The Harvesting (23 page)

“
Perfect, gasoline to keep
it interesting and located in exactly the opposite direction of the
antenna. You’re good,” I told Kiki.

She laughed. “Well, we Hamletville
girls are hardy stock.”

A moment later Ethel and Summer came
up on the porch, croquet wickets in hand. They were both smiling. I
wished then that our escape to the HarpWind had been just that, an
escape. How different things would be now.

“
Layla, honey, that lady
told you to leave off your guns,” Ethel said.

“
I was going hunting,” I
replied.

“
Okay, honey, just be
careful,” she said, patting my arm as she passed by.

“
You be careful,” I told
her. “Both of you,” I added, giving Summer a knowing
glance.

She nodded and followed her mother
inside.

Moments later Jamie and Buddie joined
us.

“
We got shooed off,” Jamie
said. “Had to play dumb.”

“
We know. We heard,” I
replied, and then Kiki and I told what we had discovered. We
decided then to head back to Jamie and my room to hatch out a plan
somewhere less public. After some discussion, we decided we needed
help. That is where Will and Dusty came in. After briefing them on
the full story, and watching their jaws drop, we convinced them to
help. An hour later, we were ready. It was already getting late so
we knew we had to hurry.

“
All I get to do is yell
‘fire?’ That’s no fun,” Will said. “Let me blow something
up.”

“
Maybe next time,” I
replied with a laugh.

We kept it light, but all of us knew
that if anyone was caught, there would be hell to pay.

Though Dusty still seemed unclear as
to why we were destroying property, he agreed to come along to
cover Buddie. His eyes were wide as he’d listened to Jamie tell how
they’d tried to take me out and kidnap the girls, but I could see
he still was not sure what to think. I didn’t blame him.

Jamie headed out to set the shed on
fire while Dusty and Buddie, Buddie’s bow in tow, headed to the
side of the building closest to the antenna. Lucky for us, there
was a stand of trees on the antenna end of the hotel. From there,
Buddie could make a shot. He’d secured a metal line to one of his
arrows and had a small winch he was going to use as a make-shift
pulley to bring the antenna down.

“
I only get one shot,”
Buddie said as he showed us his creation.

“
I’m not worried. You’ll
be accurate,” I smiled encouragingly.

Kiki and I headed to the employee
stairwell again. To our luck, no one was around. We jotted down the
same hallway to our hiding spot in the laundry room without
detection.

Then, we waited. After awhile we heard
yelling. Will.

Static on the walkie blared. “Front
desk, what’s all that noise?” we heard a man ask.

“
The god damned shed is on
fire,” someone replied through static.

“
Fuck,” I heard the man
swear.

“
Better get on it. She’ll
be up soon,” a woman replied.

A moment later we saw a man storm down
the hallway.

“
Complication,” I
whispered to Kiki and motioned for her to stay hidden.

I slid out of the room and snuck a
look into the office. The woman we had seen earlier was sitting
there looking at some papers. Her back was toward me. There was
only one option. Moving quickly, I rushed the room, grabbed the
woman by the back of the head and slammed her head on the desk.
Knocked unconscious, she fell to the floor.

I motioned Kiki. We ran into the radio
room.

“
Let me cut power,” Kiki
said and then, with a knife and screwdriver in hand, Kiki slid
under the table. A moment later, the lights on the radio went dim.
She then started pulling wires and breaking something that sounded
like glass. She slid back out from under the table and looked the
radio over. She grinned. “Kill the antenna,” she told
me.

Unsheathing the shashka, I cut the
wire. Kiki then pulled a couple of small electrical components out
of the radio, sticking them in her pocket, and smiled at me.
“Done,” she said.

“
That was easy,” I
answered.

Just then, we heard a loud crashing
sound coming from outside. There was a tug on the wire running
through the window. Moments later, the wire zipped away.

“
Let’s go,” I
whispered.

We ran down the hallway toward the
employee stairwell. When we opened it, however, we heard noise
coming up from below. We closed the door and headed down the hall
in the other direction but voices rose coming toward us.

“
Try the doors,” I
whispered to her, but they were all locked.

At the last moment, I spotted the
dumbwaiter in the wall. I grabbed Kiki. If either Kiki or I had
weighed a pound more, we would not have fit into the commercial
sized dumbwaiter. I pulled the door closed. At once we could feel
we were dropping.

“
Our weigh is pulling us
down,” Kiki whispered.

The dumbwaiter lowered us gently to
the first floor. I pushed open the door just enough to look out. We
were in the kitchen adjacent to the ballroom. A number of people,
including the odd looking hotel staff, were moving around preparing
dishes.

I motioned to Kiki. There was a
serving cart near us.

“
You get under,” she
whispered and then pointed to a chef’s jacket lying on top of the
cart. “I’ll push.”

Moving quickly, we slid out of the
waiter. Pushing the curtains on the cart aside, I hid under the
cart. Kiki ducked low, pulled the jacket on, and then stood up and
began to roll the cart from the room. I heard her set dishes on
top.

We were near the exit when I saw feet
approach Kiki.

“
Where do you think you’re
going?” a man asked her.

“
Step off. I need to take
this upstairs. Now.”

“
For what?”

“
For what? What do you
think?
She
asked
it be sent up. Why don’t you go ask
her
,” Kiki replied in her bitchiest
tone.

“
Leave the cart
downstairs. You can take the tray up,” the main replied.

“
And you can fix my broken
back. I’ll push it to the stairs and bring the cart back when I’m
done. Now move,” Kiki said and with a shove of the cart, set off
out of the kitchen.

She pushed the cart down a series of
winding halls and after a few moments, she stopped. She pushed the
curtains aside. “Come on,” she whispered.

She’d pushed the cart into a closet.
She pulled off the jacket and put it and the wine decanter and
glasses she’d set on top of the cart into the trash.

We then walked, as nonchalantly as
possible, across the main foyer and back up to my and Jamie’s room.
Jamie and Will were already waiting inside. Jamie and I shared a
glance, both relieved the other was safe.

“
It’s done,” Kiki
said.

Then we waited.

“
Maybe I should have
brought the wine,” Kiki said. Moments later Buddie and Dusty
arrived.

“
No problems,” Buddie
said. “It just made a hell of a noise coming down.”

“
They came running, but no
one spotted us,” Dusty added.

“
But they will suspect
us—you,” Buddie said to me.

“
Yeah, but it was worth
it. God knows how many others we just saved.”

“
Maybe you should have
just blown up the boat,” Dusty said.

“
I’m not planning on
swimming home,” Will told him.

Jamie and I exchanged a glance but
said nothing. After more than an hour passed and we heard nothing,
the others went back to their rooms and Jamie and I headed
downstairs to check on Ian.

It was now dark
out.
They
were
awake and moving around. Their piercing eyes bore into
me.

“
Maybe we should have
stayed back,” Jamie whispered.

“
Doesn’t matter. They’d
know where to find me.”

We found Ian sitting up in bed, the IV
still attached to him.

“
Ahh, here is the happy
couple,” he said when we entered, startling both of us. Ian looked
much better. His skin was looking less thin, his eyes less sunk in,
the dark rings around them gone. “I thought you had forgotten me,”
he added.

Jamie shook his head. “Never, little
brother. How are you feeling?”

“
They have been pumping me
full of shit all day,” Ian said, looking down at the IV. “I don’t
even know what all they got going into me, but I’m feeling good.
Christ, Layla, what happened to your head? Rough sex?”

I had removed the bandage earlier, but
the fresh stitches were still evident on my forehead. .

“
Hey brother, no need for
that kind of talk,” Jamie told Ian. Jamie looked as perplexed as I
felt.

“
Yeah, yeah, whatever.
They ever feed anyone around here?” Ian asked.

“
Let me go see if I can
get you something,” Jamie said and then left the room.

I sat down beside Ian and reached into
my vest pocket where I had hidden the last piece of the chocolate
bar Jamie had given me. I handed it to him.

Ian laughed sardonically but ate all
the same. “Geez, Layla, you’re so generous,” he said.

“
You saw the doctor
today?”

“
Yeah, they’ve got me on
all kinds of meds. Rostov was just here. Creepy dude.”

I nodded.

“
Hey Layla, when did you
decide to go after Jamie? Before or after you spent all winter
toying with me?”

“
I never toyed with you.
We are friends.”

“
Be my friend but fuck my
brother, that’s nice.”

“
Almost as nice as you did
me, right Ian?”

Ian looked down at his hands and
played with the candy wrapper. “Yeah, you’re right about that,” he
muttered.

Jamie returned. “They are bringing you
dinner, brother,” he said and then spotted the chocolate wrapper.
“You need anything else?” Jamie asked.

Ian looked piercingly at me. “I guess
not,” he said bitterly.

Jamie picked up on the tone. “We’ll
check back in later. Why don’t you get some rest,” he said. Jamie
took my hand, and we made our way out of the room.

“
Going back to
your
room, eh? Yeah, you
two go ahead,” Ian called after us then laughed harshly.

I led Jamie outside, and we sat on a
bench on the porch. The moon cast white light on the dark lake
waves. The air was cool but smelled clean. The sweet scent of
spring flowers and new growth perfumed the air. When you weren’t
fighting for your life or performing demolition, the view was
actually rather peaceful. Jamie was quiet. Only a few of the
lanterns on the porch had been lit. In the shadow, I could see
Jamie was upset.

“
I’m sorry. I shouldn’t
have shared your gift with him,” I said.

“
No, no,” Jamie said,
picking up my hand and kissing my fingers, “bless your kind heart.
It’s just . . .”

“
It’s not him talking, you
know that, it’s the medications and the illness. He’s not
himself.”

“
I’m sorry he spoke to you
like that.”

I had to laugh. “He has spoken much
worse to me, believe me.”

“
It’s not
right.”

“
Well, it is what it
is.”

We sat there for a long time, the moon
climbing high in the sky. I could sense Jamie was feeling ashamed
about going back to the room we shared together. I understood, so
we sat and took in the moonlight even though all of my senses were
on edge. The feel of danger was all around me. After a while, we
decided to go look at the water. We found a quiet spot and sat
watching the moonlight reflecting on the waves. A distance away
from the hotel, I felt better. The view was beautiful.

Late into the night, we decided to
head back. We were crossing the lawn to the hotel when we heard the
yacht’s horn sound. We turned to see the boat headed toward the
hotel. It pulled into the pier then sounded the horn twice more.
From our view we could see a flurry of activity on
board.

“
Did they bring more
survivors after all?” Jamie asked, straining to get a
look.

“
I don’t know, but
something’s up,” I replied, regretting I’d left my binoculars in
the room.

One of the crewman bounced out of the
boat before the plank had been lowered and ran, quickly, across the
hotel lawn.

Concerned, Jamie and I headed toward
the pier. They were dropping the plank for a small group of about
five or six very normal but war-torn looking survivors. Behind them
two men rushed the body of a female back toward the
HarpWind.

Jamie and I had just reached the end
of the pier as they passed us. The woman they carried was bleeding
profusely from a wound on her side. From her appearance, I knew her
to be a vampire. Now I was confused.