by Harley Tate
She wasn’t going to be a fish on a hook. She wouldn’t take the bait.
The shotgun blast boomed through the hall, sending a giant, reverberating echo through the building. Madison’s attacker groaned and fell to his knees. Madison fired again. In the flare of the shot, she watched the man’s face explode.
Muffled shouts sounded from down the hall followed by the vibrations of footsteps on the hard floor. A flashlight beam bounced and wobbled closer and closer until her father stuttered to a stop a few feet away.
The light landed on the dead man five feet in front of Madison and then flicked up to her face. She couldn’t see anything but the light.
Chapter Eleven
WALTER
Communications Building, CSU Chico
6:00 p.m.
Madison. Walter moved the flashlight away from her face. Blood spatter pocked her hands and stained her clothes, but it wasn’t the carnage that twisted Walter’s insides.
It was the look in his daughter’s eyes. The cold detachment, a body removed from the mind, stuck in a never-ending loop of horror and static.
She wasn’t supposed to be here in this moment, experiencing this fresh evil. The world should be keeping her safe. I should be keeping her safe.
If anyone should be killing people, it should have been Walter. The man trained to fight and defend and keep his country safe. The man who took an oath to protect and swore to defend. Not a nineteen-year-old girl who a week ago bent over tomato plants in a greenhouse without a care in the world.
Madison should be making friends and falling in love and learning all about the joy and wonder of life. Not standing in a dark hallway staring down at a man she killed.
I failed her.
Walter reached for the gun and pried it out of his daughter’s hands. He remembered her first wobbly steps across the living room in their old house and the first time she said Daddy. The first day of school and first bike ride. First school dance and first date.
Now he could add first kill.
Brianna rushed up to his side, gun tracking the empty hall. “We need to clear the room. If he intended to drag Madison inside, there’s probably more of them.” Her nose wrinkled as the copper tang of death hit her nose. “I knew it was a trap.”
Walter handed Madison’s shotgun to Brianna. “Take this. I’ll clear the room.”
“Do you need—”
He didn’t give the teenager time to finish. No, he didn’t need any help. Not now. Screw holding back. Screw trying to do the right thing. The new world didn’t give a damn whether the innocent lived or died or had to do the unthinkable.
After checking the handgun he carried still held a full magazine, Walter reached for the rifle slung across his back. In tight quarters he preferred the ease of the handgun. Concealment, weapon retention, and lethality with lower risk of penetrating a wall or shooting an innocent bystander.
But now none of that mattered. He would clear this building and kill everything that breathed. The handgun fit snugly inside his waistband and the rifle was wedged securely against his shoulder. One deep breath and he was as ready as he would ever get.
Walter leaned close to his daughter and planted a kiss on her temple. “Don’t worry, honey. Everything is going to be all right.”
He turned to Brianna who waited across the hall in the pale shaft of light from the still-open door. “Stay here until I clear a room, then barricade yourselves in. Don’t come out until you hear my call.”
“A cardinal?”
“That’s the one.”
Brianna closed the distance between herself and Madison, gun ready, eyes alert.
Walter gave her a nod and clicked on the small flashlight he’d taped to the barrel of the rifle.
Three, two, one.
He stepped over the dead body clogging up the entrance to the room and pushed the door wide as he scanned the room. A flutter of movement caught his eye behind an overturned table. Was that a scrap of fabric? The edge of a hat brim?
Didn’t matter.
Pull. Pull. Pull.
Walter fired three rounds into the table. From fifteen feet away, the high-velocity round dug through the wood and spit out the other side like a kid landing a cannonball in the deep end of a pool.
A grunt and a slump and a muffled scream. A hand flopped onto the floor, dangling and dead.
One down.
He tracked the scuffling of another body behind the table. Another casualty whose heart hadn’t stopped yet.
Walter pulled the trigger another three times.
A second one bit the dust. Or, more accurately, the grimy linoleum of a student-run communications building. Give it a few years and the dust would settle, but for now there was more blood and misery than dust.
Blinking to wet his eyes, Walter stepped further into the room. No more movement. Were there only three of them? Why would they broadcast if their ranks were so thin? What did they hope to accomplish?
No. There had to be more somewhere else. That meant Madison and her friends were still in danger. He needed to speed up and eliminate the threat for good.
Walter cleared the room in efficient grace, sweeping every nook and cranny almost like a MARSOC operator on patrol. It wasn’t an air strike with designated targets and bomb drops, but taking out the enemy up close and personal engendered a similar rush.
Adrenaline and fear and pride. War was a perverse enterprise.
He paused to assess the dead. One woman, two men, if he included the one in the entryway. Too old to be college kids. If the brunette with a tattoo snaking over her shoulder and track marks up her arm was the radio star, Mandy Patterson hadn’t seen a college class in years.
Meth or heroin were her star subjects. Not communications, nor broadcasting, nor agriculture.
On some level, Walter had always known the end of the world would give strength to the fringe of society. An addict stood a better chance of surviving and adapting than a normal person.
They were used to hunger and base need. Hustle and manipulation. Doing the hard thing if it got them what they needed.
Had this group already tried to break in to the pharmacy? Were they kept out by the very people Walter took out at the health center?
Walter kicked at the torso of the woman. Her mouth fell open to reveal rotting teeth, half gray and black and reeking of decay. A drug addict’s downfall would be the very thing that kept them alive. Without ready access to dealers and drugs, how long could they last?
The enterprising could learn to make their own. With enough pharmacies and chemicals around, meth could still be produced for a while. When it ran out…
They would perish, but only after wreaking as much havoc as they could. Walter crouched beside the woman and bit back his disgust. At least he would end this.
After searching her for weapons and anything useful, he moved on to the man beside her. Same sullen skin and sunken eye sockets. Same bad teeth and scars from prolonged drug use. Such a waste.
Walter searched him as well, pocketing a lighter but finding nothing else of value. He stood and made his way to the man his daughter killed. The one who almost took his baby away from him.
The one thing he lived for more than anything in this world. He would go to the ends of the earth to protect Madison. He bent beside the body, avoiding the now-congealing pool of blood. Fishing in the man’s pockets, Walter struck gold.
A ring of keys. He held them up, using the flashlight to read the label. Communications Building.
Bingo. With the keys on his belt and his rifle at the ready, Walter walked back out of the room. After checking to make sure Brianna still stood guard over Madison and Tucker, he cleared the next room.
“This room is clear.” He motioned for the kids to follow him. “Stay here. I’ll be back when I know the building is secure.”
Brianna ushered Tucker and Madison inside before turning around. “Do you need any help?”
“No. I need you to stay here.”
&n
bsp; Brianna nodded.
Madison frowned as she sat down in an empty conference chair, her eyes still cloudy and troubled. In the dim light, the blood blended into her face and she looked almost clean. “Be careful, Dad.”
“I will.”
Walter exited the room and waited until he heard the click of the door lock before exhaling. The kids were safe. He could clear the rest of the building without worrying about them.
The rest of the hall went by in a blur with keys and empty rooms and quiet. He shut the door to the outside and turned to face the interior once more. Based on the map he’d passed, there were only a handful of rooms left.
Walter worked in calm precision, his heart slowing to normal levels as it became evident they were alone. At last, he unlocked the broadcast booth and stepped inside.
The stench of death hit him hard and fast and Walter brought his arm up to his face to shield his nose from the smell. Scanning the room with his flashlight, his heart sank as he landed on the source.
A young woman lay in a heap on the floor, half of her head bashed in, dried blood crusting and flaking from her ashen face. Walter stepped forward and bent to read the ID card hanging from a lanyard around her neck.
Mandy Patterson
Junior, CSU, Chico
He swallowed. Madison was right. Mandy was real and they were too late. His daughter wasn’t the only one who took the chance on finding Mandy and her friends alive. Only the people who came to rescue them weren’t their saviors, but their destruction.
Walter stood up and searched the rest of the room, coming up empty. He didn’t know whether the others had escaped or were killed and dumped somewhere else. It didn’t matter now. Whatever chance Mandy had was gone.
At least he’d killed the people who must have been responsible. Walter said a brief prayer and slung his rifle back over his shoulder before bending to pick her up. He would take her somewhere, lay her to rest as best he could, and go back for Madison and her friends.
They couldn’t save Mandy, but maybe, with Tucker’s help, they could find out what the hell was going on in the rest of the world. A single green light glowed on the panel of controls and knobs in the booth.
The label read, Solar Ready.
After all that had happened that day, that one little blip of light gave Walter hope.
Chapter Twelve
MADISON
Communications Building, CSU Chico
7:00 p.m.
Madison wiped her neck, her own blood tightening as it dried on her skin. If they made it out of the communications building alive, she would find a way to take a shower. This blood would come off. It wouldn’t define her.
Brianna eased down into the chair next to her. “Are you all right?”
Madison glanced over at the roommate to whom she’d never given enough credit. “Yeah. How about you?”
“All things considered, I’m all right.”
“But?”
Brianna kicked at a scuff on the floor. “I should be out there helping your dad. He shouldn’t be clearing a building this large on his own.”
“He’s trying to protect you.”
“He should know by now that I’m capable of protecting myself.”
Madison frowned. “Aren’t you scared? Don’t you question what we’re doing and what’s going on out there that we don’t know about?”
Brianna sat the shotgun on the table behind her and turned back around. She smiled at her boyfriend who sat at the other end of the conference table, fiddling with audio equipment he found in the cabinet on the far wall.
At last, she answered. “I haven’t stopped to think about it. I can’t until we make it to the cabin and I talk to my mom and dad.”
Madison remembered the fear and worry that dominated her thoughts before she reunited with her family. To have that linger and stretch on for weeks… It would have driven her mad. That Brianna channeled it all into this commando girl, able to fight and kill and do anything to survive, made sense in a way.
But it still didn’t quell the rising tide within Madison. She reached behind her and picked up the shotgun Brianna discarded on the table. If she looked carefully enough, she could make out the spatter of blood from her first kill.
“Do you regret it?”
Brianna’s question caught her off-guard and she glanced up. “Killing someone? No.”
She turned the gun over in her hands as she tried to put the teeming ocean of her thoughts into words. “My dad thinks I’m an innocent kid, someone who needs protecting. And in a way, I’ve acted like that. Unsure what to do, brave one minute and terrified the next.”
“That’s to be expected. We’re not soldiers, Madison.”
“I know. But that’s not why I froze back there. I shot that man because I had to. If I didn’t he’d have cut my throat.” She reached up to run her fingers once more along the wound at her neck. The bleeding had stopped quickly, but the gash still hurt.
“I froze because in that moment it hit me: this is the best it’s ever going to get. This right here.”
A clang made Madison jump. Tucker eased out of the chair at the end of the table and reached for a metal spring that rolled across the floor. “You can’t think that. This isn’t forever. Humans are resilient. The power loss is only a temporary setback.”
Madison smiled at Tucker’s optimism, but she no longer shared it. “I wish I could believe you. But I can’t. Not anymore. Look at everything that’s happened to us. Wanda is dead. Drew lost his fiancée and is seriously injured. Peyton is still recovering. And we’ve been lucky.”
“I wouldn’t call getting your house burned down lucky.”
Brianna spoke up. “I agree with Tucker. Sure, we could have faced worse, but we’re alive because we’ve been smart and vigilant, not because of luck.”
“Fine. Maybe I haven’t given us enough credit, but still. No one is coming to help us. No one is going to put society back together. Everything is breaking down.” Madison rubbed her shoulder, bruised from the shotgun blast. “We’re never going to be safe again.”
Tucker leaned back in his chair, focusing on the acoustic ceiling panels as he spoke. “I’m not giving up hope. Until we hear from the government or find out what’s going on in the rest of the country, I’ll be optimistic. For all we know, the East Coast has power. The federal government could be mobilizing right now.”
“No way.” Brianna shook her head until a few stray curls sprang free. “We would have heard or seen something.”
“You know how slow the government is to do anything. It could take months for aid to reach us from across the country.” Tucker tucked his shaggy hair behind his ear. “I’m not giving up until we have proof.”
Madison opened her mouth to respond when three short chirps interrupted. “Dad!” She jumped up and rushed to the door, unlocking it and pulling it wide as quickly as possible.
Her father stood in the doorway with an unreadable expression. “The building is clear.” He glanced down at the shotgun still in her hand and frowned. “Are you okay?”
Madison nodded. “Did you find anyone else?”
He stepped into the room, shoulders drooping and aging him a decade in a single breath. “We were too late.”
A block of cement wedged in Madison’s throat.
“Mandy was real?” It was Tucker’s turn to voice the fears they all felt inside.
Madison’s father nodded. “I don’t know if she was with the people who attacked us, but it doesn’t seem likely. She had a CSU Chico ID. The others…” His lips quirked in disgust. “Meth heads, most likely. They won’t be a problem anymore.”
“What about Mandy’s friends? She said on the broadcast there were five of them.”
Her father ran his hand over his head, mussing up the strands. “No sign of them. She could have been lying in an effort to dissuade thugs from finding her. Five college kids are harder to overpower than one. Or they could have fled. I don’t know.”
He raised
his head and met Madison’s stare. “I’m sorry I doubted you, honey. We should have come sooner.”
Madison shook her head. “Don’t apologize. You were right. We shouldn’t have come. It was a mistake.”
“No, it wasn’t.” Her father’s face brightened for the first time since stepping into the room. “Everyone grab your things. I’ve found something.”
Thirty minutes later, Madison, her father, and Brianna all crowded around Tucker as he worked the radio controls. Madison couldn’t begin to understand half of the lingo Tucker spewed out as he flipped switches and pushed buttons, but it didn’t matter if he could turn the radio booth into a receiver.
“You really think this will work?”
“Yes. The antenna on the roof is massive. If I can just figure this out, we should be able to pick up anyone broadcasting on the West Coast. We might reach a whole lot farther. Hold on.”
Tucker rotated a knob and flipped another switch. “I’m betting if anyone is broadcasting, it’s over AM, but we’ll pick up a bunch of interference since the sun has set. And if the effects of the space weather are still in the atmosphere, who knows what we’ll get.”
Madison squinted at the radio. “The sun can disrupt AM radio?”
Tucker nodded without turning around. “AM radio in the United States is all short and medium wave. These types of sound waves travel in a straight line from the broadcast source until they hit the ionosphere, a layer of our atmosphere a few hundred miles above sea level.”
He bent down and fiddled with a cable beneath the controls before popping back up and continuing. “During the day, the ionosphere is full of free electrons from the sun’s rays, and when an AM station is broadcasting, the waves it spits out hit the lower level of the ionosphere and bounce back to the ground.”
Tucker paused to flip another switch. “But at night, the sun isn’t there to ionize the atmosphere, so the lower layers of the ionosphere lose enough free electrons for an AM radio wave to penetrate further. When the electrons higher up in the layer encounter an AM wave, they oscillate at the frequency of the wave.”