Riker's Apocalypse (Book 1): The Promise

by Chesser, Shawn

  “You think their orders are to shoot unarmed civilians?” she asked, the words coming rapid-fire and laced with incredulity.

  Riker swallowed hard. “We’re about to find out.”

  “We’re going to run?”

  “We may have no choice,” said Riker. “But don’t worry, Sis. If they don’t gun us down here on the interstate, we’ll be okay.”

  A look of horror ghosted across Tara’s face.

  “Those rigs are meant for tackling difficult terrain at slow speeds, not for mounting any kind of a high-speed pursuit. Plus,” he assured her, “they’re behind the barriers.”

  The soldier was now a dozen feet away. One gloved hand was raised, the other clutching her rifle.

  “Keep your hands where I can see them.”

  “No shit. You’ve got the gun,” muttered Tara, a half-beat prior to shooting her brother an accusatory glare and saying aloud, “They all have guns, Leland.”

  The soldier halved the distance to the Suburban, raised the rifle, and began a deliberate crab walk—her body open wide to the SUV and the muzzle never wavering. After looping counterclockwise around the SUV and taking a quick turkey peek through the smoked rear glass, she stopped near the passenger-side front wheel where getting a shot off at her would be complicated by the A-pillar and oversized wing mirror blocking the way.

  Speaking out of the side of her mouth, Tara said, “I don’t want to get shot, Leland. I have an idea. Let me talk to her.”

  Riker said nothing. He had already slipped the single key back into the ignition. His mind was made up the second he saw the drift of death beside the MRAP. As his eyes roamed the roadblock and the soldiers manning it, he was transported back to Iraq. Sitting in the driver’s seat of the armored Land Cruiser. Looking at the colonel next to him who was going ape shit because they were sandwiched between a pair of Humvees and going nowhere. Tension was building at the base of his skull. He sensed the muscles running up his neck constrict and go rock hard. It was as if high-tensile steel cables had been laid underneath skin already flushed and hot to the touch. In his subconscious he knew he had thirty seconds before the little white car squeezed up on the shoulder and the ordnance onboard was detonated.

  Thirty seconds until his leg was gone forever.

  Thirty seconds until the colonel was killed outright by the initial shockwave.

  Thirty seconds until his friends Jo Jo and Ricky were torn apart in a hail of metal and glass shrapnel, leaving three kids fatherless and making widows of two young wives thousands of miles away.

  Taking her brother’s silence as tacit approval, Tara kept her hands in plain view and fixed the soldier with her best semi-confused I’m sure we know each other from somewhere smile. She had even narrowed her eyes and incorporated the head tilt. Finally, with an aw shucks shrug, she said, “You went to Shenandoah, didn’t you? Go Raiders!”

  As Tara was lying, Riker was sizing the soldier up. The black chevrons on the rank patch affixed above her sternum designated her as a staff sergeant. The nametape next to it read BURKHOFF. She looked to be around Tara’s age: mid to late thirties. Something about her face struck him as odd, though. It was strangely symmetrical. Almost too perfect. Smooth forehead. Thin nose. Milky white skin under a squared-off jaw pulled in tight by a fully cinched chin strap. And to punctuate the Barbie goes to war look, Burkhoff’s tiny ears were framed by a hint of blonde hair snaking from under the desert-tan helmet.

  Tara noted the look of confusion cross Burkhoff’s face as the soldier’s head began a slow side to side wag.

  Riker was about to mention something about the blonde soldier’s good looks when Steve-O beat him to the punch.

  “She’s too pretty to be in the Army,” said Steve-O.

  Riker looked over his shoulder and nodded an affirmative.

  Trying hard to ignore the commentary going on around her, Tara said, “Oh shit. Forgive me. You didn’t go to Shenandoah. You went to our rival Daleville.” Then, fully utilizing the imaginary hip waders she had just donned, Tara jabbed a thumb over her shoulder and doubled down on the bullshit. “That’s definitely where I know you from. I was being a little turd so Mom sent me there for eighth and ninth grade. Effin hated being a Bronco.”

  Burkhoff’s blank stare moved from Tara to Riker then settled on Steve-O, who was now perched in the space between the seatbacks and eyeing her from afar.

  Remembering an article she’d read about an English teacher who’d been boinking Daleville High students for the better part of a decade, Tara said, “We were both in Mr. Flack’s intro to English lit class.”

  Burkhoff furrowed her brow, exposing the thin horizontal line made by her snugly fitting helmet.

  Building on the lie, Tara took a wild stab at the timing of everything. “I think it was oh-three or oh-four when he made a bunch of passes at me. Freshman year, anyway.”

  Hearing this, Burkhoff’s eyes widened in recognition. Whether it was because the woman thought Tara was being truthful and believed the crap she was spewing, or that simply hearing the dirt bag teacher’s name uttered out loud stirred something in her memory, Tara had no way to gauge. Truth was, she didn’t care either way. This was a means to an end. And it appeared some kind of credence had been established. Because after a long two-count, Burkhoff began to nod agreeably.

  “Flack was a piece of work,” pressed Tara.

  “And then some,” agreed Burkhoff, whose rifle was now aimed in a slightly less lethal direction.

  Nodding at Riker, Tara said, “My brother, Lee, was in Iraq in oh-four and oh-five. If he’d have been here instead of in the Sandbox when that all went down, Andy Flack wouldn’t be in New Castle Correctional.” She paused for a second not only to let the mention of her brother’s service to country sink in, but also to imbue a bit of high drama to her story. “If Lee hadn’t been in Landstuhl recuperating from the IED that took his leg,” she went on, “Flack’s bones would be occupying a hole in a field somewhere.”

  Hearing this, Riker drew his arms back inside and made a show of closing a fist and pounding it against his palm, real slow and deliberate.

  Burkhoff seemed to relax a bit more, her rifle now at a low-ready.

  Voice hushed, Tara asked, “What’s this all about? The living dead people? The cannibalism?”

  Craning across the center console to make eye contact, Riker said, “What’s with the roadblock?”

  Before Burkhoff could answer, Steve-O said, “Why did we need to be locked up last night?”

  Over his shoulder, Riker said, “Not the time or place, Steve-O.” He turned the key, setting the seatbelt alarm chiming. Whispering, he added, “Better buckle up, my man.”

  Steve-O harumphed and disappeared from sight.

  Riker heard the metallic click of a seatbelt clasp finding its home.

  Tara felt the cold finger of dread tickle her spine. Subconsciously, she pushed her sleeves to her elbows, exposing the ink work there. Running with the first thought that came to mind, she stared into Burkhoff’s narrowed eyes and said, “Steve’s talking about the house he lives in. The director didn’t have a nurse to consult so she decided against taking the residents to one of the shelters. So they stayed home. Hence the locked in part.”

  “Why is he with you now? And why didn’t you follow the mandate and find a shelter?”

  Lying his ass off, Riker said, “We were out of town last night and don’t know a thing about any mandate. Steve-O’s our brother … by adoption, of course. Mom just died so we’re all he has left. We picked him up a little while ago and were on our way to see the lakes when we hit your roadblock.” His own eyes narrowing, he repeated his earlier query. “What’s with all this, anyway?”

  If the sergeant planned on answering Riker’s question, she wasn’t afforded the time. Because the second her lips parted, a dirt-streaked hunter-green delivery van roared up to the Jersey barriers denying east/west passage atop the overpass. There was a squeal of rubber and the van lurched wildly before mak
ing a screeching left-hand-turn. Though some speed had bled off thanks to the unexpected blockage, the van still had a good deal of forward momentum when it entered the exit ramp traveling in the wrong direction.

  Chapter 43

  Sun was glinting off the windows running the length of the van’s passenger side. Below the windows, Giovonni’s Catering was emblazoned in cursive, the gold-leaf lettering reflecting the sun as well.

  Tara saw the driver’s face. It was a mask of terror. Surely the flight part of her prehistoric fight-or-flight instinct had won out over the former.

  Next to the middle-aged driver, dainty hands partially covering her eyes, was a girl of about ten.

  As the driver braked at the bottom of the ramp and began hauling the oversize steering wheel hard right, Tara got a clear look into the rear of the van. Packed in tight were a number of adults and kids. Because of the distance, seventy feet give or take, Tara could only count heads, not determine much more in the way of detail. And if her hasty tally of the silhouettes was correct, there were an additional eight people crammed in back.

  Reacting to the sudden maneuver, the sergeant aimed her M4 at the Ford Econoline and bellowed “Halt” in a voice Riker could have never envisioned coming from the young woman.

  Jaw falling open, Tara tracked the van as it continued the right turn onto Interstate 69 North and proceeded to speed in her direction.

  The van was a green blur swerving and bouncing on worn suspension as it sped by right to left. A half-beat after finally wrestling the van into the center lane twenty feet beyond the Suburban, the driver must have spotted the Jersey barriers, armed soldiers, and armored vehicles in the shadow of the overpass.

  “Better stop,” said Riker.

  As if heeding Riker’s order, the van’s brake lights flared red and it came to a slow-rolling stop.

  Seeing the driver throw off her shoulder belt and her door suddenly pop open caused the tension in Riker’s neck and shoulders to ratchet up. The nub where his lower left leg used to be attached was also beginning to throb.

  This wasn’t a Jersey barrier chute outside the Green Zone in Iraq, but the emotion he was feeling for the people in the van was taking him back. Forcing him to relive the carnage vehicle-born IEDs wrought on soldiers and Marines manning those checkpoints outside the walled city on seemingly a daily basis.

  The van rocked forward on its suspension, then leveled out. A tick after the brake lights went dark, the rear doors swung open and people were spilling out.

  Like a scene ripped straight from the San Diego/Tijuana border crossing, those people, women and kids mostly, made a desperate dash toward the roadblock and the perceived safety beyond it.

  Harboring a sick, sinking feeling of what was to come next, Riker watched Sergeant Burkhoff lower her carbine and sprint to put the Suburban between her and the drama occurring less than a hundred feet to her fore.

  Moving much slower than the others, a man tumbled from the van and rose shakily to his feet. Lower left leg swathed in a blood-sullied bandage, he ambled past the van’s yawning rear doors and then began to lope toward the phalanx of Jersey barriers. In the blink of an eye, the lope became a fast jog. Arms coming up level with the road, the man vectored straight for the gap in the barriers Burkhoff had come through.

  Contradicting his gut feeling, Riker saw the Guard soldiers lowering their weapons.

  The crimson-soaked bandage came unfurled as the man broke into a head-down sprint. If Riker was a betting man, his money would be on the man overtaking the women and children before any of them reached the barrier. Just when he thought the situation was going to end with a positive outcome—the innocents making it to safety, and the injured man getting the medical attention he needed—a half-dozen armed men wearing black uniforms stepped forward and aimed their rifles at the approaching people.

  “You don’t want to watch this, Sis,” said Riker.

  “The injured guy is moving like a Bolt,” she replied.

  Riker watched her fish the iPhone from a pocket. She thumbed it on and hit the camera icon. Bringing the phone’s camera lens level with the lip of the dash, she said, “I don’t just want to watch it, I want to record it.”

  Shaking his head, Riker looked over his shoulder. “You might want to close ‘em, Steve-O.”

  “I’m a grown man,” he replied forcefully. “I’ll watch if I want.”

  “Suit yourselves.” Though Riker knew he should heed his own advice, the thing inexplicably playing out before his eyes proved to be too alluring. Like coming upon a crash scene on the road complete with bodies shrouded by yellow tarps, he couldn’t deny his inner voyeur.

  Without warning—shouted or otherwise—the half-dozen black rifles spit orange licks of flame. Strangely, the Bolt didn’t immediately fall. In fact, it didn’t even jerk from the impact of a single round. It was the women and children whose bodies in motion met the wall of screaming lead. The driver, who’d been first out with the young girl in tow, crumpled forward, landing face down in an uncontrolled slide before turning rag doll and rolling over to end up on her back and staring wide-eyed at the sky.

  “No no no,” chanted Riker as the girl stopped mid-stride and turned to regard the stricken driver. “Run. Get the eff out of there.”

  Too late. One of the soldiers clad in black shifted aim and, with no outward sign of remorse on his part, fired a trio of bullets at the girl. The first struck her center-mass, entering her navel, opening her guts up, and starting her to stand up straight, which put her in the worst possible position to absorb the next two rounds.

  Bullet number two, moving at nearly three-thousand-feet per second, struck dead center on the girl’s breastbone, lifting her up onto her toes and into the path of the final bullet.

  The kinetic energy released from a single 5.56 hardball round upon impact, while not as devastating as that of a .45, is sufficient to split a watermelon in two. The damage the third bullet did to the girl’s head was something Riker could not unsee. Before the diminutive form was but a corpse on the blacktop, Riker was screaming and cursing and asking Tara if she recorded “that barbaric shit.”

  “Got it,” said Tara, even as she was documenting the executions of the rest of the women and kids.

  Ignoring the dead and dying, a pair of the black-clad soldiers moved from behind the barriers. One had a net of some kind in his hands. The second soldier was brandishing what looked like a dog catcher’s tool—a long, brushed-metal pole with some kind of sturdy noose on its business end.

  “Still getting it?”

  “Yep,” said Tara. “The fuckers are trying to catch the Bolt. Those bastards in black didn’t give two shits about the rest of those people.”

  Sure enough, the two soldiers were calling out at the top of their voices, trying to lure the Bolt to them.

  From her side vision, Tara saw that Burkhoff had moved from cover and was leaning against the rear quarter panel. The M4 was clearly aimed at the road. Her chinstrap was dangling now and she was pressing a gloved hand to her mouth. The look in Burkhoff’s eyes spoke volumes. It told Tara she had been caught completely flat-footed by the actions of the black-clad soldiers and wanted nothing to do with this. Said in no uncertain terms what had just happened violated the rules of engagement as she understood them.

  Then Burkhoff’s gloved hand went to the flesh-colored bud in her ear. After nodding a couple of times and casting a furtive glance in the direction of the MRAP, she swung her gaze back to the Suburban. In the span of a couple of seconds her expression had gone stony.

  What kind of information had she just received?

  Tara and the others would never find out.

  Burkhoff straightened up and made a fanning motion with her free hand while bellowing, “Everyone out! Hands where I can see them!”

  Eyes conveying to the soldier she had no intention of complying, Tara shook her head and ordered Riker to drive.

  Riker said nothing. He turned the key to the stop and let the big V8’
s throaty rumble do the talking.

  Burkhoff’s free hand went to the rifle. In the next beat, the muzzle was swinging left to line up with the idling SUV.

  Still staring at Burkhoff, Tara said, “You just let that go, didn’t you. Bad decision … you’re one of them now.” Flipping the sergeant the bird, Tara added, “Shenandoah still rules.”

  Burkhoff made some kind of a hand gesture toward the roadblock. A tick later she was racking a round into the M4 and throwing the safety off.

  Already swinging her gaze to Riker and saying, “You can outrun a helicopter in this, can’t you?” Tara missed seeing Burkhoff shoulder her rifle.

  Dropping the transmission to Reverse, Riker asked, “What helicopter?”

  “You didn’t see it parked on the interstate behind the MRAPs?”

  Tromping the gas and looking over his shoulder, Riker said, “Nope.” As he reached for the transmission stock, he glanced sidelong at Tara. “What color was it?”

  The Suburban was now moving about thirty miles per hour in reverse. A humming noise from the transmission was sounding loudly inside.

  “Black … maybe dark green,” answered Tara. She made a face and her hand shot up for the grab bar above her head as Riker spun the wheel counterclockwise. She was drawing in a deep breath as the SUV slowed a bit and, acting on Riker’s steering input, the front end slewed around violently left to right.