AFTER IT HAPPENED
BOOK FIVE: SANCTUARY
Dedicated to my mini-me’s, who want to sleep in every day except weekends.
COPYRIGHT
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. Any names, characters, incidents and locations portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. No affiliation is implied or intended to any organisation or recognisable body mentioned within.
Copyright © Devon C Ford 2016
Devon C Ford asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive and non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook on screen or hard copy.
No part of the text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered or stored in or introduced into any information storage or retrieval system, in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, known or otherwise yet invented, without the express permission of Devon C Ford.
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PROLOGUE
Bullets whined, fizzed and screamed past them. Ricochets pinged through a seemingly impossible spectrum of sound, punctuated by shouts and screams. The percussive coughs of return fire through their suppressed weapons sounded like a woefully inadequate response to the maelstrom of noise and lead being sent towards them, but deep under the stress lay the knowledge that the end result of receiving a bullet from either side would be the same.
Conducting a fighting withdrawal with a platoon of trained men would have been difficult; scrambling away to safety with a handful of half-trained men, women and children while under fire was another thing entirely.
They were leaderless, they were scared, and they had lost.
All of these facts Mitch blamed himself for. In a matter of minutes, he had become the thing he despised most in a solider: inefficient.
A thought ran through his head, moving far quicker than the bullets singing through the air around them.
The speed of thought, somewhere between the swiftness of sound and light, he reckoned. Certainly faster than the muzzle velocities of the weapons aimed at them.
Fast enough to consider the stupidity and desperation of the situation they had stumbled into.
Fast enough to understand that they weren’t under attack from trained men, or the accuracy of their shots would have claimed more victims by now.
Fast enough to know that when the adrenaline wore off, his chest would likely be badly bruised by the bullet which had slammed violently into his ballistic vest and knocked him on his face.
Fast enough to consider their best option: run.
Run fast and get out of the line of fire.
FLEETING HAPPINESS
From behind the wheel of his monstrous new ride, Dan’s mind wandered happily. This was his second autumn since the world died and began its slow process of decaying, but he had thrived and now felt more alive than before.
He had met Neil and the two had come up with a plan to start a new life for everyone they could save. Dan had rescued a young, frightened girl first who was now sitting beside him dressed like a warrior. A smile crept onto his face as he thought the girl picking a speck of dust from the breech of her rifle had transformed from frightened to frightening.
Their numbers swelled until they experienced their first brush with the hostility of other people. It still worried Dan how simple a thing it was to take a life when it was justified by an “us or them” concept.
Their life at the prison had grown almost comfortable; running water and a hot shower was something he could only dream of now, let alone a sustainable power supply.
When he had met Marie, his life changed again. The passing of Penny and the internal struggles they fought were nothing compared to the suffering of others. As those more unfortunate were liberated by Dan’s ever-increasing thirst for justice, they had formed a home to be proud of.
Others had come for them, and they had lost. Dan felt guilty about leaving their home to chase the rainbow of a solution to the tragic problems facing anyone who fell pregnant, and that guilt was amplified when so many chose to follow him. His home, their home, seemed so far away now.
He comforted himself in knowing that he had left them under the very capable leadership of the former Royal Air Force pilot, but he had no way to know that Steve had been horribly injured in a helicopter crash.
If he knew that their home was gone, eradicated in a single blow, and his people taken under the dubious protection of a man he would happily kill with his bare hands, then his guilt would overcome him in an instant. If he knew that his first protégé, Lexi, was on the run and having to rely on the skills he had taught her, he would probably consider throwing a U-turn and heading back.
But he knew nothing of the terrible events at home. For now, his whole world was in the four military vehicles driving in convoy across Germany. They were fantastically well equipped, ridiculously well supplied with food and fuel, and they were heading to a place far away for possible answers.
The lunacy of their plan had struck him more than once since they had left, crossed the English Channel in unseasonably bad weather and wound their ponderous way across Europe, making yet more friends in the way he usually did.
Flexing his hands on the chunky steering wheel of his new ride with a glance in the side mirrors to see the convoy proudly following, he had to admit that he was having a good day so far.
THE LEXI ROADSHOW
Their fuel ran out an hour before daylight, and without the tools they normally carried, they couldn’t find any to continue their journey in the stolen vehicle.
Fearful of pursuit ever since they fled their home and murdered two of the attackers, they rolled the car off the road into some bushes where the natural slope hid it from any casual observer. The gap it left in the foliage was obvious enough to Lexi, but she didn’t think it would help her standing among the other three to sound negative right now.
She was fairly certain that Chris and Melissa hated her, and even Paul’s love for her couldn’t be totally relied on right then. She blamed herself for the attack on their home, and like everyone wallowing in self-pity, she was convinced that the others held the same opinion. It was time to step up and prove herself worthy of leading the last remnants of the society they used to feel secure in.
In truth, they did hold her responsible for the way things turned out, at least to some extent. If she hadn’t acted childishly, then her objections to the twins’ appointment may have been listened to instead of everyone dismissing her opinion as a continuation of her bad attitude.
She wanted to explain that it wasn’t fair. She had raised legitimate concerns which were ignored, and she couldn’t be held responsible for the actions of others. She knew it was a weak argument, and it was still a very raw subject having fled with next to nothing only hours before.
The dried blood of the man she had killed caked her clothes from neck to knee, and both of her hands looked black in the low light of the pre-dawn. At least her black clothing hid the worst of the stains.
Without maps, they were forced to take direction from the rising sun and place it on their left as they walked. They were in an area that she had not scouted over the last year or so, and they moved cautiously as a result. Just like Dan had taught her, she put herself up front, placed Paul at the back as a rearguard and protected the two most vulnerable in the middle as they walked along in single file. Both Chris and Melissa were carrying the weapons taken from the two dead sentries, but the guns themselves were as untested as the people carrying them.
She had to rely on what they had, which wasn’t much, and make their situation better.
Shelter, supplies, transport. In that order. They had unanimously agreed the plan as they moved through the dark: get to Africa and find the others.
As a plan it was simple, but the moving parts of that plan were numerous and complex.
What if they couldn’t find a car? They were weeks away from walking to the south coast if they had to move in slow fear.
What if they couldn’t find a boat? Could they get through the tunnel?
What if they met any hostility? They were unlikely to have any chance against similar or superior numbers, so they would have to rely on stealth.
The feeling of being hunted made for a heightened state of anxiety in all of them, so she fell back once more to Dan’s instruction: hide during the day and move at night; it’s slower but safer. But that only made sense if she was on foot, as driving at night attracted far more attention than in the day. Damn him, she thought, why did he have to leave? Why didn’t she learn more from him and Steve instead of strutting around with her newly acquired status?
She shook those thoughts away as she had to make a decision: stop for the day and continue that night or find a vehicle? Follow Dan’s word like the gospel or make her own path?
She called a stop as the other three huddled in towards her, stressed and exhausted. Taking a knee and fiddling with her rifle to gain a few valuable seconds of thinking time, just as Dan did, she told the others what she wanted.
“We need a vehicle,” she said firmly.
Looks of relief washed over all of them, telling her that she had already gone some small way to repairing their trust in her. Giving people what they needed instead of what they wanted was often an unpopular way to go, but giving them what they wanted and not what they needed was bound to result in failure.
Failure meant capture, or death by any number of means. She could not fail.
“We’ll move towards the town over there,” she went on, pointing to the tops of buildings in the distance, “and you two will hole up somewhere while we find what we need.”
Melissa especially seemed relieved to be given a role where she no longer had to walk. Paul remained tight-lipped with a blank face at the knowledge that his day would likely be lasting another twelve hours or so. She felt exhausted herself, but the burning anger at her own failures and the loss of everything they had built fuelled an overdrive which she hoped would last until things got even slightly better than they were.
Maintaining their single-file progress across country, the rooftops became more clearly defined as they approached.
Clearing a small village shop which seemed to have been largely untouched, they began the tiring, repetitive cycle which would be their daily routine for the coming days. She helped herself to a few cans of overpriced energy drinks, the type crammed full of sugar and caffeine, and chugged most of a can down in one go. She tossed another to Paul who did the same. Stuffing their bags with all they could find, they moved back outside with hopes of finding transport.
HOW QUICKLY LUCK CAN CHANGE
Leah even began to hum a tune to herself as she scanned the views from behind the bulletproof glass of their new ride. Their plan had been changed again having found a mass of supplies to load onto their newly acquired and very capable vehicles. They had fuel for weeks of hard travel, and they elected to stick to the land bridge between continental Europe and Africa. That meant taking a leisurely drive through the Middle East, not a prospect many had fully considered.
The sense of joy and feeling refreshed by their resupply and the exciting new vehicle fleet was shattered within minutes as they crested a hill to look down on a blocked road.
Not just a blocked road like they had encountered so many times since the sudden collapse of everything, but an obvious and deliberate roadblock.
A huge truck had been driven quite intentionally into the middle of the road with another mirroring it from the opposite side. Between the two was another, smaller truck. That flash of realisation that something wasn’t right made Dan instantly lift off the accelerator pedal.
Recognising that the middle truck still had inflated tyres made him hit the brakes. Another second staring at the blatantly man-made obstruction made him snatch up the radio and call out to the other vehicles to turn around. They had rehearsed this in theory with all the drivers of their convoy: if the lead vehicle called a problem, then Mitch at the tail would spin around and become point while the heavier vehicles performed their own slow turns. Dan would then take position at the back until they regrouped.
As Dan spun the large armoured vehicle around, far more easily than its sheer size would dictate was possible due to the four-wheeled steering platform, he was met instantly with the brake lights of the vehicles in front. Not good. There must be another obstruction behind them. Hesitating between staying to protect the rear and wanting to lead from the front, he hovered his foot over the throttle for a few seconds before the radio crackled again into life.
“Attack rear! Attack rear!” barked Mitch’s voice.
Decision made, Dan floored the right-hand pedal and surged past the heavier trucks. Quickly overtaking the stranded convoy, he pulled wide to get a better view and saw that they had rolled straight into a classic ambush: obstruction at the front, cut-off at the rear. What came next didn’t need explaining; where they were sitting would now become a killing ground.
Unless the ambushers weren’t prepared for a ruthless bastard with questionable mental health driving a bombproof truck.
The vehicle the attackers had used to cut off their escape had been poorly selected. A soft-skinned truck not unlike their old scavenging vehicles with an open side spanned most of the tarmac and was occupied with a half-dozen men shooting at them.
No hesitation, Dan knew what he was going to do. Keeping his foot planted and reaching over forty miles an hour, he glanced to his right as he passed Mitch and Adam, both flat on the ground and pouring automatic fire at the barricade in short, controlled bursts.
Looking ahead again, he saw one of the men spasm and fall like a puppet whose strings had been cut. Stitched through the torso by the return fire, the man lost control of his legs but kept his finger on the trigger of his rifle as he fell. At least one other attacker was killed as he unknowingly emptied the remainder of his magazine into his comrades.
Those who had scrambled for safety were spared no mercy. No sooner had they escaped one violent death, another bore down on them through almost four tonnes of armoured vehicle.
One man stood fixed to the spot, unable to move through fear and the realisation of his imminent death. Dan was struck by how dishevelled he looked as he stood rooted to the concrete. His clothes were torn and dirty, his hair and beard long and wild. As he still considered the difference in their appearances, Dan hit him full in the chest with the front of his vehicle, crushing him instantly into the stationary truck.
It was an unfair fight. Their Foxhound versus a small truck. Bulletproof glass against thin fibreglass. Their well-executed plan was suddenly a chaotic shambles as the cruel solution obliterated the blocking vehicle. Bodywork, wheels and bodies flew in all directions as though they had exploded instead of being hit by another car.
Inside the Foxhound, and after Dan’s shouted warning to hold tight, there was an air of anti-climax. They had barely been slowed down by the savage impact, and the wreckage around them didn’t equate to the buffeting they had expected to feel.
Forty-five seconds from happy progress to the all-too-familiar sensation of surging adrenaline.
The road was open, the convoy fled, and the bubble of safety and excitement was utterly burst. Forty-five seconds to remind them that until they found a place to call home, until they were no longer nomads in an unknown place, they would never really be safe.
THE ENDLESS CYCLE OF HARD WORK
They stank. They were dirty, exhausted and none of them had managed to properly wash in days. Exposure during daylight at a water source was risky, not that they had come across much in the way of running wat
er, and what precious little bottled water they found could not be wasted on ablutions.
As a result, the cramped vehicle they shared held an unpleasant and eye-watering aroma. Even with the windows down as they wound their ponderous way south, the fresh air did little to negate the stinging smell from their unwashed bodies. They didn’t speak much other than to point out hazards or potential scavenging sites or to change drivers.
The small three-door hatchback Chris had nursed into reluctant life was showing a quarter tank of fuel, and the tortured noises from the engine bay made all of them wonder which would expire first. Still, it was better than walking. Slightly.
The overgrown hedgerows allowed occasional glimpses of a world they once knew being slowly eroded and reclaimed: a road sign here, half obscured by foliage; a streetlamp there, swamped and swathed in creeping ivy. One of these occasional glimpses told them they had progressed into another county, this time Dorset after Gloucestershire and Somerset and Wiltshire, on the halting trek towards open water and their continental destination.
No sooner had Lexi absorbed this landmark and begun to consult the road atlas taken from a fuel station’s magazine racks did the car give a pained shudder. A murderous screeching noise emanated from the front, followed by an impossibly loud bang. Paul killed the engine, dropped it out of gear into neutral and let the expired car roll to a steaming stop. Silence reigned as they were all too exhausted to speak.
“That’ll be us walking again then,” said Chris in an almost nonchalant voice from the back.
With a resigned sigh, Lexi opened the door on its protesting hinges and began the process of tightening her equipment and strapping the bag to her back. The others followed suit, wordlessly preparing for yet another walk of unknown distance.
Sanctuary: After It Happened Book 5 Page 1
