Catalyst (Book 3): Ghost Country

by Franks, JK

  Ghost Country

  A Post Apocalyptic Novel

  J K Franks

  Published by JK Franks Media, LLC

  Made in USA

  This book is a work of fiction. The characters, events, names, places and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons, living

  or dead, is purely coincidental. Any references to historical events, real people or actual locales are also

  used fictitiously.

  Ghost Country

  Copyright © 2018

  J.K. Franks

  Cover art: Mohammad Qureshi

  Editor: Debbie Riggle

  eBook ISBN: 978-0-9977289-9-6

  Paperback ISBN: 978-1-7326144-0-6

  Hard Cover ISBN: 978-1-7326144-1-3

  v. 8102-808

  For Kerry

  Thanks Bro for your continued encouragement, support and most of all teaching me the rich and complex art of being a true smartass.

  "Success is not final, failure is not fatal. It is the courage to continue that counts."

  – Winston Churchill

  Chapter One

  Harris Springs, Mississippi

  The storm had passed; Scott sat on the smooth sand and stared out at the still pounding waves. The rhythm of the beast that had nearly killed him now gave him peace. He had never thought of himself as a survivor or a leader, but that was what he had become. The community he and his friends had built had survived the worst year imaginable. No electricity, little food, gang attacks, and they successfully fended off an army calling themselves the Messengers. What’s next?

  He knew she was looking at him, he smiled. Then her tender fingers rubbed up his neck and into his hair. It was shorter now because she preferred that. He had changed much this past year, and now he changed for her. Gia leaned in close and kissed his face. She didn’t try to put words in this moment. That would have broken it, made it somehow less than it was. All the deaths, the struggles, the violence; it had to equal something, maybe something better, right?

  After more than a week stranded at sea with his former enemy, Skybox, Scott had found a way to work with the man, and eventually, they saved themselves. Then he had rediscovered the woman he had always been too cowardly to declare his love for. Now she sat beside him looking at the greenish waves crashing just feet away, her fingers intertwined with his. Being smart and finding ways to work together was the key. He was sure of that when all this began the hot August day when the sun spat out its lethal cocktail of plasma and energy directly at the earth. He held on to that principle, time and time again, but returning home to the AG…to Harris Springs, seeing all those bodies, damaged and dead friends and neighbors, it had jarred him. He was no longer sure humans deserved to survive. The cruelty they could unleash on others far surpassed anything the sun had done.

  The Navy had spent a week cleaning up and helping dispose of the corpses. Acting Fleet Commander Garret hadn’t outright said it but seemed genuinely apologetic for the Navy’s lack of response when needed. The faint lingering smell of the burn pits would be the last remnants of the attackers that they had to deal with. The reunion with his friends and brother had been bittersweet. He still smiled remembering their faces as if he had returned from the dead. Seeing how badly some of them were injured, probably none more so than Jack, was more than he could handle. Thankfully, he hadn’t had to do it alone. He turned to Gia. “I love you.”

  She smiled, and he noticed a tear forming in the corner of her eyes. “Always,” she said, leaning in to kiss him on the lips this time.

  How could life be so excruciatingly brutal and yet so tender and sweet? Maybe the yin and the yang, light and dark, good and evil. One could not exist without the other, and the stronger the one, the stronger the other.

  They heard footsteps running down the beach from behind. Turning, he saw his niece, Kaylie. “Uncle Scott, we need you.” She was panting as she slowed, her ragged looking running shorts and shoes the only sign of the athlete she had been.

  “Kaylie, my dearest, sweetest niece, I was having a moment, you know?”

  “That…was a moment? Damn…sorry, Gia, I thought he had gas or something. He was making a face.”

  Shrugging off the ‘moment’ and grinning, he began to stand, “What now?”

  “Someone is calling for you on the radio.” She took in a large breath before continuing, “It sounds urgent.”

  The three of them turned back toward the white cruise ship moored in the canal behind the old town. “Any idea who it is?” He was reasonably sure it would be Garret or some of the other Navy guys, since nearly everyone else he knew was here.

  “It’s your friend, Tahir, and…he’s in trouble.”

  “Scott, my friend,” his voice cut out, then came back in stronger. “Are you there?”

  Scott keyed the mic, “I’m here, Tahir, can you please repeat that? Where are you again?”

  “I am in a small jet circling what used to be the Biloxi Airport. Need a place to land, I have a fuel problem.”

  Hundreds of questions ran through Scott’s mind. Why was his hacker friend here; how did he know how to fly? All of that had to wait. “How many feet do you need?” he asked.

  The response was instant, “5000 feet.”

  “Shit.” Scott knew the local airport was well short of that, not even jet rated.” Think, think. “Tahir, Jackson, Mississippi, or maybe…Mobile will be the closest with runways that long, but neither place is safe. Can you handle a roadway landing? We cleared a stretch of interstate a few months back.”

  “Can’t make those other airports, may have to try it, but an interstate will be rough. That concrete is laid down in sections and not top-dressed like a runway. I’m not sure I could keep it on the roadway but may have to try. I am turning eastward now.”

  Scott whispered for Kaylie to get Bartos. The Cajun was still acting weird but knew these roads better than nearly anyone. His concussion was beginning to clear, and he had helped the others clear cars and trucks left by the Messengers. The running vehicles would be invaluable in time, so most had been stored in parking lots here on the island. Tahir was still broadcasting.

  “BikerBoi, I have news, even if I don’t make it, you need to hear this.”

  “You are going to make it, man, just hang in there.”

  “I will most assuredly do that, but…”

  Scott was distracted by his friend, Bartos, entering the small radio room. He motioned the little man to sit down. Returning his attention to the speaker, he caught, “…Homefront brought them here.”

  “Wait, what? Say again?”

  “The pandemic is here, the Navy's Homefront operation. The ships all returned full of infected from overseas.” When the bio-weapon was released in Pakistan after the blackout, it had quickly become an epidemic racing across Europe and Asia. Now, it was a full-scale pandemic.

  “Oh, shit.” Scott and Bartos looked at each other in horror. This changed everything. How much time did they have? “Tahir…where are they now, where did they land?” He assumed Tahir had left the DC area; if that was where they landed, they would have some time. “Was it DC, Baltimore?”

  The response was garbled. “Say again.”

  “I don’t know, Scott, they could have landed at ports up and down the East Coast.”

  “I hope you guys are just fucking with me,” Bartos said, “cause this shit’s not funny.” Then he started singing a little unrecognizable tune.

  Scott was having trouble processing it as well. “Hush, Cajun.” He needed to get his priorities down. “Bartos, is Highway 50 clear yet? We need a mile of level roadway with no obstructions or
powerlines.”

  Bartos stopped humming long enough to look quizzically up at the blank wall. “Um, sure, over by the old dam entrance. Flat as a pancake there, and storm surge never got high enough to over wash the highway that far inland.”

  “Yeah, perfect.” Scott relayed the location to Tahir. “Bartos, grab some gear and get out there as soon as you can. Pop a few smoke canisters at the edge once you hear the jet.” He still could not get over his friend actually being a pilot. “Roger that.” Bartos headed out the door grabbing Kaylie as he went. Scott wanted to go as well but wouldn’t be able to guide him in as the portable radios didn’t work on the aircraft bands.

  Tahir’s voice came back, “I am descending to 3000 and should be over the area in a few minutes.”

  In a few minutes, he began speaking again, “Ok, I am coming over a big cruise ship in a canal behind a town. Well, what used to be a town, lots of debris and downed trees.”

  “That’s it, Tahir, follow the main road heading north. It will be about fourteen miles out before you see a dam and reservoir lake on your left.”

  “Over it now,” came the immediate response.

  Shit, he was fast. “Ok, my people won’t be there for another five or ten minutes but scope out the road and see if it will work.” Scott knew that stretch of highway well and keyed the small handheld radio. “Hey, Cajun,” he called.

  “Yeah, man, you got him.”

  Scott could hear the throaty sound of the Bronco in the background. “Tahir is over the roadway now. Once you get there, you need to knock down the road signs on each side and clear any large debris you see. He will let us know which way he wants to come in. Pop smoke at the beginning of the clear area. He’s probably going 300 plus, so you won’t see him until he’s right there. Stay well clear of the flattop. Call me when you are ready.”

  “It looks clear to me, Scott, maybe a dead deer or something, but I see your people approaching. I’m going to circle once more. The engine is beginning to misfire badly.”

  There was a pause for what seemed like an eternity. Bartos radioed back that they were ready. Tahir spotted the smoke and began his descent. “Scott?”

  “Yes, buddy?”

  “There is something else,” the fear was evident in Tahir’s voice. Something worse than the possible plane crash about to happen? Something worse than ships full of infected landing on US soil? Tahir continued to fill him in. Shit, it is worse.

  Chapter Two

  Outside Jackson, Mississippi

  Mahalia Simpson sat with her hands on her lap. The old cabin felt more like an extension of herself than a creation of wood and nails. She scraped a bit of the mud from beneath a fingernail; her withered and wrinkled hands shook slightly, but she tried to hide it. She’d lived a simple life, full of family, friends and serving the Lord. It was satisfying and full despite her never traveling more than thirty miles from where she had been born. She’d never been on a plane, she’d never seen a big city, never even dug her toes in the sand at the beach. It was a simple life…until now.

  The tall man in the black uniform towered over her. “Ma’am, I have no desire to hurt you or any more of your family.” He glanced back at the other men with a look that clearly indicated otherwise. “You will tell us what we want to know.”

  She sat, silent and stoic, her eyes unmoving from the dark, wet stain across the gray, cracked, wooden floor planks. Blood, Wilson’s blood, her sister’s firstborn child. She had raised him, raised both her nephews, in fact. Her sister wasn’t cut out for it. No shame in that to her, just fact. Mahalia had never forgotten the joy of holding the family’s first baby boy. He was so loud. She smiled a little on the inside as she thought about him. His dark skin all wrinkled, like an old prune, her husband had said. He’d always been so stubborn, just like today. Always looking for someone to argue with, someone to fight. The man’s slap knocked her to the floor.

  “Get up―it wasn’t even that hard,” the man said.

  Her tired, sad eyes began to water, but she refused to let the man see her cry. She stayed on the floor. “I done told you, I aint got nuttin’, and no one else is heah. You people done captured erreybody.” She pronounced the word like her parents did. The white men in the uniforms seemed to think she was stupid—they made fun of how she talked. Ms. Mahalia was a lot of things, but stupid wasn’t one of them.

  “You said that before, then that man, your nephew, you say? He came charging out of that bedroom wanting to do us harm.”

  “You didn’t has to kill him, he didn’t have no weapon. Y’all just shot him down like…like he was a dumb animal or something.” She scraped more dirt from her fingers. They’d let her go out and bury him in a shallow grave they dug. She’d had to use her hands to put the dirt back. They laughed as they leaned on their shovels refusing to help further. Covering that baby’s face with dirt was something no one should ever have to do. Wilson was a grown man, but all she could see as she performed this last act was his sweet face as a baby, a child, then a precocious teen. She prayed for him silently, then prayed they would kill her, too.

  “Why would someone live out here like this?” one of the men in the shadows said. “Y’all choose to live like dumb animals, we will be happy to treat you like one.” He moved from the shadow into the light streaming through the window. “Hell, you should be grateful, the relocation camp will be a paradise compared to this.”

  They heard someone walking up the steps, and the front door opened. Another man appeared, this one was also in the black uniform of the National Security Forces. He spoke with authority and with an accent Mahalia was unfamiliar with. “Wat are you still doing here? Does she have anyone else in hiding or was she hoarding supplies?”

  Hoarding supplies, she had been informed when they started tearing up the place, that keeping any supplies was apparently now illegal.

  “She had something.” The man thumbed a hand to the stove where she’d been making a simple breakfast for herself and Wilson when the soldiers barged in.

  The new man walked to the stove and picked up a biscuit and a piece of meat and began chewing. “Pork chop? Nice…good biscuits, too, but I think your flour’s gone bad.” He picked at a dark fleck in the biscuit’s crumbly white interior. He held something up to inspect, then popped that into his mouth as well.

  “Lady, do you have a radio of some kind in your home?” He waved a hand around the small dwelling like it was an expansive mansion. “Not a radio for listening, mind you, but one that you can talk to other people on?”

  She stayed silent. That man and boy who came through five months ago had left a pack and a radio, but it wasn’t here anymore. Mr. Bobby and Tre had worked out how to keep that secret from anyone listening in. They could look all they wanted for that. The tall man slapped her again, and she let out an involuntary cry of pain.

  One of them said, “We searched the house, nothing Chief.”

  The one eating the biscuit apparently was the one in charge. He delicately picked up another and inserted a bit of the fried pork into the middle. “These are quite good. Shame you are too old to be of any use at the camp.” He took another bite. “Kill her.”

  Tremaine Simpson watched from his hiding place as the man had stomped up the steps and into his aunt’s house, the house he and his brother had both been raised in. The loose dirt in the front yard confirmed one of his fears already. He clutched at the Bible, the black leather cover hanging on by just threads of material. Silently, he prayed for guidance, for strength, and, as ashamed as he was, he also prayed for revenge.

  He wasn’t sure who these people were. When he had called Mr. Bobby to tell him about what was going on, he had told him they were a ‘fake’ military. Some new government police force run by the president herself. He had no idea who the president was, much less that it was now a woman, but these guys looked more like those German soldiers from that old war. This certainly wasn’t somebody from his government, maybe not our president anymore either. The two vehicles
looked like military. He knew people had been rounded up by soldiers the last few weeks, but he thought they were safe this far away from town.

  He went to rise just as he heard his aunt cry out. He paused halfway exposed and crouched back down. Anger and helplessness paralyzed him momentarily. He lay the Bible down atop a simple rock that marked another grave and reached into the pack for one of the other gifts left by Mr. Bobby. This one he hoped never to have to use and wouldn’t consider it now except to save others. He’d kept the black weapon cleaned and oiled the way his uncle had always taught him. He inserted the ammo clip and loaded a bullet into the firing chamber. He didn’t recall what kind of gun it was, just that it had a lot of bullets. The little bald man who picked up Bobby had spent a few minutes showing him how to use it.

  He hefted it into his right hand. If felt wrong, evil, but somehow necessary. He had no moral objections to guns. He and his brother hunted for food every week in fact. But this was not a gun for hunting food. This was a weapon meant for killing. He ducked low and ran to the side of the old cabin. The smell of wood smoke, bacon and other flavors filled the air as he got closer. It filled his mind with thoughts of better days. How ironic the blackout he’d heard about hadn’t affected them at all. It was the people, first the Messengers, and now these police guys. How could humans be so evil to one another?

  He was just below one of the few windows but wasn’t interested in risking a look in. Instead, he knelt down and crawled between the stacked rock pilings that held up the old house. He lay on his back and scooted as quietly as he could farther beneath the old floor. He saw a drip, drip of something dark and thick from one section of boards. Filing that away, he maneuvered himself into position. He just had room beneath the floor to aim the short-barreled gun.