The Last War Series Box Set [Books 1-7]

by Schow, Ryan

  “I feel the way you act,” he said. “And the things you say…we’re more alike than you may think.”

  She came out of their embrace, but did not take his hand as she started back to her house. Whatever changed in her…it was something obvious. Startling even.

  “You don’t even know me,” she finally said, a brittle edge to her words.

  “Don’t you find that sad?” he asked, catching up. She smiled, but it was forced. “You didn’t answer me about having a boyfriend before all this.”

  “I’ve never been with a boy before,” she admitted, looking down at her feet.

  “How is this possible?”

  He suddenly felt bad for taking her kiss for granted, for judging her before. If he was putting the pieces of her together, he saw pictures of her father in their home, but not her mother. She was a daddy’s girl, but no one else’s girl. Her father was her life. No other family, no friends, no one to hold her, to tell her she was his world. No one to kiss her and look at her the way he was looking at her right then.

  “Why are you staring at me like that?” she asked, stopping short. “I shouldn’t have said anything.”

  He took her hand and said, “I just…in this day and age…someone like you—”

  “Jeez, spit it out!” she said, slapping his arm half joking, half serious.

  “I think that might have been the moment.”

  “What moment?”

  He took a deep breath and knew exactly what he wanted to say. “When you like a person, you decide to like them more. To open your heart to them. Your soul. Before you fall in love with someone, you have the feeling that you want to love them. That they’re worthy. And it makes you want to be worthy of their love. I think maybe, I think I might’ve just had that feeling, with you.”

  She wiggled her hand out of his and said, “I told you not to fall in love with me.”

  “I’m not in love with you, dummy,” he said. “I only said I was willing to let myself fall in love with you.”

  “Well close the door,” she said with a frown.

  “What?” he stammered. She turned and started back the other way. “Where are you going?”

  “Home!” she said.

  He broke into a jog, caught up with her. Grabbing her arm, he stopped her long enough to block her path. “You think that was easy for me to say that?”

  “I’m sure it’s not the first time,” she said, lips pursed, arms crossed.

  “It is the first time!”

  “I’m not the girl for you,” she said. “You’re just having a moment.”

  “How I feel or don’t feel isn’t your decision. You can tell me you don’t want me, and that’s your—”

  “I don’t want you!”

  “Liar.”

  “I don’t,” she said, softer, her eyes getting that soft shine of tears.

  In a voice that betrayed his pain, a voice that shook with the sting of rejection, he said, “Why not?”

  Looking away, she began to cry. He counter-moved, stood in front of her again. She pushed him back, then turned again, putting a hand over her face as her body bent to some unknown weakness.

  “Tell me,” he said, so soft and tender he was afraid she wouldn’t hear him.

  “If I…” she started to say with wet eyes. He knew she was about to say something difficult, something incredibly personal, so he let her have the space she needed. “If I let myself fall in love with you, I’m afraid I’ll…forget my father. I’m already having a hard time remembering what he sounded like, or how safe I felt with him.”

  “Did he…?”

  “I don’t know,” she answered right away. Then: “I think maybe…I think I should forget him. But if I do, that means I’ve given up hope. That’s why I need to stay here, in case he’s alive, in case he comes back. But you’re leaving, so I can’t let myself feel…how I want to feel about you.”

  “You can,” he pleaded. “You must.”

  Looking up at him, eyes shimmering in the light of the dying sun, she said, “And why is that?”

  “Because I need that from you.”

  “There are other survivors. Prettier girls. Less screwed up girls who are not so…violent.”

  “You were mesmerizing back there,” he said. “At the school. And at the Walgreen’s.”

  “There’s nothing mesmerizing about me. Or us. Or any of this!”

  “We shouldn’t have made it out of there alive. The Walgreen’s yes, but not the school. That was a bloodbath.”

  Thinking of all those people sprawled out on the elementary school floor—bleeding out, dying to the point of dead—drove a spike right through his heart. Her face seemed to pale at the memories as well. Standing on unsteady legs, she said, “I think I’m going to be sick.”

  “Are you—”

  Just then she turned, dropped to all fours and threw up. He knelt beside her, putting a hand on her back. When she didn’t shrug it off, he rubbed small circles into her back as she heaved and wretched up all her food and a few strings of bile. Before she was done, her body was shaking out the tears, the pain, entire universes of fear.

  “He killed them all,” she was saying, her voice nearly incomprehensible.

  “I know.”

  “And Macy…”

  She blew her nose into her hand, wiped it on the pavement, then turned into a seated position. Whatever she was feeling, Rex knew she wasn’t feeling as stable as she tried to appear. When people were pitched into dark times, impossible times, you fell to fight or flight, and she chose to fight. When the fight was over and you had time to consider the battle itself, that’s when you paid the price for everything you’d done, who you had become.

  What kind of price will she pay? Is she paying it now?

  “Rex, I’ve killed too many people already,” she said. The look on her face—how terribly vulnerable she was—he saw past the hardened young woman and found the girl beneath. She was scared, alone, in need of her father.

  “We couldn’t have done anything else to save those people,” he said. “Or Macy.”

  “I know.”

  “But that’s why you’re doing what you’re doing. Why you are the way you are. We can’t let this happen again.”

  “But it will,” she replied, closing down that well of emotion once more. He could already feel her going back into that shell and he didn’t want that.

  “What are we going to do?” he said. When she didn’t answer, he asked, “What do you want to do?”

  “Same thing I’ve always wanted to do. Get ahead of this thing before it gets too bad.”

  “It’s too late for that,” he explained. He said this in a passive tone, but his words were sharpened with a truth that cut right through her.

  Now looking up at him, devoid of the bravado he came to see so often in her expression, she said, “It’s never too late.”

  “Do you really believe that?” he asked.

  “I have to.”

  “So what’s next?”

  Not answering for a long time, not looking at him—but thinking about him too much—she finally let her eyes lift to meet his, but she couldn’t say the words. It was clear she was feeling so much, yet fighting to feel nothing at all. It wasn’t working. He reached out, moved a strand of hair from her face and said, “I think I just saw inside you, Indigo. It was an unexpected moment and now I know I want to love you.”

  “No you don’t.”

  “You can’t stop me,” he told her. Her guard was back down and her eyes bore the invitation of his company.

  “I can,” she said, albeit without much conviction.

  “And if I persist?”

  “Then you’ll force my hand,” she said. “Is that what you want?”

  He smiled that smile, his eyes holding hers, gently. That was all the answer she needed. Nervously glancing away, she laughed like she couldn’t believe it, but then she turned back to him, to those eyes, to that look on his face.

  “You’re serious
?” she asked.

  “I am.”

  He saw her let go, slowly at first, and then completely. “Then I want you to stay with me tonight.”

  Slowly he nodded his head, then he said, “Are you sure?”

  “I am,” she said.

  Chapter Sixty-One

  A scout for The Ophidian Horde returned to the fallen-down hospital, careful to watch for tails, not afraid to turn and put a round in a stranger’s head if that’s what was necessary. He met with Gunderson and the former hitman whose name he was not allowed to speak.

  “It’s the National Guard, sir,” the scout said. “They’ve got Humvees with flatbed trailers. They’re transporting stacks of the dead to centrally located piles where they’re dumping them off.”

  “How many are there?”

  “Bodies or troops?” the hitman asked.

  “Both,” Gunderson said.

  “Probably five Humvees,” he answered, turning to the Hitleresque looking man, “and at least seven mountains.”

  “Mountains?”

  The scout furrowed his brow, then said, “Of bodies.”

  “They’re piling them up?” Gunderson asked.

  “More like throwing them out of the buildings into a pile.”

  “They’re going to burn them,” the hitman said.

  The scout turned his eyes back on the new leader of the gang and said, “They’re at least thirty feet high in some places. One pile is fifteen feet tall and spans half a city block. Inside the buildings, in some places, especially apartment towers, they’re throwing them out the window like old trash. You get four close buildings and that’s when you get a thirty foot pile of bodies.”

  Taking a sip of his brandy, running the razor-sharp blade of a hunting knife over the stubble on his otherwise bald head, the hitman eyed Gunderson under heavily hooded eyes.

  “I want those trucks,” he said.

  The decapitated head of their former soldier, Chandler Diggs, a.k.a. Blood Pig, sat on the hitman’s desk, decaying. Ever since Blood Pig and his crew were slaughtered at the elementary school in Balboa Hollow, the hitman had been distracted. Consumed by this “Indigo.” Now his office bore the sour, hairy stench of death—a foul smell everyone but the hitman had commented on.

  His boss gazed upon the head in a contemplative stare. It sat on his Bible, facing the hitman. Gunderson flicked a glance at the back of Blood Pig’s head and wondered about the eyes, nose and mouth, how they must be shriveled and pulling in like some sort of withered, forgotten Halloween pumpkin.

  He tore his mind from the thought of it. Considered everything else.

  “I can get a truck,” Gunderson finally said, breaking the silence.

  Half of the hospital they now occupied had fallen down around them, the remnants of a massive drone strike. There were dead caught in the rubble, but they didn’t go in that wing. Instead, they remained where the building felt sturdy, untouched by the ravages of war.

  The location was perfect in that it still held medical supplies and beds, and there was plenty of room to grow the gang, when it came to that. He wasn’t sure the hitman agreed. He’d said he wasn’t a fan of such embattled digs, but the cover it provided was something everyone needed right now. Gunderson knew he was right. No one in their right mind would come looking for them in such a ramshackle building, certainly not any of the remaining gangs.

  That didn’t mean it was safe, or sturdy.

  Gunderson often wondered if he would be walking around one day and the bottom would just drop out from underneath him. He didn’t show it, or speak of it, but the idea of this left him constantly on edge.

  Now the hitman was saying he wanted one of the National Guard’s trucks. He was happy to oblige. Thrilled, in fact, to get out of this building and on to more interesting endeavors. Gunderson was bored out of his mind anyway, and not a huge fan of most of the new guys.

  “So after you said you can get me a truck,” the hitman said, his eyes clearing, “I expected you to get up and leave.”

  Gunderson stood and left, thinking he’d never stolen a military vehicle before.

  How hard could it be?

  Gunderson was now The Ophidian Horde’s chief enforcer and a competent man who was allowed to lead under the hitman. It was an awesome responsibility. One he never imagined having so soon. He was committed to earning the position he now had, one victory at a time. The first victory would be over the National Guard.

  Gunderson assembled a crew of twenty men from the fifty strong, and they armed themselves to the teeth. After that, they grabbed a half dozen five-gallon gas cans they’d been using for the generators and headed out.

  Within an hour, they’d siphoned gas from enough cars to fill the cans, then they headed into downtown on foot, scaring practically everyone they came into contact with on the way. At some point, there were no more people. There was only destruction.

  Within a dozen blocks of these body piles, the damage to the city looked otherworldly. And then they saw the bodies.

  The scout said, “This is the tallest one I’ve found.”

  Gunderson looked around. They were surrounded by apartment high rises, the windows blown out, their foundations pocked and peppered by small to medium artillery fire. At any minute, the earth could shift and one of them could topple. Gunderson sniffed the cool air, caught only the barest hint of smoke. A couple of birds chirped from somewhere above. He stood in the middle of an unearthed graveyard in complete awe.

  “Burn it,” Gunderson finally said.

  Six of his soldiers emptied the cans of gas around the massive base of dead people, shaking out the last drops of gas before standing back and awaiting orders.

  “Get to high ground,” Gunderson told his snipers. “When they come, if they come, wait until they’re close, then head shots only if you can help it.”

  To his ground forces, he said, “Fan out in case they miss. Don’t hit the trucks, just the men inside. But only when they exit the vehicle and only if our snipers miss.”

  When his boys were in position, Gunderson removed a lighter, lit a long scrap of linen. When it caught fire, he dragged the linen around the base of the bodies until the entire pile took to flame. From there the gasoline-fueled fire snaked up the pile, ultimately engulfing the top of the heap in the loudest, most massive inferno Gunderson had ever seen.

  When the man next to Gunderson said, “What’s next?” Gunderson simply replied, “We get to high ground and wait.”

  Chapter Sixty-Two

  Nineteen Days into the Attack. MCAS Camp Pendleton, CA

  Nearly three weeks had passed since 1stLt Jagger Justus and 2ndLt Camila Cardoza had flown to NAS Corpus Christi for Tilt-Rotor advanced training. They hadn’t gotten their hours, not that it mattered now.

  Really the only thing that mattered was surviving.

  The drones struck the day he and Camila arrived, an attack neither of them would have ever imagined possible, not in a million years. None of the pre-war intelligence indicators were present. There was no chatter, no posturing, no advanced warning of any kind. The squadron of modified attack drones were quickly met with force by the Navy and the Marines. The drone’s forces dwindled over the first week. Smaller attacks followed, but none as lethal as the initial strike. After nineteen days and dozens of casualties, Jagger and Camila were ordered onto a Cobra gunship and sent to Oceanside, California, to MCAS Camp Pendleton where they were needed most.

  “Would you have ever imagined the US could be turned into a war zone like this?” Camila asked.

  “How bad to you think Pendleton is?” he asked, making idle conversation.

  She shrugged her shoulders and held his eye.

  Camp Pendleton sustained catastrophic damages and was still under fire when they arrived. At first blush, the assault was easily a dozen times worse than it had been in Texas. That didn’t make Jagger feel any better about Oceanside.

  It wasn’t just the military bases, either. Word had it that major metropolita
n cities were under attack as well. He knew from talking to Lenna that San Francisco was bearing the brunt of it, but he couldn’t grab a ride back home, and even if he could, his CO wouldn’t allow it. He’d call it desertion. He’d ask Jagger if he was really ready to turn his back on his country.

  He wasn’t. That wasn’t how he was built. But he hated not being able to be there for his family. It churned his guts regularly, made him sick just thinking about what was happening back home. The push and pull of such a harsh reality left him pissed off and constantly on edge.

  Plus he was tired. Not that he’d ever admit that. There was too much to do to worry about sleep or recovery.

  Jagger tried as often as he could to find out what cities were hit, but the top brass said he was on a need to know basis and apparently he didn’t need to know.

  Eventually he learned the assault on California was a highly coordinated effort and focused mainly on the most concentrated populations: San Diego, Los Angeles, Sacramento, San Francisco. The smaller cities and seaside towns were hit, too. Reports were coming in that the air strikes on these small towns were not as severe, rather most were simply hit with one pass. The problem was that one pass. According to some of the guys, entire cities were carpet-bombed and the loss of life and property was substantial.

  He asked his superiors what other states were being bombarded and everyone decided to purse their lips and say nothing.

  Later, after they’d settled into a new battlefield with a larger, more lethal army of drones, Jagger began to crack. He needed to talk to Lenna. He was convinced he wasn’t going to make it home. Amidst the constant noise and chaos, amidst the utter exhaustion, Jagger found a sheltered corner of the base where he used a stolen sat phone to dial the number. It rang a few times before Lenna picked up. He heaved a sigh of relief.

  “Jagger?” she answered, hopeful, the line halfway crackling with static.

  “It’s me,” he replied, one hand cupped over his ear to freeze out the commotion ramping back up outside. It’s like everything ridged in him finally loosened and he could breathe again.