The next house Stephen came across was a two-story home. There was an open storm door under the picture window to the side of the house. He went inside and made his way through the ground level of the home.
I’ve got to get out of this uniform if I’m going to have a chance, he thought.
He couldn’t help but notice that the last two homes he had entered were empty. It could have been coincidence, but he was confident the people were fleeing their communities out of fear. Some for fear of government takeover and some for fear of community violence.
Stephen found a bedroom with men’s clothing articles hanging in the closet. They were dress shirts that were too short in the sleeves and too tight in the neck.
I’ll have to roll my sleeves up and leave the top button undone.
The trousers were the same story. When he had pulled them up, he couldn’t button them. He left the shirt to hang over the pants and put his hands in his pockets to hold them up. He discarded the tools when he found a kitchen knife on his way out. Nothing could disguise his limp.
It wasn’t until he reached the edge of the block that he realized he wouldn’t make it home unless he was under cover of dark. The whole area appeared to be under lockdown. His heart was torn between reaching Sam and Evan and playing it safe.
What good will I be if I don’t make it? What if they need me now? Is it even possible for me to evade the search parties? The questions were endless.
Stephen entered the blue house located just two blocks from his home. He had barely made it through the unlocked front door when he was met by an adult male.
“Who are you?” he asked.
“My name is Michael Williams. I’m injured and was hoping you could give me sanctuary.”
The man looked out the window and turned back toward Stephen.
“Michael, huh? You’re the one they’re looking for, aren’t you?”
“Look, mister, I don’t want any trouble.”
“Neither do I, but you seem to have brought it with you. If they find you here, we’re both going to disappear.”
“Well, then they won’t find me, right?”
“I suppose not. You’re bleeding through your bandage. Let me clean that up for you.”
The man left the room.
Stephen looked around at some of the photographs on the man’s curio cabinet. When the man returned with some clean gauze wraps, Stephen asked, “Is that your family?”
“It is.”
“Where are they?”
“I haven’t the slightest. When curfew was dropped, they vanished. Haven’t seen them since. I’m sure they were picked up and probably locked up somewhere.”
The man told his story as if trying to distract himself.
“Where did you get this cut? And what happened to your leg?”
“My name’s not Michael. It’s Stephen. I’m a member of the Army National Guard, but my unit went rogue, and when that happened, I was hoping to return to my family. We have other plans.”
“I see,” the man said, and then paused to look at the cut in Stephen’s arm. “You’re going to need stitches, Steve.”
“I have a stitch kit in my bugout bag at the house.”
“Where’s your house?”
“Not far from here, but I’m going to wait for dark.”
“I couldn’t agree more. I have a pair of crutches in the basement you can take with you. I broke my ankle a couple of years back. I’m not going to be needing them after tonight.”
“What’s tonight?”
“I’m going to look for my son. I reckon they’ll pick me up and take me to where they took him.”
“What about your wife?”
“I lost her to cancer ten years ago.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
“It’ll be dark soon. You should rest while you can. The next time you stand up, your leg will be hurting worse than it did before you sat down.”
“Great.”
Stephen took a position on the couch, but his relaxation was short lived. There was a loud knock on the front door.
“They’re looking for me,” Stephen whispered.
Stephen stood up and hid himself behind the front door.
“There’s only one of them,” the man said.
“Let him in.”
“You’re crazy.”
Stephen pulled the kitchen knife out of his pants and revealed it to the man.
The man opened the door, and a soldier pushed himself into the living room.
“We’re looking for a conspirator and possible terrorist. He lives in this neighborhood and was last seen a block or two from here. He’s a tall white male, green eyes, military-style haircut, and may be posing as an army national guardsman.”
“I haven’t seen anybody fitting that description.”
“I’m going to search the premises.”
“You don’t have the right to search my property without a warrant.”
“Your rights are suspended under executive order. Move aside.”
The soldier pushed the man aside and took two steps forward, exposing his back to Stephen, who plunged the knife deep into the man’s back, between the fourth and fifth ribs. The knife was long enough to find the soldier’s heart. The soldier went down, but not without kicking Stephen in the bad leg and knocking him off balance.
The soldier was grasping for the knife that was stuck in his back, but Stephen grabbed it and pulled it out. After that, the soldier’s death was hastened.
“They know where I live,” Stephen said in a panic. “I have to go now.”
“Good luck to you, boy.”
Stephen limped out of the man’s house, and when he saw Stephen was a good distance away, the man opened the front door and yelled at a couple soldiers positioned across the street.
“Hey, boys, I just killed one of your own in self-defense.”
Moments later, Stephen saw several police cars and some military units speeding toward the man’s house. He figured the soldier’s death would have locked things down even tighter, but he was unaware of the man’s claim that he had killed the soldier in self-defense.
Stephen had reached his home and immediately began to call out, “Sammie … Evan …”
With each call he paused for a moment but heard nothing. He went to the bedroom and found the bugout bags. He could see a yellow-colored item protruding from the inside. It was Evan’s Minion doll. They wouldn’t have left without it. Stephen feared the worst. He knew they had been taken.
With a freshened sense of resolve, his mind became all the more void of logic. Anger was all he could feel.
He emptied his closet and pulled the carpet up. Hidden there, beneath, was a secret compartment built into the closet floor. Three rifles, two thousand rounds of ammunition, combat knives, machetes, and hatchets.
The sound of breaking glass was heard in every room of the house. It sounded like somebody was throwing bricks through the window, except each sound was followed by the familiar hissing sound of a chemical grenade.
Stephen’s company consisted of a chemical platoon, and he was cross-trained with them often, making him very familiar with the effects of gas.
He reached into his bugout bag and pulled out an M17A2 series biological mask. He donned it, then proceeded to lock and load all three of his rifles.
“If you want me, you’re going to have to come in here and get me,” he screamed at the top of his lungs. The mask made it difficult for them to hear his voice at all, let alone hear what he was saying.
After a couple minutes, a team of soldiers and police came flooding into the house. Each of them had on a state-of-the-art chemical mask, unlike Stephen’s antiquated Vietnam-style protective wear.
He could hear their commands as they came storming through both doors.
“Go, go, go,” the team leaders said with their commanding voices.
“Clear,” each team would say as they searched each room carefully, tactically, and methodically.
It wasn’t until they entered Stephen and Sammie’s bedroom that they were met with fierce gunfire. Stephen shot two of his attackers and received forty-two gunshot wounds to his chest and abdomen. When the cease fire was called, the men stared in wonder at the sight. They watched as Stephen took his last breath and tightly gripped the stuffed yellow Minion doll in his left hand. He held it tightly to his bleeding chest, and did so until his arm fell to his side.
EPILOGUE
Over the next few months, the president continued to lose control over the people as she discovered more and more military personnel were going AWOL. The police were being murdered in the streets, and those that remained eventually abandoned their post and integrated with the declining population. The businesses that remained were burned or destroyed by the starving masses, church buildings and Christian gatherings were abandoned because of the rising rate of terrorism.
Shortly after the killing of Stephen Gill, the last remaining free press was taken over by the government; but not before they ran one more article that told the story of a man that dared to defy the government and was murdered for doing so.
TORI'S JOURNEY
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
Copyright © 2016 L. Douglas Hogan
No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner whatsoever without permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.
All rights reserved.
BEGINNINGS
Before the Flip, Tori’s commitment was to her husband and children. All that changed when her home was attacked by a raiding party of brigands. She must become the woman she was trained to be if she is to find her family’s killers and survive what the world has become.
HOME
Tori discovers a group of men who take her in. Once her guard is down, she discovers they are not as they appeared. She must wait for the opportune time to strike but is forced into action when a small girl is introduced.
BUBBA
During her journey back to the Southern Illinois homestead, Tori once again encounters the worst of humanity. She has lost her Harley-Davidson, her rifle, her knife, and the instrument of her empowerment, Bubba, a shiny Smith & Wesson 1911 .45-caliber pistol. She must face the evil and regain what has been stolen. She discovers a piece of her humanity cannot be so easily replaced.
LEFT FOR DEAD
Tori is seriously injured and left for dead, but a mysterious woman finds her and nurses her back to health. All the while Tori is fading in and out of consciousness. In the end, Tori discovers that there’s more to her caretaker than meets the eye. Tori must face her own demons and accept the fact that there’s more to humanity than carnage.
AN UNLIKELY FRIEND
After the events of the trilogy, Tori seeks out Stephen Gill and his family to ascertain his absence. Tori finds a Minion doll with the decomposed corpse of Stephen Gill. She takes the doll with her on a journey to discover the truth of his murder and where his wife, Sam, and his daughter, Evan, have disappeared to.
“When government fears the people, there is liberty. When the people fear the government, there is tyranny.”
—Thomas Jefferson
PREFACE
By December 2032, the former United States was now known simply as “America” by the global community. There were no longer states, but regions. America was divided into twelve FEMA regions, where the areas could be better monitored by the federal government and, later, the global government.
These stories of perseverance are set in the time span covering life after the declaration of martial law, also known as the Flip. Very little value is placed on human life. The global community has begun investing its resources into land preservation. To that end, mankind has been deemed an “invasive” species.
Tori Cunningham’s tragic roots can be discovered in the first short story, “Beginnings.” The proceeding four stories cover various situations that Tori found herself involved in following the events of the Tyrant trilogy.
This work of fiction has been expanded from its original content, which only included the first short story, to build on a fan favorite character.
Tori Cunningham is a deeply jaded female heroine that struggles to survive in the new world order, but what makes her dynamic is the way she copes with her inner struggles. Her struggles, both within and without, are my vision of a world where American oath takers have failed their country through the dishonoring of their oaths.
BEGINNINGS
Belleville, Illinois, December 1, 2032
Tori didn’t know that her house was rapidly burning. She, her husband, and their two daughters were struggling to survive.
Just moments earlier, a group of men had approached their home and demanded their food and their weapons, or else they would kill them.
Tori’s husband, Richard, was a devout Catholic and believed deeply in his faith. He had only minimally prepared for the eventualities that were to befall the people of the United States. He had purchased several hundred cans of goods and stored them in the basement of their home; however, when the attack came, they were blocked off from the staircase that led to their basement door. A Molotov cocktail had been thrown through the front room window, which was only partially boarded. The bottle broke against the wall that divided the kitchen from the basement stairs. The fire erupted with a ferocity that could only be explained as a small explosion. Other Molotov cocktails came flying into the house and completely engulfed the downstairs area.
Grabbing his youngest daughter’s hand, he pulled her in his direction toward the staircase that led upstairs.
Tori was cut off from the rest of the family, on the kitchen side of the fire.
Richard couldn’t see her anymore and was yelling for her.
“Tori!”
“Richard, I’m here.”
“I have Charity. Go find Amelia.”
Tori scrambled through the dining room area and searched intently for her oldest daughter, Amelia.
“Amelia!” Tori screamed over and over again. All she could hear was the crackling sounds of burning furniture and décor. The smoke had filled the kitchen and dining room area to the point she could barely breathe. She was deeply inhaling smoke and coughing as she went.
“Richard! I can’t find …”
Tori’s lungs were filling with smoke as she attempted to complete a sentence. She was trying to scream for Richard, but every time she took in a deep breath to yell, she inhaled the deadly smoke, and she was starting to asphyxiate.
Self-preservation usually worked for people with no children, but parents oftentimes put the well-being of their children at the forefront of every circumstance. In this case, Tori continued to look for Amelia. She could no longer speak and the smoke was lifting up the staircase, where her daughter Charity and her husband, Richard, had fled.
Tori fell to the floor as she felt her knees give way. The oxygen in her blood was low, and her heart had nothing left to circulate to her muscles. Her tunnel vision was narrowing as she began hearing the sounds of gunshots coming from outside.
There was a loud crash that came from the window over her kitchen stove.
Tori was lifted off the floor, and that was the last thing she remembered before completely losing consciousness.
December 2
Tony, Rob, and Albert were at Tori’s bedside when she regained consciousness. They had seen the flames from their residence just a few blocks up the road.
They were members of a small prepper group located in the downtown Belleville area.
Tony was the founder of the group and generally frowned upon excursions outside of their bunker-style storefront.
For years, Tony had been stockpiling food and supplies. He was the type of man the community would have
considered paranoid before the Flip. After the Flip, he was the man that everybody else wished they would’ve listened to.
Tony owned the storefront and had spent the last several years conjoining the basements into one large bunker. The buildings themselves were just a ruse. His survivability came from the underside of those real estate purchases.
Rob and Albert were associates of Tori’s husband, Richard, and knew her from family days.
“Amelia!” Tori screamed as she opened her eyes and tried to sit up.
“Lie back down,” Albert said to her. “You’re not well enough to leave yet.”
“I need to find Amelia. Richard, dear Lord, where’s Richard?” Tori yelled.
“Tori,” Rob said to get her attention, “Richard and your children …”
Rob had barely uttered the words before Tori started to break down.
“Where’s my babies?” she cried.
“Tori, listen to me,” Rob said. “They didn’t make it out of the fire.”
Tori pushed Rob away and stood up off the couch they had her resting on.
“I can’t stay here,” she cried as she began to cough.
“Tori, you’re not well enough to leave,” Tony told her. “Stay here and rest a while. You’ve been through so much already.”
Tori was coughing so hard that she was losing consciousness again.
She sat back down on the couch, and Albert handed her a glass of water.
“Here, drink this sparingly,” he said. “There’s not a wealth of drinkable water anymore.”
Tony was standing in the doorway of the food storage pantry.
“Albert, Rob, can I talk to you guys, alone?”
Albert and Rob stood up and walked over to where Tony was standing. He led them into the back room.
Whiskey Black Book Set: The Complete Tyrant Series (Box Set 1) Page 6
