A Powerless World | Book 2 | Survive The Lawless

by Hunt, Jack

  Suddenly the gunfire stopped.

  Colby rolled four times across the roof then lifted his head. He figured if someone had a bead on him, he’d have to be damn good at shooting a moving object. It was a risk. It paid off. As he came up, he found both of them gone. An air horn was blasted off to his right, and Corey turned to see Jackson motioning for him to get down and head toward the main entrance. “Move it now!”

  Colby slung his arm around Paul and helped him over to the ledge.

  “I need to go down first. Can you get down by yourself?” Colby asked.

  “I guess I’ll have to.”

  Colby launched himself over and landed hard on the plastic cover of the dumpster. He rolled off and brought up the rifle, scanning from left to right before giving the all-clear.

  Paul tried to use his good arm to lower himself but ended up landing hard on the top and bouncing onto the gravel below. Colby helped him up then had to release him as three guys appeared at the corner across the street and opened fire. He returned fire then pulled back behind the dumpster. It offered protection from them but not from anyone coming from the west.

  Fortunately, they didn’t have to wait for the men to back off, the three of them came under heavy gunfire from two guys outfitted in ballistic vests, helmets, and military fatigues. One of them motioned to him with a hook of the thumb. “Go. Move it!”

  Colby and Paul double-timed it out from behind the dumpster. Colby opened fire on another guy that poked his head up on one of the roofs, sending him back down. As they came running out onto 5th Street, a third guy, young, no older than twenty-five, was holding position near a lamppost. He waved them over and they sprinted to an open door.

  Like a wave pulling back from the shore, the men retreated inside.

  Out of breath, Colby scanned new faces.

  A large fella, the one Paul referred to as Jackson, approached.

  He was pure muscle. His body looked like it had been stitched into his army fatigues. He was carrying an M4 and wearing a black baseball cap.

  “You two have to be delivering one hell of an important message or you’re out of your mind. So which is it?” While he waited for them to catch their breath and answer, he jerked a thumb over his shoulder, and the three young guys headed up a stairwell. He heard boots on the stairs. They were heading out onto the roof, back into the heat of battle.

  “Neither. I was told a woman and dog came here.”

  “Then you were told wrong. It’s just my family and me.” He extended his hand. “Jackson Hartridge, and you are?”

  “Colby Riker.” This time when he said his name, he knew it was true.

  “Welcome to the fight.”

  TWENTY-FOUR

  Alicia

  Merced County

  It had been a hellish couple of days. They were now at a temporary emergency center in the middle of the fairgrounds of Los Banos. Supplies were provided in clear bags. Nothing more than a few animal crackers, roasted peanuts, and an MRE, a beef taco. Everyone got a bottle of water.

  Alicia shared what little food she had with Kane.

  All around her, people were laid out on military-style cots inside white Red Cross tents.

  Families. Singles. Old. Young.

  She emptied the animal crackers on the grass, and Kane made a quick meal of it, wolfing it down in seconds. It seemed ironic that the dog who had caught her was the same one that helped her escape. She’d begun to see why Colby had such a strong attachment to him.

  Colby.

  Alicia felt a lump in her throat.

  She couldn’t even go there in her mind.

  So much had happened since the night of the breakdown.

  While she wasn't harmed, her life had been threatened multiple times, as was Kane’s, especially after he tore into their captors as they dragged Colby away.

  Had she not intervened, that could have bought him a one-way ticket to heaven. It was also because of that dog, that she’d agreed to go quietly. What they had in store for her was unknown but she’d seen the way the other girls were treated — stripped down, made to fill bags with heroin and coke. Some of the feisty among them had drugs injected into their arm to ensure compliance. It was easier to control a doped-up woman than a crazed one. Others, the rowdy and uncompliant, were shot in front of them and dragged out like their lives meant nothing. A few were taken into rooms for some of the armed guards.

  She heard screams.

  Alicia caught on fast.

  However, for her, they had other plans.

  In some ways, she had Delores and Matthew to thank for pulling her out of that hellhole, and then dipping her into another. Until the couple arrived, they’d thrown her in a room with the others, tied Kane to a post, and given him very little food or water. A few of the men even tossed empty cans at him to get the dog riled up.

  For some unknown reason, maybe it had been because she’d stepped in front of him when one of them took out a gun to shoot the dog — Kane had started to listen to her.

  A few times, she’d contemplated using the attack command but with so many armed men around, it would have been too dangerous so she’d waited until they were transferred to Gustine, to that filthy wreckers’ yard.

  Out of the frying pan into the fire. It was terrible.

  Matthew had taken a liking to her. He’d told the guy with the spider tattoo that he could use her, put her to work in Gustine. They’d even agreed to take the dog out of his hair because she said she wouldn’t go without him.

  Upon arrival, the rules were given.

  “Do as we say and you’ll get two meals a day. You will not speak back. You will not argue. You will not look us in the eye.” They had all these rules. Absurd rules. But she’d followed them. Biding her time. Waiting for the right moment. At night they chained her inside an 18-wheeler. By day, they kept her on a close leash like a pet. Kane was placed with the other two dogs, to be used as a guard dog. Though that never happened. With Colby gone, he’d just lay there, unmoving. Refusing to lift his head. Almost begging to be put out of his misery so he could join his master.

  She’d been told in no uncertain words that Colby was dead.

  He was gone, and that was it, and if she continued to ask, or cause trouble, she’d feel the back of his hand. Matthew had already lifted it to her a few times.

  In the day, she worked in the shop with Matthew. Soldering parts, working with components that were meant to get vehicles running again. Get this. Get that. Go here. Go there. She wanted to kick him in the nuts so bad.

  The doors were always locked so even if she could have run, it would have been useless. Escape that, and she would have had Delores or those dogs to contend with. And of course, there was always the threat of killing Kane. “I’ll throw that mutt in the vehicle crusher if you attempt to escape. You want me to do that?”

  So her days were spent memorizing patterns, observing their comings and goings. When they both went out, she was chained. On those few times, she couldn’t have escaped even if she wanted to. They were smarter than that.

  So she waited.

  The day soon came when Delores was away from the yard.

  It was Matthew’s fault.

  Taking a break from his work, he’d taken her back into the trailer for lunch, which he never did, so her mind was going into overdrive thinking of how she could use it to her advantage. The opportunity presented itself when he tried to come on to her.

  “Strip.”

  “What?”

  “You heard me. I want you to give me a lap dance.”

  “Hell no.”

  “I’ll crush that dog. Now do it.”

  She knew he hadn’t locked the door and that to take her clothes off he would need to remove the chain that went from his wrist to hers. Outside all three dogs were off their chains. Though Kane remained in the same spot barely moving — waiting for death to come take him.

  “You hard of hearing?”

  “What about Delores?”

 
; “What she doesn’t know, won’t hurt her. Now get on with it.”

  “I thought we were having lunch.”

  “We are.” He flashed those nasty cigarette-stained teeth as he sat back in a chair waiting for the entertainment to begin. He sipped on a large coffee as she went to remove her outer sweater. “Come on. I don’t have all day. Speed it up.”

  “I can’t with this on.”

  “I guess so.” He pointed at her. “You give me any trouble… and…”

  “You’ll crush the dog. I get it.”

  As he was unlocking her restraint, he got close, breathing on her. His breath stank like an ashtray and shit. His dogs smelled better than him. Alicia held her breath as he turned the key in the lock and her wrist came free. She rubbed the red band on her skin from where the metal had worn away at it, leaving it raw.

  Now whether it was her compliance up to that point or the belief that she would do nothing, he turned his back for just a second, and Alicia pounced.

  She grabbed the chain that dangled by his leg and looped it up over his head.

  It happened so fast.

  One second he thought he was in control.

  The next — she was tightening the noose.

  At least she thought she was.

  He’d managed to bring up both hands and put them between his neck and the chain that she was trying to tighten as she pulled back. A huge man, at least 240 pounds, he pulled at it, drawing her up onto his back. Then he bent at the waist, tossing her over him. Her body landed hard, her foot hit a table, and that’s when the real nightmare began.

  “You’ve done it now,” he said, grabbing a clump of her hair and hauling her up, and throwing her against the side of the trailer. A mirror on the wall cracked, tiny weblike lines fissured out. “I’m gonna kill that dog, and you’re…”

  Before he could spit the words out, she grabbed a lamp on the table and cracked him across the face. His body fell back, releasing her, and she bolted for the door.

  Alicia burst out, her eyes turned to the dogs that leaped into action.

  Kane’s ears went up as if he knew something wasn’t right, something was new, but he didn’t move.

  However, she did.

  “Fire. Brimstone!” Those words rang out in her mind even though Matthew wasn’t saying them. She’d heard it often. The fear she felt when Kane came after her in L.A. was nothing in comparison to that moment. She’d gotten maybe twenty feet before one of them took her down, biting into her arm, while the other grabbed her leg. Their monstrous teeth sank into her skin. She screamed.

  She knew this was it.

  The moment she would die.

  Chewed up by some dogs while Kane looked on.

  Except that’s not what happened.

  She never even gave a command. It was like he acted on instinct. One second the dogs were attacking her, the next fighting off a wild beast that bit their legs. Yelps. Howls. The terrifying sound blended, a horrendous noise as Kane unleashed his fury.

  Alicia scrambled to her feet, glanced at the trailer, and saw Matthew in the window, trudging toward the door. Though her leg was in pain, she burst toward that door with every ounce of strength she had left and slammed it closed, and used the dangling open padlock on the outside to lock him in.

  Matthew cursed, kicking the door.

  “Kane. Let’s go.”

  That dog was smarter than she’d given him credit for.

  He knew when it was time to leave as he released those two dogs and took off after her, as did those beasts, refusing to give up. Though now, she scooped up a tire iron she saw near one of the many vehicles, and used it to hit one of the dogs across the head as it attached itself to the back of Kane. The beast let out a yell and took off.

  The other followed suit when Kane bit it hard on the back of the leg.

  As they sprinted away, howling, she could hear Matthew cursing up a storm, telling her she wouldn’t get far.

  She did. All the way to Los Banos, the one place everyone had been evacuated to.

  “All right. Here you go, boy,” Alicia said, pouring water into a cupped hand so Kane could lap it up. As she was doing that, she looked outside the tent at a new influx of people who’d just arrived.

  One man was getting theatrical.

  “Listen to me. They put these girls to work. They abused them. This is your proof. I’m not making this up. Now they’re in Gustine. A friend of mine has gone there to help.”

  A soldier nodded, amused. “To find some woman or dog?”

  “Yeah.”

  As soon as she heard that, Alicia got up and strolled to the opening of the tent to hear better.

  “All I’m asking is that you take a few officers and soldiers and head over there.”

  “Because you think there’s a war going on?”

  Alicia injected herself into the conversation.

  “Excuse me. Your friend. What did he look like?”

  The guy reeled off a description.

  “What was the dog’s name?” she asked, eager to know.

  The guy looked at her, then the dog near her feet.

  “He didn’t say but he mentioned the woman was called Alicia.”

  “This guy. Was his name Colby Riker?”

  TWENTY-FIVE

  Colby

  Merced County

  Gunshot wounds were unpredictable. Whether someone survived or not had a lot to do with the location, the size of the bullet, and the speed it entered. Bullets were known to bounce around inside a person, entering in one area, and exiting through another if they didn’t hit a bone. This was not one of those times. It was a clean shot going straight through, nothing that applying pressure, stitches, and a dose of antibiotics couldn’t handle.

  However, he still needed a doctor.

  Paul was already going into shock, his skin had become pasty, and he said he felt sick. “We need to close that wound,” Jackson said, making his way around the counter and fishing through some gear in a storage cabinet.

  Outside, gunfire never ended.

  Colby sat beside Paul, his gaze washing over the custom wood cabinetry and racks of rifles lining the walls. Now that darkness had fallen, the inside was illuminated by small hand-crank lanterns. He could see why Bill wanted to get in here. It was a gold mine. Jackson continued to talk as he brought out a military-style medic kit and returned. “You are the first ones that have come to our aid since the cops died. Why?”

  “I told you. I’m looking for someone.”

  “Bite down on this.” Jackson handed Paul what looked like a small leather strap. He placed it between his teeth and grimaced, preparing for more jolts of pain.

  Jackson dropped to a knee and unzipped the pouch, and began taking out different items, bandages, ointment, and so on. “All right, this might hurt,” he said before washing the wound clean by pouring sterilized water all over it. Paul winced. After that, Jackson dried it and used some QuickClot Gauze to stem the bleeding.

  “Gareth! How are we doing?” he said over a radio.

  No answer.

  “Those your kids?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Brave sons,” Colby replied.

  “Thank you. Two were getting ready to go into the military, the other helped here at the store until this happened.” Jackson bundled up the bandages. “Okay, I need you to apply some pressure to this. Then we’ll get you to a hospital.”

  “The nearest one is Los Banos. Gustine isn’t in use,” Paul said.

  “Los Banos? That’s twenty miles away. Newman is only five.”

  “They evacuated everyone to Los Banos,” Colby added. “You’d be taking a risk to go to Newman. If it’s the same as here which I imagine it is — you’re looking at ten miles plus an additional twenty if you have to double back.”

  “Evacuated. And this was verified by who?”

  They both stared at him, confused. “When did you last leave the store?” Paul asked.

  “The day of the event.”

&
nbsp; “You’re telling me you’ve been stuck in here for almost two weeks?”

  “About that. Where else would we go? I figured it would be dealt with within the week, and then with those attacks on the cops and this place, I had to stay. This is my livelihood. This is our life.”

  “And you haven’t heard anything?” Colby asked.

  “I haven’t had time. In the first five to eight days, there was no talk of an evacuation. I was just making sure no one looted this place. Then these assholes showed up, and I’ve been holding them at bay ever since.”

  “And food and water?

  “We sell MRE’s, and we had bottled water in the basement. Always be prepared,” he said with a wink.

  Several rounds took out more glass. There wasn’t much left. The main windows had steel shutters, but the front door was just glass with a metal crating covering it. The glass was all but gone.

  “What happened to the other gun store across the street?” Colby asked.

  “It was small. They removed their stock after the first week.”

  “That’s smart.”

  “No, that’s called going out of business,” Jackson said.

  Colby listened as Paul and Jackson swapped stories of what they’d seen and heard. The town hadn’t immediately fallen. Though like any tiny community that only had a dozen cops, how long they lasted depended on many things. Where another town might go two weeks, a month, or even six months without trouble under these circumstances, there would be many that would fall within days simply because of a lack of support, supplies, and law enforcement.

  Outside, gunfire continued a steady exchange that had been happening around the clock. It was constant pressure. An attempt to wear them down, catch them off guard. They were determined. It wasn’t working. Jackson was sharp.

  Colby patted Paul’s good shoulder. “You good here?”

  “Yeah,” Paul said.

  “I’m going up. See if there’s anything I can do to help.”

  “Tell my son Gareth to turn up the volume on his radio,” Jackson said.