The Days of Elijah, Book One: Apocalypse: A Novel of the Great Tribulation in America

by Goodwin,Mark

  “Four Hummers and two Maxx Pros.” Kevin placed a large magazine in his Glock that stuck out several inches from the bottom of the grip. “These guys are pretty well armed for a small town.”

  Everett glanced at the pistol as he continued to drive, hoping that there’d be no need for a confrontation with the GR troops just yards away. He continued to drive down University Drive.

  “We’re getting some looks from those guards. We should probably keep moving,” Sarah said.

  Everett’s heart beat faster. He came to an intersection where University Drive ended. “Think I should turn around?”

  Kevin shook his head. “I’d follow Shockey Drive, to the left, and see if we can get out without driving back past the GR troops.”

  Everett followed his suggestion and kept driving. The road ran beneath I-81 and Everett was soon able to circle back to the same street he’d been on when he exited the interstate. He re-entered the highway, keeping a constant eye on the rearview to see if they’d been followed. Once they were safely back on their way, Everett looked over at the pistol in Kevin’s lap. “That’s a big magazine.”

  “It eats through those seventeen-round mags pretty quick when it’s on full auto. A 33-round mag buys me a little more trigger time.”

  “Full auto?”

  “Yep. It’s a Glock 18C clone. A gunsmith built it out of a Glock 17. You gotta be a little higher up than a sheriff’s deputy to get your hands on a real Glock 18. Sarah’s got one too, a clone I mean.”

  “Wow! Can I see it?” Courtney asked.

  “Sure,” Sarah answered.

  Everett could hear the sound of a magazine coming out of a pistol and the chamber being cleared in the back seat.

  “I’ve got to shoot this when we get back!” Courtney exclaimed.

  “You bet.” Sarah laughed.

  Half an hour later, Everett was breathing a little easier. He saw no one tailing the car, however, he did keep looking up at the sky to see if he could spot any drones that might be surveilling them. He doubted that a suspicious car driving by would warrant the dispatch of a drone. Not long after, they arrived in Ashburn. “This was a nice place, lots of young professionals but not congested, clean, and not much crime.” Everett sighed. “But those days are over.”

  Kevin looked out the window. “It doesn’t look all that bad. A few broken windows and little fire damage, but I was expecting a lot worse.”

  “I guess it looks worse when it was your home.” Everett continued toward his old apartment building.

  Courtney put her hand on his shoulder from the back seat. “You’ve got a new home now.”

  Everett smiled. She was right. Most people had nowhere to go; he was very thankful for the cabin, Courtney, and his new friends. “That’s my place. It looks like the security gate didn’t last long. Not many cars, I suppose most of my neighbors found somewhere else to go.” He pulled into his old parking spot and got out. “Let’s check it out before we cart any supplies in.”

  The others followed Everett up the stairs and to his door. It was unlocked. The front window had been smashed and the intruders had left through the front door. Everett pulled his pistol as he entered. “We better make sure no one is here.”

  Kevin drew his Glock in which he’d replaced the short magazine to make the pistol concealable. “I’m right behind you.”

  Seconds later, Everett called out. “All clear.”

  Courtney walked through the apartment and stuck her Glock 21 back in her purse. “They didn’t really tear anything up. It just looks looted.”

  Kevin looked at the broken window. “We’ll have to figure out a way to secure that, if we’re going to keep anything here. Do you have a tool box?”

  “I probably have a screw driver and maybe some pliers in the car.” Everett said.

  “I was thinking more like a saw, hammer, nails, screw gun, that sort of thing.”

  “Oh, no. Maintenance handled all the repairs.”

  Courtney put her hands on her hips and looked at Everett. “You don’t even have a hammer to hang pictures?”

  Everett glanced up at the ceiling as he thought. “Yeah. Somewhere.” He walked back to his old bedroom and rummaged through the closet. “I’ve got a small hammer and a box of odds and ends; screws, washers, a few small nails.” Everett handed the box and the hammer to Kevin.

  “Can you grab that screw driver and the pliers out of the car?” Kevin asked. “If I can get them off the hinges, I think I can use your bathroom door and your bedroom door to secure the window.”

  “Be right back.” Everett looked around to make sure there were no signs of danger before sprinting down the stairs and to the car. He hurried to retrieve the tools from the glove box and ran back up to the apartment.

  Once back in the apartment, Everett helped Kevin get the doors off the hinges and positioned in front of the window.

  Kevin held up one of the nails from the small plastic box. “Way too short. These are for like hanging pictures. Are you sure you don’t have anything else?”

  “No.” Everett shook his head.

  Sarah looked at the doors. “These doors are basically two sheets of paper thin cardboard stapled on a wood frame. Why don’t you just bust holes out of the backside where you need to run the nails? But you better lay them on the floor when you do it, or the hammer will go all the way through the other side.”

  “Good idea, let’s lay them down.” Kevin grabbed one side of the first door.

  Everett took hold of the other side and helped him lay the door down. “If these doors are that thin, it won’t be very secure.”

  “They’re just for looks, but I’ve got an idea for a good deterrent. Let’s get these done first.” Kevin easily punched out the first hole in the back of the door with the hammer. “How many nails do we have? I need to know so I can figure out how far to space the holes.”

  “Looks like about ten.” Courtney fished the nails out of the small box of odds and ends.

  Elijah made a suggestion. “Perhaps we can pull a few nails out of the walls. I noticed Everett had several pictures hanging around the apartment.”

  “Good idea. Bring them to me when you get them pulled out.” Kevin continued bashing holes out of the door with the hammer.

  Everett took down the picture over his couch and handed it to Elijah. He then began pulling the nail out with the pliers, being careful not to bend it. He stepped down from the couch, handed the nail to Sarah to take to Kevin and took down the picture near the door to retrieve that nail as well.

  “Nobody move a muscle!” A raspy female voice called from the other side of the broken window. “You people are looting in the wrong complex. You’ve got one minute to clear out or we’ll kill you dead where you stand! And come out with your hands over your heads, single file and if you’ve got weapons, you better leave them on the floor. If you place any value on your life, you’ll do exactly what I say.”

  Everett held the hammer over his head and slowly turned to look out the window. A monster of a man was holding a pump action shotgun, pointed right at Kevin. The man looked to be well over six feet tall and nearly obese. Next to him was another man, slightly shorter and very muscular leveling a rifle at Everett. Behind and between the two men was the source of the voice. An extremely thin woman with an exceptionally short black skirt and a midriff tight white shirt, long black hair, blood-shot eyes and a nickel-plated .45 automatic pistol that moved from person to person with her eyes.

  “Vanessa?” Everett said cautiously.

  “Everett? No way!” the woman who was much too young for such a raspy voice lowered her pistol. “It’s okay Tiny, you and Ronny wait for me downstairs.”

  The two men on either side slowly lowered their weapons. “You sure?” the enormous one asked.

  “No Tiny, I need to think it over for a while.” Vanessa said sarcastically.

  Tiny huffed and led the way down the stairs. “Come on, Ronny.”

  “So can I come in?” Vanessa
asked.

  Everett cracked a smile and unlocked the front door. “You’re still here.”

  Vanessa walked in and ignored the others. Her eyes looked Everett up and down. “Yeah. What are you doing here? You look really good.”

  Courtney cleared her throat and crossed her arms.

  Vanessa, still holding the gun rolled her blood-shot eyes toward Courtney and said with a hint of a snarl. “Healthy, I mean. Anyone who isn’t dead is doing above average.” She walked over and sat on the couch, letting the shiny 1911 pistol lay at her side. “All that banging woke me up, and I was sure it was looters up here. It’s been crazy, you know. We’ve been trying to keep them scared off, maintain some type of order until the GR can get this area secured. Sorry I look a little crazy, we had a party last night. I’m having another one tomorrow night; you’re welcome as usual. Bring your friends, but they have to bring something. Either booze, party supplies or something to trade for them.

  “Enough about me, where have you been?”

  Everett glanced at Courtney’s scowl then back to Vanessa. “My Uncle had a cabin out in the country. I’ve been laying low.” Everett continued with the cover story they’d devised beforehand. “We just came back to look for work.”

  Vanessa sat up on the couch. “Are you going back to accounting or whatever you did for the old government?”

  Since Everett wasn’t supposed to disclose that the CIA was his employer, he’d generally told most people that he worked for the GAO. There was nothing like telling people that you were a bean counter to get them to quit asking you questions about your job. “We’ll see. I hear there’s tons of jobs in Washington.”

  “Yeah, maybe if you know someone. My real estate gig is over, since the GR is handling all housing requests. I applied to the government agency that is over assigning living quarters, but I haven’t heard anything back. If you still know some people with the new government, put in a good word for me.

  “For now, I’m working at a club on H Street. It’s changed a lot, but H Street is still the entertainment district. It looks more like Amsterdam, Vegas or Ibiza than DC. It’s pretty cool, you guys should come check it out tonight after you’re done job hunting.”

  Vanessa flicked her right wrist and a phone interface lit up on her skin. She slid her finger across the screen and selected her contacts. “Did you get your Mark implant already? What’s your number?”

  Everett shook his head. “No. There were no census stations out where I’ve been staying. We’ll probably get them in DC, if the lines aren’t too long.”

  She flicked her wrist again, turning off the pico projector just under the skin on the back of her hand. “You’ll have to get them before you apply for a job, even if you worked for the old government. They’re not bending on that one.”

  Vanessa stood and gave a slight tug to the edge of her skirt, which didn’t do much. “Well, I better let you guys get back to whatever you were doing. I’ve got to get a little hair of the dog; I’ve got a nasty hangover coming on.”

  “Good seeing you again.” Everett waved.

  Vanessa gave him a hug and a kiss on the cheek. “You, too.”

  “Before you go, can you tell me where the soft perimeter runs? I’m trying to get by as many checkpoints as possible. I just don’t want them to give me any grief over not having my Mark yet.” Vanessa had always run with a seedy crowd. Everett had been to enough of her parties to know that if anyone would know how to get around the authorities, she would.

  Vanessa stuck the gun under her arm pit and pulled a pack of cigarettes out of the waist of her mini skirt. She looked at Elijah, Kevin, Courtney and Sarah with a glare of mistrust. “Come outside. I need a smoke.”

  Everett understood that he was the only one invited. “I’ll be right back.” He closed the door behind him and walked out to the landing above the stairs.

  Vanessa lit her cigarette and handed the pistol to Everett. “Hold this for me.” She took a long deep drag and held the smoke while she flicked her wrist. She pulled up her map application and zoomed in on New Atlantis. “I freakin’ love this thing. I would either get so high that I’d lose my phone or I’d spill a pitcher of margarita on it and ruin it at least once every other month.” Smoke poured out of her mouth like a dragon as she spoke.

  She held her arm close to Everett so he could see. “The fence only runs to Leesburg Pike. So if you take Georgetown along the river, you can get all the way to the beltway before you hit a checkpoint. But you can’t get a vehicle past the beltway.”

  “What do you mean? Is it possible to get by with no vehicle?”

  “You can walk under the beltway, along the river. They watch for boat traffic, but if you wear dark clothes and stay in the tree line, you can get in and out through there at night.” She pointed to the place where I-495 crossed the Potomac. “There’s some traffic moving through there all the time. Obviously, the GR outlawed guns, but then they don’t provide security, so what are we supposed to do?”

  “Yeah, I hear you. Your secret is safe with me.”

  She took another long deep draw from her cigarette. “And what about your crew? Are they cool?”

  Everett gave her a nod. “Yeah, they’re cool.”

  “Okay, I trust you. If you vouch for them, I believe you. Anyway, back to what I was saying. The new government legalized drugs, but things were a lot better when they were illegal. Now it’s more expensive, they’re rationed like everything else, and for the people who depended on the previous illegal status of drugs for their second income, it flat out sucks.” She had a look of disgust as she exhaled the next puff of smoke.

  Everett knew she was referring to herself. Her late night get-togethers functioned similarly to a Tupperware party, only instead of Tupperware, she’d offer cocaine, pot, molly, and ecstasy, always offering generous discounts to anyone who was looking for sufficient quantities to join her multilevel marketing network. He had never been into drugs, and he certainly had no interest now, but knowing someone with connections to the underground had an unquestionable value in the new world. “Where one door closes, another door opens.”

  “Whatever.” She swiped her finger across the projected screen on her arm and held it up for Everett to see the details of the map. “If you can stay in the woods until you get to Potomac Heritage Trail, take that along the river, cross over Chain Bridge to the tow path. That will run right into the Capital Crescent Trail, you’ll be able to take that all the way into DC.”

  “Good call. I didn’t realize the trail went so far up the river. Is it heavily patrolled?”

  “Hardly anybody uses it, especially that far out. And then by the time you get downtown, it’s full of joggers and walkers.” She sucked the last drag of the cigarette and flicked it out into the street. “Come on by tomorrow night if you’re still around.” She started down the stairs. “Bring your friends if you like.” She stopped to turn and gave him a wink. “Or come alone. Whatever.”

  He chuckled and waved. “Okay. See you later.”

  When Everett walked back in the apartment. Kevin and Elijah were nailing the second door to the inside of the window.

  “Did you get her number?” Courtney’s arms were crossed tightly and her jaw clenched even tighter.

  “Seriously?” Everett let his mouth hang open in utter surprise. “That chick is a total crack head. You must be joking!”

  “She’s a total hooker is what she is.” Courtney turned her back to him.

  “Whatever she is, she has a line on the underworld and that’s an asset we might need to exploit. You worked in intelligence. You were a profiler. Never in a million years would you think that I’d hook up with somebody like that if your mind wasn’t being clouded by emotion.”

  Courtney still wouldn’t look at him. “You seemed to know each other pretty well. You never told me about her. There must be something to hide.”

  “If you’re wondering if we ever hooked up, the answer is no. She had parties all the time downstai
rs, and sometimes on the weekends, I’d go hang out. It was better that going to a bar and driving home. But like you, I’m a different person than before I knew Jesus.”

  Courtney softened her stance at that statement. “Okay, I don’t want to talk about it anymore.”

  Everett started to say something else, but saw Sarah out of the corner of his eye. She was shaking her head and seemed to be whispering, “Let it go.”

  He walked away to check on the progress with the door. Kevin had removed his bracelet and was taking it apart.

  “Paracord?” Everett asked.

  “Yep. I’m pulling it apart. I’m going to use the inner strands to rig up a little surprise for anyone who wants to come through the window. I’ll run the string from the door knob, up over the curtain rod then around the leg of the coffee table and on the trigger of one of the ARs. I’ll brace the AR to the coffee table with the other strands from the paracord.”

  “And you think the AR will hit the potential intruder?” Everett considered the basic design of the booby trap that Kevin had just described.

  “Maybe, maybe not. Either way, if you were breaking in and heard a gunshot, would you keep going or retreat?”

  “Point taken,” Everett said.

  “What if it’s a kid trying to break in, just being curious? Won’t you feel bad?” Courtney inquired.

  Sarah’s voice was despondent and dark. “There are no kids. All the children disappeared.”

  Everett lowered his head. This was something that Sarah had talked about several times. It was obvious that of all the people who disappeared, it was the two little girls in her group, Lacy and Lynette that bothered her the most. It wasn’t like she was sad for them, after all, they’d been spared much misery, but it was like Sarah didn’t want to live in a world without the laughter and purity of children.

  Kevin continued running the line around the curtain rod and to the weapon on the coffee table. “Do you think your little friend will have the good sense to not try breaking in here after we leave?”

  “I hope so. If not, she’ll either get a bullet hole or a good scare.” Everett looked over his shoulder at Courtney who was obviously trying to hold back a smile. He smiled and shook his finger at her as a lighthearted disapproval of her somewhat sadistic nature.