The End Time Saga (Book 2): The Breaking

by Daniel Greene

  “Come on, Gwen. I didn’t mean it. You were acting crazy. I had to get you to stop.”

  “It’s time for you to leave,” she repeated, pointing her Glock at him.

  “Gwen, don’t be crazy. Put that away,” he said, stepping toward her.

  “Touch me again and I will kill you.”

  He stopped and audibly ground his jaw as if he crunched sand in his teeth.

  “You know what? I don’t need this shit. Good luck out there,” he said and left with a dismissive wave of his hand.

  Joseph raced over to Gwen, helping her up.

  “Are you okay?”

  “If he wasn’t so good to Mark, I would’ve killed him, but that’s over now,” she said.

  “I’ll set your nose later. Let’s get out of here.”

  Car doors slammed and they rolled out onto the runway. Not many planes had been coming of late. Gwen thought they only had two or three yesterday. Way down from the thirty to forty they were getting a few days ago. Kevin didn’t drive fast, but he didn’t drive slow. He steered them straight for the gate, crossing the tarmac diagonally.

  They passed a stubby square block of an air-traffic control tower. She was sure she saw something move up there. She wondered if that man watched them through a sniper scope, waiting to put bullets in them. The building made her nervous, as if some ominous presence lurked there. In the dimly lit morning, it looked like the black castle of an evil prince.

  A single Humvee sat parked at the gate. Did Mauser alert them to our departure? No, he wouldn’t. I thought he wouldn’t do a lot of things before today. A couple of men stood in the shadows of a guard shack. Small circular bits of fire went from their mouths to their sides and back again like priests with holy water sprinklers.

  She had heard once from a college professor that “Cigarettes won World War II.” She couldn’t remember why, but she could bank that it was because of the edge smoking took off, or the distraction from mundane wartime activities it provided.

  Kevin stopped the pickup truck near the closed chain-link fence gate. He clicked a button on the door and his window rolled down.

  “How you guys doing?” he said nonchalantly, resting his elbow on the window frame.

  A soldier strode up to the window, M4 in hand, not pointed at Kevin but not relaxed either. The other soldier hopped out of the driver’s side of the Humvee, and walked to the back side of the pickup.

  “Where are you guys headed?” the stubbly young soldier said. Could Gwen even call him young? After all the things that he had seen, he probably had more experience than men twice his age.

  “Just headed out on a research run with the doctor,” Kevin said. He pointed a thumb back at Joseph.

  The patchy-faced soldier laughed too much. “Research for what?” he said.

  Joseph leaned in the front from the back seat. “I’m Dr. Jackowski, CDC viral research specialist. I have been sent by Colonel Jackson to conduct research on the infected in the field. We are going to collect some fresh specimens,” he said. That was the plan. Throw around some big names. Scare the soldiers into letting them out.

  “Oh yeah,” the soldier said. “We got some fresh specimens right on the other side of this fence.” He smiled at them.

  “Not the kind we are looking for,” Joseph said quickly.

  The soldier’s smiled faded as he looked in the backseat at Gwen. Concern fell across his features. “Are you okay?” he asked. Her face was swelling and blood dripped from her nose.

  “Who me? Of course.” She wiped her nose nervously.

  “You’re bleeding,” the soldier said.

  “You know, the dry air,” she said, laughing a little.

  The soldier looked incredulous. She could practically read his mind. These two civilians had been abusing her and now were kidnapping her for God knows what.

  “So the good doctor here, is taking you, Miss, and you, into the field for research. Is that correct?” He shifted his M4 a little closer to the car door.

  Gwen saw it. Her stomach did a somersault.

  “I’ve seen this guy in the mess hall. He’s nothing more than a drunk.” He pointed at Kevin.

  Kevin’s Adam’s apple jiggled a bit as he swallowed hard.

  “These are my assistants. They will help me collect specimens safely. I for one would not want to be out there alone,” Joseph said. He was interrupted by a shout from the back.

  “They got all sorts of food and supplies back here.”

  “Stevens, call it in,” the soldier said, looking back at the other man.

  “You got it, Franklin.” Stevens backtracked to the Humvee and picked up a radio microphone.

  “I am going to need all of you to step out of the vehicle,” Franklin said, pointing his weapon at Kevin’s face. They were toast.

  Joseph opened his truck door. “Sir, I assure you it is most vital that we leave now, before the infected become more attentive,” he said.

  Gwen loosened the handgun in her holster, using the door to shield herself from the soldiers.

  Stevens pointed his M4 at Joseph with one hand-held radio to his ear. “Get on the ground, now,” Stevens yelled. He dropped the radio and went for Joseph. Everything that happened next took place in slow motion. Stevens pushed Joseph facedown in the dirt, and Franklin was fast approaching Kevin, long gun in the shooting position.

  Gwen got out of the car and started screaming. “Look, infected,” she yelled, pointing outside the gate.

  “Everything will be okay, ma’am,” Franklin said.

  Kevin was tossed out of the car.

  “We’ll take care of these perverts and deal with the infected in a minute,” Franklin said.

  “They’re coming,” she screamed at them.

  Both Franklin and Stevens both looked up alarm.

  “What the fuck, lady? You’re safe,” Franklin said.

  “Look,” she pointed out. They both looked to where she was pointing, searching for something that posed more of a threat than these civilians.

  Joseph squirmed free and punched Stevens in the neck over and over. Stevens’s hands leapt for his throat. Franklin pointed his gun at Joseph, but Gwen’s handgun fired as if it had a mind of its own.

  Pop. Pop. The soldier held his neck in surprise, stepping backward. His gun dropped low. “Bitch shot me,” Franklin said. His eyes wide. “Bitch shot me,” he repeated, more panicked. He sat on his backside and crawled backward for the Humvee.

  Joseph stood over Stevens, hands drenched in blood. The soldier writhed on the ground, holding his throat. Gwen holstered up and collected the soldier’s carbine, holding it loosely.

  She walked over to the wounded soldier. He crawled back on his elbows, belly up. His feet pushed at the dirt. She stared down at him.

  “I was—only. Trying to help.” He paused as if he would say more, but blood pumped from his throat. He stopped crawling.

  I killed you. You are dead for trying to save me. “I don’t need saving,” she said at his corpse.

  Kevin looked at them, terrified. “We should go,” he said.

  Gwen ran to the fence and took something from her pocket. She unfolded the picture of her and Mark, looking at the photo one last time. She smiled a bit, placed two fingers to her lips and pushed them on Mark’s smiling face. Then she wedged the photo in the chain-link fence.

  The men were already sliding onto the pickup’s leather seats. They seemed reluctant to leave their crime. Gwen wasn’t surprised at the outcome of events. Joseph stared at his crimson-covered hands. She put a hand on his shoulder.

  He looked at her, eyes bulging. “I just killed him. That soldier. I don’t know what came over me,” he said. He didn’t need to explain himself. She understood. Forgiven or not, they would probably die in the farmlands of Ohio before anyone would care.

  “We did what we had to do,” she said.

  He nodded.

  Kevin sped down the road.

  “Why don’t you take a rest. You’re going to nee
d to drive here at some point,” she said. Joseph slumped down in his seat. Abandoned vehicles littered the road and roadside. Gwen held the M4 in between her legs and looked out the window at the devastation. The overgrown fields were strewn with bodies of the dead. It was the polar opposite of the photo that fluttered in the fence, waiting for Mark. The photograph only had one word on the back. Home.

  STEELE

  Ohio River, PA

  With the smoldering remains of Pittsburgh behind them, Ahmed and Steele navigated the Ohio River, a key shipping lane of pre-modern America. Their relief at accomplishing their mission faded every mile from the crackling flames. Steele let up on the throttle.

  “What’s that sign say?” he said, gesturing at an offshoot of the river. A thick tree line covered the banks of the river.

  “I can’t see anything,” Ahmed said.

  Steele cut the engine. He grabbed a waterproof map. “Can’t tell off this map. There are just too many offshoots, but one of these has got to take us to Youngstown,” he said. There were less infected bodies in the water the further they traveled away from Pittsburgh.

  A dilapidated white farmhouse sat some distance off the river. The roof was sunken in the middle, bleached gray shingles cracked or missing.

  “There. What’s that barn say?” Steele said, spying the building. The barn was almost pink in its old age, having long ago lost its iconic red hue. Dull white lettering covered the end of the barn.

  “Please Help Us,” Ahmed said. “That paint looks fresh.” He gave Steele a worried look.

  “Below that,” Steele said. He already knew it read Beaver River Canoe Rental. Rotating his wrist, he turned the throttle back up. “That’s the way we need to go,” he said.

  Hours passed as they traveled up the small tributary of the Ohio River, and it eventually turned into the Mahoning River. Pennsylvania’s treed hills gave way to Ohio farms. Ohio farms turned into early twentieth century brick warehouses. Former industry, now relegated to the past, crumbled long before the outbreak.

  Youngstown was a small city. A few larger buildings, no skyscrapers. It was hard to tell if the buildings were abandoned prior to the outbreak or if the outbreak was the cause of their abandonment. Steele knew cities like this had suffered immensely with the collapse of the steel and auto industries, like many places within the “Rust Belt.”

  “How many people you think live here?” he asked.

  “I dunno. Less than Pittsburgh. Probably under a hundred thousand.”

  “In that case, I’m gonna vote we stop well outside the city limits.”

  “I will second the motion.”

  They passed the downtown center; no lights lit up the small businesses. The city was dead, but not dead enough to stop the inflatable. Steele let all of that pass.

  Steele wanted to put in as close to the airfield and as far away from the city as possible. He found a small inlet that held a farmhouse and some short soy bean fields riddled with weeds.

  “I’m thinking of putting in over there,” Steele said.

  “I haven’t seen an infected in about a mile or so; it’s probably good.”

  “My thoughts exactly.”

  He pulled the small boat ashore and hopped out into the shallows with little plops for each of his feet. Water and mud came up to his knees. He scanned with his carbine for threats, but no one bore down on them.

  Ahmed helped Steele pull a tarp over the small boat. There was little chance they would need it again, but maybe if things got really bad. He tried not to think like that, but he had to. He had to see the unexpected to prepare for it mentally. If you ran through all the worst scenarios with game plans on how to survive and win, your chances of success went way up. His reaction time shortened by playing it out in his mind first, but some things he didn’t want to play out and almost all of those scenarios involved Gwen.

  Instead, he hoped that Gwen would be there, safe and happy. Mauser would be up and walking. He and Kevin would share a drink or two or three, saying “cheers” to their close calls like old time warriors. He stopped daydreaming. Not the time or the place for such frivolous thoughts.

  He kicked at the small gray inflatable motorboat to say goodbye. He hoisted his pack and kept his carbine at the low ready. The river had its own set of dangers, but for the most part, it had provided him and Ahmed with breathing space from masses of the infected, and distance from hostile people or anyone in general. Anyone and everyone far away. Nobody to ask him favors. Nobody that needed rescuing. Nobody to shoot him in the head. Steele liked that, but it was time for them to get to Youngstown.

  Ahmed held his arm across his chest, carbine in his other hand.

  “If I’m right about where we are, we have about five miles to the airfield,” Steele said. He pointed west.

  “We should see if there’s a car. As much as I would love to run across Ohio being chased by the dead, it would be easier if we had a mode of transportation,” Ahmed said.

  “You don’t by any chance know how to hot-wire a car, do ya?” Steele said, pointing to an old farmhouse in the distance. “There’s an old pickup over there.”

  They trekked over long grass. Caution prevailed over speed. The brown grass swayed in the wind. A rusted hulk of metal rose up from the grass.

  Ahmed walked around the rusted old truck as if he were sizing up a prize bull. He ran a hand along the side, and using his sleeve, wiped dust and dirt from the window.

  “I asked if you could hot-wire it. Not marry it,” Steele said, watching the man.

  Ahmed turned his way, an excited smile crossing his lips. “You don’t understand. This is a 1963 Studebaker Champ.”

  Steele kicked at the tires. They were deflated, but had enough to get them five miles down the road.

  “My dad used to talk about these all the time.”

  “Really? I’m somewhat surprised, but you think you can get it running?” Steele said. He didn’t care if Ahmed’s dad could fly it. The only thing that mattered was finding a ride that took them back to Gwen.

  “These trucks are like a collector’s item now. The Studebakers stopped production in 1964, but with a little bit of upkeep, you can still run them today.” Blocking the daylight with his hand, he looked through the window again.

  “See, it’s the first pickup that had a sedan-like cab,” Ahmed said.

  Steele couldn’t believe this guy’s excitement at the specifics of an ancient pickup that probably wouldn’t start.

  “Pickup trucks and baseball, huh? Let me guess, you like apple pie too?” Steele said, poking at his counterpart.

  “The American dream,” Ahmed said. He rose his eyebrows and tried the driver’s side door. The door creaked open like a stiff joint.

  Steele gave him a smirk and shook his head in disbelief. A little luck never hurt anyone. He watched Ahmed look under the driver’s column. He had grown fond of him. Given a few weeks ago he had almost put a knife through his neck, their situation had taken a one-eighty. When Gwen wasn’t around to bring out their most inner male competitive instincts, they worked pretty well together. He would never tell her that though, because he valued his life.

  Ahmed leaned back out of the driver’s seat. “Let me see your knife.”

  Steele pulled out his blade and pressed the button to punch the blade out the front. I almost killed you with that knife a few weeks prior.

  Ahmed stuck out his hand. His dark eyes stared at Steele expectantly. Steele flipped the knife onto its blade and handed it to him hilt first. Ahmed took it and went back to work.

  “Where do you think the owners are?” Ahmed said. He ripped wires from beneath the steering wheel out into the open and cut them carefully with Steele’s knife.

  “I dunno. Dead. In a FEMA camp. Upstairs. Most likely infected.” Steele eyed the farm house. Greenish brown vines scaled the sides of the old home. The tall grass surrounding them led all the way up to the white-columned porch and red brick home. Dual chimneys sat on either end of the home. He looked
for movement in the windows, but only saw darkness. Doesn’t mean nobody is home. Crosshairs may be on me now.

  The engine revved up as Ahmed sparked the wires together. In newer cars, this took some skill to do, but with the older ones it was almost dummy proof.

  “Everyone isn’t dead. People have to have survived somewhere. There have to be safe places. We’re still alive,” Ahmed said. He slid the blade back inside and handed it back to Steele.

  “Not for lack of trying. Every safe place I get to is overrun. Maybe it’s better to stay spread out in small groups. Keep a low footprint.” Steele hopped in the driver’s seat.

  Ahmed threw his pack in the back, and made his way around to the passenger side.

  “But the military is still operating,” he said.

  “We saw all too well how that’s going.” He rocked the pickup out of its time-worn divots.

  Ahmed frowned.

  “If you were trapped somewhere and a bunch of camo-dressed guys drove by, would you come out?” Steele asked. If anyone wanted the pickup, they weren’t going to fight for the relic.

  Ahmed thought about his words. “I suppose you’re right.”

  “The people are scared. Since nobody is really helping them, people are taking care of themselves. Fear is King now,” Steele said. The Studebaker bounced on its old shocks as Steele took them to a dirt farm road leading away from the house.

  The dusty gravel road led them to Ohio Route 45. Steele took the pickup onto the pavement and sped it up with a chunk-chunk-chunk of the engine.

  Thirty uneventful minutes later they stopped a short distance from the airfield gates. He could see a couple of Humvees sitting idle, a few men in green and brown ACUs standing nearby. Steele was sure they could see him. The old pickup truck rattled, an old warrior on its final march.

  Ahmed looked at him from the passenger seat. His voice cracked as he spoke. “Why are you stopping? We’re almost home free.”

  Steele knew they were close. He didn’t hesitate because of the men. Men could be handled. He hesitated because he would soon know Gwen’s fate. She had to be safe there. She had to be, but at the same time he knew that there was a possibility that she wasn’t there. Even worse, she could be dead. It was almost better just believing blindly that she was safe, and never actually finding out if she was. Blind faith. Ignorance was bliss.