Contents
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Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
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More Books in the Demontouched World
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Echoes of Tomorrow
Season One
Episode Seven
Douglas Wayne
ECHOES OF TOMORROW
SEASON ONE
EPISODE SEVEN
Douglas Wayne
Copyright © 2015 by Douglas Wayne. All rights reserved. This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, businesses, events or locales is purely coincidental. Reproduction in whole or part of this publication without express written consent is strictly prohibited.
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Chapter One
Mobile, Alabama
September 16, 2013
The smoke from the exploded Molotov cocktail filled Tyler’s lungs with smoke in a matter of moments and killed any chance he had to see outside. He twisted his body against his restraints, desperately trying to break free of the duct tape that bound his hands to the chair.
Bullets rang out, both from in the house and outside, turning the neighborhood into a makeshift war zone. Fragments of brick and plaster rained into the room as the people outside shot the house full of holes.
Across the room he could hear Marcy having the same struggle though thankfully she was closer to the door and had a chance of fresh air.
Matt pulled a blanket out of the closet and used it to cover Al, who was bleeding profusely on the floor. At first glance Al’s wound didn’t look too bad, but the way it continued to bleed suggested the bullet hit something major.
“Al!” Judy shouted as she entered the room, only to break into a coughing fit as the smoke filled her lungs.
“Easy, Judy. Help me get him out of here.” Matt threw the blanket on the floor, then rolled Al on top of it. With the old man secure he and Judy drug him through the open door leaving Tyler and Marcy alone in the room.
“Hey!” Tyler shouted. “What about us?” He tried shouting three more times, the first two accompanied with Marcy, though she’d kept out of the third.
“Marcy, you OK?” he asked, curious about the sudden silence from his friend on the other side of the room. He closed his eyes to help him listen, but other than the crackling fire in the center of the room, he couldn’t make anything out.
Matt returned to the room a few minutes later and peeked through the door. “You know, if it were up to Al he’d want to watch you burn for this.”
“But they aren’t with us,” Tyler pleaded.
Matt closed his eyes and sighed. “No, I don’t think they are. Give me a moment.” Matt ran across the hall and into the bathroom. Opening the cabinet he grabbed an old style flip razor and went back to the room. “I’m gonna free your lady friend first.”
“Good,” Tyler said. If he would’ve found his bonds being cut first he would’ve been upset. Not so much for chivalry as his loyalty to her. Nobody deserved to burn to death, her least of all. She had to be suffering from smoke inhalation, bad if she passed out. What she needed was medical attention which, unfortunately, was in short supply these days.
Matt spent a good thirty seconds cutting her free, taking his time with her arms to avoid slitting her wrists. Al, like most men his age, appreciated the feeling of a close shave and had the perfect razor to do it, a fact he learned when his first cut sliced a chunk of wood from Marcy’s chair.
As the last of her tape was cut, Marcy’s body collapsed to the floor, eerily close to the raging fire. Tyler tried to push off the chair to help her, getting half a step before his body registered the tape. Luckily, he kept his balance to keep from falling into the fire.
Matt grabbed Marcy by the wrist and drug her out of the room, taking his time around the threshold to avoid hurting her more. Once in the hallway, Judy rushed forward to help. The pair of them, both holding a wrist, took her into the master bedroom and left her on the floor.
The smoke was getting thick enough to sting Tyler’s eyes. He tried to force them shut, but the smoke seemed to find its way in anyways. Even worse than his stinging eyes was the lack of air in his lungs. Once he’d seen Marcy was going to make it out, he managed to control his breathing, but even now that was starting to fail. The once shallow breaths turned deeper the longer he waited, filling his lungs with more and more of the burning smoke. He felt the room spinning and tried to close his eyes to keep upright, but his body was giving up. He was on the cusp of unconsciousness when he felt Matt’s hand on his wrist.
“Hang in there.” Mat worked on cutting Tyler’s tape while holding a wet rag over his mouth.
Tyler was thankful for the brief reprieve from the smoke, even if it wouldn’t last. Without it he would’ve been lucky to last another minute, and now could probably make it another two. But a few seconds later he found his hands free, meaning it was over.
Tyler dropped close to the ground to avoid breathing in more of the smoke. The open door and window helped filter some of it out of the room which gave them some room to breathe.
Nearly to the hall he noticed the glinting steel of the M-16 on the floor. The barrel of the gun was in the fire, but the handle and ammo was out. He took a quick glance to the door to see Matt leaving the room and made his move. Matt’s feet were pulling into the hallway as he checked, so he plucked the weapon out of the fire.
Even with most of the gun out of the flame, he found the gun hot to the touch, though thankfully not hot enough to blister him. He wrapped the strap around his neck and left the room before the room got any worse.
“I was wondering what took you so long,” Matt said, noticing the gun around his neck. He held his arm out as if expecting Tyler to hand it over, but Tyler pulled it back.
“Look man, I get it. I’m not going to shoot you, Judy, or any of the others.” He glanced down at Al’s bleeding body and reluctantly added his name to the list. His arrogance and lack of understanding got him what he deserved, a bullet in the elbow and a burning house. He didn’t think another bullet would add any more to his suffering. “But I’ll be damned if I’m going to be defenseless. This was my gun, not yours.”
Matt raised his arms in the air, wisely not wanting to argue with a man holding a loaded weapon. His mood lightened ever so slightly when he noticed Tyler kneeling to check on Marcy.
Tyler held his ear to Marcy’s lips and heard her take a breath. The air sounded as if it was a wind sheer traveling through a plastic coffee stirrer, but it was steady. Her being unconscious wasn’t a great sign, but he held hope she might make it through.
“How’s he doing?” Tyler asked Judy, who was holding a wet compress against the wound in Al’s shoulder.
“Not good,” she said through gritted teeth. “He passed out a few minutes ago.”
“Let me take a lo
ok at it,” Tyler said, leaning in.
Judy was hesitant at first to move away, but relented as Tyler drew close. She removed the compress to reveal a definite wound to the shoulder. The bullet entered Al right under the collarbone, not exactly a bad place to get shot if you had to choose in advance, but it would be hard to tell without checking the other side.
“Can you help me lift him up?” Tyler asked. “I need to see if there’s an exit wound.”
Matt pushed past Judy and lifted Al and held him upright.
The back of Al’s shirt was soaked with blood from the shoulder to near halfway down his back. So much blood it made it difficult to find a hole in the fabric of his shirt. Tyler grabbed Al’s shirt at the arm and ripped a hole in the side, peeled it open and ran his hand along his back. His fingers came to rest on an oozing spot on the back, bleeding nearly as bad as the wound in the front, yet it hadn’t been tended to.
“Bullet went through, that’s the good news.”
“What’s the bad news?” Judy asked as she wiped away her tears.
“He’s bleeding out. I don’t know how much he lost, but he doesn’t look good.”
“Is he going to…” Judy broke into sobs before she could finish the sentence.
“Do you have a first aid kit?” Tyler asked. “Bandages, gauze, anything like that?”
“We used up what we had trying to stop the bleeding the first time.”
“You did fine.” Tyler looked over at Matt. “Still have that razor?”
Matt leaned back and grabbed the blade off a nearby dresser and handed it over.
“Hold him still,” Tyler said and stood up. He took the M-16 off his shoulder and placed it on the bed. With him offering to help take care of Al, he hoped the others would stop seeing him as a threat enough to allow him to keep the gun, but that could wait for later.
Tyler ripped the bedspread off the bed, throwing the comforter and pillows onto the floor. He then lifted the sheet off the mattress and cut a six-inch strip off followed by two more. He left the razor on the bed in case he needed more, but for now he had enough to work with.
“Are you…” Judy started.
“No, ma’am. I was in the army when I was younger. They taught us how to field dress injuries like this. It’s been about twenty years since I’ve had to do one of these, but I guess it’s a lot like riding a bike.” Tyler flashed a grin which seemingly allowed Judy to relax a bit. Her shoulders slumping as if the weight of her husband’s injuries had been lifted from them.
Tyler took two strips of the sheet, folded them into squares and placed one on each side of the wound. He had Judy hold one of the makeshift bandages with one hand while Matt held the other. With the third strip of sheet, he wrapped it around Al’s shoulder four or five times, making it tight enough to put pressure on the wound without cutting off circulation to his arm. He tucked the last corner of the fabric into the rest, making it as tight as possible. It would’ve been better if he had something to fasten it together with but figured it wasn’t worth the time.
Gunshots continued to rage both inside the house and out. Most of the firing seemed to come from the downstairs area, where Tyler figured most of Al’s people were holding up.
“You mind keeping an eye on her?” Tyler grabbed the M-16 and walked to the door.
“What about the fire?” Matt asked. “We need to put it out.”
“Matt, you try to put out the fire. Don’t try to save anything, just get it out so our boys have a chance.” Judy looked over at Tyler and smiled. “And if you could kindly find the asshole who did this to my husband, please put a few bullets in him.”
Tyler nodded. “You got it.”
Chapter Two
Tyler stepped across the hall to the room next to the one he’d been tied up in just minutes before. Ronnie knelt on the floor near the window, his head well out of the way of the frame to the left. His rifle was on the ground in front of him, out of easy reach. When Tyler got close he could tell the man was shaking violently and sounded upset.
“How many are left?” Tyler said, taking his spot on the other side of the window. He pulled his weapon into position and slid the rifle over to Ronnie.
“What are you doing in here?” he asked, taking the gun in his hands, but moved back against the wall away from the glass.
“Al’s been shot. The house is on fire. My friend isn’t doing well either. You know. Normal end of the world shit.” Tyler quietly lifted the window frame until it clicked into place; the plastic brackets doing the hard work of holding the window open. “Now, before I poke my head out the window and take a bullet like your friend, kindly tell me how many are left.”
“I don’t know man,” Ronnie said, voice wavering. “I couldn’t do it.”
Tyler nodded, understanding. He’d seen men act the same after going through months of training designed to limit the effects of shock, yet knew it was nothing more than a ruse. For Tyler, the best the training had been able to do in those early months was help lessen its ability to take hold during the early moments of a conflict. The time when both sides have put themselves out in the open and all you had time to do was react or get shot. Once you got stuck in and were able to fire on an enemy position from relative safety, the training helped keep your head in the game to help you live one more day.
Ronnie looked to young to have gone through the training, especially seeing him here. Unless he happened to be on leave fresh out of basic, he was likely just a kid who found himself in the wrong place, during the wrong time on earth.
“I heard someone yell there were ten of them,” he said through chattering teeth. “I know I heard three people screaming, but I’m not sure where.”
That left at least eight, saying one of the screams came from Al. Eight people outside against who knows how many inside, against a group of people already three men down thanks to a casualty, the fire, and shell shock. Tyler couldn’t help but feel like he was on the wrong side of this fight, but was intent on making sure he made it another day.
“If you aren’t going to shoot, go help Matt put out the fire.”
“But I should be here,” Ronnie said, voice cracking.
“I don’t want to come off as a dick, but we aren’t in a good spot. There’s eight of them out there and who knows how many in here. Normally being inside would give us an advantage, but that little fire took that away. Matt is working on putting it out now, but he could use some help. So you can either pick up that gun and help me kill the assholes outside or you can grab a bucket and buy us some time.”
“You’ll need this.” Ronnie slid the rifle back over to Tyler and took his leave, crawling along the ground as a sprint.
Tyler suppressed a laugh and pushed the rifle off to the side. The kid didn’t waste any time with that decision. He couldn’t blame the kid for taking off. If the situation was reversed he was sure he’d do the same. Truth be told he was fine with either option as long as the kid did something to help.
The wind shifted outside, sending wafts of smoke in Tyler’s view. He aimed the gun at the streets, moving it back and forth carefully thankful for the meager cover it provided.
He stopped the gun when his sights crossed over a man huddled behind the tree. Tyler held the gun steady, waiting for the man to make his move. A wait that didn’t take long as the man poked his body out from behind the tree to take a shot at the house. Tyler squeezed the trigger, unleashing a three shot volley into the man. The bullets found their mark in the chest, sending him to the ground in a heap.
A solid thud hit the wall not far from his head as a bullet failed to hit its mark. Splinters and paint chips rained down, landing on the windowsill. Tyler ducked back in to avoid the next shot, one that shattered the window.
He held his breath against the wall while waiting for the remnants of glass to fall to the floor. He closed his eyes and listened for noises outside. His patience was rewarded by the sound of a man’s voice. The voice was either close, or elevated. He bet on th
e former as anyone foolish enough to get loud during a firefight deserved what they got.
He stood up using the wall to brace his back, then walked across the room to look outside from the middle of the room, hoping the darkness of the room would give him a moment to peek outside.
Across the street he saw a bush swaying much more than the light wind could do. He guessed an attacker was huddled there for cover and had taken a shot. He brought the gun to bear, aiming the sights in the center of the bush and pulled the trigger. Three rapid pops was the only warning the man in the bush had that he’d been found. One bullet found a home in his arm and the other his chest. The third bullet was the fatal one, opening a hole in his throat. His blood spilling out, coating his final hiding spot with gore.
Tyler moved from his spot in the middle of the room over to the side Ronnie had been at when he came inside. Using an old rag he found on the floor, he swept the glass away from the window as best he could. The last thing he needed was to cut himself open, adding to the list of casualties in the house which already numbered at least two.
Below the window he heard the voice again, barking orders at others nearby. They were being foolish, he thought. Stupid enough to talk out loud while they were getting killed one at a time. But he wasn’t one to turn down a gift and stood up to get a look below. He saw a woman just below the window, hidden in one of Al’s bushes. Her spot would put her out of sight of anyone downstairs while giving her a perfect place to plan her attack.
But she hadn’t been expecting anyone to be alive upstairs. Tyler suspected that’s why they’d thrown the Molotov cocktail into the other room. They needed to flush them downstairs or at least away from the high ground to give her people a chance to move in. He suspected most of the people had moved in during those opening moments when he was tied up and wondered how many had already gotten inside. The gunshots downstairs had been going off regularly though the rate had slowed in the past few minutes. He wondered if that meant Al’s people were losing, or if they were getting the upper hand.
Echoes of Tomorrow Season One: Episode Seven (Echoes of Tomorrow: Season One Book 7) Page 1
