Feral Nation Series: Books 1-3: A Post-Apocalyptic Thriller Series Boxed Set

by Scott B. Williams

  Keith was now standing just a few feet away. There was no reason to doubt this guy anymore after all he said. He had to be telling the truth to know even half of what he’d just told him. “Yeah, sure. I’m sorry, but the way things are these days, you can never be too careful.” Keith stepped forward and extended his hand. “What did you say your name was?”

  “It’s Jonathan. Jonathan Coleman.”

  They shook hands when the young man got to his feet. Keith saw that he was lean and tan from outdoor living, and that the weapon he wore on a sling was some kind of AK-variant rifle.

  “I’m still confused about how my brother Eric fits into all this,” he said. “I got a VHF radio call the day before yesterday, late in the afternoon, from my father, so I already knew he’d somehow made it here to Louisiana on a boat. But I never could get back in touch with him and I couldn’t find the boat he might have called from. I suspected he might have been farther away than I first thought, and what you said confirms it. But Eric? I never expected Eric to be with him.”

  “He came back here to get Megan,” Jonathan said. “I met him the first night he was back, after he paddled ashore near Jupiter. He went to Shauna’s house first and found it looted and deserted. Then, he and I sailed a little 25-foot boat all the way down around the Keys and up to Fort Myers. They had a blockade at the mouth of the river there, so we had to ditch the boat. We used Eric’s kayak to sneak around it and go to your dad’s boatyard, and that’s when we found out Shauna and Daniel and Andrew where there. But Shauna hadn’t seen Megan since all the riots and shit started. She said as far as she knew, Megan was still in Colorado at the university. Eric’s going to get her, and when he finds her, he’s planning on sailing away from all this crap. Going anywhere in Florida on the roads is about impossible anyway, and your dad thought Eric ought to come here first. He said he might want to think about hitching a ride upriver part of the way by working security on a fuel barge, because it sure as hell won’t be easy to get to Colorado by road with the way things are.”

  Keith was flabbergasted to hear all this. He hadn’t expected Eric to be able to make it back to the U.S. from Europe even if he wanted to, and until now he wasn’t sure his brother had wanted to. But he’d somehow gotten to Florida and then sailed here from across the Gulf, bringing not only their father, but also his ex-wife and her family. Keith never would have dreamed it.

  “So where is he? Why isn’t he here with you if you two came here to find me? Did he take my truck?”

  “Yeah, he found the key and said he was going to look for the sheriff’s office and see if they might know where you were. He figured you’d been here some, since we could tell someone was working on the house, but he said you might not be living here anymore. He looked around a bit and shined his light through the windows. He saw the pictures inside and thought something might have happened to your wife.”

  “Yes, she died.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that man, I really am. And I know Eric was upset about it too. He’s been gone I don’t know, maybe three or four hours? We got here just before midnight and he couldn’t stand just waiting for daylight, so he left. I got bored waiting on him so I walked up the road a bit. I came back when I heard your boat motor. That’s why I was out here in the driveway when you first saw me. I guess I should have yelled first, but I wasn’t sure it was you. Eric said to be careful, because anyone could come along out here. I’m glad you didn’t shoot me, man.”

  “Yeah, me too, Jonathan, because I wouldn’t have known who in the hell you were if I had. With all the looting that’s been going on though, a lot of folks would have shot first without saying a word. I guess my law enforcement training is still too engrained in me to get used to that idea yet. Still got that bring ’em in alive for a fair trial and all that, mentality, you know? Come on, let’s go up to the house and talk while we wait for Eric to get back.”

  As they sat on the screen porch, Jonathan answered Keith’s many questions about their voyage from Florida and the specifics of the predicament the sailboat was in now. Keith immediately thought of Vic and his outrigger-equipped trawler. It might be possible to do the job with his boat alone, Keith’s patrol boat with it’s twin 150s could provide a lot of pulling power if Vic could just lift the bow enough to free it. If that didn’t work, he was willing to bet Vic would figure something out. There was also the issue of Shauna’s gunshot wound. Keith needed to get her to the hospital in Lafayette. He was sure he could get them to treat her if he took her there himself, and from the sound of it, if she didn’t get that hand fixed correctly, it would never heal properly and she might never regain full use of it. As he thought of all this, he suddenly remembered that Vic had plans to leave later that morning. If he didn’t catch him first, they would have to wait for tomorrow to even get his opinion on how to proceed. Waiting on Eric was going to make him too late.

  “I don’t know what could be keeping him so long,” Keith told Jonathan. “It’s not like he could get lost in St. Martinsville. If he went to the sheriff’s office, he would quickly see that it’s boarded up and no one is there anymore. I think we ought to go look for him, Jonathan. I don’t like the idea of my dad being stranded down there in the marsh on that boat. I want to get down there today, without fail. We need to catch my brother-in-law before he leaves this morning and see if he’ll help. He’s got a boat that I’m pretty sure will do the job.”

  “But what if Eric comes back and I’m not here? What will he think then? I know he’ll be pissed at me for not waiting like he told me to.”

  “He’ll see my patrol boat, so he’ll know I’ve been here. Besides, we can leave a note in the dinghy for him too, to let him know we’re looking for him. Come on. We’ll take Lynn’s Cherokee. We’ll run over to the sheriff’s office first. Maybe we’ll pass him on the way.”

  Keith wrote the note himself, explaining what they were going to do. He hoped Eric would recognize his signature, but even if he didn’t, he would have no reason to doubt it. He didn’t quite know what to make of Eric being delayed so long, but he figured that since his brother was heading for the sheriff’s office in St. Martinsville, that’s where he should look first. But just after they turned west off the road leading from his house, Keith and Jonathan came upon the scene of some kind of incident. John Lowery, one of Keith’s distant neighbors who lived farther north on the bayou, was standing by the side of the road talking to another fellow that Keith had seen before, but whose name he didn’t know. John’s truck was pulled off on the shoulder, as was the one the other man was driving, and they were looking at two vehicles apparently abandoned in the middle of the lanes. One of them was a red Toyota Matrix, and Keith could see that it had been shot up by the flat tire and shattered window glass and windshield. The truck parked beside it was a Ford F150 pickup that didn’t appear to be damaged.

  “Damn, dude! I wonder what happened here?” Jonathan said.

  “I don’t know, but I need to try and find out.” Keith pulled over and got out of the Jeep. He could now see a body in the grass behind the car and another one inside, slumped over the steering wheel, a jacket draped over the head and shoulders.

  “What happened here, John?” Keith asked as he walked closer.

  “I don’t know, but there’s three dead. Don’t recognize any of them, but there’s Louisiana plates on the car and the truck.”

  Keith saw the third body now; face down at the edge of the woods.

  “Did you find any weapons?”

  “Nope. If they had any, whoever killed them must have taken them. We were just talking about it, trying to figure out what happened.”

  “You haven’t seen anybody else go by have you, maybe in my Tahoe with the markings?”

  “Nope. Did somebody steal it? Do you think they were involved in this?”

  “No, not at all. My brother took it, looking for me. I think he went to the office. That’s where we’re headed now, trying to track him down. I’ll see if we can figure out who th
ese men were, and then I’ll have them picked up. That’s about all I can do right now.”

  Keith checked the bodies and only found a wallet on one of the men; the one that had died at the edge of the woods from what was probably a pistol round to the face. The driver’s license in it showed his age to be 26, and that he had a New Orleans street address. There was cash in the wallet too; mostly useless now, but still, Keith wondered why whoever did this didn’t take it since the other two had no wallets on them. From the looks of the other guy beside the truck, with two in the chest and one in the head, it almost looked like an execution killing. Whatever their motivation, the killers had been thorough. The victim in the driver’s seat of the car had been shot in the head at close range with a shotgun.

  “What are you gonna do, man?” Jonathan asked, when Keith returned to the Jeep. “Are you going to have to look for whoever did this, since you’re a deputy?”

  “No. I imagine they’re long gone by now. Those men have been dead for at least a couple of hours. We haven’t had the resources to hunt down criminals in weeks. Most of the men in our department are dead, including the sheriff. I almost lost another partner and good friend in a shootout just a couple of days ago. He was badly wounded, but I got him to the hospital in Lafayette and they got the bullet out.”

  “Is that the same hospital you plan to take Shauna to?”

  “Yep. It’s the only one in the whole region that’s open, as far as I know, and they’re not able to treat everybody. They’ll make an exception for her, I think, just because they’re doing all they can for law enforcement and their families.”

  “Yeah, I can see that. People need you guys. It’s so crazy everywhere now.”

  Keith was already driving away from the scene of the roadside shooting as they talked. It was so frustrating to him that he couldn’t prevent such things, but in the big scheme of things now, three men dead was nothing. Hundreds of citizens of his parish had been killed in the bridge attacks and various smaller shootings, including the single-victim sort like the one the other day when Mr. Patel was murdered in front of his store.

  As he followed the road to St. Martinsville, Keith wondered if the killing behind them happened before or after Eric passed that way in the dark hours of morning. It didn’t make sense that he hadn’t returned to the house yet. He’d had plenty of time to go and see that no one was around at the sheriff’s office and Keith didn’t think Eric would have any other ideas of where to look for him. If Bart had told him where Lynn’s parents lived over on the west side of the basin, Eric hadn’t said anything to Jonathan about it. All Keith knew to do was ride by the sheriff’s office and check there. Then he would go to Vic’s and try to catch him before he left to go to his aunt’s.

  A half hour later, after cruising through town and looking everywhere for a glimpse of the white Tahoe with no luck, Keith and Jonathan were pulling up to Vic’s, and Keith was relieved to see that he was still home.

  “So that’s you’re brother-in-law’s boat?” Jonathan asked, seeing the big fishing vessel tied to the dock beside the waterfront house. “It’s a lot bigger than I pictured it.”

  “Yeah, that’s it. It’s a shrimper. I think it’s about 45-feet long, but Vic can tell you for sure. What do you think?”

  “I think it could totally move Dreamtime, dude! It’s got those big outrigger booms and the winches. It looks a lot like those two boats that followed us out in the Gulf to attack us. Is that your brother-in-law’s truck? You didn’t tell me he was a deputy too.”

  “He’s not. That’s Greg’s truck, my partner that’s in the hospital. Come on, let’s go talk to Vic and tell him what’s going on.”

  Ten minutes later, Keith and Jonathan were on the deck of Vic’s Miss Anita, Jonathan describing the predicament the schooner was in and pointing out its approximate location on Vic’s charts of the river entrance.

  “All we can do it try it, bro. If it don’t work, we’ll have to figure out something else, but I think like you said, with your boat pulling her from the stern and me lifting as much as I can by the bow, she might slide back off it the way she went up on it. Only thing is, the tide’s gonna be falling again by the time we get there, so we can’t afford to wait.” Vic was looking at his tide tables for the area.

  “What’s the range?” Keith asked.

  “Not much. Maybe a foot and a half, but that’s still enough to make a difference, especially at full low. If we hurry we oughta get there before it’s halfway down. All we can do is try. I’m willing if you are, bro. Aunt Francine’s house can wait! I’ll just need to replace the fuel it takes to run down there and back.”

  “We’ll take care of that,” Keith said.

  “Eric will pay for it, I promise you that,” Jonathan said. “If there’s somewhere to get some diesel, he’s going to want to top off the tanks and Jerry cans on the schooner too.”

  “We’ll work it out. But like I said, we don’t need to wait. Anything could happen down there, and the sooner we get this done the better. It won’t take me but a couple hours to get ready, and I’ll start heading that way.”

  “Great!” Keith said. “I guess we’ll see you down there. Don’t forget your shotgun. You’d better bring a rifle too. There are some lonely stretches of river between here and there, as you well know.”

  “Don’t worry about me, bro. I’ve got it covered.”

  Keith felt good about their prospects for rescuing the schooner after talking to Vic. As he and Jonathan drove back to his house, he kept his eyes open, looking for the Tahoe but they passed only a couple of other vehicles before they reached the scene of the shooting, which was just as it was when they left it.

  “So they’ll just come pick them up and haul them off to be buried?” Jonathan asked.

  “Yep, it’s all we can do. I’m hanging on to any I.D.s I find in case something comes up later, but that’s about it. Case closed as far as I’m concerned.”

  When they turned into the driveway, Keith was disappointed and surprised to see that Eric still hadn’t returned. He sent Jonathan over to check the dinghy and see if the note he’d left there was still in it, just to be sure, but it was. It didn’t make any sense that Eric would just disappear like that. Where in the hell could he have gone that would take him so long to get back? Keith looked at his watch. It was already nearly 9 a.m. It was a long way down the river and the high tide was already in and would soon start going back out. Keith hated the idea of leaving without him, but Eric was a grown man, not to mention a badass former Navy SEAL and contractor. He could take care of himself and Keith would just have to see him later. He told Jonathan to revise the note to let him know they’d gone on downriver, and then the two of them boarded his patrol boat and left.

  Seventeen

  ERIC BAILED OUT OF the SUV so fast when he saw the shotgun pointed his way that he didn’t have time to grab the M4. It didn’t matter though. He had come upon the vehicles in the road so quickly when he rounded the bend that he was quite close by the time he stopped. His Glock 19 was already in hand as he crouched low beside the driver’s side fender, the man firing the shotgun too confused by the flashing lights to even realize he’d left the vehicle. Eric centered the red dot from the Trijicon RMR sight on the shooter and dropped him with a smooth double-tap to the chest. When the other guy realized what was happening, he let go of the girl and dove for the weeds on the shoulder of the road. Eric stood to get in position to fire over the hood of the vehicle as the man tripped and then drew a pistol of his own as he crawled for the cover of the trees. When he raised it to fire, Eric put the dot between his eyes and squeezed off a single round, putting him away instantly and permanently. The terrified girl had dropped to a low crouch behind the tailgate of the truck by then, screaming and covering her ears against the noise of the gunshots. When Eric was certain there were no more threats, he reached back into the Tahoe and flipped off the blue lights. Then he walked towards the pickup. The first man he’d shot was still wheezing and g
asping as he lay there dying from a ventilated chest. Eric put an anchoring shot through the side of his head to silence him, and then bent and picked up the shotgun he’d dropped. When he turned his attention back to the girl, she was practically hysterical, and now Eric could see why. The driver’s side window of the Toyota car had been shot out. The headlights from the Tahoe revealed someone slumped over the steering wheel, and Eric saw with a glance that it was a man with part of his head missing. It didn’t take a genius to figure out that the man from the truck had shot him at close range with the 12-gauge Eric had just picked up.

  “Are you hurt?” he asked the girl, who was now frantically pulling open the rear door of the car, crying out for someone she clearly expected to find there.

  Eric hadn’t noticed, but there was a child lying in the back seat, and from the way she was acting, the child was obviously hers. He could now see that she was perhaps a little older than he’d first thought, maybe in her mid to late twenties. The child wasn’t moving, and Eric saw that it was a little boy of about four or five.

  “Is he your son? Was he shot too?”

  The young woman turned to look back at Eric. “Yes, he is. They didn’t shoot him, they just shot Danny, but Sammy is going to die anyway if he doesn’t get to a hospital! That’s where we were going when those men saw us. Danny turned off at the exit back there hoping they would go on, but they followed us and then they just pulled up beside the car and started shooting! It happened right before you showed up. Thank God you’re a policeman! You’ve got to help me!”

  Eric didn’t bother correcting her. She was still hysterical and seemed much more upset about whatever was wrong with the child in the back seat than she was about the dead driver of the car. “What’s the matter with the boy? Is he hurt? Or sick?”

  “He got bitten by a cottonmouth! We didn’t know what was wrong with him at first. He started screaming just before we were about to go inside for the night. We’d been sitting out by the fire in the backyard after we cooked supper, like we always do ever since the hurricane. Sammy was playing over by the back porch nearby and then he started hollering and crying, and holding his left hand. We just thought he’d scraped it on a nail or something, but then after we took him inside and got a flashlight, we saw the bite marks. It started swelling up something awful and turning dark within minutes. Danny went back out there with the light to look around and sure enough, he found a snake coiled up in the bushes right next to the porch. He killed it with a piece of firewood, and when he looked closer at it with the light, he said it was definitely a cottonmouth. You know how poisonous those things are if you live around here.”