Everything About You
They reached the facility security gate and it opened silently to E.Willamette St. There was no activity along this thoroughfare, as it had restricted access but Nathan could see the distant flashing of police vehicles and the crush of traffic ahead.
There was a light rain falling as they reached the intersection and Agent Halburg eased the Tahoe carefully into the crowded street and they joined the fray of panic evolving in Colorado Springs.
If they hoped to make a smooth trip back to Cortez, it was quickly dashed as police and National Guard troops worked to channel people back to towns or cities where they originated or back to their homes in neighborhoods close by.
It took twenty minutes just to get to the check point that was set up at a freeway entrance. Halburg and Ramiro got their badges ready as they were stopped, ultimately pulled off the road, briefly questioned concerning the nature of their assignment and destination and were given permission to proceed.
The guards waved them through, and they entered the freeway but if they thought they might make up time there, the mood instantly changed to frustration as just beyond the next overpass there was major gridlock from an accident leaving only one lane open. Some vehicles waited to get through legally while others took the grassy median down to the service road.
Lara stared straight ahead holding her breath as she watched an unfolding horror take place in the middle of the chaos.
The wreckage was quickly overrun by the snarling, flesh ripping monsters that had been observed in news clips from around the globe.
Ramiro and Nathan both stared transfixed. Ramiro leaned forward in his seat. "What the actual fuck! Halberg, we need to get our shit the hell out of here!"
Lara joined the ranks of those fleeing off the side of the freeway and guided the Tahoe down the gentle slope and into what may as well have been a parking lot.
Ramiro shook his head. "We've got to find another route out of here," he lamented.
"I've got one," Halburg agreed, "just a little further down. Hold on guys we're about to make a sharp turn," she said as she made a hard right, shooting up a side road through the city.
"This road will take us through the suburbs and out past the city limits. We can work our way back to 160 and get back on route past the mayhem.
Nathan grabbed the panic bar and held on as she swerved around traffic along the sideroads of the city until they turned back through a stately neighborhood. It was eerily quiet here along the tree-lined avenues and Halburg drove on taking various turns as she skirted the mobs they had left behind.
On the other side of the small city of Penrose where Halburg wanted to get on Interstate 25 from Hwy 50 and back to 160, she slowed down for what seemed to be an altercation in the intersection ahead. Several trucks surrounding a large box truck were stopped haphazard on the road.
"Dammit," Ramiro muttered taking his gun out of his holster and loading one in the chamber.
Halburg pulled her Glock and placed it on the seat between them. They stopped a good distance away, trying to figure out what was going on when a shot rang out and glanced off the Tahoe on Ramiro's side.
"What the hell!" Ramiro whispered as Halburg popped a bullet in her chamber. In the light of the headlights they could make out several men surrounding what looked like a truck loaded with supplies of water and other items, probably food. Halburg cursed under her breath as she realized they were all armed with automatic rifles and she started to throw it in reverse, but Ramiro yelled at her to gun it right through them and get the hell out of there.
"If we rush them it will break them up and we can push past them! If we back up, they may come after us," he reasoned.
So, she did just that, and floored it. True to Ramiro's idea, they scattered like flies. Nathan hit the seat and lay flat not having a great desire to die watching anarchy unfold around him, and with no weapon he was a sitting duck and he knew it.
Up front Ramiro kept his Glock aimed as they went through the intersection and yelled, "We're clear!" as they passed by people obviously being held up, but Halburg knew they didn't have the manpower or arms to help.
Nathan sat up and looked out the back window just as one of the gunmen stepped out into the road behind them and leveled his AR. Nathan yelled for them to take cover barely hitting the floor of the Tahoe as gunfire peppered the vehicle with bullets. The back window shattered, and he heard Halburg scream as Ramiro fell across the middle arm rest into her lap. She floored it again as another round of rapid fire blasted the road all around them.
"Keep driving!" Nathan bellowed, brushing window glass from his hair and shoulders.
Halburg punched it turning on Hwy 50 and she didn't slow down until they reached Interstate 25 where she finally pulled over in the parking lot of a small strip center. She shoved Ramiro's body back up into his seat and sat there trying to catch her breath.
Looking at the bullet holes that riddled the back of Ramiro's seat he asked her if she was okay and he got out and came around to her door. She assured him she hadn't been hit as she got out to stand beside him and look around. No one had followed them as far as she could tell, and she went to the back hatch retrieving a jacket and a solar blanket.
"Help me get him in the back seat."
Together she and Nathan pulled Ramiro's lifeless body out of the front seat and Nathan heaved his body over his shoulder and sat him in the back. Halburg went to the other side and pulled him across the seat and covered his body with the solar blanket.
She threw the jacket at Nathan and told him to put it on. "It was Ramiro's. You're going to need it until you can get a change of clothes," she said with a nod. She looked Nathan over. "How about you? Are you good?" she breathed out.
Nathan looked down at his shirt covered with Ramiro's blood and decided he better put it on. "Yeah, I'm good," he answered. But he wasn't. "What will we do with Ramiro?" he asked trying to perceive driving all the way to Cortez with his body in the back seat.
"There is an army base hospital a few miles down I.25 in Pueblo. I'll have to take him there," she confided and thinking about it she got back in the driver's seat and accessed her satellite phone to call the base and let them know what happened and that she would be there shortly.
Nathan was rattled but remained calm. He climbed in front with her and she sat there with her hands on the steering wheel.
"Alternate plan?" he asked tentatively.
"No, O'Connor. Go ahead and get in that bag and get out the chemical masks. There should be two. There should also be a 9mm at the bottom. Get it out as well."
Nathan unzipped the duffel and did as she requested. "Where do you want the pistol, in the glovebox?"
"Actually," she hesitated, "I'm deputizing you. I know it's not conventional, but it's necessary. As you've seen for yourself. Until we get to Cortez, we're working together. Go ahead and strap that on your belt."
Nathan was not going to ask twice. He unfastened his belt and slid the holster on, released the clip from the gun, pulled the short barrel back to see if the chamber was clear and shoved the clip back in, finally securing it in the holster. When he looked up, Agent Halburg was staring.
"Your time with the NRA certainly paid off, O'Connor," she commented.
"How do you know I'm in the NRA?"
"I know everything about you, O'Connor. It's part of the job."
She put the Tahoe in drive and Nathan sat back in the seat. Agent Halburg was a woman with many layers he concluded as they drove off. He wondered how close she and Ramiro had been, but he couldn't tell because common among people of her occupation she hid her emotions well and he sure wasn't about to ask her.
"This will only put us off route for about an hour," she said interrupting his random thoughts. "But I want Ramiro's body returned to his family. He deserves that final respect."
Nathan said nothing in response, knowing it wouldn't change anything, and they rode on in that consenting silence that seemed to indicate she knew it.