by James Hunt
“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 doubt 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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The Journey continues with Surviving the Collapse Book 2- Click Here
An EMP has rendered the United States a country without power, communications, transportation, or basic infrastructure. Millions of Americans are left to fend for themselves, struggling to survive in the harsh elements of winter. But even more dangerous than the weather, or the terrorists roaming the country, could be each other. In a world without power, there are those that seek to take advantage of the situation, and those that fight to improve the situation of others. Captain Kate Holloway hopes that she finds the latter.
The Journey continues with Surviving the Collapse Book 2- Click Here
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