“We did it, sir. Nothing like a little air superiority.”
Kinnick grinned as his stomach warmed with the turn of fate. “Can’t say I’ve ever been more proud.”
Hunter offered him a salute. The rest of his men did the same. Tears came to the corners of his eyes as he returned their salute. I can’t believe we held them.
“Let’s get Daugherty, that snake-bastard, on the line. Tell him we did it.”
Hunter grinned beneath his bloody brown beard. “I’d love to see the look on that prick’s face when you tell him we held.”
“We will soon enough, in person, but first, let’s give our saviors some love,” Kinnick said. He picked up his radio handset. “Raven, there are some real grateful men down here. Thank you.”
“Least we could do on our way by.”
“Way by?”
The microphone cracked and shifted to only static. Kinnick glanced at the sky wondering, what the pilot meant.
Over a minute later, he saw the white flash and his gut sank as low as it could go in his body. He was far enough away where he could look right at it. It seemed more like a sun in pencil form leaping up from a mountain hundreds of miles away. A gray plume of smoke shot upright and curled over on itself thousands of feet in the air. Salt Lake City? Kinnick closed his eyes, opening them as he could feel the boom run across his face. Tears flowed freely down his cheeks, driving off his chin now. Roooaarrrr! The boom echoed from mountain to mountain.
Everything he had fought for and his men had died for had been in vain. Entire cities were being annihilated as thermonuclear warheads slammed into all of the population centers of the western United States. Kinnick dropped to his knees, letting his gun fall from his grasp.
“The bastard. He did it. He really did it,” he said aloud, but no one heard.
STEELE
Pentwater, MI
He awoke before he opened his eyes. He listened briefly, wondering if he had passed on. No heavenly trumpets awaited him. No din from a Valhalla battle. Not even the darkness of nothing. Only pain met him. Pain that pounded through his arm and leg assured him he still remained in the world of the living. He peeped his eyes open. A woman’s heart-shaped face looked back. He knew in an instant it was her. Until the day he died, he would recognize it. Gwen’s nose sniffled and she ran a hand across it. She half-laughed, half-cried.
“You’re awake,” she whispered. Her voice was genuinely happy.
Steele groaned, feeling the full extent of his injuries. His arm burned and his leg throbbed like someone was pushing on his small pellet wounds.
“I suppose you’re going to tell me I’m lucky to be alive,” he whispered, his voice crackling in dehydration.
She placed a bottle of water to his lips, and the dryness of his throat scratched as the water went down. After a gulp, it wouldn’t go down and he spit up some of the liquid onto himself. He brought his arm that wasn’t agonizingly filled with pain across his mouth.
“How long have I been out?” he asked, twisting his head to get a good look at his other arm. It rested on his chest in a sling, and white bandages wrapped all the way around it. The bandages were tight and his arm was hot underneath them, screaming in pain for air. “Let me swell,” his wound seemed to whisper.
“You’ve been in and out for two days. One of the War Machines is a retired corpsman. He did the best he could, but the arm is,” she stopped mid-sentence. She gave him a sad smile that made his heart drop. “Time will tell.”
Steele lifted his head off his pillow. He wiggled his fingers a fraction in defiance at her claims.
“Fingers still work,” he grunted. After putting his head back on his pillow, he lay silent for a minute, exhausted by the small effort.
He took in his surroundings, not recognizing the dorm-like room he lay in.
“Where are we?”
“Pentwater Fire Department. That’s where the bikers dropped us off after the attack.”
“What attack?” Steele’s heart jumped. Instinctually his eyes darted around the room for a weapon. “Pastor?”
She shook her head. “Hundreds of infected on the road. We were trapped, but Max, he helped save us.”
Steele smiled and coughed a bit, bringing a fist to his mouth. “There’s no way you needed saving. Where is that young buck? I want to tell him I’m proud of him.” He stared at her, awaiting her reply. He blinked. “That stupid kid. Bring him in. Let me see him. I’ll give him a noogie or something. “
Gwen glanced nervously at her hands. She clasped them tightly in front of her. Tears filled her eyes. “He didn’t make it.”
Steele let his head rest back on the pillow and squeezed his eyes shut. Goddamnit. You weren’t supposed to go on the list, kid. He took in a deep breath and let out a sorrowful sigh.
“How many of us made it?” he asked, fearing the answer and keeping his eyes closed.
“Many,” she said. He cracked his eyes open and eyed her suspiciously, knowing that it wasn’t beyond her to withhold some part of the truth.
“I don’t believe you.”
She raised an eyebrow in defense. “You don’t?”
“I want to see everyone. Help me up,” he ordered. He waited a moment when she didn’t help. “Please?”
She stared back, her hands clasped in her lap. Her eyebrows raised up a bit, the mother coming out in her.
“Don’t you practice your mother face on me,” he said, raising his eyebrows back at her. He knew one eyebrow wasn’t going up as high as the other due to the scar tissue covering his scalp.
“No. You need rest.” Her eyes dared him to say otherwise.
“I can rest when I’m dead.”
Her eyes narrowed. “If you don’t rest, you will be dead.” Her face took on a defiant demeanor. The two were like a pair of mules pushing over an inch of ground.
“You at least have to let me take a piss.”
“Fine,” she said. She handed him a crutch and wrapped her arm around his body, helping him sit up. Pain shot through his arm, taking his breath away. He gave her a wince-filled grin.
“Are you sure?” she asked.
“Yes. Give me a hand.” She placed a gentle hand on his back, helping him upright.
They stood and he wedged the crutch in the crook of his undamaged armpit. Hobbling, he marched for the bathroom door. After relieving himself, he made good on his promise and went for the dorm room door. She let him go but stayed glued to his side. He wasn’t sure if she was sympathetic to his plea or simply letting it go. Because if she didn’t want him to go, he would have been easily led back to his bed.
He stepped into the hall and limped down the whitewashed corridor, wishing he had stayed in bed with every damaged step.
“One step at a time,” he said to himself. His pace was painfully slow. Literally anything moved faster than him. Turtles. Sloths. A snail. But he moved with determination. He didn’t know why, but he felt like he had to.
A familiar face emerged from a small dorm room just like the one he had been in. The middle-aged woman smiled at him as he hobbled past.
“Margie,” he said with a smile. She was all right. “Good shooting out there.” She reached up and touched his face. Her lips curved like a proud mother, her eyes wrinkling in the corners.
“Thank you,” she whispered. “He’s up,” she shouted. Others came to the doors. Bald Larry gave him a grin and gripped his good arm tight.
“You did us proud,” Larry said with a nod. “You did us proud.”
Hank and Gregor were there.
“You guys did well out there,” Steele said to them. They both nodded.
“Thank you, Captain,” Gregor said. He wiped a strand of hair out of his face and put a large hand on Steele’s shoulder. Steele was too tired to fight them on it.
“Alex?” Steele asked. The two men shook their heads no. Another name for the list. He wrapped his fingers around the worn metal hammer dangling from the chain around his neck. Jarl. Wheeler. Andrea. Barn
es. Lewis. Max. Alex. Bengy. My mother. The last one stung the most. He wasn’t there when she needed him the most. And all these others from Little Sable I couldn’t save.
“Kevin and Ahmed?” he said urgently to Gwen.
She smiled. “They’re here. In the kitchen,” she said. He hobbled down the hall a fraction of a step faster.
He found the pair eating soup from cans at a long table that once served the squad of firefighters when they were on call at the firehouse.
“Yay, the big guy’s up,” Kevin exclaimed, throwing his arms in the air.
Ahmed grinned. His stubble seemed to have turned into a jet black beard overnight, the same with his shaved head. “It’s good to see you, my friend.”
Steele looked at the ground and back at Ahmed. “We need to find you a set of clippers. Your hair looks terrible. I’m going to start calling you my chia pet,” Steele laughed. Ahmed felt his bristly scalp.
“You survived all this to come in here and tell me I need a haircut?”
Steele laughed. Pain went through both his leg and arm. “Ow. Don’t make me laugh.”
“When we’re done with my hair, I’m taking it to that squirrel’s nest on your face.”
Steele ran a hand through his beard. “Not until the playoffs are over.” Steele stopped smiling after a moment.
A certain sadness washed over them. They would never watch hockey again, but they were alive.
Steele glanced at Kevin. “Good to see you in one piece.”
“So you really took that Víktov Hill strategy to heart? Battle wagons, militia, ambush. Like a true commander.”
“History will always play a role in the present. It’s only a matter of seeing where it applies, but I’m hardly a commander.”
“Call it what you want, but you won a great battle out there.”
“Thunder won the battle. We held the ground long enough. More stupid stubbornness than anything else.”
Kevin gave him a knowing smile. “Jan Žižka would have been proud.”
Laughing, Steele shook his head at the former history teacher. We fought because we didn’t have a choice. “Lofty comparison.”
He left the men and crutched for the stairs. He traversed the stairs one at a time using his crutch and Gwen, jumping on his good leg one at a time. As he hopped to the bottom, ten bikers hung around drinking beer and talking. They gave him curious looks. Food was stacked throughout the firehouse.
Down the way, short-haired Tess sat talking with Thunder. His nose was puffy and swollen, making the biker look more like Santa than a rough motorcycle gang leader.
“You’re awake,” Thunder boomed, his belly jiggling. A broad smile stretched across his gray-bearded face.
Tess stood and put her arms around Steele gingerly. He could feel Gwen tense up on his other side. Gwen’s grip tightened around his body.
“I was worried,” Tess said. She ignored Gwen and hugged him tighter.
“I’m glad you’re okay,” he said softly down to her.
She pushed him away. “A lot better than the likes of you. Not sure I’ll ever get the stink of gasoline off me,” she said with a smile. She gazed up at him, her dark eyes sparkling. “We did it, Steele. We defeated those whack jobs.”
“We did.” He looked around her. “Speaking of which. Where are they?”
She pointed to a rectangular brick building. “Thunder has them all corralled in the school gymnasium over there.”
“Plenty of guards and we keep ’em locked in,” Thunder said.
“Isn’t that a fire hazard?” Steele joked.
Thunder gave him an evil grin.
“That’s a risk we’re willing to take,” Tess said.
“How many of them are in there?”
Thunder gestured at the gym with a hand holding a beer. “Eh. I’d say about two hundred and twenty or thirty. We left over a hundred at Little Sable Point for the dead. I’m not sure how many escaped.”
“They’re probably regrouping as we speak at the Temple Energy Plant.” Steele’s mind raced at the potential for another fight.
“You thinking about taking care of them?” Thunder asked. Steele shook his head no.
“That’s mostly women and children now. Any remnants of the Chosen will be on the defensive from either us or the dead. Let’s think about it for a few days.”
“You know what they say about seizing the initiative.”
“I do, but I’m not sure acquiring another five hundred prisoners will be great for our food situation.”
“Their wounded?” Steele asked.
“They insisted on tending their own,” Tess said.
“Make sure they have adequate supplies. We aren’t monsters.”
Tess’s face grew dark, but she nodded.
Thunder scratched at his bandana. “They may have some supplies that we can use back at the power plant.”
“I’ll think on it,” Steele said, feeling the exhaustion of his injuries and decisions alike.
Thunder gave him a grave nod. “You do that. When you’re feeling a bit better, I will introduce you to some of the clubs.”
Pressing his lips flat, Steele let Thunder know he appreciated him not overwhelming him with a bunch of new faces in his injured state. The other man nodded.
“I look forward to meeting some of the members of Rolling Thunder.”
“Ha. That’s got a nice ring to it,” Thunder said with a laugh. “Boys got some chicken cooking over there. You want some?”
Steele’s stomach grumbled in response. Not having eaten in days was catching up with him. “That’d be nice. Gwen, you think you could go with Thunder and find us some food?” he asked as sweetly as his pain would allow. Her face strained, and she eyed Tess untrustingly.
“Yeah, sure,” she said like a viper, giving him eyes that said if he wasn’t injured already, she would be doing it for him. She walked off with a backward glance at him like a warning shot across his bow. Without her support he sat, mostly fell, down into a nearby lawn chair. Tess dragged a lawn chair and took a seat next to him with a smirk. She shoved her hand into a cardboard box.
“Beer?” she said, holding up a can.
“No, thanks. It’ll put me back to sleep. No craft brews?”
She cracked open the top of the can and slurped a sip. “At this point, it doesn’t matter. Beer is beer.”
Steele breathed a laugh.
Tess took another swig, watching Gwen and Thunder. “You can tell her not to worry. Our near-death experience won’t change our working relationship. I’m not going to steal you out from underneath her,” she said, acting as if he had no say in the matter.
“Well, I’m sure she appreciates that.”
“Crossed my mind, though,” she said with a smirk.
Steele shook his head with a laugh. “I bet it has.” But I have bigger fish to fry, he finished in his mind.
Her playful look sobered. “I’m still glad we found each other. I’m not sure Little Sable would have weathered the storm without you.”
“Little Sable never would have made it this far without someone like you at the helm,” he said.
She flashed him a smile. “Don’t make me blush.”
“I hate to say it, but despite what we did, Little Sable Point is gone,” he said. He shifted in his seat, painfully adjusting his weight.
“I know, stupid. But the idea behind it, ya know? I think it gives people some hope that things might get back to normal,” she said.
Steele looked out over abandoned buildings of Pentwater. The gathering of bikers laughed uproariously. Trash littered the street. Broken glass lay scattered near buildings. Doors lay smashed open. A club of bikers in black-wolf patched vests and with guns drawn, charged into a building across the street. After a dozen gunshots and a few minutes, they walked back out with hands full of boxes and supplies.
“It gives me hope too,” he said, staring out at the desolation before him.
JOSEPH
Cheyenne Mountai
n Complex, CO
The lights were off inside his room. With no windows, the room was black. The only light crept in underneath the bottom of the door.
Joseph’s back was against the wall, and his hands were wrapped around his knees, holding them together. He had heard a man screaming as he dragged himself down the hallway.
“Be quiet,” Joseph whispered into the darkness. The man never heard him.
The man’s screams were horrible. His skin screeched on the floor as he crawled. Screee. Screee. The gradual scrape of clothes and flesh on the hard floor came to a stop. More footsteps came down the hallway, but Joseph knew better than to hope. It wasn’t the first time the infected had come. The steps were followed by low moans.
“No. Please,” the man sobbed outside his door. The voice pled for them to stop. Splashes of something hit the floor. The man’s screams became cries and the cries became gurgles. Bones popped. Tendons snapped. Followed by the chomping of flesh and the clicking of jaws. Then there were only the distant gunshots. An hour passed and the infected finished their dastardly deed and left Joseph alone.
The gunshots had come in intervals as if different groups of men were clearing the areas already cleared, or maybe the first group through hadn’t survived the clearing.
Booms thundered on his door as if the person were trying to punch their way inside.
“U.S. Army. Anyone alive in there?”
“Yes.” Was all he could muster.
Joseph reached up and clicked the bolt open. The door cracked open and armed men pushed their way inside. Flashlights pointed every which way. The lights illuminated Joseph, revealing drying gore splattered all over his clothes.
“Let me see your hands,” the soldier screamed through his mask. Joseph timidly put them upward.
“I’m not infected,” Joseph growled. “I’m Dr. Jackowski.”
The soldier looked him up and down. “We’ve been looking for you. Get in the back. We’ll take you to the collection point.”
The soldiers were armed with miscellaneous weapons. Two men were heavily armed in black tactical gear like Hudson’s squad that had been ripped apart in the elevator. Masks, gloves, and helmets covered them. They held short carbines in front of their bodies. One of the men wore civilian clothes but had a tactical vest over his torso with an MP5 strapped to his chest. The other two men wore combat uniforms but only had pistols in their hands.
The Rising (The End Time Saga Book 3) Page 41
