The Survivors: Book One

by Angela White

  Kenn ground his mouth against hers, as that distinctive, addictive scent of vanilla filled his nose, wondering how much more Brady would allow before stepping in and getting himself killed.

  Ah! Not much at all, Kenn gloated to himself, half turning them to be in the right position as he shoved his tongue deeper. Her Tag-a-long was already moving from his place in the doorway.

  Angela picked up the thought and understood he was trying to provoke Marc, catch him off guard. She slammed her boot against Kenn’s ankle, leaning her weight into it as she elbowed him in his flat stomach.

  Not expecting her to fight, Kenn grunted, letting go. Angela stayed between the two men, only backing up a little as she tried to remember what she’d learned. He would see right now that things had changed.

  “What the hell was that for?” Kenn snarled at her, closing the distance between them.

  Her eyes narrowed as the Witch said to provoke him now so they could either kill him or be killed, but be done with it. “You wouldn’t let go.”

  Kenn’s voice was savage as he leaned toward her, itching to break her crooked nose again, “And I never will!”

  His eyes went to the Marine now standing alertly near her bumper, big black-and-gray dog bristling at his side, then back to her. “You have one minute to tell me what you’re doing with him! Who is Brady to you?”

  Kenn grinned harshly at her surprise. “Yeah, I know him! Answer me!”

  He was trying to intimidate her, but Angela surprised them all by shoving him with both hands, moving him out of her personal space as she'd learned. “Stop yelling at me!” she blared, catching him off guard again.

  She only lowered her voice a little, finger waving. “We can have a normal conversation or we can spill blood right here and now,” she warned coldly. “It’s your choice.”

  It was dangerous to push, but the old Angela, the one who’d battled him early in their relationship, was guiding them through this minefield. When his eyes flicked to Brady again and then Dog, she relaxed a bit. Getting Kenny to think before he acted was the key to surviving the encounter.

  Shocked at the words more than her actions, Kenn hated it that he might be outnumbered by the tense Marine edging closer, by the bristling animal at his side that upon closer inspection, appeared to be a wolf, and also by Angela, who had obviously done a lot of changing (reverting) during her trip.

  “Fine. We’ll talk,” he sneered sarcastically.

  Angela cocked her head as the sun came through the clouds of grit above them as if to back her up. “We’ll start the entire conversation over.”

  He grunted and Angela forced a cheery smile that didn’t reach her eyes. “Hello, Kenn. Good to see you. How have you been?”

  The Marine grinned coolly, instantly recognizing her tactics. He should. He’d used them daily on her. “Never better. Enjoy your trip?”

  Kenn felt his rage go up another notch when she nodded, shuttered eyes finding her escort before returning to his angry face.

  “Some of it, yes.”

  Kenn’s eyes promised payment. “Hope it was worth it.”

  Angela continued without hesitation, even though his beefy hands were now clenched into tight fists. “It was. Where’s my boy?”

  Kenn said nothing, waiting, wanting to hear her beg. He wasn’t prepared for the hate that filled her face.

  “I don’t need you to find him! How do you think I got here?” she ground out through clenched teeth.

  Kenn was too pissed to be worried, though he had an idea he might be in a little danger. She’d done more than revert. She was using the power! She'd unlocked it! He had always known she could and the old, thwarted bitterness settled into his stomach like it had never left. Was there a way he could get control of it now? His mind flashed a picture of her son. Yes. There was.

  “That may be, but you do need me to get near him. Charlie’s with my men. They won’t want to kill you, but they will.”

  Angela didn’t back down, didn’t look away, and Kenn hated the new knowledge about life and death he read in her eyes. She thought she could handle him and that was bad. How much practice had she gotten? What had she done, been through, to get here?

  “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you,” Angela stated tonelessly.

  Kenn stared at her in shock, unable to believe she would dare to get in his head so openly, so arrogantly. Didn’t she remember what he’d threatened to do if she used it on him?

  “Everything has changed, Kenn. You broke our deal when you abandoned me for that group of strangers you’ve been lying to!”

  On the edge of control at her veiled threat to reveal his secrets, Kenn was surprised to discover that her disobedience, her betrayal, was worse. He hadn’t thought her hold on him was that strong anymore. “You have six years left! You belong to me!” he hissed violently, moving closer.

  Angela, struggling against the fear, fought back. “Not anymore. I want out!”

  “No!”

  “You don’t own me!”

  “How long have you two been sleeping together?”

  “We aren’t!”

  “Lyin' bitch!”

  “You go to Hell!”

  Kenn’s hand flinched, and Angela felt herself being brushed aside.

  Marc stepped between them, finally eye-to-eye with the man responsible for hurting his Angie over and over. “It’s been a while, Harrison.”

  “Not long enough, Brady.”

  Marc didn’t respond to the accusation in Kenn’s eyes as he waited for one of them (Angela) to get nervous and start talking, but they (she) remained silent and Kenn frowned deeper.

  “You’re...traveling together?” he asked finally.

  Marc took the lead, big shoulders prepared to take whatever came. “Yes. We were both headed this way, and I couldn’t let her go it alone. She was hard to convince, though,” Marc lied easily. This was indeed a thin line, and he wasn’t the only one walking it. She hadn’t been exaggerating even a little. The LC was deadly with the M16 on his back.

  “Well, thanks buddy, but I’ve got it from here. You can hit the redline.”

  Marc’s grin widened into sharp white teeth as the wolf lingered at his hip, dark fur on his back and tail bushed-out aggressively. “Welcome, pal, but a funny thing happened on the way here. I discovered I want to be with… other people, and I might just stick close for a while.”

  Clearly taunting, Angela knew blood was about to flow and stayed out of it, waiting to see if Kenn would force his own death. Brady was eager and while she wasn’t, doing it now, while Kenn was alone, was best if it had to happen.

  Marc took a step forward, bringing them to within inches of each other as the wind gusted through the dead corn. “Real close.”

  Kenn’s eyes narrowed and his hairy knuckles inched toward the 9mm on his hip. “She has a man, you fucking Jody! Back off!”

  Marc snorted, furious blue eyes full of contempt. “If you want to call yourself that.”

  “What the hell's that supposed to mean, boot?” Kenn sneered threateningly, lightly-bearded face full of hate.

  Marc put them chest to chest without hesitation, “It means she’s not your punching bag anymore! You wanna hit someone, grungeshit, you hit me!”

  Kenn didn’t hesitate either, and he swung hard. The hit rocked Marc's head back and then the two men were at each other, trading vicious blows.

  “Like that?” Kenn taunted, following the upper cut with a powerful roundhouse.

  Marc ducked the blow, landed a nasty knuckle to Kenn’s temple that made the Marine stagger. “Yeah! More!”

  Kenn rushed him, head slamming into his gut, and Marc immediately drove his elbow into Kenn’s shoulder blade.

  Kenn jerked, grunting as he was rocked off his balance, and they hit the dirt with a hard thud, swinging, wrestling, trying to get the advantage.

  Angela waved a hand at Dog to stay back as Marc pushed Kenn off of him with his legs and rolled onto his feet.

  Kenn rushe
d, and Marc ducked again, foot flashing out at the last minute to trip him up.

  The blow the jealous man had been throwing glanced off Marc’s wounded arm and Brady kicked him in the ribs as he went down, wound stinging from ripped stitches.

  Kenn was on his feet in a blur, hand flying toward his hip, and both of Brady’s guns were out before the furious Marine could pull his own.

  “Do it!” Marc goaded, fingers tightening…longing to squeeze. “Make it count. I will.”

  Book Three: Safe Haven

  Deleted Scene 1

  12/21/2012

  Granite Mountains Complex

  Stunned, Press Secretary Pat Michaels sat in the back of the large, crowded room that was embedded under a dank maze of tunnels. Half a mile beneath a secret military base, the compound was now being overrun with terrified citizens demanding the protection they knew the Essex could (but would not) provide.

  The limestone command center was thick with smoke and people, some of them in on the original testing of these weapons. Pat hoped his own punishment would not be as harsh as theirs. After all, they had known firsthand what a horrible thing had been created. It was so powerful, so unstoppable, that the America above them was about to be destroyed and a new, hostile world would take its place.

  The slyest of presidential defenders since Nixon’s well-used man - Pat Michaels, former Press Secretary - was useless, forgotten in the chaos, and not even sure he should be here. His family had been in New Jersey... Someone had been with him when he got the news, had brought him along when they had evacuated from the Las Vegas convention-hall, although he wasn’t sure who it had been. Amanda, the kids! How would he go on? How would anyone?

  Panic was rampant. Voices barked orders, people scrambled to get information, papers floated through the humid air, and satellite phones rang continuously, annoyingly. Thanks to an EMP and a lucky shot from a disgruntled citizen with a grenade launcher, the Vice President was dead. The Speaker of the House was now the legal recipient of the highest seat in the land, but she wasn’t here and neither was the new Secretary of State. No one had discovered where they had been evacuated to, or even if they were still alive. Those jobs were no longer in demand, and the result was chaos, fear in control. Maybe that would change later… if they survived the missile headed for Montana.

  Deep and sturdy, this complex had been built secretly during the 1990’s and was not only untested, it was less than one hundred miles from what was about to be a direct hit. Pat shuddered. They would probably feel it.

  Lurking near the back wall of air vents and panels, the Press Secretary broke out into a light sweat as one of the remaining clocks on the cold, sterile walls around him neared, and then passed, the five minute mark.

  Washington, New York, and most of the East Coast had already been destroyed. Of the seven warheads that the long-denied Star Wars program hadn’t been able to shoot down, three were definitely going to find more U.S. targets and maybe two others that they had lost radar on as well. Their own warheads had decimated countries around the globe. Now, America would pay the price.

  The huge, multi-picture screen in the front of the crowded room changed when the next clock hit four minutes, flashing to a satellite view of the incoming missile careening towards the Sunshine State, and Pat found he couldn’t look away.

  Why, in God’s name, had the former President done this? And who had given the technology-challenged man the disk that would allow him such unforgiving control? Surely this was a bad dream? If not, millions more were going to die in only:

  03:45

  03:44

  03:43

  The computer went to full alert, alarms all over the vast compound warning of the impending arrival. The Press Secretary’s stomach churned as the ceiling lights began to flicker a hazy red.

  America was in the same panicky state as this room, thanks to the convoys of soldiers taking all males, ages 10-60. Told to get a full truck of warm bodies any way they had to and be back within eight hours, gunfire was filling town after town. They had reports of it in nearly every major city across the country, soldiers and civilian wars over their sons and husbands and over remaining food and weapons. The end was close… and everyone felt it.

  02:50

  02:49

  02:48

  Would mankind survive? Had they really blown themselves up? How much of this new hell was he personally responsible for? Millions of lives were already gone… so many cultures, and their history!

  01:20

  01:19

  01:18

  Pat cringed at a freshly braying siren from the front of the loud, crowded, tactical room. They'd destroyed the world. Was that the red stain on his hands that refused to wash off?

  00:40

  00:39

  00:38

  When was my last orgasm? he wondered suddenly, too scared to recall what it had felt like or what the intern’s name had been. Greg? Gary?

  00:25

  00:24

  00:23

  When was my last confession? Pat struggled to remember, heart thumping wildly, stomach lurching. Did I mean it? Is it too late?

  00:15

  00:14

  00:13

  He closed his eyes and began the comforting, useless litany from his seat, still unable to make himself get on his knees even though the true hour of judgment had come.

  “Please forgive me, Father, for I have sinned…”

  00:02

  00:01

  00:00

  “I did it for my country...”

  Deleted Scene 2

  “Everyone shooting must sign in. Only people that have passed the gun class can enter. Shooters will stay in front of the gate, everyone else behind. Sign in folks and let’s get started.”

  Jeremy was the MC tonight, Neil’s second Eagle, and as Adrian stepped by, he again caught a whiff of perfume he now recognized as Cynthia’s, but said nothing. He wasn’t worried the Eagle would slip with anything he shouldn’t. Before the war, Jeremy had been a devout Catholic, quiet and observant. He knew the meaning of secrecy and he’d found his place here, something the church had been unable to provide. The guard would be careful with it.

  There was standing-room-only in the bleachers, and a large crowd lined the gate as the shooters signed in, and checked their weapons. Adrian was glad to see no real fear, no desperation in the faces of his people. The watching crowd talked loudly, betting on their favorites as they sat in chairs in the sand or on thick blankets, and the men shooting waited behind the gate, eager to start.

  “Okay. We have 29 shooters tonight,” Jeremy announced.

  Adrian stepped over to the clipboard on the bales of hay. “Make that 30.”

  The crowd cheered loudly and the other shooters groaned.

  “First, Kenn Harrison.”

  The sun was gone now, the night dark and gritty, but the moon’s outline, while not clear, gave some light and made people feel better just to be able to look up and finally find it in the sky. It was something they hadn’t seen much of for almost a hundred days. The area was still dim, but huge spotlights on top of the trucks lit up the ball field and roller-bound targets.

  The ones set at 25 and 50 feet were hardly a challenge to the men watching his XO get set, but the ones at 100 and 125 were, and all the contestants knew they would likely be gone before round seven. He and Kenn had dueled it out last time, easily leaving everyone else behind. When they were shooting, no one else stood a chance.

  “As many direct hits as you can, any target. On your mark.”

  The Marine grinned, holding the gun steady against the gusty wind, accounting for it, and then he was firing smoothly.

  The crowd cheered when the call came and the guards on the perimeter stayed alert, knowing the noise would carry.

  “Eight bulls eyes! Next, Adrian Mitchell.”

  The leader checked his weapon, and then put it back into his holster, letting his hand hang loosely like an Old-West gunslinger.

 
The newer people, who hadn’t yet seen him shoot, watched nervously, sure he would miss and prove he was as fallible as the rest of those who had tried to lead.

  Adrian’s hand was a blur as he drew and fired, fired, fired. He twirled the black 9 mm a single time and slid it neatly into the holster on his hip.

  “Eight bulls-eyes!”

  The crowd roared and Jeremy had to shout to be heard as Adrian grinned, stepped over to Kenn.

  “Next, Kyle Reece.”

  No one missed a shot until the end of the round. Mary and Heather, two females he’d sent to the class for match-making purposes, didn’t get any bulls-eyes, but Adrian was pleased that they had hit anything at all. For the women here, that was definite progress.

  The third woman, Lexa, was a gun shop owner from Los Angeles. Short, with a big chest and a long, brown ponytail, she hit half the targets, making Adrian wish he could add her to his list for the next Level One Eagles. Her draw was beautiful, almost a perfect copy of his, and with a little instruction, it would become as natural to her as breathing.

  Adrian wondered if he would ever get his Eagles to accept women on the teams. He needed one of these shell-shocked females to be a warrior in disguise that could hold her own among his army and make the rest of the camp accept it too. For now though, it looked like Lexa was eliminated.

  “Last shooter. Rebecca Ann Kelly.”

  The cute teenager moved toward the line and Adrian frowned as the crowd cheered and catcalled. Had she made it through the gun class somehow without him knowing it? There was always a wait because he hand-filled over half the seats.

  Adrian was almost certain she hadn’t, but instead of immediately calling her on it, the leader let her have one try, thinking again of how much he needed one of these timid homemakers to really be Xena, the warrior Princess.

  Becky was innocent, sexy, playful, and many of his men were watching the slender girl, waiting for her sixteenth birthday in October, when it would be legal to ask her out. That included Kenn, but Adrian thought she had a thing for one of his other top guards. Either way, the girl would be something here. What, was up to her.