Warlord: A Post Apocalyptic Alien Invasion Thriller (The Crumbling Book 1)

by KJ Nelson

  The pistols went into the holsters on her legs and the extra ammo clips went on the sturdy belt around her waist. She grabbed a black beanie and pulled it over her head, to cover the long knotted scar.

  She looked at herself in the mirror happy and unhappy with what she saw. The girl in the mirror had hard blue eyes, long blonde hair flowing down her back, and of course, the scar running down from the beanie to the top of her jaw on the left side of her face. It pulled the corner of her left eye down slightly.

  She hated and loved the hideous patch of skin in equal measures. She credited it with helping her secure the position she held in the co-op. On the other hand, she detested the scar that marred her face and made her uncomfortable around people without it being covered.

  She went and sat in the large leather recliner. Cameron grabbed her shoes on the way to the chair. She pulled on the tall black tactical boots and laced them up tightly. In the new world created by the Squatches, she never knew when it would be time to run again.

  Cameron stood, ready to make her first appearance of the day. She looked down at her thin frame and hated how skinny she was. It was a sign of weakness that she couldn’t afford. Two years ago she would have killed to be as slender as she was, but in the afterworld, the skinnier she got, the less power she had.

  Cameron walked toward the door of the semi-truck trailer that was her room and opened the silver padlock that kept everyone out. As the door opened a bright sliver of light broke across her face.

  It was still strange to have the sun shining with full force again. Only in the last couple of months with the spring wind blowing out of the west did the dust clouds fully disperse.

  “Cam,” Brody said to Cameron as she stepped into the light. It took awhile for her eyes to adjust to the bright sun and see the young man sitting on the ground by her front door. Cameron took the lock and looped it through the chain that hung from the silver handle that controlled her door.

  She clicked the lock into place pulling on it twice to make sure it was secure. She’d spent months raiding old Amazon warehouses to find all the furniture for her apartment, the last thing she wanted was everything to get stolen. Then she would have to kill someone, and that was bad for morale.

  “You know I don’t like when you ambush me the second I walk out of my apartment,” Cameron said looking at Brody with a frown on her face. It had taken months for Cameron to cultivate the voice she used when she was dealing with her subordinates.

  She knew everything she did and said was being scrutinized by those that wanted her power. Any sign of weakness would be met with a quick and gruesome death. She’d seen it two other times with the previous Warlords of the co-op, back in the early days. It wasn’t going to happen to her.

  “Yes, ma’am,” Brody said, his head hanging in shame. “Sorry, I just wanted to let you know what was going on as soon as possible.”

  “Who assigned you that role?” Cameron asked in a hard voice, purposely pushing the young man away. The truth was, Cameron really liked him. He had a great attitude, and she knew he would never betray her. She also knew she had a part to play.

  “No one,” Brody said bowing his head in shame. He turned to walk away, without making eye contact with Cameron, but she grabbed him by the shoulder and turned him back towards her.

  “What happened?” Cameron asked in a quiet voice, watching Brody’s face light back up. No matter how much Cameron scolded him, he always came running back to her side.

  “Walter and Phillip got in a fight last night,” Brody matched her quiet, giving Cameron all the information he’d collected while she slept. Cameron wasn’t sure when Brody slept, but he always knew everything that was going on in the co-op.

  “Over what?” Cameron asked through her teeth. She hated dealing with the day to day squabbles that popped up between her people. It was so tedious listening to their petty grievances. She wished they would just shut up and leave her to more important things.

  “Food,” Brody said simply, as if it was the only thing that mattered. Cameron nodded her head knowing things weren’t going to get any better any time soon.

  “What else?” Cameron started walking toward the barn where they kept the horses.

  “We lost four last night,” Brody hung his head, hating to share the even worse news.

  “Four?” Cameron exclaimed in shock. It was the most people they’d ever lost in one night. She had to figure something out or she was going to lose everything she’d worked for over the last two years. The only reason people stayed was because they felt like they were better off under her leadership.

  “Yeah, two were super old, one was Ashton’s son and the other was Victor.” He said the last name in almost a whisper. Cameron stopped and looked at him, she tried to keep the pain off her face but a little made its way through to her eyes.

  “Victor?” Cameron asked, confirming what Brody had said. He nodded and couldn’t meet her eyes. Cameron sighed heavily, knowing how big of a loss it was. Victor was one of their only actual doctors. He was invaluable to the group. Cameron knew his death would shake the very foundation of the co-op.

  “When is the funeral?” Cameron asked, knowing she had to be present. She needed to know if anything was said about it being her fault. She knew from experience a coup could form in a matter of minutes when emotions were running high.

  “It’s happening now,” Brody said, finally looking her in the eye. “They’re out by the Ashley River sending the bodies downstream.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me sooner?” Cameron clenched her fists in frustration. The Ashley River was almost half a mile away, she would have to run to make it in time. Cameron knew she had no justifiable reason to be mad at Brody, it was her own rule about waking her early that caused the problem. It was still easier to blame him than taking on the accountability herself.

  “Come on,” Cameron said to him as she started running toward the river. She hated wasting the energy and would have rather rode a horse, but that would take her too far out of the way.

  By the time Cameron made it to the traditional burial spot of the co-op, she was completely out of breath. The lack of calories was causing her to feel light-headed, and she wished she’d thought to grab at least a bite to eat before leaving her apartment.

  The small group of people were gathered around the four bodies. Everyone looked up as Cameron and Brody approached the clearing. Their faces showed the pain at losing so many in one night.

  Cameron could see clearly the blame in all of their eyes. In Thomas’ eyes could she see the hate that led to action. Thomas was a marine, and that made him feel like he should be in charge. Cameron had successfully scared him off two times when she was more powerful, and everyone had food.

  Now, she could see in his eyes as he stood over the body of Ashton’s young child, that he meant to act. Cameron drew her gun and leveled it at the man, she put two rounds into his heart before he could even open his mouth.

  2

  The echo of the shots ringing out stunned everyone standing around the five corpses. Cameron’s hard eyes watched as Thomas’s body twitched on the ground, the last of his muscle spasms causing his head and shoulders to shake.

  She looked at everyone in the clearing and saw that they were all looking to the ground. Another day in charge. She thought to herself as she took in the scared people. She hated that it always came down to violence, but in the wasteland left by the Squatches, there was no choice.

  It was the seventh time she had to use her guns against her own people. The first time, with Baron, she’d waited too long after seeing the look in his eyes. He ended up talking almost 20 people into killing her over the course of two days. She shot him in the back of the head as they snuck toward her bunk room in the middle of the night.

  From that point forward she pledged to herself that if she ever saw that look again, no matter who it was, she would kill them on the spot.

  Being Warlord was all about managing fear. If people were
too afraid they would run scared, if people weren’t afraid enough they wouldn’t obey. Cameron walked the line better than any other Warlord she’d met, that was why she was the best and why the co-op was the biggest clan in the state.

  Of course, none of that mattered if they all starved to death. She had to figure out a way to get some food fast, or it would be the end of everything she cared about.

  She watched as the mourners prepared the bodies of the dead. They included Thomas’ body in the procession and sent the bodies downstream. Ashton screamed in agony as she watched her youngest float away.

  It was cruel that the little one had made it through the Crumbling, only to die of starvation two years later. Cameron shook her head in frustration at the loss. She couldn’t have kids dying on her watch, it was bad for morale.

  Cameron pulled Brody to her side as Ashton continued to wail. She could tell that he was worried about what he heard in the night. She needed to know what he knew so she could make decisions.

  “What else went on last night?” She dreaded what other news Brody had to share. It was never good.

  “The scouts returned from Georgia. It looks like the Squatches are not just leaving the Carolinas,” Brody shook his head. “They only saw empty outposts from here to Savannah.”

  Cameron was afraid of that. It seemed like the Squatches were completely abandoning the area. No one had seen any of the huge hairy creatures in the last six weeks.

  “Not good,” Cameron looked at the ground in fear of what it meant for her.

  The Squatches, as most people referred to them, were the alien race that was responsible for destroying Earth. They stood over 8 feet tall and were huge, and completely covered in coarse dark hair. They spoke in guttural tones and could kill 20 men without blinking one of their huge eyes. They looked exactly like the Sasquatches that were rumored to roam the Pacific Northwest before the Crumbling.

  It always made Cameron chuckle that the conspiracy theorists that said the mythical creatures were real, were actually right. They did exist, only instead of being some distant relative of monkeys, they were aliens, with the sole purpose of destroying society and stealing all of Earth’s resources.

  Cameron walked quietly back toward the co-op camp. She could almost smell the fear and desperation in the air as she worked her way back toward the shipping company yard that she and her people called home. The place had once been a regional shipping yard for one of America’s largest companies.

  As she crested the hill that overlooked the rows and rows of large shipping containers she saw the remnants of humanity. It was the perfect spot for them to live, each shipping container, large enough to hold a family. The entire perimeter was surrounded by a fence and barbed wire, which made it easy to protect from intruders.

  It was Cameron’s idea to settle down there, even though most people hated the idea at the time. It was only two months after the Crumbling, and those that were left alive after the Squatches atomized all of Charleston started banding together. Cameron joined a group of 200 people that were moving inland from the outskirts of Charleston.

  The leader of the original group, Garland, wanted to keep moving and look for a better place to live. He was worried about the other more dangerous clans that lived nearby. Cameron convinced half the group to stay, and because it was her idea she became the leader of the group.

  Over the next six months, they cleared out and set up a lot of the shipping containers as homes. Word spread that there was a place that was safe and where each person had their own place. Before she knew it Cameron was in charge of over 1,000 people.

  The supplies they had found in the shipping containers were diverse, from fertilizer to furniture. The life that people lived in the co-op was much more luxurious than Cameron would have thought possible after the end of the world.

  As word continued to spread about the supplies, other large groups, led by other Warlords started attacking the co-op. They realized how many of their people they were going to lose to Cameron and they couldn’t stand the idea of her having luxuries they didn’t. That was the first time Cameron met the Warlord of The Freeriders clan.

  He was a large man who called himself Rodrick. He rode up to the gate that was guarded at all times and asked to speak with Cameron one warm afternoon eight months after the Crumbling.

  She walked out to meet him and he politely asked her to leave, or she would be dead by morning. He wanted her spot and would happily kill her for it. She told him to come and get it if he thought he could. His face when she denied him, was comical. His rage after the fact wasn’t as much.

  That was the first time their defenses were tested. Fortunately for Cameron one of the shipping containers, they found shortly after living in the shipping yard full time, was full of weapons and ammunition. That night she completely outgunned the Freeriders. Her people killed at least 30 of their men, and they ran away with their tails between their legs.

  They had been in constant war with them since then. Any time a Freerider saw a member of the co-op out in the wild, they would try to kill them and vice versa. Cameron wished it wasn’t the case, humanity had enough problems without fighting amongst itself. But that was how the world worked, wherever there was power and security, someone who didn’t have it wanted to take it from those who did.

  Cameron walked down the hill making her way into the neat rows of containers. The only downside to their living situation was that they were completely immobile. They couldn’t even rearrange the shipping containers into new locations. All of the heavy machinery that was used to move each container didn’t work anymore after the EMP. It was extremely inconvenient to not have access to anything with a circuit board for the last two years.

  Cameron walked past a white container on her way to co-op’s base of operations. She saw several people wandering around outside, she could tell they were waiting on her.

  It was her least favorite part of the day. When she first arrived at the command unit, people would wait to hit her with a barrage of questions. Mostly they complained about how hungry they were.

  She sighed as she walked up to the door and saw several eyes brighten at seeing her. They ran over to her and formed a line to speak with her.

  “Yes?” Cameron said to the first man she saw. He was barely able to move and had sores around his mouth. She could tell he would be next on the list of people they sent down the river if he didn’t get something to eat.

  “Food?” The man croaked out in barely a whisper. It was the only thing she didn’t have.

  “We’re working on it,” Cameron said her normal response when people asked her about food. What did they think? That she had a container full of food that she was holding back from them and that by asking every day they could convince her to share it with them? It actually wasn’t far from the truth, but she had her reasons for keeping that secret close to her chest.

  The fact was, her men had already collected any food to be found within 25 of miles of where she was standing.

  Over the last two years, after the Squatches destroyed every major city and killed over 99 percent of the world’s population, they had systematically picked the earth clean of every natural resource.

  They took everything, from the animals to the plants and even most of the freshwater. Cameron had watched as everything beautiful about the planet disappeared. South Carolina, once a seaside sanctuary filled with all manner of life and beauty was stripped to the bones.

  Cameron remembered back to the first time she’d seen a Squatch ship after the Crumbling. She was walking through a field picking corn to eat that night. All of a sudden a ship appeared overhead and started inhaling the plants out of the ground.

  She ran for her life and hid among a group of trees right off the cornfield. She watched as the ship stripped the hundreds of acres of corn in a matter of minutes.

  Later she saw the ship fly away, straight up into the air, the purple trail from its engines leaving a bright spot in her vision. It was t
he first time she’d realized why the Squatches were on earth. It wasn’t to take over the planet and live there, it was to take everything valuable away with them. Her hatred for the destroyers in that moment was a lot of what drove her to become Warlord.

  Cameron turned to the next person in line, it was a small girl with pigtails wearing a shirt that was way too big for her small frame.

  “Water?” She asked, looking on the verge of tears. Cameron turned to Brody and he ran inside to grab a bottle of the precious liquid. He threw it to Cameron and she handed it to the little girl.

  “Make it last two days.” She told the girl looking her in the eyes, waiting for a confirmation from her before she handed the bottle over. The girl nodded five times quickly, lust in her eyes as she stared at the bottle.

  Cameron released her grip and the little girl scurried away. She knew she should feel more sympathy for the child, but there were so many others just like her. Cameron had no idea how she was going to be able to save any of them.

  She looked around and saw that there were at least 10 other people waiting to ask her something. She knew she didn’t have the time or patience to deal with them.

  “Is anyone here to ask me anything that’s not related to food or water?” She spoke loudly to the crowd. All but one person looked at the ground. The one person that didn’t look away was Stafford, who continued to stare directly at her.

  She nodded to him, knowing what he wanted, and spoke loudly again addressing everyone else.

  “We’re working on finding more food. We’re really close to a solution. Stay strong and we’ll have full bellies soon enough.” Cameron used to be able to lie to crowds with such ease. Now the words seemed false even to her.

  As the most desperate of her followers dispersed back to their containers, Stafford moved toward her. He was one of the most muscular people she’d ever seen. His dark black skin shone in the sunlight, his large arms flexing with his movement.

  “We need to talk.” He said in a deep rumble of a voice. Cameron really liked Stafford, but she was still afraid of him. He was her largest threat to remaining in power. She knew if he wanted to, all he would have to do is say he wanted to lead and it would be a done deal.