Amber sat in silence, looking pensive, and Ethan was content simply to sit by her companionably and let her think. Part of him wanted nothing more than to lean over and kiss her—just take her in his arms and let the chips fall where they may—but another part of him felt guilty for even thinking it. The world might change in a day, but people took more time. Amber was married. And yet…The old world they knew was burning, and if her marriage burned up with it, maybe that wasn’t so tragic. Her kid would still have his dad. Hell, the whole clan was acting like one big, extended family with the kids, and they seemed to actually be happy about it.
He was torn from his thoughts when Amber jumped to her feet. She faced him with that oh-so-wonderful smile and said, “I need to go check on the kids. Later you can tell me about one of your silly online castle raids, okay? I love how excited you get when you talk about that stuff.”
Ethan nodded and watched her walk away. Amber was in her early thirties and had a child, but her walk still looked amazing. Okay, maybe not so stunning to everyone, though she was cute by anyone’s standard. But her strong inner self shone out, and she lit up his world when she smiled, which only made her more beautiful. If only she would just tell him what she wanted… Ethan turned away to stare at the fire, his emotions jumbled and conflicting.
- 7 -
1930 HOURS - ZERO DAY +7
TAGGART FIRED TWO rounds and ducked back behind the derelict subway car. The ping-ping of return fire struck the car almost immediately. There were ten enemy soldiers when the shooting started, but now only one remained. Too bad this wasn’t Taggart’s mission target. It was only an unpleasant surprise along the way to the real ambush.
Captain Taggart’s men for the mission consisted of Pvt. Eagan, two new resistance recruits, and two “experienced” resistance fighters. Taggart now understood that being experienced was code for Militia members, and so he didn’t trust them at all. Still, they had been obedient and disciplined so far. The Resistance was the only game in town for food, unless someone wanted to volunteer for slave labor with the enemy. Plenty of people did, despite the risks, now that the food was mostly gone.
The crack of a rifle signaled the end of the engagement when one of the Militia members, ordered to circle around the other side of the subway car, took off the enemy’s head with his Remington 700. A damn fine hunting rifle as far as Taggart was concerned, and today they were hunting in earnest.
“Listen up,” Taggart barked. “Gather their weapons, ammo, and any radios or food they have on them, and stash it in the conductor’s car. Toss these bastards into the passenger car. Eagan—don’t forget our new orders to spray paint the ‘Circle R’ so they know who did this. We go in three mikes.”
They were done in two minutes, and Taggart resisted the urge to smile at the eagerness with which these civilians followed his orders. Of course, the invaders hadn’t been able to fire back much this time, having been taken by complete surprise. How his civvies would handle being shot at by enemy soldiers on the bounce remained to be seen.
Well, he’d see soon. They were only a few blocks from where they would pop up from the subway into the city above, then it would be time to set up their ambush of a supply convoy heading out of New York to go to God-knows-where.
Twenty minutes later they were above ground and in place for the Op. Taggart and a Militia guy in a second-story window; Eagan and a new recruit behind a dumpster filled with rubble; and the last Militia man and recruit in another building on the first floor. The triangulation of fire would hopefully ensure the quick demise of the convoy defenders, without confusing his own untrained men. But before the shooting would start, two sticks of dynamite in a shoe box on the roadway would stop the convoy cold once Taggart pushed the button. Hopefully.
In ten mikes the convoy should go by (according to Mr. Black’s intel, which might well have come from the 20s, whoever they were). Taggart hated this part. As always, the waiting made it the longest ten minutes of Taggart’s life, at least until the next time. The minutes ticked by, each seeming like hours, but eventually he heard the roar of engines approaching. He clicked his radio. “Heads up. OpFor inbound. Tiger One, ready.”
The radio responded. “Tiger Two, ready.” Then, “Tiger Three, ready.”
There was a noise behind him; the scuff of shoes on linoleum. Taggart spun, bringing his M4 to bear at the same time. It took half a second to understand what he saw. Four civilians crept toward him carrying a bat, a chain, and two kitchen knives. They had hunger in their eyes, and desperation.
“Halt. Disperse immediately. This city is under Martial Law by decree of the Commander-in-Chief, and you are required to vacate the area immediately,” said Taggart with his best “Sergeant’s bark.”
Behind him the hum of an engine was becoming a roar of multiple vehicles; the convoy was getting close. Then his radio chirped. “Captain, hostile civilians approaching, request permission to fire.” That would be Eagan. As soon as the radio chirped clear, another voice called out, “Yeah, here too, Cap. Tiger Three about to be engaged by at least ten people with… knives n’ shit.” That would be the Militia guy.
One of the men approaching Taggart—the one with the bat—said, “I don’t give a fuck about them other guys, they aren’t with us. But you got food, and we’re gonna get it. You can’t stop all of us. Hand it over, or I’ll cut off your dick and feed it to you.”
Just great. The approaching engines were nearly in the target zone, too. “This is a mission, and there’s supplies in that convoy. Enough for all of you. Disperse until we take it.” Not that the other civvies would know if these guys agreed. He needn’t have worried, however.
The man sprung forward, bat held in two hands overhead to swing it down on Taggart’s skull. Abruptly two red flowers blossomed on the man’s chest, and he fell onto his face, then lay still. Taggart’s ears rang from his Militia companion’s double-tap. He glanced over and saw the wiry man holding an H&K pistol, now pointed at the remaining three.
Outside, Taggart heard popcorn going off—the sound of the other teams being engaged, and firing. Taggart opened fire at the remaining three men. In under one second, all three were down and dying or dead. The sounds of his other teams firing echoed off the buildings and faded; they too were now either dead or victorious.
The Militia man turned to Taggart even as he dropped the pistol and took up his hunting rifle, nodded once, and turned toward the window. Taggart jumped toward the window and flipped the switch on his small transmitter box, and was rewarded with the deep boom of several sticks of dynamite going off. A secondary explosion told Taggart the bomb had taken out a vehicle. There was the screech of tires as the other convoy vehicles halted, and then more popcorn; the distinctive sounds of AKs, as the enemy panic-fired in all directions. A loud, clear voice called out in Arabic, and the enemy fire dwindled to nothing. Must be their commander getting his ratfuck soldiers in order.
By the time Taggart could get back up and peer over the window ledge, the enemy had stopped and dispersed. There were at least thirty of the bastards out there buzzing like hornets to every available piece of cover. Engaging them now would be suicide. Fuck and damn and every other curse word he could think of.
Taggart clicked his radio. “Abort, abort. Rally at exit B or C if you can. Good luck.” He turned to his Militia companion. “Bug out time, soldier. Grab your gear and retreat,” he said, more loudly than he’d intended. Adrenaline, yeah.
But his companion snarled at him, instead of moving out. “Traitor! Kill them or die,” he cried.
The man actually had tears in his eyes, Taggart noted, a damn strange thing to notice right now. Taggart was done. There was no way he could get his weapon into play before this Militia fanatic punched Taggart’s ticket permanently. Taggart tried to be as calm as possible and said, “Listen, brother, go easy. We’re on the same team here…”
The Militia man’s chest exploded, showering the room in crimson gore. Then Taggart heard the deep thump of
a heavy machine gun firing from below. Some raghead got a lucky shot in, taking the rabid Militia man out. Thank God.
Taggart grabbed his pack under his left arm and ran, leaping over the civilian bodies. He sprinted out of the apartment to the stairs and was about to leap down to the next landing when he heard glass break below, and a flurry of noise and voices. The enemy was on their way up. Taggart checked his momentum, bouncing painfully off the railing, and flew down the hallway to the unit on the end. He didn’t slow down, just leapt into the air and struck the door with his right boot near the door handle, smashing it open. His momentum carried him through the doorway and into the unit. Inside, two women hiding from the window by crouching behind the couch turned toward the surprise visitor and screamed.
Taggart kept going. He brought his pack up from under his arm and held it before him as he vaulted up to the back of the couch, landing on one foot, and leapt again straight through the large window. His backpack protected him from most of the glass, though he felt a few burning slices in his arms and legs, and fell like a rock. Two stories passed in under two seconds, and he hit the ground hard. Taggart rolled as though this was a parachute landing, as he’d been taught, and came up on his feet. The adrenaline blocked the pain of any injury he may have sustained, thankfully, and he sprinted toward a nearby alley. He heard rifles firing behind him, and as he passed into the alleyway he heard the sharp sounds of bullets striking brick next to him.
And then he was out of their view. He didn’t stop running. Part of him wondered whether the others had escaped, but he had no time to dwell on it. The enemy would surely be coming after him, and it was time to run for his life.
- 8 -
2000 HOURS - ZERO DAY +7
STEVEN WALLACE STUMBLED under the weight of the basket strapped to his back, which was filled with rubble. A moment later the pain of 50,000 volts of electricity struck him in the arm. With a convulsive full-body twitch he flopped forward and landed on his face, without even the ability to use his arms out to break his fall. The rubble from the basket cascaded over his head painfully, and he heard riotous laughter nearby.
Steven’s face flushed with anger, but as soon as his body would let him he rose to his knees, took off his basket, and began shoveling debris back into it. The Foreman, as the workers had named him, would sooner put a bullet into his head than wait for a slow worker. Back on his feet, Steven began the trudge once again, this time with a quicker pace.
A building had been destroyed by a missile, and Steven’s group of workers was tasked with moving it from the site. Each day they had to carry a certain number of baskets half a mile north to the island’s coast, where their contents were added to the growing wall of rubble the invaders were building around the city. Of the twenty-odd men who had begun the task with him three days ago, only eleven remained—but those eleven were given plenty of food and water every day that they worked. As long as he kept trudging, Steven’s family got to eat.
He had to remind himself of that fact, chanting it in his mind over and over. It was the only way to keep going, and to ignore the growing string of heads stuck on poles and fences along the route between the building site and the rubble wall. The heads were the invaders’ way of warning the remaining workers not to slack off or fall out. Steven was tired, but at least he wasn’t a head on a stick yet. Last week Steven was an accountant, but that life seemed very distant already.
Ahead of him, a short and wiry young man staggered to his knees. Steven had thought the man would break on the first day, but somehow he had kept up while others dropped out.
“Get up, Mark,” Steven urged in a half-whisper.
“I’m trying,” said the young man. He looked at Steven, and there were tears streaming down his face. “I can’t make my legs move anymore!”
“They’ll fucking kill you, Mark. Get up and your family eats.”
The Foreman noticed the delay. He turned and strode toward the man with a sneer on his face.
“Goddammit, Mark, the Foreman’s coming. Get up!”
Mark groaned and struggled to rise to his feet. The heavy basket creaked as the rocks within shifted around. He got one foot under him and tried to rise, legs quaking, but the man’s tired, abused muscles wouldn’t do it. His leg gave out, and he fell to the ground on his side.
The Foreman arrived, and Steven shut up. One did not talk while the Foreman was around. The soldier had short hair and a long beard and wore a black shemagh around his neck, which matched the black fatigues he wore. “What you are doing? Get up, son of bitch.”
Steven watched as Mark turned his head to look at the Foreman. Tears running down his face, Mark cried out, “I can’t move anymore! God, please, just give me five minutes. I swear I’ll get up in five minutes.”
Steven flinched at the raw terror in Mark’s voice and eyes that were wide with fear, and at the Foreman’s sneer. The son of a bitch looked happy, and that meant only one thing.
“God will not help you. Allahu akbar! Get up or face justice.”
Mark didn’t move. Steven watched in mute horror as the Foreman pulled a large knife from a sheath on his belt, knelt down and grabbed Mark’s hair, and pulled the victim’s head back to expose his throat. Mark screamed in terror, an inhuman sound that Steven had heard nine times before. The Foreman paid no attention, however, and seemed not even to hear Mark’s cries. With one smooth motion, he drew the wicked knife across Mark’s throat, and a spray of blood splattered into the dirt.
Of course, thought Steven, none of it hit the Foreman. That bastard made sure he was behind his victim, so the blood sprayed away from him.
Then the Foreman shoved Mark forward, face down into the bloody dirt. As he did so, he wore a smile, a happy fucking smile, and muttered his “Allahu akbars” over and over. Steven wished he had the courage to kill that smiling, evil bastard. But that would be suicide, and so Steven stood mutely and looked away from the familiar scene.
Like clockwork, the Foreman waited ten seconds after Mark stopped twitching in the bloody mud, then leaned down again to finish his grisly work. In short order, it was all over, and the soldier stood with Mark’s head in his hand, held by the hair, and raised it to the sky with a great cry of victory. Steven didn’t know what he was saying, but it sounded like the same thing every time this scene had repeated itself.
The Foreman walked over to a wrought iron fence and gently, almost reverently slid one iron spike up into the head through the grisly neck. Then he turned and faced the remaining workers.
“Ten of you remain. Do not be lazy! You have duty to job. Soft Americans, you must work harder now. Half you failed Allah’s test, and rest of you son of bitch must do twice the work. Say prayer to Allah for this man, and get back to work.”
The Foreman turned and spit on Mark’s impaled head, but the workers who remained only resumed the long walk to the rubble wall.
Maybe they’d get more slaves to join them soon. For the love of God, let there be more slaves soon, he thought. If they didn’t get more people to help, there was no way he could keep up the pace much longer.
* * *
Luis “Spyder” Acosta was king of his world, now. Three blocks along West Cumberland and North 33rd were now indisputably his. Luis and his crew had fought or absorbed every other crew in the neighborhood, and now his gang owned it all. It was hard to get drugs now, but his bitches were raking in a fortune—all in trade for food, bullets, anything useful. He had his street-level guys herding the sheep people, which was anyone not in his gang, building a barrier around his turf with abandoned cars and rubble. Once they were done, he would start gobbling up blocks one at a time, walling them up, and moving on to the next block. Soon his dream of becoming “King Spyder” could become a reality.
That was, of course, if the damn invaders let him. He was never sure whether they’d allow something until he tried it. If they didn’t care, then the food kept coming. If they didn’t like it, though, it would be a hungry couple of days; they’d sai
d they would not deliver food for several days every time someone in his crew screwed up.
So far raping, beating, and even killing had not upset the ragheads. As long as his crew lit up anyone with a gun, turned over or killed anyone wearing a U.S. military uniform, and delivered two slaves a day, the invaders left him alone. Those two slaves were easy to catch from the turf of that puto, Angel, a block south. Angel’s block would be the first to go, Spyder decided. That dumb son of a bitch wasn’t even building a wall.
Better yet, because of the deal he’d brokered with them, the invaders would deliver two or three days of food for his neighborhood three times weekly, and drop it off practically at his doorstep. If the losers who lived in Spyder’s territory wanted to eat, they better cough up something he wanted. The women had it easy, at least if they were young and hot, and even if he wasn’t in the mood to get laid then he could pass ‘em off to his crew to keep them loyal. Them ugly bitches could trade like all them dudes had to. And Spyder wasn’t no racist, neither—anyone who could trade work or goods would eat under Spyder’s rule, hell yeah. Keep them hungry, but fed, and they’d be too fucking afraid to fight back.
The only real challenge for him, as far as keeping the invaders happy, was all the damn “Resistance” fighters running around. Every time they raided the invaders, the ragheads got all riled up. And that was just one more reason to take Angel’s territory because that weak-ass brotha wasn’t able to fight off the Resistance. Rumor had it that Angel’s turf was crawling with Resistance putos. Well, hopefully not for long…
There was a knock at Spyder’s door, and then Sebastian walked in. Big, dumb, and mean, Sebastian was a good lieutenant, but he never waited to come inside after knocking.
Dark New World (Book 2): EMP Exodus Page 5
