Tomorrow's Dawn (Book 4): Gathering Storms

by Wohlrab, Jeff

  This time, when Brent awakened, his mind felt far clearer. He realized at once that he was in a well-lit room on what appeared to be a hospital bed, with his head and shoulders raised and an IV in his arm. The suit he had been wearing was gone, replaced with a hospital gown. To his right was an empty chair with a half-filled glass on a side table.

  Brent cleared his throat gently and tested out his voice. “Hello? Is someone out there?” He tried to project his voice toward the closed door to the room. What came out was barely more than a whisper. He cleared his throat again and asked in a louder voice.

  When nobody appeared, he took another look at his surroundings. He appeared to be in a small bedroom, one which had once belonged to a teen. Posters of bands he had never heard of papered the walls. They appeared to be the modern-day equivalent of the boy bands from his youth.

  He almost laughed as he tried to picture what New Kids on the Block would look like today. Other than Donnie Wahlberg, he couldn’t even remember what they looked like then. Brent only remembered Wahlberg because he’d been in the television series Band of Brothers.

  Had it been Donnie and not one of his brothers? Brent thought hard. Donnie seemed right. His brother had been in a sniper movie. Wonder how much they made for those movies? Hell, how much did they make with their various singing careers?

  More importantly, did any of them make it through the virus? The memory of the virus hit him like a ton of bricks. He didn’t know where he was, but the billions of deaths were real. Rebecca was gone. Jack was gone. Most of the Dahlonega group had died. He wasn’t sure if Jensen, Daniel, Marcy, or Jessica were even still alive.

  He’d abandoned them so he could go home to die. That hadn’t worked out the way he expected. At least, he didn’t think so. The memory of being carried on a stretcher and a woman holding a fluid bag over his head rushed through his mind.

  Brent still didn’t know who they were. He hadn’t seen the man’s face and the woman was unfamiliar. He looked around the room for any sort of clue. This wasn’t her room, unless she was a teenage girl. There were no clues to be found there. His eyes fell on the half-filled glass of water on the table.

  It would be nice to have a drink of water. His throat felt like sandpaper. Maybe it had been left there for him? If so, it was far out of reach. Had someone been sitting there as he slept? Maybe the woman? It didn’t matter at the moment; he had already made up his mind to get the water.

  The intravenous line inserted in his arm seemed to have plenty of slack between the placement site and the bag, which was hooked over a nail in the wall above his head. High tech, to be certain. Luckily, the bag was hooked on the door side of the bedroom, probably for easy access. The chair and glass were on the same side, so he wouldn’t risk yanking the needle out of his arm.

  A hint of fear entered Brent’s mind. If he reached for the glass and rolled out of the bed, would there be enough slack in the line to keep it from tearing out? Would he even be able to support himself on his elbow? He felt weak, exhausted. But he wanted that water to help soothe the pain in his throat.

  Under the sheet, he flexed his leg muscles. They seemed to be responding well. Maybe he was better off trying to stand. The chair wasn’t far away. He swung his legs to the side and sat up, fighting against the dizziness which rapidly passed. It was enough to convince him that he could stand.

  Brent had never backed down from anything in his life. At least not until he’d left the other survivors to head home. He was a little bit ashamed now. His goal had been to die and join his wife, but she had sent him back. He certainly wasn’t going to back down again, not from something as simple as standing up.

  The former construction worker slid forward, feeling a slight twinge in his knee as it took up his weight. He kept his hands on the bed for support as he pushed forward, then released them and took two tottering steps to the chair, where he stopped to rest with his hand on the chair back.

  Sitting down wasn’t out of the question, but he wanted to test his strength. He was a strong man, and he disliked this feeling of weakness. His first thought, after getting a drink, was to flush the weakness from his body and mind. He would join Rebecca when it was time, and it wasn’t his place to determine the correct time.

  It would start with a drink of water. Brent reached down and gripped the glass. He waited a moment before picking it up until he could be certain he would be able to secure the glass, then he raised it to his lips and took a small sip. At least he meant to take a small sip. Instead, he gulped down the water remaining in the glass, causing a small pain in his esophagus as the water seemed to slow in one area.

  The water made his throat feel even more irritated, but still, somehow better. He scanned the small room for more liquid: the night stand, the white dresser. Then he saw himself in the mirror. He looked like absolute shit.

  He must have slept a couple days, because his stubble had sprouted with a vengeance. Brent had shaved before sitting down near the apple tree, which was the last thing he could clearly remember aside from flashes of moments in between. His face showed he had missed three or four days since then.

  What had happened in those missing days? More importantly, at this very moment, where was he?

  Reassured by his first few steps, Brent reached over to the clear solution bag hanging on the nail above the bed and pulled it down. He’d find his answers on the other side of the closed door.

  Chapter 7

  Daniel sat in a small office, which appeared to have once belonged to an attorney, and watched the newsfeed once again. The newly formed Coalition of Southern States was warning of insurgent attacks from the mountains of northern Georgia and the western Carolinas. That was bad. It meant Senator Snead had managed to not only drum up support across the southern states, but had already turned his supporters against them.

  It didn’t have to be truthful, it just had to work. That had been a hard lesson for Daniel to learn once, long ago. Then, he’d still believed people wanted the truth so they could form reasonable and accurate decisions. He didn’t believe that anymore.

  No, people wanted something to feel right, whether it was rational or not. They wanted something comfortable and emotionally pleasing. If there were a hundred different ways to do something, people would flock to the one which least digressed from their own convictions, whether it made sense or not.

  The loosely formed militia group in the mountains was now public enemy number one. Blamed for everything from starting the virus to the nuclear attack on the college, the small group was a convenient scapegoat for all of the Senator’s misdeeds.

  Snead knew exactly what to blame on them. He knew because he was the one who had done those things. Daniel parsed through the report, trying to find indications of what Snead was going to do next. It didn’t exactly meet his definition of intelligence, but it was information, and information was in short supply.

  The small town of Highlands, North Carolina had electricity from the generators. It had water, and it was unaffected by the fires which had burned through the low-lying areas to their south and east. As far as they knew, the threat of radiation was minimal.

  It had been three days since the bombing run on the small town. Three days of urgent activity as the wounded were treated and the dead laid to rest in a mass grave dug alongside the fairway of the fifteenth hole of a nearby golf course. It had been quiet on the military front. Nobody had attacked since.

  Daniel was looking at the reason right in front of him. Claims of attacks on supply convoys, blame for the virus and nuclear attacks, and even allegations of attempting to subvert the new government. They were being called insurgents, which was a word that had taken on terrible connotations over the preceding decades.

  Maybe it was time to change the old adage. The victors might not write history, but those with the better public relations machine. Right now, they had nothing, and Snead’s revisionist history placed them at the heart of every one of the country’s current problems.

>   Daniel was alone in the office. He hadn’t seen Marcy in a couple of days. After the Colonel’s request to focus on intelligence for his forces, Daniel had drawn away from her. This report, added to the others, made him think his sudden withdrawal from her had been the right choice.

  They were heading for war. The Senator’s forces, and probably a huge number of civilians who were receiving these news reports without any sort of counterpoint, were going to kill them. At least they would try. After all the population had been through, they were enraged and frightened. All it would take was someone to give them a target and they’d fight like rabid honey badgers.

  Like Daniel, the people wanted vengeance on those who had caused their lives to fall apart and had taken their loved ones from them. The difference was that Daniel knew who had done it, but Snead had been first to the punch. The people believed Daniel and is friends were at fault, somehow. Snead had turned the tables; innocent, moral people were now on the run, the hunted, insurgents.

  They couldn’t stay here. It wasn’t safe. The bombing run from earlier in the week had made their situation pretty clear. The Senator had air superiority and a winning PR campaign. Clearly, he also had a good idea of where they were.

  The big man sat in thought for a little while with the volume down. The news stories had become repetitive. Daniel’s group was at fault for everything. The crops were growing well. The Coalition of Southern States was expanding and experts were working on the infrastructure to generate power to even more areas.

  News stories showed Snead meeting with other politicians or walking through hospitals providing encouragement to the patients. He always looked solemn and reserved, as though he was mortified by the situation the country found itself in and was doing everything within his power to make it right.

  Daniel really hated him. That fucker had done all of this. All of it. And the people were eating this shit up like it was caviar. A scrolling update at the bottom caught his attention. Next to the time, he saw Major Graham Stokes had been put to death for treason against his country.

  As he turned up the volume, the view on the screen switched to an older woman sitting behind a news desk. The scene wasn’t as professional as what would normally be seen on the networks before the bombs, but it was clearly a news desk.

  The gray-haired woman looked up at the camera and began speaking. “Breaking news out of Americus. Justice has been carried out against former Air Force pilot Major Graham Stokes, who was found guilty of treason for shooting down his wingman, Captain John Chase of Bellevue, Nebraska.

  “Captain Chase was engaged with enemy forces in the mountains of North Carolina, near the town of Highlands, when Major Stokes, who was found to be in communication with insurgents on the ground, fired two missiles into Captain Chase’s aircraft, causing him to lose control of his F-35 fighter and crash into a lightly inhabited area near the state border.

  “Major Stokes then radioed Captain Chase’s position to those same insurgents, who brutally murdered him after he parachuted safely to the ground.” She looked down at the papers in her hand, seeming to choke up slightly before continuing. “Major Stokes was found guilty of treason, mutiny and sedition, aiding the enemy, and accessory to murder by a military tribunal.

  “For his crimes, he was stripped of his rank and was put to death by firing squad.” The woman looked back up at the camera, seemingly close to tears as she said, “Our hearts go out to the family of Captain Chase, who was a hero to the country.

  “Newly elected President of the Coalition of Southern States, President-elect Bobby Snead, has sworn he will seek justice for the murder of Captain Chase, the mass murder of Americans by biological weapon, and the nuclear attacks in northern Georgia. These insurgents are known enemies of the state. They will be found and destroyed. Any citizen harboring these fugitives from justice will be considered an accomplice to their cowardly acts.

  “If you have any information about these insurgents or any others who threaten the reconstruction of our great nation, please contact your local Sentry group immediately.”

  Daniel sat back. “Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit. Fuck. We’re fucked.” Daniel looked around the room, thinking about possible courses of action before he went to the Colonel. First things first; he wanted to find Jensen.

  The former recon op was out somewhere with the soldiers looking at military equipment, specifically, the armored vehicles. Jensen’s wrist had been wrapped and splinted after his fall. It didn’t appear to be broken, but the ugly purple and blue swelling around it pointed toward at least a bad sprain. He wasn’t going to be doing much with it for a while until it had time to heal.

  In the meantime, he was working with some of the younger men and women to figure out what sort of capabilities they had available. All of the hulking vehicles tended to be inefficient, and fuel was in short supply. The worst offenders were the up-armored hulks which had been developed to counter roadside bombs.

  The Humvees were extremely old, but still operational. They had been pressed back into service in the mountains of Nepal after budget cuts and squabbling in Congress had cut funding for replacement vehicles. The ancient design had been updated with several tons of additional armor, but the vehicles had been obsolete for decades, a point Jensen frequently made when comparing them to the armored scout vehicle he had commanded while deployed.

  Jensen had been an instructor on the AWESOME when the virus hit and he’d left Fort Benning, but he had plenty of field experience on various armored vehicles and knew the capabilities of the AWESOME like the back of his hand. It was this experience they were hoping to utilize to figure out what capabilities they could present if they were attacked again.

  The question was no longer if, but when. Another attack was coming. The Senator, or President-elect, had tipped his hand. It was time to move, and move quickly. Daniel hurried out of the small operations center and headed for the armor. He had to do this in person; using a radio could bring in all sorts of unwanted attention.

  Radios were the first thing to go when Daniel was brought on to take care of intelligence. Transmissions from communications could be intercepted. Even worse, they could be traced to their location very accurately if the enemy had the right equipment. Daniel had to assume they did, so the militia group was in a communications blackout. Even the cellphones had been shut off.

  Luckily, he knew Jensen wouldn’t be out on patrol. Jessica had been drafted into the patrol groups due to her backgrounds as both a military veteran and a police officer, but Jensen’s wrist had taken him out of the fight, at least for the time being. For now, he was nothing more than an advisor to Colonel Simmons, who was the de facto commander of the loose-knit militia group.

  Daniel’s eyes scanned quickly as he walked under the shade of the tall trees until they lit on Jensen, who was standing near the diesel tanker talking to a sergeant. Jensen noticed the sergeant’s eyes focus on someone coming their way and turned to look, noting Daniel’s hurried stride with concern.

  “What’s wrong?”

  Daniel took a few more steps before answering, “I need you. Now. We have to see the Colonel. Something has happened.”

  Chapter 8

  “President Snead, I like the sound of that. Congratulations!”

  The speaker was Governor Rich Mathis of Alabama, the man Bobby Snead had asked to be his Vice President. It wasn’t so much that Mathis was a great statesperson, but that he supported Snead’s vision for the future. At least, what he knew of it.

  “Thanks, Rich,” he said, shaking his Vice President’s hand as the new arrival entered his office. “It looks like our work is going to begin even before the inauguration. I just got word that Salem, a little town in South Carolina, was attacked and burned by insurgents earlier today.”

  “Oh my God! Was anyone hurt?”

  Snead, looking concerned, moved around his desk to put his hand on the older man’s shoulder. “Rich, they killed almost everyone. Only a few survived.” He exhaled a deep sig
h. “The attackers were military. We think they were the same ones who killed the pilot earlier this week.

  “We believe the attack might have been in retaliation for executing Major Stokes, the pilot who shot down our F-35.”

  Rich sat down heavily in a chair as Snead leaned against his desk. “Bobby, what are we going to do about them?”

  Bobby shook his head sadly. “I don’t know that there’s much we can do at this time, Rich. Until Janet joins the coalition, we can’t send forces into South Carolina.”

  Janet Howe, formerly the Lieutenant Governor of South Carolina, had stepped into power after the death of the Governor. She had been resisting calls to join Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Tennessee in Snead’s Coalition of Southern States.

  Snead’s plan was to consolidate power in the southern states before eventually taking power over the entire country. Patience was key. He didn’t want to expand into any more of the northern states until after the winter. First, he didn’t have enough resources to support them all yet, and he planned to use control of food and supplies to help maintain order.

  Second, he expected the winter to bring about a large number of deaths in the north. Low temperatures, lack of food, and a suspect power grid might be enough to bring them in line without the threat of violence. The plan was shaky, but all he needed was another nine months to finish building his coalition.

  In the meantime, the residents in the northern states, who would probably oppose him if he tried to consolidate power over the entire country now, would hopefully decrease in population. The 2032 harvest would probably be terrible. He doubted farmers got enough crops in the ground, or had the labor to reap. It would be impossible to feed everyone.

  Even if they did, the foods would probably be starches like corn and wheat. In the modern day, most fruits and vegetables came from the southern United States or Central America. In his limited interactions with leaders from the northern and western states, President Snead had already heard claims of malnutrition and scurvy, and it was still summer.