Trackers (Book 1)

by Nicholas Sansbury Smith

The detective nodded and motioned for Kelly and Risa.

  “Marcus…” Kelly began to say. Her dark eyes pleaded with him to reconsider.

  “I’ll be right behind you.” He kissed her on the lips and then Risa on the forehead before jumping back into the Jeep. The passenger door creaked open, and Nathan looked in.

  “You need some backup?” he asked.

  Colton nodded. “Hop in, Major.”

  They squealed out of the parking lot and raced up the street. He took a left toward the Safeway. Colton had been afraid to ask Nathan what else he had heard over the shortwave on the drive from the high school, and Nathan didn’t seem to be up for talking right now. His features were set in a stony mask. He stared out the window, his hand gripping his chest like he was in pain.

  “You good, Major?”

  It took Nathan a long moment to reply. “Not really. My nephew is in the fallout zone, and my sister was in D.C. And I’m trapped here.”

  Colton had been through some heavy shit in his life, but if he lost his family, he wasn’t sure he could go on.

  “If we make it through this storm, I’ll find you a working vehicle and give you enough food, gear, and ammo to make it to Empire,” Colton said. “I’ve got a few CBRN suits at the station. After the flood, we applied for a grant and bought all kinds of disaster equipment.”

  Nathan pulled his hand away from his chest and patted Colton on the arm.

  “Thanks, brother.”

  Colton would have replied, but when he pulled into the parking lot of the Safeway, he saw Officer Rick Nelson standing with his shotgun shouldered. He jerked the muzzle back and forth at two rail-thin men and an even skinnier woman dressed in a tank top and denim skirt despite the cold. Colton didn’t recognize any of them.

  He assessed the situation quickly as he drove toward the crowd. The man on Nelson’s left wore a red poncho and was twirling a baseball bat. His friend had on an Old Navy sweatshirt covered in mud and held a large duffel bag. The woman was carrying a pair of bulging plastic shopping bags.

  Behind them stood a group twenty- or thirty-strong. More people filed in and out of the front doors, some of them pushing carts loaded to the brim with food and supplies. He didn’t see any Safeway employees.

  “Goddammit,” Colton said. “Looters. Just what I need right now.”

  “I’ve got your back, Chief,” Nathan said. He un-holstered his M9 and pulled the slide back to chamber a round.

  Colton parked the Jeep and pulled his Colt .45. The three civilians surrounding Nelson all looked at Nathan and Colton.

  “Drop the bat and the bags,” Colton said.

  “They raided the pharmacy,” Nelson said, his voice shaky. He kept his shotgun aimed at the man with the bat.

  “We took our fair share,” the man in the poncho said. He twirled the bat in one hand.

  The other man smirked, revealing blackened teeth. He centered a crazed gaze on Colton. There was no mistaking the wide eyes and sweat pouring down the man’s forehead. These three were all opiate addicts—dangerous, unpredictable, and an increasingly common sight in Estes Park. People like this were going to be a problem as their supplies of prescription drugs dwindled.

  “You better do what Chief Colton told you to do,” Nelson said. The guy with the bat stepped toward the officer. Both of his friends followed, but Nelson held his ground.

  Behind them, another group of shoppers pushed full shopping carts out of the store. Colton couldn’t let this situation continue. With the storm approaching, they had less than an hour to get these people to safety. They couldn’t afford to leave the food out where it might be contaminated by the storm, either.

  “Drop your bat and your bags, last warning,” Colton said. He pulled the hammer back and directed the Colt’s barrel at the man’s head.

  The bat clattered on the ground and Colton nodded at Nelson, who lowered his shotgun.

  “Watch them, Officer Nelson,” Colton said. “Nathan, follow me.”

  Side by side, they approached the entrance, weapons angled at the ground.

  “Turn those carts around and get your asses to town hall. There’s a storm coming and it’s bringing fallout!” Colton yelled. He didn’t bother telling them what fallout did to a body; there wasn’t time for a public service announcement.

  He didn’t know most of these people, and many of them simply stared back at him or kept pushing their laden carts toward the street.

  Colton raised his gun and fired it into the sky.

  Every person in the parking lot froze as the crack reverberated through the town.

  “Carts back inside, and then get to a shelter!” Colton yelled.

  There was no movement at first, the shock of the gunshot having paralyzed the residents of Estes Park. Colton almost felt bad. Instead of yelling, he said, “Now, everyone. Get those carts back inside.”

  He corralled everyone back to the store with Nathan’s help, while Nelson stood guard. Inside, they discovered two store employees who helped push the carts together near the cash registers. Just as Colton felt like he’d gotten a handle on the situation, the glass front door shattered.

  People in the parking lot were shouting, and then a woman screamed.

  A shotgun blast rang out.

  Colton and Nathan ran back outside to find Nelson twitching on the ground, blood pooling around his head. A brick lay next to his body, and a halo of glass surrounded a second brick near the entrance to the store. The baseball bat was gone, and so was its owner. Colton bent down next to his fallen officer and saw the meth heads running away, bags of drugs still in hand.

  Nathan limped after the trio but they were already halfway across the parking lot, and in another moment they were lost in the fleeing mob.

  “Nelson?” Colton said. “Nelson, can you hear me?”

  A few of the civilians that had remained hovered around them, blocking Colton’s light. He didn’t need much to see the officer was in bad shape. His skull was cracked open.

  “Stay with me, Nelson.”

  Colton glanced up and recognized Lisa and Brad Banks, the owners of a t-shirt shop on Main Street. “Help me get him to the Jeep, and be careful.”

  Together, they cautiously picked Nelson up and carried him over to the vehicle. Nelson’s skull was Colton’s primary concern, but he was also worried about the man’s spine.

  “That guy in the poncho just picked up a brick and brained Officer Nelson with it,” Lisa said.

  “There wasn’t anything we could do,” Brad added, panting from the weight. “I’m sorry, Chief.”

  Nelson groaned feebly as Lisa opened the back lift gate and Brad helped Colton set him inside.

  “Get to the shelter at town hall,” Colton said, wiping the blood on his pants. He shut the door and looked for Nathan. The pilot was already limping back across the parking lot. He sucked in a breath when he saw the severity of Nelson’s injuries.

  “Jesus,” he said. “I’m sorry, Chief, but the bastards got away.”

  Colton cursed, but he had bigger problems on his hands. The storm was almost overhead. It wouldn’t be long before the skies opened up and killer rain began to fall.

  Nathan jumped in the back to ride with Nelson, while Colton climbed into the driver’s seat. As soon as Nathan pulled the gate shut, Colton pushed down on the gas and raced toward the hospital. There was less than an hour left to get Nelson some help and return to his family at town hall before the storm hit.

  “Be strong, Nelson,” Colton said. “You can’t die. That’s an order.”

  Rain battered the cabin’s roof and streaked down the windows. Raven sat on the bed with Creek, slowly stroking the dog’s fur. Eight hours earlier, the first drops had begun to fall on Prospect Mountain.

  He had decided to return to Bill Catcher’s cabin to search for clues, and the decision had saved his life. Raven had discovered an old, home-built radio tucked away in one of the kitchen cabinets and fired it up. The thing couldn’t send messages, but it did pick up a
station playing an emergency message:

  Seek shelter immediately. Put plastic and tape over the windows and doors. Don’t go outside until the storm has passed.

  It had taken an entire roll of Duct tape and all the tarps and plastic sheeting he could find in Bill’s well-stocked cabin, but in the end, Raven had sealed the place tight. There were definitely benefits to riding out the storm in a crazy old prepper’s stronghold. Bill had laid in plenty of water and food, although he seemed to favor brisket MREs that tasted like dog food. At least Creek hadn’t seemed to mind it when Raven gave most of the meal to the dog.

  He had also discovered a small Faraday cage built out of an old microwave tucked under the bed. The cage had protected a pair of walkie-talkies from the effects of the EMP blast. He turned on one again to the sound of static.

  What Raven really wanted right now was a cold beer and a cigarette, but there wasn’t a drop of booze in the house—just a bunch of empty bottles.

  He got up from the bed and walked over to the window. Creek followed him across the room. Pulling back the tarp an inch, Raven looked at the sky. Lightning cut through the darkness, backlighting the mountain and the gondolas of the Estes Park Aerial Tramway stranded mid-air. At least it was the off-season, so no tourists had been riding on the damn thing when the power went out. He’d ridden it once with Allie and Sandra, and there was a breathtaking panoramic view of Rocky Mountain National Park, Lake Estes, and the Big Thompson River Valley when you got to the top.

  Raven longed to be up there again, looking out over a place he loved. There was something about the mountains that had always called to him. But instead of being out there, or sheltered with his family, he was trapped in this cabin because of Police Chief Marcus Colton.

  No, you’re here because of your choices, Raven thought. You didn’t have to volunteer for this mission. Colton had nothing to hold over your head this time.

  As he went to sit back down, he heard a rattling from the chimney. He walked over and bent down to put his ear against the tarp.

  The sound didn’t come again; all he heard was the pitter-patter of radioactive rain. He paced back and forth in the cabin’s small main room, hoping to wear himself out so he could get some sleep. Creek watched him from the floor, his head on his paws, eyes following Raven back and forth.

  He sat on the bed again and closed his eyes, but his head was filled with stories of the Water Cannibals. As a kid, he’d been so scared of them that he’d slept at the foot of Sandra’s bed on nights like this, when the storms raged and the demons walked the earth, looking for human meat. At the time, he’d pretended he was only doing it to protect her, but they both knew the truth. It had always been him and Sandra against the world, ever since their mom had left them, and he liked to think that they took turns protecting each other.

  He walked back to the kitchen to search the bottles of liquor again but stopped halfway there. Deep down he knew booze couldn’t save him from his tormented thoughts. He felt like his world was closing in around him and there wasn’t anything he could do to stop it. And it was all his fault. He couldn’t save Billy Franks in North Korea, he couldn’t save Melissa, and now he was trapped here while his family was out there, with nothing to do but wait, like he had so many times as a child, for the Water Cannibals to come snatch him and his sister.

  Only this time it wasn’t just the irrational fears of a child. There were real demons out there. He pulled the cryptic drawing from his pocket and studied the stick figures. There was no way he was going to share this detail with Colton. The officer wouldn’t understand the story. White people never did. If anything, Colton might somehow try and pin this on Raven or say he was making shit up.

  This time Raven had a feeling he was going to have to face the demons on his own.

  He turned back to the window and patted his leg to signal Creek they were leaving. He grabbed a tarp and prepared for the trek. Radiation or no radiation, he had to get out of here and protect his family before it was too late.

  -17-

  “There’s someone outside again, Major,” Detective Lindsey Plymouth said quietly.

  Nathan put the shortwave radio receiver down on the desk. The signal was way too weak down here to reach anyone. He followed the detective through the shelter under town hall, past sleeping civilians. There were a lot of people down here and the room was hot as hell. They couldn’t stay locked up forever or they were all going to suffocate.

  Colton was already at the bottom of the stairs, listening as someone pounded on the door outside. Neither of them had slept much through the night, and he guessed that he looked about as ragged as the police chief did. After nine hours, the rain had finally stopped coming down, but that didn’t mean it was safe to go outside unprotected.

  “Second one in the past three hours,” Colton said, keeping his voice low as Nathan approached. “We better check it out.”

  They both walked up the narrow staircase toward the blast door. Nathan squeezed next to Colton and pressed his ear against the reinforced steel. It was the main entrance to the shelter, but there was another hallway beyond and a second door to the outside of town hall. They couldn’t hear much of anything, and shouting was only going to scare everyone inside the room.

  What Nathan did know was that high-level radiation could kill within hours. It was going on nine hours since the storm rolled over the town, so if someone was outside, then it stood to reason that the fallout wasn’t that bad.

  “Reckon we should get out the Geiger counter,” Colton said as if reading Nathan’s thoughts.

  “I’ll put on one of those space suits and go out there to take a reading,” Lindsey offered.

  Nathan glanced down at the detective. She was young and reckless, just like he’d been once upon a time. When the hell had he gotten so old?

  “No,” Colton said. “We need to wait longer.”

  “I can’t wait much longer,” Nathan said. “Remember your promise at the Safeway?”

  Colton leaned closer. “We can’t compromise this shelter, Major. My family and a hundred other people are down here. We have enough air to last for another twenty-four hours or so, even without the HVAC systems. I understand you want to get to Empire, but—”

  A howl from outside cut Colton off.

  “Was that a wolf?” Lindsey asked.

  “I think that’s a dog,” Nathan said.

  “Creek,” Colton whispered, reaching for the door handle. “Holy shit.”

  Feagen approached them, shaking his head. His hair was sticking up on one side from where he’d slept on it, but he still managed to look disapproving. “Do not open that door,” he said.

  “I can’t leave them out there. It’s my fault Raven was on the mountain in the first place,” Colton said.

  “Do not open that door,” Feagen repeated. “Whoever’s out there is contaminated!”

  Colton pointed a finger at the town administrator. “Keep your voice down. You’re going to scare people.”

  “I’ll wake the mayor!”

  The police chief wanted to tell Lindsey to lock Feagen in a closet, but decided to give her other orders. “Lindsey, get the CBRN suits and the Geiger counter.”

  Nathan nodded and put his hand on Colton’s shoulder in a silent show of support. They went back to listening with their ears against the door.

  “Raven couldn’t have survived out there for nine hours without shelter, right?” Colton asked.

  Nathan shrugged. “I get the sense there’s no telling what that guy can or cannot do.”

  A shrieking sound came from below as Lindsey dragged a crate with a biohazard sign to the staircase. The mayor followed on her heels, looking annoyed at being woken up.

  “You’re not seriously thinking about going out there,” Gail said. She pushed her green glasses up her nose and frowned. “Chief, with all due respect…”

  “I have to,” Colton said. “Someone’s got to go out there and take a reading, anyway.”

  Nathan gr
abbed a suit and started putting it on. All he needed was gear and a vehicle to get him to Empire. Would the chief try to stop him? Colton seemed like a man of his word, but if he tried to back out of their deal, Nathan would just have to steal the keys to the Jeep.

  “All right, let’s move,” Colton said. He accepted an AR-15 from Lindsey and slammed a magazine into the gun.

  Nathan picked up his M9. They walked up the stairs single file, their bulky suits crunching. Nathan hated these things. They made everything more difficult, muffling his senses and hampering his movements.

  “I’ll go first,” Colton said. “You open the second door and then cover me just in case there’s someone else out there besides Raven and Creek.”

  Nathan nodded.

  Colton eyed Feagen. “Don’t give Detective Plymouth any problems.”

  Lindsey, standing guard at the bottom of the stairs, raised her shotgun with a smile.

  Nathan took in a breath that smelled like plastic and grabbed the door handle.

  “Okay,” Colton said.

  Nathan unlocked the door and pushed it open. Colton strode into the hallway toward the second steel door with his rifle shouldered.

  “Who’s out there?” Colton said, his voice muffled by his suit.

  They listened for a response but Nathan couldn’t hear much of anything.

  “Get ready,” Colton said.

  Nathan grabbed the door handle and waited for the order. At Colton’s nod, he unlocked the bolt and pushed the door open.

  A thick mist was rolling over the parking lot. Overhead, the sky was the dull grey of newsprint.

  “About time someone opened the door!”

  Nathan moved toward the voice to see Raven leaning against the building with his arms crossed in a relaxed pose. Creek was at his feet, sheltering under the narrow overhang of the roof.

  As soon as Raven saw they were armed, he held up his hands. “Hold your fire!”

  Creek wagged his tail at Colton.

  “That you inside the moon suit, Chief?” Raven asked, squinting in the dull light.

  “You’re okay?” Colton asked, stepping forward to get a better look at Raven. The rain had finally tapered off, and a mattress of thick gray clouds rolled overhead.