Z-Day (Book 3): A Place For War

by Humphreys, Daniel

  On her tiptoes, Molly could get her nose over the bottom edge of the window and look out into the front yard. “It sounds familiar, that way. My grandma and I used to go to church. More before my grandpa died. She picked up more shifts at the diner, after that.”

  Anne was behind her, but she thought she could detect a hint of sadness in the other woman’s voice. “It’s good to have something larger than yourself. Especially in times like these.”

  She considered that in silence before replying. That sort of philosophy made sense, especially in comparison to losing your mind to hysteria, but she herself didn’t have the foundation of faith that Anne Metz seemed to. That bore later consideration.

  If she got the opportunity, of course.

  Anne whispered, either to keep from bothering the sleeping toddler or to reduce the tension. “Do you see anything?”

  “No,” Molly whispered back. She scanned the narrow section of the front of the house the window defined, then moved a few steps down to the next one in line. “Maybe—headlights?”

  The growing glow was visible to the south, the opposite direction from which she and Hatcher had found the Metz house. Molly held her breath, then let it out in a desperate sigh as the lights grew close enough to make out more detail.

  There were three sets of headlights, spaced far enough apart that it soon became obvious that they belonged to a trio of Hummers. There was no way to be certain if the vehicles were the same ones as before, but that seemed to be the most reasonable guess.

  The first vehicle zoomed by, then cut into a weed-choked part of the field across the road from the farmhouse. The driver spun the wheel and put the truck in a tight loop to bring the headlights to bear on the front of the house. The middle vehicle stopped in the center of the road, and the last in line stopped an angle to shine its own headlights on the house at the same angle, forming a rough triangle.

  The cellar lightened dramatically, to the point that Molly slid over to one side of the window, looking out with just one eye exposed and her nose below the sill.

  Connelly, the contractor who’d done most of the talking before, stepped out of the middle Hummer. His hands were empty, but Molly was certain that there were more than a few guns in the hands of the other men, though the headlights reduced them to mere silhouettes.

  The window muffled his shout, but the words were still understandable. “Hey, old-timer, you awake?”

  The ceiling above her creaked a bit as Dave shifted, pulling the front door open. “I’m here.”

  “We had some issues with one of your neighbors. We were running low on a few things and decided to go shopping. He kicked up a fuss, got into a bit of a scrap with the boys and I. You wouldn’t know anything about that, would you?”

  “Heard the gunfire,” Dave said. “Assumed it was Bob Chandler’s place. Other than that, I don’t know any more than what you had to say.”

  “That’s funny,” Connelly said. He took a few steps back and pulled open the rear driver’s side door. “That’s not what Bob said.”

  The bearded man who’d so unnerved Molly in their prior encounters was in rough shape. One side of his face was swollen and bloodied, and dark streaks of it stained his shirt, as well. The contractors had wrapped rough bandages around his right arm and both legs, and the white gauze was rapidly turning red. She didn’t see any similar markings on Connelly, so Chandler must have taken far worse than he’d been able to dish out.

  “I told them everything, Dave.”

  “What was that, exactly? That I said there were too many of them to fight? Sounds like you bucked the status quo, paid the price, and now you’re trying to weasel your way out of it, son.”

  Connelly shoved Bob onto his knees and drew a holstered pistol. “Say what you will, old-timer, but a gunshot wound’s a mighty powerful motivational tool. A man will confess all sorts of sins for a taste of morphine. I’ve been there.”

  “Don’t know what he told you, Connelly, but we’re just farmers, now. You’ve got the men, the high ground, and the guns. It’d be suicide to go up against you all, and that’s even without those things out there.”

  The contractor drew back the hammer on his pistol.

  “For God’s sake, Dave! Tell them!”

  “I don’t know what you want me to tell them, Bob. One way or another, it seems to me that you’re the one took the first shot against these fellas, and I don’t reckon they’re the sort to forget that, even if you unveil some made-up scheme.”

  “So he’s lying?”

  Dave was silent for a moment, then said, “We planted your corn and potatoes. Your man in the lead truck there just about ran over a good chunk of them. We’re doing as you asked, and all I ask in return is to be left in peace. You think I’m stupid enough to risk the lives of my family, going up against a superior force?”

  Connelly considered that for a moment. Turning, he studied the field. Molly didn’t know how good his night vision was with the headlights of the trucks blazing, but if he could make it out, she knew that he’d see the nascent, delicate sprouts of the corn and potatoes. The rows were even in nicely-spaced lines. They’d managed to scrounge enough diesel to plow with the tractor, but they’d done most of the planting by hand, a week’s worth of back-breaking work from dawn till dusk. “Maybe not,” the contractor said when he turned back.

  “Leave the man here,” Dave urged. “We’ll patch him up, get his mind right. He won’t trouble you again.”

  “You’re right about that. And I will leave him here.” Without breaking eye contact with Dave, Connelly put his pistol in line with Bob’s head and pulled the trigger.

  A truncated yelp squeezed out of Molly before she slammed the palm of her hand over her mouth. Outside, Bob Chandler’s body toppled forward off the road and into the ditch along the front of the farmhouse’s yard.

  “No need to patch him up, I guess,” Connelly said. “Sorry for the mess.” He holstered his pistol and shouted, “We’re gone, gentlemen!”

  Chapter Nineteen

  June 12, 2026

  Naval Air Station Kellys Island, Ohio

  Z-Day + 3,159

  Repko turned the flight helmet over and over in her hands and tried to keep the child-like grin from spreading across her face. Before the fickle hand of fate had snatched her aircraft from her, she’d had a helmet much like this, although the art on the back had been a custom-printed label. This was hand-drawn, but despite the roughness of the lines, it was all the more special for what it represented.

  The white cartoon cat with a bow over one ear had been much-adored by preteen girls before Z-Day. The customized version on the back of her new helmet cradled a stylized assault rifle in one hand. The pink bib overalls bore a grinning skull on the chest, marked out by a red prohibited sign with the legend ‘Zulu Busters’ inscribed below.

  “Like it?”

  The grin broke across her face as she glanced at Staff Sergeant Mike Courtney. “It’s dynamite, Sergeant.”

  The senior NCO grinned as she finally took the first step of settling the helmet on her head and testing the fit. For a moment, it felt weird to have the weight on her head, but as she twisted her neck around, it felt more and more familiar. She’d always been able to wear one of the standard sizes without any customization, and from the feel of things, her skull hadn’t gotten any bigger in the last eight years.

  The view before her in the cockpit, though, was different to a jarring degree. The Super Hornet she’d flown before Z-Day hadn’t been the most high-tech jet out there, but it had more than its fair share of electronic displays and readouts. If the end had never happened, the Ford would have eventually transitioned to the F-35C Joint Strike Fighter, and she’d have stepped way into the future. As it stood now, she felt like she was going back to the days of bell bottoms and disco.

  The A-10’s upgraded avionics and displays featured a pair of small computer screens, but the vast majority of readouts in the cockpit were dials.

  On the bri
ght side, she didn’t have to worry about ground fire or enemy aircraft.

  Courtney took hold of her helmet and tugged a bit. “Any adjustments?”

  “I’m solid. How are things progressing on your end, Staff Sergeant? We going to be able to pull this off?”

  He let out a low whistle and turned to look toward the rear of the plane. Intermittent access panels stood open. One of the engines was missing entirely, still in the process of being rebuilt in one of the hangars.

  Like Repko, Staff Sergeant Courtney was returning to familiar environs. He’d been a maintenance NCO for a Marine Hornet wing, but the events of Z-Day thrust a rifle in his hands. Every man and woman of the ad hoc attack wing were trying to relearn the dance steps of days gone by. The tune, at least, was familiar enough. Air Force planes, Navy pilots, and Marine ground crew. This should be fun.

  “We’ll get it done, Lieutenant Commander. Study up. My team and I are going to have this bird back together in the next week or so. I want you ready to take her up for a spin for me.”

  Repko took another look at the unfamiliar controls and wished for the hundredth time that they had a working flight simulator. They did have tech manuals, and the US Navy hadn’t been in the habit of sticking unintelligent or incompetent seats behind the controls of multimillion-dollar fighter jets.

  “I’ll be ready,” she said. The little voice in the back of her head didn’t agree, but she was beginning to remember that pushing that self-doubt down with swagger was part of the job description. “Let’s get to it.”

  April 23, 2018

  Outside of Ironton, Missouri

  Z-Day + 187

  Two nights later, Molly was already awake when the sound of truck engines shattered the silence. Hatcher lay on the cot next to her, and he stirred, but she rubbed circular strokes in the small of his back until he settled back into quiet.

  Dave was right.

  They’d waited until the morning after the contractors left to attend to Bob Chandler’s abandoned body, and the only thing that kept Molly from losing her breakfast during that task had been her determination to focus on everything he’d had to say.

  “Something’s changed unless I miss my guess, kid.” Dave shook his head and tugged on the tarp they’d heaved Bob onto to wrap him in another layer of plastic. “They made out like they were out scrounging for supplies, but I don’t buy it. When I was up near their camp, they were well-provisioned. So why do it?”

  “Beer, maybe?”

  “Possible,” Dave had allowed. He took hold of the tarp with both hands and slid it across the yard toward the deep hole he’d hacked near the wilting decorative planter around the old hand pump. Their spring workload hadn’t featured any free time for floral gardening. “Maybe even likely, but something tells me not. If it had been some of the subordinates, I could see men going off the reservation like that, but not with their commanding officer there. No, something else is going on.”

  He slid the tarp-wrapped body into the hole and stared at the front of his house. “We finish up here, I need to think on this a bit—make some preparations. I think they’ll be back.”

  Last night was uneventful, but it seemed that tonight proved Dave to be, if not a prophet, something close to it. She eased to her feet, careful not to jostle Hatch, and tiptoed closer to the stairs. She made it without tripping or barking her shins on anything, but that was mostly because the room was almost completely empty save for Hatch’s cot.

  Tornadoes were common enough in Missouri that Dave’s parents had a dedicated shelter installed when he was still a child—before the expansion of the farmhouse basement. Over time, the changes and additions to the property built up around the sunken metal hatch leading to the tornado shelter hid it from casual view. Flanked on either side by the greenhouses, the shelter exited less than twenty feet from the woods at the edge of the property.

  “I want you two to sleep down here, the next few nights,” Dave had explained. “If something happens, and you need to run, I’ll call out over this radio.” She’d found the FRS walkie-talkies in the first house she’d scavenged, and though the range was short, they’d come in handy to keep in touch when working on different sides of the farm.

  Gunfire crackled through the air again, and she picked the radio up from where she’d left it on the stairs. The green light came on, but all she heard was a reassuring hiss.

  She closed her eyes and focused on the memory of Dave’s calm voice. “We won’t be in the house, either. Annie started hunting deer with her dad when she was younger than you, and she’s still a better long-distance shot than I am. We’ll be set up in the field, ready to take catch them in a crossfire if they get out and start causing any trouble.”

  The gunfire intensified, and she thought she could hear shouts through the steel door of the shelter. The radio remained silent.

  She’d helped Dave dig holes in the front yard for most of the morning. When he decided there were enough, he’d banned her and Hatcher from the front yard and spent the rest of the afternoon setting old aluminum coffee cans in the bottom of each hole. He didn’t bother tamping the dirt down on top, leaving a small mound on each. Once that task was complete, he’d run a fishing line from one side of the driveway to the other, crossing over each mound along the way, then carefully tied another line from each can to the main line.

  Molly wasn’t stupid—she’d seen her fair share of action movies and devoured the Hunger Games series one summer. It was obvious that Dave was making some sort of booby trap, and when she asked him about it before heading down into the shelter, his odd smile made her shiver.

  “When they figure out they’re taking fire from the rear, they’ll retreat. And as soon as they hit that fishing line, they’re going to walk into a whole world of hurt.”

  “What if they pull into the driveway?”

  “Even better, it’ll blow one of their trucks in half.”

  A quick string of thumps punctuated the ongoing gunfire, and the shouts outside turned frantic with pain. She tried to imagine what she’d helped to bring about, but her mind failed her.

  On the cot, Hatcher stirred and sat up. “Mole?” Most days he was a regular chatterbox, but he still struggled with her name.

  “Go back to sleep, buddy. It’s just a storm.” She felt bad lying to the kid, but it wasn’t like she could sit down and have a heart-to-heart talk with a three-year old.

  “Kay.”

  The screaming continued, but the gunfire died down into silence. After what felt like an eternity, the screaming stopped, as well, leaving in her in the dark with the hiss.

  She realized her heart was racing, and she forced herself to breathe more deeply, taking literal gulps of air. It’s all right. It’s all right.

  There was a low rumble, far enough away that the doors blocked most of it out. Molly cocked her head to one side until she realized that it was the sound of more engines, and they were coming from two directions—approaching from either end of the county road that ran in front of the house.

  Oh, no, she thought, just as the radio crackled to life.

  “Molly, get Hatcher and get out of there. They’ve brought reinforcements. Annie and I have to move before they get us bracketed—” Dave cut off in mid-sentence, replaced with static as even louder gunfire thundered in the night. She had no way of knowing just what kind of gun was firing, but each individual shot sounded like the booms from the trap going off.

  Shoving the radio in the pocket of her jeans, she stumbled back to the cot and swept Hatcher, blanket and all, into her arms. He grumbled, his words muffled by the blanket, and she shushed him even as she turned and made her awkward way up the stairs. She got her shoulder into the left side door and heaved it open. There was a chain welded to the inside to keep it from slamming into the side of the greenhouse, but she still had to catch it on the rebound to keep it from falling shut.

  The night air was cool and electric against her skin, and the light of the moon was just enough to light her
way as she quick-walked in the direction of the woods. The big gun fired again. Hatch made a questioning squeak, but she took hold of his head and jammed his face into the crook of her neck. “Sssh,” she whispered. “Stay quiet, we’re playing hide and seek, okay?”

  Something solid and hard slammed into her legs above the ankles and sent her to the ground. She twisted on the way down so as not to crush her charge, but he still flopped out of her grip and landed awkwardly. Shaken awake by the fall, he immediately cried out, but that wasn’t Molly’s first concern.

  The sudden flare of flashlights on either side made his scream moot.

  “Tag,” Connelly said, baring his teeth as he leaned over. He gave her a once-over, took note of the bulge in her pocket, and relieved her of the radio. “You’re it.”

  Molly wanted to scream, to shout, to take off and run, but her body refused to obey her commands. All she could do was lie there and shake in terror.

  “Finger off the trigger, Camby,” the leader said, inspecting the radio. “Doctor wants the kids alive.”

  She glanced at the other man, and he waggled his eyebrows at her as he adjusted his hand position on his rifle’s grip. There was a flashlight attached to the side of the barrel, but Camby swung it away so it wasn’t pointed directly at them. “We sure about this, boss? I’m not saying the doctor’s lost it, but he’s rolling ball bearings in his hand and muttering about the strawberries.”

  “Put a sock in it,” Connelly said, his tone disinterested. “There are various acceptable levels of alive, young miss. For both of you. You reading me?”

  Molly swallowed. “I understand.”

  Hatch whined, “Ouchie, Mole. Want Gam.”

  “Come here, buddy,” she said, not taking her eyes off the contractors. “We just need to wait here for a minute, all right? Show me the ouchie.”

  Focused on his own injuries, the toddler crawled into her lap and demonstrated various scrapes and scratches—not all of them recent—while burbling away in blithe innocence of their predicament. Kinda wish I was right there with you, kid.