Endurance: A Post-Apocalyptic Thriller (Highway Book 2)

by ML Banner

  Their wait was rewarded.

  Three men, already showing evidence of torture, were escorted by three Matawi from the main entrance of city hall.

  “These three men are not only apostates to our beliefs, still holding onto their false Christian and Jewish teachings, but they also met regularly and conspired to assassinate your imam.” Imam Ramadi looked over to one of his men, who tapped on a computer tablet, instantly filling the loudspeakers with sound.

  There were sounds of hushed conversations and clinking china and the scuffle of shoes, then a clear high-pitched male voice. “So are we really going to do this?”

  “Yes, we have no choice. Our families’ lives depend on it,” said a deeper voice.

  “You are saying what I think you’re saying, then?” said the high-pitched voice again.

  “Fine, I’ll say what you’re both unwilling to,” a third voice said with purpose. “We’re going to kill Ramadi tonight. But to—”

  The broadcast was cut off.

  Imam Ramadi pushed his face into the microphones. “I find no reason to waste our time any further. I find these men guilty of apostasy and sedition. Either is punishable by death. Execution to be carried out immediately.” He stood back and looked down below the dais.

  The three men had been bound just like the women to three of the same posts, except their heads were also bound to their posts. Behind each was a Matawi holding a long scimitar. The convicted were all speaking at the same time: one was sniveling pleas for his and his family’s salvation, one was quietly repeating words memorized from the Psalmist, and the third asked for forgiveness for the men about to execute them. They were all praying to God.

  The Matawi peered up at their imam for the signal, and at a swoosh of his hand, they swung their blades.

  Chapter 13

  Endurance, Florida

  Randall

  He focused the pressure of each heel onto the lawn’s wet blades, keeping his steps silent. The moonless night was his accomplice; its darkness consumed his shadows, making him nearly invisible. Then he heard the crunch of twigs behind him, and he flicked a glance in that direction to confirm its source. He exhaled his relief.

  She seemed far less concerned about silence than he did. But she didn’t see the final message: those bodies left without their heads in the public square, a warning to the town to comply with their rules or face the worst kind of punishment. They had already decided to leave, but this sign was what told him they had to run, leaving behind all their personal belongings. Not only was it a warning to all of Crystal Waters that their town was firmly under the yoke of sharia law, it was one step farther down their dark path to becoming an Islamic republic. It was not unlike so many places he’d read about in the Middle East. And without the supervision or authority of the United States, there was nothing to stop them.

  What surprised him was that he hadn’t seen it coming earlier. All the signs were there long before the lights went out. But by then Crystal Waters was their community. And because they were probably one of the few towns that was prepared for a calamity, they could survive the death and violence they had heard about outside their community. And when that violence penetrated their boundaries, their rules and methods of enforcement were extreme. But to maintain a civil society, you must not only have rules, you must prosecute those who defy them.

  He’d heard of a vagrant who had wandered into town, like so many others who were usually escorted out. But this one stole food from several homes. His punishment, so Randall heard, was to have his hand chopped off. Before the EMPs, Randall would have thought this punishment was extreme in places like Saudi Arabia and unthinkable here on American soil, but the times were desperate.

  Yet what should have been the most troubling sign was the stepped-up rhetoric about Islamism and jihadism. His wife and he only spoke about it once, but he knew it weighed heavy on both their hearts. It just wasn’t what they understood Islam to be. The imam’s words were certainly from the Quran and the Hadith. But he and Leticia wanted to look at the good in their religion and always felt that this darkness that infected a percentage of Muslims was just a disease that would one day run its course. He had hoped in his lifetime, he would see a reformation, not unlike the one that occurred over five hundred years ago with Christianity. But when the nukes went off and the power grid went down, Randall knew that day would not come while he drew breath. Islamists had done this, and he feared he was living among them in Crystal Waters. The imam’s words made it a certainty.

  Another crack—this one much more pronounced and closer—preceded a form erupting from a tangle of trees.

  We are making far too much noise.

  He would quietly warn his wife again about making too much noise. They were only a couple of blocks from their target. Once they got there, he was sure they’d be safe.

  He just needed to avoid detection by any other Endurance residents. Part of him even considered the imam’s spies might be here, but that was just paranoia.

  He repositioned his son, a fifty-pound deadweight of skinny arms and legs. When his wife stopped in front of him, Randall offered a genuine smile that she returned.

  She clutched their newborn, finally sound asleep. How could he be mad at her? The kids were finally quiet after several miles of whining about being tired, and his wife was obviously being as careful as she could.

  He just held his finger to his lips, smiled again, and walked ahead.

  The house was right on the corner, just as he remembered. It was a simple but spacious ranch-style home owned by their friend Emily Scott.

  ~~~

  Emily

  “Where’s Dr. Scott?” Peter hollered to the ancient volunteer as he charged through the door, arms behind him, clutching one end of a stretcher. Jake shouldered his way through the opening, holding the other end.

  The startled aide yanked his head up, eyes fluttering from just being wakened. He glanced at the unconscious man and then considered the question for just a moment. Rather than saying anything, he just pointed into the bowels of the Endurance Health Center and put his head back down to pick up where he’d left off in his dream.

  When they turned the corner, Emily was coming out of what had become the clinic’s operating room, no longer a mere examining room. Her shoulders hung low and she wore several layers of blood and fatigue.

  “Dr. Scott,” Peter huffed, “can you take a look at this one? Jonah thinks he wasn’t getting enough oxygen through his hazmat suit, and then he passed out.”

  Emily’s eyes didn’t hide her dislike, bordering on disgust, before they flashed back to the patient. She probably should have been more careful, but she was too damn tired. She knew Peter was someone to be feared, and for good reason. Most in Endurance feared Jonah because of his power, but Peter earned these feelings from his reputation of cruelty, if the stories were true. But she’d known Jonah since high school, and because Peter worked for Jonah, she knew Jonah would do everything in his power to protect her against the likes of Peter or others. Still, she chided herself for the momentary lapse in her usual decorum. “Sure, Peter. Do you know his name?”

  “Frank!” yelled Lexi from the back of the clinic. She dashed the span of the hallway—now lined with temporary cots and semiconscious patients—in a flash, grabbing one of Frank’s limp arms as she skidded to a stop.

  Travis shuffled not far behind, bed-hair sticking up on one side. “Uncle Frank!” he croaked in a panicky voice.

  One of Emily’s fingers firmly pressed his carotid while her other hand carefully held up his meaty left arm. “What’s all the blood from?” She searched for the source, rolling up his sleeve and then pulling at his collar.

  “It’s a gunshot wound to his shoulder from a few days ago. I replaced the dressing earlier today,” Lexi said, her voice several octaves higher than normal. She watched Emily peel back the blood-soaked bandages. “Is he going to be all right?”

  Emily didn’t answer right away, instead listening to his
breathing.

  “Yes, I think he should be fine,” she said to Lexi with a smile. “Would you and Travis do me a favor and grab one of the oxygen bottles you helped put away, and I’ll get some fresh bandages. We can both clean up his wounds and change his dressings in a few minutes.”

  Lexi nodded back and squeezed Frank’s left arm, as if to tell him they’d be back, and ushered Travis back down the hallway to do as Dr. Scott had asked.

  To Peter, now with a forced smile, Emily barked, “I have no rooms. So find him an empty cot in the hallway here. I need to see to another patient.”

  She quickly stepped away, but stopped midstride and glanced back at Peter, who was already hoisting Frank’s stretcher back up. “Oh, and would you tell Jonah I said thanks for the medical supplies?”

  “Yeah, sure,” Peter gruffed as he and the other man trudged through the hallway, spotting one open cot. Peter’s mind momentarily flashed a picture of what he’d like to do to this disrespectful bitch who always looked down at him. But he had better things to do.

  Emily briefly watched Peter walk the injured man to the back of the hallway and wondered where Jonah was.

  ~~~

  Jonah

  “Holy shit, Pop! That’s a lot of guns.” Cain said while sucking on a beer bottle. He took a step toward one of the cases already placed inside the razor-wire-fenced area in between two warehouses.

  Jonah leapt forward and pulled him back. “Don’t you have something to do?” Jonah didn’t want to be bothered, but he also didn’t want Cain to infect himself or any of his other men. It was why he isolated all of the Army supplies outside. He’d leave them here in the yard for a few days until he was sure they were safe. Jonah eyed the open enclosure and tried to consider what else he needed to protect his new supplies, including the guns and ammo, from anyone who might want to take them and unwittingly spread sarin residue before it had become inert. They were in the middle of an open area away from the warehouses and his workers. He planned to further post a guard to watch over the site for the next two days before they’d move the supplies inside.

  Cain ignored his father, interested in all the guns and ammo and wondering why he was storing them outside. “What if they get wet?”

  Shit! Jonah looked up at cumulonimbus clouds—pulsating light in the darkness—threatening to do that very thing. He yanked at his walkie and spat into its microphone. “This is Jonah. I need someone to grab three of our canopies from the supplies we got from the REI yesterday and erect them out here.”

  Jonah then watched his men pulling supplies they had taken from the base out of the back of the truck. Each wore a blue hazmat suit, which looked even darker outside the limits of the warehouse’s flood lamps. And with the suits’ interior fog, he couldn’t see their faces.

  “Hey, you!” Jonah yelled at the closest man just before he passed him.

  The man looked up to regard him, struggling with two large green ammo cans. Each was so heavy it seemed to elongate the man’s arms to an unnatural length, making him look like a big blue ape. It was probably an apt analogy because many of Jonah’s men were knuckle-draggers at best.

  He spoke slowly and loudly, enunciating each word. “Make sure the supplies are in three” —he held up three fingers—“stacks. Put on pallets so that they’re off the ground. Each stack no bigger than nine feet by nine feet”—he held up nine fingers, palmed them and held them up again, then made a box shape in the air—“then place the canopies”—he made a house over his head, outlining the roof and posts in the air—“that are coming soon over each stack. You got it?”

  The man nodded, but waited to see if his boss was done with him.

  “Go on. I want to get this done before midnight,” Jonah said while thinking it would be a miracle if the man got this and communicated his demands correctly to the other men.

  The man nodded again and then pushed forward, almost scraping the cans on the ground with each step.

  “Why not store this stuff in the big warehouse up north? You know the one that already has all the supplies in it?” Cain took his last gulp of beer.

  Jonah let the question hang, not sure he’d bother to answer this because his son was not even listening to him. Then he barked, “Listen to me! We are leaving this stuff outside because I said. And the next part is important.” Jonah paused to make sure Cain was paying attention.

  Cain’s head popped up, a little more alert.

  “We’re not using the big SBC warehouse—which is off-limits—because that one is full already with someone else’s supplies.”

  Jonah once again scrutinized the blue ape to see if he was complying with orders.

  “What do you mean someone else’s supplies? I thought once the lights went out, you said all of this stuff was ours.”

  One ape was restacking a pile, just as Jonah had instructed. Another was making boot-measurements, pacing off nine feet in front of the others who had collected in the fenced paddock area. All seemed to be listening to the first blue ape’s instructions through their comms. They might make this work.

  “So is it our stuff or someone else’s? Well?” Cain pushed again.

  “That warehouse …” Jonah glared at his son, annoyed at the constant interruptions and inanely stupid questions. “That warehouse is set aside for a very special client. And you are to never go in there. You got that?”

  “Special? We own this damned place; what yah mean special?”

  “None of your damned business! Now, don’t you have something better to do than stand around and drink my beer?”

  “But, Pop, I got sliced.” He thrust out his two bandaged forearms as if offering proof. “Besides, the hot female doc you’re too chicken to ask out told me to rest.”

  Jonah resisted the urge to coldcock him, the vein on his reddening forehead throbbing as if it would pop. “You lazy-ass wimp! That’s a flesh wound that I’m pretty sure you brought upon yourself. Nut up, son, and get your work done!”

  Cain pulled his shoulders up and took a deep breath as if he was about to face down his father, who was obviously angry at him. His mouth clenched; his two front teeth held back the word he wanted to release while his chest grew as far as his body would allow. But it would only provoke Jonah further. Like a balloon hissing out its heated gas, he deflated, turned and stormed off.

  Jonah watched his idiot son stomp off toward the open doors of the number four warehouse. It was just like he reacted when he was a little boy—he would never mature. To the side of the warehouse’s giant opening lounged four young men—more of his lazy friends—who jumped off their chairs in response to some command Cain directed their way. They shuffled behind him into the warehouse and out of sight.

  Like the growing storms above, Jonah couldn’t shake the feeling of dread at what was coming next.

  He only wished he hadn’t known.

  Phase Three

  “The ruling to kill the Americans and their allies—civilians and military—is an individual duty for every Muslim …

  We also call on Muslim ulema, leaders, youths, and soldiers to launch the raid on Satan's U.S. troops and the devil's supporters allying with them …”

  —Osama Bin Laden, Leader of al-Qaeda

  “If we were united and strong, we’d elect our own emir (leader) and give allegiance to him … Take my word, if 6–8 million Muslims unite in America, the country will come to us.”

  –Siraj Wahaj, a convert to Islam and first Muslim to deliver the daily prayer in the U.S. House of Representatives

  “When Phase Three is complete, there will be a new caliphate in America

  and its people will have only two choices, join us or die.”

  —Imam Ramadi, July 9th

  Chapter 14

  July 10th

  Endurance, Florida

  The day that would define the future of America began like many mornings on the Gulf Coast.

  Puffy clouds, darkened by heavy loads of moisture and almost bursting, turned a bloody sha
de as the sun hinted at its steady arrival. When the delicate light burst from the other coast, the heavenly billows appeared to cheer a thunderous applause, which echoed throughout. The storm’s first drops fell upon Endurance just as their footsteps tumbled upon its city limits close to where Jonah had set up one of his roadblocks.

  The immigrant swarm proceeding north on the highway was like a stream running downhill, the roadblock no better than a boulder placed in the middle of the torrent. The flow easily adjusted around it, seemingly unstoppable.

  Not wanting to shoot people, including many women and children, the two guards were immediately overwhelmed. Ignoring their verbal threats, the horde streamed through and around their useless barrier.

  Bigelow reached into his ’67 Beetle—a small pebble in the flowing waters—and grabbed his handheld, frantically hollering into it. “We’re being invaded by immigrants! What do we do? We need help!”

  After long moments of silence on the other end, Jonah responded, “Stop them! You have guns, use them.”

  Bigelow jumped into the driver’s seat and slammed the door shut to get out of the torrential downpour now coming from the heavens. He needed to think, which he couldn’t outside, while he made his case. He also needed to hear his boss’s reply.

  “But, sir, they’re mostly women and children … and many of them have already gone past the barrier. There was no way to stop them except to kill them.”

  Bigelow bored his gaze into the radio, desperate for a speedy answer, but also apprehensive at what Jonah would tell him to do. He once again made sure the volume control was maxed when he didn’t hear an immediate reply, afraid he had accidentally turned it down or off. The empty static, normally loud, was impossible to hear now with the clamor outside.

  “Fine, I’ll take care of it myself,” the voice on the radio curtly replied.

  Bigelow felt an immediate sense of relief. He really didn’t think he could shoot anyone, and certainly not women and children. He breathed out deeply, waiting for the rest of his orders. Thinking of his wife and two kids, he considered that they might have been just like these people had Jonah not given them jobs to do in exchange for food. As a web-based network marketer in a land where the Internet no longer existed, he possessed few marketable skills to exchange. But he had one of the few working vehicles in town.