End Days Super Boxset (211 page)

Russell pushed his back against the tree and readied his rifle and began counting down from thirty, sending James's group in a panic. Christina looked around and noticed Russell's men quickly moving in different positions all around them. They were moving too fast for her to aim and shoot at them, but she knew they were closing in. She shouted to Mark and Janice. “We need to get out of here, now!”

Janice looked up and wiped her eyes. “We can't just leave James here.”

Mark placed a hand on her shoulder as the countdown continued.

Russell’s counting continued. “Twenty…nineteen…eighteen…”

“I can handle James,” Mark said. “I'll try to carry him, but you need to run.”

Janice objected, tossing Mark's hand aside. “I'm not going to leave you two at the mercy of these madmen.”

“I can't fend them off,” Christina shouted from her concealed position. “They're moving too quickly.”

Paula began to shake as Christina leapt up and pulled her along. They ran as fast as Paula could keep up while crouching down low.

Mark looked directly at Janice. “Go!”

“No!” she said.

The countdown was nearly complete as Mark stood up and attempted to hoist James over his shoulders. James screamed in agony and fell to the ground, grunting. He was a large man, too heavy for Mark to lift. The countdown ended and shots were immediately fired from Russell's side, startling Mark and Janice. They had to hide.

“Leave me!” James said. “You dumb bastards are going to get yourselves killed.” Hacking violently, he managed to grab his rifle and sit against the nearest tree. The shots continued when it dawned on James that Russell's men were playing with them. The shots weren't meant to hit anyone just yet. They were meant to get them moving. Russell's men wanted a hunt.

He looked up at Mark and Janice, who were crouched next to him. “Run. Now!” He shot his rifle indiscriminately into the air, forcing Russell’s men to stop and take cover.

Mark finally snapped into action and pushed Janice ahead of him, and they took off through the forest, trailing behind Christina and Paula. They could hear James fire again and again, and each shot shook them to the core.

Through the trees ahead, a recognizable path was in view that led to the bug-out house. Christina's adrenaline pushed her even harder when suddenly she slowed down and stopped, with Paula close behind. There was a large pile of dead branches to her side, and she instinctively hid behind them with Paula. Mark and Janice soon caught up and joined them. For a moment everything—beyond their rapid breathing—was quiet.

“Is everyone all right?” Christina asked, looking around.

Mark and Janice nodded in a half-daze, trying to catch their own breaths.

“How's my Paula?” she continued.

“Why are they chasing us?” Paula asked, her voice trembling.

“You just stay down, and you’ll be OK.” Christina threw her pack down while gripping her AR-15. Mark held a pistol and Janice had a shotgun.

Way ahead of them, James cradled his .22 rifle and waited, hoping that he had enough ammo.

“I'm going to take them out, one by one,” Christina said. “Then we can go back and get James. I just need a good position.”

“We have no idea how many of them there are,” Mark said.

“I just need you two to cover me. Keep Paula here and protect her.”

“Christina, please,” Mark said. “Give me the gun, I'll take care of it.”

“No offense, but I'm a better shot.”

“Don't go, Mom!” Paula pleaded. Christina touched her tear-soaked cheek and rubbed it with her finger. “I'll only be gone for a minute.” She then leaned close to Mark and whispered. “If anything happens, you take Paula and run. Run as far as you can away from here.”

Before Mark could respond, Christina ran off in a low crouching position. “Be sure to cover me!” she shouted. Mark rested his pistol on top of the pile of branches they were hiding behind, ready to fire at the first sign of one of Russell's men. Janice knelt down next to Paula, gripping her shotgun tightly.

Christina ran like the wind, moving from tree to tree, careful not to expose herself. She dropped in a prone position on the ground and aimed by aligning the front sight post of the rifle at whatever came in its path. She knew that James was near and was practically a sitting duck.

Suddenly, she heard him fire his rifle again, only a few trees ahead of her. She looked closer and could see the smoke over his shoulders and his drooping head. He was losing consciousness but doing his best to keep Russell's men at bay.

“James!” Christina called out as softly as she could. “Where are they?”

To her immediate right, she saw Quinn lurking about ten meters away, trying to maneuver closer to James from behind. She aimed directly at his clean-shaved head and took the shot. Quinn's head split open, and he dropped to the ground like a rag-doll.

The gunshot had completely exposed her position, and she saw Billy frantically running toward her from the other side. He didn't find cover in time, and she took another shot that tore through his throat and left his stunned body twitching on the ground. She scanned the area ahead of her ninety degrees. Shots instantly fired from afar, hitting the tree she was using for cover. She winced and pinned herself flat on the ground. Whoever was firing at her was merciless, and they wouldn't give her a chance to move. She could hear talking, commands being given, and she instinctively raised her rifle and fired. Her ears rang badly, enough to make her head ache.

Eli came into view and approached the tree James was sitting against. Christina brought the rifle up, aimed, and pulled the trigger. She heard only a click in response. Out of ammo. “Shit!” she said, teeth clenched, knowing that she had to get out of there. She quickly crawled back some, jumped up, and ran back to the pile of branches where the others were. She wanted so much to have saved James, but there was little she could do.

Eli and Kyle slowly closed in on James as he struggled with his hunting rifle. He could hold it no more and dropped it to the ground. Both Eli and Kyle had their guns drawn and aimed at James.

“You want to finish him off?” Eli asked.

James continued to cough up blood. He was slouched against the tree.

“You do it, I don't really care. We need to get the others and link up with Quinn and Billy. I heard some gunfire and I'm a little worried.”

“You think either of them got shot?”

“I don't know. Shoot him, and then we'll find out.”

They stopped at James’s feet. From a foot away, Eli raised his rifle and aimed it at James's head.

Kyle leaned down to mockingly address him. “Farewell, James. You stirred up a little more trouble than you could handle.”

“Your mother,” James said, coughing.

Kyle smiled. Taking a step back, he signaled for Eli to finish the job.

“Wait!” Russell called out from behind them. His men stopped and turned around. “Leave him be.” James lay slumped against the tree, struggling to breathe. Russell pulled a Desert Eagle pistol from his jacket and pointed it directly at James.

“If anyone here is going to do this, I think it should be me,” Russell said. “After all, it was I who let this man infiltrate our militia.”

James looked up at Russell with contempt. “You're no militia, you're just a group of thugs. Nothing more, nothing less.” He coughed more blood up, held his hand to his mouth, and then continued. “One day you'll run out of ammo and be as helpless as the people you terrorize. Then you'll be nothing. Without ammo, you'll have no power.”

Russell held his pistol aimed firmly at James. “Come on now, James. We also have lots of knives.”

James started to laugh, but doubled over with a hacking cough. He looked up at Russell with watering eyes. “You'll die before you see your dream realized. I promise you.”

Christina was frantic when she met back up with everyone. Janice tried to calm her down. Mark asked endless questions. They had hoped for a miracle but began to see that as an impossibility. “I'm out of ammo,” Christina said, close to tears. “I took two of theirs out but had to run. I don't know how many more there are.”

Mark looked over the branches they were hiding behind. “I'll go.”

Janice grabbed him. “No, you can't. You don't have the range on that pistol. Can't you see that they're playing with us? Trying to lure us out one by one?”

“I agree,” Christina said. “We have to stick together and stand our ground.”

Mark turned to them in anger. “James has done everything for us. Are we just going to leave him out there for target practice?”

“He wouldn't want you to die for him,” Janice said. “He wouldn't want any of us to.”

They huddled behind their temporary cover in a state of panic and confusion, trying to decide their next move. There were no easy answers and no guarantee that they were going to survive. They all locked hands and took a moment to clear their minds and find some peace before facing their fate.

Russell was undeterred by James's taunts, but he wasn't necessarily ready to shoot him. He enjoyed seeing the man gasp for breath and suffer. Maybe—in the end—it would be better to let him suffer. Deep inside, Russell respected James, but the sting of betrayal had consumed Russell and made him even more vengeful. If he had respected James less, it would probably have been different.

“You're right, James, I may not have long myself. And in my last few years here, I tried to make a difference. But you're wrong when you call us thugs. We offer protection against the thugs. Our imperial government, they're the thugs. You could have been a tremendous asset to our cause. I admired you. I wanted to see you move up in the ranks. We were so close, it's really just tragic.”

James stared back, unresponsive. His rifle lay on the ground beside him, where it would remain.

Russell continued. “Just know that when you die, part of me will die with you.”

They had been on the road for some time in the bug-out van, having narrowly left Atlanta without resistance, and stuck to the least populated roads they could find. People were everywhere on foot, and they passed plenty of them on the way. Terrance was steady behind the wheel, glancing at the fuel gauge every minute or so. Richie sat in the front passenger seat and Tobias was in the back. The family was almost finally together, but they were missing their main parts—Christina and Paula. As they scaled the Georgian landscape toward Milledgeville, the extent of the catastrophe struck Richie.

“What if it's like this through the entire country?” he asked.

“We can't worry about that right now,” Terrance said after taking a deep breath. “We just need to get to the bug-out house.”

It was early evening and the sun was going down. They were close and had been without incident so far. Terrance had hoped to return before it got too late, but ultimately didn't care as long as they got there. A fearful premonition suddenly swept over him, as though something bad had happened, or of something that awaited them.

No fans of staying at the bug-out house, Richie and Tobias remained mostly silent and stared out the window, watching trees pass by in a blur. Terrance had chosen to take the most rural path possible, but they still saw plenty of abandoned cars. A few military trucks passed them at one point, going in the opposite direction. The sight of other working vehicles on the road elicited hope that things weren't as bad as they seemed.

Terrance proceeded on, determined to reunite his family. With only a few miles left, he increased his speed in anticipation. Throughout their journey, he kept their speed below sixty to save fuel—and to avoid road traps—but they were in range and he didn't care anymore. The closer they got, the more Terrance felt something was wrong. He didn't like the increasing feeling of dread. There was no rhyme or reason to it. He should have felt just the opposite.

He looked over to Richie. “We're close now, I want you both to keep your eyes open for anything out of the ordinary.”

Richie turned to him with a raised brow. “Out of the ordinary? You serious?”

“You know what I mean,” Terrance snapped. “Anything more out of the ordinary than usual.”

“What are you worried about?” Tobias asked. It was as if he could sense his father's apprehension.

“Nothing. We're almost there, that's all. Milledgeville is a big place with lots of people. But if we stick to the rural route, we should be fine.”

They passed a sign: Milledgeville Population 20,000. It was an old city with lots of character and activity. Unfortunately, the aftermath of the EMP blasts had turned it into as unrecognizable a city as any they had encountered so far. Buildings were vandalized, stores had been looted, and trash was piled everywhere, for starters.

Terrance wisely avoided the roads leading into downtown and merged onto a bumpy dirt road, which would bring them closer to the protection and isolation of James's bug-out house. The tires kicked up dust from the road, creating a light haze in the air. The windows in the van were cracked, allowing a breeze to circulate inside.

“Remember those weirdos who came to the house before?” Tobias asked his father.

“What weirdos?” Richie asked, turning around.

“Some dirty, shady-looking dudes. They were trying to get supplies from us.”

“They were men just looking for a helping hand, that's all,” Terrance answered.

“I didn't trust them,” Tobias said.

“Not just a matter of trust. You should never trust a person you just met. You have to be able to gauge their intentions, let 'em earn that trust.”

“I don't trust anyone,” Richie added. “No one and nothing.”

“No reason to be overzealous about it, son. Some day we might be in a position where
we
need someone's help. Don't forget that.”

Their conversation was cut short by the sound of a gunshot in the distance. Then another.

“What was that?” Tobias asked.

Richie manually rolled his window down all the way and looked around. Lush green forest was on both sides of the one-lane dirt road. Terrance slowed the van from twenty down to fifteen MPH to keep it steady and to determine the source of the pops. They sounded uncomfortably close.

“No big deal,” Richie said. “Hear the same thing all the time back home.”

Another, louder shot rang out, and Terrance pulled the van to the side and parked in a shaded spot on the grass. “I knew something wasn't right,” he muttered to himself, turning off the engine.

Richie looked at him, confused. “Um. Dad?”

Terrance stared straight ahead, then scanned from left to right. They were too close to the bug-out house, and the shots weren't random enough to be simple target practice. Something was wrong, just as Terrance suspected and feared. He leaned forward and pulled out his pistol from under the seat. But he also knew of another pistol in the glove box and instructed Richie to get it.

Richie opened the glove box and drew a revolver from it—the very one they took from John Doe. Terrance glanced at Tobias in the rearview mirror and knew it was better to ask Richie. “I'm going to scout things out. Make sure to defend yourselves if anything happens.”

“Are you crazy?” Richie asked. “You could get shot.”

“I’ll be fine.” Another gunshot sounded, this time much closer. “Both of you don't leave this van until I come back.”

“Dad, wait,” Tobias said, pleading.

Terrance swung open the squeaky van door as a blanket of dust rained over the van. He stopped and looked back at Tobias.

“You stay here like I asked you to. I won't be gone but a minute.” He stepped out of the van onto a dry patch of grass and closed the door. He then leaned back in the car through the window and pointed to Richie. “You know how to use that thing, right?” he said, referring to the revolver.

“Yeah,” Richie said. “You aim and pull the trigger.”

“Good. Keep your eyes open and your ears to the ground.” With that said, Terrance walked by the front of the van and into the woods to their right, slouched over and staying low to the ground. His pistol was aimed steadily in the air. He didn't want to take any chances. He could smell fresh gunpowder. There was certainly something going down, but what he saw next surprised him beyond anything he could have imagined.

From behind a thin, vine-covered bush that was thick with thorns, Terrance ducked down to see James slumped against a tree with three strange men standing over him. They were no more than five yards from where he hid, barely concealed. James had been shot and he was struggling to pick up his rifle, which lay on the moss-covered ground. A tall, skinny man with long stringy hair held back by a flag bandana and wearing old green and black military garb stood over James with his pistol aimed, apparently taunting him.

“Just know that when you die, part of me will die with you,” the man said, ready to pull the trigger.

An adrenaline rush jolted Terrance. It was a call to action, something similar to when he had stopped to help the beleaguered policemen after a riot nearly ignited in his son's high school in Atlanta. He was no saint or hero, but at that moment, he knew there were only precious seconds left, and he would have no choice but to shoot first and ask questions later, consequences be damned. He double-checked to make sure his 9mm pistol was locked and loaded, then raced out of the bushes and stormed towards Russell and his men.

“Hey!” Terrance shouted, aiming his pistol.

Russell stopped and looked over, momentarily distracted. Without another moment's hesitation, Terrance fired, hitting Russell right in the face. As his cheek exploded into a liquid burst of red, Russell fell to the ground, not even knowing what hit him. Stunned, Eli and Kyle looked down as their leader collapsed at their feet.

Kyle looked up and over to Terrance as he approached with his shooting arm steadied. Their clueless bafflement hindered any immediate reaction. The rifles in their arms remained pointed at the ground. Terrance took advantage of their inaction and quickly pushed on, determined to take them out.

“What the fuck?” Kyle said.

Terrance fired twice, hitting Kyle in the chest both times. The gunshots were startlingly loud, and Terrance tried to steady his shaking hand. He had never fired a gun at anyone before, and the experience was surreal.

Eli snapped out of his initial shock and raised his rifle. His chest burst open before he could even get the barrel in the air. The shot hadn't come from Terrance, however. It came from James. He held his rifle pointed upward, with its barrel smoking, then dropped it onto the ground while hacking up blood. Terrance’s heart beat rapidly—almost too rapidly—as he scanned the woods for other threats. After deciding the coast was clear, Terrance ran to James and fell to his knees in front of his dying friend.

“James! What happened here? Where's Christina?”

James struggled to speak. His face was ghostly pale and sweat was pouring from his forehead. Terrance had never seen a man look so sickly and weak. He noticed the T-shirts wrapped tightly around his chest and the large red stain that was soaking through.

“They're...OK...I think,” James wheezed.

“I need to know,” Terrance said frantically. He tossed his pistol to the ground and held James by his shoulder with both hands. “Where are they?”

“We were ambushed. Long story,” James continued in a frail voice. “I think they got away.” He coughed again, then continued. “They tried to pull me to safety, but couldn't. They tried though.”

Terrance took notice to James's blank, distant stare, as if he was trailing off somewhere beyond. “No! You're not going anywhere. You stay right here with me. I got the van, and we can get you to the hospital.”

James looked up at Terrance and smiled. “It's OK. There's no other place I'd rather be put to rest than out here.” His breathing began to slow as his eyes looked beyond Terrance and into the sky. “Good seeing you, Terrance. Glad you finally made it back.” He coughed a little, then continued. “What the hell took you guys so long?”

Terrance shook him, trying to keep his eyes open. “Come on, James. Let's get you in the van.”

James was fading, his voice beginning to drift. “Cliff...that's my son’s name. Adam and Allie, those are my grandkids. Brianna, that's my daughter-in-law. Valerie, that's my wife.” He stopped and laughed a little. “OK, ex-wife. All such pretty names, and I love them all. Tell 'em I'll see 'em later…”

His breathing slowed to a halt. His eyes dilated and his head tilted to the side. Terrance shook him some more and called out to him—again and again.

He leaned in and took James in his arms, then let him fall back against the tree. Suddenly, he heard footsteps from behind them and grabbed his pistol. He dove to the ground, flat on his back, and aimed ahead. A wave of relief rushed over him when he saw Christina hunched over and walking toward him. The moment her eyes met his, she dropped the pistol and nearly fell to the ground.

“Terrance?” she said in disbelief. “Is that really you?”

His smile stretched from ear to ear, flashing the gap in his front teeth. “Terrance! Oh my God!”

Terrance threw his pistol aside, jumped up, and ran to her with all the strength he had left. As soon as they embraced, he heard Paula's voice cry out to him from behind her mother. Further back were Mark and Janice, stunned to find him standing right in front of them.

Terrance and Christina squeezed each other tightly as she showered his face with kisses. “Where did you come from?” Her eyes filled with tears as Terrance broke away for a moment to embrace Paula.

The group was shaken to the core but happy, too. “I thought you were one of them,” Christina said, nearly crying. “I was ready to shoot you.”

“I didn't know what to think. What the hell happened here?”

Distraught, Janice suddenly pushed her way through the group. “James!” She dropped down next to his lifeless body, not wanting to believe what she was seeing. Mark kneeled next to her. Soon, everyone was gathered around James. Christina saw the three other bodies that lay nearby. Their grotesque open wounds startled her and she pulled Paula aside, blocking her view.

“We need to get you out of here.”

“The van is parked nearby. Tobias and Richie are waiting,” Terrance said.

“You found Richie?”

“Piece of cake,” Terrance said, trying to offer another smile. Their elation at finding each other again was tempered by the sight of James at their feet.

“Go with your mother to the van,” Terrance said to Paula. He led them halfway to where the van was parked, just outside the tree line. “I want you to stay with the children. Mark and I will take care of this.”

“There's two others,” Christina said. Terrance flashed her an inquisitive look. “Two others that I had to shoot. I don't know if anyone else is coming after us. There was this place we went to. We waited and waited for you. And then we had to leave and they followed us, and tried to kill us...”

Terrance placed his hand on Christina's cheek, shushing her. “It's OK. You can tell me everything, but first go see the boys. The adults have work to do here.”

Christina nodded and gave Terrance a hug. She took Paula by the hand and they walked off toward the van. Terrance turned back around and took a deep breath as Mark and Janice stood nearby with their arms around each other.