by James Hunt
“Christ, you didn’t tell me that,” Kate said, reclaiming her hands and twisting her fingers nervously.
“I didn’t want to bring it up in front of Rodney, but listen.” Mark inched closer. “The people who attacked the hospital, they weren’t terrorists. I think they were inmates.”
Color drained from Kate’s face, and she thought of the pair of men that she’d seen on the road. Could it have been the same people?
“When we were making a run for it, I saw someone chasing us,” Mark said, and he looked away, almost as if he was trying to convince himself that the memory wasn’t true. “I only got a glimpse of him. And I wasn’t completely sure until I heard the others say a name.”
Kate stood, walking like a ghost to the wall in the room. Her mind was back on the highway, ducked behind those trees in the snow. She spoke his name before Mark had a chance. “Dennis.”
It was quiet for a long time, and then Mark finally stood and walked to Kate, gently gripping her elbows.
Kate maintained a stoic expression; only the tears streaming down her face gave away the truth of her fear. She told Mark what she’d seen on the road, what happened with the inmates who chased her into the woods. She had tossed it aside as a trick of her mind, or that there were millions of others with the same name. But it was real.
“It doesn’t mean anything,” Mark said. “He doesn’t know where we are. It may not have even been him. I could have just been seeing things. We were moving so quickly, and there was so much adrenaline that I—”
“It was him,” Kate said, her voice an octave lower than it normally would have been. She raised her eyes to meet Mark’s. “I know it’s him.”
“We’ll be fine,” Mark said. “We’re in the middle of nowhere. He won’t get us. He can’t get us.”
“That’s what I told myself after Luke was born,” Kate said, stepping away from Mark and moving toward the door, where she could see Luke watching over Holly in the living room. “But I was wrong.”
Despite the cold, the stink of the bodies was overwhelming. And it wasn’t just the dead. Plumbing had stopped working, and shit was starting to flood the halls. The storm had trapped them inside. It was like being locked up all over again. Except it was snow that kept them inside instead of iron bars.
“Dennis!” The scream bellowed down the dark hallways flickering with candlelight. “Dennis, where the fuck are you?”
Dennis rubbed his temples and slowly rose from the cot in the room he’d picked out on the first floor. It was the only one he could find that didn’t have any dead people in it. He recognized the voice screaming his name, and he knew what the fat man wanted. It was the same thing everyone else wanted.
When Dennis stepped into the hallway, he spied the bulbous shadow that Carl’s body cast due to the flickering candles. He was flanked by two other men, Tim and Vic, though they didn’t share Carl’s vigor and satisfaction in finding their leader.
“You said it was a better idea to stay!” Carl pointed his fat finger in Dennis’s face, his breath reeking from a good five feet away, though that could have just been the shit. When it came to Carl’s breath, it was hard to tell the difference. “How much longer we have to be stuck in here?”
“You’re free to leave whenever you want,” Dennis answered. “I’m sure that fat ass of yours will keep you nice and warm.” He smiled, and Tim and Vic snickered.
Carl’s face flushed red. “You think you’re fucking funny?” He removed the pistol from his waistband at the front and pointed it at Dennis’s forehead, his finger on the trigger. “Well, I don’t think it’s fucking funny!” His voice thundered, and the two men beside him took a step backward.
Dennis stared down the pistol’s barrel, and his smile slowly faded. “No. It’s not.” He raised his hand, which held no pistol, and snapped his fingers. In the quiet of the hall, the faint snap echoed loudly, and it took less than ten seconds for a dozen men to appear from the shadows of the hall behind Dennis.
All of the men that appeared were armed, and all of their guns were pointed at Carl. Dennis walked forward until his forehead rested against the end of Carl’s pistol. The man frowned in confusion.
“What the fuck is your problem?” Carl asked, visibly shaking now. “Are you crazy?”
“I’m not the one with a dozen guns trained on me,” Dennis answered. “You’re the only crazy one I see around here.” He quickly grabbed hold of Carl’s thick wrists, and he felt the shock run through the fat man’s body. “Go on, Carl. You’re the big man on campus, right? The one with everything figured out? So get on with it.”
Carl shifted his gaze between Dennis and the guns aimed at him. And when he tried to remove the pistol, Dennis tightened his grip so Carl couldn’t move.
“What the hell?” Carl panicked, jerking wildly to try and free his arms. “Let go, man!” Carl dropped the pistol, and it clanged against the floor, but Dennis kept hold of Carl’s hands. “I said let go!” He yanked his arms back hard, and that was when Dennis finally released his grip.
Carl tumbled backward, smacking against the floor with a thud, both Tim and Vic stepping away from him and merging with the crew behind Dennis.
Dennis towered over Carl who crawled backward, cowering.
“I-I’m sorry, Dennis. Hey, you know me, right? I’ve got a big fucking mouth and a hot temper, but I’m not a troublemaker. You know that, right?” Carl awkwardly wallowed from side to side, his weight making it difficult to stand, and when he finally did, he remained hunched in a cowering position. “Please. Dennis, it’s just that we’ve been stuck in here for—”
“Less than a day,” Dennis said then lowered his eyes to the pistol that Carl had dropped. He bent down and picked it up with casual effort that would have been appropriate for someone picking up a sock or some trash. He gave the pistol a shake up and down, feeling the weight of it.
“Dennis, look I—Gah!” Carl shot his hands up in the air and looked away as Dennis pointed the gun at him. “P-Please. Don’t do this.”
Even with the limited light from the candles, Dennis could still see the sweat dripping from Carl’s face. He liked that look. It was the look of a broken dog, a beast that recognized its inferiority. But like all bad dogs, it was time to put this one down.
The pistol jerked Dennis’s hand back as he fired, and the bullet went straight through Carl’s skull. The man dropped dead, collapsing into a worthless meat sack in less than the blink of an eye. Dennis tossed the pistol onto the man’s stomach, which jiggled when it landed, and the visual made him laugh. “Fat shit.”
When he turned, he saw that Tim and Vic were the only ones not laughing. They kept their heads down, and when the rest of Dennis’s men parted to let him through, Vic whimpered.
“You went along with him?” Dennis asked.
“No.” Tim looked Dennis in the eye, the effort causing his neck to strain. “We didn’t know he was going to do that.”
“We just wanted to get out of here. There isn’t any food or water left.” Vic kept his head down, his shoulders shaking like leaves in the wind.
Dennis grabbed each of their shoulders. “We all want to get out of here.” He craned his neck back at Carl. He laughed then clapped Vic and Tim on the back and walked past them. He snapped his fingers, and the hallway lit up with gunfire.
It took less than an hour to shovel their way out of the ER lobby, but when Dennis felt the sun on his face, he took a deep breath of cold mountain air. “Now this is more like it.” He looked back at the men penetrating the surface of the hole they had dug, and the imagery of convicts tunneling from prison forced Dennis to laugh again.
“Mulls!” Dennis hollered for the man the moment he was out, catching him in the middle of stretching his back.
The big man sauntered over, gasping for breath. “Yeah?”
“Those people we saw escape yesterday. You think Martin and Billy can track them?”
Mulls gazed out into the sweeping landscape of white. “I dou
bt they made it far in the storm. They probably found a place someplace close and waited until it passed. If we can find where they laid up, then they might be able to.”
Dennis grunted. Those bastards had killed two of his men. And while he didn’t share any fondness for the rapists and murders he’d assembled, he was trying to build a reputation in this new world. And if there was one thing that would break him faster than anything with the group of men he surrounded himself with, it was looking weak.
“Do it,” Dennis said. “But if it takes you longer than two hours, come back to town.” He turned to see the medical supplies being lifted from the snow. “I’d come with you myself, but I want to make sure none of these former junkies lift any of the good stuff. Which reminds me...” He turned back to Mulls. “If you do find the tracks, come and get me before you hunt those little pricks down. I’d like to be there and shoot them myself.”
“All right,” Mulls said, and without another word, the old inmate snatched up two men and waddled into the woods in search of the murderers.
Dennis watched them disappear into the vastness of the white forest and thought of the face of one of the men who’d run from them yesterday. It was only for a second, and he could be remembering it wrong, but the man looked as if he was surprised to see him.
And it wasn’t a surprise of fear—it was more the way someone would look when they recognized a person they hadn’t seen in a long time. But what had been driving Dennis mad was the fact that he didn’t know who that man was. Hopefully, Martin and Billy would find their little hideout, and Dennis would be able to scratch that itch.
But until then, he had business to attend to. There were another forty men waiting for his orders back at the town, and five more settlements to take over. But if he wanted to expand he needed to recruit. “Jimmy!”
The skinny, wiry stalk of muscle bounced close. “Yeah, boss?”
“I want you to take a trip back upstate,” Dennis answered. “Look for any more inmates that are wandering around, and tell them what we have, what we’re doing.”
Jimmy smiled. “Yeah, sure boss.”
“Pack up when we get back to town.” Dennis patted Jimmy on the back and then stepped out into the snow. It was a brave new world. And soon it would be all his.
Thank you so much for taking the time to read my story!
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Surviving the Collapse: Book 2
1
Morning had arrived three hours earlier, and the sun shone brightly on the picturesque ski village below. Pitched snow-covered roofs of cabins and small inns dotted the main street with a few shops sprinkled between.
The highway that fed into the small town was clogged with broken-down vehicles buried beneath the blizzard that had blown through the day before. Only roofs and antennas protruded through the snow. The cars were abandoned without a second thought as people fled, seeking the safety and refuge of shelter.
Dennis Smith stood on a ridge that over looked the town. Frost and blood covered his face, mixing to produce a shimmering red beneath the sun. On either side of him stretched fifteen men, all of them armed, all of them sporting the same frosty red glower.
Tongues ran over cracked lips, appetites eager for the taste of chaos and death. Adrenaline pulsed wildly through their veins. They turned toward Dennis. They waited for him. The man who had brought them here, the man who had quenched their thirst for blood and women and booze. There was more of it down there, just waiting for someone strong enough to take it.
A cold, stiff wind blew from behind them, casting their scent toward the unsuspecting victims below. They were nothing more than sheep ready for slaughter. The wolves had arrived. The wolves were hungry. The breeze died. Dennis nodded.
The escaped inmates swarmed the town like locusts. Houses were searched, one by one, people cowering and hiding beneath beds and in closets. No one was spared, and no one was left behind. Rebellion was dealt with swiftly, the remnants of defiance staining the white snow with crimson.
Wives and children cried as they passed their slain husbands and fathers, shoved along by men who laughed and howled and reveled in their pain. Dennis smiled from his perch on the ridge.
Mulls, Dennis’s right-hand man, ascended the ridge when it was finished. His gut hung over the belt at his waist, and he puffed labored breaths as he crested the top, icy clouds spitting from his mouth like dragon’s breath. “We’ve rounded all of them up.” He gestured to the bodies and bloodstained patches below. “They don’t have a town hall like the others, but one of the inns has a big lobby. That’s where we put them.”
Dennis kept his gaze fixed on the town below. He waited for the inevitable. Movement flickered in his left peripheral. Five people sprinted from the back of a house, weaving through the thick snow beneath the cover of trees. “Not all of them.” He turned his dark eyes on Mulls, and with a flick of his head, he gestured toward the fleeing townspeople. “Bring them back.”
“Shit.” Mulls hurried back down the ridge, triggering small avalanches on his descent.
Dennis knelt in the snow and reached inside his jacket. He removed the folded map that detailed their small section of upstate New York, and smoothed out the creases over the snow.
The map revealed six small towns within twenty square miles. Two of them had Xs crossed over them. Dennis reached into his pocket and removed a black marker, plucked the cap off, added a third X to the map, and smiled.
A square box stood out among the circles, and Dennis stared at it for a half second longer than the other marks on the map. It was a highway patrol station, and it represented the one obstacle and hazard that could upend all of Dennis’s work. He needed to wipe those pigs off the map before they decided to organize. But he wanted to make sure he had a good foothold in the area before that happened. Their time would come. And he would kill them all.
With the same care with which someone would handle an infant, Dennis refolded the map, paying attention to the original creases, and returned the compacted little square inside his jacket along with the pen. He stood, wiping the snow from his knees, and then descended the hill.
Broken glass and blood littered the snow along Main Street. Dennis passed the open front doors of businesses, houses, and hotels. He maintained a leisurely pace, hands folded behind his back. He’d enjoyed taking his time outdoors since his escape from prison. For eighteen years, he was held to a regimented schedule. He had his own schedule now. He was in charge. He was the warden.
Dennis veered toward the middle of the street, and his boots sank into the red slush that circled the dead. Limbs and heads extended from the mound of corpses, and he stopped to examine the bulbous nose of a man near the bottom. Dennis stared into the pair of lifeless eyes and slowly touched the tip of the deceased’s enormous beak. He smiled, chuckling to himself, and then proceeded toward the inn.
Inside the lobby Dennis saw the group of men, women, and children that shivered on their knees, heads down. Quiet sobs and whispers of reassurance between loved ones drifted from the huddled prisoners.
“Good morning.” Dennis smiled widely, his tone cordial. He tracked bloody boot prints inside as he circled the cowering cluster.
“I know you’re scared. I know you’re confused.” Faces remained tilted down as he slowly circled, his steps rhythmic and hypnotic. “You don’t know why the power is off. You don’t know why your phones aren’t working, and you don’t know why there has been no one to come and help you.”
Dennis stopped, the sound of his steps replaced by those quiet sobs and nervous breaths. He spread his arms wide and smiled, exposing his yellowed teeth. “You’re safe now.” He spoke with a warm, soothing tone, his eyes scanning the group in search of the ones he’d seen at the hospital who’d killed two of his men. Billy and Martin’s attempt to track them after the storm had passed had failed. And the fact that there were people out there who could escape him drove that little bug inside of his head mad. “The worst is over, so long as everyone here does exactly as they’re told.” His gaze focused on a middle-aged woman who clutched two young children to her sides. She kept her head down, shivering, but the little boy to her left looked up at Dennis, his expression more curious than afraid. “You just have to follow the rules.” Dennis dropped to one knee and ruffled the little boy’s hair. “You’re good at following rules, aren’t you?”
The woman shuddered and pulled her boy closer. Dennis grabbed her chin and tilted her face toward his. Tears streaked down her cheeks, her face haggard and fatigued. He dropped his tone an octave, his expression stoic save for a few spasms of anger that erupted in little twitches around his eyes and mouth. “The rules are simple. Do what we say, when we say it.” His eyes drifted toward the little boy. “And no one gets hurt.”
Jake Stows jogged in through the front door, covered in snow up to his waist. He panted and leaned against the wall to keep himself upright, his tongue lolling like a tired dog. “I couldn’t—” Spit rained from his mouth as he coughed. He wiped his mouth, straightening himself out. “The ones that ran off, I couldn’t get them. The snow in the forest is too high.”
