A man behind her said, "What the fuc—" I shot him in the head. A man two treads behind him took three silenced 9mm rounds in his chest.
I grabbed Elizabeth before she could react and scream. "It's me, Tom Jacobs. We're here for you." She threw her arms around my neck and sobbed as she hugged me tight against her. "Do you know if anyone else is in here?" I asked.
Through tears and sobs she blubbered, "I don't think so." As we spoke, each body took another headshot.
We hurried to the back door as she held my hand in a death grip, afraid of being left, I supposed. Outside, my three friends were surprised at the sight of Elizabeth.
I cut the jubilation short and asked her, "There are six cabins. We know which one is the kitchen and eating area. Who is in the other five?" I moved from the shadow and cover of the barn's roof overhang and scratched the cabin locations in the mud as rain drenched us.
"All the prisoners are kept in this one." She indicated a cabin behind the kitchen. "A man and a woman stay in there all night with us. The little kids sleep in the loft. They'll be inside out of the rain playing now. One of our girls and two guards should be there now. They make us take care of the kids. At night we bed down on pallets on the floor. Only the guards have beds; unless they drag one of us there with them."
Richard asked, "It's still early; will the doors be barred or locked by this time?"
In the faint light, Elizabeth shook her head. "No. They bar the doors when we bed down for the night."
I turned to Richard and pointed on the ground. "You and Byron take this building and then this one and this one. Elizabeth is going with us to the kitchen." I turned to her and gripped her hand as I rethought our plan. "We need you and the other young women to take the younger kids into the woods. You'll need to carry the little ones and keep all of them quiet. The rest of our group is waiting there. Can you do it?"
"To get away from here? Yes, we can do it."
I walked her to the corner of the barn nearest the woods and pointed to where they should go.
Before the five of us reached the opposite corner of the barn, I heard a low growl. Around the corner, a wet mongrel snarled even louder. Its feet were planted wide and its chest was low to the ground. It barked twice before a single bullet in its head caused it to emit a low moan and roll over on its side in slow motion. I checked my watch; it showed five-forty-five. With cloud cover blocking the moon, darkness could envelop us around six-thirty.
Richard split off from us. He and Byron ran hunched low with short, fast steps for the nearest cabin. My team went the other way to the kitchen.
The three of us slipped and stumbled through the mud. Smoke from the kitchen stove hung low due to an inversion of the air currents heavy with moisture. I noticed Elizabeth was bare-foot; my moccasins were soaked through and filled with water inside. I nudged her onto the porch and then motioned for her to go inside and quickly step to the right side. She nodded then pushed the door open.
I heard, "Well, the little whor—."
Mitch and I burst through the doorway. Mitch kicked the door shut. .I recognized Molly and Merriam and made a quick guess as to another captive. Mitch shot a woman who had a gun on her hip and a man sitting at a table in a corner raising a fork to his mouth. I shot another woman who stood and snarled something hateful at me. A third younger woman raised her hands and said, "Surrender, I'm unarmed." My weapon went SPLURT, and a bloody hole appeared on her forehead
Elizabeth was with the three captives explaining about us. We told them our plan for rescuing the children, and then we left the kitchen.
At the prisoner's cabin, three of our women stood against the wall on the porch. I whispered to Mitch and Elizabeth. She looked at us then confidently flung the door open and barged in.
As the door opened, I yelled, "Get in there, Bitch!" Mitch and I charged in while Elizabeth ran across the room to a stairway on the right. The door slammed shut behind me.
I tried to stop with my machine gun pointed at a woman on the right. Mud on my soaked moccasins caused me to slip on the slick, worn wood floor; my legs danced to keep me up right. Mitch's MP-5 spat several times at his targets, a man and a woman. The woman in front of me reached to her left and pulled a revolver from a holster hanging on a straight wood chair. Her right arm flung toward me as I balanced and triggered a burst of shots at her upper torso. The pistol fell from her hand and dropped to the floor at the same time she did. Elizabeth clasped a young woman closely. When the shooting ended, they ran up the steps.
I opened the door and brought the other women inside. They raced up the stairs to the loft and helped with the children. Children began coming down and paused on the lower stair treads. They stared at us and the bodies with eyes wide and curiosity in their expressions. Several recognized me and Mitch and grinned. There
