“She’s old enough, Eric, but that doesn’t mean she does, and neither do the friends she hangs out with.”
“So? That’s normal right? College kids her age are all about peace and love and music. I know she decided she didn’t like guns, even though she used to love shooting back when we did it. I can see her being embarrassed to tell all her new friends out there at CSU that her dad is a contractor who makes his living killing terrorists, when their professors probably tell them the terror threat isn’t even real. She’s bound to have gotten a dose of reality by now though—all of them have. Hopefully she’s staying put and keeping a low profile since things got ugly.”
“I wish I could believe that, Eric, but I don’t know. The last time she was home she seemed more distant than ever. I’m worried that she got caught up in something bigger than she thought it was going to be, especially since I haven’t heard from her since the real bad stuff started happening. You know there were major riots in Denver, and that’s not far at all from Boulder. It was one of the first cities they cut the power to, and there were a lot of people shot. I just hope she wasn’t caught up in all that.”
“Megan? She’s got better sense than to get in the middle of a riot, Shauna. She would know to go the other way if she saw something like that happening.”
“She would have at one time, Eric, but now I’m not so sure. You don’t know how much influence some of her friends might have had on her. I’m worried that she might have been right in the middle of it!”
“You mean with the anarchists? Why in the hell would Megan get involved with people like that?”
“I don’t know, why does anyone? Because of the stuff they hear repeated so much by the media that they start to believe it, I guess. A lot of things have been changing here for years, Eric. I don’t have to tell you that. You’ve been dealing with it in Europe where it’s been worse for a whole lot longer. People have never been so divided, and never been so angry. And the longer it went on, the more things happened to fuel that anger and divisiveness. People have been taking sides, and it’s not always the side you’d think they’d take.”
“So now you’re telling me you think our daughter has been running with the people trying to overthrow the government? I thought she was against violence? She might disagree with a lot of policies, and I do too, but she wouldn’t try to hurt anyone, would she?”
“Not directly, no. But she could certainly be hurt just by her associations. She might even be locked up for all I know. They’ve got detainment centers all over the country where they’re holding dissidents. There’s no telling how many innocents like her that could be in those places simply because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
“Well I guess I really screwed up royally as a father then, didn’t I? Maybe if I’d been here to set an example, she wouldn’t have gone off on a tangent like that.”
“Maybe, or maybe not. I don’t know if she would have listened to you if you had been here or not. I remember how it was to be a teenager, and you probably do too. You think you know it all, and that everyone else is an idiot. But none of that matters now anyway, because you can’t change the past, Eric, and I can’t either. All we can do is try and find her wherever she is and get her out. I’ve been going crazy with worry all summer, but there just wasn’t anything I could do alone. I couldn’t go out there looking for her and Daniel couldn’t help me, especial not with Andrew as his first responsibility. But when I first saw you here yesterday, I suddenly had hope again. I know if anyone can go and get our daughter back, it’s you, Eric.”
“What I really should have done was put the two of you on a boat like Tropicbird fifteen years ago and gotten us the hell out of here. We should have sailed to the islands somewhere and raised Megan away from all this screwed up crap in the U.S. I knew this was coming, it was inevitable and just a matter of time. But the Navy owned me back then, and I let them change me into someone I don’t even recognize anymore. I lost myself and I lost you and Megan in the process. I’m sorry, Shauna.”
He opened his arms and Shauna fell into his embrace, the tears running down her face and onto his shoulder as he held her tightly. “I’m going to find our little girl, Shauna, and I’ll bring her back. We’ll get across the Gulf first and regroup at Keith’s place, and then I’ll be on my way. I know I’ve let you down before, but you’ve just got to trust me on this one. Nothing matters more to me.”
“I want to believe you, Eric. I really do, but you know what you’ve put us through. It’s hard to have that faith anymore.”
The words stung because Eric knew his ex-wife was right. He’d let a lot of people down, but those days were over. He had a single-minded focus now, and it was no longer about him or a sense of duty to strangers. Once his father and Shauna and her family were all safely at Keith and Lynn’s place, he would no longer have to worry about any of them. It would all be about Megan. Getting them there was no small undertaking, but at least he had the means to accomplish it in the form of a seaworthy schooner waiting in Bart’s boatyard. The voyage was just a small step in the journey he was undertaking though, and south Louisiana was still a long way from Boulder in a world where using roads was no longer an option. Bart’s idea of working his way upriver on one of the fuel barges seemed as reasonable as any, and Eric would figure it out when he got there. The only thing he knew for sure was that all of this was going to take time, and time was something Megan may not have. Maybes and what ifs were just speculation though. Eric had work to do and he was ready to get started. He relaxed his embrace and kissed Shauna’s tear-streaked cheek as he pulled away, stepping into the skiff to start the outboard as she walked back to the house to tell Bart and Jonathan it was time to go to work.
* * *
Thank you for reading Book One of The Feral Nation Series. I hope you enjoyed the story! Please turn the page for info on the next book in this series and more:
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FERAL NATION BOOK TWO
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Feral Nation - Insurrection is the second book in the Feral Nation Series. See the description and product info on Amazon at this link:
Feral Nation - Insurrection
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Enter the Darkness Excerpt
COPYRIGHT © 2017 BY Scott B. Williams
One
Mitch Henley hated just about everything about cities, but the thing he hated the most was the traffic. He swore under his breath as he inched his dad’s new F-150 along at ten miles per hour, glad to finally be moving, even at that excruciating pace. He had been stuck on I-610 trying to get out of New Orleans for over an hour. Something had happened far up ahead that he couldn’t yet see, no doubt a major accident considering how long it was taking to clear it. He looked around him at all the frustrated commuters who had to deal with this stuff on a daily basis, and was thankful that at least he was headed out of the city. He couldn’t wait to cross the bridge over Lake Pontchartrain, and soon after, the Mississippi state line.
Back there, in the rural county where he lived, he’d been driving around the farm and on the quiet local country roads since long before he was old enough to get his license. He was 16 now and fully legal, but his experience driving in heavy traffic was still quite limited. Mitch had confidence in his abilities and was a careful and considerate driver; but it was obvious many of those around him were not. He was glad for the heavy-duty cattle guard on the front of t
he new Ford, but he really hoped he wouldn’t need it before he reached the open highway.
Now that the traffic was at least crawling, Mitch realized he needed to look for an exit so he could find a bathroom. Out in the country, he could stop nearly anywhere along the side of the road if there wasn’t a convenient gas station or store. Here, even if he managed to get off the expressway, he would have to sit through stoplights to get to a store or restaurant that had both public restrooms and adequate parking. Then he would have to fight his way back the same way and merge into the traffic all over again. He couldn’t wait until he reached Slidell though, as he had no way of knowing how long that would take with so many drivers delayed by the accident. He nudged his way back into the right lane at the first opportunity and stayed there until he saw the billboard for a popular fast-food chain. It would cost him another half hour, but he figured he could get some breakfast while he was there and maybe by then the congestion would have cleared.
Sitting at the first stoplight off the exit, Mitch looked at his watch—nearly 8 a.m. already. He had dropped his mom and dad off at the airport at just before 6:00, and their flight was supposed to leave at 6:50. They were probably landing in Houston by now, and would soon make their connection on to Denver. His mom said she would call as soon as they were on the ground, and he expected to hear from her any minute. He turned down the music so he wouldn’t miss his ringtone and stared at the traffic light, willing it to switch from red to green. Like everything else to do with driving in the city, Mitch hated the red lights—especially the ones that took forever to change. He was fast losing his patience when he noticed it suddenly blink and go completely off. When it flashed back on a couple of times it was still red, and then it went out completely.
It took him a moment to realize it, but the radio in the truck went silent at the same time the traffic light blinked off. In the absence of the music, the engine seemed quieter than normal too, although at idle it was so quiet anyway it was hard to be sure it was running. He took his foot off the brake to inch forward and make sure, but nothing happened, not even when he gently tapped the accelerator. The engine had apparently gone dead, but that was a ridiculous idea considering the F-150 was literally brand new. His father had just traded for it less than two weeks ago. Mitch tried restarting it, expecting immediate results, but there was nothing—no sound of the motor turning over or even the click of the starter relay. Then he noticed that the digital indicators on the dash were out just like the radio. It appeared that the vehicle’s electrical system had completely failed, and he had no idea what could cause that unless it was something to do with the battery.
Nervous at the thought of being stalled in all that traffic, Mitch glanced at the light again, certain it would be green by now and surprised that people behind him weren’t already blasting their horns for him to get out of the way. But the light wasn’t green or red; it was still simply out, and no one around him seemed to be moving either. The truck still wouldn’t start when he tried it again, so Mitch pulled the hood latch under the dash and opened his door. As he stepped down from the cab and walked to the front of the truck, he was so focused on figuring out what was wrong with his dad’s truck that at first he didn’t notice the other drivers exiting their vehicles as well. He lifted the hood and looked for loose wires or other clues like smoke, but didn’t see or smell anything unusual under there. He tugged on the battery cable connections to make sure they were still tight, but they seemed fine. He was sure it was an electrical problem but he couldn’t find anything obviously amiss. By the time he’d checked everything he knew to look for, he finally noticed that many of the other people stopped in the street around him seemed to be having problems too.
A cab driver on the other side of the intersection slammed his hood shut and kicked his front tire as he cursed his stalled car. An exasperated woman standing behind the open car door of her SUV was pressing on her phone and shaking it as if she were trying to get it to work. The middle-aged man who’d been at the wheel of the Lexus sedan behind Mitch was walking towards him now, not to yell at him for blocking the road, but with a look of bewilderment on his face.
“Is yours dead too?” he asked.
“Yeah. Nothing’s working, not even the instrument panel, it’s like the battery just died.”
“Mine too. I wonder what in the heck is going on? How could so many people have the same problem at once?” The man was taking in the scene around the intersection, where most of the nearby vehicles were sitting still, with their hoods up. Mitch noticed that people were coming out of nearby businesses too and gathering on the sidewalks. It was then that he noticed that none of those buildings had lights visible through their windows, nor were any outside signs lit. The power was apparently off, and that explained the traffic light going out, but what did that have to do with his truck and all these other stalled vehicles in the street?
He was about to reply that it didn’t make any sense when the sound of a tremendous explosion from somewhere in the near distance caused him to flinch in surprise. The nearest buildings on that side of the street blocked the view in the direction from which the blast had seemed to come, but people across the street were pointing that way and screaming about a plane crash.
“It just flew straight into the ground!” one woman yelled.
Those that had seen it were all pointing to the west, which Mitch knew was the direction to the airport. Before he could give it further thought there was more yelling about another one and Mitch had just enough time to catch a glimpse of a jumbo jet in the skies to the north of them that appeared to be losing altitude at an alarming rate.
“It’s going down in the lake!” someone screamed.
Mitch knew the vast expanse of Lake Pontchartrain lay in that direction, but the buildings and elevated roadway hid any view of the water from where he stood. He stood mesmerized as the plane headed nearly straight down until it was lost from sight beyond the elevated I-610 Expressway he’d been traveling earlier. There was no doubt it crashed into the water somewhere far out in the lake, and he suddenly remembered he was waiting on a call from his mother and that he’d left his cell phone on the seat of the truck. He quickly jerked the door open and grabbed it. His mom should have called by now, and he might have missed her while he was standing outside the truck. But when he checked to see if there had been an incoming call, all he saw was a dead screen. The phone didn’t light up when he pressed the home button to wake it, and even when he tried to restart it nothing happened. Now he was really confused. What could possibly knock out the power and cause vehicles and phones to go dead at the same time? And did it whatever it was also cause those two planes to crash?
The thought made him sick with worry over his mom and dad, but he reminded himself their plane was hundreds of miles away approaching Houston, if it not already on the ground, which it probably was. Mitch checked his watch again, noting that the minute hand showed that it was now almost 10 minutes after 8:00. At least the watch was working. It was an old-school analog model rather than the high-tech digital variety most people wore, if they wore one at all in an age of smart phones in every pocket or purse.
Looking at the scene around him again, Mitch saw that many of the stranded commuters were virtually in a state of panic. Most had abandoned their stalled vehicles and were walking or running to the nearby buildings. He heard one man yelling something about a terrorist attack and saw the effect it had on the crowd. No doubt the sight of airplanes falling from the sky brought back memories of television footage Mitch had seen many years after that terrible day, when he was old enough to understand. But how could terrorists cause all of these cars and trucks to suddenly go dead? There had to be a reasonable explanation for it, and Mitch was determined to stay calm and try to figure it out. He spotted the man he’d first talked to from the car behind him and walked across the street to where he was standing on the sidewalk with his own phone in hand, apparently trying to get his to work again too. Mitch knew the ma
n was as baffled as everyone else, but at least he was probably from around here and Mitch was so out of his element that talking to a local seemed like the best thing he could do at the moment.
Two
April Gibbs opened her eyes and was instantly wide-awake at the sight of sunlight streaming through her bedroom window. She jumped up in disbelief, furious because she had to be at work by 8:30 and it had to be after 8:00 already. Where was David and why didn’t he wake her up at seven like he was supposed to? She stormed out of the bedroom calling his name but got no response. He wasn’t in the apartment and looking out the front window, she saw that her car wasn’t parked out front either.
April went back to the bedroom for her phone, yanking it free of the charger before heading to the bathroom. She was going to call David Greene and let him have it. How could anyone nearly 20-years-old be so irresponsible? And why had she been stupid enough to have a child with him? David had to be at work this morning too, and it was nearly a two-hour drive from Hattiesburg to New Orleans. He had her car because once again, his “classic” Mustang wasn’t running, but he had promised to be home with their daughter no later than seven.
April pressed the home button on her phone to wake it up. When nothing happened she assumed it had powered down, even though she never turned it off intentionally. She knew it had a full charge because it had been plugged in all night. But try as she might, she couldn’t get the display to come on. She tried rebooting it to no avail. Then she shook it vigorously and tapped it hard against the heel of her palm. Nothing seemed to jar it back to life. Great! Now I’m not only going to be late for work, I can’t even call in and let Vanessa know!
Feral Nation - Infiltration (Feral Nation Series Book 1) Page 18
