Darker Days (As the Ash Fell Book 2)

by AJ Powers

  The sound of a flapping tarp reached Clay’s ears as he conquered the final stair and rounded the corner, revealing the observation deck. Snagged on a broken section of window frame, the tattered blue tarp—a FEMA logo still just barely visible—clung on as the intense wind shot through the tower. Suddenly, with a slight shift in the wind, the tarp slipped just enough for it to release its grasp on the window frame, causing it to fly across the room, smacking into a table where it made its way to the floor.

  The wind whipped the snow and everything else light enough all across the room, making a complete mess of the observation deck. The whooshing sound of the wind racing through the second-floor windows was eerily reminiscent of the creepy forest from earlier in the evening. Clay wasn’t sure if the chills that shot through his body were from the cold itself or the haunting orchestra playing out in front of him.

  He remembered the relief he felt when he and Megan finally exited the wooden cemetery—it was indescribable. However, unbeknownst them, the real danger waited for them up ahead.

  Feeling lightheaded and a little weak, Clay grabbed a nearby chair and sat down. He was out of the direct wind but close enough to still feel its effects. He stared almost lifelessly out the windows, watching as the snow and ice bounced off the jagged remnants of the glass panes.

  What did I do, he echoed Megan’s question. Clay had executed two men tonight. Two men who, at that moment in time, posed no threat to him or his sister. He had rationalized his first kill as a preventative measure, even though his vulgar comments about Megan was what made him the first target. And those he slayed after were cut and dried self-defense. But could he justify what he had done to the last two?

  Probably not.

  But as his mind flashed back to the sight of the man attempting to rape Megan on the side of an abandoned road. He didn’t care if the steps he took were excessive or not. That man deserved nothing less than a bullet, and Clay’s attempt to feel remorse for taking his life—or any of their lives for that matter—had turned up empty. That ship set sail the night he spent in the bathroom in the Screamer’s lair.

  What bothered him more than anything was the look on Megan’s face after she witnessed the event. Those brown, judging eyes that pierced his soul. She has no idea what it’s like to be out here so much, he thought to himself. Clay loved his sister dearly and he still respected her and everything she had been through, but that was her first run-in with the Screamers. If she saw half the things I’ve seen them do, she’d understand…

  Ignoring the pain and fatigue hounding his body, Clay stood up from the chair and hobbled over to the windows. The cold air sliced through his coat like a katana blade crossing silk. Small pellets of ice stung at his face as he stepped up to the floor-to-ceiling window frame, gazing into the darkness where he had put Smith’s body in the ground not even two months before. He couldn’t see the grave, but he knew it was there. He thought of the joyful sorrow the Marine had borne before finally deciding that eating his own bullet was more desirable than taking another breath in this God-forsaken world.

  The tears on Clay’s face froze before they reached the bottom of his cheeks.

  Bringing Smith that flash drive had been one of the single greatest honors, and most regrettable decisions, of Clay’s entire life. Even now, as he stared out at his friend’s frozen tomb, Clay found that there were no words to describe how he felt. He was more than willing to answer to the good Lord on judgment day for all the lives he had taken—even of those who departed tonight—but if Smith’s blood was indeed on his hands, Clay could only beg for forgiveness.

  His stomach writhed just thinking about it all. He knew coming back here would not be without its guilt, but the tremendous weight he felt, along with the violent encounter earlier, was becoming too much to bear. The temptation to follow in Smith’s footsteps was gnawing at the back of his mind. As always, his vow to protect and provide for his wife and children was the only thing keeping that enemy from busting through the gates, but with each friend lost, each child-sized grave dug, the tides of that war turned just a little further.

  ****

  Sleep never came.

  However, Clay was afforded another opportunity to sleep by the raging snowstorm outside. It had only gained in strength overnight and still hammered them with snow. With visibility next to nothing and the temperatures by far the coldest of the season, Clay and Megan decided to wait out the storm. Well, not so much Clay and Megan as it was Clay. Megan merely shrugged her shoulders and said, “Okay,” before shutting the door.

  Clay took the unexpected downtime to do a thorough search of the bunker, making sure he hadn’t missed anything the last time he had stayed. Given the circumstances, it was understandable that he might not have been as thorough a scavenger as usual. And since there was nothing else to do and he didn’t want to try to sleep again until later in the afternoon, he got to work.

  The search paid off when he uncovered several goodies—among which were a few extra PMags, a small bottle of CLP, and a few hundred rounds of 9MM. Amazingly, the pistol cartridges were not only factory loads, but they were Federal HST’s—a high quality defense round. Despite the good fortune, Clay was disappointed that he was unable to find more .300 blackout.

  In addition to the mags and ammo, Clay found Smith’s food pantry inside a couple of lockers next to the “dining room.” After dragging Smith’s body out for burial, he had avoided the dining room as if it had been radioactive and had missed the nutritional find. There were nearly twenty packs of saltine crackers, a half dozen MREs, and a handful of smaller, prepackaged snacks—mostly protein and oatmeal bars. He imagined everything would need to soak in water for a few moments before consuming to avoid chipping a tooth, but it was still food, slightly easing the heavy burden on his shoulders.

  Because he and Megan had decided they would leave the bulk of the pilfered assets in the bunker to be retrieved on their return, Clay decided to lay them out in Smith’s old room and prioritize what to pack. Reducing the weight in their packs for the next leg of their journey provided more space for future finds and was the logical choice, but Clay still felt uncomfortable leaving such resources behind. The plan was to swing by a little town called Douglas Grove before looping back around and heading south on a different route. They would return to the FEMA camp to collect the things they left behind before heading out on the final leg back to Liberty.

  After examining his pack, Clay could only justify two additional PMags for his bag, and left the rest on the bed next to the case and a half of 5.56 and the SKS he had left behind earlier. He filled his empty Glock magazines with the HSTs he had found, giving him two full-sized magazines of hollow points and three magazines of FMJs. He also had a just-in-case thirty-three-round magazine for the pistol. Before the collapse, the oversized magazine was considered more of a novelty than practical because the lower half stuck out a good ways from the bottom of the handle. If push came to shove, however, Clay would be happy to reach for the awkwardly long magazine.

  With nothing else to do and boredom setting in, Clay did yet another pass around the basement and first floor, turning up nothing new. It wasn’t even lunch yet and the time was crawling, so Clay found the deck of cards that he and Smith had played with the night they met and sat down to a grueling game of solitaire. Megan’s door remained shut, and with the exception of the occasional card being flipped over, the day passed away in silence.

  Chapter 33

  The last day and a half had been among the worst—if not the worst—stretch of time Dusty had ever experienced. And the kicker was, she volunteered for the op. At first, Shelton had been reluctant to let her go, but he couldn’t deny that she was the right person for the job. But, as she lay under a half-dead pine with snow piled on and around her, she started to wish he hadn’t been so easily swayed.

  Most of the snow sitting on top of her petite frame had dumped down over the past six hours. The storm had intensified around midnight, and only let up short
ly before dawn, making for yet another long, sleepless night. Dusty was down to her last hand warmer—which was just enough to take the edge off hypothermia. The sleeping bag she was nestled in was rated for subzero temperatures, but it took less than an hour for Dusty to call that lie out.

  Despite her best efforts, Dusty’s body trembled aggressively. She had to find a way to control the shaking; the success of the mission was riding on her having the hands of an experienced surgeon. Her hope was that when “go-time” finally arrived, her adrenaline would start a neurological coup-de-tat and take control of her nervous system.

  To combat sleep, Dusty mentally field stripped her Browning X-Bolt, cleaned it, and reassembled it again. Of course, in her head, she did it all in record timing, but the imagery helped keep her eyes open, even if her mind wasn’t all there. She had been awake for nearly forty hours, save the few times she nodded off for less than fifteen minutes. As the sun came up, room for error would decrease; she had to stay alert. Dusty wanted a quick and successful mission as much as Kohler did, and she wasn’t about to blow the opportunity by sawing logs. She knew what this victory would mean for everyone back inside Liberty.

  She shifted her body around the sleeping bag in an effort to find a more comfortable position. No such luck. Each one of her ribs felt bruised from lying on her stomach for almost the entire time she had been out. Her misery concerned her—how agile would her body be when it was time to move—especially if she had to make a speedy escape? It wasn’t as if muscle atrophy would have set in already, but her legs would be stiff after lack of significant motion in nearly two days. Needing to go from inactivity to an 800-meter dash in the blink of an eye would not likely be a smooth transition.

  Finally finding the least uncomfortable position, Dusty’s thoughts drifted to her parents. She had thought about them a lot since they came up in conversation a few nights ago. She couldn’t help but wonder what they would think of who she had become. She wasn’t worried that they would have disapproved—she already knew the answer to that and didn’t care. But, if they were to come back from the dead and saw her now, would they still love her despite their disapproval? Or would they completely disown her altogether? It was a question that would forever be unanswered.

  She expelled the emotional thoughts from her head as dawn approached. She needed to focus, which was no small feat as she continued to wrestle with the nauseating headache she had had all night. Dusty reached for the Savage Mark II next to her right leg and brought it up from the relative warmth of the sleeping bag. Repeating her routine from the previous morning, she triple-checked that the gun was ready to go. The small bolt action .22 long rifle was outfitted with an unused oil filter attached to the end of the threaded barrel. The functional, albeit makeshift, silencer, coupled with subsonic rounds would make her almost impossible to pinpoint after the shot.

  The problem, however, was distance—the gun wouldn’t have much. Between the weight of the bullet and the smaller than normal charge, it was a big question if the lightweight copper-jacketed bullet could get the job done if Dusty’s aim was on the mark. However, using the .22 long rifle would likely afford her a slow and invisible retreat back to Liberty—back to safety. And that didn’t just sound nice. It started to become necessary with the increased rigidity in her muscles.

  After giving the oil filter a snug twist and making sure the sight picture on the scope was not obstructed with frost, Dusty carefully slid the rifle back into the sleeping bag before grabbing her Browning X-Bolt next to her left leg. She loved the Browning and had no reservations about using it for the mission. In fact, part of her hoped she needed to, because she felt more confident with her accuracy using the trusty .270. Much more so than she did with the .22 rifle she’d only first held less than forty-eight hours ago. But after dispatching the hefty soft point round, she might as well hold up a big red sign that says, I’M THE SHOOTER! Each rifle had a major con along with a series of pros, and Kohler trusted Dusty to pick the appropriate weapon when the time came.

  With dawn officially in the record books, Dusty deployed the bipod on the X-Bolt and kept it just off to the side as she waited for the target to arrive. Because Morgan’s vision was blurry, she was unable to give details on the location of the muzzle flash. She was able to give a narrow stretch of tree line where she was confident she’d seen the sharpshooter, and both Kohler and Dusty agreed that the location was in line with their theories.

  No more than ten minutes after dawn, Dusty saw a shadowy figure moving through the woods, creeping slowly toward the edge of the forest. Moving like a sloth dipped in tar, Dusty reached forward and flipped up the scope covers and peeked through the lens. It took longer for the image to come into focus than it should have. Stupid headache.

  The target was dressed in white camo snow gear complete with a solid white ski mask. Clutched tightly in his left hand was an old scoped rifle—a Karabiner 98—the standard service rifle for the German Wehrmacht in World War II. The mask made it difficult to tell, but based on the wrinkles around the man’s eyes, Dusty guessed him to be in his 50’s or 60’s—an old-school shooter for sure. But old school did not equate to ineffective, as the sniper proved repeatedly since the opening remarks of the war.

  Dusty watched as the man knelt behind a thicket of trees and shrubs. From Liberty’s vantage, he was impossible to see. But with several large gaps between the twisted branches right in front of him, the sniper, at that range, had a wide view of the town. It was absolutely perfect—for him.

  Dusty slowly lifted her head above the scope to try and gauge distance. He wasn’t far, but he wasn’t close, either. Of course, the decision couldn’t have been easy.

  She estimated between eighty and ninety yards. She had told herself that anything under fifty was obvious, and it was the same for anything over a hundred. But that nebulous fifty-yard range…that was where she kept going back and forth. So, naturally, when the moment of truth had arrived, the shooter would fall within that range. On the plus side, though, Dusty noticed her shivering had already stopped.

  Looking through the scope again, Dusty watched as the man patiently set up for the morning. With several stripper clips neatly lined up on a nearby fallen tree, a set of binoculars hooked to a branch, and a canteen hanging around his neck, the man was ready for a busy morning.

  With one knee on the ground and his right shoulder leaning against a tree, Dusty watched as he tightened his grip on the war relic, resting the muzzle on a branch just in front of him. He positioned his eye behind the scope and swiveled the rifle from left to right.

  Dusty’s eye remained glued to the convex piece of glass as she considered her options. She was in decent position, having a perfect profile of the man’s head in her crosshairs—which would be crucial if she opted for the Mark II. However, her head was swimming, and if her fuzzy vision were any indication, she wouldn’t exactly be on her “A game” this morning. She was no closer to making that decision than she had been when the man first arrived. Fortunately, however, the shooter wasn’t going anywhere, at least for the moment. Nevertheless, time was not her ally, and she had to act fast.

  She closed her eyes briefly and took in several deep breaths. I know I can make this shot, she thought to herself.

  After a moment, her eyes sprang open. Her vision was clear, and, at least in the moment, the fog in her head had lifted. Casting all doubts aside, she reached down and grabbed the Mark II, psyching herself up to take the shot. She stuck her right index finger into her mouth and lightly bit down as she pulled her hand out of the bulky glove, immediately feeling the temperature change. She chambered the insignificant bullet, hoping that it would have a significant impact and positioned herself to fire. To help combat her unstable extremities, she rested her left elbow on the ground and tucked her right arm in as close to her body as she could. She looked through the scope: the target on the other side was crisp and clear. Her heart rate was borderline cataclysmic, so she began taking slow, controlled breaths. It
was working.

  Dusty continued with her rhythmic breathing as she flicked the safety off. The jittery crosshairs slowly came to a standstill, finally resting on the man’s temple as he looked for a target of his own.

  It was almost poetic.

  Her finger rested on the polymer stock just above the trigger while she waited for the wind to die down. Knowing she would only have one chance, she waited patiently for the right moment. As quiet as the round was, there was no mistaking a hunk of lead whizzing by at 900 feet per second. If she failed to deliver a kill shot on the first trigger pull, the sniper would be gone before she could cycle the next round. It had to be perfect.

  The wind weakened, but anything more than a gentle spring breeze would affect the slow moving 40-grain projectile. She had planned to wait just a little longer but the man’s rifle suddenly stopped panning the horizon and jumped back to the left. He stayed put for several seconds, then pushed the rifle stock harder into his shoulder; his entire body tensed up.

  The conditions were not ideal, but Dusty wasn’t going to let him strike again. Calmly, she moved her finger to the trigger and took another deep breath. She exhaled slowly; halfway through, she stopped. Her pounding heart was all she felt—all she heard—when she squeezed the trigger.

  *Clack*

  The noise, along with the recoil from the Mark II was anticlimactic. Dusty never lost complete focus on the scope, but it took a moment to reacquire the target. He was still there and still holding his rifle.