Blackout & Burn: A Complete EMP Thriller Series
Page 73
“They need to be in place within the next minute or it’ll be too late.”
Sam takes a massive breath. “They will be.” They can’t not be! Come on!
The excavator passes the last house as the cars reach the brow of the final hill. Come on! Behind it a digger moves at top speed.
Heart pounding, wheels that reach above his shoulders roll past, and turn into the road. Sam jumps to the cabs. “Turn off your lights.” He jumps down, runs in front towards the oncoming cars, and motions for the massive engines to follow.
Cars ride across each lane, swooping down towards the town’s threshold.
Sam urges the drivers forward—just a few more feet. The huge digger rolls forward, its arm raised high. The massive metal bucket ready to smash at the cars. Next to it an excavator with its loader bucket raised at waist height, moves forward. Colin wasn’t satisfied with the bone-crushing tonnage of the excavator and so a double pronged bale spear has been attached. It is a formidable machine. It lurches as the driver shifts the gear then rolls forward, hidden in the dark as the clouds cover the moon.
The cars swoop down the hill. Sam estimates they’ll hit the threshold at fifty miles an hour.
The digger and the excavator finally roll into the shadow of the massive oak that spreads its boughs across the road.
The cars swing down past the town’s sign. The painted metal rectangle that proclaims the town’s twinning with ‘Brioune, France’ swings on its chains.
Tyres burst as the attackers reach the first line of defence: a tyre-shredding bed of iron spikes laid out across the road. The first cars skid, lose control, and crash into each other. The cars behind slide, swerve, and shunt those in front. Sam knocks against the metal bodies of the excavator and digger with his hammer. Diesel engines rev and they roll forward, gathering pace as they approach the cars.
The excavator reaches the tangle of cars first, turns its lights on, and slices its bale spears through the driver’s door. The digger throttles forward and crashes its bucket down on the roof of a second car.
A shot fires. A single hole appears in the windscreen of a third car and it smashes against the digger as its driver loses control. It flips to its side then rolls into the ditch. Three figures, Sam’s protectors, run under cover of the hedgerow to the crash site. Another car bursts into flames as a Molotov cocktail hits home, thrown through the broken window of the car.
The digger’s arm raises then smashes down again as the excavator reverses, pulling the bale spears from the ruined car. The driver manoeuvres the excavator and heads for the third car. It screeches as it turns, and rams into the burning car. It does a three-point turn. Gears crunch and the car lurches. The engine stalls. The arm of the digger rises again, reaching out for the car. A door opens and a figure lurches out. The arm of the digger swings, catching the man’s head, knocking him to the car’s door and bone smashes. The metal arm slams into the car, tipping it onto its side, then rises and crashes down. As figures emerge, the Protectors run forward. An axe rises and chops down. The air is filled with screams and the screech of crushing metal. The engines chug and the massive vehicles smash and push and hammer until the cars all burn as one and no man moves among them.
THE BOOM OF ANOTHER explosion rocks the car as Bill pulls onto the slip road and the night blazes orange at the entrance to the town. Jessie slams her hand against the window. “Damn!”
“What is it?”
“We can’t get in to help! It’s so damned frustrating.”
Bill pulls the car closer to the exit road into town. Fire blazes across the entrance. Flames dance across the road, engulfing the cars that had sped from the intersection. Smoke, thick and pluming into the night, blocks the view down the road.
“We’ll have to sit it out.”
“Can’t we get in another way.”
“No. All the roads are blocked. It’s too dangerous to try.”
“Damn!” Jessie leans back against the seat.
Bill pulls the car forward.
The frustration of having to wait whilst the town tried to defend itself was unbearable. “If we go on foot? We can park up and get in along the hedgerows.” She suggests. “Bill. Drive down the slip road. We can get over the fence there and get into the town. We can help.”
Bill manoeuvres the car to face the bridge, unseen in the dark. “What the hell!”
Lights hover above the river.
“Jesus!”
“There’s more of them!”
Bill pulls the car to the verge as the lights grow brighter.
“There’s three cars.”
The engine idles as they watch the cars move up the slip road. Bill revs the engine.
“Bill! You can’t ram-”
“Ready”
Lights move through the sky as the cars approach.
“Bill!”
“Ready” Uri grabs the handle above the door.
Jessie rolls down the window. A dull chop, chop, chop vibrates through the air.
“Bill-”
Bill pulls out from the verge, tyres squealing. The lights shining in the sky swoop down.
“Bill. Stop!” Jessie jabs at the lights in the sky. “It’s a helicopter. And the cars—they’re armed police.” The helicopter swoops behind the convoy of black vans. “They’re not terrorists.”
Bill slams on the brakes. The car swerves and stalls. The cars screech to a halt, doors fly open and armed police take aim. Bill sighs with relief and reaches for the door’s handle.
TEARS ROLL DOWN SARAH’S cheeks as she tightens her arm around Gabe’s waist and watches the fires burn from the bedroom window. Flames, a dark and intense orange against the black sky, pinpoint the three entrances into the town where the terrorists had tried to attack. She’d watched with dread as the fires burst into life and then with horror as a convoy of vehicles had made its way across the bridge, but when Gabe had spotted a helicopter swoop across the town and hover near the threshold, she’d allowed herself to hope.
Their own road, fortified with armed men and Colin Haydock’s improvised defences had remained dark and silent.
As they continue to watch, the dark of night giving way to the thin grey of morning, her bedside lamp suddenly brightens and across the town streetlights switch on.
AS THE SUN RISES ON the town, the air is thick with the acrid stench of fire. Above the burned and blackened husks of men and cars, four pairs of blackened boots sway and knock together in the morning breeze, a doleful windchime, singing its warning.
EPILOGUE
Jessie leans up against the door frame, her hand resting on Alex’s belt as they stand together to watch the announcement. Michael slides his arm across Clare’s shoulder and turns the sound on the television up a little louder as Anna scrambles up the sofa to sit on her mother’s knee. Uri watches the television intently, nursing a mug of tea in his massive hand, as the Prime Minister addresses Parliament. Although the dark purple bruising on the man’s face has receded to greens and yellows, his skin retains the ashen pallor of grief. His voice, however, is steel.
“I am here today ... to give a message to all those who seek to harm us ...” he squares his shoulders and speaks straight to the camera. “We will not cower. We will not submit to your threats. We will find you and we will destroy you. You have poked the lion, now hear it roar.”
Alex claps his hands. “Damn right!”
“They’ll get what’s coming!”
“I can’t believe they’ve brought back the death penalty.”
“It’s about time. They need to string up the scumbag terrorists along with the paedos.”
“You think they’ll hang them then?”
“That’s what they’re talking about although lethal injection is seen as the most humane.”
“Pah! They deserve no mercy.”
“Yes. They should suffer.”
“I never knew you were so bloodthirsty, Viktoria.”
“Neither did I until this happened. Now I kn
ow I will kill a man to keep my baby safe.”
Uri grunts. “I teach you how.”
THE KETTLE BOILS AND Bill pours water into the teapot. Clarissa sits at the kitchen table tapping at the keyboard of her laptop. She grunts then taps another key as Bill takes four mugs from the cupboard and pours milk into a jug. He reaches for the biscuit tin and places it on the table as Clarissa taps again then sits back for a moment staring at the screen. He offers a biscuit to Martha and then to Sam. The sun glints on Martha’s engagement ring as she takes a Garibaldi.
“Progress?” Bill asks as he reaches for a chocolate digestive then scratches beneath Nelson’s ear. They had always been his favourite, that and custard creams, although perhaps Jaffa cakes were the best. He inspects the ridges of chocolate on the biscuit for a moment as he ponders the likelihood of the biscuit crumbling into the tea if he dunked it, then shoves the remainder into his mouth.
Clarissa taps the return key on the laptop. “Well, Forbes listed the muslim terrorist organisation that was funding Bin Sayeed as one of the top ten richest in the world. It’s now the poorest.”
“Yes!” Sam slaps his hand against the table. Nelson barks a warning and Sam flinches.
Bill laughs and pats Nelson’s side. “That’ll teach ‘em not to mess with us,” he says with a huge grin and takes a Jaffa cake from the tin.
THE END
A Request
Thank you for reading Blackout & Burn. If you enjoyed the book, I would very much appreciate it if you would consider leaving a review. Reviews are crucial for authors as it helps them gain visibility in the store as well as encouraging other readers to purchase our books. Knowing that you’ve enjoyed something I’ve written is a great boost and really motivates me to write more stories that you’ll love. To leave a review, just visit the book’s page. It won’t take long and doesn’t have to be long and detailed; short and sweet is great!
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Rebecca Fernfield
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About the Author
Rebecca Fernfield writes horror, sci-fi and post-apocalyptic novels. She currently has three published series with more plotted and in progress:
The Kielder Strain – trilogy of standalone novels
A full-length, and terrifying, sci-fi horror novel that can be read as a standalone. People are going missing from the isolated village of Kielder. It’s up to a disgraced cop to find out why. Their disappearance was an accident; finding them will be a mistake!
Book 2 in the series, ‘The Alaska Strain’, another standalone, is planned.
AMAZON US
AMAZON UK
A World Torn Down – six book series
An intense post-apocalyptic survival thriller. Join the survivors as they struggle to stay alive in a dead world. If the plague doesn’t kill you, the survivors will!
The second edition of this popular series will be published from mid-June 2016 with a new book planned. Don’t miss publication day and fan pricing. Join my newsletter to be notified: www.rebeccafernfieldauthor.com
Mortal Skies – two book series
A terrifying science fiction horror.
Meteors shower across the western hemisphere bringing with them a deadly parasite. Few are immune, fewer will survive. Single father, Nate Penrose, will do anything to keep his son alive, but with violent hordes searching for prey, and a government determined to exterminate the infected, they may not even survive the night!
AMAZON US
AMAZON UK
Dark Powers Rising – three book series
A dark tale of dystopia after the apocalypse. The apocalypse has driven Man to the point of extinction, but among the survivors a new power is rising from the ashes of a broken world. When governments collapse, be afraid of what rises in their place!
Publishing in Autumn 2019 – don’t miss publication day and fan pricing. Sign up for my newsletter to be notified: www.rebeccafernfieldauthor.com
An English author, Rebecca lives with her numerous children among the flatlands of the Humber estuary where Vikings and Anglo-Saxons once fought. Sometimes, on foggy mornings, the sounds of clashing swords can still be heard.
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