The Power Struggle Series (Book 2): The Downward Spiral

by Douglas, Brian

  The man aimed the rifle at the section of drywall that had just exploded and he added a few holes of his own as he wildly emptied the tube fed magazine on the plinker. When he was out, he laid back and let the gun drop on the floor beside him. He had been low on ammunition for a couple of weeks, which was why they had to stop shooting their victims and mainly used the gun for intimidation. When they invaded most homes now, they simply bludgeoned their victims with bats and pipes before cutting their throats. This had been the fate of the two most recent elderly victims.

  Behind him, his two partners panicked at the sight of their leader going down. One dropped the bat he was carrying and ran over to him as if to help, but then reached down and grabbed the rifle instead. He watched as the two men left him behind and ran for the front door to save themselves and escape the chaos that was unfolding inside the house. There truly was no honor among thieves.

  When his small group of marauders visited the neighborhood earlier in the day, most of the residents that were still around appeared to be pushovers, including the couple lying on the floor with him. All except the pesky people next door. It was always easier to just avoid the homes that were more likely to fight back. In the past, they had been successful by following that protocol. Their luck had finally run out though.

  When he heard the shooting inside, Alex knew he couldn’t enter the home, lest he get hit in the crossfire. He quietly hoped that it was Erik drawing first blood. He heard the subsequent bursts of gunfire, so he knew it was an active firefight and just held his position behind the brick wall.

  A minute after the third series of shots, he was startled to see two men come rushing out the front door. He could clearly see that at least one of the men had a rifle.

  “Freeze,” Alex shouted, surprising the men.

  The one with the rifle pointed it in Alex’s direction, not realizing it was out of ammunition. He pulled the trigger and at the same time Alex fired a load of buckshot from the Mossberg that peppered the man’s upper body and face. Some of the shot also destroyed the wooden stock on the rifle, which splintered and flew from his hands. Alex quickly pumped the action and fired at the second man, hitting him lower in his stomach. In the heat of the moment, he thought that the pipe might be another gun.

  Alex held his position and waited for a moment, before approaching the front door cautiously. He quickly peeked inside and saw bodies on the floor in the darkness, but he could not identify them from his position in the doorway. His ears were still ringing from his shotgun blasts, but he started to hear the low groans of the man lying in pain in the living room.

  “Erik you in there?” Alex shouted.

  “Alex?” Erik replied “I’m here in the kitchen. Not sure if the house is clear. I don’t know how many were in here.”

  “The house isn’t clear you rotten fucks!” Shouted the now deposed marauder trying to bluff his way out of the situation. “I’m in here with a big fucking gun and I’m ready for war!”

  Alex heard the taunts and knew that the man was somewhere in the living room. He did not know the layout of the inside, but assumed that the back door led to the kitchen, like with Erik’s home, since they appeared to be a similar style. If Erik was in the kitchen, they likely had the man trapped, but one of them was going to have to make a move to end the standoff. He wished that Erik had taken his radio with him, so they could take advantage of their ability to communicate without yelling back and forth.

  Alex decided that he would move in and decided it was best to do so with his pistol, since the buckshot from the shotgun would increase the chances of Erik getting hit in the crossfire. He could also make use of his flashlight to clear the room. He flipped the safety on the shotgun and leaned it against the house behind some bushes by the front door. He then drew his 9mm from the holster and pulled out his flashlight.

  When Alex had taken his first peek, he saw that there was a couch near the door, so he decided that was better cover than nothing and planned to head directly for it when he entered the house. He turned on the flashlight and made his move, sweeping left to right with his pistol as he entered the living room. Alex immediately counted three bodies and saw that one of them, a rough looking man, was still moving, but had no weapons that he could see. Alex could clearly see that the man did not belong. He had wet and dirty clothing and looked like he had just come in off the street on the stormy night, while the elderly couple looked exactly like one would expect the old couple next door to look like.

  Alex pointed his pistol at the man and called to Erik.

  “I’ve got one alive in the living room, Erik, and two more dead in the front yard.”

  “Serves them right! Those two timing yellow bellied fucks!” The injured man said gruffly.

  “I’m coming out!” Erik called back from the kitchen.

  The two friends had a brief moment to greet each other with head nods before Erik went to clear the two bedrooms down the hall from the living room. Then he returned to the kitchen, opened the basement door and peered down into the darkness, but decided not to bother going down. The door was closed when he entered the kitchen, so he assumed no one had gone down and he didn’t want to waste any more time in the home than necessary.

  Soon Alex and Erik were standing over the wretched marauder trying to decide his fate. He was unarmed, so neither man felt comfortable executing him for his crimes, although swift frontier justice would have been well within their right to carry out. His gunshot wound was serious enough that he could possibly die anyway, if they left him, which was what they decided to do, since they did not have time to stand around and weigh their options.

  “They would have given you the clothes off of their backs, if you asked,” Erik said to the man as he and Alex turned to leave the home.

  “And that’s why they’re dead,” the man said spitefully as he laid back and briefly burst into a maniacal laugh. When his fit of laughter ended, he added, “You’re dead too, you just don’t know it yet!”

  Rather than continue with the banter, Alex and Erik decided to leave, lest the man taunt them into making a different choice that they might later regret. A minute later, Alex and Erik were gone and the man was left to suffer the consequences of his actions alone in the darkness.

  CHAPTER 8

  Alex retrieved his bike and re-holstered the shotgun in the scabbard, before turning to wheel the bike the rest of the way up the hill to Erik’s house.

  “This thing is going to need a detailed cleaning and lube job, when I get home,” Alex said to himself. The shotgun was all wet and had collected some mud and dirt from his climb up the hill and leaving it outside in the bushes.

  When he reached the front of Erik’s house, he leaned the bike against the side of the house next to the garage and Emma opened the door for him. Nina ran out to greet him with a friendly sniff and he returned the greeting by scratching behind her ears.

  “Sam’s still asleep,” Emma said as Alex entered the home. “I’ll get her up when we are ready to leave.”

  Alex went to the garage where Erik had all of the gear that he wanted to take with him. There were a few backpacks lying on the floor. Two large internal frame hiking backpacks and a smaller backpack that a school aged child might use. Erik and Emma’s mountain bikes were parked by the garage door and a trailer was attached to Erik’s bike. It was overloaded with more gear than the manufacturer had intended for it to comfortably carry, but it seemed like Erik had packed it well and it looked stable enough for the short trip to his house.

  “You got the kitchen sink in here somewhere? I’d like to wash my hands,” Alex joked as he checked the gear in the cart for stability.

  “It sucks leaving so much behind,” Erik said. “I locked a bunch of supplies in the gun safe and covered the safe with some plywood as a way of disguising it a bit in the basement. Just in case I can ever get back here and by some miracle the place isn’t completely stripped clean.”

  “Yeah, I don’t know how you prioritized the
stuff you are taking,” Alex said, knowing that if he had to do the same, he would have a difficult time deciding what to leave behind. He could see a few long bags strapped to the top of the pile on the cart, which he assumed were carrying firearms. Erik had a small collection of rifles and pistols and Alex knew he wouldn’t leave any of them behind. He could also see a few .50 caliber ammo cans next to a set of six buckets with everything else piled on top of them in the cart. Prior to the EMP, Erik and Alex had shared their disaster preparedness ideas with each other, so their plans were nearly identical, including the fact that the main food source that they stored was rice and beans, vacuum sealed in mylar bags inside 5 gallon sized food grade buckets.

  “I basically packed the guns, ammo and a few months’ worth of food in the cart. I also packed some of the solar gear and all of the two way radios. I’m only taking the smaller solar panels; no way I can take the bigger ones.”

  “I think we’ll be good with the stuff you packed,” Alex said. “My solar gear has been doing fine keeping the flashlights and radios charged up, so as long as your gear can keep up with the stuff you need to power, we’ll make due. Either way, it will be good having a second system, even a small one, as a backup. You know what I always say...”

  “I know, I know,” Erik said, rolling his eyes. “Something is better than nothing, but two of something is always better than one.” Preppers always liked redundancy and typically had backups to their backups out of an abundance of caution in case of an emergency situation.

  “It sounds like a fortune cookie, when you say it like that,” Alex said, before Erik continued with his rundown of the gear.

  “The backpacks are mainly clothes and other essentials. Sam’s backpack has a couple of her stuffed animals.”

  “Speaking of Samantha,” Alex said. “Is she going to ride her bike?” The thought seemed kind of ridiculous to have a 7 year old riding a little bike with rainbow colored tassels hanging off the handlebars during their evacuation.

  “Erik smiled and removed Emma’s rain jacket from the seat of her bike and revealed a funny looking banana seat that was more typical of an older style kid’s bike. The seat looked out of place on the mountain bike.

  “Those bikes are fresh out of a bugout fantasy!” Alex said laughing. “Where did you find that seat?”

  “Got it from Amazon with free shipping,” Erik replied.

  “You jerk, you’ve been holding out. Don’t you think I would want one of those for my bike?”

  “I figured you’d just be an ass like usual and make fun of it, if I told you about it,” Erik said.

  “Well you’d be right about that. But it was still a good idea. Jerk.”

  “Thanks,” Erik said. “Now let’s get out of here. We’re leaving a lot later than I expected and I don’t want to get caught out there after the sun comes up.”

  Erik went to get Emma and Samantha ready, leaving Alex behind with the gear in the garage. Nina patiently waited by his side, so he reached down to pet her again.

  “How about a quick prayer?” Alex said out loud, as if Nina would offer her feedback. Alex bowed his head and said a silent prayer for the Walker family and himself, that they would make it back home safely. When he finished his prayer, Alex reached down and scratched Nina behind the ears again. “Now let’s get this show on the road,” he said. “I’ve got a nice Doberman friend to introduce you to.”

  Ten minutes later the Walkers were ready to leave their home behind. Erik and Emma reflected on the family memories that the home represented and it was a difficult decision for them to abandon the place. They knew it was for the best, though, so their moment of quietly grieving the loss was short lived. Erik and Emma took some consolation in the fact that they were joining a community that would hopefully offer them a safer place to live, with more opportunities for social interaction than they had barricaded in their home for the past month. They were particularly happy that Samantha would finally have other children her age to play with, something she had not been able to do, since the EMP attack.

  “Let’s walk the bikes down the hill,” Erik suggested. “I’m carrying too much weight and I don’t want to crash this thing a few yards from my doorstep and end our trip prematurely.”

  “That’s a good idea,” Emma agreed. “I’ve only ridden this thing on flat ground with Sam on the back.”

  Samantha looked exhausted and appeared to be sleepwalking as they stepped out into the darkness. The rain had finally stopped, which would make for an easier ride, but Alex worried that any noise that they would make with the bikes could alert others to their presence without the rain naturally masking the sounds.

  The group would clearly stand out, if anyone was awake to see them. With all the gear they were carrying, they would become an easy target, since they could not move as quickly on the bikes due to the weight of the gear that they were carrying. Alex and Erik were armed and prepared to do battle with anyone who crossed their paths. However, the last thing they wanted was to have to defend their little caravan and jeopardize Emma and Samantha’s safety. Besides, they had reason to worry that any gunshots might draw more attention their way and turn the place into a Mogadishu like warzone.

  When the group reached the bottom of the hill, they mounted their bikes and pedaled away. Each of them were acutely aware of the extra weight they were carrying and they kept a slow pace, more out of necessity than choice. Erik alone was pulling a few hundred pounds in the cart, but he also had a large backpack on as well. His custom AR15 hung from a single point sling to make it easier to access in an emergency, however his pedaling motion caused it to swing and occasionally tap the bike frame, making noise. He considered removing it altogether and stowing it in the cart, since he was also carrying his M&P pistol that was nearly identical to Alex’s with the exception that Erik’s slide was a bit longer for competition shooting. He decided against stowing the AR and just had to work on pedaling in an awkward manner to keep the rifle from hitting the frame.

  Emma seemed to be doing well with Samantha holding on to her waist from the back part of the banana seat. Riding this way Emma didn’t carry a backpack, but Samantha carried her small pack of stuffed animals. This didn’t add much weight to their bike, so Emma easily pedaled along. Faithful Nina trotted alongside them, as if she knew that her primary job was to keep them safe during their short journey.

  Alex was glad that he rigged the shotgun scabbard on his bike, because he didn’t have to worry about it being out of reach or getting in the way, while he rode. However the backpack he carried made for an awkward ride. Even though Erik was carrying more weight, his cart helped him to maintain some balance, while Alex struggled a bit with the backpack shifting side to side on him.

  Their progress was slow and they began to worry that they wouldn’t make it to the Oak Tree Lane neighborhood before sunrise. Since there was so much desolation that Alex passed along the way, he hoped that it also meant there were fewer people around to potentially run into. Either way, he just wanted to get the Walker family to their new home without incident.

  The sky in the east was already starting to change as the group neared the bridge, where Alex had previously seen the pile of bodies. He didn’t want to repeat the experience, so he slowed and pulled alongside Erik and suggested the detour route.

  “It’s quicker if we just go straight, though,” Erik said, wondering why Alex would pick the slightly slower route.

  “There’s some bad stuff up ahead,” Alex said quietly, hoping that Samantha couldn’t hear. “I don’t want Emma and Sam to see it.”

  “Ok, lead the way,” Erik said trusting his friend’s choice and feeling grateful to him for trying to shield his family from the horrors of their new world. He knew it was impossible to insulate them from everything, but whenever he had some control over what they had to be exposed to, he wanted to be able to do what he could to preserve their psyche.

  The group turned left at the intersection just before the bridge and followe
d Alex as he led them to a much more narrow side street. When they rounded a second corner, their progress was abruptly halted by a barricade, which had been deliberately set up using stalled cars that were pushed into place, creating a wall that extended from a home on one corner to a home directly across the street. Further past this obstacle, the group could see another such wall of cars at the next intersection. There was no clear way to get through, throwing a wrench into their plans.

  “What do we do now?” Erik asked.

  “We can either go back and take the main route or we can skip this street and keep going further west before we try to head north again.”

  “I think we should just take the main route, we’re running out of time,” Erik said with an air of frustration as he looked to the sky as it continued to grow lighter out.

  Alex and Erik were unaware that there was a man sleeping in one of the cars that created the obstruction. The man stirred, when he heard them talking and Nina promptly barked in response to the movement.

  At that moment, the man fumbled with trying to get out of the car to confront them. Erik saw the movement and raised his rifle in the direction of the man, who was on the opposite side of the barrier. The car blocked Erik’s view of the man’s hands, so he was not sure if he was armed or not. The two men locked eyes for a moment and then Erik got his answer as the man tried to raise a rifle. He did not finish the movement before Erik shot him, hitting the man once in the shoulder. The man fell down out of sight behind the car, but he didn’t stay down for long and he jumped up without his weapon and sprinted towards one of the nearby houses, shouting “INTRUDERS!” Erik did not fire again, but kept his rifle trained in the direction of the house.

  “We need to go now!” Alex said frantically, not wanting to wait for anyone else to show up and see the direction they went. He led the group west, rather than returning the way they came, as Erik had suggested.