Whiskey Black Book Set: The Complete Tyrant Series (Box Set 1)

by L. Douglas Hogan

  Jess decided to risk it.

  Her rifle’s safety switch was already in the fire position. She had one chambered and she had press-checked it before leaving.

  “When I was back at Gorham, I was working with some RNs who had not familiarized themselves with firearms…” she started saying as she prepped herself mentally for an impending fight. She was walking along the tracks, slowing along the way and taking as much time as she needed to prepare herself. With each step, she slowed and looked into a train car. “So I was teaching them how to use them. What I didn’t know was that some thug from Murphysboro had snuck into our homestead and decided to have his way with me.”

  Cade had left his right hand on the rifle trigger. He knew the risk in shooting her. It was one that he wasn’t willing to take. His plan was to stick her with his butterfly knife, the same way he did his pal in Murphysboro.

  With his left hand, he reached down to lift the tail of his shirt, to reveal the case his knife was resting in. He quietly unbuttoned it as Jess told her story. He slid it out and kept it behind his back. Using his back as a catch to quietly open it, he pushed the button and the blade unfolded just a bit. From there he slowly let the spring do the rest until it was fully unfolded and in the locked position.

  Jess didn’t hear the click because the rocks they were walking on had drowned out the sound.

  “What happened next?” Cade asked, returning his response to Jess in the sick game he was playing with her.

  Jess turned around and stared into Cade’s eyes.

  “I stabbed him in the throat with a pen until I saw arterial spray.”

  As if on cue, a large pit bull came around from behind Cade, stopped, and began to growl at him. It was Thor. He had been growling at knives since the Southside Raiders’ attack on Gorham.

  Jess saw Thor and felt at ease, but Cade, not knowing what dog was growling at him, reacted, sloppily turning around to face the dog, revealing he had a knife behind his back. It was all Jess needed. The opportunity was now hers and the ball was in her court to shoot and kill Cade while she had the upper hand. Nobody would question her story or doubt her integrity. She had to act quickly, so she brought her rifle up and pointed it at the back of Cade’s head.

  Morgan was partnered up with Ash. They were standing inside of a train car going through the pockets of the deceased people that were still shackled when they heard several shots ring out. They briefly stared at each other and then jumped down out of the train car in unison. They couldn’t tell which direction the shot came from, so they patiently waited for another sound.

  While they stood outside of the train car, they looked at the ground so that they had an ear facing north and south, the direction the tracks were running. Several more shots rang out from the north and both men took off as fast as they could in that direction.

  “Wait! Stop here,” Morgan said.

  “What? Why?” Ash asked.

  “We don’t know what’s going on over there. We need backup.”

  Both men heard yells coming from the north and south. Shots were ringing out in both directions now.

  “We’re under attack, Ash. Now we have to pick a direction.”

  “We can head back south; there’s more friends in that direction.”

  When Morgan heard Ash say that, he remembered that he saw Cade and Jess heading north up the tracks, just the two of them.

  “Jess and Cade are alone north ways. I think they need our support.”

  Ash started running north and Morgan was running right behind him.

  The two men only ran a few train-car lengths when they had to drop and take cover. They were now under fire from the north and east side of the tracks. They could not yet make out the location of their attackers, but saw Thor running back towards Ash.

  Ash was already leaning up against a train car with his profile tight against it. He lowered his body to receive Thor, and grabbed him by the collar, pulling him in closer to the train so that he wouldn’t get shot.

  “What is it, boy? Where are they?” he asked Thor.

  Thor turned to face northward and Ash noticed some fresh blood on his ear. Reaching out to touch the blood, he rubbed it off and saw that it wasn’t his.

  “One of them have been shot,” Ash exclaimed to Morgan.

  “Well, we’re kinda pinned down right here.”

  Ash was closest to the corner of the car, so he slowly peered around to look for a shooter. He saw several individuals who weren’t shooting at them, but seemed to be preoccupied shooting at someone else.

  “The people on the east side aren’t shooting at us. They’re shooting at somebody in that direction and that direction,” Ash said, pointing southeast.

  “If nothing else, I would say this was a poorly executed ambush,” Morgan remarked. “We need to get up there and find Jess and Cade.”

  Both men and Thor walked with a low profile, moving from cover to cover northward.

  Eventually, they came to a spot where they saw Jess running south down the tracks. Morgan and Ash began laying down some cover fire at men shooting from ditches, houses and rooftops.

  “Let’s go,” Jess shouted towards them.

  “Where’s Cade?” Ash asked.

  “He was shot. He’s down. Let’s get out of here.”

  “Is he dead, Jess?”

  “Yeah, he’s dead. We have to leave or we’ll be dead, too.”

  About that time, the convoy came roaring northward, where it stopped to pick up Jess, Ash, Morgan, and Thor. The machine gunners were tearing into the houses and ditches that had assailants in them. Once the four of them were on board, they left, northward.

  Nathan was not in the vehicle that Jess had entered, so he spent the next few minutes wondering if she was okay and what had just happened.

  When the firefight started, he and the others that were closest to the convoy ran back to it and went to provide cover fire and to rescue members of their crew. From there, he gave the command to head north, past the front of the train.

  Eventually, the convoy was able to meet the front end of the train wreckage and cross over to the east side of the tracks. The attackers were now a mile or two behind them.

  The convoy came to a stop and Nathan exited the HMMWV on the same side that Jess exited. His heart was relieved to see that she was okay. They began walking towards each other, acting nonchalant, as if to maintain their coolness.

  They reached each other and Nathan asked her, “What just happened?”

  “I’m not sure, but I shot Cade just before all the shooting started. I think I might have started the whole thing.”

  “Wait, you shot Cade?”

  “Yeah, he was somehow involved in the Gorham attack.”

  “What makes you think that?”

  “The comments he was making.”

  “Comments?”

  “Yeah, he even mentioned the Scott guy that took me and made reference to him being killed by a wound to the neck.”

  Denny came running up, catching the tail end of what she was saying.

  “What’s going on?” he asked.

  “She shot Cade.”

  “What? Where is he?”

  “I don’t know, I shot him and I think that ignited the gun show. I think they were watching us.”

  “Back to Cade,” Nathan said. “You shot him because he made vague references to the Gorham attack?”

  “Not just the attack, but the killing of that Scott guy I killed with a pen.”

  “We have to go back and find him,” Denny demanded.

  “It’s too dangerous,” Jess countered. “Nathan, I think he was going to kill me. He was pressing me for information and would have stabbed me if Thor hadn’t shown up and growled at him.”

  “Are you sure he’s dead?”

  Jess hesitated and Nathan caught the fact that she didn’t want to answer the question.

  “Denny, round up a crew. We’re going back. We can’t leave him there.”

  Denny ran
off towards the parked convoy.

  Jess was busy trying to talk sense into Nathan, but he wouldn’t hear her point of view.

  Nathan grabbed Jess by the arm and she pulled away.

  “Don’t try to rough me up, Nathan.”

  “I’m not, I’m trying to get your attention. You’ve shot a loyal group member based on information that is shady at best.”

  “I know how it sounds, but you weren’t there. You’re going to have to trust me on this.”

  “I do trust you, Jess. But you have to understand two things. First, we need closure. If he’s dead, case closed. I’ll talk to you more about it later. Secondly, if he’s alive, we need his side of the story.”

  “Fair enough,” Jess replied.

  Denny returned with a few Marines and Southern Illinois Home Guard veterans.

  Nathan told the convoy leader to stay put until they returned.

  There were eight of them in the small patrol unit. Each was well armed and had radios.

  The group kept a tight formation against the wall of the train cars and trained their weapons towards the houses and ditches where they had seen people shooting from. Aside from the bodies of the men they had killed, they did not see any more people.

  Jess led them to the spot where she and Cade were standing when Thor had grabbed Cade’s attention.

  “I was standing right here and Cade was standing behind me. He pulled his knife out and Thor must have walked up behind him. He growled at Cade, he turned around towards Thor, and I raised my rifle up towards Cade’s head and pulled the trigger. At the same time I pulled the trigger, I was being shot at. I jumped in here…”

  Jess demonstrated by jumping up into the train car.

  “And I took cover. I called for Thor, but he ran back towards you guys in a southward direction.”

  “So where’s Cade?” Denny asked.

  Cade was nowhere to be seen.

  They did a quick search, looking for signs of Cade or his body, but found nothing but a blood pool where Jess said he was standing at the time she had shot him.

  “Alright, head back. He’s not here. We can’t linger. It’s too dangerous.”

  The patrol started heading back.

  Jess was walking behind Nathan, but hurried up to get alongside of him.

  “You covered closure if we found his body, and his side of the story if we rescued him. You didn’t say what would happen in the event of a missing person,” Jess said.

  “I guess we had better be watching our backs.”

  Elsewhere in Marion, Illinois

  “He doesn’t have any identification on him,” Cade heard a man say.

  He felt his pockets being searched.

  “He had this on him,” he heard another voice say.

  Cade felt an excruciating pain shooting through his head as he was waking up.

  “Lie still, son,” a man’s voice said as he felt two hands on his shoulders.

  Cade was lying on something soft. He reached his right hand out and felt cushions beneath him and realized he was on a couch.

  “Where am I?”

  “You’re in a friend’s house, now.”

  “Am I going to live?”

  “Thanks to the quick thinking of some of my men, you will. You’ll recover, but you have to rest. You were shot in the head; it seems you have a guardian angel.”

  “The girl that shot me…”

  “Shhh, don’t worry about any of that. Those tyrants have left and they’re no longer a threat.”

  “They have others they’re going to kill if we don’t do something to stop them. I was with them only to stay alive. They have left a trail of blood from Murphysboro to Marion. They are monsters,” Cade said as he tried his best to manipulate them into believing he was the good guy.

  “I have guys following them. They’ll collect some information on the monsters and bring it back to me.”

  “How many of you are there?”

  “First things first. My name’s Tom Walker, and regarding my men, well, I never share my numbers, but you don’t seem like the dangerous type. I can muster a couple hundred fighters.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah, really. That might seem like a lot, but only a few of them are considered the faithful type.”

  “No, I mean are you really Tom Walker?”

  “Yes. You say that like you’ve heard of me.”

  “Were you married to Theresa Walker?”

  “Theresa was my wife, a long time ago, yes. Do you know her?”

  “She’s my mother. I’m Cade Walker, your son.”

  Murphysboro, Illinois

  Tori was kneeling down, with the brass casing of a bullet in one hand and a rifle in the other. Brass casings riddled the ground next to the storefront buildings. Tori had picked one up that appeared to be a 223 or 5.56mm caliber casing. Looking around, she saw more brass, but most of them were 7.62x54R. Most likely shot from a Russian PKM, she thought to herself. She was putting the information together that there had been a gunfight here between Russian UN soldiers and/or their equipment and Americans. They were gone now, and there was no further sign that any UN forces were still occupying the immediate area.

  Tori had punched her way through Chester with minimal resistance. The cold air had most likely killed off much of the populace or sent them southward towards warmer climates. Regardless of why they weren’t there, she was happy that she didn’t have to spend much time defending her liberty. The one man she had run into came storming out of a house with a scoped-out Remington 270. He must not have taken notice of the pistol she had in her right hand. Had he been more observant, he might still be alive.

  Tori was a survivor, and she had determined that she was not going to be a victim again—not now, not ever. She spent lots of time alone and had all the time in the world to contemplate her existence and the state of America. This was still her home, and regardless of the tyranny that now ran rampant in the District and on the streets of America, she was going to survive for her husband and daughters. The way she saw it, their memory was kept alive in her. She had lost all contact with any other relation the moment the grid went down.

  Tori and Nathan had met a few years before the Flip. She never wore her wedding band, for whatever reason, and that led Nathan to believe she was single. She had attended the meetings faithfully for some time, not mentioning the fact that she was married until one day Nathan’s flirtations towards her became apparent. Nathan had developed a crush on her, but she had to let him know that she was married and remained apologetic about any confusion for several weeks. Her new quest to search for and locate Nathan had nothing to do with that awkward relationship. It was, in fact, a survival move.

  Tori stood up and kept the clues in her head as she moved onward.

  It’s going to be impossible to track them north of Murphy, she thought to herself. Murphy was a slang term the locals called Murphysboro. She knew that if there weren’t going to be any witnesses, then her trail would soon run dry.

  Tori thought back to what Christina had mentioned about heading north. She followed a trail of UN wreckage from Route 149 east to Route 13 east. She couldn’t reconcile Christina’s comment about them heading north if all the signs continue to point to a trip that headed east, towards Carbondale, a large town situated between Murphysboro and Marion.

  Tori had no desire to drive through Carbondale, but she knew there could be clues in Carbondale that could lead her towards her destination, which, at the moment, appeared to be fluid, rather than a stationary place. She didn’t know if Nathan was still alive or if he was dead. All she knew was that the company he kept had pressed from Gorham to the east and, ultimately, according to Christina, to the north.

  Her trek to Carbondale was uneventful. Once she arrived, she played with the idea to take back roads around the once large, bustling, college community, but if she did that, she might miss something. Her motorcycle, now stopped, made a soft and soothing humming sound. She was glad she had
acquired herself a Harley Davidson. The parts would be more easily attained, since they were made in America, but how many Harley parts would she find lying around if she needed them? She didn’t think that far ahead. The bike was loud and that was a problem in large domesticated areas.

  With both legs straddling her bike, she strolled along as quietly as she could. The way to keep a Harley quiet was to take it nice and slow. She drove softly along Route 13 east and saw a few people along the way. Most of them were looking from windows, and others were groups of men and women wearing colors that promoted their gang affiliation. They would look at her and watch her ride along, but everybody seemed to be allergic to the highway. They were avoiding it at all costs. The UN didn’t sweep through side roads and, in fact, avoided them at all costs. They liked to control the main highways and interstates. So when people saw her on the highway, they did not give chase. This was the rule, the exception was the area around the University Mall. It had been seized by a large group of people that had not only taken control of the mall, but also the shopping centers across the highway.

  When Tori’s bike came riding into the area, she saw them gathering outside on either side of the highway. They were still several yards from the roadway, but appeared to be a menacing group. Of the weapons she saw them carrying, they had shovels, axes, baseball bats, machetes, and guns. She tried not to panic, but the adrenaline rush flushed her ears and she felt the flow of blood in her veins as it pumped through her face. She maintained her composure and kept a slow steady pace as she moved along.

  One person in particular was ahead of the others and moving in her direction. He had a radio strapped to his back with an enormous antenna that stretched towards the heavens. He was the only person heading in her direction. Working against her own instinct, she stopped the bike and waited for the man to arrive.

  Overhead, the FLIES drone was maintaining constant surveillance. It hovered silently, monitoring Tori’s every move.

  Springfield, Illinois

  The junior sergeant was eager to contact Captain Zacharov so that he could inform him that Tori had made her way to the site of the UN attack on Murphysboro. He picked up the SATCOM phone and communicated to Zacharov’s secretary that Tori Cunningham had found clues on the whereabouts of the SIHG extremist group. Within moments, he received a SATCOM notice from Zacharov’s office. “Keep tailing Tori and keep our forces out of her way.”