Surviving the Collapse Omnibus

by Hunt, James

  The agreement rippled through the crowd, and it wasn’t long before even those that had been friends with and loyal to Mulls nodded. It never ceased to amaze Dennis how far fear would push people. The fear of loss, of death, of pain. Humans had fought against that fear since the beginning of time. And in that battle, there was violence that had ravaged civilization and killed millions. And now Dennis would use that violence to kill every living thing that stood against him. His wolves were hungry now, and he had no intention of keeping them that way.

  By the time they returned to the cabin, Rodney, Mark, Yvonne, and Dalia were cloaked in snow and ice. They burst through the front door like a group of snow monsters in search of fire to free them from their curse. Questions were thrust at them, but Rodney could only think of the relief that the flames brought to his body. As he thawed, his mind returned to the present.

  “What happened?” Marie, the doctor’s wife, asked, and then, as if she had forgotten to count the number of bodies that returned, she gasped, covering her mouth.

  Marie collapsed into a chair, sobbing. Rodney walked over, placing his still snow-covered gloved hand on her shoulder.

  “I’m sorry.” His voice cracked, his body still raw and stiff from the cold. He turned to an elderly woman. “They haven’t come back yet?”

  The grey-haired woman shook her head.

  Holly scooted past Rodney and Mark scooped her up. “How far is the station from here?”

  “Forty minutes,” Rodney answered. “In good weather.” The snow had thickened outside, but it still hadn’t reached blizzard levels yet. It was uncomfortable outside but still traversable.

  “You think they’d stay at the station to wait for this to blow over?” Mark asked.

  “Maybe.” But as Rodney spoke, he was already on his way toward his room. Snow tracked him all the way to his bed, and when he opened the closet door to the tall, black safe that rested inside, his fingers were so cold that he still couldn’t feel the dial as he spun it. The lock opened, and Rodney swung the door open.

  Inside were the components to put together a fifty-caliber machine gun, and he grabbed the pieces, his hands moving over the metal deftly. It was heavy put together, close to ninety pounds, and the tripod mount added another forty. He’d need a sled to carry it.

  When he brought the gun out and rested it against the wall by the front door, its sight was greeted by a series of gasps that ended with Mark’s “What the hell is that?”

  “An M2 fifty-cal machine gun,” Rodney answered, heading to his room to grab the tripod mount. “The inmates that attacked that town were close to one hundred.” He went back into his room, grabbing the crates of ammunition. The box hit the ground with a heavy thud, and Rodney grabbed the sled from the closet, along with rope. When he came back out, there were still confused faces glaring at the weapon.

  Mark grabbed Rodney’s arm, stopping him in the middle of tying his knot through the sled’s loops. “What is it that you’re planning here?”

  “The plan? The plan is to kill as many of those bastards as I can.”

  “Jesus Christ,” Mark said, running his hands through his hair, flinging the melted bits of snow from his head.

  “We need to get to the trooper station, get those cops out of there.” Rodney returned to the work on his knot. “If they’re still alive.”

  Mark bent down to help Rodney with the ropes, but Rodney stopped him.

  “No,” Rodney said. “You’re staying here.”

  “You can’t pull this thing by yourself.”

  “I’ve done it before.” Which was true. But he’d only done it once, a year ago, and it wasn’t storming outside. Rodney set the last piece of the weaponry on the sled. “You need to stay here with your kids.” Rodney stared at the weapon. Even with the glow of the firelight, the gleaming metal looked cold. He grabbed the ropes and headed for the door.

  Mark gripped Rodney’s arm. He worked his mouth, at first unable to find the words, and then he sighed and wrapped Rodney in a hug. “Be careful out there, huh?”

  Rodney nodded, and then Mark stepped aside, opening the path to the cold wilderness.

  The slack of the rope disappeared, and it grew taut as Rodney dug his snow boots into the ground, lugging the hulking machine into the storm. He kept a steady pace, the sled easier to pull than he thought even with the snowfall. He could get there in time so long as he kept this pace. He just hoped there would still be people alive when he arrived.

  8

  The snowfall had just begun when Kate and her group arrived at the highway patrol station. And despite the road signs, they’d nearly missed it. All but the roof was buried in snow, save for a single trench that led down to the front doors, which meant that there was still a good chance the troopers inside were alive; if they hadn’t already fled.

  “Get your weapons handy,” Kate said, getting close to the door. “I don’t know what we’ll find inside, so keep your eyes peeled.”

  Nervous nods answered, and Kate prayed silently to herself that she wouldn’t get anyone killed. Slowly, carefully, she reached for the door handle, and with a light tug, it cracked open.

  It was dark inside. The snow that covered the windows also blocked out the light. Behind her, the snowfall worsened, and Kate entered the station, the end of her rifle barrel guiding her way. “Hello?” Her voice echoed over empty office chairs, spreading through the darkness like sonar, searching for a response in the cold.

  Chair legs scraped against tile to her left, and in the same sweeping motion, every gun moved toward the commotion.

  “Who’s there?” Kate asked, her eyes still not entirely adjusted to the dark. She stepped forward. “Who’s there?”

  “Put the guns down.” The voice accompanied two figures that took shape in the dark, and then one of them stepped forward, pistol in hand, and wearing a highway patrolman uniform. The officer spoke like a man who’d given orders his entire life, and the greying stubble along his face suggested he’d been doing it for a long time.

  No one in Kate’s group lowered their weapons. She kept the bead on the officer, her eyes scanning the rest of the office, and slowly she made out two more shapes off to her right. More officers, with guns trained on them. She flicked her eyes back toward the officer who spoke. “We didn’t come here for trouble.”

  “Then put the guns down.”

  Slowly, Kate submitted, and so did her group. She raised her brow in response to the officer’s pistol, and then they lowered their weapons, though he didn’t holster it. Instead it remained at his side as he stepped forward.

  “Are any of you hurt?”

  Whatever doubts that Kate felt toward the officers ended with those words. “No. How about yours?”

  He holstered his weapon. “Hungry, but okay.”

  “Good.” Kate stepped close enough to read the name on his uniform. Captain Harley. “Captain, we need to talk.”

  “Well,” Captain Harley said. “Might as well talk about it with the doors closed. It’s cold enough in here already.” He gestured to his men, and they shut the doors.

  Kate followed the officers toward the back rooms and offices of the station. When they were all together, they totaled only five. It didn’t take long for Kate to tell them what she knew. And she was surprised at how much the officers didn’t know.

  After the power had gone out, most of the troopers were sent out to assist stranded motorists. But after the first day, most of his men started disappearing without word. Captain Harley suspected most fled toward home, to be with their families, but he knew some of them probably froze to death in the blizzard that passed through.

  The officers that remained included Captain Harley, Lieutenant Benson, Officer Terry, Officer Luis, and Officer Thomas.

  “And you think the inmates are going to come here?” Lieutenant Benson asked.

  “They had your station marked on a map of theirs we found,” Stacy said.

  “And they already have six towns under their cont
rol.” Captain Harley looked at no one as he crossed his arms, nodding to himself. When he did meet a pair of eyes, it was Kate’s. “How many men do they have?”

  “More than us,” Kate answered. “We weren’t sure we’d get to you before they ambushed. I’m glad we did.”

  “Us too.” Captain Harley pushed himself off the desk. He wasn’t a big man, but he held a presence, and it was on display as the rest of his men rose with him. “What do you need from us?”

  “Gather as much food, weapons, and ammunition as you can carry. We’ll help, but we need to move quickly. I don’t know how much time we have.”

  Captain Harley nodded. “You heard the lady! Let’s move!”

  The officers scattered to the various dark corners of the station, Kate sending her people to help, until only she and Captain Harley remained.

  Two piles quickly formed near the station’s exit, one of food, and the other of weapons. The weapons pile was nearly twice the size of the food pile.

  Lieutenant Benson added two more rifles to the cache and then wiped his hands. “Do you want me to grab it, Captain?”

  “No. It hasn’t gotten us anything so far, and we won’t have the connections to—”

  “Grab what?” Kate asked.

  Captain Harley exhaled, tilting his head to the side as if he were annoyed to answer. “When communications went down after this”—he frowned, looking at Kate for confirmation—“EMP? We didn’t think we could reach anyone. But after the blizzard, we started scouring every nook and cranny of this place to look for food or water. We didn’t find much, but we did find an old Morse code machine. It was used here back in the sixties as a means to contact emergency services if someone was sick on the mountain.”

  “Morse code?” Kate asked, a well of hope rising within her despite the captain’s expression. “Were you able to—”

  “Yes,” Harley answered. “But we haven’t heard from them since we set it up.”

  “Who answered?” Kate asked.

  “It was a National Guard unit stationed to the south,” Benson answered. “I told them where we were and that we needed assistance, but we never heard back.”

  “National Guard?” The words left Kate’s lips like a balloon of hope, drifting toward the sky. “Have you tried since then?”

  “Every day,” Benson answered. “It’s been radio silence.”

  Three quick steps brought Kate within inches of the lieutenant. “We need to try again. We need to send another message.”

  “Kate, we’ve tried—”

  “We can’t beat these guys on our own,” Kate said. “But with the National Guard at our backs, we might have a chance.” She flapped her arms at her sides. “What could it hurt?”

  Benson glanced toward Captain Harley, and Kate knew that everything hinged on the thoughts behind that stoic expression. And then Kate’s chest swelled with hope when Harley nodded. “Don’t be long.”

  The machine itself was small and surprisingly simple. It was hooked to a string of copper wires that ran up toward the radio tower on the roof, and the sight of the well-worn technology made her smile as she thought of the man who’d given her the old Skyranger Commonwealth that brought her up here. She had a small bit of knowledge of Morse code from her early days as a pilot, but she was on the tail end of the generation that was required to have some proficiency in it.

  “Send exactly what I say,” Kate said and then cleared her throat as Lieutenant Benson poised his finger over the brass tab. “Mayday, mayday, mayday. Threat to life imminent.” She then provided the longitude and latitude coordinates for Rodney’s cabin, which she still had memorized. “Mayday, mayday, mayday.”

  The machine produced the series of dits and dahs that were transmitted via radio waves. When it was finished, Kate stood there, praying for a return response through the headphones that Lieutenant Benson wore, but they heard nothing.

  “Let’s send it again,” Kate said.

  And they did. Three more times. And it would have been more, but Captain Harley found them, and despite her persistence, the captain’s authority won out. Kate lingered behind, looking at the machine, the one piece of equipment that could connect them to the outside world. She wanted to bring it but knew it was useless without the radio tower, and they didn’t have the time or resources to make that happen.

  Supplies and people waited at the station’s exit when Kate walked up. She retrieved her gun and flicked the safety off, looking at the still-falling snow outside. The door swung open, and Lieutenant Benson was the first man to step out, and the first one to die.

  The gunfire erupted like a thunderstorm, dozens of bullets turning the doors into Swiss cheese. Everyone ducked for cover, leaping behind desks and walls or whatever sturdy material that was close.

  Captain Harley was the first to return fire, and Kate fumbled for the rifle she dropped on her hasty retreat. She joined the captain, planting her elbows on the desk as she fired in the direction of the doors, which were closed. But it wasn’t until the captain placed his hand on her shoulder that she stopped.

  “Hold your fire!” Harley bellowed.

  A high-pitched whine of the wind replaced gunfire, and Kate’s eyes fell to the lieutenant’s body, his legs and arms twisted to the point of breaking. The pool of blood that spread from his right side resembled black tar instead of the flood of life that went through his veins.

  “Thomas, Luis, on me,” Harley said, and with their pistols still trained on the door, they moved efficiently through the darkness until they were side by side with the captain. “There’s only one way inside this place, and it’s through those doors. We can dig out way out the back while keeping them distracted out front.”

  “My people should go,” Kate said. “Most of them are worse shots than all of you. They’d be better off digging.”

  “All right,” Captain Harley said. “Anyone that’s never handled a weapon before leaves.”

  A few more bullets hit the door, the enemy outside prodding them. But Kate knew that the convicts’ army would charge. Especially if Dennis was leading them. He had no qualms about killing, least of all if they were cops. But Dennis and his people didn’t know how many officers were inside. It was something they could use toward their advantage.

  “No one goes toward the door,” Kate said, looking at Harley when Thomas and Luis returned from showing Kate’s people where to start digging. “So long as they think we’ve got thirty officers down here, they won’t charge.”

  Harley nodded. “Terry, did you pack the riot gear?”

  “No, I-I didn’t think we’d—”

  “Go and grab it,” Harley said. “We’ll shoot enough tear gas outside to blind them. If anything, it’ll buy us some time.”

  Terry sprinted off, leaving Kate, Stacy, Captain Harley, Luis, and Thomas to hold the entrance. Despite the cold, sweat poured off Kate in buckets.

  Their weapon barrels remained trained on the doors, the wind whistling through the bullet holes. It was the only sound inside, and as Kate’s vision began to grow fuzzy from staring, the doors burst open.

  Two men sprinted inside, the flashes from their gun muzzles striking the darkness like lightning. But the spurt of violence was short lived as over a dozen bullets dropped both men to the ground, dead before the double doors swung closed behind them.

  Bullet casings clinked on the tile, the heated metal cooling the moment it was ejected from its chamber. Kate trembled, her adrenaline forcing the muscles along her arms to shake. The dead convicts collapsed near Lieutenant Benson, their hands almost touching.

  Terry returned with the riot gear, dumping a bag of tear gas, flash grenades, and the appropriate launchers needed to send the convicts outside running away in tears.

  “On me,” Captain Harley said, the tear gas launcher in hand, the rest of his men in tow.

  Kate hung back, rifle still aimed at the doors, as the troopers filed next to the exit, two on each side. She only saw their silhouettes, and then the quick
nod from Harley as they shouldered open the doors, sending four cans of tear gas streaming into the air.

  Shouts echoed inside before the doors swung shut, and Harley and his boys retreated toward Kate, Harley nudging her elbow. “Let’s hope that keeps them busy for a little while. Why don’t you go and check on your people?”

  Kate nodded and then grabbed a candle to help light her path. The flame wiggled in time with her shaking, the light exposing her fear. But that was what light was for, wasn’t it? To cast out the darkness, to fight against the fear? She forced her hand steady, and by the time she reached her people, it had stopped.

  The progress was slow, the snow was thick and compacted. Kate stayed for a while to help but kept one ear toward the front. She kept waiting for a series of screams or cries of terror, ending in a flurry of gunshots.

  But with each pile of snow and ice they added to the floor while making their escape tunnel, Kate heard nothing. Maybe they could get out alive. Maybe this would work. She glanced at the small candle to her left, the flame wiggling in defiance of the darkness, holding on to hope.