Darker Days (As the Ash Fell Book 2)

by AJ Powers

  “Just stay close to the gate,” Clay said.

  The nervous teenager nodded as she swallowed. “Yeah, okay.”

  Clay walked out the gates, Morgan closely behind. The guards closed the gate, but kept it unlatched.

  It didn’t take long to find the first body; Clay and Morgan both tripped over it. With it being so close to the gate, Clay suggested Morgan start there and he would venture a little further out. He decided to work from the front of his zone back, so he walked out to the dumpster to begin his search. A few moments later he had found another body—a heavyset man from the feel of it. Clay knelt beside the unfortunate soul and patted around, searching for useful items. Between the near-black conditions and the growing numbness in his fingertips, Clay struggled to determine what was junk and what was valuable. His solution was to stuff every single item into his bag.

  Clay’s attempts to find a rifle came up empty. During the chaos of the retreat, some of Arlo’s men retrieved the guns from the dead. It was unknown how strong their armory was—and as Clay discovered today, it was already stronger than they had anticipated—but leaving any gun behind for your enemy to use was something that Clay would avoid at all costs, so it was no surprise that Arlo’s men had the same thoughts.

  Rolling the heavy man over required more energy than Clay had to spare. Settling for half way, Clay used his leg to prop up the body while he searched. The efforts were not in vain, however, as Clay discovered a pistol from the man’s holster. Finding nothing else, Clay grunted as he pulled his leg away from the body, causing it to stiffly roll back over onto the asphalt with an eerie sound. With the area around the dumpster clear, Clay started moving back toward the gate as he expanded his search.

  Having found three more bodies along the way, two of which carried revolvers, Clay finally started to feel better about being assigned this task. It wasn’t that he didn’t see the value in trying to scavenge as many resources as possible; he just wasn’t thrilled about being the one to do it—especially at night. But, as the search continued, so did the silence. There were no gunshots ringing out or screams of agony. There were no orders being barked or cries for medics. Only the soft, almost soothing sound of a cold evening breeze rolling across the area…

  And the whimpers of a dying soul.

  With his almost-relaxed state once again replaced with an adrenaline-fueled preparedness, Clay darted toward the sound of the stifled cries, his rifle at the ready.

  “Please,” a woman’s voice cried, so softly Clay could just barely hear her.

  The cries grew louder as he got closer to a small SUV off to the side of the Deadly Eighth. With each step, fear’s grip on Clay’s breathing tightened. He could feel the perspiration building on his forehead. He wanted to flick on his rifle’s flashlight, but knew that decision could be costly to him as well as the others. He resisted.

  “Please, help me,” the invisible person pleaded once more.

  Clay finally found the source of the cries. His stomach twisted in knots as his brain processed the information repeatedly, as if hoping it would eventually come to a different conclusion. Though it was dark outside, Clay’s vision had adjusted well enough to know what lay there in front of him.

  Having no recollection of the prior few seconds, Clay found himself running toward the gate, a limp body in his arms. “Open the gate!” Clay yelled at a whisper as he saw Morgan crouched down next to a body.

  “What? Why?” she replied, trying to keep her voice quiet.

  “Just do it!” Clay repeated, without explanation.

  Morgan hurried back to the gate and passed Clay’s request off to the guards.

  By the time the guards realized what was going on, Clay was already running through the gate. “No bodies!” one of the guards stated firmly.

  Clay ignored the rebuke and went straight to the infirmary.

  ****

  “So, tell me what happened,” Shelton asked Clay from across his desk.

  Captain Kohler stood on the other side of the room awaiting Clay’s response as well. He had been emphatic that none of the bodies be moved, but even he couldn’t blame Clay for his decision.

  Clay’s eyelids drooped as he noticed the sun rising through the window. What started as a lengthy yawn ended in an exhausted sigh. “Uhm,” Clay said as he tried to organize his thoughts from the events a few hours ago. “While searching the bodies in the driveway, I heard someone nearby crying. At first, I thought maybe it was a woman, but when I reached the source of the sound, I saw it was a boy.”

  Kohler clenched his fists and shook his head. What kind of monster would send a little boy into battle?

  “Do we know how old?” Shelton asked.

  “Doctor Sowell’s best guess was ten or eleven,” Clay replied.

  “Is he still alive?” Shelton asked. “Unfortunately, I’ve not yet had a chance to speak with Doctor Sowell myself.”

  Clay nodded. “Yes. Well, he still was when I left the infirmary. I’m no doctor, but he wasn’t looking too hot, though.”

  Shelton took off his glasses and rubbed his temples with his fingers. Although Shelton and Kohler didn’t see eye to eye on everything, Shelton respected the man’s combat experience in Iraq and Syria and did not wish to question every decision he made. And though it was evident that Kohler was just as bothered by this situation as he was, Shelton wanted the responsible party reprimanded.

  “Daniel, you need to figure out who pulled that trigger and set them straight,” Shelton said, anger creeping into his voice.

  “Sir?” Kohler responded.

  “You heard me, Captain. We will not win this war over the dead bodies of countless children.”

  Kohler understood the point Shelton tried to make—and he didn’t disagree with it—but Shelton’s request was not going to undo the damage done to the boy’s body, nor would it prevent another child from being shot if Arlo were to heartlessly send more into battle. “Have you ever been to war, Barry?” Kohler asked, throwing formality out the window. “And I mean actual war.” It was a question Kohler already knew the answer to, so he didn’t wait for a response. “When the bullets start flying and the adrenaline is pumping, your mind tends to operate on instinct and reflexes. There isn’t always time to figure out who is trying to kill you; if you get shot at, you shoot back. It’s just the way it works.”

  “I understand that, but we need our guys to be better…”

  “It could’ve been me,” Clay blurted out, yielding a strange look from Shelton. “I was right there, Barry, shooting down that same corridor as everyone else. I took shots at dozens of different people over that hour, several of which I know I hit, and not once did I think I was shooting at a kid. Not once did I look through my scope and think there was even a remote possibility of that. So,” Clay paused for a moment as the reality of his words sunk in, “I could have been the one to shoot that kid. I may very well end up being responsible for his death.”

  Shelton sighed again—Clay’s distressing words supporting Kohler’s defense.

  “I killed a little boy, once,” Kohler said. The room fell eerily silent. Kohler’s eyes glazed over as he stared at the wall across the room, looking into a past nightmare he wished he could forget. “It was in Syria, in the closing days of the war. My platoon was sweeping an ISIS-controlled neighborhood near Aleppo. Predators had already flattened half the neighborhood by the time we got there, so we expected resistance to be minimal. After clearing the first block without issue we moved on to the next. And right as we stepped into an intersection, one of them ran out into the street and opened up on us, shooting my staff sergeant. We dropped him immediately, but right as two of my men ran out to try and save Sergeant Foster, I saw movement out of the corner of my eye…” Kohler’s expression went grim, his voice filled with a sorrow-filled rage. “My reflexes trumped my training and I engaged the target without processing all the facts. My three-round-burst clipped the kid in the neck and he died just a few feet away from the gunman that ha
d taken out Foster.”

  The pain in Kohler’s word cut deep.

  “Experience told me the boy was headed straight for his dad’s Kalashnikov, ready to pick up where his old man had left off. But, then again, it’s also possible the boy was just running to embrace his dying father; just doing what any loving son would do.” Kohler cleared his throat before continuing. “I’ll forever be haunted by the decision to take that kid’s life—to let instinct overpower humanity. But that debilitating thought is always countered by a single what-if question: what if the boy was going for his dad’s gun? Or worse, what if he was attempting to flip that switch on his dad’s suicide vest filled to the brim with washers, nails, and ball bearings? What if the boy had taken out my entire squad because I hesitated to pull the trigger? Most of the agony is that I’ll never know what his motives were, because I never gave him a chance to show me. And I will have to go to my grave not knowing. But, I will say this,” he said as his dazed eyes narrowed and locked onto Shelton’s eyes, “after years of training and experience, if I made that mistake, or perhaps life-saving choice, solely on instinct, what do you expect from a bunch of traders and farmers just trying to survive?”

  Shelton’s shoulders slumped as he stared down at his desk. Kohler’s point was on the mark.

  “War is…well, it’s just about the only thing that hasn’t changed over the last ten years. It’s still just as ugly, just as brutal, and just as evil as it ever was. The only difference is that, now, nobody is exempt from living it.” Kohler ran his hand over his face, his palm pausing over his mouth as he once again stared at the wall across the room. “It’s never pretty and is seldom fair. And all we can do is try…try to do what is right and good. But gentleman, sometimes the enemy takes those choices away from us,” Kohler said, the grief dropping from his expression and leaving just anger. “And may God damn him when he does.”

  War was hell.

  Chapter 25

  When the dust had settled and smoke had cleared, Thomas Simpson was still the only fatality Liberty had suffered.

  That was the good—miraculous—news.

  The bad news, however, was that even though the recovery team managed to scrounge together a decent haul of guns and ammo from the Deadly Eighth, the income was far less than the outgoing. The level of consumption from that single battle would be unsustainable. Kohler reminded everyone of the importance of making each shot count. It wasn’t that he expected each pull of the trigger to result in a notch on the side of the rifle, but he did expect each trigger pull to have a purpose—a positive one for Liberty and a negative one for the enemy.

  Kohler’s words echoed in Clay’s head as he sat at the round breakfast table, staring at his disassembled ARAK-21. He had taken stock of his own ammunition after the first encounter: 117 subsonic rounds, 233 supersonic. Because of the very finite amount of ammo he had left for the .300 blackout, Clay would, once again, put his LaRue to work. He still had more than 400 rounds of 5.56MM of his personal ammo, and after that was gone, he could resupply from the town’s armory. He also knew there was at least a case and a half back at Smith’s bunker that he could retrieve if supplies really thinned out. However, since nobody in town used the .300 blackout cartridge, when Clay ran out, he was out. So, he would save the suppressed rifle for a rainy day—figuratively speaking.

  Clay grabbed a rag lying on the table and wiped the excess solvent and oil off the rifle. He quickly reassembled it and inspected his efforts. The candlelight glistened off the liberally applied lubricant just inside the ejection port, letting Clay know it was ready for storage up in his room until a need should arise.

  Setting the rifle down, Clay reached across the table and picked up a cup and put it to his lips. He hesitated for a moment before taking a sip. Though he was down to the last gulp inside the Styrofoam cup, he made the exact same wrinkly face he had made after the first sip. Unfortunately, Clay had never developed a sophisticated enough palate to enjoy the taste of black coffee. To him, it might as well have been 10W30. The lack of bean juice ingestion over the years, however, meant that it was a particularly effective way to keep him going long after his body hit its limit. Although supplies were very limited and most of the grounds were reused three and even four times before being discarded, Shelton agreed that it was a necessary resource to consume for a group that would only grow more exhausted by the day.

  Clay clenched his teeth as he swallowed the last swig. Disgusting, he thought. Why on earth people used to willingly pay seven bucks for a cup of this is beyond me.

  As he sat alone in silence, Clay’s mind began to digest the past thirty-six hours. He couldn’t help but go to an alternate reality; one that had him dragging his feet to get out of bed that morning. One that had him crossing that small clearing in the fence after the sharpshooter had set up for the opening statement of the war. On that fateful morning, it wasn’t a bullet that had a name on it—it was time. And, unfortunately, it was Simpson’s name that was pulled out of the hat.

  The front door in the living room opened and Megan, along with Dusty and Morgan, tromped in from the snow. Clay looked over and noticed Morgan looking a little worse for wear. Megan handed her some pills and a bottle of water, while giving her some instructions. Dusty made a joke, causing her new friend to chuckle and Megan to roll her eyes. “Drink lots of fluids,” Clay could barely hear Megan say before the girls headed upstairs.

  Megan lightly knocked on the doorframe as she came in. “Hey, Bub,” she said as she gingerly made her way over to the table, sitting down across from Clay. A wince flashed across her face as she took her shoes off and an exhausted groan escaped her lips as she sat back in the chair. “So, how was your day?” she asked unenthusiastically.

  “Well, nobody shot at me today, so that’s something,” he replied as he pushed a cartridge into an AR-15 magazine.

  “I’ll drink to that,” Megan said as she reached for Clay’s coffee cup, only to give a look of disappointment once she realized it was just a few grounds swimming in backwash.

  “You use up your ration for the day?” Clay asked.

  “Uh, yeah, that bird left the nest by nine this morning.”

  Clay looked down at his watch. “It’s getting pretty late anyhow, you probably don’t want to be drinking more.”

  “If only, little brudder,” she said. “I’m just on my ‘lunch’ break right now. Gotta be back in about an hour; shift ends at midnight.”

  The daily eighteen-hour shifts for the medical staff was nothing short of punishing. Soldiers were on twelve-hour rotations, but there were about twenty times as many people filling that role. With only one doctor, a nurse practitioner, and four medical apprentices, there was no other choice but to assign ungodly hours to the weary souls. And poor Doctor Sowell…he had taken up residence in the supply closet of the infirmary.

  “That sucks,” Clay said. “Sorry.”

  Megan’s cheeks puffed up before letting the air squeeze out between her lips. “Yes, it does. But,” she said with a hint of optimism in her voice. “Doctor Sowell convinced Shelton that we in fact do need some more help in the infirmary, so I’m actually going to start training one of them tonight.”

  “You’re taking some of our fighters away?” Clay asked.

  “Kind of have to,” she said with a crooked smile. “The resumes aren’t exactly flying in,” she added.

  “Who are you taking?”

  “Samuelson and…” she struggled to remember the other name. “Oh! McCreary. We’re also working with Estelle at the mess hall to get some assistance from a few of the ladies there—at least for a couple hours a day to help with things like changing bed sheets and dressings.”

  “McCreary?” Clay asked, giving Megan a disapproving scowl. “He’s Dusty’s spotter. He’s kind of important.”

  Megan blew a few rogue strands of hair out of her face before snapping back. “Don’t get mad at me, Clayton, I didn’t pick ‘em. Doctor Sowell made his request and that’s who showed up
on our doorstep.”

  Clay wanted to have a few words with Kohler and Shelton about the choice in personnel, but both men had far more important things to worry about than his complaints and Clay knew that. Rather than beating the horse to death, Clay changed the subject. “So, how’s the boy doing?”

  “He’s still not awake,” Megan said, hopelessness clinging to her words.

  “How long can he survive like that?”

  Megan shrugged. “Really all depends. Back when the grid was up, he could be kept alive for years without waking up. But, the world we’re in now…” she trailed off, holding up her hands and shaking her head. “Thank God Doctor Sowell had spent so much time in Haiti,” she continued, “the man’s pretty creative when it comes to improvising. Because of that, we have been able to give the kid some IV fluids, but it’s not like we have a warehouse full of that stuff to spare. And even if we did, it would only help for so long. If he doesn’t wake up soon, he never will.”

  “Poor kid,” Clay said under his breath.

  As the flame continued to consume the final inches of wick on the candles, Clay and Megan both sat quietly in their own thoughts. The weight of the world grew heavier by the day, and Clay started to realize that he was fast approaching his breaking point. And his foot was either unable or unwilling to let off the gas.

  Kelsey and the kids invaded his thoughts as he wondered if staying to fight for Liberty had been the right choice. Of course, it was, he told himself. But, as he sat in the kitchen in a town that might as well be on the other side of the world, Clay couldn’t seem to snuff out images of bandits overrunning the farm or one of the kids getting sick while he was away. And if that happened—if anything happened to his family while he was off fighting a war that wasn’t his to fight—he knew that that was a spiral he’d never pull out of.