Chapter 23

The scary National Guard lady was crystal clear with her instructions. Get Mike out of the fucking tub and get him fucking dressed. Theresa found his clothes laying on the kitchen floor, soaked in water. Taking care not to slip on the wet tile, she quickly gathered them up and wrung them out in the sink as best she could, before bringing them back to the bathroom.

Mike had overcome the worst of his heat exhaustion, but his face and arms were bright red. It was the worst sunburn she’d ever seen, and she could only imagine the pain he was going to feel later that night. He was just finishing off a bottle of Pedialyte when she came in. He tossed aside the empty container and held out his hand to her. When she helped him out of the tub, her eyes drifted downward. She couldn’t help herself. His gorgeous cock demanded her attention, and she couldn’t take her eyes off of it even if she wanted to, which she didn’t. She helped him to dress.

Could he really have meant what he said? she wondered. He was delirious with heat exhaustion. Maybe he wasn’t thinking straight. Maybe he was talking about something else entirely, and she only heard what she wanted to hear. But he’d looked her right in the eye when he said it. The star changed everything.

Stop it! This isn’t the time for that.

Charmagne didn’t come right out and say it, but Theresa could tell she was torqued with adrenaline, like a junkie on speed. Something was about to happen. Something dangerous. All those guardsmen were running around and talking fast. Giving, taking, and passing down orders. Everyone’s faces looked so serious. They normally joked around and called each other names, but there was none of that now. Just ranks and orders. They’d crystallized into a rigid hierarchy of command and control, and everyone knew their role.

Of the flurry of activities she witnessed, however, one stood out from all the rest. The one that told her, more than anything else, that trouble was surely on its way. Charmagne helped the still recovering PFC Skansi rise from her spot in the trauma ward, and supported her as the two made their way down the hill to Leavitt Hall.

When Mike was dressed, they searched for Kali, finding her and Renata huddled together beneath the dormitory’s porte-cochere, because that was the other thing Charmagne told her to do. When you got him fucking dressed, go find Kali, and then don’t do another fucking thing until I tell you. Kali and Renata had several full trash bags with them.

“What is all that?” Theresa asked.

“How is he?” Kali inquired, dodging the question.

“I’m fine,” Mike said, answering for himself. “Is that what I think it is?”

“She said to get it ready, just in case.”

“Where are they?” he asked, scanning the campus.

“Behind that big stone building, I think,” Kali said.

“What the hell is going on?” he asked. “What are we supposed to be getting ready for?”

“I don’t know, Mike. I’m just following orders.”

When Linda spotted the Morgan Creek Police Department cruiser crawling up the lane toward Leavitt Hall, with its emergency lights flashing, she nearly wept with joy and relief. After a week of sheer hell, their rescue had finally arrived. Following the cruiser were two old pickup trucks, each towing a flatbed trailer, and in the beds of those trucks were armed men with body armor, each man with a giant white patch on his chest that read POLICE. At the rear of the procession was Mike’s piece of shit car, with a police light bar mounted to its roof.

She scurried down the driveway from Overton House, waving her arms over her head. When the cruiser spotted her, it turned in her direction and came to a stop as she approached it. A uniformed police officer stepped from the vehicle, hitched his belt, and gave her a giant smile.

“Someone call for the police?” he asked, and Linda fell into his arms.

“Yes! Yes! Oh god, thank you! Thank you!”

The cop hugged her back and chuckled softly. “It’s alright, ma’am. I’m just sorry it took us so long to get here.”

When he said that, Linda really did weep. She buried her face in the policeman’s chest and finally allowed herself to expel the stress and anguish of her horrific ordeal. The cop held her and rubbed her back, telling her that everything would be alright now.

“So many of our students died,” Linda said through emotional sobs, “And so many more of them are still sick. We need help.”

“That’s why we’re here, ma’am. Everyone’s getting evacuated back to Morgan Creek.”

The word ‘evacuate’ brought Linda a fresh bout of relieved tears. Her living nightmare was finally over. The policeman disengaged from her.

“Is everyone up there?” he asked, pointing to Overton House.

“Yes. Our sick students are in the trauma ward, downstairs.”

“Trauma ward?”

“We have a school nurse. And a pharmacist. They’ve been taking care of the girls.”

“A pharmacist?” he asked, and she nodded. “How many students do you have up there?”

“We just did a head count. Forty-four. Four others are missing.”

“Well, I believe we have three of them down at our station right now,” he said, producing three Scirewood student IDs from his front pocket. “Ashley, Layla, and Zoe. They were picked up at one of our checkpoints a couple hours ago.”

The news that they were safe filled Linda with tremendous relief, but the truth of their disappearance was now made perfectly clear. Mike had defied her orders by taking them off campus in his car, to do god only knows what with them. He must have run into the police at the checkpoint, and abandoned them with his car to make his escape on foot.

“There’s something else,” Linda said, briefly glancing back up the hill to where Mike stood. “We, uh, had a sexual assault occur on campus last week, just before the power went out. I caught one of our teachers molesting several of our students. He’s still here. Right now.”

The cop glanced up the hill. “Which one?”

Without looking back again, she said, “He’s standing under the car port, wearing a blue polo shirt. His name’s Mike. Mike Messina.”

“Do you know if he’s armed at all? Does he have a gun or a knife?”

“No, nothing like that. I’ve been keeping him separated from the girls, but I wasn’t able to get rid of him.”

The cop nodded, then looked back and whistled, motioning with his hand. Mike’s requisitioned car dropped out of line to drive around the waiting pickup trucks and pulled up next to the cruiser. A bearded man and a young man, both wearing tactical vests with the word SWAT on it, stepped out.

“What is it, Reggie?” the bearded man asked. “Everything alright?”

“See that fella standing up there in the blue polo shirt?” he asked.

The bearded man nodded. “That’s the one from the checkpoint I was telling you about. Can’t believe he made it back.”

“It looks like we’ve got a sexual assault on our hands. I want to see if we can take this guy into custody without causing a fuss. Follow me up there. Let’s get him separated from the others. You have your bracelets with you?”

“Yes, sir. Hey, wait a second. Isn’t that the gook pharmacist from Doc Murphy’s standing next to him?”

Officer Reggie looked more closely. “No shit. I think you’re right.”

“You think she’s the one who cleaned it out?” the bearded man asked.

“Gotta be. We’ll deal with her later. I want to get this guy into custody first. Get in the car and follow me up.” He turned to Linda. “Ma’am, why don’t you get into the front seat with me, and we’ll get this handled for you, alright?”

“Thank god!” Linda said, walking around the cruiser to get into the passenger seat.

The two police cars drove up the steep driveway, coming to a stop just outside the porte-cochere.

“Just wait in the car,” Officer Reggie told Linda.

The three policemen exited their vehicles and slowly approached Mike.

“Hi!” Reggie said in a friendly voice. “Are you Mike?”

“Yeah,” he said, still looking shaky from heat exhaustion.

“Is it alright if we talk to you for a second, Mike? I have a few questions I need to ask you about.”

“That’s my car,” he said, pointing to his shit pile. “Those guys stole it from me, and they kidnapped our students! They left me out there to die!”

Reggie’s hand dropped to his sidearm. “Alright, calm down. We’ll get that all sorted out. I just need you to come with me for a second.”

The other two cops, the bearded one and the young one, approached from the flanks with their rifles trained on Mike. They waved their hands at Theresa, Kali, and Renata, directing them to move away from him.

“What is this?” Mike asked. “I didn’t do anything!”

“Alright, Mike. I believe you. I just need to take you into custody right now, for your own protection, okay? You got him?” he asked the other two cops.

“Got him,” the bearded man confirmed.

“I need you to turn around now, and put your hands on top of your head, Mike. Can you do that for me?”

“But I didn’t do anything!” he insisted.

“Mike! Listen to me! I need you to turn around and put your hands on top of your head! I’m not fucking around with you! Do it, or you’re going to get yourself shot!”

Mike stared at them in disbelief, helpless and obviously scared. He looked around, but he was utterly alone now. The three women had been pushed off to the side. He was trapped. That child raping son of a bitch was finally going to get the justice he deserved!

The roar of powerful diesel motors drew everyone’s attention. From behind Leavitt Hall, the Humvee and large, green Army truck tore straight across the lawn and climbed the hill as if it weren’t even there. Officer Reggie drew his service weapon, and the three policemen turned to train their weapons on this new, obvious threat.

The young soldier, Corporal Ibarra, manned a machine gun on top of the Humvee that Linda had never seen before. Even more surprising, a second machine gun had been mounted to the hood of the Army truck, from which one of the flat panel windscreens had been removed. Specialist Draper manned the weapon from the cab’s passenger side, and next to him sat the sick guardsman, PFC Skansi, holding several belts of ammunition. Both military vehicles came to a skidding halt, just behind the police cars.

All of the soldiers were dressed in full military gear. Bulky body armor and tactical helmets. That hick lesbian, Staff Sergeant Pollard, hopped down from the cab of the truck with an M16 in her hands, and Sergeant Chapman did the same, taking cover behind the Humvee’s open door. Corporal Ibarra spun the turret to cover their flank, keeping his evil looking weapon trained on the two trucks at the bottom of the hill.

“Stand down, officer!” Pollard shouted. “This is an Army National Guard operation, and that man there is a military asset. Instruct your men to lower their weapons. He’s coming with us!”

“That man is under arrest for the sexual assault of a minor!” Officer Reggie shouted back. “We’re taking him into custody!”

“Negative, officer! You will holster your service weapon and sling those rifles immediately, or you will be fired upon!”

“Staff Sergeant!” Ibarra called from the machine gun turret.

She turned to look down the hill. The four policemen in the beds of the trucks, and the two in the cabs, hopped down and readied their weapons.

“If they try to approach, light ‘em up!” Pollard ordered. “You’re weapons free.”

“Copy that, Staff Sergeant!”

She turned her attention back to the three policemen standing in front of Mike. “I’m not gonna ask you again. Lower your weapons, or I’ll order my men to open fire. You got three seconds to comply.”

Officer Reggie hesitated a little too long.

“Take out Mike’s car,” Pollard ordered.

Linda covered her ears and ducked her head, screaming as loud as she could, when the belt-fed machine gun mounted on the hood of the Army truck opened up with a deafening barrage of gunfire, riddling the car next to her with a hail of whizzing, pinging bullets. Glass exploded from the back window, the light bar shattered into a million pieces, yellow foam erupted from the seats like popping popcorn, and the tires burst with deafening pops. As Specialist Draper raked the vehicle with the powerful weapon, everyone standing under the porte-cochere ducked down or hit the deck, and covered their heads to shield themselves from flying debris.

When the awful noise finally stopped, Linda’s ears rang, but she could just make out the sound of Specialist Draper reloading amid the spent brass that rolled off the hood of the truck and bounced on the concrete driveway behind her. Shaking terribly, she slowly sat up in her seat and gawked at the damage. The car was a complete, smoking wreck, and starting to catch fire.

Pollard motioned with her hand, and Sergeant Chapman emerged from behind the Humvee to follow her forward. With their weapons braced tightly against their shoulders, and held firmly against their cheeks, they quickly maneuvered past Linda to train their weapons on the three prone police officers.

“Move, and I’ll blow your brains through the back of your fucking skulls,” Pollard announced, and the three men pushed their arms forward and opened their empty hands. “Get in the fucking Beast, Mike! Move it!”

Mike hesitated only a moment, then carefully picked his way forward past the cops, staring at his wrecked car as he passed it by. When he was safely inside, Pollard waved her hand at Kali and Renata.

“Let’s go! Both of you, in the Humvee!”

The two women hustled past Linda’s window with the four bags of medicine slung over their shoulders, and disappeared into the Humvee with Mike. Pollard and Chapman then slowly retreated backward to their respective vehicles, keeping their weapons trained on the police the entire time. When both of them were back behind the steering wheels, they reversed down the hill to the lane, and then rolled past the two pickup trucks, with Ibarra keeping the six policemen hiding behind them pinned down, until they disappeared from view around the promontory point.

“You have to go back!” Mike shouted past Ibarra’s legs from the Humvee’s cramped back seat.

“Negative, Mike!” Chapman shouted over the vehicle’s loud engine and howling road noise. “My orders are to exfil you to a secure location, and then move to an observation point to monitor the road!”

“But we can’t just leave the rest of them behind!”

Chapman didn’t respond. Mike’s heart still pounded in his chest, and his throat was so dry he could hardly swallow. They were going to arrest him, back there! And then that machine gun. And his car! What the hell was happening!

A mile down the hill, Chapman turned onto a narrow dirt lane Mike had never noticed before in all the months he’d commuted back and forth down that road. The Humvee bounced along deep ruts, left behind by other vehicles in the distant past, after some long ago rainstorm. After another quarter mile, Chapman brought the Humvee to a stop in front of a dilapidated old mobile home trailer.

Charmagne stopped the deuce next to them, and she, Draper, and Skansi exited the cab with their weapons ready. After a quick check inside the trailer, Charmagne emerged in the doorway and waved her hand.

“Everybody out,” Chapman said.

The five of them dismounted from the Humvee and hurried to the trailer, with Chapman in the lead, and Ibarra covering their rear. Both men took positions on either side of the trailer’s door as Mike, Kali, and Renata funneled inside.