Impact Series Box Set | Books 1-6

by Isherwood, E. E.

  All at once, everyone in the truck yelled.

  “Go!”

  St. Louis, MO

  “What do you think we should do?” Ezra asked Butch. When they left Darius and his big truck, they agreed to go back to the boat and get the five-gallon fuel can but didn’t commit to trading the rifle for an extraction. He wanted some time to think about it, plus he wanted to speak privately with Butch.

  “It’s your call, boss. It’s your rifle anyway. I was only borrowing it.”

  He chuckled. Naturally, the man thought he was going to lose his weapon. “It doesn’t work like that. You’re the ex-soldier. You get to hold on to the last rifle for when we need it. I thought you understood how this works.”

  Walking side by side, Butch towered over him, but the man’s demeanor was always respectful, almost like a mild-mannered boy who’d come to take Grace on a date. As much as he appreciated it during normal times, Ezra believed the era of politeness was about gone. He halted and grabbed Butch’s arm. “Look, your relaxed attitude has been fine up until this point, but I need to know what you really think. Is it a mistake to give up a rifle, or is it necessary to keep our mission moving forward?”

  Butch sighed. “I don’t like countering you, boss, since you’ve gotten us through so much, but I wouldn’t give up a gun for anything. Right now, anyone comes along who wants to take your boat just needs to get the drop on the two of us. With one gun, they’ll be able to do it with half the effort. We each need one if we want to make it to your daughter.”

  He clenched his jaw, then relaxed. “Thanks. I’ll take it under advisement.”

  They walked the rest of the way to the big orange truck. He tried to work through whether Butch was right. Was a rifle a fair trade for moving Susan’s Grace up the shore so they could continue the journey? His partner didn’t think so, though there weren’t many viable alternatives. Was he being stubborn out of sentimentality alone?

  The police continued to announce their confiscation efforts in the park, their public address system barking the request to surrender firearms every couple of minutes. Ahead, the small gathering around Darius had dispersed somewhat. No one cared to watch the great beast do a simple task like giving a tow. The driver cared, however, and when he saw the red gas can he trotted over to meet them. “Are we really going to do this?”

  Ezra glanced over to Butch, wondering if seeing him would tip the scales one way or the other. His friend seemed interested in the truck, however, avoiding eye contact. Did the young man already know what Ezra was going to say? He found that interesting, since he didn’t know himself. However, as the seconds dragged out, he admitted he didn’t want to abandon the boat. If it made him as irrational as men like Colby and Darius, unwilling to part with their toys, he was willing to accept it.

  “I hate giving up one of our two rifles, but we can’t go back down the river. People down there want to kill us. So, yeah, I guess we’ve got a deal.” He waited to see if Butch would protest, and he might have changed his mind on the spot if he had, but the other man continued to study the truck. Ezra looked back to Darius and his Cardinals T-shirt. “We’ll hold the rifle until my vehicle is moved somewhere safe. When you see our problem, you’ll understand. We wouldn’t be able to chase you, if, you know, you up and left with our property.”

  Darius held out his hand, not to shake, but for the gas can. “Yeah, sure. Whatever. I’ll pour this in, and we’ll go check out your setup. You two can climb in on the other side. There’s a ladder that pulls out.”

  Ezra could have crouched under the truck, but he was polite and walked around the hulking tires. When he and Butch were on the far side, he wondered if the man’s silence was his way of making a statement. “Butch, I heard what you said, and I know you’re right. My problem is I can’t let go of my boat. I probably shouldn’t have named it after my wife and daughter. I think I’m attached to it in an unhealthy way.”

  Butch cracked up. “No, I get it. In the long run, it’s easier to find another gun than to find another boat, or car. At least, if we aren’t going to steal them.”

  “Good point. It’s a long shot, but if we can make it to a gun store with inventory left, we can buy something right off the shelf. Those are located on every other block in most towns where I live.” He considered asking Darius where to find the nearest store, but first wanted him to make good on their agreement.

  It took them as long to climb into the cab of the oversized truck as it did for Darius to fill up the tank and climb in himself. He’d fabricated a ladder which raised and lowered by stepping on a button mounted to the floorboard. Darius had to show Ezra how to click it shut. He then turned on the motor, which kicked on his music.

  “Let’s rip it!” the driver wailed, ignoring the option to turn the tunes down.

  “We’re about a half-mile south along the riverbank,” Ezra shouted.

  Darius dialed the caustic bass music down, so they only had to speak in a loud voice, rather than screaming. “Did you guys mess your drawers? You smell terrible.”

  Ezra looked at the dried mud on his boots. “We fell in the river.”

  The driver held up his hand. “Say no more. My cousin fell in the Mississippi once. Had to take three showers in a row to get the smell of death out of his hair. That mud is nasty!”

  Once underway, he was anxious to take attention away from their stench. He couldn’t miss the fact the truck seemed twice as large as any normal truck they might find on the road. Would it catch unwanted attention from law enforcement? “How did you drive this downtown? It doesn’t fit in between the lanes, does it?”

  Darius laughed, sitting back in his seat, bouncing to the beat and shifting gears as if he didn’t have a care in the world. “This isn’t even a big truck, really. It’s only got 54-inch tires, instead of 60s, so it fits in the lanes. It may seem like we’re blocking traffic, but it’s only because we’re sitting so high.”

  “So, we can’t get in trouble?” Ezra asked cautiously.

  “Oh, we’ll still get pulled over. The po-po see this and they think what you do: we have to pull him over since he looks too wide. I carry a measuring tape, just to be safe. Of course, if the cop is itching for some scratch, they’ll bust me for not having mud flaps.”

  It didn’t make him feel any better, but they were already driving by the grand staircase, and the police weren’t sprinting down the hill to get them. When they neared the watery blockage, he pointed where he wanted Darius to drive. “I’m right down there. By the water.”

  “Oh, got stuck, did you? Even my Orange Fury couldn’t go out in that water. You must have been tripping if you got close to the river. Where’s your vehicle? I don’t see any.” The road at the top of the cobblestone incline had vehicles parked there, but there weren’t any down by the water.

  Ezra noticed a helicopter swooping in over the water. After a brief pause above the disaster site, it continued under the Arch, making to land on the wide grassy field where the police had set up their collection point. He guessed it was the police bosses, come to check on their underlings. There was no more time to screw around.

  “Yeah. About that.” He pointed to Susan’s Grace. “We’re actually in a boat. We need you to drag us out of the water and along the cobblestones so we can put back in above these fallen bridges. My daughter is far upriver, and I have to get to her. Preferably before those officers come take both of our rifles.” He and Butch still had the rifles on them, as discussed.

  The black man worked the wheel and spun them around on the empty cobblestones above where his vessel was tied up. After seeming to consider his options, Darius pointed to the passenger door. “You two get out and guide me in. I have a tow strap in the cargo bed. I’ll throw it down when I’m in position.”

  “You’ll do it?” Ezra asked, surprised. It hadn’t been his plan to hide the nature of the tow, but it didn’t come up naturally in their discussion and he didn’t want to turn Darius off to their deal without seeing it.


  “I’ve never towed anything quite like this. It should be cool.”

  A few minutes later, music blaring obnoxiously, Orange Fury pulled the yellow tow strap taught, then Susan’s Grace came out of the water. As soon as it did, the screech created by the hollow tubes instantly eclipsed the music, becoming the loudest thing on the riverfront.

  “Good God! We have to hide our rifles!” Ezra spoke the words, but no one could have heard him over the jet-engine volume of grinding metal. He exaggerated his movements in front of Butch and stashed his rifle on the boat’s deck. Still within reach, but out of sight. When the other man did the same, he gave him the okay sign.

  It was the right call. Every person on the street and the giant staircase looked their way to see what was responsible for interrupting the peaceful afternoon. People ran to the edge of the hill up by the Arch to check it out, too. They’d gone perhaps fifty yards when the familiar light-blue uniform shirts of the policemen appeared at the top of the steps.

  “I knew it,” he said to himself. Butch was walking on the right side of the boat, checking for leaks. He’d chosen to walk on the left, where he knew there were holes in the pontoon. As the two officers came down the steps, a second pair of men followed them down, indicating they were all together. He figured those must be the men from the helicopter.

  Unwilling to let anyone stop his boat from reaching its destination, Ezra broke off and tried to intercept the gaggle of police officers. He put up his hands to get their attention. “Hey, I’m sorry for the music and noise!” Away from the scraping metal, he was able to talk over it. “We’ll be out of your hair soon.”

  The officers didn’t look as concerned as their pace suggested, especially the two in uniform. They watched the boat drag along the cobblestones but made no move to stop Darius and his truck. He’d almost come to believe their interest was more for the laughs than professionalism, but then the closest man spoke to him.

  “While we’re down here, we’re going to need you to surrender your rifles. Weren’t you two just up at the top of the steps? We saw you turn around and go back down.”

  He didn’t try to lie. They’d been paying attention. “We were up top, but we’ll be out of your hair in a few minutes. You won’t even know we were here. I’m heading to Denver.”

  “It applies across the whole state. It’s been ordered by the mayor for the St. Louis area and the Secretary of Homeland Security for the counties in the rest of the state.” Belatedly, he added. “It’s for your own safety.”

  His head spun as he considered how he wanted to play it. He’d told Butch he didn’t want to fight with the police, and he still didn’t, but if he was going to lose both rifles, maybe there was no choice. Being unarmed while society collapsed around them was its own death sentence.

  While he thought about it, a spurt of gunfire erupted from less than ten feet away. The two guys standing behind the policemen fired repeatedly from compact under-folder AK-47s. As the ambushed men crashed to the ground, their clean blue shirts now bursting with red, the men in the rear put another couple of rounds into them.

  Ezra’s heart moved into his throat, and he couldn’t blame it for wanting a fast exit. The men reoriented on him, smiling wryly, knowing they’d caught their prey.

  “Recognize us, asshole?”

  Chapter 23

  Cheyenne, WY

  Grace peeled out of the parking lot, working hard to prevent the truck from fishtailing out of control. It wasn’t simply a way to get away from the gang of criminals looting the jewelry store; it made her feel good to abuse the tires. She wanted to make it known to them: I’m not playing around.

  “They’re like the men who killed N-noah,” Logan stuttered.

  It couldn’t have been the same men, she reasoned. Every town across America probably had its small group of opportunists who saw the asteroid disaster as an excuse to belt on their bad-guy pants and cause some trouble. The people at the Billings mall were part of it. Whoever killed those firefighters in the fast-food restaurant were part of it. Now, they’d run into another group of wreckers.

  Someone shot at them several times. The distinctive cracks were noises she’d heard far too many times lately. She didn’t have time to look back at the shooter. Grace brought the truck into a tight left turn, then a fast right. It put her back on the main road. “Hang on!” she shouted after all the turns were over, but before she thrust the pedal all the way to the floor.

  By the time she was at seventy miles per hour, Logan yelled. “There’s two cars coming out from the parking lot. We have to lose them!”

  Looking back, the cars were obviously in pursuit. They had no fear of her and Asher, despite the uniforms and guns. In barely three days, Cheyenne had descended into a messed-up world where bad guys chased law enforcement.

  Her breathing went racehorse fast as self-preservation mode took over. Her friends carried weapons, so she watched for opportunities. Grace couldn’t drive and shoot, so it had to be one of the others. “Ash, get ready. When I find a right turn we can use, it will give you a chance to shoot from your side.”

  “Are you sure?” he asked, tentatively pulling out his semiautomatic pistol. “I’m not a great shot.”

  Shawn reached forward and tapped Asher on the shoulder. “You get down. I have a rifle, and I know I’m a better shot than you.”

  Asher glanced toward her, then returned the pistol to his police holster.

  Shawn Runs Hard spoke sternly to his boy. “Logan, for the love of springtime, stay down on the floor. If they shoot back, you’ll be safer down there. And, if you disobey me again, I’ll throw you out the door myself.”

  The native elder leaned back, then jammed the butt of the rifle against the window of the welded-on door. It popped with the first hit, shattering against the pavement outside. “Calvin didn’t hook this door’s window controls into the electrical system,” he said nonchalantly.

  Grace gripped the wheel, wary of the thieves and how fast they were gaining on her. The late-model pursuit vehicles weren’t sports cars, exactly, but they were sleeker and faster than her beat-down park service utility truck. As she approached the upcoming right turn, she yelled back, “Here we go!”

  The truck’s tires screeched under the strain of the hard turn onto the new road in the quiet residential neighborhood. The home on the corner of the two streets had a broad lot with few shrubs, giving what she hoped was a clear field of fire for Shawn.

  The concussive bang of the rifle almost made her lose grip of the wheel. Her stomach clenched with each shot, worried one of those bullets might come back inside the truck, boomerang style.

  “I didn’t hit them, but they’re slowing,” Shawn said with excitement.

  The two cars looked like they were going to turn, but they instead kept going straight on the other road. The popping rattle of gunfire resonated for a few seconds, suggesting the thieves had fired as they drove by. Fortunately, she didn’t hear the corresponding whizzes and clangs of shots hitting her truck.

  “I’m going this way.” She tilted her head forward, indicating she meant straight ahead. The residential area conformed to a grid pattern, giving her an opportunity to put some distance between them and the chasers. “Toward whatever is down there.” It wasn’t south, which was the way to Denver, but it was wide open, so she could go fast.

  She sped along the street for a minute or so before having to choose between going left and right at a T intersection. The cars were somewhere on her left side, she was certain, so she chose to go right.

  The speedometer read eighty-five before she needed to make another turn. “Oh, jeez. We can only go right. We’re going in a circle.”

  “I’m ready,” Shawn said dryly.

  “God, what did I get us into?” she hissed. Grace’s heart had never come out of the red zone. Her body was tense and rigid, and she sat at the front edge of the seat, as if seeing the road from a foot closer would help her make better choices.

  As expected, the po
werful truck roared by the jewelry store again. This time she didn’t slow in the least. Shawn leaned out the window and squeezed off a couple dozen rounds, spraying the men lingering in the parking lot. Out of ammo, he leaned out and shouted into the wind. “You don’t mess with the Crow nation!”

  Grace’s mind was singularly focused on keeping the truck between the white lines of the highway. The speedometer was up to ninety-five and she would have gone faster if the truck would have responded to her efforts. “Dang, I think this is as fast as she’ll go.”

  Asher was crouched on the floor in front of his seat. “I think we’ve damaged her so bad she can’t go any faster.”

  “Sounds about right,” she agreed.

  While sharing a tense smile with her friend, Shawn had been looking out through the plywood partition window. His groan made her think he’d been shot at first, but that wasn’t it. “I think I pissed them off. I see more cars pulling out of the lot.”

  Grace didn’t care. She was glad the old guy had taken his shots at the bad guys. They were the skid marks on society’s underwear, and she felt no sympathy for them. The more she thought about it, she’d been harboring resentment toward men and women like that since seeing those dead men in the lobby of the restaurant. It angered her down to the primal base of her brain.

  I want to kill all of them.

  The truck couldn’t go any faster, though she continued to press the gas pedal into the floorboard. Should she turn right again? Go off road? Try to hide? Stand and fight?

  “The first two cars are back. They found us.” Shawn relayed the news.

  “How many are out there?” she wondered aloud.

  “I count five. Three cars. Two SUVs.”

  She didn’t need to ask if they were gaining.

  The highway ahead was long and straight, heading out of town to the south. The wide-open grasslands of Boringville spread to the horizon in that direction. Somewhere soon, they would catch up to her and the final battle would commence. Grace had no reason to suspect they could hold off all of them.