After The Apocalypse Season 1 Box Set

by Warren Hately

  Lilianna hurried to her boyfriend’s side as he cradled the dead welder, the grievous head wound nullifying the risk of her turning Fury. Greerson squeezed into cover beside Tom panting heavily.

  “I don’t know how many of them are in there, but they’ve got it well covered,” he yelled.

  Pain and exhaustion were leaving Tom not entirely in his body, despite the abundance of threats all around and the need for awareness. His eyes kept tracking back through welded metal fence pickets, giving him a partial view of the manor house roof and yet more figures wrestling out a tripod-mounted machine-gun from Plume’s attic.

  Tom removed the chunky tubular revolver of the grenade launcher from his back and met Greerson’s eye as he offered it to him.

  “Can you hit something with one of these?”

  Denny gave a savage chuckle.

  “Anyone can hit something with one of those,” he said.

  Tom pointed at the Dutch-style roof though neither of them could see it without risking exposure. The gunfire died away a moment, punctured by just the odd, sporadic shot.

  “Plume has a weapons cache in her attic,” he said.

  “How do you know that?”

  “Ortega.”

  “Goddamned Ortega.”

  “Goddamned indeed,” Tom said softly.

  “You can do it, Vanicek,” Greerson said. “Take the shot.”

  “You’re the military man.”

  Greerson only gave another humorless laugh. More gunfire helped his lack of response, and then eventually the troop commander added, “I might be able to take the shot, but I don’t want that on my conscience.”

  So there was no point to further discussion. Tom scowled, working out how to load the M32 and getting annoyed as Greerson said something unhelpful about needing drum rounds for loading the grenades all at once. Denny then whistled to signal more covering fire, then circled back to his remaining troops.

  “Get ready to go again!”

  Tom lifted the grenade launcher to his shoulder with a groan and inched out until he had some kind of angle on the tiled roof standing sentry over the surrounding blocks. His trigger finger was slick with sweat, and the more he focused his aim, the more he swam in and out of a vertigo equal parts exhaustion, shattered nerves, and regret.

  Greerson was right. Any idiot could take the shot – but it took a particular kind of idiot to actually do it.

  So thinking, he squeezed the trigger.

  *

  THE SILVER EGG spat out of the M32’s short barrel with hardly any noise and struck the guttering of the tiled roof before Tom’d even registered it. The explosion wasn’t massive, but it was fierce. The upper wall and a huge section of tiled roof poured down and out like architectural diarrhea, bricks and ceramic tiles splashing in every direction as the bulk of where the roof met the upper floor gave way. It also took out the section beneath where the three men struggled to mount the heavy gun in the attic’s lone window frame.

  The three defenders screamed as they plunged groundwards, following the stream of bricks and roof tiles, and only one of the Lefthanders kept moving after hitting the ground sixty feet below. And the sound of his anguished screams didn’t augur well. Rather than scanning for more details, crouched back into cover and sought to reload.

  The first explosion was Greerson’s cue. The men on the right flank opened fire through the broken barricade and Greerson’s assault squad tore back into the deadly courtyard.

  And into more gunfire.

  Tom stood a second time, aiming the launcher slightly higher as he fired again.

  The grenade took a flat parabola into the ruin created by the first round, and its detonation turned into one massive, hellish, ongoing blast like a volcano erupting in the City’s midst.

  The scale of the explosion astonished everyone. The remaining Enclave troopers dropped into cover or threw themselves flat in the street or under cover of the parked convoy as, a second later, debris rained out of the sky, smashing into the street, breaking truck windows and hitting at least one of the scuttling troopers as they ran. The wreckage kept falling for long, terrible seconds, and it was a few seconds more before Tom could even tell the gunfire’d ceased.

  He moved his arm from over his eyes to chance searching for Lilianna just in time to see her disappear through the gates headed after the previous Enclave squad as every spare hand poured in through the gates to rush the front of the church.

  “Lilianna!”

  Tom didn’t even think, racing right after his daughter as smoke and grit and ash filled the scene, the smoking, split-open hulk of the manor house a surreal giant ribcage in the morning noir background, pink dawn light cutting ribbons through the smoke, random bullets flying left and right, the far side of the church also blasted open and ablaze.

  The Enclave cadre charged at St Mary’s front doors, but the smoke-churning yard to their right was alive with figures fleeing the far side of the bomb-damaged church and the nearly flattened manor house. Some of the escapes leveled guns drunkenly, as if they might still fight their way clear.

  Ahead of Tom, Lila fired her drawn arrow, reaching back to reload as her shot hit the first of the Lefthanders emerging from the haze. The bearded man dropped to one knee, clutching where the arrow jutted from his eye.

  Return fire thwipped past them. A round clipped Lila’s helm. Tom hurried forward to tackle his daughter from behind as more bullets raked the scene. Several of the troops running with them shrieked. One of the hard-nosed veterans just behind Tom took a bullet in the neck, grabbing himself as if stung by a mosquito and then falling down dead before he could confirm otherwise.

  The Enclave troops refocused their efforts. At least a dozen firearms concentrated on the Lefthanders crossing the barren ground. Those half-dozen survivors died the next second. Tom covered his daughter like a child not ready to watch a scary movie scene, though just like the child she’d been, Lilianna squirmed beneath him for her liberty.

  Shouts from the church doorway caught Tom’s attention as he let Lilianna get free.

  Greerson and a handful of troopers framed either side of the St Mary’s entrance as one of the big church doors swung open. The Enclave force and the St Mary’s defenders traded close-quarters fire, stepping in and out of the open door as the wood erupted into splinters, peppered by yet more gunfire amid the stalemate.

  Tom bellowed above the din, waving his erstwhile comrades aside as he lifted the deadly grenade launcher and fired right at the contentious door.

  The explosion blew out the front entrance as well as the nartex behind it.

  The blast was almost subdued compared to the eruption of the attic next door, but Tom figured his ears were blown by that point anyway, which explained the nearly soundless way the historic wooden doors flew apart like matchsticks and the brickwork shattered out onto the cobbled path. Enclave soldiers lay in cover positions all around, and they leapt up at once to press the advantage. Lilianna was up and with them, fleet and coltish like some creature of the forest with her bow nocked and drawn once again.

  Tom stood, shakily, the M32 left on the churned grass beneath him.

  More and more Enclave troops entered the courtyard with guns fixed on every angle. Edward Burroughs strode up to Tom’s side. Without saying a word, the two men watched the final seconds of the collapsing siege with somber looks.

  *

  A DOZEN LEFTHANDERS surrendered from those who survived. All were men. The women among the Lefthanders perished in the gun battle and explosion, but none of them were Madeline Plume. They hauled twenty corpses black and smoking from the ruins of the vicarage and then silenced them forever with hammers and axes in the courtyard where they were laid out among another eight men and women dead from wounds taken trying to flee the siege. They’d never know how many died in the main explosion itself. Some of the besieged Lefthanders were reduced to ground meat in the blast. Anyone close to the weapons cache in the attic were effectively vaporized.

 
For a short while, it was possible to hope Madeline Plume was among them.

  The Enclave lost eight troopers – though ten more had died during the past few days – but Tom only cared that Lilianna didn’t get her fool self killed after deliberately flouting any care for her own life. There would be a lot more discussion to be had, but for now, Tom held her until she reluctantly disengaged to rejoin Beau and a half-dozen other young people looking preternaturally aged in their combat gear, laughing and joking and generally thanking God they were still alive, reveling in the tang of it and the endocrine wash of relief.

  Spectating on his daughter amid her people, it dawned on him that no matter what he thought of it, Lilianna finally had the life the City offered. And that did almost nothing to soothe Tom’s misgivings.

  No one expected more gunfire, so when it came, the survivors jumped for their guns or dived for cover, and for long seconds, Tom hesitated to move at all.

  Greerson and several veteran troopers emerged from the smoldering ruin of the vicar’s house, dragging and then pushing a stripped-naked Madeline Plume with another Lefthander rebel out of the bomb site. There was no obvious reason for Plume’s nudity, though Tom registered her escorts pushing and shoving her forward with clear malice, the woman stumbling amid the hot ashes and the crumbling, crushed bricks as the other Enclave troops jeered at her. Plume looked beyond shell-shocked, arms over her breasts, fine dark hair plastered to her shoulders, pale nude limbs streaked with soot. Blood ran from her ears and one eye was blackened shut.

  Greerson wore a dead look in his eyes, only taking in Tom as Vanicek moved out to meet them.

  “We found her and the Colonel in a secret room in the cellar,” he said. “Unconscious, both of them.”

  “Where’s Rhymes?”

  “The Colonel didn’t make it,” Greerson sneered.

  “Mob justice, Denny?”

  The new Safety Chief hissed, then remembered who he was speaking to.

  “It’s a miracle they weren’t both killed outright, with that goddamned house blowing up on top of them,” Greerson said.

  Plume looked barely conscious, disoriented and completely unaware the rough-handed troopers had taken their safety precautions so far as to cut away everything she wore including her boots. Dirt and ash were smeared with blood where their knives nicked her pale skin. Plume briefly met Tom’s eyes and didn’t know him from any of the other men now surrounding her, giving her a fragile, doe-like appearance despite her own crimes. Her resemblance to Iwa Swarovsky for a moment was uncanny, and Tom felt his sympathies rise ahead of his urge to vomit.

  “Someone get the woman a coat, for Christ’s sake,” he growled.

  Greerson tried to provide some kind of company, but Tom was done with it. He had Ortega’s combat knife and the Colt Python holstered on the carpenter’s tool belt, but he left the other weapons at the scene as he moved away from Plume and the others with deliberate care for his own aches and wounds, out of the church grounds to where even more trucks, pick-ups and horse-drawn wagons blocked the street. Hundreds of Citizens now gathered like the crowds of old, drawn to the tragedy, impatient for news and to know if it was safe. And the other surviving Councilors were there too, though that meant just Wilhelm and Dana Lowenstein now. Ben-Gurion had vanished to parts unknown, spastic with his shakes, and Carlotta Deschain was true to her word for perhaps the first time in Tom’s recent memory.

  Delroy Earle and his reporter Melina were at the front of the crowd, blocked by a cordon of Burroughs’ men. The newspaper editor had a solemn, respectful, but also somehow warm regard for Tom as he emerged walking like one of the dead himself, though more as the old movies had envisaged them – slowly, and with his arms held stiff.

  “Tom, hello!” Earle called and apologetically lifted to show his notepad. “Any comment?”

  “You don’t give up, huh?”

  “We have news to report,” Melina said and lifted her bronzed pixie chin in a kind-hearted challenge.

  Tom shrugged and immediately regretted it as pain lanced through him.

  “I’ve got a comment for you,” Tom said, the words increasingly a snarl as more followed. “I’m done with this shit, OK? I’ve got a family to protect, and anyone who gets in my way’s making a big mistake. I thought we had Rules in this place. It’s time people decide whether they want this City to work, and if they’ll fight for it. I’ve got cattle to organize and more than enough to do without anyone else getting killed. Let the City know I’m done.”

  He might’ve said more, except a low, soft voice intervened.

  “I think you need a doctor, Tom, not an interrogation.”

  Iwa Swarovsky pressed through the onlookers with her black carry case slung over her white coat. If Tom or anyone else expected emotion from the doctor, absolutely nothing showed. Iwa’s elegant disregard was enough to cow Delroy Earle, who took one look at the alabaster woman before he bowed and mimed withdrawal. Melina Martelle gave her boss an odd look, as if seeing weakness for the first time, and then her thoughtful eye switched back to Tom and the doctor.

  “We’ve read most of those files now,” the reporter told him. “There’s going to have to be some kind of expedition or efforts to make contact with those people – the people on the Washington, and this survivor colony they call Greenland, too.”

  “The Lefthanders beat us to it,” Tom said with weary reluctance.

  “They made contact?”

  Tom only nodded, but was distracted from his misery by the wistful look of thoughtfulness that stole across Iwa Swarovsky’s face.

  “An expedition?”

  “We have to report this, Tom!” Earle pitched in, still a few feet away. “The Five . . . I mean, the Council know about the Washington, too. And now you say Ortega’s people made contact? This story’s only getting bigger.”

  Earle’s froglike gaze bore into him, but Tom couldn’t hold up any longer. Iwa guided his collapse towards the front seat of the closest Jeep and motioned for Lilianna and Beau to help.

  *

  Uncertain peace reigns after night of bloodshed

  Delroy Earle & Melina Martelle

  THE dissident Lefthanders faction was brought to heel on Thursday night – but the cost of a series of gun battles and Fury attacks has taken its toll on Citizens and the Council.

  It is understood two Councilors have died and two have resigned, while Head of Safety Carlos Ortega was killed after revelations he had a role in this week’s attempted coup.

  Matters came to a head at the headquarters of Madeline Plume’s Lefthanders group when Safety troopers besieged St Marys Church.

  Councilor August Rhymes was killed during the siege and Plume taken into custody along with a dozen surviving Lefthanders.

  Tension was brewing throughout the last month with fiery exchanges at City Council meetings.

  However, Administration sources say Councilors were unaware of a secret alliance between Colonel Rhymes, Plume and Ortega.

  The Herald understands the Lefthanders were formed by members of the original Rickenbacker Air Force Base determined to rule the City under permanent martial law.

  With the Council’s reconstruction efforts under pressure amid reports of dwindling rations supplies, conflict escalated after last week’s bloody raid on the City Armory which killed six, including trooper Angela Mendina.

  It is believed the raid was carried out on Plume’s orders.

  Plume is being held in custody by the Council for further questioning.

  The Herald can also reveal Carlos Ortega masterminded a botched assassination attempt on Councilor Ernest Eric Wilhelm III in the days before Thursday night’s siege.

  Cr Wilhelm was on a diplomatic mission outside the sanctuary zone with Raptor crash hero Tom Vanicek when Lefthanders gunmen ambushed the delegation, which included new Safety chief Dennis Greerson.

  The bid was unsuccessful and Cr Wilhelm’s return to the City sparked a violent showdown.

  At least six Administrat
ion officers were killed supporting troopers at the siege.

  A massive explosion, linked to Plume’s personal armory, killed at least twenty dissidents, while 16 more died exchanging fire with City troops.

  Armed forces were not the only casualties of Thursday night’s violence, with estimates of between 20 and 80 Citizens dead in personal conflicts, as victims of crime, or at the hands of Furies.

  Chief Greerson told the Herald all known Furies were destroyed, but Citizens should remain alert and monitor friends and family for wounds.

  The City Council now only consists of President Dana Lowenstein, Cr Abe Ben-Gurion, and Cr Wilhelm.

  Cr Aileen Leng was also killed by Lefthanders in her home Thursday night.

  Questions about how the Council would continue its function went unanswered.

  Chief Greerson told the Herald Safety personnel had all immediate threats contained.

  ***

  End

  Season One

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  Cont’d in

  After the Apocalypse book 4: Retaliation

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