Free Rise Again by Ben Tripp Page A

Victoria along the disused logging road down the hill, the one that came up on Route 144 about a half-mile outside Forest Peak, behind the Chevron station. He wouldn’t get there any faster than Danny and Nick could do on foot, because the road was dirt, and mostly washed out. Not ideal terrain for a sedan. It was the way the locals took to dump their trash in the woods below town, down where the first corpse had been discovered by those boys.
    “There’s no hurry,” Ted said over the radio. He was at the gas station. “Things have gotten pretty hectic here. People going feral for a chance at the gas pumps, and there’s more of those screamers in the woods, too.”
    Danny turned to the deputy at her side. “Nick, I think I want you here on Main Street,” Danny said. She had a feeling things were going to get worse before they got better, and if that happened, Danny was going to have to fall back—and town was the only place they could fall back to .
    Dave at last reached the station in the Crown Vic and radioed back to Danny with a slightly better description of the situation than Ted could provide. Nobody was going anywhere, according to Dave: The road was jammed in both directions. The two lanes of southbound travelers were head-to-head with two lanes of northbound traffic coming up from the flatlands.
    There was a fistfight winding down at the Chevron pumps, two angry fathers duking it out while their kids shrieked inside the cars. And there were people on foot coming up the mountain, exhausted by the steep grade, leaning forward as if into a high wind to ease their aching legs. A few SUVs were trying their luck along the steep verge above the road, pushing the limits of what gravity would allow. One of them had already overturned, cutting off the breakdown lane on the uphill side.
    Ted almost wept with relief when Dave showed up. He got into the police car and Dave switched on the lights and the siren and used the nose of the vehicle to push a space through the traffic. Even in this extremity,people still responded to the presence of the law. Ted jumped out in midroad and set up the collapsible sawhorses they kept in the trunk. Between them, the deputies were able to block the road completely, although people were shouting death threats before they were finished.
    The line between law and anarchy was stretching thinner and thinner by the moment.
    Danny went back into the station, ignoring the ongoing complaints from Wulf’s cell, and liberated some hardware from the gun cabinet. The dead man was a lumpy shape beneath the banner. Danny went out through the front room and locked the door behind her. Then she pressed her way up Main Street, making a presence out of her guns, uniform, and hard stare. She turned off between two buildings, reached the alley behind them, and found Amy’s white cube van with Cutter Veterinary Ranch on the side, parked at the back of the Junque Shoppe.
    Danny had a Remington 1100 tactical shotgun in her hands and an old Ruger rifle slung over her shoulder. Amy was busy cramming the last of the pygmy goats into the back of the van. Her white veterinary coat was smeared with animal dung. Danny put her hand on Amy’s shoulder.
    “I got a situation. You remember how to use the police radio?”
    Amy nodded. Danny knew Amy had a similar unit in her veterinary barn; her work often involved angry bears, wounded deer, and rabid coyotes, animals that required the intervention of the law. A rabbit saw she was distracted, leaped out of the van, and zigzagged away down the alley. Amy started after it, but Danny grabbed her arm.
    “Amy, this is more important. I know you prefer animals, but it’s people time. My deputies are all out there trying to keep the peace. I need somebody with a working brain to stick with the radio and figure out what the fuck is going on. Are you with me?”
    “I can’t leave all these little guys stuck in the van—they’ll roast.”
    Danny did a slow burn. This was