The Barbarous Road_A Post-Apocalyptic EMP Survivor Thriller

by Ryan Schow

  For some reason this mattered to him.

  Bravery, honesty, patriotism.

  Nowadays there was a war on truth and truth was a thing people in power got used to manipulating. Where had all the bravery gone? Why was honesty such a difficult concept to grasp? And when did our Presidents ever get persecuted for protecting the people they were tasked to serve?

  Other Presidents served in the military, he knew. Lots of them. They spent time in the reserves working stateside, and though there was a tremendous honor in that, and a duty performed in service of their country, when did any of these presidents actually carry a gun into combat, shoot at people, get shot at? When did they ever pilot a helicopter into a hot zone while taking enemy fire to pick up a bunch of grunts that were half dead and dying anyway? Did any of them ever look an enemy soldier right in the eye and know that, despite the rich and storied life he might have lived before war, this person needed to die right then and there?

  Ben couldn’t think of one President who had that kind of a past.

  Then again, his head wasn’t exactly clear, and he was smart enough to know never to question a soldier’s commitment to his country.

  But he did.

  He was one of those Presidents who went hand-to-hand with America’s enemies. He parachuted into hot zones out of helicopters while taking fire. He looked eye-to-eye with his enemy and had the stomach to shoot them in the face because they stood opposite him. That’s the kind of man he had been, the kind of leader he tried to be. But now he was taking shots not from guns, but from politicians and the media, and somehow this felt about a bazillion times worse.

  Yet, with everything he survived, with all the things he’d done in the name of freedom and in the service of his country, for him to be sitting in this room, locked up by some duplicitous madman hell bent on destroying the world, this felt ridiculous and undignified by every measure!

  Fists at his side, his head full of cotton and chaos, he dropped down and started doing pushups. Then he did sit-ups. By the time he’d cranked out a hundred and fifty of each, he was still bristling with energy.

  Thinking of his family, his two little girls, he punched the air over and over again working on form and speed, and then he struck the bulletproof glass on the metal door holding him captive. He punched the square of glass relentlessly until his splattered blood and the red smears that followed gave him the small measure of privacy he needed to really let his emotions unwind.

  After he bled his anger dry (for the moment, at least), the President collapsed on the bed, cradled his cut and throbbing hand and wept himself to sleep. When he was out, all he dreamt of was love and killing.

  And when he woke, only thoughts of killing remained.

  Chapter Four

  Marcus walked casually down the Ramada Inn’s first floor walkway, even though nothing about what he was doing there was casual. He passed a few motel rooms, rooms with pulled-shut drapes and closed doors, and then he arrived at the room with the gangster rap music pumping out.

  The door was wedged open wide enough for him to enter.

  Knife out, gun out, he stepped into the first floor room and stopped what he was doing. Four guys looked up from where they were doing lines of coke on a table, grabbed their guns and drew on him.

  He was already firing on them, though. Two return shots cracked the door frame, splintering wood or bits of metal. The shrapnel dug into his cheeks, but missed his eyeball, thankfully. By then he’d taken out all four.

  Knowing what was coming next, he scrambled over to the four, grabbed one and threw him by the door. He then wiped a puddle of blood from one of the clowns he killed all over his face and neck before sitting in the vacant chair and hanging his head back like he was dead.

  Thirty seconds later, a pack of skinheads and faux-cholo’s piled into the room wondering what the hell just happened.

  Someone said, “Check the doors, get the guys together!”

  “What the hell, man?!” one of them said. By now they were piling into the room, all of them looking at the dead guy Marcus tossed near the door.

  “Jesus, is that Jeremy?” another asked.

  Timing it just right, Marcus shot forward and pumped six shots into four guys. Wasting no time, he grabbed a gun off the table, then leaned his head back again and waited.

  Four more guys moved into the room going absolutely nuts and that’s when Marcus caught them flatfooted. He emptied the stolen gun’s magazine into the four of them before they could even get a shot off. He then scrambled over to the pile of bodies, snatched another pistol from one of the fallen, then smeared a lot more blood on himself before flopping down in the pile. Belly up, he played dead and got ready for round three.

  Round three was one cautious moron creeping up on the open door with a gun at the ready. Marcus put a round into his chest, causing him to buck and weave backwards into the parking lot where it sounded like he stumbled over something and collapsed in a gasping heap.

  “I have to say, I appreciate your tactics,” a voice said from outside. “Very clever.”

  Marcus was officially sweating.

  “I’ll give you a chance to step out and take a bullet in the head like a real man, or you can sit in there like a coward and we’ll put hundreds of bullets in you. It’s your choice.”

  Right then, Marcus popped up in front of the window and fired two shots at the man with the mouth. The first bullet missed him. The second caught him in the ear, causing him to belt out the most dreadful of shrieks. For a second there, Marcus thought the screaming would shatter the rest of the glass, but instead, about a dozen men open fired on the room.

  As fast as he could, he scrambled under the bodies of the fallen, shouldering as many as he could in front of him where they’d absorb most of the incoming lead. He also realized they would breach the front door, which was wide open. If they were smart, they’d try to take him under the cover of fire. With broken glass and splintered wood flying in a cacophony of gunfire and noise, he tucked himself under three of the bodies, then made a small hole for his arm and his gun to fit through. By his estimation, he had five rounds left.

  The bullets continued to tear through the front of the motel room. He felt the dead bodies taking the lead, jumping and shaking like they were still alive, which they most certainly weren’t. Any minute now, one or two bullets would cut clean through and he’d be toast.

  Two faces appeared in the front doorway. He shot both men with one bullet each. More screaming outside. More cursing.

  “Alright, alright!” Marcus finally screamed. “I’m coming out!”

  The gunfire stopped.

  Inching forward over the bodies, he army crawled to the front door, his chin practically dragging on the floor. There was a gun on the floor, one that had fallen when its owner ate a bullet. Marcus quickly checked the chamber and the mag, then he pressed the mag home as quietly as he could and took a deep breath. He pushed forward like a snake, then pushed himself forward where he pumped rounds into five of the seven men standing outside.

  The guys expecting him to come out with his hands up, on his feet, they were the most surprised. Nope. They didn’t expect him to come from the floor, or hit all five shots.

  The problem was, only one was a kill shot.

  Damn!

  By the time those still standing knew what happened, he’d pulled himself back in the room, out of the line of fire. Squirming his way back into the pile of bodies, he waited out the torrent. Nothing came right away. Feeling around the unwieldy bodies and the blood-soaked mess, he managed to find two more pistols. Contorting himself with more effort than he wanted to exert, he checked both mags.

  Bullets started flying again. He was suddenly sprayed in the face, blood spatter getting in his eyeballs. Temporarily blinded, he pawed at his eyes, told himself to stay calm. He waited frantically yet patiently until the gunfire slowed to a stop, then he broke loose of the pile and ran to the bathroom, drawing more fire.

  As fast as he
could, because the men would now advance on him having seen where he’d gone, he washed the blood out of his eyes. Looking in the mirror, red water dripping down his face, he was a red nightmare.

  “Keep it together,” he said, his eyes drilling into his reflection’s eyes.

  Turning around, against the wall, he saw the stacks of ammo next to a shotgun. “Well Jesus take the wheel,” he mumbled with a tempered grin on his face.

  He grabbed the shotgun, started jamming ammo into the tube, then he racked a fresh load and waited. Too much time passed. What the hell? Popping his head out, he didn’t see anyone advancing just yet, so he continued to wait. Seconds later the sound of automatic weapons unleashing hell erupted in a deafening burst. Holes peppered the wall outside the bathroom and he waited, listening beneath the roar of gunfire. Were they closing in on him, or standing at the front door, scared?

  They should be scared. He was. Marcus didn’t like war. He loved it. What he hated though was what it did to him. The kind of animal it freed up. He was a beast conditioned by Uncle Sam for war and he was good at it, as evidenced by the mounting body count, but it had taken its toll.

  The noise stopped. He heard them approaching. When they sounded about ten feet away, he popped out, split the space between them and fired a round. The spread caught them both, tearing holes in both their cheeks, but not doing any fatal damage.

  Two more shots put them both down.

  Three rounds for two men. He couldn’t afford any more of that. Or could he? He started measuring the bodies against his original head count.

  Twelve or thirteen minus five, maybe minus the leader whose ear he shot, minus two more. Was that right? Maybe there were four or five left. He could handle that. But in this very moment of contemplation, a mechanical clamor arose and seconds later one of the SUVs smashed through the front of the motel room, bouncing up over the bodies and crashing halfway through the motel’s back wall.

  It all happened so fast. One minute there was a halfway intact motel room (albeit one that was riddled with bullets), then there was a gaping hole in the front of the room and a black Suburban stuffed to the roofline through the back wall. The SUV had jolted to a stop right in front of him.

  Without hesitation, he leveled the shotgun, fired into the passenger seat hitting the passenger and the driver, both of whom had their faces smooshed in the airbags. The overhead sprinklers then decided to come on, drenching the lot of them.

  Sliding his weapon over, he fired three more rounds into the back seats killing two more men, both whom were dazed from the botched vehicular assault.

  “Idiots!” he screamed, not because he needed their bodies to know he thought they were beyond braindead pulling a stunt like that, but because he had so much anxious energy and adrenaline built up he needed an outlet.

  Instead of hunkering down to wait out the rest of the cavalry, he scuttled around the back of the SUV, collected the box of shotgun shells he’d left behind. He didn’t load them. Didn’t have time. Yanking open the SUV’s door, he jerked the passenger out of the front seat, tossed him to the floor where he lay dead in and around bits of what looked like broken cinder blocks and obliterated drywall.

  Inside, the windshield was webbed. Marcus kicked it out in two tries, then scurried through the hole, scrambling over the hood and dropping down into what looked like an auto repair yard. A tied up Rottweiler that was black as night and terrifying to look at lunged at him. Marcus jolted back, then breathed a quick sigh of relief when the dog’s collar yanked him back.

  And here he thought his heart couldn’t take anymore…

  Instead of taking on the dog, which was barking furiously and gnashing its teeth at him, he loaded the shotgun and stuffed the rest of the shells into his pockets. He needed a moment to properly catch his breath.

  The Rottweiler was now frothing at the mouth, lunging, practically choking itself out trying to get to him. The damn dog was setting him on edge!

  As far as he could tell, the only way out was either jump the fence (which stood higher than he preferred) or shoot the dog. That was an easy decision. He’d never shoot the dog, or even harm an animal for that matter. So it was the fence.

  Getting a running start, he leapt over the fence. Okay, in reality it took him two tries and he nearly tore his sack on the second try, but at least he landed hard.

  Marcus found himself in a narrow, smaller repair yard that looked like it serviced only German automobiles. A small patch of green grass and the street lay beyond a bunch of dusty BMW’s and a spiked, wrought iron fence. Getting a running start, he launched off the hood, barely cleared the fence, then landed on the soft grass and promptly sprained his ankle. The shotgun fell from his hands as he rolled across the sidewalk and into the road.

  Fortunately there was no traffic otherwise he’d be bumper bait.

  Getting up, hobbling but telling himself to suck it up, he grabbed the shotgun, hobble-jogged around the front of the Ramada Inn and came through the broken portico once more. He had no cover, but he had a stolen pistol with two or three or four rounds left and a shotgun, which had a wide burst at short range but was basically useless to him from afar. He’d be screwed if he couldn’t cover the distance between the portico and the destroyed room.

  Three men outside the motel room had their guns drawn and were cautiously heading inside. There were young girls everywhere. Most of them scantily clad and standing in front of the second story railing watching, hoping.

  “Get back in your rooms!” one of the guys screamed, but the girls stayed put. “Get!”

  A few of them started to head back inside, but when the others stayed, they did, too. When all three of the remaining men were inside the room, Marcus hobble-ran toward the room, using his index finger over his lips to shush! the girls.

  Not one of them said a word.

  When he got to the room the Suburban had driven into, he sidled up alongside the giant hole the SUV made. A quick peek in showed him the three men’s backs. He told himself this was beyond reproach—shooting men in the back—but they were doing all kinds of awful things and he reasoned that none of these cockroaches deserved honorable deaths.

  He stepped inside the room using the cover of the noisy sprinklers, leveled the shotgun and put every one of those dirty dogs down, not caring for one second the manner in which they were executed.

  Outside, he looked up at the girls, most of them dressed beyond inappropriate, but for reasons he thought he understood.

  “Any more?” he asked.

  Two of the girls pointed down the upstairs hall. Slowly, he nodded. He then took a moment to assess the pain in his ankle (it was manageable) and his knee (son of a bitch). Then he drew a deep breath and told himself to finish this off.

  Hobbling upstairs, he walked past the girls, including Corrine who had joined the other girls and was all eyes on him. At the end of the hall, he turned and said, “How many?” to which several of them held up a single finger.

  Thank God.

  He hit the door with the butt of the shotgun three times, then called through the locked door to the man. He got no reply.

  “If you come out now, I won’t kill you,” he said. “All your homeboys are dead. I’m counting to three, then I’m throwing a grenade through the window. Either you’ll blow up with the grenade or it’ll flush you out and I’ll shoot you in—”

  Just then the door opened and a pair of empty hands emerged in surrender. “I’m unarmed man, easy.”

  The skinhead came out, an older guy who didn’t look hard enough to be running with this kind of crowd.

  “Food and weapons,” Marcus said.

  “Down the hall, man,” he said. “Four doors. That’s our storage center.”

  Putting the shotgun in his face, he said, “Show me.”

  “Easy man, we had a deal, right? I come out, you don’t kill me?”

  “That doesn’t mean I won’t shoot you someplace less lethal than the face. Are you right handed or left?”
r />   Sneaking his hands behind his back, he said, “I’ll show you, man, I’ll show you!”

  True to his word, he took Marcus to a room that was packed to the walls with food stores and weapons.

  “This it?” Marcus asked.

  He gulped, then looked into Marcus’s eyes and got scared. “Seven doors down, there’s another one.”

  “Okay, fine. Take a candy bar and start running. And don’t stop until you’re so far from this place you forget what it even looks like. Am I clear?”

  “Yeah,” he said, taking two bars, “perfectly.”

  When he scurried past him and out the door, the girls flocked in and around the room. There must have been twenty-five of them. They were coming out of the woodwork, looking scared but hopeful, some of them visibly shaking now that they heard their abductors were dead.

  Corrine worked her way toward him, gave him a hug, which he didn’t return because it felt awkward. She said, “I’m sorry I doubted you.”

  “It’s okay,” he replied. Then to the girls, he said, “Grab what you can, take a weapon if you want, then find your way back home. And if you don’t have one, find a vacant room and squat it out. Whatever happened here is happening all along the west coast and won’t be ending anytime soon.”

  The girls got moving, grabbing what they could. Corrine didn’t move, though. She just looked up at him and said, “I don’t have a home.”

  “You told me that earlier,” he said.

  “What about you?”

  “I have a boat, other people to take care of. Friends.”

  “Are you taking the food?”

  “What I need of it, yes, but there will be plenty for you and your friends.”

  “They’re not my friends. We’re strangers locked up and, well…”

  “What do you want from me, Corrine?” he asked, impatient only because his body hurt. He was bone weary and he still had to load up the big rig and get back to the yacht before someone looted it. Not to mention the emotional turmoil he’d surely face for what he’d done here.