Edge of Collapse Series (Book 1): Edge of Collapse

by Stone, Kyla

  “What is it?”

  “Listen.”

  At first, she didn’t hear anything. Then she did. The low rumble of engines. Several of them. They were drawing swiftly closer.

  Voices echoed sharp and crisp in the night air. Thumping sounds. A dull heavy thud and the crash of glass breaking. Someone screamed.

  “Wait here.” Liam darted into the darkness. She waited, terrified, her heart jackhammering so loud she could barely hear a thing.

  Less than a minute later, he returned. “A bunch of people just drove into town. Looks like they’re taking what they want by force.”

  “It’s only been a week,” she said, incredulous. Even after everything Liam and CiCi had told her, it all had still seemed unreal. Until now.

  “Long enough.”

  “How many?” she whispered.

  “Counting by the flashlights, at least three different groups of five to seven people moving through the town. They’re looting what’s left of the stores. And some of the houses.”

  “W-who are they?”

  “These aren’t desperate people stealing from their own to live. They’re from somewhere else. They’re looking for food. Gas, if they can find it. Going to rob the town and bleed it dry. Looks like they’re starting on the south side of town and working their way north.”

  Fear clamped down on her. “What do we do?”

  “We have to get out of here,” Liam said. “Before we’re trapped.”

  42

  Hannah

  Day Seven

  Shouts rose into the night. Someone screamed. A gunshot went off.

  Hannah flinched. Her heart slammed in her chest.

  “W-what do we do?” she asked through chattering teeth. “Should we go back to the w-woods?”

  Liam glanced down at her. In the darkness and with his hood over his face, she couldn’t make out his features. He was studying her, examining her. Assessing her strength.

  She tried to stand taller. The freezing wind tugged at her scarf, pulling the flap covering her mouth and nose free. Her nostrils were dry and irritated. Every icy breath raked her throat.

  She pushed the scarf back into place with stiffening fingers. “How close is the n-next town?”

  “Walkerville is twenty-two miles.”

  She couldn’t make it that far, no matter how determined she was, no matter how much she wanted it. She knew it. Liam knew it.

  “They’re right on top of us,” Liam whispered. “We need to keep moving. Stay behind me. Go when I signal you.”

  He crept along the side of the house, peered around the corner, then darted across the yard between the houses to the cover of the next one.

  He checked to make sure the next house was clear, then gestured for her to follow him.

  Several houses down and across the street, a woman screamed. More shouts and yelling. Banging, crashing sounds.

  “You can’t take everything we have!” a female voice cried. “How am I supposed to feed my children?”

  “We’ve got to feed our own children,” another female voice responded—lower, harder, angrier. “Now stay back, or I swear I’ll shoot you.”

  Fear rooted Hannah in place. She couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe.

  She knew what human beings were capable of. Their greed and cruelty. Out here, with no one to stop them or tell them no…

  Across the quiet expanse of yard, Liam gestured to her again, increasingly agitated.

  She needed to move. She couldn’t. She shrank back against the wall, shivering and cowering. Dizziness washed through her.

  Darkness wavered at the corners of her vision, her mind threatening to go blank on her. She fought it, searched for something to count, to anchor her. She couldn’t go away, not now, not here.

  “Try the one with the red door!” a man shouted. He sounded close. Less than a hundred feet away. Maybe closer.

  A flashlight swept across the snow. The beam washed the house in light.

  She froze, waited breathlessly for a shout of alarm. The rush of voices and bodies and guns coming to discover them.

  The flashlight beam wavered.

  “You see something?” a deep voice asked.

  “See what? It’s just a dog or a coyote or somethin’. Scared of your own shadow, man? I told you, there ain’t no cops out here. We got this place to ourselves.”

  “Yeah, yeah. I’m sure you’re right.”

  “Get a move on, Thacker. I’m freezing my balls off out here.”

  “Thought your balls were too small to freeze.”

  “Screw you, moron.”

  Harsh laughter. Footsteps trudged away in the snow.

  Her pulse thudded in her throat, her skull. She pressed against the wall, her pack grinding against her spine.

  A soft crunch and a thud. Footsteps again. The flashlight beam sweeping across the fronts of the houses, sliding between the twenty feet of snowy side yard separating Hannah from Liam.

  Only one man had left. The first had remained behind, still suspicious, not quite sold on the coyote theory.

  Hannah glanced frantically around her, desperately searching for an escape, for somewhere to hide.

  The house’s backyard was barren. A snowy expanse of nothing. A few sparse trees thirty yards away. Past that, a large field and the hill, the forest beyond it. Way too far to reach without being seen.

  She remembered the gun in her coat pocket. The Ruger .45 CiCi had so kindly given her.

  But she had no idea how to use it. Couldn’t even hold it with both hands, given her deformed fingers. And she’d left the kitchen knife behind at CiCi’s house.

  She hated her own helplessness.

  The footsteps crunched closer. Between the two houses. Heading straight toward her.

  43

  Hannah

  Day Seven

  Hannah turned her head and met Liam’s gaze, her eyes frantic.

  He crouched behind the corner. His gun was gone. He held something else in his hands. Something long and sharp, gleaming darkly against the white snow: a knife.

  A shadow appeared between the houses. A tall, broad man dressed in a parka with a black ski mask pulled over his face. He held a flashlight and a baseball bat studded with ugly-looking nails.

  Liam exploded into motion.

  “What the—”

  The man only got out two words before Liam punched him in the throat. The guy made a gurgling, gasping sound as he staggered back, trying desperately to suck air back into his windpipe.

  Liam didn’t give him a second to react. He came at him again.

  The thug flung up his bat to deflect the blow, attempting both to defend himself and attack at the same time.

  Liam ducked easily beneath the weapon, spun around him, and gripped the man in a headlock from behind. He dragged the choking man behind the house out of sight.

  He crouched over the man, and the knife flashed in his hand. Black blood spewed from the man’s neck. It all happened so quickly. The man hardly made a sound.

  Hannah stared, stunned, her mind still trying to process what had just happened.

  Liam wiped the blade on the back of the dead man’s parka. He sheathed the knife beneath his coat, rolled him up against the house, and kicked fresh snow over the blood spatter.

  He drew his pistol again. Keeping it low and ready, Liam turned back to Hannah, who remained frozen against the wall of the first house. He motioned for her to hurry.

  This time, her legs worked. She moved. She didn’t look at the body as she passed only feet away, careful to avoid the concealed blood.

  Liam said nothing. She said nothing to him. She was too cold to talk, too cold to think.

  They crept from house to house, building to building. They passed a fast food joint, a mechanics shop, a dollar store, and a darkened gas station with a half-dozen people struggling to siphon gas from the non-functioning pumps.

  She glimpsed the beams of flashlights cutting through the falling snow. Hunched figures darti
ng through the darkness.

  The ruckus on main street grew louder. Men were shouting. A woman screamed. Several gunshots went off as people whooped and hollered.

  The thugs spread out, ransacking houses and breaking into businesses, hauling out supplies stuffed into big black garbage bags. Most of them carried baseball bats, crowbars, and rifles.

  “Don’t think you can just steal from us!” an older man yelled, fear and anger in his voice.

  A man laughed. “Ain’t nobody here to stop us, old man.”

  A crash sounded, and the old man cried out. Several dull wet thuds swiftly followed. The old man let out an anguished moan.

  They were beating him—to death, it sounded like.

  She paused, horrified, torn between fleeing and doing something to help. Liam turned, grabbed her arm, and hauled her along.

  At the south end of main street, a half dozen trucks were parked in the middle of the road in front of the local grocery store. Several still had their headlights blazing, snow twirling in the hazy cones of light. Six snowmobiles and a few winterized ATVs outfitted with snow chains sat next to the trucks.

  The looters were everywhere. More people were being dragged from their homes and beaten mercilessly. Their attackers shrieking and hooting in crazed bloodlust.

  Hannah and Liam needed to find cover, and fast. They needed to find someplace no one would want to loot. A place without value.

  There. Through the swirling snow. She touched Liam’s arm and pointed ahead to a modest brick building just past the bank they were hidden behind.

  Two of the windows were shattered, fresh graffiti scrawled across the exterior walls. A stray flashlight beam lit up the interior through the jagged windows— shelves and shelves of books.

  A library. No food or drink allowed. No reason for anyone to want to break in.

  Liam dashed ahead of her, made sure the area was clear, then motioned for her to follow him. The library was near the south end of main street, a few hundred yards from the waiting trucks, snowmobiles, and ATVs.

  Only a few men stood guard. She and Liam would be quiet. No one would even know they were there.

  The rear door was ajar. A roof overhang kept the snow drifting against the door from being too high to jam the door open enough for Hannah and Liam to slip inside. She had to turn her belly sideways to fit.

  They were inside, but far from safe.

  44

  Hannah

  Day Seven

  Liam paused inside the darkened hallway and put his finger to his lips. He crouched and unhooked his snowshoes, then Hannah’s. He instructed her to wait in place while he crept ahead and cleared the building.

  She waited, shivering hard, straining to hear the violence echoing outside.

  Without a headlamp or flashlight, the hallway was awash in shadows so deep it was difficult to see past her own hand.

  In a few minutes, he returned as silently as he’d left. She never heard him make a sound. He beckoned her deeper inside.

  The large main room was high ceilinged with the check-out desk in the front, surrounded by an open area with a dozen study tables. Located to the left was a children’s section: waist-high shelves filled with picture books, a colored rug, and bean bag chairs. To the right were two sets of glass entrance doors and a line of large windows—three of them broken.

  Dim light flooded through the windows, highlighting the maze of long, tall shelves crammed with books.

  “Stay down and away from the windows,” Liam said. “Find a spot in that corner. Take the snowshoes with you. I’ll be there in a minute.”

  She bent awkwardly—her belly in the way—and picked up the snowshoes. She shuffled past the check-out counter and the tables through a long row of shelves to the rear corner.

  She unslung her pack and leaned the snowshoes against one of the shelves just as Liam returned, lugging three bean bags. She could just make out a yellow one, green one, and a third either navy blue or black.

  Liam spread them out in the corner. “You sleep. I’ll take watch.”

  “What about y-you?”

  He grunted. “What about me?”

  “Don’t you n-need to sleep?”

  “Not with them out there.”

  She sank into the yellow bean bag and rubbed her hands together. She pressed her good hand to her mouth and blew into her cupped fingers, letting her own hot air warm her numbed cheeks.

  It was still frigid inside the library, but at least she was free of the snow and freezing wind. She longed for a fire to thaw her icy insides, but smoke would be a dead giveaway.

  Liam took off his gloves, unzipped his pack, and pulled out the crackers and peanut butter. He dipped a cracker in the peanut butter and handed it to her. “Eat first. And drink something.”

  She nodded wearily. He was right. She was starving. She ate the cracker in a few bites. Liam handed her several more. She swallowed them all down, the peanut butter thick and smooth on her tongue.

  A memory flared through her mind. Little Milo giggling, his mouth and cheeks and fingers smeared with Jiff. He’d gotten into the pantry while she was cleaning the bathroom, eaten half a jar before she’d found him.

  Peanut butter had been his all-time favorite food. If they slathered veggies in the stuff, he’d even eat broccoli and Brussel sprouts.

  Her throat tightened. Did he still love peanut butter? Would she ever get home to find out?

  She would. She had to. They would make it through this night. She and Liam together. And Ghost, wherever he was out in the woods. He would wait for them. She believed it.

  Hannah tried to sit up and reach for her pack for her canteen, but her body rebelled. She was too tired to move.

  Liam went to her pack, tugged out her canteen, and handed it to her.

  She drank deeply, the cold water soothing her burning throat. “Thank you.”

  She handed it back to him empty. They would need more water soon.

  Hopefully, the thugs would move on soon, leaving this poor town to its own misery. Then they could start a fire and melt more snow or even search for some bottles of water in the looted stores, if there was anything left to find.

  She tried not to listen to the distant shrieking and shouting, but she flinched with each crack of a gunshot.

  She removed her hood, took off her knit cap, and dusted off the melting snow. She retied her messy bun with shaky, numb fingers, pushed the damp strands behind her ears, and put her hat back on. Steadied her breathing.

  She glanced warily at Liam. “You killed that man.”

  He shoved a hunk of peanut butter sandwiched between two crackers into his mouth and barely chewed before swallowing noisily. “Had to be done.”

  She turned that thought around in her head for a moment. Should she feel horrified? Outraged? Guilty? Should she hate this man? Fear him? Run away from him?

  She didn’t trust him. She didn’t trust anyone, not even herself. But she didn’t fear him anymore.

  That didn’t mean he wasn’t frightening. The way he’d killed that man, his movements so agile and quick, like a great jungle cat—a panther or a tiger, a creature whose very nature was to kill.

  A shiver ran through her. The man Liam had killed wasn’t a good one. They were robbing and beating townspeople out there. They were stealing from people who had little left to care for themselves, taking what would essentially seal these family’s fates.

  The thug would’ve warned the others and put her and Liam in further danger.

  Could Liam have knocked the guy out instead? Maybe. But she was already learning how Liam’s mind worked.

  Leaving the thug alive left him a threat to their lives. Ending him ended the threat.

  “Okay,” she mumbled, as if he cared.

  He hadn’t asked for her permission or her judgment and he didn’t ask her opinion now. He didn’t seem to care what anyone else thought about him, least of all her.

  She was too tired to argue with him anyway.

  Li
am finished the sleeve of crackers and capped the peanut butter. He placed the jar back in his pack and zipped it. He took a small length of cord from a side pocket and tied his snowshoes to the back of the backpack.

  He slung the straps over his shoulders. “Get a few hours’ rest. As soon as the hostiles clear out, we keep going.”

  She curled up across two of the bean bags, her weary body sinking into the comfortable softness. She was incredibly grateful that she wasn’t lying on the cold ground or a dirty mattress in a locked basement.

  Anything was better than that.

  Liam picked up the third bean bag and draped it over her thighs and torso for added warmth.

  “You should take it,” she argued feebly. “You need one, too.”

  “I’m fine.”

  Liam positioned himself at the end of the row so that he could see both the entrance doors and the windows. He sat down and leaned against the shelf but kept his pack on his back and the gun in his lap.

  She could just make out the whites of his eyes and the gleam of the pistol in the dim light. He would remain awake and alert so she could rest. Always the soldier, watching over her.

  Gratitude filled her, but before she could say anything, sheer exhaustion took over. Her eyelids drifted closed. In only a few moments, she was asleep.

  Her dreams were dark and disjointed and laced with terror. She was screaming, running across black ice, a leering demon with a red slash of a mouth chasing after her, the ice breaking open like jaws, splitting beneath her with a terrible crack, crack, crack…

  She awoke abruptly to a tense hand on her shoulder and fear snarled in her belly.

  A blurred figure hunched over her. “Shhh. Don’t make a sound.”

  45

  Pike

  Day Seven

  As he’d planned, Pike beat his quarry into town. They were on foot, he had the snowmobile.