Tanner eased the fiberglass door open, half expecting to be attacked by a horde of bloodthirsty creatures waiting for him on the other side. He wasn’t. The landing was empty, and a long flight of stairs led down into a pool of darkness. The pounding was even louder now, jarring his teeth with every thunderous blow. Navigating the stairs completely blind would be tricky, but he deemed it worth the risk. He had to know the condition of the steel door.
Placing his hands on the left wall, he carefully took one stair at a time, counting them as he went. By the time he reached the bottom, the hammering was deafening, a slow deep thumping of metal hitting metal. The infected were swinging their battering ram with a sense of purpose as sure as that of the orcs trying to breach Helm’s Deep.
Tanner reached out and blindly felt his way over to the door. Warm hands suddenly grabbed at him, frantically pulling at his clothes.
“What the hell!” He stumbled back, knocking the hands away with the stock of his shotgun.
Arms stretched toward him and screams rang out like the cries of a thousand tortured souls. The darkness made it impossible for Tanner to see how they had managed to reach him through the door. Perhaps they had bent away a corner, or maybe they had managed to rip a hole through the metal. The fact that they weren’t mauling his body could only mean that the locking mechanism still held. But for how much longer?
Tanner scrambled to his feet and raced back up the stairs, falling twice and cracking his shin against the stone steps. He bolted through the fiberglass door, down the short hallway, and back into the library. His heart was pounding, and warm blood trickled down his shin as he shoved the bookcase back in place.
The enemy was coming, and there wasn’t a damn thing he could do to stop it. His choices were limited to standing and fighting—a losing proposition to be sure—or running.
“What is it?” a soft voice said from the dark.
He whipped around, bringing his shotgun up. Samantha stood in the doorway of the receptionist area, rubbing sleep from her eyes. She was in an old pair of jeans and a t-shirt, but her rifle was slung across her back.
“It’s trouble,” he breathed.
She walked closer to the bookcase and listened. Frenzied wailing now accompanied the hammering. The infected knew that a prize awaited them.
“Why are they trying to come up here?” she asked. “I thought they liked the dark.”
“I guess they like me better.”
“You went down there?”
“Only as far as the door.”
She crossed her arms. “You should have woke me before you did that.”
“You’re right. I should have. You can yell at me later. Right now, we need to get out of here.”
Samantha went to the window and looked out.
“It’ll be dark for another couple of hours. If we go out there…” She left the rest unfinished. Both of them knew the dangers of being in the city at night.
“I know, but we can’t stay here.” Tanner hurried over to the front door. His and Samantha’s fully-loaded packs leaned against the wall. Having a grab-and-go bag was an integral part of life now, an open admission that roots could never be allowed to grow too deep.
With her head hung low, Samantha walked over and nudged her backpack with her foot.
“But we just got here.”
“Tell that to them,” he said, nodding toward the bookcase.
She reluctantly hoisted her pack into the air and slid her arms through the straps.
“I don’t want to leave. This place is nice.”
Tanner turned and saw her staring at the floor. He placed a hand on her shoulder.
“It’s just a house—wood, bricks, glass. That’s it.”
“It’s more than that,” she mumbled.
“What then?”
“It was going to be our home.”
He gave her shoulder a little squeeze.
“We’ll go back to the cabin. That’ll be our home.”
She looked toward the kitchen.
“But this house has food.”
“The cabin has food.”
“Good food, I mean.”
“Sam, we don’t get to choose our misfortunes.”
“I know,” she said, wringing her hands. “But it still stinks.”
He smiled. “Just wait until you see what we have to do to this house.”
Chapter 2
Deputy Marshal Mason Raines awoke to a dog’s wet nose pressing against his ear. He sat up and stretched, his arms bumping into the canopy of interwoven branches above his head. He could have slept in the cab of his truck, but with the windshield cracked, visibility would have been poor, and he worried that someone might come up on him unannounced. Besides, ever since he was a young boy, he had found it comforting to stare up at the stars, listening to owls hoot and katydids sing. There was something calming about finding one’s place in the larger universe, and it didn’t seem to matter whether that universe was a fenced-in backyard or the entire Milky Way.
Bowie, his giant Irish wolfhound, sat just outside the lean-to, staring in at him with two mismatched eyes, one blue and one brown. Mason had named the dog after the singer David Bowie because of his unusual eyes. But given the dog’s incredible tenacity to survive, it was just as appropriate for him to have been the namesake of the famous frontiersman, Jim Bowie.
“I’m awake,” he said with a yawn.
Bowie inched forward and licked him on the side of his face.
Before the dog could really slather him down, Mason slid out from beneath the makeshift shelter. The sun hadn’t quite come up over the long strip of blacktop trailing off to the east, but the gentle brightening of the horizon suggested that it wouldn’t be long. Central Kentucky offered a climate in late spring that was as temperate as anywhere in the continental states, and the temperature was already a comfortable sixty-five degrees.
He surveyed the camp and found that everything was pretty much the way he had left it the night before. Trees lay toppled all across the small thicket, and his Ford F-150 truck sat a few yards away, its hood dented and windows cracked. In the distance lay the ravaged city of Lexington, Kentucky, the victim of a nuclear airburst.
He and Bowie had managed to survive the blast by seeking cover in a nearby ditch. Physically, both man and dog were in good shape, suffering only slight thermal burns and a few cuts and scrapes from the blowing debris. Unfortunately, Mason’s truck had not fared as well. Not only did it look like it had been the victim of a hammer-toting maniac, its control electronics had also been fried, thanks to the powerful electromagnetic pulse that resulted from the high-altitude explosion.
Mason had decided to give the dust time to settle, as well as any trace radiation to subside, before venturing into the city. The mission ahead of him was straightforward. He would find Lenny Bruce, the one man who could connect General Hood to the poisonous gas attack on the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center. Once located, he would force Lenny to provide information on General Hood. And that, he hoped, would lead to a reckoning that was long overdue.
Given the use of a nuclear weapon, Mason was more convinced than ever that President Pike was also involved. It seemed utterly impossible that a military action of that scale could have occurred without presidential approval. While he had no proof, Mason believed that the attack was specifically designed to kill Lenny in an attempt to cover up what could now be considered crimes of the state. Whether or not the strike had been successful would only be determined by going deeper into the ruined city.
Mason stood and slowly worked the kinks out of his back. He was no stranger to sleeping on the ground, but it never failed to remind him of the benefits of a good mattress—or even a lumpy one for that matter. He also took a few minutes to perform a few basic pistol handling drills, including drawing, sidestepping, and reloading. Despite having done the exercises thousands of times, he took nothing for granted, practicing until the movements were once again natural and instinctive. As he had to
ld his students at Glynco many times, men fumbled weapons because they got too used to them hanging at their sides, instead of being in their hands.
Bowie watched him with fascination, occasionally turning to study Mason’s imaginary target, perhaps wondering if there was some alternate dimension filled with invisible enemies that only his master could see.
When Mason finished warming up, he walked to the truck and folded back the heavy tarp covering the bed. A large cache of food, water, medicine, ammunition, clothing, and tools were all neatly stacked beneath. He lifted out a jug of water, a metal cup, and a cast iron Dutch oven, and carried everything over to a small fire pit. The flames from the night before had long since gone out, but it took him only a minute to nurse the fire back to life.
He filled the pot about half full of water and hung it over the fire using three stout branches stacked in a simple teepee-like structure. While the water slowly warmed, he returned to the truck and retrieved a large pouch of freeze-dried eggs, a can of instant coffee, a spoon, and several bars of salted yeast-free tack that he had baked weeks earlier at his cabin. He broke off a chunk of the stiff cracker-like bread and tossed it over to Bowie.
The dog caught it in his mouth and quickly chomped it down. When he had finished, he scoured the ground for any remaining crumbs.
Mason set his breakfast on a nearby rock and waited for the water to boil. When it finally started bubbling, he scooped out a cupful and poured it into the pouch of eggs, folding over the top of the bag to give the food time to rehydrate.
Bowie watched with great interest, taking quick shallow sniffs of the air in an attempt to pull in more of the tasty odor.
“There’s plenty,” Mason assured him.
Bowie licked his lips as if understanding his master’s words perfectly.
Mason scooped out a second cup of water and stirred in a little of the instant coffee. He took a small sip. Not great, but it would do. He sat quietly for a few minutes, enjoying the coffee as he listened to the sounds of nature slowly awakening in the forest around him.
Bowie whined impatiently.
“I hear you, but a good cook doesn’t rush his masterpiece.”
He opened the pouch of eggs and poked them with the spoon. There was still a little residual water floating on the surface, but he figured they were good enough. He scooped a pile out onto the rock and waved his hand over them. Bowie stared at the eggs, then back at Mason, and then back at the eggs.
He smiled. “They’re cool enough. Go on.”
The dog lunged forward, his huge tongue making short work of the eggs.
Mason tossed him another chunk of tack and then got busy eating his own breakfast. When he was finished, he used a thick branch to lift the pot off the fire and carried it over to the tailgate of his truck. He stripped naked and dropped a cotton rag into the hot water. Using the stick, he lifted out the rag and let it dangle in the air for a few seconds until the steam subsided. When it was finally cool enough to touch, he went about carefully washing himself. He also used some of the water and a bar of soap to wash his hair and shave. When he was satisfied, he pulled out a fresh set of clothes and dressed. Mason had learned during his time in the military that clean socks and underwear did wonders for a person’s morale.
He stared down at the truck bed full of supplies. His pack was already stuffed with as much as he could carry, which meant that everything else would have to be left behind. While there was no guarantee that he could ever come back to collect anything, he thought it only prudent to plan for his eventual return. He started by lifting out several heavy ammo cans and carrying them to a small rock outcropping about thirty yards away. He repeated the trip twelve more times, each time taking an armful of provisions to the cubbyhole. When he was finished, he draped the tarp over the supplies and placed small stones around the perimeter to hold it in place.
Mason stepped back and inspected his handiwork. The cache wouldn’t be hard to find if someone went looking, but then again, why would they? An abandoned truck on the highway was certainly not an unusual sight. Given the current state of the nation, it was more likely that the supplies would remain hidden for generations, slowly sinking into the earth like unexploded munitions from a world war.
He pulled his Colt M4 assault rifle off his shoulder and turned to Bowie.
“All right, I guess we’re as ready as we’ll ever be.”
The highway into Lexington was littered with uprooted bushes, tree branches, and the occasional car reflector. Even at a distance of several miles, the explosion’s shockwave and subsequent hurricane-force winds had tested the integrity of everything in its wake.
The first property he came across was a horse farm. A simple wooden fence surrounded the five-acre grazing pasture, but there were no animals in sight. A brick rancher and a red barn sat a few hundred yards back from the road. The barn leaned precariously to one side, its metal roof rolled up like the lid on a can of sardines. A pickup truck was parked next to the rancher, but a splintered electrical pole rested across the hood of the vehicle. It wasn’t going anywhere.
Mason suspected that the home had probably been abandoned, yet another remnant of a time when man had been plentiful. Even if not, there was little chance that Lenny would have chosen to build his empire from the confines of a simple farmhouse. As the self-appointed leader of Fresh Start, Lenny would have set up somewhere symbolic of his position of authority, perhaps a courthouse or other government building. That meant that Mason would likely have to go into the heart of the city to find him. He wondered whether buildings so close to the blast would even be recognizable anymore. Like the carpet-bombing of London in World War II, he expected that the strike had left behind little more than piles of rubble.
Still, he had to look. Lenny was the only real lead he had.
They walked on, Bowie sniffing his way along the edge of the road as if hunting a rabbit that had gotten away. After another couple hundred yards, they came across two large churches sitting adjacent to one another—shameless competitors for God’s followers. The steeple of the Catholic church had broken off and now stabbed through the roof of the neighboring Protestant church, an attack reminiscent of the Thirty Years’ War. The damage to the roof was extensive, leaving virgin rafters and puffy blocks of fiberglass insulation poking out.
The churches struck Mason as being too far out of the city to be likely retreats for Lenny, but he couldn’t be sure without checking them. Lenny had obviously hitched his wagon to religion as a way of controlling his followers, and it didn’t seem completely out of character for him to have set up shop in a House of the Lord.
Mason turned up the freshly paved blacktop driveway, stepping around hymnals, folding chairs, and other church debris. He also encountered his first dead body, a middle-aged woman lying on her back, her soiled dress hiked up to her waist. The woman’s skin was bright red, like she had fallen asleep on the beach, the result no doubt of the intense thermal radiation emitted by the nuclear blast. The right side of her face was covered in blood, and there was an open wound along her temple. The corpse was stiff with rigor mortis, indicating that her death had occurred sometime within the past forty-eight hours.
Mason continued on, but Bowie lingered to sniff a stain on the woman’s dress. As he approached the Protestant church, a man and a woman hurried out through the front door.
“Let me see your hands,” Mason directed, bringing the M4 up to his shoulder.
They stopped and slowly raised their hands.
“Who are you?” asked the man.
“Deputy Marshal Mason Raines.” He made no effort to show them his badge. A rifle required two hands to operate effectively, and he wasn’t about to compromise his position.
“Marshal, we need help,” the woman said. “People are badly hurt inside—burns and broken bones. Please.”
Mason glanced at the open door of the church. He couldn’t afford to get pulled into what would surely be endless days of caring for the injured. If he was
to have any chance of success, he had to stay focused on the mission at hand.
“I’m looking for a man named Lenny Bruce.”
The man and woman turned to one another with a mix of surprise and suspicion.
“What do you want with Brother Lenny?” she asked, her eyes narrowing.
“I need to talk to him.”
“About what?”
Mason gestured toward the ruined city.
“To find out more about what happened here.”
“Why would Brother Lenny know anything about the bombing?”
“He’s a prophet, isn’t he? I would think he knows something about everything.”
“I suppose.”
“So, is he inside or not?”
“No,” she said, shaking her head.
“Do you know where he might be?”
“The last time I saw him—”
“Judy,” the man said, “I’m not sure you should be discussing Brother Lenny with the authorities. For all we know, this man is with the people who bombed the city.”
Mason tightened his grip on the rifle.
“Let the lady talk.”
The man shrugged but said nothing more.
Judy seemed uncertain about what to do next.
“Go on,” said Mason.
She bit her lip. “I’m not sure where he is. And that’s the truth.”
“But you know something.”
She didn’t answer.
“Look,” he said, softening his tone. “I’m not here to harm Lenny. In fact, I’m trying to make sure that the people who committed this atrocity pay for their crimes.” While all that was true, he left out the fact that he also considered Lenny to be part of the conspiracy.
Battle Lines (The Survivalist Book 5) Page 2