Aftershock_the Thrilling Post-Apocalyptic Survival Series

by Justin Bell

  “We’ve decided to make a move,” Fields said, matter-of-factly. “A move against Ironclad Security.”

  “Say what?” Tamar coughed. “Y’all are crazy.”

  “We’re not taking on the entire company. We want to grab Karl Green. Either use him as leverage, or interrogate him to find out what Ironclad has been working on, and what their next move is. And, hopefully, get a lead on where Lydia might be.”

  Tamar shook his head. “Man, I don’t like this. I’ve gone toe to toe with those bozos before. I’ve seen people die. Shot dead, cold in the streets. Those dudes don’t care how old you are, if you’re a man or woman, none of that. They will stone cold execute you.”

  “Which is why we’re just going after Green,” Rebecca reiterated. “Based on the records we pulled, he seems to have a pretty regular schedule. We’ve got long range sniper scopes, we’ll bring them so we can snoop from a few hundred yards away. Get an idea of his pattern of movements. After we’ve figured out where he goes and when, we’ll snatch and grab.”

  Tamar lifted his hands. “I don’t know. I just don’t. If it was possible, Lonzo woulda done it by now, I’m pretty sure.”

  “Who, Lonzo your surrogate caretaker? Something tells me he’s been a little busy with you guys,” Rhonda said.

  “When is this happening?” Brad asked, his voice low and steady.

  “Tomorrow,” Fields replied. “Daytime recon.”

  “Oh, so you want to be seen then?” Tamar said sarcastically. “This isn’t really a mission, y’all just want to commit some kind of fancy suicide.”

  “You have a better idea, kid?” Fields asked, putting her fists on her hips.

  “Yeah, I got a better idea. Stay the heck away from Ironclad Security, there’s your idea.”

  “Not going to happen,” Rebecca replied. “We need to do whatever we can to find out what they’re doing and just maybe try to stop it.”

  “Stop what?” Tamar replied.

  “They’re planning something,” Phil said. “Something nasty. We think it might be a follow up to the nuclear attacks.”

  “Dang, man,” Tamar said shaking his head. “Enough with that stuff.”

  “For some men it’s never enough,” Phil replied. “We think Karl Green is one of those men. He won’t be happy until he stands atop a charred pile of broken lives.”

  Tamar drew a long, deep breath, looking from Phil to Rhonda, then to Rebecca. He heard the narrow clop of feet on floor and turned back to see Winnie leading Kaida toward them. Kaida had an opened box of Cap’n Crunch that she was digging her hand in, slowly pulling out fistfuls of artificially orange cereal and shoving it in her mouth.

  “Alright, alright,” Tamar said. “Guess we’d best get this done.”

  “Get what done?” Winnie asked as she approached, her words mixing with the low crunching of dried, sugary cereal.

  ***

  Why were her memories and dreams always in black and white?

  That was the eternal question that Rhonda couldn’t answer, her conscious mind swarming amid the thick fog of sleep. In her mind she stepped from the trees, her backpack low on her shoulders, her legs tired, her body weak and on the verge of collapse.

  By pure luck she broke through the branches, stumbling out onto the grass, a long, well-manicured swath of property behind the cabin. Rain continued to fall, a dark, wet world slamming down around her, plastering her narrow, straight hair to her head, pressing her clothes tight to her scrawny frame. She took step by exhausted step, the cabin filling her vision, a single light on in the kitchen, but the rest of her home shrouded in dark.

  Looking down in her hand she saw the compass, the cheap, ten dollar instrument that had gotten her back home single-handed. Twenty miles, north by northwest.

  Her backpack was heavy, mostly with the weight of the pistol her father had given her, but also dragging with the dead carcass of two rabbits that she had managed to kill on her trek through the woods, back toward the cabin. She could see the red pickup truck sitting in the driveway, spattered with rainwater, puddles forming in the dirt driveway underneath.

  Her feet kept moving, wet sneakers sloshing through the soaked grass. Her legs aching, her shoulders burning with the weight of the backpack, an ephemeral heat rippling from her skin. A mixture of fever, fear, and rage, she continued her steady progress forward, though she angled right, heading toward the back of the building and not the front porch.

  In her vision she saw the slanted metal door leading down to the basement, the basement that her father forbade her to enter, time and time again. The door in the house padlocked closed, she’d often wondered what went on down there. What was kept down there. What they did down there.

  One foot moved in front of the other and she looked at the pale square of light shining from the kitchen window out onto the grass, yet she kept on walking. The metal doors to the basement were not secured, no padlock latching them together, as if her father didn’t truly expect her (or anyone) to be poking around outside. Almost in a trance, Rhonda reached forward, her narrow arm beading with rainwater, her fingers working with the metal lever which she twisted, unlatching the outer door down to the basement. Rain pounded down the concrete steps leading into the darkness and she started down into it, taking the steps one at a time, rain coming down diagonally, spilling all around her.

  Her feet continued their methodical tromp, one after the next, down the stairs, into the cool, dim light of the darkened basement, smooth concrete unforgiving beneath her soaked feet. Sneakers squelched as she walked, leaving a trail of wet foot prints behind her, her eyes roaming throughout the basement. As she stepped, a thin, dangling chain slapped her forehead, and she reached up, tugging on it, and flicked on a single lightbulb hanging from the ceiling.

  She wasn’t in a basement at all. It looked more like a bomb shelter.

  Shelves lined every wall, crammed full of canned and boxed food, what looked like several years’ worth of non-perishable foods stacked in neat, organized rows, one right after the other. On the floor along each shelf was a wooden crate and in her dream-trance she wobbled over one of them, letting the backpack slide off her shoulder and thump on the floor. She could see her hands reaching out, see her fingers hook around the lip of the crate’s lid, and see the lid lift, revealing what was inside.

  Guns. Pistols. Rifles. Metal boxes of ammunition of all calibers. The crate was filled with enough armaments to hold off the entire Brisbee, Colorado Police Department. Or to massacre the whole town.

  Rhonda reached down, wrapping her fingers around the handle of a pistol, though in her dream/memory state she couldn’t tell which one. Turning right, her feet moved of their own accord, carrying her to a wooden staircase leading up to the main floor of the house and her foot slapped on the first step, her eyes narrowed and fierce, all sorts of sinister thoughts streaking through her young, enraged mind. The metal of the pistol was cool and firm in her tight little fist, and it felt like raw power contained within a small hand. Unstoppable power. Target practice with the little .22 caliber was all fine and dandy, but this? This was a full-on semi-automatic, the square barrel long and broad. Bundled death in a gunmetal casing. Since she could walk, her father had taught her to use these weapons, she knew how, and she knew when. Her feet continued carrying her up the stairs, not even trying to hide the wet, loud slap of sneaker sole on wood.

  The door flew open before she reached the top, the shadowed form of her father standing before her, filling the entire space, barely any light shining through. He looked at her and smiled. A smile that contained no happiness, no joy, yet somehow gripped tight to this strange sense of pride. She bared her teeth, and he lifted his hand.

  ***

  She didn’t feel the slap—she never did in these strange hybrid memory dreams—but her eyes shot open and she pushed herself up into a seated position in the bed. The world around her in the mattress shop was a bright and vibrant yellow, the sun risen and shining through the various windows
exposing them to the sky outside.

  Time to wake up.

  Time to get this day over with.

  “Ready to make this happen?” Rhonda swung up out of bed, eyes meeting Phil’s as he walked to greet her. “I was just about to get you up.”

  “I’m awake,” she said.

  “You sure? You don’t look especially well rested.”

  “More of those stupid dreams,” she replied as they weaved between the scattered mattresses that were once for sale.

  “About the cabin?” Phil asked.

  Rhonda nodded as she walked.

  “What do you think they mean?”

  Rhonda shrugged. “Just remembering stuff I’ve been trying not to remember for twenty years. This stuff with Lydia has peeled it apart again. It’ll be okay.”

  “There’s so much you’ve never told me about what happened back then, Rhonda,” Phil said. “We need to talk about it sometime. Maybe that will help clear your head.”

  “Sometime,” Rhonda replied, glancing back at him. “Not now.”

  She turned back to face the front and picked up the pace, veering out into the aisle which was a bustle of activity. Rebecca was at the center of it, showing Tamar and Winnie what looked to be a two-handed firing stance with her Glock 34. Both of them watched with wide-eyed wonder as she popped the magazine, let it drop, scooped up a replacement and slammed it home, while swiveling toward a fresh target and not moving her hands far from the weapon’s handle. It was like watching a finely choreographed ballet.

  “I could do that,” Rhonda whispered to Phil as they approached. Phil flashed her a smile.

  “Bet you could do it even better.”

  “Morning, Rhonda,” Fields said, nodding toward her. Max and Brad came up behind her, Max with his revolver and Brad carrying a Ruger .380 pistol. “You taking the Mac-10 again, Phillip?”

  Phil shrugged. “I don’t know. What’s available?”

  “Whatever you want,” replied Fields. “Ironclad left behind an entire armory. Pick and choose, tough guy.”

  Phil nodded and walked past her, heading toward an old sports clothes store which had been modified for weapons storage. A lot of it was cleared out in preparation for their mission, a few bags already packed with assorted weaponry. Rhonda watched him make his way into the room and look around.

  “For someone who claims this is going to be a quick snatch and grab, you’re spending a lot of time teaching my daughter how to handle a pistol,” Rhonda said, trying to keep the tone of her voice humorous, but realizing she was failing.

  “Better to know it and not use it.”

  “Relax,” Rhonda continued. “It’s okay. I appreciate it. For some reason Winnie seems much more interested in learning from you than from me.”

  Rebecca shrugged. “I’m not her mom. That probably helps.”

  “What is it with kids and their natural tendency to resist what their parents teach them?”

  “I wouldn’t know. Don’t have any of those myself.”

  “Got a reason for that?” Rhonda asked.

  Rebecca gave her a sideways glance. “What are we girl besties now? Gotta talk about our relationships? Maybe we can go grab a latte later?”

  Rhonda chuckled. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to pry. I’m not much of a latte with my bestie kind of woman.”

  “You and me both.” Rebecca lowered the weapon she had been examining and looked at Rhonda. “Sorry, didn’t mean to be a jerk about it. Honestly, kids just never came up. Guys never really came up. It was all about the job; that was it.”

  “I can appreciate that,” Rhonda said. “That dedication has served us all pretty well so far.”

  “Man, look at this bad boy,” Phil said, walking up to the two women. He held up a Beretta ARX-160 assault rifle, a thick bodied, long-barreled weapon with an extended stock and heat ventilation.

  Rhonda nodded. “That’s an impressive weapon, Phil; don’t shoot your eye out with it.”

  “Very funny,” he snipped, turning away, but still carrying the ARX-160 across his body. “Max, do they have any magazines for this thing?”

  “So, be honest with me,” Rhonda said. “How do you see this going today?”

  Rebecca stood silent for a moment, lowering her weapon again. “Ironclad is a scary organization. I won’t lie about that. We need to be very careful.”

  “Green is the only target?”

  Rebecca nodded. “I promise, Green is the only target.”

  “Okay.”

  “Listen,” Fields said, putting an arm on Rhonda’s shoulder. “You and your family are capable fighters. I’ve seen you all in action. It’s actually very impressive. We’ve got a good plan, we just need to execute it and get out of Dodge.”

  “Ironclad knows where we are,” Rhonda replied. “They were here themselves before we pushed them out. If we do grab Green, they’re going to know where to find him.”

  “We’ll have to cross that bridge when it comes,” Fields replied. “One step at a time.”

  “Fair enough,” Rhonda replied. “Let’s make this happen.”

  Chapter 8

  The sun peered down through the sheer curtain of gray clouds, the suburban sprawl stretching on under the shadows of the Chicago skyline, peppered with staggered office buildings, a large, four-level parking garage enveloping three square blocks at the Eastern perimeter.

  In this southwest area of Chicago, outside of the worst parts of the city, the roads were mostly cleared, with only the occasional car left abandoned at the side of the road, and only a few times were pathways blocked by empty vehicles. Making sure to stay several blocks away from their destination, the vintage sedan and light-colored hatchback angled around a parked car, veered left down a side street, then made their way to the parking garage. At the entrance to the facility, the gate at the opening was already snapped off, most likely by someone making a hasty exit from the building, so the sedan led the way, crawling into the building and up the sloping ramps to the second level.

  They snaked around the tight curves of the mostly empty structure, the engines loud and amplified inside the confined area of the garage. Up on the third level whatever scattered cars were present faded away, leaving mostly empty spaces, and the two vehicles pulled into diagonal slots, parking right next to each other. They nested their hoods against the concrete rail of the garage, looking out onto an office park down below.

  “This where Daisuke told us to be?” Angel asked, pushing the driver’s side door open on the hatchback and peeling himself free.

  Rebecca repeated his motion from the sedan, leaning over the roof to reply, “Yeah, this is the place. That’s Ironclad corporate headquarters right down there.” She gestured over the railing down toward a glass-encased building below, two stories high and state of the art, the sun reflecting off the myriad plate glass windows stacked side by side and top to bottom all throughout the forward-facing portion of the building.

  Rhonda pushed open the passenger door and looked up over the railing as well, down onto the office building below. At least three darkly colored vans were visible and from three levels up she could just see some vague figures moving around, narrowing her eyes on the view as the trunk creaked open behind her.

  Rebecca reached into the sedan’s trunk and pulled out a SIG SG 716 battle rifle equipped with a Tango 6 optical scope capable of up to thirty-times magnification. Without speaking a word, she moved over against the railing with the rifle and pressed the scope tight to her eye, burying the stock of the weapon into her shoulder. Her free hand cradled the front of the weapon, steadying it, while she lowered the barrel down toward the office building. Doors opened and closed in the two cars, with Phil, Angel, Max, and Brad removing themselves from the sedan while Winnie, Clancy, and Tamar exited from the hatchback. Every one of them walked to the trunk and began removing weapons and ammunition, silently filling pockets and pouches.

  “Clancy, are you sure about this?” asked Angel, walking up to Greer, who was fumbling o
ne-handed with a pistol.

  “I’m sure,” he replied gravely. “I’m not going to sit back at the mall like some invalid.” They’d left Daisuke, Jiro, and Kaida back at Lakeview in hopes that they’d at least keep an eye on the place, though they knew if anyone made a concerted effort to try to overthrow them, they wouldn’t be able to put up much resistance. It seemed to only make sense when they were traveling close to Ironclad to have as much support on the ground as possible.

  “You don’t look good,” Winnie said, coming up behind Greer and pressing her palm into his intact arm. The touch was gentle and kind, but Greer didn’t like the pity it invoked.

  “I’m good enough to lift a pistol and fire if I need to,” he said. “Don’t worry about me, girl, I’ll be all right.”

  Rebecca moved the scope slowly left to right, then up and down, following the path of surrounding roads wrapping around the rectangular Ironclad corporate offices. She chewed on her lip and silently made commentary to herself as she surveyed the situation below.

  “Dang,” said Tamar, looking out over the railing. “I know this neighborhood. This is near where I was when these goons chased me off the other night.”

  “Same night you ran into us?” asked Max.

  Tamar nodded.

  “Thanks for helping out,” Max replied. “If we can grab Green, we could make this whole neighborhood a lot safer for everyone.”

  “If we can grab him,” Tamar replied. “I’m not convinced it’ll be so easy.”

  “All right, folks,” Fields said, stepping back from the railing and lowering her weapon. “Garage exits out on ground level pretty much right below us. Daisuke put us in a great spot. The way out is a narrow metal fire exit door to a sidewalk that runs along the street across from Ironclad.”

  “What’s security look like?” asked Rhonda.