Minus America Box Set | Books 1-5

by Isherwood, E. E.

  The captain laughed to himself as he caught his breath. He also raised his pistol and pointed it at Ted, though he had to bend over again to pick up his discarded hat. “Nice try, Major. I’m afraid you lose. David is going to reward me greatly for taking out the last in the line of succession for the presidency.” He positioned his cap on his head, then aimed the pistol at Ted’s midsection.

  Ted reflexively covered his face with his arm.

  The gunshot blast made his insides recoil.

  “Oh shit!” he blurted, thinking he was hit.

  A few seconds went by before he chanced a look up. Van Nuys fell sideways onto the tarmac. The pistol skittered out of his hand, though away from Ted. A large exit wound had replaced the salad bar of ribbons over his heart.

  The Marine stood over the fallen captain, leaving no doubt who was really in charge. She’d brought down two of the men she’d come with.

  Was he next?

  Vacaville, CA

  Dwight’s headache had been dialed up to icepick-through-the-temple pain as he drove across California. The motorcycle engine and the screaming wind worked together to annoy him, as did Poppy’s endless complaints. However, the real cause of his suffering had nothing to do with the outside; his body desperately missed the usual flood of alcohol in his veins. He’d been dry for almost twenty-four hours.

  Poppy still flew alongside him, flapping her wings into colorful green blurs. She’d been quiet for a few miles, which suggested she was ready to listen rather than yell at him.

  “Keep your eyes peeled, Pops. I want to lose this guy as soon as I can.” The bird looked down at him, then nodded ahead, like there was something to see. And there was—a large group of bikers had pulled over to the side of the highway, though many walked up a nearby embankment toward an overpass.

  Bernard waved him to pull over. For a few seconds, he considered shooting under the bridge and never looking back, but he knew his skills on the bike weren’t any better than passable, especially with his headache and other imbalances in his skull. Poppy was already slowing down.

  Fine.

  After setting the kickstand and walking up the hill, he and Bernard joined other black-clad bikers. He recognized them from the warehouse. Bernard gave him a nudge when they got close. “Looks like they found some survivors.”

  The notion excited Dwight, as they would almost certainly be normal Americans, like him, but when he got into the mix of things, he quickly came to the conclusion they were not like him. They were tied up and made to stand at the edge of the bridge.

  “What did they do?” he blurted out.

  A fellow rider heard him and replied, “Found ‘em up in the foothills. They’d been inside a cave this whole time. We caught them heading back to San Francisco.”

  The crowd clapped for a few seconds, making it hard for Dwight to reply, but then everyone began to chant, including the man who’d answered him.

  “Free America. Free America. Free America!”

  The chant went on for half a minute—long enough that he figured out he needed to join in. It didn’t make him happy to say it, but Bernard always seemed to watch him. In fact, the guy seemed to keep an eye on everyone in the black jumpsuits.

  A concussive roar ripped through the crowd.

  “Shee-it!” he shouted reflexively.

  Some of the others jumped too, but most broke into cheering and laughter.

  Wisps of smoke blew by, and he got a good look at where the captured cavers had been standing. When he didn’t see them, he shuffled through the happy revelers so he could look over the side of the bridge.

  The normal Americans, like him, had been shot dead. Their bodies lay broken and bloody on the pavement below. One of his fellow bikers yelled for someone to clean the road of the bodies, which resulted in numerous replies from within the crowd.

  “Cleanliness in all things,” they murmured.

  The ice pick in his brain suddenly slid all the way through to his spine.

  “God, Poppy, what country have you brought me to?”

  CHAPTER 11

  Montauk, NY

  “Kill them,” the voice replied from the radio.

  The sailor on the boat glanced up at her and Emily with a “my pleasure” look in his eyes. He leaned over to set the radio on a bench, which briefly pulled him out of her line of sight. It gave her a chance to retrieve the gun tucked in at her right hip.

  When the man came back up, he fiddled with his rifle, perhaps flicking the safety off, but his eyes doubled in size when he saw her weapon pointed at him. Kyla didn’t give him a chance to surrender, or to fire at her and the VP. She steadied her aim, pulled the trigger, and braced for the kickback.

  The gunshot sounded like a canon. At first, she believed it was her gun making all the noise, but when a second shot shook her teeth, she realized Emily was also firing a pistol. Kyla reoriented on the injured sailor and fired a second shot.

  The man never had a chance. Both women landed at least one shot in his chest, even though they fired four or five shots apiece. Others might have been on target, but he fell out of the boat.

  “Holy shit,” Kyla wheezed. “You have a second gun, too?”

  The VP smiled. “Your uncle insisted on it. Now I know why.”

  Kyla’s ears rang like her head was inside a church bell, but it was exhilarating to have taken part in fighting back against someone bent on killing her.

  “That was Van Nuys on the radio,” she said flatly.

  “The captain?” Emily asked.

  She nodded gravely. “We’ve got to warn my uncle. Hell, I’ve got to warn Meechum.” Kyla worried her friend was already dead. If the captain was working for the other side, the last person he’d want around is the friendly neighborhood Marine.

  Unless she’s a bad guy, too.

  “I’ll get on the radio,” Emily replied as she trotted into the shallow water in front of the black boat.

  Kyla reached down to pick up Emily’s discarded rifle as someone shouted “Halt!” from the woods. A new sailor came out of the trees beyond where the boat was parked, his rifle pointed at Emily. She assumed he had a clear view of the injured or dead sailor, who was in the water on the other side. He’d heard the shots, for certain.

  The order had been given to kill them, so she continued and picked up the rifle, intending to go down fighting. Time seemed to get stuck in molasses as she brought the black-barreled weapon up to her shoulder. It took forever to click over the safety.

  At the same time, the sailor already had his rifle aimed at Emily. She was defenseless in knee-deep water. She didn’t even have the time to grab her pistol, which she’d put back in her waistband.

  “I give up!” Emily cried out.

  Kyla was no more than twenty feet away from the attacker, though he had a few small trees in front of him. She lined up his profile and gently pulled the trigger back. The metallic clang of the AR-15 was distinct from the smaller pistol, but also somehow quieter. She squeezed off as many shots as she could, while the man also took his shot at the vice president.

  Emily dove into the water.

  With the foliage in the way, it was hard to see if Kyla had struck the man, so she stopped firing for a few seconds while taking some steps forward. She had to crouch down to see him better. When she did, the guy had his rifle pointed at her.

  They fired at the same time. She didn’t have nearly the experience as the professional warfighter, but she knew there was no going back. She launched into a frenzy of trigger pulling, doing her best to keep the barrel pointed at the target. The staccato fury amped up as she imagined bullets whizzing back and forth from twenty feet away.

  At one point, it seemed like a bee stung the side of her neck, but otherwise she kept up the fire until the man slumped to the ground. After a brief pause to ensure he was no longer firing his weapon, she deliberately shot two more times. She’d seen too many movies where the bad guy got that last shot at the good guys. Emily was nearby in the water. />
  “Emily?” she asked warily.

  “I’m good!” The VP came up out of the water, soaked, but she had a better view of the sailor. “He’s down!”

  When Kyla finally lowered her gun, her pulse quickened, and blood coursed through her brain like a levee break had taken place. She fell to one knee, glad to be alive, but a wet liquid ran across her shoulder, as if she’d been hit with a water balloon.

  Or a bullet.

  She reached for her neck, meeting warm blood.

  “Emily…”

  Montauk airport, NY

  On his knees and panting at a hundred beats per minute, Ted was at the mercy of the grim-faced Marine woman. She’d fired the gun at the captain, which registered as a victory for him, but she still stood there with the gun pointed his way.

  He blinked in surprise as she tossed the radio to him. He bobbled it for a second until he got a grip.

  “Call her,” Meechum ordered.

  Ted glanced down at it, then back to her. “You aren’t going to shoot me?”

  She slung the rifle over her shoulder. “I’m on your side, Major. Your niece did the right thing running with you to get away from these guys, but we can talk about that later. Right now, call off the hit on her. Please.”

  He didn’t need more encouragement. “Cancel the last order! Do not kill them!”

  In terms of radio protocol, he knew it wasn’t going to fool anyone on the other side, but if he could sow a little confusion into their game plan, maybe he could get back to the boat and help them.

  A woman answered, “We’re fine. We killed two sailors who answered the call to kill us. The birthday girl took a nick to the neck, but she’s going to be okay.”

  The air in Ted’s chest rushed out as his body stood down from high alert. There were endless questions he wanted to ask, including how they fought off two traitors, but he didn’t want to give anything away. He assumed the enemy was listening to this channel, since it was their radio. “I’m so glad to hear. Can you continue to the rendezvous?”

  “We’ll be there,” Emily replied.

  His sign-off was short. “Affirmative. Out.”

  Ted got to his feet and faced the Marine. “I owe you my life.”

  “Just doing my job. Sorry about scaring you, sir, but I couldn’t tip off my allegiance until I knew for certain the captain was with them. When I said I worked for David and it didn’t get an immediate reaction, I knew something was off about him. However, when he pulled out his pistol to shoot you, I knew what I had to do.”

  He was glad to have her help, but she’d taken a big risk. “What if he’d turned and shot you without asking questions? Then I’d never know you were with us.”

  She shrugged. “I was pretty sure he was a bad guy, sir. My platoon has been watching this man since he miraculously showed up in a lower hold when the event cleared out the JFK. Since then, the carrier’s air defenses have gone offline, the lifts stopped working, and computer systems have gone haywire. We got intel this morning concerning enemy activity at NORAD, so I assumed it was their base of operations. The captain seemed to confirm it, as well as his role in those problems.”

  “And this guy?” Ted pointed to the dead sailor.

  “A man like Van Nuys wouldn’t travel out in the wild without a personal bodyguard. A tight-knit group of like-minded assholes. His other two buddies tried to kill Kyla and the vice. The captain’s last remaining guard was certainly with him.”

  He rubbed his stubbled chin. “I guess we have to assume everyone back on the JFK is on the other team? How can we get back to friendly forces?”

  “My Marines aren’t playing for the other team, sir. They’ll straighten things out. Right now, let’s gather weapons and gear,” she replied, gently kicking Van Nuys as if to ensure he was really dead. “I assume you can fly a plane? Your niece said you were a pilot on Air Force Two.”

  “I can.”

  “Good. What are your orders, sir?”

  He appreciated the deference to his rank. “Call me Ted until we get out of this mess. I’m not even dressed in my uniform; no sense tipping off the enemy who I am or who I work for.”

  She seemed satisfied. “Once we’re in the air, I’ll tell you where we have to take the VP next.”

  He frowned. “I’m guessing I’m not going to like it?”

  “Nope.”

  On the Interstate, Illinois

  After being on the bikes for so long, Tabby was happy to be safe inside another stranger’s car. The blue Subaru wagon had plenty of room for the three of them, and the two shotguns. When she found tie-downs in one of the compartments, Peter suggested lashing the bikes to the roof rack, in case they needed them again.

  A few hours later, they were on the interstate and getting close to St. Louis. The three of them talked about many things during the drive, including how much they missed Donovan, but they didn’t dwell on the negative. She thought it was a good idea to let them reminisce for a short time, but whenever the conversation headed for the skids, she turned them back to happier things.

  “As long as we lay low, we can do whatever we want when we get back home. Got any big plans?” Their goal was still to head to Bonne Terre, though she had no solid plans for when she got there. The question was her way of probing whether either of the teens had thought it through, either.

  Audrey seemed excited at her prospects. “If we’re really the last people in America, I figure it wouldn’t hurt to collect the best furniture from all the houses in my neighborhood and put them in mine. I’ll have the best dining room table. The finest china. The best jewelry.” She extended her wrist from the back seat, as if to show her an elegant bracelet.

  Peter went next. “I’m going to have every video game system and every title ever made. If I’m going to die alone, at least I’ll win at some of those games.”

  “Hey,” Audrey interrupted, “you won’t be alone. You can live in the house next to mine. We can visit every day.”

  Tabby secretly laughed. It was cute how they talked, and she wasn’t ready to break it to them they could live in the same house. No one was going to criticize their life choices, not even her. It would be easy to fall into the role of parenting the pair, but she didn’t want that burden for herself. They seemed like smart kids; they’d be fine.

  But what about me?

  The long drive had given her time to think about her situation from multiple angles: the tour guide, the mentor, the older female friend, the defender. However, it never really sank in that she might not have a male companion for…a long time. Vinny from the TV station was the closest she’d seen to an eligible bachelor since the disaster started, and he was probably dead.

  “Hey, what’s that?” Peter, in the passenger seat, pointed ahead.

  She squinted to see far down the highway. They were in corn country, so the roadway was flat and straight with nothing but young corn stalks on either side. A few cars remained in the highway where they’d stopped, which made the motion stand out. “It’s a plow.”

  She slammed on the brakes.

  “What are you doing?” Audrey screamed. “We can’t stop here! At least drive over there.” The girl pointed sideways off the road.

  “No. We’ll be seen.” She wasn’t entirely sure, but it seemed logical. She’d had a lot of time to think about how they’d be spotted from drones, and her conclusion was they were harder to spot when coming directly at a camera, or going directly away, exactly like it would be for human perception. Thus, she put the car in park to cut down on their chance of being seen moving.

  “Get out!” she added. “Get to the corn.”

  She opened the door and got out. The menacing sound of an engine caught her attention right away; the machine coming her way was moving fast and loud. The crunch of metal on metal echoed from down the roadway as the plow struck the abandoned cars.

  “Should we take something?” Peter inquired, standing at his door.

  The machine was too close for her liking
. “Just run!”

  The three of them went down a small embankment, then into the adjacent corn field. The stalks were about four feet high and provided enough cover to hide them, but they had to go about ten rows back before she lost sight of the highway completely. However, when everyone was safe, she returned a couple of rows because she wanted to see the machine go by.

  It approached with the energy of a chugging freight train. She saw the black diesel fumes belch out the dual pipes before she saw the machine itself. When it arrived, it became apparent a second sweeper was in the other pair of lanes, doubling the volume they were able to plow.

  “Stay low,” she said, checking behind her to make sure the kids weren’t doing anything stupid, like standing up.

  When it got there, she thought it might have been a converted train engine. It was as big as an eighteen-wheeler, but it was all one machine, like the box trailer was built into the front part. It also had more wheels than a semi, and they were about twice as large, maybe as tall as a man. The dual-faced plow on the front was low and swept-back, like a graceful wing.

  The fast-moving contraption slammed into the Subaru and seemed to lift it off the ground as the scooped plow caught it. It happened so fast, Tabby could barely understand what happened, but along with the bone-jarring crunch and scrape, the car flew sideways off the highway. She watched as the shattered glass of the windshield caught the sun.

  It twirled like a trapeze artist doing a dismount.

  And it was going to come down right on top of her.

  CHAPTER 12

  Newark, NJ

  Kyla and Emily worked together to get the big boat off the shore. She was glad to be gone too, since there was one body floating in the water and another in the bushes. A strip of the dead man’s shirt was wrapped around her neck, putting compression on the small graze she’d gotten during the gunfight. She thanked God she wasn’t lying in the weeds. Exchanging gunshots at point-blank range wasn’t a sport she wanted to do ever again.

  “Did your uncle teach you how to shoot?” Emily asked from behind the wheel.