Hell's Encore: A Post-Apocalyptic Survival Thriller (This Dark Age Book 2)

by John L. Monk

  At that, Greg and Sarah burst out laughing. What a hoot!

  Tony’s lips merged in an angry line, and he stalked from the exhibit grumbling. Greg laughed louder so his friend could still hear. He liked Tony most of the time, but lately the kid had been more of a pain than usual.

  When they returned to the main hall, they didn’t see him. A quick look over the railing to the lower level showed no one there either.

  “This way,” Sarah said, pointing at a sign indicating the Gem Room, which was part of the minerals exhibit.

  Sudden gunshots and the sound of shattering glass made them both flinch and drop to the ground.

  “Tony?” Greg shouted.

  No response.

  Greg tried again. “You okay, man?”

  Still nothing. He looked at Sarah, who shrugged.

  The glass doors had been shattered. A cardstock sign reading “EXHIBIT CLOSED” lay on the ground in front of them. Deeper inside, Tony stood in front of a glass case—fists clenched, shaking his head.

  “It’s gone,” Tony said. “Everything’s gone.”

  He was right. All the exhibit cases were empty, including the one in front of him, where supposedly the Hope Diamond had been kept. Not stolen, though. They looked to have been systematically removed and taken by authorized personnel.

  “So, where do you think they took it all?” Sarah said. “We can just go there.”

  “Who the hell knows?” Tony said bitterly.

  Though the gem room had clearly been relocated to safety and labeled “Closed” after the Sickness. The rest of the exhibit remained, and the three friends had a good look before leaving. Tony ended up with a small collection of assorted crystals to show everyone back home. To get to them, he savagely broke the glass and stared at Greg as if daring him to object.

  On the way out, Greg said, “I kind of like the gems. But how come you didn’t take that Egypt necklace?”

  Tony didn’t reply.

  “It was the mummy curse,” Greg said, voice brimming with suppressed mirth, “wasn’t it?”

  “Man, shut up,” Tony said and readjusted his now heavier pack.

  Sarah giggled.

  The trip back was mostly uneventful, and considerably quicker, despite Tony begging him to carry a rifle found on a body in one of the tents. As much as Greg hated the idea of looting dead soldiers, bringing a machine gun back for Jack to see made sense. It looked an awful lot like an AR-15, except for a selector on the side reading: SAFE, SEMI, AUTO. He wondered if it used the same ammo.

  “Hello, we’re here!” Sarah shouted when they got to the bridge, rushing ahead to see her friends.

  The boat was still secured, but nobody came out to see them, even after they yelled hello some more. Greg figured they must be asleep. He couldn’t easily climb the mast without someone working the winch, so he shouted some more to wake them up. But, again, nobody came out.

  “Think they’re drunk again?” Greg said, scratching his head.

  “You threw it out,” Tony said. “Remember?”

  Greg nodded. “I’m going to try sliding down.”

  “Be careful,” Sarah said, her face a mask of worry.

  “If I don’t make it,” Greg said, staring deeply into her eyes, “tell my sister I love her.”

  “Don’t say that!” she said, hugging him tightly.

  Greg smiled over her shoulder at Tony, who tossed back a rare grin of his own and a thumbs up.

  Traversing the mast was scary, but relatively easy because he could shimmy down it like a pole while clutching the unmoving halyard. A wave of relief greeted him when he reached the deck, and he took a moment to rejoice that he was still alive before going below for a look.

  He laughed silently as a thought occurred to him: Wonder if they’re doing it?

  “Hello?” he shouted into the dark cabin and listened intently.

  Nothing.

  “Chelsea? Andrew?”

  Still nothing.

  Screeching tires and shouts of fear carried from the bridge, followed by single-shot rifle fire near the railing. A few seconds later, automatic gunfire thundered from farther away, then Tony flopped over the side and splashed into the frigid water.

  “What the hell?” Greg said, staring up in horror.

  Sarah leaned over the side and shouted “Get away!”

  While desperately working the knot, a line of bullets ripped through her chest and she was thrown over. Time seemed to slow as she tumbled end-over-end before hitting the deck with a sickening crash. There she lay, unmoving and riddled with bullets, her neck twisted at an impossible angle.

  Off in the distance, the sound of a motorboat could be heard fast approaching.

  “Hurry!” Tony shouted over his shoulder before slipping into a sloppy freestyle stroke for a section of shoreline under the bridge.

  Bullets rained from above and Greg dove without thinking. The shocking cold made him want to scream, but he kept his lips clamped together and pumped like his life depended on it. Which, apparently, it did.

  Tony was already out, slipping and falling on his way to a dark opening under the bridge.

  A tunnel!

  More shots from above, piercing the water on either side of the bridge.

  Shaking with terror and grief, Greg sloshed through the muddy sand after Tony, who’d already disappeared through the sewer hole.

  30

  Jack eyed the small herd of cattle through a pair of binoculars. Strangely, some of his group of twenty kids cupped their eyes like binoculars and stared too—because Jack was doing it.

  The copycatting began after gassing Cassie’s group of ex-Dragsters. Now, if he wore cammo, they wore cammo. If he wore hiking boots, they did too. Larry confided that they’d fully adopted the name “Rippers” and were falling over themselves to please their apparently ruthless leader. Mostly by target practicing behind the cabins, despite Jack’s oft-repeated desire for everyone to read books. There had also been an uptick in scavenging—a chore everyone loved because it got them out of Big Timber, and also because they liked looting houses.

  “So, what’s the problem?” Larry said, staring at the distant herd with a puzzled expression.

  “They have water, see?” Jack said, pointing at the stream in the distance, noticeable by the line of tall trees and scrub snaking along with it. “And pastureland. But it’s sectioned by fencing every mile or so. They’re stuck.”

  A pimply fifteen-year-old named Gary said, “And that’s bad?”

  Jack pointed down-pasture. “It is when the only bull around is ten miles that way.”

  When Gary didn’t reply, Larry said, “He’s talking about cow sex.”

  Gary’s eyes widened. “Oooh …”

  Jack allowed a brief smile. “Basically.”

  For the next several minutes, Jack explained to the group what he wanted. They were to move from field to field for ten miles cutting barbed wire and coiling it in bales when they encountered it. They were not to leave it lying around for an animal to become entangled in, but rather wrap it like rope and leave it by the road. Brad would help with that so the cutters could keep moving and not waste time.

  It was a cool day for sitting around but a warm one for working, and Jack didn’t want anyone giving up before the work was done. To that end, nobody was allowed to bring food. They could eat when they got to the end, at a house where Molly and Olivia had venison and potato stew waiting for them. If that wasn’t incentive enough, Larry would march behind the line with his shotgun offering helpful advice like “move it” and “hurry the hell up” as needed.

  The cutters found several grisly, yet familiar, discoveries along the way: partially butchered cow carcasses and nearby roasting pits.

  “Was this the Dragsters?” Jack said to Larry.

  Larry shook his head. “Nope. We mostly stuck to the herds closer to home.”

  Jack nodded. It was one of the things he hated about the kids from Front Royal: they didn’t think about tomorrow.
The good news was whoever had done it only killed a few, and many more were still alive, including that lone bull they were working toward.

  By about the third fence, five of the twenty kids quit and stumbled back to sit by the cars. For the most part, they were the smallest members of the group.

  Snipping, hauling, and rolling up wire without getting cut was hard work—even with the thick leather gloves Jack made them wear. The remaining workers took grim satisfaction that they were sticking it out and not being babies like the others, and pushed on steadily for most of the way before evening came.

  Jack had hoped to wrap everything up in a day, but conceded to Larry he’d probably been too optimistic. They’d worked hard, though.

  When his crew climbed aboard the school bus and slumped into their seats, they looked tired but proud of the work they’d done.

  “Never would have believed it,” Larry said from the short seat behind him. “This is probably the only work they ever did, except mowing lawns and stuff.”

  “Well, there’s going to be a lot more in the days ahead.”

  “The days ahead. You always say that.”

  Larry was more perceptive than the others. He acted like a hick, and a heartless one sometimes, but he picked up on things others frequently missed.

  Jack chose his next words carefully. “When you and the others split with Carter,” he said, “why didn’t you take over?”

  “Split with …? Oh … well, I sort of did take over. When you found us, I was in charge.” Larry snorted quietly. “As much as you can be in charge of those guys. Mostly they don’t listen, so you gotta yell at them.”

  “Why didn’t you stay in charge?”

  “Because I don’t know what to do, man. You’re the one that knows.”

  Jack opened his mouth to say he was stumbling along, doing his best … and then he closed it. The last thing he needed was someone thinking he didn’t have a plan.

  Molly and Olivia had set up camp in the gravel driveway of a one-story rambler. The area was hilly and overgrown down to where it met the pastureland. A herd of about nine horses was on the road when the bus arrived, but galloped off before it stopped. Excited by the novelty, the kids pressed their faces against the glass to see.

  “Wonder if those are the same ones Lisa saw,” Larry said thoughtfully. “They’re wild now. We’d get killed trying to catch them.”

  Jack smiled. “What’s this we stuff?”

  He and Larry got off the bus first, only to be confronted by Olivia, who didn’t look happy.

  “Why’d you scare them off for?” she said, brushing a strand of green hair out of her eyes. “Why didn’t you stop way back?”

  “I didn’t see them,” Jack said.

  “They were watching us! I was gonna give them a carrot.”

  Jack blinked in surprise. “You actually have carrots?”

  “Freida had some. For the boys.”

  Freida and her sister had a stash of mostly potatoes in their root cellar, harvested from neighboring farms over the previous fall. Jack had promised volunteers to help in the summer so they could get more.

  Brad approached with a bowl of stew. “Anything good in the house?” His tone had an urgent quality to it.

  “Nothing,” she said. “We’ll get some, though. Don’t worry.”

  Brad nodded and took a bite.

  Jack knew what he was hoping for. He wanted to move his baby brother, Tyler, off of formula to jars of baby food.

  While the officers and workers sat outside eating (because the house smelled of death), Jack said he wanted to leave up the barbed wire along the roads—to keep some animals out, like the horses, and others in, like the cattle. What wire they cut, they’d keep for repairs.

  Jack went on to talk about the problems facing the region. The cows had to start reproducing, but they’d never be able to because farmers typically kept their bulls separated until ready to mate. And so, after this stretch of pasture, they’d be moving to a similar location about thirty miles north.

  “If we can find milk cows,” he said, unable to suppress a smile at the thought, “that’d be pretty amazing.”

  “I thought all cows had milk,” Molly said.

  Jack smiled. “They do. But some give way more than others. And the milk looks and tastes different between different breeds. Some have more fat.”

  “You learned all that in books?” one of the cutters said.

  “Yep. What about you? Have you been reading?”

  The kid nodded in a way that told everyone he wasn’t reading at all. Jack didn’t bother challenging him. All it would do was embarrass the boy. If he wouldn’t read, so be it.

  “How much is left to do?” a different kid said.

  “Another mile,” Jack said. “Then on to the—”

  Whatever he’d been about to say was cut off by a steady buzzing in the distance.

  “You hear that?” Brad said. “Sounds like a chainsaw.”

  “Motorcycle,” Larry said. He grabbed his shotgun and stood up.

  Jack stood too and picked up his rifle. “More than one.”

  From the direction the horses had run came two small motorcycles with bright headlights. They stopped at the end of the drive and beeped. Then the lead rider held up what looked like a piece of cardboard and threw it down before turning and zooming away. The second rider followed after, but not before waving a one-finger salute and beeping some more.

  “I don’t think they like us,” Olivia said wryly. “Should we look at what they dropped?”

  “May as well,” Jack said.

  He was playing it cool, but he felt nervous. After the incident with Cassie and her friends, the last thing he wanted was another confrontation. Not because he didn’t think he could handle it, but because he didn’t trust himself anymore.

  After seeing the little kids who’d died in that house … that he’d killed in that house … he’d fought a daily battle to keep from breaking down in front of Larry and the others. When his thoughts drifted that way, as they always did, he clenched his jaw and tried to think of anything but their pink, vomit-covered faces. He wanted to save people, not kill them. He didn’t want to be a monster, even if the world seemed determined to make him one.

  “Here it is,” Brad said, grabbing the sign and handing it to him.

  The wording was oddly predictable: GET OFF ARE LAND! GO AWAY!

  “They can’t spell for shit,” Olivia said.

  Molly said, “If this is their land, what are they doing with it? It’s just sitting here. I don’t think you can claim land if you don’t do stuff with it.”

  “I think they are doing stuff with it,” Brad said and told her about the half-butchered cows they’d found.

  Larry didn’t say anything. He watched Jack with aggravating patience. Probably waiting for Jack to tell them all what to do. The fence cutters stood jostling each other and sharing smiles, more excited than they’d been all day.

  Then Brad said, “Uh … so what are we gonna do?”

  And the part of Jack that didn’t want to be a monster but sometimes had to be … it told them.

  31

  Jack assigned two people to guard the house. He set out lawn chairs and blankets for warmth and concealment. They were not to sleep in the house or in the dead homeowners’ cars. They’d switch shifts at dawn. He also established a string of cars with sideband-enabled CB radios every ten miles to forward any news. Everyone agreed it was a good plan, and all but Jack were surprised when, in the morning, they found the two kids shot to death in the back seats of their cars amongst blankets and pillows from the house.

  Jack noticed immediately that their rifles had been taken. Troubling, if so hostile a group was using them too. Then again, they could have grabbed them to deny weapons to their new enemies. That’s what Jack would have done.

  Another interesting detail: the kids who’d done it had left their mark in the gravel driveway by spinning donuts with their motorcycles.

 
“What are you gonna do now?” Larry said. “Everyone’s freaked. They all think they’re gonna wind up dead.”

  Jack bit back an urge to snap at him. If the little fools had listened to him, stayed hidden and awake, they could have picked off the intruders from a distance.

  Nobody had actually asked Jack to be in charge—he’d acted the part until it was so. But that was before he knew all that it entailed. He’d thought his duties would mostly have to do with shelter and finding a steady food supply. Long-term stuff.

  First Lisa, and now this.

  Long-term stuff would have to wait. He needed to secure his people and protect what they were building.

  “All right, fine,” Jack said. “You and me, then. Tonight. Can’t have everyone freaked, now can we?”

  Larry nodded slowly, eyeing him sideways. “You okay, man?”

  “I’m perfectly fine.”

  “Because you sound …”

  “I know how I sound,” Jack said, and went to find a shovel to bury their dead.

  Other than Brad and that pimply kid, Gary, none of the previous day’s volunteers showed up to cut wire. The story of the murders had blown into a fully-fledged tale of Uzi-wielding death squads on motorcycles zooming out of nowhere and blasting people.

  Jack’s dismal mood deteriorated as the day passed into night with no work being done. With time to think, he worried about Greg and the others. The month was almost over. Lisa wanted to drive out and check on them, and he told her not yet—that they still had time. If she wasn’t still weak from her injuries, he couldn’t credibly stop her. She seemed to know this, because she ate twice her fill to regain the weight, and she exercised daily.

  Wrapped in a blanket, sitting in the dark under a tree, Jack quietly contemplated all the dead people he’d seen since his parents had died. A little over a hundred, counting the fifty or so corpses he’d run across in various houses. The rest were the kids he’d gassed or shot or seen killed by others. Looked at honestly, it had been forever since he’d felt happy.

  The last time he’d cried was when Mandy died. Thinking about her now, his eyes moistened with tears that welled but wouldn’t spill. He reveled in the feeling, because if he could feel for people, then he was still the person his parents raised. A good and moral person.