The End Time Saga (Book 5): The Holding

by Greene, Daniel

  “Do you swear on this flag to protect these people and unite for survival?”

  The biker stared at the melted crimson slop in front of him where over a hundred men had already been executed as traitors. He stayed silent.

  After the first few executions, Steele had instructed his men to get a charred bench from the farmhouse to lean the traitors over, exposing their head and neck. Gregor and Nathan pushed the biker’s body over the bench, holding his arms back.

  Steele held a wood axe now, having found his tomahawk a less than optimal tool for execution. “Your choice has been made. Any last words?” He stood on the prisoner’s flank, both hands on the axe, watching the man.

  The biker turned his head to the side. His words came out hurried and forced. “War Machines for life.”

  “So be it.”

  Steele stood back. Raising his arms, he swung down with controlled ferocity. The wet slap of the axe blade sinking into the man’s flesh made her want to gag, and she turned away. She retreated through the open doors of the Sable Point barn.

  Bullet holes peppered the sides of the barn like a giant woodpecker had gone mad and pecked hundreds of holes. The fire at the center of the barn had been remade. Shocked and miserable people sat around it. They were quiet but for the crying. A little blonde girl stood staring at the flames, her arms loosely holding a little boy.

  Gwen wrapped her arms around Char’s shoulders. She wheeled the girl and boy away from the grisly scene of apocalyptic justice before them. Gwen wiped Char’s hair. “It’s going to be okay.”

  Char pouted, angrily looking at her. “Do you know how many times Harriet said that? Do you know how many times my parents said that? Do you know where they are now? All of them?”

  Gwen opened her mouth and closed it. “I do. They’re dead.” Harriet had been hit with a bullet when the Chosen men had raided the barn. Her body lay outside, hole in her chest, in a line of corpses with the rest. Hank was gone. Trent was gone. Tess was gone. So many lives snuffed out because of men’s desire for power.

  Char’s lip quivered. “They all said it was going to be all right, and it got them killed. So quit saying shit that isn’t true.”

  “You’re right.” Gwen bit her lip. “I won’t bullshit. You’re old enough. You’ve seen enough.” She nodded. “I have no idea. We will probably die, but in order to keep living, you have to have hope that something you do will make a difference. So we fight.” Gwen touched Char’s face. “Fight for Freddy. Hope that tomorrow is better.”

  Char pulled her face away and Gwen released her. Becky and Haley sat nearby.

  Haley stared at a burnt checkerboard and moved a piece. Her arm in a makeshift sling. Dutch and Rocky sat smushed around the girl, watching every person with interest. They mirrored the people around them in sadness.

  “How is she doing?” Gwen asked softly. She knew the things these young people had seen in the last few hours would haunt them forever. The young were fragile. They didn’t have the mechanisms in place to understand why death danced about them, stealing people left and right.

  Becky glanced at her shaky cigarette in hand, tears in her eyes, her body still covered in ashy gray soot. Her mouth opened but closed instead around her cigarette, and she inhaled, lighting the tiny ember on the end of the white stick. Her voice came out like a whisper. “I’m not sure I’m ready to talk about it.”

  Gwen put her arms around Becky. Both women smelled like they’d rolled through a fire pit for two weeks straight. Gwen whispered to Becky. “I miss them so much already.”

  “Me too.” She didn’t know how long they sat head to head watching Haley play checkers against herself. Her tiny fingers slid pieces of melted and burnt red and black checkers back and forth.

  The little girl looked back at them. “Where’s grandpa?”

  Gwen swallowed hard. “He’s gone, sweetie.” Her breath caught in her chest. “He’s gonna be gone for a long time.”

  Haley’s eyes didn’t leave the game. “Why?”

  “He had to go. Him and Grams.” She reached across the board and wiped the young girl’s dirty face. “But we’ll see him again.”

  “I’ll leave the board setup so we can play when he gets back.”

  Gwen gulped. “Just play, baby. You can set it back up when him and grandma get back.”

  Struggling to keep her breath inside without breaking down and crying all over again, Gwen studied the wood ceiling of the barn. Becky rested her head on Gwen’s shoulder, and they sat in silence watching Haley play checkers.

  AHMED

  Missouri-Iowa border

  “The People of Iowa Welcome You: Fields of Opportunities.” Four miles back, the convoy of trucks and horses had passed a sign that said this. They hadn’t seen any people or opportunities since entering the state except for the roadblock ahead of them near a casting metal factory. Dead littered the roadway. Exploded skulls and dead bodies were piled upon one another. The stench was fierce, even with the cold to keep it down.

  A man’s voice boomed through a bullhorn. “You’ve come close enough. State your purpose!”

  Ahmed opened the door of the pickup and got out, holding his hands in the air. Moments later he was joined by Jim.

  “Who the hell are these guys?”

  “I dunno, militia? They don’t look like military.”

  Jim skimmed the people behind them. They were the remains of the Singleton and Bailey families with a smattering of Stantons and Foxworths and a few Carlyles on the Bailey side. Almost a hundred people when they’d dug them out of their homes. After the families had tried one last time to go to war with one another over the death of the Bailey patriarch Sly, they’d come together. They’d unified over the words of Jes, Jim, and Sadie and under the vigilante justice of the captured Wolf Riders.

  With the death of Macleod and the assault on the mine, most of the Wolf Riders fled the area. Those that stayed were captured and the Missourians administered their own justice with a rope and oak tree under the watchful eye of Deputy Vance, who could do nothing except sanction the executions.

  “Let’s go talk to them.” Ahmed pulled his bat out of the car, leaving his shotgun.

  “No guns?” Jim asked.

  “Nah, just gonna talk.”

  “What if they’re bad?”

  “Then we’re at their mercy.”

  Jim narrowed his eyes and tucked a handgun into the small of his back. “You can be at their mercy. I’ll be ready.”

  The two men strolled forward, Ahmed limping. They weaved around and stepped over the fallen bodies in the snow. An infected clawed the white powder, slowly crawling toward the roadblock. Ahmed put a boot on its back, holding it still.

  Jim stopped, eyeing the infected. “You ever play golf?”

  Ahmed gave it a golf-style swing thwacking the side of its skull inward. Its arms quit working and it laid still. “Nah, never had the patience.”

  The two men ranged closer to the barricade beneath the violent gaze of gun barrels until a voice called to them, bringing them to a halt. “That’s far enough, you two.” The speaker’s head poked out over the barrier. A winter skull cap covered his head. “What do you want?”

  Ahmed leaned on his bat to take the pressure off his damaged leg. “We’re headed to Hacklebarney.”

  “What you want up there?”

  The response to this would answer whether or not these men were allied forces or enemies. The answer would grant them a slightly longer life on the frozen earth or certain death facedown in the snow, no better than the infected Ahmed had destroyed moments before.

  “I’m looking for somebody. More like a group.”

  “Who’s that?”

  Ahmed shared a look with Jim. Jim gave him a cocky grin, his hand resting on the side of his belt.

  “I’m looking for a man, Mark Steele, or a Gwen Reynolds.”

  The head disappeared while the other men continued to point guns at them, and when it reappeared, Ahmed thought he saw the
barrel of the gun trained on him. His heart skipped a beat. He tensed his muscles, flexing for action. How many lives do I have? Can I survive this if they start shooting? A man jogged off in the direction of the factory. Ahmed eyed him as he ran.

  The head reappeared. “Sounds like you’re looking for Camp Forge.”

  Ahmed squinted. “Camp Forge? What’s that?”

  “That’s Captain Steele’s base. This is Outpost Victory.”

  Ahmed mouthed the words. Captain Steele? Outpost Victory?

  “He’s got a base?”

  “Yeah, he’s our commanding officer.”

  “I’m sorry you must be thinking about somebody else. We will be on our way. Can we trust you to not put a bullet in our backs?”

  “Sure.”

  Ahmed and Jim turned away. More men jogged back from the factory. One was decked out in a military-style vest with a long gun slung over his chest. He had another man in full military camouflage. Either he’d stolen it or was a remainder of some overrun unit.

  Ahmed eyed them, quickening his pace.

  “More are coming,” Jim said, turning toward the running men.

  “Get those trucks turned!” Ahmed pointed at the lead pickup in his group. People scrambled to obey him.

  “Wait!” the man shouted.

  The unlikely duo stopped. “I ain’t running nowhere,” Ahmed said.

  Jim shrugged his shoulders. “You know me. Not much of a runner.”

  “Or a talker.”

  “Or a talker.”

  Yells carried from the gate and it rolled open. Ahmed turned around. The two camouflaged military men walked through. “Who are you?” They cautiously crossed the open road avoiding the bodies. Ahmed and Jim started walking back to the barricade.

  “I am Ahmed, and this is Jim Singleton.”

  Both men appeared under stress ready to go hot at any moment. The taller of the two shouted back. “How do you know Captain Steele?”

  “I was with him in D.C.”

  The two soldiers exchanged glances. “D.C.? Not Michigan?”

  “Well, both. I’ve been with him since the beginning.”

  “Where in Michigan?” the older man asked.

  “We were at Little Sable Point and then Pentwater.”

  “Your base was at a dam there?”

  Ahmed shook his head confused. “No, it was a lighthouse.”

  The man nodded and smiled. “You do know him.”

  “That’s what I said.”

  The man walked closer and stuck out a hand to Ahmed. “Van Fogerty. I am the militia commander of Outpost Victory. Sorry for the rude introduction. We’ve had some difficulties the past few days. Why don’t you bring your people inside? It’s warm and secure.”

  Ahmed exhaled, taking the man’s hand. “Sounds like a good idea.”

  “We’ll talk more inside.”

  “So this friend of yours is some sort of military leader?” Jim asked as they returned to their vehicle.

  “Well, he was in charge but nothing formal.”

  “Those guys were talking about U.S. Military,” Jim said excitedly. “Been a long time since we seen or heard from our boys.”

  “We heard a bit too much from them over the last few months.”

  “Really? We ain’t heard shit.”

  “They weren’t the nice kind of military.”

  “Hmm.” Jim turned to the convoy waving his hand in a circle. “We’re going inside.”

  ***

  “He defeated Colonel Jackson?” Ahmed asked.

  Two soldiers, Van, Ahmed, Jim, and Sadie stood in a small conference room. Van nodded his head slowly. “These men here joined Steele from Jackson.”

  Over a month ago, these same men were trying to gun him down. The thought put an uneasy feeling in his gut. They appeared regular enough. Men roughly his age with enough dark circles around their eyes that Ahmed felt they knew each other well.

  “We are under Colonel Kinnick in Operation Homefront.”

  Ahmed shook his head. “I can’t believe this. Steele is in charge of the defense of southern Iowa.”

  “That’s correct. He sent me and a hundred militia with military advisors to build up this outpost. There’s a problem though.”

  “What’s that?”

  Van shared a glance with his military advisor. “We haven’t heard anything in days.”

  “No communications?”

  “Nothing on the radio or in person.”

  “Not just that.”

  The sergeant nodded. “We’re starting to see hordes of Zulus coming through. Almost twenty times the regular number and they’re coming from the north.”

  “Hordes?”

  “Dead in the hundreds even thousands. They almost caught us the first night.”

  “No comms and lots of infected. That don’t sound good,” Jim said.

  The sergeant nodded. “No, it doesn’t.”

  Van spoke, “We’ve had contact with the colonel. He’s lost comms with other units north.”

  “I’ll lead a group north and reestablish communications with Camp Forge,” Ahmed said.

  Van traded looks with his sergeant. “I’m not sure that’s a great idea. You’d be taking all those people into immediate danger.”

  “I must link with him and these people go with me.”

  Jim nodded. “We do.”

  Van ran a hand through his silver hair. “All right. I need you to take this radio. On the off chance that it’s just his comms, this will get them back on track. But boys, if it was a bad comm, I would expect Steele to already be here or sending a boat down river.”

  “Does the river freeze?”

  Van shook his head, his kind eyes worrying. “Not that I can ever remember.”

  “We will be moving north then to Camp Forge.”

  “Keep me posted on what’s happening. I hate operating blind out here. Just feels like the walls are closing in.”

  “When doesn’t it?”

  Van laughed. “Give my best to my family. I’ll be rotating out of here soon enough.”

  “I will.”

  “Safe travels.”

  Ahmed knew that his travels would be anything but safe, but neither was stealing back home. There was always the chance they could throw you out in the process, but that made the steal that much better.

  He stared at Sadie for a moment. Her muddy-brown hair stuck out from under her winter hat, laying on her shoulders. She gave him a soft smile, a bit unsure but mostly caring along with a fraction of hope, and all of it was for him. He had everything he needed to survive this world. His bat, his girl, all he needed was home. “Let’s steal home.”

  ALVARADO

  La Crescent, MN

  Her body was afire. Like she’d been plopped into a furnace and left to incinerate.

  Flashes of the dead surrounding her Marines replayed over and over in a cinematic nightmare, ruling over her level of consciousness. Ice, wind, and snow swirled around the edges.

  “River…frozen,” she mumbled. Trying to sit up, she found herself trapped and unable to stand. She fought blindly, and the darkness stole her fight from her.

  Her mind came and went as she traveled across planes of her existence. Faces of the Marines she’d left behind came and then faded into oblivion. They joined the Marines she’d left on the river. It was as if she dreamt a hundred dreams at the same time, each one overlapping with the last.

  She awoke and blinked her eyes into focus. A broad-faced man with ears like bat wings leaned near her. His face was simple and his jaw thick, like a person she could trust to carry a couch or rip the arms off a burglar, but he was more than that. An ugly face that she immediately recognized.

  “Captain Heath?” She closed her eyes and opened them again.

  A wide smile split his lips, and it seemed unnatural for him. His voice rumbled, “Major Alvarado. Welcome back to the land of the living.”

  She gave a weak snort and managed to mutter the only thing in her foggy m
ind that her body screamed for, “Water.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” He disappeared and reappeared holding a water bottle to her lips. She eagerly swallowed as fast as she could. The cool liquid flowed down her scratched and fiery throat.

  “Should have known better than to doubt you,” he said, taking the bottle back. “You were blue when we found you. Not just any shade, but navy blue. Thought you went squid on us.”

  “God, Captain. That bad?” Her head pounded and she pushed herself up.

  “Stiff as a board too.”

  She glanced around the room. “Where am I?” Small desks and a green chalkboard hung on the far wall. Little cubbies for shoes and books lined the other wall.

  “La Crescent Elementary, ma’am.”

  She sat up with her legs crossed for a moment. “What are you doing here, Captain? You are supposed to be in the south.”

  He handed her the water bottle.

  She took the bottle. It crinkled having been refilled too many times. “Thank you.”

  He took a seat in a small chair that he made look even smaller with his mammoth frame. He scooted closer to her. “When we lost comms, I moved men north to find out the cause. I chose to lead the company.”

  “Tired of sitting in outpost?” she said with a smirk. This massive Marine would do anything to get into the fight. Her left hand was in a hard splint. She wiggled her fingers, and the swollen appendages fired back at her with bloated pain. Her body felt like she’d been to hell and back while being dragged behind a team of demon horses. Every single muscle in her felt torn, every bone bruised, and every ligament ripped.

  “Ma’am, you know I’m not one to sit.”

  She grimaced as she pushed herself off the classroom floor. He offered her a hand. She shook her head no, forcing herself to her feet. For a moment, the cold made her self-aware that she only had a tank top covering her nakedness. Her skin prickled with the frigid onslaught. The situation wasn’t normal with a subordinate no matter how much she liked the man.

  Heath handed over her shirt and jacket. “It’s cold in here.”