by Castle, W. A
End of Days – Part Two
Copyright© 2019 by W.A Castle
All Rights Reserved
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
CONTENTS
End of Days
Chapter Eight: Land of the Free
Chapter Nine: Broad Stripes
Chapter Ten: Foe From Within
Chapter Eleven: Our Flag Was Still There
Chapter Twelve: Liberty’s Smile
Chapter Fourteen: Mists of the Deep
It's the day after the 4th of July when all hell breaks loose, and a sickness propagates throughout the population causing the infected to turn into cannibals. Those that manage to survive the initial attacks soon realize that they have other things to worry about than just surviving the infected they now also realize humans can be just as vicious as the sick. For a group of survivors who band together to make their way to a safe haven, this is the End of days.
Part Two.
End of Days
Part 2
Chapter Eight: Land of the Free
It takes a few moments after he throws himself on top of me to protect me from the shots, that Jax and I realize the they are coming from the other side of the property, from the main gates. Jax pulls me up and begins sprinting towards the commotion, not letting go of my hand as we make our way through the maze of houses and makeshift offices.
The closer we get to the gates the clearer the shouting voices become. “Let us in! We have as much right as you to be in there!” a woman’s desperate voice yells.
“I’m not warning you again, back the fuck away from the gates!” I hear Ulises shout back.
“Stay here,” says Jax, pushing me against the wall of one of the houses.
“What are you going to do?” I hang on to his arm trying to keep him from leaving me.
“Stay here,” Jax pries his arm away from my hands and runs off. I try to ignore the sting of the coldness in his voice when he speaks to me but fail miserably.
My heart beats hard in my chest as I stick to the shadows against the houses and sneak my way towards the house we have claimed for ourselves tonight. I don’t stop until I reach the house where the others are.
“Maddie, what’s going on?” I feel momma’s hands reaching for me in the dark. Inside the house is pitch-black once I shut the door behind me.
“I don’t know. There are a group of people outside the gates,” I pause to strain to make out the voices outside. At least they aren’t shooting anymore.
“Is it them, the bad people from the library?” Patty whispers sounding close to tears.
“Hush, no sweetie,” Lexi tries to comfort the little girl by wrapping her arms around the kid.
I kneel next to momma and run a shaky hand across Diego’s head. Momma is holding him, rocking him trying to keep his fussiness down. A quick look around the room tells me that all the guys are outside talking to the strangers outside the gate.
I run to Ulises’s bag where he keeps his weapons. I grab one of the pistols and hold it tight as I stealthily make my way to the door. The weight of my own gun at my waist band and the weight of the gun in my hands aren’t as comforting as I would have hoped.
“Where are you going?” Clara hisses from her spot next to momma.
“I’ll be right back. Stay here and if anyone tries to get in, shoot.” I hand Clara the gun. I take the one from my waist band out and without saying anything more I walk out and close the door quietly behind me. I crouch on the shadow of one of the houses and settle in to hear what the others are saying.
“We’ve been keeping ahead of them for miles, there’s nowhere else to go! Each minute we spend out here the closer they get, please let us in!” A male voice pleads.
From my spot I can see Ulises, Trevor and Gary exchanging looks. But Jax and Aaron stare coldly at the group of begging strangers on the other side of the gates.
“I suggest you keep going then; wouldn’t want you to lose your head start,” Aaron says with contempt.
“Git.” Jax growls and lifts his rifle to the group of people.
As soon as he says that, the people on the other side of the gate that are armed raise their weapons too to defend themselves. Suddenly everyone finds themselves in a standoff.
“Monster in sight!” someone yells. My wide eyes fly to a woman in the outsider group who is looking through a pair of binoculars, her back to all of us. From my position it is hard to make out how many people are outside the gates; in the darkness I can’t see their features. I know it is dangerous to let these people in… but if we were in their shoes, wouldn’t we want them to let us in when there was nowhere left to go? I am surprisingly conflicted with what the right thing to do is right now.
One of the men from the outsider group tries climbing the gates and soon after, the others are following in step.
Aaron fires a shot to the sky, “Next bullet goes into one of you!”
Women and men from outside the gates start to openly sob. “There is nowhere else to go, man. We won’t make it,” a kneeling man says hoarsely.
“Fuck.” I make the decision to stand up and walk out from the shadows. “We should let them in,” my voice is weak as I say this, unsure.
“Maddie, I told you to stay back,” Jax turns to me with a scowl.
I clear my throat and speak again, with more conviction this time, “They can take one of the unfinished houses and we can keep an eye on them.”
“They can surrender their weapons and we can let them in,” Gary says backing me up.
Aaron’s nostrils flare with every breath he takes, “No,” he says.
“We’ll vote,” says Trevor. I breathe with relief that others are seeing reason. There aren’t a lot of us left, humans. And even if some people, like the ones at the library, are rotten, it doesn’t mean that everyone that is left is bad.
“When they kill one of you in your sleep, then you’ll see what good your voting did,” Aaron says heatedly. I glare at him. I know what happened to Val has wounded him deep in his soul. But he can’t harden up like this. Not like this, at the expense of other’s lives.
“Please, we’re not bad people. We’re just like you-” one of the outsider men starts to say but Aaron interrupts him by slashing his hand through the air indicating that he should shut up.
Aaron turns back to me, “What if one of them hurts Diego or your mom,” Aaron turns to Trevor, “Or Eli,” he turns to Gary, “Or Clara?”
At his words I turn my head to the outsiders; weariness has me glaring at them. But all I see reflected on their faces is terror.
That steels my resolve. “I’m not asking your permission to save someone’s life,” I take a step towards Aaron and I tilt my head back to look him square in the eye, “What is wrong with you?”
Aaron glares at me and after a minute breathes out forcefully and clenches his hands into fists. Out of the corner of my eye I see Jax stepping towards us but he doesn’t say or do anything else.
“Open the gates,” I say without blinking or looking away from Aaron’s intense angry stare.
“No.” He says through clenched teeth.
“Open the gates,” Momma’s voice from behind me has my head nearly twisting off as I turn to h
er.
“Let them in,” Clara demands walking to stand next to me.
“Come on man. We’ll deal with it but we can’t leave these folks out there if a horde of flesh eaters is really coming,” Gary shifts in his feet but decidedly backs us up.
I look to Trevor and Ulises who both nod their heads. Jax only stares at me. Without another word I walk to the gates and hold my hand out until Ulises places the key to the lock in my hands; right after we had cleared the place earlier, the guys had tied a chain around the gate doors to keep them securely closed.
I face the people on the other side of the gates, “We were here first; this is our place. We have women and children and I won’t hesitate to place a bullet in each of your heads if you threaten any of them.” I don’t recognize the words that are spewing out of my mouth. I would have never talked to anyone like this before but I am on a roll right now. “Hand over your weapons,” I point to the spaces between the bars, which are wide enough to pass the weapons through them.
“Our weapons?” The people on the other side hesitate and look at each other with uncertainty. But then a woman, whom I presume is in charge based on how they all take their cues from her, nods and they all start handing over their weapons to us.
I really hope this decision won’t come back and bite us in the ass later, I think as I open the gates and let the people in. A woman who is crying hysterically on the ground sobs her thanks to me. I don’t know how to respond to that so I just put my arms around her and help her off the ground.
“You will stay in one of the houses on the other side of the property and you will leave as soon as the sun comes up,” Jax snarls and walks off towards the other side of the housing compound where the others will be staying. We all follow after him. I still have my gun in my hands as my eyes run over every person in the new group. An elderly couple, four middle aged women, a teenage boy and four men ranging in ages. It is a big group of strangers and it has me grinding my teeth.
“Thank you.” I recognize the woman who comes to my side, the woman who seems to be in charge of the group. Now that I have a closer look at her I see she is actually quite pretty, and older than I had thought. She looks to be in her forties, caramel skin, a proud nose, black hair and the eyes to match.
“It was the right thing to do. Where are you from?” The words are out before my brain can tell my mouth to shut up.
The woman’s lips curves up in a hint of a smile, “The Vegas Strip but originally from Miami. Tom and I,” she nods to the man besides her and he turns his chin down in a nod and gives me a tight smile, “decided to go to Vegas for a second honeymoon. We were only there for three days before…” she trails off. I nod in understanding, they were there only three days before the infected came and started propagating the cannibalistic disease.
“Where are you heading to?” I ask, discreetly sliding my gun into the elastic of my pants.
“We don’t know, really. All of us were staying at one of those fancy hotels on the strip and we banded together to try and escape from that hell hole,” her eyes darken and her expression becomes closed off. I clear my throat when I notice others glancing at us.
“I’m Maddie. I’m glad you all were able to make it out,” I extend my hand out to her.
“I’m Nadine,” she shakes my hand, “most of us were able to make it out, but most did not,” she says sadly.
Jax leads the group to one of the houses that still have exposed beams, not too close to the edge of the property to be close to the fence but far away enough from where we are staying.
“You guys can spend the night here,” Jax says.
As the others file into the house Nadine lingers behind and squeezes my forearm gently, “For what it’s worth, I’m glad you guys made it out from wherever you were too.” She gives me a quick hug and enters the house. I hug my arms and head back to the house.
I drop down on my makeshift bed and before I have a chance to brew and simmer about the new people we’ve just let into our space, Clara plops down beside me and nudges my shoulder with hers, “It was the right thing to do, letting those people in, I mean,” she says.
“Was it?” I sigh. I feel like I am playing devil’s advocate. I wouldn’t flat out admit it but Jax and Aaron have made me doubt that letting those strangers in was the right thing to do. The only other group of survivors we have run across tried to kill us and steal our stuff, are these people any different than them? Or are they like us, just people trying to make it to tomorrow?
“Yep, when life gets hard it is easy to do the wrong thing just because it’s easy. But deep down you know what’s wrong and what’s right. Whatever happens will happen and we will deal with it when the time comes,” Clara gives me a somber look. I squeeze her hand in silent thanks.
“What’s going on?” Eli stands in front of me, his eyes glimmering and his chin wobbling. I tilt my head and give him a small smile, pulling him down to my lap and hug him tight. Patty is standing next to him, so I reach for her hand and she lets me pull her down to my makeshift bed next to me, in between Clara and me.
Momma sits next to us and Lexi who is holding Diego reluctantly sits with us.
“The guys took the others to one of the houses by the edge of the property. They’re going to be taking shifts keeping an eye on the new people,” I say quietly, resting my cheek on Eli’s head.
“I don’t know how I feel about letting strangers in after what happened at the library, but I want to think there are decent people left. And I want to think we are some of those decent people,” Lexi says looking down at the baby in her arms.
Well hell. She’s right.
I clear my throat to get rid of the itchiness that I am suddenly too aware of. As soon as I remember my thirst it is all I can think of. I reach for a water bottle and even after a few chugs the dryness in my mouth is still there.
“Are you okay?” Clara curiously looks at me.
“Yeah, you’re looking a little pale baby,” momma reaches out a hand to touch my face.
“I’m fine momma, quit fussing,” I snap but I smile at her to take the sting out of my words and let her do her checking either way.
About an hour after we settle in for the night Trevor and Gary walk in. I am still awake and I want to ask the guys how it was going but with Eli fast asleep in my arms I don’t want to wake him up by moving unnecessarily. Gary drops off close to Clara and settles in for the night.
Trevor makes his way to Eli and me. “How are they?” I whisper. I don’t have to say more, Trevor knows what I’m asking.
“They’re fine,” is all he says and I don’t press him for more, I can see the exhaustion in his eyes. His face softens when I smile at him and motion him to lie down. He lies down on the cold floor besides Eli but faces me, Eli sandwiched between us.
“How are you?” he whispers as he runs his thumb across my cheek.
I’m momentarily distracted by his caress. “I don’t know, I’m a lot of things,” I say truthfully, “But what are we going to do with them, Trevor? What are we going to do, are we still leaving in the morning?”
Trevor rubs the bridge of his nose. He sighs and turns on his back but with his face still facing me, “I don’t know, to either of those things. I think that we should keep going but we’re going to have to decide that in the morning I guess.”
I place my hand on his chest and give him a tight smile and I can’t help but close my eyes and let exhaustion pull me under. Just as I am drifting away I feel his hand cover mine on his chest.
Something awakens me late into the night. For a moment I lay there, eyes wide open and breathing fast, trying to listen into the dark. Just when I’m about to decide it’s nothing I hear it again, the pop, pop, pop of a gun. I sit up with a start and look around the room, its dark but the moon light illuminates enough that I can see everyone’s sleeping forms. Before I can move to wake up Trevor who is sleeping across from me, rapid fire bursts through the silence. At the sound, everyone sits up aler
t and panicked. Diego begins to wail, adding to the chaos. I scramble to my feet and run towards where he and momma are sitting up. I put my hand on his head and my other hand on my mother’s shoulder, making sure they’re alright.
“What’s going on?” Lexi’s panicked voice comes from somewhere in the room. We all remain quiet and we can hear people shouting over the shots that are still being fired. I think I can hear Ulises’s yelling something but I can’t be sure as to what he’s saying.
Trevor runs and crouches next to a window in the room and peers out, he does the same with all the windows in the house. “Whatever is happening, it’s happening on the other side of the property,” he says out of breath.
“Where the others are staying? Aren’t the guys keeping an eye on them?” says Clara as she crawls over to momma and me, moments later Lexi and Patty are kneeling next to momma.
“Are they attacking us?” I ask. I can’t believe they would attack us after we let them in, but we took their weapons, so it doesn’t make sense.
Trevor and Gary start getting ready to walk out, guns in hands. I make to stand up but Trevor is already on me.
“You need to stay here, please, I need to know that no matter what is happening out there you and Eli are at least safe in here,” Trevor turns to Eli and nudges him into our huddling group, “I need you to look after Eli, Maddie, please.” Trevor’s eyes are pleading and I can’t find it in me to argue. So instead, I just nod at him. I wrap an arm around Eli and hold him close. We huddle up and watch the guys leave.
My resolve to stay put is broken moments later when growls and screeches reach our ears followed by screaming.
“Shit!” momma whispers.
We all stare at each other in horror for a quick second before we all scramble to our feet and find our weapons.
I reach behind me for my gun and when my hands closes around air my eyebrows lift in momentary shock for the hundredth time in these past few minutes. I am missing my gun. What in the world, when did I lose my gun? I run back to my bedding and pull it apart, no gun there.