Free Human Extinction Level Loss (Book 3): Liberation by Philip A. McClimon Page B

long shot.
    Next to Jacob, Tommy played with the binoculars. He had not said a word since last night. Beverly knew he had shut down, that he wasn’t processing. She hated Jacob, not for what he said, but for the way he said it. She remembered some of the training her husband had received from the Police Chaplain, about how to break the news to the families of the fallen. Telling someone their loved one was dead was like handing them a boulder. You did it slowly, passing it on with care and deliberation. It was good advice and what she was trying to do with Tommy. What you didn’t do was throw it at them. That would only crush them under the weight of it. What Jacob had done made her furious, made her want to get away from him. The fact that she felt trapped only added to her frustration. They couldn’t strike out on their own, the threat was too real. She had tried to steal Jacob’s Jeep, but he had thwarted that and probably would again. Then what, back to being zip-tied in the Jeep, if they were lucky? She felt powerless and it was a feeling she hated, almost as much as the emptiness that spread through her soul. Jacob said he was heading West, and he was, but all she could do was wait while he tried to silence his demons, one shot at a time. One of those shots rang out and scraped at her already raw nerves. She pulled her knees tighter as Tommy scanned the valley, trying to locate the fallen.
    “Which one did you get, Sheriff Miller?” he asked, keeping the binoculars pressed to his eyes. “Tell me which one you are going for so I can see it.”
    Beside him, Jacob did not acknowledge Tommy. He put a line through a name, then went back to staring through the scope. Tommy lowered the binoculars and looked over at Jacob to see if he had heard him. When he got no response he too went back to scanning the horde. Beverly looked down at her son.
    “Tommy, come over here, son. You don’t need to see what’s down there,” she said.
    Tommy lowered the binoculars and looked at his mother, rolling his eyes.
    “They’re just zombies, mom,” he said, turning back to the valley. He looked through the binoculars and scanned the horde.
    Beverly wiped a tear from her eye, having not the strength to make her son obey her.
    The progress of the horde below seemed to match the slow march of the sun as it moved across the heavens. Still, all Beverly could do was wait, wait and hope that what Tommy said was true.
     
    Above them, the sun began its descent. Below them, the horde began to thin. Jacob had not taken another shot and the intervening hours midst the warm breezes had eaten away at her resolve. Beverly lay on her back and dozed. It was not a shot from Jacob’s rifle that brought her back, but the sharp intake of breath from Tommy. It was the sound a mother responds to, no matter how asleep she is. Beverly opened her eyes and sat up. She looked over at Tommy and saw that he was frozen still. He seemed to stare at nothing in particular, the binoculars neither to his face or set down, held only in the intervening space between. Beverly was not even sure she heard what she did. She looked over at Jacob for some kind of confirmation, but he only stared through his scope and waited. She brought her gaze back to Tommy. He was breathing. His breath was not the gentle respiration of a resting ten year old, but the rapid hyperventilation of someone afraid, someone who was only just now realizing their life had come apart. She watched in rapt horror as Tommy shook, struggling to get the strap of the binoculars from around his neck.
    “Tommy, baby-” Beverly began, but her words cut short. Tommy freed himself from the strap and shoved the binoculars away. He got to his feet and turned, but did not come to her, did not look at her, did not see anything but the blinding vision below. Beverly reached out for him as he passed her, but he broke from her grasp and ran. Beverly jumped to her feet and pursued. Sensing the disturbance, Jacob