The End Time Saga Box Set [Books 1-3]

by Greene, Daniel

  Steele scowled at him. “I thought I was going to help plant the charges,” he said.

  Barnes shook his head. “That was the plan if Ahmed was here. Ahmed isn’t here. I can’t be plantin’ charges fast if I’m worrying about getting mauled,” he said.

  Steele knew the truth to his words.

  Barnes went to work near the beams. He worked quickly with surprising nimbleness in his hands, plugging in wires and setting bricks of explosives into place. Steele crouched down in front of the SUV so he could watch a group of six infected not more than ten yards away. Barnes joined Steele and they moved to the other side of the bridge.

  Barnes hustled to the other side, but the position was exposed with no car to cover them. Steele kept his head on a rotating axis. He squatted near Barnes, holding his tomahawk close to his body.

  Within a minute the infected had spotted them. It was as if the monsters could smell them. The motley pack of infected called to them with the audible groans indicating a good find.

  “We got company,” Steele muttered under his breath.

  “I need more time. Take care of it,” Barnes hissed over his shoulder.

  The heads of the infected jounced as they shouldered into one another. They looked like they had been mud wrestling, their clothes soiled. Probably not mud. Black gore-stained mouths hung open. Skin was peeling away from their faces, rubbed away from ravenous feeding. Unblinking white eyes sought out Steele and Barnes, and their living, breathing flesh was the only thing they saw.

  Steele calmed himself, taking in a deep breath. He re-gripped the handle of his tomahawk a few times, feeling the hard fiberglass reinforced nylon with his fingers. I have to make this fast. I have to make this quick, and I can’t make a sound.

  The first infected got within a car’s length of Steele. A skinny man. His hair was short, almost as if he were bald before the outbreak and his hair had grown out over course of the collapse. He gave Steele an unintentional skeletal smile with gums and teeth perpetually exposed.

  The infected man emitted a low moan almost as if he were trying to communicate a secret with Steele. The undead’s gait sped up, his broomstick-sized arms and long, skinny fingers grasping for Steele. Steele met its eyes and clenched his teeth. He hardened his core when he saw nothing behind its eyes, like he was about to battle a pack of sharks.

  Not today, assholes. Steele exploded from his crouched overwatch and, with an underhand swing, cleaved the blade into the man’s jaw, splitting it. White bone broke apart as he yanked it free. He shoved another infected down to the concrete. It fell into a car and crashed to the pavement. It was always better to face one opponent at a time whether it was the walking dead or a living person.

  Holding the tomahawk close to his body, he spiked another infected with a rapid jab to the head. He pushed another infected over the hood of a car. He quickly dispatched the fiend by hewing open the back of its skull with an overhead strike a little to the side. Steele exhaled, having held his breath for almost the entirety of the fight. A training scar from what seemed like a hundred years ago and a different planet.

  He took a deep breath and looked over at Barnes. The man was in a death grip with two fiends, having one hand each around an infected neck. They clawed at his arms and clacked their jaws.

  In two long lunges, Steele rammed a shoulder into the sides of the infected, forcing them to the ground. With sharp diagonal strikes, he slashed at either side of the first thing’s neck. It flopped back, jet-colored blood seeping from open wounds. Spinning, Steele sank his hawk deep above the remaining infected’s eye socket and into the frontal lobe. Its body shook as involuntary nerve twitches surged in its body. Steele bent down, wiping his hawk on the torn clothes of the dead.

  “Thanks,” Barnes said, rubbing his throat.

  The moans of more infected touched their ears. Steele scrambled on top of a car. The dead streamed for the two men in between the vehicles. He looked over his shoulder. More bloodied faces marched for them from the other direction. They were pinned.

  “Don’t even bother. They were our cue to leave,” Barnes called out, hoisting his pack to his back.

  “I would agree,” Steele said. He slid down the hood of a car.

  They raced for a ladder secured to the pillar where they had climbed up. They weaved through the cars. Barnes forearmed an infected to the ground, and Steele finished him with a polo swing on the way by, knocking the infected’s head off the pavement. Grabbing the rungs, Barnes climbed like a madman to the next level. The dead were close, the stink of their rotten flesh stinging Steele’s nose. He leapt for the ladder and climbed. He gave one a kick to the face as it stared up at him longingly.

  When he reached the next highway, he joined Barnes in catching his breath. Steele prayed that the infected would pass beneath them without taking note of where they went.

  After a minute, Barnes stood. “Come on. No rest for the weary.”

  Steele begrudgingly stood. No vehicles, no infected, no people lined the upper highway. “What happened up here? Where are the cars?” Steele holstered his tomahawk and unslung his carbine, putting it in the low ready. He couldn’t believe it was possible that there could be no threat.

  “I think they blocked this highway to control the flow of traffic through the Fort Penn Tunnel. Still, watch my back while I plant these charges,” Barnes said. Then he added. “They can be sneaky devils.”

  Steele took a place nearby and knelt. He searched with his carbine. Nothing was out there. Just the way he liked it.

  “I’m up,” Barnes said. He threw his pack on his shoulders and made a jog for the hatch. Steele followed close behind. Barnes reached the hatch and spit in disgust.

  “Fucking A,” he cursed.

  A step behind him, Steele looked down.

  A hundred chalky white eyes stared up at him. A chorus of moans hailed his appearance like a surprise birthday party.

  “What a donkey dick,” Steele cursed. “Any ideas?”

  “Not our biggest problem, Mr. Millennial.”

  Steele pointed down at the dead. “That’s not our biggest problem?”

  Dozens of cursed faces moaned up at them, hands reaching.

  “The timer’s set,” Barnes grunted.

  GWEN

  Downtown Pittsburgh, PA

  The convoy meandered through Pittsburgh. Craters lined the streets. Rubble from buildings lay scattered over the roadways and sidewalks alike. It reminded Gwen of scenes she’d seen on television from the Syrian War and the besieged city of Aleppo.

  It was a miracle some of the buildings could even stand, held up as they were by exposed rusty steel beams. Glass had been blown out of windows, leaving empty spaces that should have been linear and clean. Windows that were still whole reflected only darkness. Abandoned vehicles littered their path ahead. A dark cloud of smoke filled the sky above the city. War had always seemed so detached from her and everyone in America that hadn’t served. It was only a daily television program you could turn off when you were tired of the misery.

  Everything bad always happened far away to people, most of whom were never American. Even on her Red Cross deployments, she could go to an area destroyed by wildfires to help, but she always could detach and go home afterward.

  Pittsburgh burned. No fire trucks swarmed the streets. No police controlled the scene. No paramedics helped the injured. Everything just burned. Yellow, red, and orange flames licked the sides of buildings. Other fires smoldered, the rain and lack of fuel putting them out. Twisted metal and rubble decorated the sidewalks. There was no place of refuge. Only movement and fighting.

  The swivel-turrets machine guns atop the Humvees called out their war song. It was heavy and loud as it thundered. The convoy only left the dead in its wake.

  On Fifth Avenue, an SUV began following the convoy.

  “Tell them to stop,” Sergeant Yates said into his headset. “Well, I can’t fucking see them. So use your judgment,” he yelled. Within a minute, the convoy
gradually decreased its speed and the people mover coasted.

  “Why the hell are we slowing down?” Sergeant Yates called out. “Everyone, man your positions!”

  The protective metal flaps were propped open and guns were aimed outward, bristling from the mobile lounge like an American military hedgehog.

  The driver waved a white shirt out the window. It whipped frantically as he tried to flag them down.

  “Tell them to back off,” Sergeant Yates yelled into his headset, holding a handrail with one hand, rifle in the other.

  “REDUCE YOUR SPEED,” a soldier boomed over a loudspeaker.

  They were answered with silence.

  The SUV continued to follow the convoy, not heeding the announcements from the rear Humvee. Sergeant Yates rubbed his brow. His eyes crossed in anger.

  “REDUCE YOUR SPEED, NOW,” a soldier boomed over a loudspeaker again.

  The SUV flashed its lights and continued driving closer to the convoy.

  Sergeant Yates jaw flexed. “Light ’em up,” he said into the headset. A fifty caliber machine gun riddled the vehicle with hot screaming lead. They weren’t followed again.

  Flaps dropped closed and the people mover was a military armadillo, armor-plated and tough. The soldiers found solace in their dank stuffy coffin of a transport. There was little comfort for Gwen inside the lounge. Sweaty, blood-covered men sat mostly in silence. A few cried. Most were no more than boys. Gwen wouldn’t cry anymore. She lived while all of those around her died. She hadn’t kept any of her promises to anyone. She had smothered Lucia. Lindsay had been infected. She would most likely never see Mark again. Mauser was a small comfort in a sea of pain and suffering.

  In the past, he had been good for a laugh; now, he could not bring cheer into her world. The people mover jostled her back and forth. Probably running over the bodies. She hurt on the inside. She thought she had buried that hurt with Lucia, but it was an internal wound that bled inside of her with each beat of her heart.

  Then she heard that laugh.

  The same laugh that had gotten them into this mess. High-pitched and shrill. That bitch, Ashley. Ashley sat near the front of the people mover in the arms of a soldier. A few other soldiers sat around her, doing anything to make her smile.

  She had somehow found time to brush her dirty blonde hair, which fell around her shoulders. Her torso was adorned with a long-sleeved thermal that was clearly too big for her; must have belonged to some soldier boy who had signed up to the National Guard to be a weekend warrior, not a full time, active duty trooper.

  Ashley had tied it up in a knot so it would expose just a little bit of her pig pink belly. Snuggling in close to a big, black-haired soldier, who looked more country big than athletic, she appeared content.

  Gwen didn’t blame people for enjoying what time they had left. If some dumb eighteen-year-old private wanted to bump uglies with Ashley, then so be it, but it made her angry that Ashley got to have it. Ashley sat over there with someone she wanted to be with, while Gwen was forced to be content with watching her man walk away from her in some sense of perverted civic duty. Most likely he would die playing hero on a suicide mission, leaving Gwen alone, which made her even angrier.

  She maneuvered her way to the front of the people mover and planted herself in front of Ashley. Ashley gave her a haughty look, as if she was saying, what the hell are you doing here?

  “I need to talk to you.”

  Ashley looked up at her coyly. “Well, hi there, sweetie pie. Don’t you look chipper today?” she oozed.

  Gwen knew she looked like hell and couldn’t care less. “We have unfinished business,” she said, grabbing Ashley by the shirt. The soldier put a hand out to stop Gwen, but the others yelled at him.

  “Let ’em go, Pennington.”

  “Come on, hoss. A little girl on girl action,” said another. Specialist Pennington reluctantly let Gwen pull Ashley face to face.

  “Now you kiss her,” a soldier shouted, adding misogynistic fuel to Gwen’s fire. Gwen held her face near Ashley’s. Ashley grinned with a mouthful of yellow teeth.

  “You ruined my life,” Gwen spat. “My friends are dead. The love of my life is gone, and you sit over here laughing it up like it never happened?” she said.

  Angry fear shone in Ashley’s eyes; like an abused dog, she bared her teeth. She gripped Gwen by the shirt and they stood like two judo grapplers.

  “You killed my friends and family,” she exclaimed. “If it weren’t for our traitorous fucking cousin, none of that would have happened.” Ashley looked past Gwen at Kevin releasing the grip on her shirt to give him the finger. Kevin raised a flask in her direction and tossed it back.

  “They were monsters, and if Kevin didn’t make it happen, I sure as hell would have,” Gwen shouted.

  “My brother, my cousins, my uncle are all dead because of you. You lost some Spanish chick and a college girl. They weren’t going to make it. My family was born for this,” Ashley growled.

  Her words cut because she was probably right. Lucia was a new mother with no one to take care of her. Lindsay was a follower at best. Not a survivor. Not a fighter. Mark had orchestrated the entire destruction of Ashley’s family.

  “And the world is a better place without them,” Gwen said, twisting Ashley’s shirt.

  “You think you are better than us? Come into our town all dolled up and smug. Thinking you’re better than us ’cause you had money in the old world? Fancy cars and cappuccinos? You look down your nose at us ’cause we’re fucking poor. Just ’cause I don’t do yoga and I don’t do juice cleanses, or read your mommy blogs, don’t mean we’re different,” Ashley spat.

  Gwen sneered. The soldiers started to cat call and make hissing noises. Fucking typical adolescents.

  “Really, you and me are the same? Ha. We are nothing alike. I have something called morals. You are just a trashy whore.”

  The words seem to roll off of Ashley. Clearly, she had been called worse. Gwen would show her with a fist to the nose; maybe she would understand that, but Gwen didn’t know if that would really affect the woman either.

  “Ladies, ladies. Let’s keep it PG,” Sergeant Yates called over.

  They ignored him. Gwen halted herself when Ashley threw another verbal barrage her way.

  “You and me could be sisters. I just did what I was told to survive.” She blew hair out of her face.

  “You stood by while your brothers, cousins, and uncle killed, tortured and raped others with impunity. We are nothing alike.”

  “Isn’t that what you’ve done, you uppity bitch? You are holed up in here, just like old Scarface told ya to. Holding yourself up on a pedestal like you’re better than everyone. How many people have you stood by and watched him kill?” Ashley said.

  Gwen shook with rage. The same. She was nothing like this woman. The only thing they shared were the similarities of their nether regions.

  “The only difference is you were lucky enough to have a knight in shining armor sweep you off your feet. While all I got was banged in the back of a pickup,” Ashley said.

  Gwen slapped her. The palm of her hand stung like fire. Ashley met her eyes. It wasn’t her first time being slapped either.

  “I will never be like you. You hear me. Never be like you,” Gwen said. She could feel the tears of rage gathering in the corners of her eyes. I promised myself I would never cry again. She held it in. “The difference between you and me is that I give a damn about other people. While you, clearly, only care about yourself.” She let herself be pulled away by one of the soldiers.

  “Yet here you are, safe in the convoy, while Scarface is out fighting. Stupid bitch,” Ashley called after her. The soldiers laughed at them. Specialist Pennington let Ashley curl back up under his arm. He examined her cheek with a smile.

  Gwen sat back down near the wall on the other side of the people mover. Away from Mauser, Joseph, and Kevin. Joseph looked hopefully up at her. She stared past him. Gwen knew this woman. Gwen had hurt h
er. The pain that Ashley had brought down upon Gwen and her friends was horrible, but the pain that Ashley brought upon herself was worse. Could Ashley be right? Deep down Gwen knew that if things in her life had been different, she could have been in Ashley’s shoes. If she had made a left instead of a right, if she had grown up in the rural poverty of Appalachia, she might have ended up like Ashley. Used, abused, and scared. The woman had survived before and after the dead rose.

  Gwen crossed her arms beneath her chest. From the looks she was getting from the soldiers, it appeared that women were becoming a base commodity as the civilized world diminished. Ashley is rotten. She deserves my contempt. Doesn’t she?

  The Nature vs. Nurture argument duked it out in her head. Is Ashley a bad person because of her genetic predisposition or because of her abusive childhood and crappy circumstances?

  Gwen had contemplated bashing the woman’s head in with her fists. What does that say about my nature? No thoughts really surprised her anymore. She probably could have gotten away with it, but she knew that allowing Ashley to live in her miserable existence was so much more of a punishment.

  She pulled out her picture and let the smiles of the people try to calm herself from the rage within her. She did a breathing exercise, finding partial relief from her anguish.

  As they left the city limits the rain began to dissipate. The sun popped out from behind a cloud. Bright light seemed to illuminate the convoy. The sunshine warmed everything. Somebody propped open a steel curtain. It was strictly forbidden, but Sergeant Yates didn’t say anything. Eventually the convoy slowed down to a halt.

  “Colonel Jackson is calling a stop up ahead. I need you four on Zulu duty. Give a shout if you see any. We’ll handle the rest,” Sergeant Yates yelled at the four civilians, but his eyes were aimed at Mauser.

  “The rest of y’all relax for a few and stretch your legs. Eat, drink, shit. Pennington can fuck if he wants.” A few men chuckled.”

  The steel shutters of the mobile lounge were opened, allowing fresh air to flow freely through the people mover. The stink of the air floated away with the wind. It was replaced by cool air that rejuvenated everyone onboard.