The Doomsday Series Box Set | Books 1-5

by Akart, Bobby

  Yes! Let’s go! she shouted in her head. Kaycee stood on the bed and glanced out the bedroom windows.

  The mob was moving past their house and down the street toward the city. She quickly slid off the bed and made her way to the window, cautiously glancing outside. To her right, the streets were empty, although signs of the locusts were evident. To her left, the marauders were antagonizing a wayward motorist and breaking out windows of homes as they went.

  Kaycee swung around and steadied her nerves. It was still very quiet in the house except for the gentle tumbling sound of the dryer. She knew the moment she pulled the slide of the shotgun to load a shell into the chamber, as her dad had taught her, the loud metallic click would draw the attention of the intruders. Tyler had once told her that nothing frightens a burglar more than the sound of a shotgun racking a round.

  Kaycee decided to test his theory, but she’d wait until the people entered the room. With the gun in her hand, the lanky eleven-year-old gained confidence and stood defiantly waiting for them to enter. The only question she hadn’t asked herself was whether she was capable of pulling the trigger.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Rankin Residence

  East Clay Street

  Richmond, Virginia

  Kaycee heard them breathing before she saw the door handle begin to turn. When the lock stopped the handle’s progress, the intruder turned it the other way. Kaycee’s hands turned clammy and the barrel of the shotgun began to shake as her nerves started to fail her. The handle shook violently as the person on the other side grew frustrated.

  “Open up, dammit!” the woman screamed as her partner began to pound the six-panel door with the back of his fist. Blow after blow evidenced their anger and their violent intentions.

  “Go away!” shouted Kaycee.

  She heard the two whisper to one another. They were plotting.

  “Open up, kid!” the man shouted. “Or we’ll huff and we’ll puff and we’ll blow the door down. Then we’ll make you pay for the trouble you caused us.”

  “I’ve got a gun! I’ll shoot!”

  Kaycee was certain this would back off the duo of intruders. The response she got surprised her.

  They paused for a moment, and then the two thugs began laughing uproariously. It was an evil cackle combined with genuine delight at terrorizing the young girl.

  “You aren’t gonna shoot anyone!” shouted the woman. “Open this door, or we’ll burn the place down with you in it!”

  Kaycee instantly grew afraid that they meant what they said. She’d heard her parents talk about the fires around Richmond earlier and knew it was bad guys like these two responsible for them. She thought of her brother huddled in the dark space in his closet. She knew he could hear them shouting at her. There wasn’t much time.

  The first kick at the door almost broke it off its hinges. The flimsy bedroom door lock wasn’t designed to keep members of a crazed mob out. One of the marauders kicked again, and the door almost gave way.

  Kaycee didn’t hesitate. She squeezed the trigger and the Mossberg blasted a load of #10 birdshot into the center of the door, blasting a hole in the hollow door with over eight hundred lead pellets. The recoil knocked her backwards onto the bed while the shotgun flew over her head onto the floor by the wall.

  “Arrggggh!” the man screamed as the lead shot found its way through the opening. To be sure, the hollow door slowed the impact of half the shot, but the other half performed admirably, scattering into the hallway and ripping into the faces and exposed skin of the assailants.

  Kaycee flung herself over the back of the bed to retrieve the gun. Pain seared through her right shoulder, which was now partially dislocated. Yet she found an inner strength. She scowled as she picked up the shotgun and loaded another shell into the chamber.

  In position to fire again, she could see into the hallway. Blood splatter was all over the wall that was adjacent to J.C.’s bedroom. The drywall was littered with pellets, some of which fell out periodically as the young girl waited for the attackers to make their next move. She listened.

  Nothing.

  Had she killed them? Both, with one shot?

  Her mind raced as she took a step around the bed and cautiously approached the door. She steadied the shotgun’s barrel on the opening, planning to shoot again if she saw movement. The pain in her shoulder became worse, but she was able to block out the distraction. Kaycee peeked through the opening.

  It’s easier the second time, she thought to herself.

  Then she heard a dragging sound. Crawling noises across the wood floor and down the hall near their kitchen.

  Kaycee moved to the side of the bedroom door to view the hall from a better angle. There wasn’t anyone outside the door, and then she noticed a bloody handprint near the doorjamb of J.C.’s room.

  “Help me!” groaned the man from the area of their living room.

  “I’m trying,” whispered the woman. “We’ve got to go before she kills us.”

  “My shoulder,” the man was crying. “It’s… it’s… it’s gone.”

  Kaycee was emboldened. The young girl sensed fear in her adult attackers, and a killer instinct overcame her. She’d never felt this exhilarated in her life, even at the top of Kingda Ka. She pulled what was left of the door open and ran into the hallway.

  “You’d better run!” she screamed.

  The terrified woman screamed back, begging for their lives. “Okay! Okay! We’re leaving! Don’t shoot!”

  Kaycee moved slowly down the hallway, steadily pointing the shotgun in front of her. The shoulder pain was worsening, but she wanted to finish the job. She arrived in the living room and swung the gun back and forth. Then she turned her attention to the front door.

  The knob and door were covered in bloody handprints. A pool of blood had accumulated on the stoop. Kaycee ran to the bay window and slowly parted the sheers to look outside. The intruders were hobbling down the sidewalk, not looking back. The man was putting all his weight on his partner by draping his left arm over her while his right arm dangled from a mess of tendons and bone. A trail of blood marked their path out into the street.

  Instantly, Kaycee became overwhelmed with emotion. She gently set the gun down on the bench seat and buried her face in her left hand. The pain caused by the shotgun’s recoil, coupled with the realization that she’d shot someone, took a hold of her, causing tears to flow.

  Then she remembered J.C. Confident that they were alone, she gathered herself and went to his room. She opened the louvered doors to his closet, expecting him to still be barricaded in the old furnace compartment.

  She was wrong. He gave her a start as light filled the closet, and there he was, crouched and ready to spring out. As soon as the opening was sufficient, J.C. jumped up and hugged his sister.

  “Are you okay, Peanut?”

  “Yes, but easy on my shoulder.”

  “Okay.” He let go of her and looked past her. Some of the pellets had created holes in the drywall near his nightstand. “Um, did you kill them?”

  “No, almost,” she replied sadly.

  J.C., on the other hand, was intrigued by it all. He pushed past her and ran into the hallway. “Cool!” he exclaimed as he examined the blood and gore dripping down the hallway wall. For a moment, he stood in the hallway looking back and forth, surveying the scene.

  Kaycee walked past him and headed toward the foyer. “Come on,” she began. “We have to barricade the front door with the sofa or something in case they come back.”

  “I can do it,” proclaimed the eight-year-old muscleman. This didn’t surprise Kaycee because she’d seen her younger brother slide the furniture across the hardwood floors when it came time to help their mom clean house. “Do you think they’ll come back?”

  Kaycee glanced at the shotgun that rested peacefully on the padded window seat. “If they do, they won’t get inside next time.”

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  East Clay Street

 
Richmond, Virginia

  Richmond, Virginia, was no stranger to civil war or civil unrest. During the dark days of the first American Civil War, the city served as the capital of the Confederacy. Its strategic location made it a logical choice as several major railways terminated there, allowing the Confederate army to move weapons and supplies to the battlefield.

  During the Civil War, the Union forces made several attempts to invade Richmond. It wasn’t until the final campaigns of General Ulysses S. Grant that residents of Richmond evacuated, and the city was captured. It was a momentous time for many reasons. A week after General Grant visited with President Lincoln at the Virginia State Capitol, he was assassinated in Washington by a Confederate sympathizer, John Wilkes Booth.

  Also, during the Civil War, residents of Richmond fought one another. The Richmond Bread Riot took place in 1863 as the Confederate economy began to buckle under the strain of war. A series of laws passed by the Confederate’s Congress resulted in confiscatory taxes, leading to hoarding and inflation.

  A group of Richmond’s women took their complaints to Virginia’s governor, who refused to meet with them. Their anger turned into hostilities as a mob assembled outside the state house. The crowd grew larger and began to destroy businesses around the capitol in protest. The governor called upon the Confederate army to disperse the angry mob, a heavy-handed response that quelled the uprising.

  Now, more than a century and a half later, another angry mob was descending upon the Virginia Capitol. Like their predecessors, they destroyed property and viciously attacked anyone who stood in their way. This time, however, the Virginia governor did not call upon local law enforcement or the National Guard to shut down the mob. They were spread too thin dealing with unrest throughout Northern Virginia. Instead, a local group stepped up and quickly mobilized to meet the mob head-on, at the intersection of East Clay and North First Streets.

  The Richmond Guardian Angels were established in June of 2011 as an offshoot of the Guardian Angels of New York City. The Guardian Angels were a nonprofit volunteer organization of vigilantes formed in the late 1970s by Curtis Sliwa, a New Yorker fed up with rampant crime in his neighborhood. Working with his friends and family, he began patrolling the streets of their neighborhood and quickly gained national notoriety for stopping crime.

  Today, over a hundred chapters of the Guardian Angels have been formed around the world, training their members to make citizen’s arrests for violent crimes. The Richmond Chapter of the Guardian Angels had been credited for reducing crime and cleaning up neighborhoods with horrible reputations, such as Oak Grove, Hillside Court, and Broad Rock.

  Thirty-seven members of the Richmond chapter descended upon East Clay Street after one of their members heard the 9-1-1 dispatch reports over their police scanners. Dressed in their white, hooded sweatshirts bearing the red Guardian Angels logo, eagles wings with a shield bearing the Eye of Providence in the center, they descended upon East Clay Street to confront the angry mob.

  Tyler had been sitting in traffic, frustrated that he was unable to get through the intersection of East Clay and First. A box delivery truck in front of him obscured his view, leading to his aggravation.

  He checked his new cell phone again to see if service had been established. He’d purchased the phones at a nearby Verizon store as it was closing unexpectedly. The mob descending upon the capitol earlier in the day had forced downtown businesses to send employees home early. The salesclerk gave Tyler their new phones as they were locking up, together with his personal assurance that he’d follow up and activate the phones after the store was closed.

  He powered on the display again and tried to call the house, but his service was still not available. He slapped the steering wheel out of frustration. Suddenly, two cars parked on the side of the street pulled out of the way, and Tyler decided to fill the gap. He’d purchased a gently used pickup, as the salesman had called it. Tyler didn’t care, as the truck had four doors and was strong enough to tow a trailer with his Bronco strapped down on top of it.

  The rig was long, making maneuvering in traffic difficult, but when the box truck moved up slightly, Tyler pulled onto the side of the street to park. It was only a block to his house and he could always return to pull the truck and trailer in front of their sidewalk when it was time to load up.

  He exited the truck and locked it. After a quick glance to make sure the Bronco was properly secured, he began walking toward the house. After a minute, he saw what the trouble was.

  A large group of rioters was harassing motorists, dragging them from their cars and beating them on the street. Tyler frantically looked around for a police response, but there wasn’t one. Suddenly, from both sides of First Street, the Guardian Angels entered the intersection. The groups clashed in a melee of fisticuffs and clubs swinging at one another.

  Tyler was awestruck as he watched the battle unfold. “This is madness,” he murmured as he looked around to determine if he was in immediate danger. The red berets of the Guardian Angels stood out among the crowd as the two groups created a forty-person scrum in the middle of the street.

  Over the screams and shouts of the two groups doing battle, Tyler couldn’t hear the shotgun blast emanating from his home. But he sensed his kids were in danger.

  Tyler wanted the handgun that he’d purchased earlier to replace the one taken into evidence by the Virginia state troopers. He turned to run back toward his truck, but a crowd of onlookers had emerged on the sidewalk, blocking his path backwards.

  He focused on getting to the kids instead. There wasn’t a way to go forward unless he wanted to become a part of the battle. So he looked down the driveway of the house he stood in front of and noticed they didn’t have a fence in their backyard.

  Without hesitation, he pushed past the owners, who stood in their driveway, and ran between the houses. At the rear of the property, a short scrubby hedgerow blocked his progress, but with his adrenaline racing, he easily hurdled the bushes. The sounds of the melee were behind him, and he began to feel confident that he could circle around the intersection and get to his home through the backyards.

  He sped along the driveway between the houses, becoming increasingly concerned about Kaycee and J.C. He turned left to run down the sidewalk, but in his frantic state, he didn’t see the person who raced toward him from his right. The two bodies collided, knocking them both into the grass part of the lawn between the sidewalk and the street.

  Stunned by the collision, Tyler shook the dizzy spell out of his eyes and searched for the Mack truck that had crashed into him.

  It was Angela.

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  East Clay Street

  Rankin Residence

  Richmond, Virginia

  Angela dusted the grass and dirt off her leggings before turning her attention to Tyler. When she saw it was him, she managed to laugh despite the tense situation. “Hey, watch where you’re going! I had the right of way!”

  Tyler was still doubled over in pain as he rose to his knees to make eye contact. When he saw it was Angela, he simply waved his hand at her and began to cough in an effort to catch his breath.

  She walked to his side and helped him stand. “Are you okay?”

  Tyler nodded and inhaled. He mustered a few words. “Yeah. Kids. Fighting.”

  “I know. Can you keep up?”

  Tyler nodded and pushed her ahead of him. “Go.”

  Angela didn’t wait for him and ran down the sidewalk, dodging stopped cars and pedestrians headed toward the fighting on First Street. With Tyler in close pursuit, the parents rushed toward the homes located behind theirs. After they reached the fourth house, they turned down the driveway and found the gate to the family’s wooden privacy fence left ajar.

  Angela hesitated until Tyler arrived, and then held her index finger to her lips, advising him to be quiet. She stuck her head through the fence and saw the yard was empty. She cautiously pushed the gate open and they eased into the yard.

&n
bsp; Tyler reached for the sleeve of her jacket and stopped her. “We’ve got to get over the fence somehow.”

  They both glanced around and looked for options. Tyler backed through the fence gate and a large galvanized trash can caught his eye. He hustled over to the trash can and emptied the garbage onto the driveway. Trying not to clank the galvanized steel on the fenced gate, he showed Angela their makeshift stepping stool.

  With one final look around, they raced toward the privacy fence that separated their yard from this one. They’d rounded a neatly stacked cord of firewood when Angela abruptly stopped. She pointed toward the ground and then her head turned on a swivel, looking for danger. A woman’s body was lying half-dressed on the wet mulch between the fence and the firewood.

  She knelt next to the body and felt for a pulse. The woman’s head had been bashed in by a piece of firewood that lay on the ground nearby.

  “Tyler, what’s wrong with people?” asked Angela as she pulled the woman’s clothes over her partially exposed body. Then Angela removed her track jacket to cover the victim’s bloody face.

  Tyler had finally caught his breath and had recovered from their collision. Seeing the woman’s dead body gave him a renewed sense of urgency. He reached down and urged Angela to take his hand.

  He was trying to urge her on but was also respectful of her feelings for the victim at the same time. “Come on, babe. We’ve gotta get to the kids.”

  Angela nodded, leapt on top of the trash can, and hoisted herself over the fence. She waited for Tyler to do the same and they ran hand in hand to the back door. Before they could ascend the steps into the kitchen, Kaycee opened the top half of the Dutch door and waved to them. J.C.’s head popped up into the opening as well.

  He couldn’t wait to break the news. “Mom! Dad! Peanut shot somebody! It’s so cool!”