THE ALEX FLETCHER BOXSET: Books 1-5

by Steven Konkoly

  Keeping his rifle pointed forward, he shuffled along the front of the building, his damp, mud-lined pants grinding away at his inner thighs. He arrived at the entrance, scanning the street for any onlookers, then stepped through one of the missing windowpanes. The lobby was empty. The couches and tables he remembered were gone, replaced by a mud-streaked tile hall. He activated the IR designator and probed the room with the green laser, walking steadily toward the escalator bank.

  He moved slowly and deliberately up the escalator, watching for signs of an ambush. A head peeking around a corner. A carelessly exposed rifle barrel. The slow movement and concentration triggered a cascade of fatigue. His legs felt heavy and sluggish, barely clearing the lip of each metal stair. He reached the top and crouched in the escalator, contemplating the P-STIM tablets given to him by the corpsman. Eventually, he’d have to pop these. He was approaching forty-eight hours with minimal sleep, which he knew from experience was the “hazy point.” He’d start making poor decisions, unaware of the consequences. Without anyone to second-guess him, one of those decisions would kill him.

  Alex caught himself staring blankly at the grooved metal stair in front of his face. He rubbed his eyes and peered around the metal balustrade, surprised to find the student union area completely abandoned. Once again, the furniture had been stripped, leaving nothing but scattered papers and broken glass strewn across dirty tile. Maybe the students had barricaded themselves on the upper levels, using the furniture to block the entrances. He hoped not. He was too tired to fuck around with obstacles.

  He jogged across the empty student lounge, searching for the central hallway spanning all three towers. Thick streaks of mud swerved out of the hallway into the empty elevator lobby, ending at a door marked “stairs.”

  By the time Alex read the sign “Sixth Floor,” he couldn’t hear his own thoughts over his heartbeat. Fighting every instinct to yank the door open and run to room 622, he put his back against the wall next to the door and tried to steady his breathing. Once his breathing hit a slow, rhythmic pattern, Alex pushed down on the door handle and tried to nudge the door inward. It didn’t move.

  He leaned into the metal door with his left shoulder and gave it a hard push, shifting the fire door a few inches.

  “Someone’s trying to get in,” a voice hissed.

  “Stab him in the face!” yelled a woman.

  “Just shut the fucking door!”

  Alex pulled a rifle magazine out of his vest and wedged it through the opening at the bottom.

  “I’m trying! It’s jammed. Can you see who it is?”

  “I don’t see anyone.”

  “I’m here to find my son!” yelled Alex.

  “What did he say?” said the female.

  “I don’t fucking care! Shine a light, and see what’s blocking the door!” said the male.

  “My son is in room six twenty-two. Ryan Fletcher. I’m here to bring him home!” added Alex, flipping up his NVGs to avoid being blinded.

  “Does anyone know Ryan Fletcher?” said the female.

  More voices joined them in the hallway, and several flashlights shined through the crack in the door.

  “He’s got it jammed at the bottom with—fuck, get away from the door! It’s a machine-gun mag,” said someone.

  “Isn’t there a roster or something? Ryan Fletcher lives in room six twenty-two. He’s my son. Doesn’t anyone know him?” said Alex.

  A hand fumbled with the rifle magazine at the bottom of the door, and Alex stuck his foot against it, pinning it in place.

  “Someone stab his foot!”

  Alex backed up in the tight stairwell and front-kicked the handle side of the door, driving it back several inches. Screams erupted inside the hallway. He hit the door again, opening a two-foot gap.

  “He has a gun!”

  Alex triggered his rifle flashlight, scattering the students. One of the large couches from the downstairs lobby sat against the wall, several feet down, covered by a sleeping bag and pillow. He squeezed through and pulled the door shut, directing the light into a tangle of wooden chairs pushed against the wall. A male student in jeans and a mud-stained yellow polo shirt lay curled up under the chairs, shielding his eyes with one hand. The other arm was trapped under the chairs and looked hyperextended at the elbow. Possibly broken.

  “Dude. Is this a rescue?” said the kid, lowering his hand slightly. “Are you, like, Special Forces or something?”

  “I’m not Special Forces or the military. Where’s room six twenty-two?”

  “Six twenty-two is locked,” he said. “It’s the only one we couldn’t get into.”

  “Where is it?” he said.

  “Around the corner. At the end of the hallway. You’re not with the military?” he said.

  “How many times do I have to tell you? My son lives on this floor,” he said, stepping over him.

  Alex flashed his light around the corner, seeing the door to six twenty-two directly ahead. Everything was starting to look familiar again. He knocked first, calling out his son’s name and tried the handle. Nothing stirred beyond the door. More students wandered into the hallway, muttering about the military.

  “Does anyone have a spare key?” said Alex.

  “The RAs took off when the bomb hit. We searched their rooms, but didn’t find any,” said a boy from the dark.

  “He kind of disappeared,” said another kid.

  “What do you mean?” Alex asked.

  Someone muttered, “I wouldn’t say any more.”

  “You want to see my driver’s license?”

  “That would be a start,” said one of the girls.

  “Shouldn’t all of you be hiding in your rooms? I am still holding a rifle, right?”

  “Nobody’s come up here with a specific name before. You might be legit.”

  “Might be legit?” said Alex. “Strong SAT scores apparently don’t translate into strong survival instinct.”

  Alex removed a red chemlight from his vest and snapped it, throwing it to the floor. A crimson glow illuminated the weary students. He shook his head and opened a small pouch on his vest, tossing his identification at the young woman who appeared to be in charge.

  “He’s totally military. Look at the gear,” uttered a voice.

  “Ex-military,” said Alex.

  “He could be a merc. Paid to rescue whoever that kid is.”

  “You guys play way too much Call of Duty,” said Alex, pounding on the door while several students examined his license with flashlights.

  “He checks out—for now,” said the girl, handing his license back.

  “Thanks for the endorsement. So where’s my son if he isn’t here? Can I get the young man who spoke up earlier?” said Alex, knocking on the door again.

  “I remember seeing him here late Sunday night. Around eleven maybe? A bunch of us were hanging out in the hall, and he came by. Said something about a girlfriend at Boston College. He was gone after the blast.”

  “I saw him heading for the far stairwell right after the shockwave hit. He had a backpack and some kind of bucket,” volunteered another student.

  Alex knew exactly where to find his son.

  “Is there a second lock on these doors, maybe above the handle?” said Alex.

  “No. Just the handle” said someone.

  Alex kicked the door, causing everyone to back away a few steps. The door didn’t budge.

  “You should shoot the door,” stated one of the kids.

  “Good idea. Clear the hallway!” he yelled, pointing the rifle at the door and activating the visible red laser.

  While the students broke into pandemonium, tripping over each other to get clear, Alex steadied the laser and fired three bullets into the space between the handle and the doorjamb. The hallway fell deathly silent after the last shot, everyone frozen in place.

  “Holy shit. Did he really just shoot the door?” said a kid on the ground to his left.

  “He totally shot the door! Dude, yo
ur silencer doesn’t work for shit!” yelled a student hidden in one of the rooms.

  Alex kicked the door, knocking it against the interior wall. He took a step and stopped. The room smelled like Ryan. Like their home. Alex deactivated the Surefire light and stood there, remembering everything the way it had been—before. He felt like a distorted time-traveller. The past forty-eight hours expanding over eternity.

  “You need this?” said a young woman, holding out his red chemlight.

  “Thanks,” he mumbled.

  “Is everything okay? You don’t look…the same,” she said.

  “I’m fine,” said Alex, walking forward.

  He swept the Spartan interior with his rifle light. A crumpled blue comforter hung off Ryan’s bed, draping the tile floor. An empty plastic bin lay tipped over on the bed. Most of the cardboard boxes stacked on the floor were unopened, his priorities upon arrival clearly focused on a young lady at Boston College. A few books and pictures covered his desk. One picture of the Fletchers and—Ed was going to love this—several pictures of Chloe. He couldn’t believe how badly they had underestimated that relationship. He threw the chemlight next to the bin on Ryan’s bed and deactivated the rifle light.

  Alex sat on Ryan’s bed and leaned back against the cinderblock wall, wondering if he could take a small nap. Just the thought of closing his eyes for a few moments caused him to sink down the rough wall to the mattress. He dug into his front pants pocket and pulled out a dark tab, ejecting a small pill directly through the foil into his mouth. Designed to release its contents upon contact with saliva, he held the P-STIM under his tongue for thirty seconds, kick-starting the amphetamine boost. It worked immediately.

  He lay there calculating the time it would take him to reach Chloe’s apartment, no longer contemplating sleep. Moving cautiously, a 3.1-mile walk through the back streets of Brookline shouldn’t take him more than an hour and a half. Two at the most. His watch read 2:37.

  Plenty of time.

  He took the family picture from the desk and removed the picture from the silver frame, straining to see the image in the dim red aura. He knew it well enough. The four of them in cushioned wicker chairs, on the wide porch at the Chebeague Island Inn. He stared at the picture, unable to put it away.

  “Nobody’s coming for us?” said a girl standing in the doorway. “You’re really just someone’s dad?”

  The gravity of the situation came into sharp focus, weakening his knees. He’d been so single-minded kicking his way into their lives that he hadn’t stopped to consider their predicament. The kids were stranded, waiting for a rescue that would never arrive. He folded the picture and tucked it into the pouch holding his license.

  “You need to seriously consider leaving this place,” said Alex, brushing past her.

  “And go where? What happened out there?” she said.

  Alex stopped outside of Ryan’s room and glanced around the hallway at the flashlight-illuminated faces. They were just children. He swallowed hard, barely able to meet their stares. How many had shown up for early orientation? Hundreds? Thousands? His thoughts drifted to the parents experiencing the ultimate nightmare just days after sending their babies into the world. They’d said goodbye this weekend, unaware that some of them would never see their children again. The odds were long against most of these students surviving. Without food and water, they would have to venture into the city.

  “What’s going on in the city? What’s wrong with you?” she demanded.

  “Nothing,” he said flatly. “Has anyone here been outside of the towers? I mean outside of the building?”

  “We didn’t think it was a good idea. The shooting started yesterday afternoon and got worse all night. That’s why we blockaded the stairwells. We figured we’d wait for the military or police to start evacuating us,” she said.

  “Taking their sweet-ass time, too,” said a kid holding a baseball bat over his shoulder.

  “You guys don’t know, do you? Holy shit,” he whispered.

  “Know what? What don’t we know?” said the young woman, directing her flashlight in his face.

  “The power outage isn’t confined to Boston. It’s everywhere. We’ve been hit by an EMP,” said Alex, pausing. “Nobody is coming for you.”

  ****

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  Go back to Contents

  Turn the page to read Book 3 in the Alex Fletcher Series:

  Event Horizon

  Event

  Horizon

  Alex Fletcher Book Three

  “Event Horizon”

  In relativity theory, an event horizon is a boundary in space/time, beyond which events cannot affect an outside observer.

  In layman's terms, it is defined as "the point of no return."

  PART I

  “FREEDOM TRAIL”

  Chapter 1

  EVENT +46:45 Hours

  Boston University

  Boston, Massachusetts

  Alex Fletcher sat against one of the interior walls of the elevator lobby and dug through his front cargo pocket. He retrieved the magazine he had ejected after shooting up the truck and thumbed four rounds into the palm of his hand. He tucked the half-emptied magazine into a “dump” pouch attached to the left side of his tactical vest and ejected the magazine in his rifle, adding the four rounds. Marines consolidated ammunition whenever practical, and he had a few minutes to burn before stepping off for Brookline—without his new entourage. The magazine slammed home in the HK416, and he stood up to prepare for his impending departure.

  “You can’t just leave us here,” said one of the students, standing in the semi-circle formed around Alex.

  “You’re not exactly equipped to survive on the streets.”

  “We don’t have much of a choice. You said it yourself,” said another student. “Nobody is coming for us. We’re running low on food and water.”

  “It’s not like I’m meeting my son at Denny’s for a Grand Slam breakfast before heading north,” said Alex, adjusting the straps on his backpack and checking for loose gear.

  “What’s a Denny’s?” said a petite brunette sitting in front of him.

  “You really don’t know what Denny’s is?”

  She shrugged.

  “How much water do you have?” said Alex.

  “Each of us has a few water bottles, and we still have, like, how many trash cans filled?”

  “Four. Some guy went around telling everyone to fill up containers right after the shockwave hit. It’s the only reason we’ve been able to keep a low profile. We haven’t left the floor,” said Piper, the young woman in charge.

  “Your son told me to do that. I saw him right before he left,” said a dark-haired girl, stepping forward into the red glow of the chemlight. “He seemed to know what he was doing. Like you. You have to get us out of here.”

  “I can’t take any of you out of this building. It’s not safe. They’re actively looking for me. The best I can do is let the marines know about your situation.”

  “Who’s looking for you?” said the leader.

  “I was hoping one of you could answer that question. A heavily armed, organized group appears to be in control of the streets. Any intel on who might be calling the shots out there?”

  “It looked like gangs last night,” said a pale kid to Alex’s left.

  “What do you know about gangs?” said the student with the bat.

  “I’m West Coast. We have gangs all over the place.”

  “Not where you’re from.”

  “I’m from LA, man. Ever heard of the Crips and the Bloods?”

  “Dude, that’s from fucking twenty years ag—”

  “Bullshit! It’s still the biggest gang in—”

  “Shut the fuck up! All of you! You’re at Boston University. The tuition is nearly sixty thousand a year. Nobody here has any street cred, all right? Just tell me what you
saw,” said Alex, cutting them all off.

  “They were rough-looking dudes, mostly Caucasian. Armed with pistols and some hunting rifles,” said the kid from LA.

  “That changed today. There’s been a ton of shooting. Men—and women— running around with rifles like yours, but without all of the fancy optics stuff. They looked more like regular people, you know? I saw a pickup truck go by with a couple of them in the bed. It looked like a citizen’s militia,” said a student holding a baseball bat.

  “That might be a good thing. If it’s a legitimate militia, you should be safe out there,” said Alex.

  “Why is it safe for us and not for you?” asked the leader.

  “I’m pretty sure they think I’m one of the marines. I swam across the river from one of the marines’ outposts on the other side.”

  “You swam across the Charles at night, with all of this gear?”

  “I told you he was a mercenary,” said someone.

  “Believe whatever you want. I don’t really give a shit. I’m leaving, and nobody is following. I’ll leave a water filter behind for you. It’s a hand-pumped type, good for five hundred gallons. You can catch rainwater in the trashcans or fetch water from the river. Whatever you do, don’t let anyone see it, or you’ll have a fight on your hands.”

  “So that’s it?” said Piper.

  He wished he could do more for them, but beyond the water filter, he had nothing to offer. The idea of leading them on some kind of predawn parade through the streets of war-torn Boston was absurd. The fact that none of the students seemed to understand this reality made it even more ludicrous. Most of them were still wearing shorts and T-shirts, in a building that could collapse or catch fire at any moment. They were clueless.