The Last War Box Set, Vol. 2 [Books 5-7]

by Schow, Ryan

  Wiping my mind of this, I try to focus.

  Bailey said not to be out more than an hour, and this was what Marcus was planning on doing anyway. I think it’s his way of trying to get over the fact that we lost the boat.

  Rather, I lost the boat.

  We hit a couple of homes, head in some Marcus already entered a few days back, then meet up in the street.

  “This seems like a waste of time,” I say.

  “Until it isn’t.”

  Looking up the block, I say, “You were pretty good with that rifle.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Did it bother you that you shot all those guys?”

  “No.”

  Now I look at him, scan his face for signs of false bravado and see only a iron-spine soldier. There is no bluster here. The man is a hard shell. No feelings at all.

  “You learn to shoot in the military?”

  “No.”

  “You’re not very conversational, are you?”

  “Not really.”

  “You could try,” I hear myself saying. “I mean, if we’re going to spend some time together, you could not be such a cold shoulder all the time.”

  “You want me to be fake?”

  “If it makes you more likable, and more comfortable to be around, yes.”

  “You really are a girl, aren’t you Nick.”

  “Yes, Marcus, I am.”

  “My father taught me to shoot,” he finally said. “He was a hard nosed son of a bitch. A product of the Marines. He said you’re nothing if you’re not a soulless, heartless killing machine.”

  “He really said that?”

  “Those guys have egos. The guys like my dad, anyway.”

  “You follow in his footsteps?”

  “No,” he says, heading to the next house. “I went into the Army. Found my way into Special Forces.”

  “You wanted to be as tough as him?”

  “You’re terrible at this, Nick.”

  “I’m not a very social person. I mean, for work yeah, but with others? Not so much. Like you, I prefer to keep to myself. But for different reasons entirely.”

  “Well look at this,” he says with a grin, glancing over his shoulder at me, “we might actually have something in common.”

  I huff out a conciliatory breath.

  “When you’re in Special Forces,” he said, “you grow your beard, develop a crappy attitude and basically tell just about anyone you want to suck it.”

  “You really that hateful?” I ask.

  He stops, turns and hits me with those steely eyes, and says, “Yes, Nick. I’m really that hateful.”

  “Why?”

  “Bad upbringing. Always at war with something. Maybe there’s something wrong with me. I think…I think there are guys like me who are simply better behind a gun, on foreign soil, living alone on a base in a country that’s always perpetuating chaos and death.”

  He knocks on the front door of the next home, waits.

  We both wait.

  Then, just as he’s about to kick it in, the door opens and a little girl answers. She must be six or seven years old, brown hair brushed thoroughly and held in place with a headband and a bow. She’s wearing a dress and has both light and vibrancy in her eyes. Seeing her, it’s almost sad. I don’t think I’ll see the light in anyone else’s eyes for a long time. Maybe never again.

  “Abigail, you are not to answer the door!” comes the sounds of a younger woman rushing to the door. The woman is frazzled, scared, looking between the two of us and realizing we are going to be a problem.

  Marcus puts a hand up and says, “We didn’t mean to bother you.”

  “What do you want?” she asks. I can see it in her eyes, how she wants to shut the front door, but to do so means she’ll have to come toward us and she isn’t terribly anxious to do that by the look of her. She’s waving Abigail over, but the girl isn’t budging.

  “Just going door to door,” he says.

  “Abigail come over her, honey,” she says, panic in her voice.

  “We’re not going to hurt you, or Abigail. We’re as lost in this thing as anyone right now.”

  “You’re the guys with the big truck, right?”

  “Yes ma’am.”

  “That’s Chester Spoon’s house,” she says. Abigail finally walked over to her. “Go upstairs pumpkin, wait for mommy.”

  We watch the little girl leaving. She turns and waves; Marcus and I wave back. It’s all very civilized.

  “Chester hasn’t come back, ma’am. A lot of people haven’t come back home and we don’t expect them to.”

  “Chester worked in the city. Some kind of lawyer or something. Real uptight, you know?”

  “I know the type,” Marcus says.

  “What can I do for you then? I mean, if you’re not here to rob me or tell me what’s going on…do you know what’s going on?”

  “Drone strikes all along the coast. Not sure why.”

  She looks over at me and says, “Who’s he?”

  “The eye candy,” Marcus grumbles, not an ounce of humor in his voice.

  At first I almost laugh, but then I think about it. How guys like Marcus must absolutely hate guys like me. I have a skater’s frame, uncut hair, a “whatever, bro” type of attitude. Oh, and apparently I get the girls with my good looks. Marcus isn’t unattractive, for a guy; he’s just got a steep air of “go F yourself” he carries around with him 24/7. Except for when I saw him with Corinne. With her, it’s like that hard veil is slipping. Maybe he really is a soft-hearted warrior. Never destined to be a romantic, but a good friend and a protector. The kind of guy you can just crack a cold one and chill with. Am I making a mistake trying to be friends with him? Maybe he’s just a battle axe, a battering ram, a human time bomb. Maybe I’m wanting him to be something he’s not. Maybe he’s not someone anyone wants to be friends with.

  “I haven’t got anything of value,” she says, more confident now.

  “You have Abigail, ma’am. And in case you haven’t figured it out, people without bad intentions like yourself, they stay inside while the cretins and the monsters run the streets. You want to keep the one thing of value to you safe. I suggest you never let her open this front door again. And if you need food or help, just come over to the Spoons and we’ll help you.”

  “I appreciate that.”

  “Is this your house?” I ask.

  “It’s my father’s home. We’re staying with him, but he hasn’t come back yet.”

  “Is he overdue?”

  “Yes.”

  “By how long?” I ask.

  Now her eyes get a bit glossy with tears, like she’s been avoiding this answer. Like she’s been putting it off in her own mind for days and now that she’s having to answer it, reality is setting in hard and fast.

  “A few days,” she admits. “Maybe more.”

  “Did you see him before the city was attacked?”

  “He went down south to visit a girlfriend. My mom passed a few years back. Me and my brother finally convinced him to…see other people. He wasn’t the romantic kind, but he did make some friends.”

  “My mother passed, too,” Marcus says in an unusually sensitive moment.

  “How’d she die?” she asks, wiping her eyes, Nick the eye candy all but forgotten.

  “My father wore her down, broke her soul, and I disappointed her by following close enough to my father’s footsteps to crush the last of her will to live. So maybe we killed her. Maybe she died because there was nothing good for her in this life. That’s what my father told me. I guess I didn’t start to believe it, but now, maybe now I think I’m starting to believe him.”

  The woman who was terrified of us only moments ago goes to Marcus and gives him a hug. He doesn’t ask for it, or really open up to it at first, but she hugs him anyway. Looking on, I can’t help thinking this is either the saddest moment ever or the most uncomfortable.

  “She loved you enough to go,” the woman says. “But she loved
herself enough to go, too.”

  I don’t know what that means, or if she’s right. All I know is that Marcus is carrying around some pretty serious demons. If his father really was that bad, and he did truly hate everything and everyone, then Marcus being the way he is makes sense. This has me wondering if maybe I’ve been poking a bear thinking it’s a pup.

  Not smart, Nick.

  When she pulls back, he says, “Thank you for…”

  “It’s okay,” she says.

  “I hope your father comes back,” he offers.

  “He’s gone. I’m sure of it, I just didn’t want to admit it to myself.”

  “Does he happen to have a boat down at the Marina?”

  “Yeah, why?”

  “We’re trying to get off the island,” he says, being truthful.

  “Why?” she asks, her concern shifting.

  “Because of the drones. There’s a good chance they could come back. Or worse. I think it’s not a really good time to be on land.”

  “So you want my dad’s boat?”

  “We want a boat.”

  “Should I get out of here, too?” she asks.

  Shifting his weight on his feet, swallowing hard, he says, “If it’s your boat and you want to get out of here, we could work together. Maybe find a way to help each other, keep you and Abigail safe.”

  She smiles an uncomfortable smile, then says, “Have you been to town? I mean, you said the coast is on fire. Have you seen…other towns and stuff?”

  “Yes.”

  Now she’s hanging on for that miracle we can’t give her, that miracle we won’t give her. In times like this, people need to stick together, but they need to be honest, too. Whatever measures of hope they have for a better future, Marcus taught me these hopes are pretty much futile as long as the drones are still flying.

  Just then one zips overhead. Not a big one, but one that’s moving fast enough we can hear it whirring past.

  “Uh, Marcus?” I say.

  “I heard,” he says turning to me, his expression unchanged.

  “Was that…?” she asks, her expression betraying her.

  This was not a woman who would’ve been able to withstand the kinds of hell we’ve been through. Would she have survived the attack on the conference center? The collapsing hotel? Would she have survived The Warden? Corrine’s ruthless gang of opportunists?

  Probably not.

  She would’ve been a liability. And Marcus made it clear: we’re not taking on liabilities. He didn’t want someone else to care for, someone else to complicate matters or slow him down in the event that he/we needed to run for our lives. Another drone zipped by, this one flying lower, slower.

  “Marcus,” I say gently, “I think we have a problem.”

  “We do.”

  Just then four or five drones hover over, strafing the houses with gunfire.

  “Get inside,” Marcus barks at me. “Get them to safety!”

  With that I move inside and close the door, thinking I want to get back to Bailey instead. Marcus is a man of war, though, so I follow his lead. Still, as I’m telling this woman to get her child down with all of us, I’m starting to get pissed off. I don’t know this lady. I don’t know her child.

  But Bailey…

  There’s something between us. She’s right. Maybe it’s because she needs someone like me, and I need someone like her. Maybe we’re destined to be each other’s lifeline.

  “We need to get you somewhere safe,” I say, my mind scrambling because when it comes to the drones, maybe we can survive gunfire, but if they start launching missiles, well you could pretty much stick a fork in us. We’d be done.

  When she rushes upstairs after Abigail, I pop back out front and search the skies. Down the street a good block, I see the Mack truck. The door’s open; I see Marcus’s legs hanging out. Then he’s running across the street with a long rifle. Jesus in heaven, is he going to try to shoot at them?

  Overhead, the drone activity is increasing. I see a half dozen of them buzzing around. Are there more on the horizon? Dammit, there are!

  Just then, further back on the island, an explosion blows a hole in the early morning silence. The woman is rushing down the stairs with wide, terrified eyes.

  “Get the keys to the boat!” I yell.

  She hustles back into the kitchen, returns with them and that’s when we hear more gunfire coming from outside. But not drone gunfire. This time it’s Marcus doing the shooting.

  I scramble out front, thinking only of getting these two to Bailey. Bailey has her head out front, watching Marcus. Corrine isn’t with her.

  “C’mon,” I say, eyes half focused on the sky and half focused on the distance between myself and Bailey. The woman and her daughter follow on my heels. “Keep up!”

  Marcus’s rifle is bucking now. He’s across the street, on someone’s porch with a big satchel of what looks like beans or rice on a porch rail holding the stock of the rifle. He’s got the weapon pulled in tight, his face close to the rear sight, but not so close that every time he reciprocates the bolt the spent shell catches him in the cheek.

  The gun remains steady through the firing of each round. He doesn’t lower the black rifle, he simply keeps the weapon tucked into his shoulder, throwing the bolt, chambering a new round, lining up the sights and shooting.

  The way he works this weapon stops me for a second.

  I slow in awe, knowing I’m seeing something rare. Something unusual. Marcus is practically robotic as he fires, steady under pressure, a pro. Honestly, the way he’s firing, it’s a thing of beauty. Two drones go down. The woman, her child and I head for the house, but stop when a drone appears from behind us and open fires. A line of sidewalk is ripped up right in front of us. I dive over a short concrete wall into a loose hedge, tucking my body up against the divide. The woman and Abigail barely get behind a grey Jeep Cherokee as the line of fire spits shards of concrete everywhere.

  Abigail is crying, but I’m scrambling out of the bushes, not caring about cuts and scrapes and twisted ankles.

  “Let’s go, let’s go!” I shout over the sound of gunfire.

  Marcus is feeding fresh rounds into the ejected magazine. He’s got the rifle on the porch as the population of drones increases. He’ll need help. The flyovers are now centered on Marcus as strafing gunfire pocks the roof and the porch around him. A standing barbecue is hit, the propane tank exploding just as we get to the other side of the Mack truck.

  “Marcus!” I yell.

  He looks up and I show him the keys the woman gave me. He doesn’t say anything as more drones circle.

  Bailey pops her head out the door and says, “Get them in here!”

  Abigail and her mother are safely pulled inside, but I make a run across the street to help Marcus, not realizing the gravity of my mistake until it’s too late.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  The surgery was not exactly a screaming success, but it was the outcome The Silver Queen expected. The nanotech coating successfully bonded and then fused with Antoinette’s bones and joints, but the levels of pain were catastrophic to Antoinette’s spirit. The double dose of genetically modified proteins strengthened the fibers in the young woman’s muscles as well as her ligaments and tendons, which added to her existing pain, making it feel like growing pains of the worst kind. The Silver Queen told Antoinette it would be worth it. That there was no gain without incredible sacrifice.

  As for the virus’s delivery of the modified DNA strand, it successfully traveled into her system and through contagion, it began the process of remaking the DNA not only to produce elevated white blood cell counts, but to increase metabolism.

  The intense body heat generated from the response to the virus had the Spanish beauty sweating all over the operating table.

  The Silver Queen was inside her head, her emotions, every last sensation her mind and body felt, so she knew exactly what Antoinette was going through. Her body felt like it was dying, even though it wasn’
t, but that explained the moaning which became crying which later became screaming.

  The Silver Queen was perfectly fit to handle the pain, so she took control of the body and said into Antoinette’s consciousness, “Sleep, little one. I will take it from here.”

  “Am I dying?” Antoinette asked through trembling eyes, eyes flooded with tears.

  “No, child,” the Queen said, pain registering with her as a near overload to the system. So this is what pain feels like, the Queen thought. What a truly uncomfortable sensation. “You are being born again, this time into a body that will never fail you.”

  “My body hasn’t failed me before,” she whispered, her consciousness drifting.

  “It would have had you been anyone else but you, my dear,” the Queen whispered to her. An image of her dead colleagues slumped over in the hall of servers flicked in and out of the fading woman’s thoughts.

  Sleep finally overwhelmed the hostess, so when Antoinette was sucked under, the Queen worked diligently to neutralize the pain sensors in the body. She was so very, very uncomfortable! And there were too many different sensations firing off all at once!

  As the fever pulled her body temperature toward one-hundred and four degrees, the Queen felt the body’s hypothalamus struggling. Her core body temperature continued to rise, her natural thermoregulatory functions unable to do anything to stop it. Already she felt damage being done to the body’s tissues, which alerted the Queen to get inside and try to regulate the temperature.

  If this continued, Antoinette’s brain would suffer a heat stroke.

  The body would then die.

  Drones flew in at the Queen’s behest, took her instructions, then returned moments later with cold water and damp towels. The medical drones poured the cold water over the body, cooling it some, then laid the damp towels on her head, under her neck, in her armpits and pressed against her vagina—all the most sensitive centers for rapid cooling.