Surviving the Fall (Book 1): Surviving the Fall

by Kraus, Mike

  With a deep breath, Rick Waters put one foot in front of the other and began his journey home.

  Chapter 12

  Los Angeles

  New zoning, tax and building regulations over the previous decade had expanded the city’s limits and brought new life and changes to the eastern portion of the city. The Monterey Pass road, once a winding road containing all manner of stores that were squashed between residential neighborhoods to the north and south, had been transformed. Most of the businesses along the road had moved into the neighborhoods to the north and south as part of a new urban planning scheme where grocery stores, banks, restaurants and other similar businesses tried to exist directly in neighborhoods to provide more convenience to residents.

  Once the original buildings along the winding path had been destroyed, they were rebuilt into towering monoliths as part of a new “green” industrial design. The interiors of the buildings were sleek and modern in every way possible, but the exteriors had intentionally been designed to look as though the buildings had been built a hundred years prior. Experimental fabrication plants, computer chip designers, 3D printing startups and other companies that needed large amounts of manufacturing space found their home in the new industrial strip.

  When the event occurred, however, all of the companies had been hit just as much as any other—and perhaps even more so due to their computerized systems that controlled everything from the temperature and lights to the locks on the doors. Several of the buildings had burned to the ground, but the advanced building designs meant that the fires didn’t spread to the neighboring buildings.

  As Rick found himself looking down at the Monterey Pass Industrial Row—which was the name emblazoned on the sign leading down the road—he found himself feeling nervous about passing through the large buildings. One of them had toppled over as it burned, strewing debris across the road and making the path look virtually impossible to traverse. The only other option at Rick’s disposal, though, was to go around the massive residential neighborhoods that, to his surprise, were still ablaze.

  The unique position of the Monterey Pass road and the fire resistant exteriors of the buildings along the row meant that the road acted as a natural firebreak, allowing safe passage through the worst of the fires and out onto a clear section of road beyond that the flames had yet to reach. Rick squinted at the industrial buildings, trying to estimate how much time he would have to get past them before the fires on either side moved far enough east to consume the path he was trying to take.

  “Two. Maybe three hours at most.” Rick mumbled to himself and shook his head. “This is insane.” Still, though, there was nothing else he could think to do, so he forged ahead, moving at a light jog as he tried to make the journey as fast as possible. It took him half an hour to shuffle down from where he was onto the Monterey Pass road. From there he began to move cautiously, watching the towering buildings cautiously. Of all the people he had encountered so far in his journey, those in the three cars had been the only ones who had been violent—so far. There was something about the industrial row that made him uneasy, and he couldn’t stop thinking about them as he walked among the buildings.

  So focused was Rick on the buildings around him that he didn’t notice a low thrum begin to echo in the distance to the west. The sound continued to grow louder by the second, and it was only when it was nearly on top of him that Rick finally noticed it—a blaring of some unidentifiable music coming through overpowered sound systems. He froze in his tracks and turned his head in every direction, trying to identify the direction the music was coming from.

  By the time he figured it out, it was too late. Rick was standing in the middle of the road as the three cars drove up, each of them slamming on the brakes and skidding to a halt a hundred or so feet away. Rick nearly froze on the spot from fear and indecision, but the memory of watching Jack and Samantha being gunned down played through his mind. His body reacted to the memory and he leaned to the side, breaking into an all-out run for the buildings directly to his south. The sound of car doors opening came from behind him, though all he could hear was the wind rushing past his ears and the crinkling and jingling of the contents of his backpack as he threw himself forward.

  The first shots rang out just as Rick disappeared behind a five-story rectangular structure. Bullets tore chunks of the faux brick siding off of the building, whizzing past Rick as he stumbled, trying to keep from falling over around the sharp corner. Unintelligible shouts came from behind him, and he heard footsteps as the unknown number of assailants began to approach the back of the building.

  With nothing to hide behind ahead, a tall wall to his right, the building to his left and the knowledge that stopping or turning around would mean certain death, Rick took the only choice that made sense at the time. He skidded to a stop in front of a door leading into the back of the building and closed his eyes as he turned the handle. He had fully expected it to be locked and for his pursuers to be upon him a few seconds later, which was why he gasped in surprise as the handle turned freely. He pulled the door open and stumbled inside, then stopped as he tried to make out where, exactly, he was.

  The building was brighter than he expected, and it took his eyes just a few seconds to adjust to the stark shadows cast from the glass ceiling far above his head. The main floor of the building was filled with manufacturing equipment while catwalks and enormous sections of piping towered high over his head, crisscrossing each other as they reached toward the roof. Rick heard another spray of gunfire as his assailants blindly fired down the side of the building where he had been standing a few seconds earlier. He jumped at the sound and scanned the building for a place to hide before making up his mind about where to go.

  Instead of searching for somewhere to take shelter on the ground floor, Rick broke into a run for the closest set of stairs. The stairs wrapped around the interior of the building, providing access to the catwalks that acted as the second, third, fourth and fifth floors of the structure. Rick glanced at the displays and controls that were near the top of the first set of stairs as he ran past, though he was unable to discern what the factory manufactured. He reached the top of the second set of stairs and ran towards the third, his legs burning from exhaustion. He stopped at the base of the third set of stairs and looked out over the railing, craning his neck to try to see the floor below through all of the piping suspended in the air.

  Lead ricocheted off of metal and tore through plastic as an unknown number of guns opened fire from below. Rick felt a sharp pain in his right leg as a bullet bounced off of the railing and tore through the edge of his calf. He tried to roll back towards the wall as he fell, but his backpack was too bulky, and he was forced to slip out of it before he could seek some cover. The catwalks and stairs weren’t solid but grated, except for a two-foot wide strip that ran along the wall. Rick pressed his back against the cinderblocks, feeling their relative coolness leech the heat from his sweating back. The gunfire continued for another several seconds until a sharp voice cut through it in Spanish, ordering a cease-fire.

  “Let’s just kill him from down here!” Another voice, this one in English, came next.

  “No, not this one.” The first voice spoke with a thick accent, purposefully yelling loudly enough so that Rick could hear him. “This one I want to take care of myself.”

  The implication in the tone of voice of the man Rick assumed was the leader of the group chilled him to the bone, and he began looking around frantically for a way out of the situation. There was no way to get out of the building without going through the men below, and if he stayed where he was, he would soon be captured. “Great.” Rick mumbled as he steeled himself for his next move. “Guess the only way to go is up.”

  Rick pushed himself to his knees before reaching out across the metal grating to grab his backpack and gun bag. With one in each hand, he darted up the third flight of stairs, taking them three at a time as he tried to stay ahead of a spray of bullets. None of them came anyw
here close to hitting him, but they did spur him to move faster, and in less than a minute he was squatting at the highest point in the building, panting from exhaustion.

  The glass roof above him rose at an angle to meet the glass from the other side, directly over the center of the factory below. Metal supports held the glass in place, and were also the location of large steel fittings to which thick cables were attached that held up the intricate collection of pipes which were suspended above the factory floor. Several of the largest pipes ended at a right angle in a large metal box attached to one side of the building, and on the exterior were a few vents. Rick glanced out at the ground and side of the building he could make out from his location, hoping to spot a ladder or some other means of getting to the ground, but found nothing.

  “Come out, come out, little pollo!” The leader of the group was taking the stairs one at a time, his men trailing close behind, laughing, jeering and occasionally firing off a shot in the direction where they suspected Rick was located. Rick paid them no mind as he unzipped both his pack and his gun bag and set to work loading up three magazines worth of 5.56 for the hunting rifle.

  A few months after buying their home in Virginia, Rick and Dianne had spent a few weeks repairing and rebuilding the fence that stretched around the perimeter of the property. The wooden supports were rotted and the wire was rusted and falling apart. It was long, laborious and boring work, but Rick had enjoyed it immensely due to the time he and Dianne had gotten to spend working together. Three days into their work Rick had heard something rustling in the dead leaves behind him.

  He turned to see a large red fox hobbling towards him. The animal had saliva dripping profusely from its mouth and was staggering as it walked, all the while growling and making strange sounds. Rick recognized the signs of rabies immediately and yelled for Dianne to get back to the house. She had refused, though, and instead pulled out the small revolver she carried with her and put three rounds into the creature’s torso as it kept heading towards her and Rick. The bullets didn’t deter the rabid creature, though, and in fact seemed to make it even more hostile. Not willing to risk waiting any longer, Rick pulled the closest T-post out of the loose soil and jammed it into the creature’s skull, killing it instantly.

  Rick knew that even with all of the ammunition and firepower in the world, he wouldn’t be able to take on every single one of his would-be assailants. If he could take out their leader, though, and do it quickly and professionally, there was a chance—no matter how slim—that it would cause the rest of the men to flee, unwilling to risk being the next to be killed. Rick drove the first magazine home into the rifle and removed the caps from the scope. He laid down on the catwalk, his back to a corner, and rested the barrel of the rifle on the backpack in front of him.

  In the moments it took for the gang leader to show his face, Rick felt like time slowed to a dead crawl. He thought about his wife and children, about Jack and Samantha, about the business meeting he had missed and about the fact that he was on the other side of the country from his loved ones. How is it I go from being on a normal everyday business trip to laying down in an abandoned factory waiting to kill someone? Rick closed his eyes and licked his lips, trying to control the nervousness that was starting to rise up inside of him. I’m not a killer. I’m not a killer. I’m not a killer. Rick kept repeating the phrase in his head as the realization about what he was about to do dawned on him. As the nervousness reached its crescendo and he started moving his legs to stand up and try to find another way out, movement down the catwalk caught his eye.

  “There you are, pollo! Hiding in a corner?” Nearly every bare patch of skin on the man was covered in tattoos, from his bald head and face down to his arms and legs that showed out from underneath his shorts. The man carried a long, gleaming knife in his right hand and a pistol in the other. His grin was maniacal and twisted, his laugh full of cruelty and his eyes filled to the brim with malice. Seeing the man up close made Rick realize that there was no other way out. With that thought, his nervousness vanished without a trace and he squeezed the trigger.

  The scope on the rifle had been perfectly aligned when Rick grabbed it from the back room of the sporting goods store. Spending hours in a bag being jostled, tossed and slammed around had moved it slightly out of alignment, though, and it showed with the shot Rick took. Instead of hitting the leader of the gang square in the chest, it hit him in the neck, slicing through his carotid artery and sending a spray of blood out to the side.

  The man dropped to his knees in shock, his eyes wide as he held a hand to his neck ineffectually, then pulling it back and staring at the dripping blood in horror. Rick was mortified by the sight, and pulled his head back from the scope to watch as the leader’s men stopped in their tracks and ceased their jeering, laughing and shooting. Each of them watched their leader as he pressed his hands against his neck again, trying to stop the flow of blood, but not one of them stepped forward to help him. As the leader turned to his followers and held out his arm, he tried to gasp out a plea for help, but couldn’t form the words.

  Seconds later, the man fell forward onto the catwalk, blood still pouring from his wound. He raised one hand weakly into the air and then it fell. A shudder went through his body and then he stopped moving all together. The other men were still frozen in shock at the sight, as was Rick, though he came to his senses just before they did.

  “Listen up!” Rick shouted as he put his eye back to the scope and swiveled the rifle to look at the next closest face he could see. “Get the hell out of here right now and you can live! Or, you can join your friend there! You have to the count of five to decide!”

  Rick didn’t even get to “three” before the gang members were falling over each other in their rush to escape. The sight of their leader dying in such a brutal fashion had driven the fight out of them, and each one of was in full-on panic mode. When they reached the bottom of the building they ran out through the back entrance, leaving the door to swing shut. Less than a minute later Rick could hear the sound of car engines starting up, and a few seconds after that two of the three vehicles roared down the road in front of the industrial building, heading off to the east before curving north around the fires and back into the city proper.

  Rick didn’t get up for a full half hour. He lay motionless on the floor, tilting his head every few minutes as he struggled to pick up any possible sounds he might have missed. When he was satisfied that he was finally alone in the building, he got up slowly and put his backpack on, slipped the hunting rifle back into the soft case along with the shotgun and started walking back toward the stairs.

  When he reached the gang leader’s body lying face-down on the metal grates, blood dripping down onto the pipes and floor far below, he shook his head and grimaced. He knew that, eventually, he would have to deal with the fact that he had just taken someone’s life. When his adrenaline finally wore off there would be more shock to deal with, and hard questions would surface that would have to be answered.

  But in that moment, as Rick felt simultaneously elated to be alive and horrified at what he had done, he thought of one thing above all else: justice. He hadn’t set out to try and balance the scale of Jack and Samantha’s death, and if the gang had left him alone he wouldn’t have even tried. In a way he was grateful, though, since the gang leader’s death undoubtedly meant that other innocents might be saved from the madness and carnage, and that in some way at least, he had avenged his travel partners’ deaths.

  “One day.” Rick whispered at the body of the man in front of him. “In one day you went from… whoever you were before to this.” He held out his right hand and turned it over, looking at his index finger he had used to pull the trigger on his rifle.

  “And in one day I turned into this.”

  Rick stepped over the lifeless body and headed down the stairs. He pulled the pistol from his waistband holster and checked to make sure it was loaded, then slipped it back in. He exited through the back of the buildi
ng, glancing around for any sign of the men that had driven off, and was relieved to see that they were really and truly gone. Rick walked around to the front of the building and saw the third vehicle, the SUV, sitting out on the road with the keys in the ignition and the radio still playing.

  Rick opened the front passenger door and threw his bags in, then climbed into the driver’s seat and switched off the radio. He ran his hand across the top of steering wheel and sighed. To his left and right the smoke and fire continued inching forward, turning more homes filled with memories and life and joy and happiness into nothing more than piles of ashes. For Rick, his memories, life, joy and happiness were thousands of miles away, and he had no idea if they were intact or if they had perished along with countless others.

  If Rick Waters had learned anything in the last day, it was that he was going to make it home no matter the cost. He didn’t know how it would happen, but he knew in the deepest corners and recesses of his heart that it would.

  “Stay safe.” Rick whispered to his wife half a world away as he turned the key and the SUV’s engine roared to life. “I’ll be there soon.”

  Author’s Notes

  May 5, 2017

  If you're reading these notes, that means that you most likely read through the entirety of this first book in my new episodic post-apocalyptic series. Whether you're a new reader or you've read books I've written before, I want to thank you for taking some of your valuable time and spending it in the world that I've created. It means a lot to me and I genuinely appreciate it. I really hope you enjoyed the story so far!