by AJ Newman
***
We helped Karen into the front seat with Maria while MMax and I rode in the bed. I wiped his muzzle off so he wouldn’t scare people back at the farm. He laid beside me with his head on my lap. I wondered if I could ever control MMax again. I trusted him and knew he wouldn’t harm my friends or me, but he was loose cannon.
We never discovered what had happened to Sister Joan. Her body was never found.
MMax jumped out of the truck before it stopped and turned to me for approval. He then ran in the barn when I said, “Go.”
I looked in the barn, and he lay beside his pups, licking them. I knew he would be a good father, even though he had become so vicious with evil people. I saw a lot of me in him. Just because a man has to kill bad people doesn’t make him a bad dog or person.
I helped Karen into the house and then saw Mom watching us. “Son, is it over? I can’t stand much more.”
I cringed and didn’t want to say anything. “Mom, this chapter is over, but there will be many more challenges. That guy they call the General will have to be dealt with before he overruns our farm.”
“Can’t we flee to a safer place?”
“No, we can’t. There are generals in every area. You have to squash them like bugs every time you find one.”
I gave Mom a kiss on top of her head and then went to our room. Michelle left as I laid down beside Kat. I tried not to wake her up, but her eyes popped open. “Is he dead?”
“Yes, and it was a gruesome death.”
“Did you slit his throat?”
“No, I didn’t kill him.”
“Maria?”
“No, babe, MMax killed him. The bastard killed Tina before he started the attack. MMax ripped his throat out and pissed on his head.”
Kat turned her head, and we kissed, and she asked, “Does this mean …?
“Yes,” I said as I kissed her.
Then she said, “Remember that puppy with Tina’s body and MMax’s color?”
I replied, “Yes, I do. The one you wanted?”
“Yes, I want you to start training him to be MMax junior. I know he’s not a Belgium Malinois, but he’ll be mine and can protect me when you’re gone.”
I said, “MMax takes a firm hand. Will you be up to it?
“I caught and tamed you.”
“Yes, dear.”
Kat kissed me. “See? You can be trained. Jason, the crap is still hitting the fan and won’t stop anytime soon. I never want to have a man overpower me again. I want you to take up where Zack left off and train us ladies to be Amazon Warriors.”
The End
of
War Dogs
No One Left Behind
☆
Amazon Warriors
Book 3
Wounded Warriors of the Apocalypse:
Post-Apocalyptic Survival Fiction
AJ Newman
.
✼
Acknowledgments
This book is dedicated to Patsy, my beautiful wife of thirty-six years, who assists with everything from Beta reading to censor duties. She enables me to write, golf, and enjoy my life with her and our mob of Shih Tzu’s.
Thanks to Patsy, Wes, Richard C, David, and Richard S., who are Beta readers for this novel. They gave many suggestions that helped improve the cover and readability of my book.
Thanks to Sabrina Jean at Fasttrackediting for proofreading and editing this novel.
Thanks to WMHCheryl at http://wmhcheryl.com/services-for-authors/ for the great final proofreading and suggestions on improving the accuracy and helping me to tell a better story.
Thanks to Christian at Covers by Christian for the fantastic cover.
AJ Newman
Copyright © 2019 Anthony J Newman. All rights reserved.
This book is a work of fiction. All events, names, characters, and places are the product of the author’s imagination or are used as a fictitious event. That means that I thought up this whole book from my imagination, and nothing in it is true.
All rights reserved. None of this publication may be copied or reproduced without prior written permission from the publisher.
As they say on TV, don’t try anything you read in this novel. It’s all fiction and stuff I made up to entertain you. Buy some survival books if you want to learn how to survive in the apocalypse.
Published by Newalk LLC.
Owensboro, Kentucky
Table of contents – Amazon Warriors
Main Characters
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Main Characters
Jason Walker – The main character of this story. Jason is 28 years old when the world collapsed. He joined the Army after high school. He decided to re-enlist when the Army offered to make him a Patrol Explosive Detector Dog (PEDD) Handler. He was assigned to an Army K9 unit in Europe when the SHTF. He’s a bit socially backward and awkward around women. He can kill the enemy but can’t deal with crying ladies.
Katherine “Kat” Gold Kat was a small young woman who was stuck in Nashville when the SHTF. A feisty, strong-willed lady who learned how to survive and has a short fuse. Jason saved Kat from some bad men and couldn’t get rid of her.
MMax – Pronounced Max. MMax is a black and tan Belgian Malinois K9 born at Lackland AFB and assigned to Jason. He is Jason’s best friend, and they’ve been together for two years. MMax was trained to find explosives, spot ambushes, and to neutralize enemy threats. His abilities are exaggerated a bit in this story.
Michelle Walker – Jason’s wayward sister who needs to redeem herself with her family. She is an ex-drug addict and ne’er-do-well who began changing her life for the better when TSHTF.
SGT Maria McGill – A short, feisty Latin / Irish soldier. She was in charge of the squad Jason was assigned to in London. She and Jason had a short-lived affair. She and Jason were separated in Book 1 due to the plane crash.
Karen Martin – Jason saved her two daughters and her from an evil thug. She was a Biology teacher at a local high school. She became close to Jason and joined his group of survivors.
Jan Walker – Jason’s mom and one of his heroes. She was a nurse and an avid gardener. She loved to run and participated in 13k and 26k marathons. Not bad for a 55-year-old woman.
Billie Johnson – Jason’s mom’s new friend and fellow survivor. She is a very disciplined and strict momma bear type who is protective of her bratty kid, Mark. She is an attractive blonde-haired lady who is very defensive and hard to approach.
General John Long –An army acquaintance of Jason’s who was always a troublemaker. When the SHTF, he joined a rogue FEMA camp and rose in the ranks. After Jason and his team killed the leader of the FEMA camp, Long took over the leadership of the remaining soldiers and began his own little empire.
Sydney Posey – Jason’s ex-high school girlfriend, who returns to Walter Hill with a big surprise.
☆
Chapter 1
Hole#10 Smyrna Golf Course – Smyrna, Tennessee.
I was in a daze, thinking about how I had survived the apocalypse so far. MMax and I had endured an airplane crash caused by a nuclear EMP blast, been interned in a rogue FEMA camp, and been kicked in the balls by my new girlfriend. And all of that was after we survived an IED attack by terrorists in Europe. MMax and I are har
d to kill. MMax is my Belgian Malinois military working dog. We are best friends and survivors.
I woke up to my surroundings when I heard the snarling and rustling of bushes. Then MMax alerted toward the sound. “MMax, what do you smell?”
I know, I was a bit dense, but then it struck me that whatever was crashing through the bushes was going to ruin our day. I saw a suitable tree and yelled, “Kat, climb up into that tree as far as you can!”
Kat stood there with a dumb look on her face. “Now!” I barked.
I took the two steps to her side and picked her up. I lifted her as high as I could and then shoved her feet further up until she grabbed a limb. I turned to MMax, lifted him, and hooked him to his chest harness.
Kat cried out, “Jason, you yelled at me. I thought you lo… Oh, shit!”
I heard the barking coming from the direction of the Sam Ridley Parkway. We had crossed the Smyrna Golf Course, sticking to the woods and trees as much as possible. We had crossed the bridge by #18 and walked over to Hole #10’s T-box when MMax alerted.
I could see the wild dogs charge out of the trees snarling and biting at each other in their frenzy. I pulled MMax and myself into the air and grabbed another limb to draw us even higher when the Rottweiler jumped into the air and bit into the top of my damned boot. The SOB ground his teeth into the leather and shook his neck vigorously. My boot was securely laced, and the massive canine hung there clinging to my foot. The other dogs were blocked from attacking me by the vicious Rottweiler. I clung to the tree with my left hand unable to move since MMax was trapped between the tree and me.
Kat saw my predicament and carefully pulled her bow from over her shoulder. She reached back and only found two arrows. By the time she had the arrow nocked, I had begun swinging the massive dog back and forward, crashing him into the tree with each swing.
I yelled, “Save the arrow! I’ll bang the brains out of this one against the tree!”
I tried to reach another limb with my right hand, but none were close enough. MMax’s weight pulled my shoulder down far enough that I couldn’t reach the limb I grasped with my left hand. I stopped swinging my leg because it was making my hand slip. Just when I was ready to release my grip and take my chances fighting the dogs, hand-to-paw, I felt a hand grab my right wrist. I instantly knew it was Kat’s tiny hand.
“Jason, kick the bastard with your other foot until he drops off,” Kat urged.
I couldn’t see the monster dog but kicked with my heel and struck his neck. Damn, nothing happened. I raised my aim a bit, and this time I felt him drop and yelp on the way to the ground. When he dropped, Kat pulled me up with all the strength she could muster. The others in the pack tore into the Rottweiler since they had been whipped into a rage as they’d fought each other to tear into me.
With Kat’s help, I reached a limb and pulled myself high enough to place my feet on a sturdy branch. I huffed as I tried to get my breath. I was a strong man but hanging from one hand with the weight of MMax and that Rottweiler had taxed me to the limit.
I looked up at my girl and said, “Hey, beautiful, you saved my life again.”
She patted my side with her foot. “I could have killed the bastard with one arrow and saved you from the beast,” she said, and then watched the pack tear into the dog below. She asked, “Are they eating him?”
I knew I couldn’t stop my girl from seeing the carnage as the pack tore into one of their own. “Yes, they’re eating her. There’s no one to feed them anymore, and these packs of wild dogs have just about killed off all the small game in the area. I haven’t seen a deer in several weeks.”
Kat nudged me in the side again. “Big boy, how are we going to get down as long as they think M - Max or one of us is their next meal?”
“You know his name is pronounced Max, just like a man’s name. The extra “M” only designates that he was raised and trained at the puppy farm at Lackland AFB.”
“I know. I just like winding your clock.”
“Back to the dogs, that’s a damn good question. Do you see the females with the sagging tits? They have pups to feed. This apocalypse is a bad gift that just keeps on giving us one crap sandwich after another.”
Kat laughed. “I know this isn’t a funny situation, but you have a way with words that tickles my funny bone. Do you think Maria and the others will start looking for us?”
I looked up at my girlfriend and remembered when I had first met her and saved her from a man who was trying to kidnap her. My reward was a swift kick to the balls because she’d thought I’d wanted to hurt her. Her blonde locks were a bit longer now, and she smelled much better, but she was still only about five feet tall and a hundred pounds. I first thought she was a young teenage girl who needed a spanking but learned the hard way that she could fight like a man.
“Jason, Jason, wake up. Were you sleeping? I want to know how and when we’ll get down from here. I got to pee.”
I snickered when I pictured her trying to hang on to a limb with her butt hung over a branch. Then I realized she was almost directly above me and took her complaint more seriously. “Hon, we can’t shoot the dogs because the General’s men could be close by. Their outpost is in the clubhouse about a half-mile west of here. There’re still about ten dogs left out of the original twenty looking up at us and hoping for their next meal.”
“Jason, I know all of that, but do you really believe this ex-friend of yours, the General, is as bad as you say he is?”
“I didn’t think so at first, but now, I believe he’s some kind of sadist who gets off on abusing people. The man is evil.”
This didn’t answer her original question. She asked, “What can we do to run the dogs off or kill them?”
“Hold on, I just had a brainstorm,” I said as I fingered the grip on my Benjamin air pistol.
I’d kept the air pistol for small game and had forgotten about it since the game had been eaten or run away by the wild packs of dogs. It was only a single shot, but perhaps I could kill one of the smaller dogs, and maybe the pack would get their fill of dog and leave.
“I hate harming any dog, but I’m going to kill one now,” I said as I carefully aimed at the skull of a small Pit Bull. The pistol made the sound of a blast of air being released, and the Pit Bull jumped into the air, landed on his feet, and ran off into the brush with half the dogs chasing him. I was surprised the pellet didn’t kill the dog, but at least there were a lot less left to worry about for the time being. I loaded and shot another one who keeled over and died. The others ripped into her and feasted. They got their fill and left.
A few minutes later, Kat heard a noise over the sound of the ferocious feeding frenzy coming from the brush. “Jason, they’re coming back.”
“What?”
“The dogs, only this time there’s more, and they’re larger. We’re in deep doo doo,” Kat said.
We’d been up the tree for several hours when the wind blew from the west down Sam Ridley Parkway and across the #10 T-box to us. It was a bit chilly, and I saw some clouds in the distance heading our way. I hoped the rain would hold off until we could climb down to safety.
***
MMax had noticed the scent of several dogs but didn’t think they would attack. Then he heard the hungry growls and alerted on the sound. He also gave a low but fierce growl to get his human’s attention. MMax prepared to launch himself at the charging animals when his human lifted his own mate up into the tree. He was surprised when his human picked him up and strapped him to his own chest. MMax was ready to defend his master and best friend.
MMax was helpless when the large dog clamped down on his human’s boot. He tried to bite the attacker but couldn’t reach him. As suddenly as the dog had attacked, he fell to the ground when his human kicked the dog on the snout.
MMax heard the clamor and smelled the riot of scents emanating from the new pack of dogs joining the attack. He barked and nudged his human with his snout to get his attention. Then something strange happened. A scent
rode the wind that he hadn’t encountered since his early days with his human over in that sandy place. It was the scent of the monster cats.
***
We watched the brawl below while several smaller dogs were ripped to shreds. With tears in her eyes, Kat said, “Those were someone’s puppies a few months ago, now they’re dog food.”
I fished some paracord from a vest pocket and passed it up to Kat. She gave me a weird what-the-heck look. I said, “Tie yourself to that branch above you and take care of… well, you know.”
“Jason, I got to pee. Can’t you say pee?”
“Yes, but I try not to be vulgar around women.”
Kat tied herself to the branch and accomplished a task that would defy a high wire artist. She then said, “I hope we’re not up here in the morning because… “
“I get the picture, and if we have to, we’ll shoot our way out of the tree before crap rains down from above.”
The sun had slipped below the horizon hours ago, and the temperature kept dropping. My hands were cold, but I had to keep clinging to the limbs. Kat and I still clung to the tree branches even after the light sprinkle of rain earlier and the chilly breeze. I searched the area around us and didn’t see anything in the trees to our east. I gazed northwest and could see the golf course in the twilight. I’d golfed at the Smyrna Golf Course many times over the years, and I was pissed at what I saw. The once-great fairways were covered in weeds and young bushes. The grass on the greens was a foot tall and covered in crabgrass. Golf didn’t seem as important now, but I wondered if I would ever play the game again.
MMax squirmed in his harness and woke me from my daydream. He was very uneasy the entire time we’d clung for our lives. Then a roar coming from the brush rattled my nerves. I instantly recognized the sound a huge cat makes from my tour of Afghanistan. The enemy had let all of the animals out of a nearby zoo in hopes they would attack my unit. These were lions.
