storefronts to both sides of them, when she heard a new noise and looked at her side mirror and sighed.
“Danny,” she said.
“I see them,” he said.
“Ah, man,” Nate said as he twisted around in his seat and glanced out the rear windshield.
“Better step on it, sport,” Mason said, though Gaby didn’t hear anything that even resembled triumph in his voice. If anything, he might have sounded a little…anxious?
The pickup gained speed while Gaby put her M4 in her lap and flicked the safety off, then stuck her head out the open window and looked back down the street.
It was the same Jeep from the interstate, she was sure of it, and it was far enough behind them that she couldn’t see the driver’s face, though she could make out a second figure in the front passenger seat. A part of her knew it was too much to expect they could just exit Gallant the way they had entered it — unnoticed — but she’d clung to the hope anyway.
“Company!” she shouted.
“Tell me something I don’t know!” Danny shouted back.
He hadn’t even gotten the word know out when a second car turned into the street behind the Jeep, and for just a brief second she entertained the possibility that it was going to ram the smaller vehicle in front of it, knock it into one of the buildings, and allow them to escape. Instead the Jeep’s passenger waved at the truck, which picked up speed and pulled up alongside it.
“Danny! More company!” she shouted.
“Yee haw! Now it’s a party!” he shouted back.
Sunlight bounced off the truck’s gleaming dark skin, and it was impossible to miss the machine gun mounted on top of its cab. A man stood behind the weapon, literally clinging to it to prevent the speeding vehicle from shedding him like some unwelcomed pest. He looked like a rag doll back there, and no amount of wishful thinking on her part ended with him flying through the air.