“Just shoot and run in the opposite direction,” whispered Alex.
“Uh-huh.”
Alex lowered his NVGs and activated the IR laser. He had no idea what he was up against. He didn’t know if the guy turned off the flashlights because they might give up a shadow, or if he had caught a glimpse of the NVGs on Alex’s head. For all he knew, the guy just picked them up because they were expensive. It didn’t matter. The rifle light would advertise his location, and it was too dark to effectively see without the NVGs. He could use the goggles to his advantage in this environment, unless his adversary was crafty. It was still too early to tell.
He took several silent steps on the cool tile, keeping the green laser centered on the empty passage ahead. The bulk of his attention was directed on the doors lining the hallway. As he passed each closed door, he checked the handle to verify it was locked. He felt comfortable enough to turn his back on a locked door. Not that he had a choice. Knocking on doors wasn’t an option right now.
Approaching the elevator lobby corner, Alex tensed. A blood slick trailed into the elevator lobby, beyond his line of sight. His adversary had moved the wounded man, hopefully down the stairwell and out of the building. If that was the case, Alex needed to get out of here before reinforcements arrived. He studied the hallway beyond his son’s door, convinced that the shooter couldn’t have doubled back after dragging his comrade away. A significant pool of blood extended across the hallway where he’d shot one of them in the chest. The tile beyond held no footprints.
He crouched at the corner and executed a quick peek into the elevator lobby. Gunfire exploded, lighting the lobby and exploding the cinderblock wall in front of him. Shit. Crafty. Alex scrambled backward, desperate to escape the shower of fragments, as shards of cinderblock stung his face. Bullets pummeled the concrete on the opposite side of the hallway, sparking and ricocheting into the dark void behind him. The shooting stopped, and he heard the telltale sounds of a magazine swap. Alex sprinted to the corner and dropped to the floor, leaning to the left and placing the laser on the man’s head.
The wounded man sat propped up against one of the elevator doors, desperately trying to change rifle magazines. He acknowledged Alex’s presence by spitting.
“You’ll never take this country from us.”
“Stop loading your weapon. I’m not with the government,” stated Alex.
Fighting to sit upright in a puddle of his own blood, the man’s shaky hand inserted a magazine and reached back for the charging handle. A sharp bark from Alex’s rifle ended the struggle.
Who the hell are these people?
He didn’t have time to analyze the question. He felt certain that the remaining shooter had relocated to the other long hallway. The wounded militiaman effectively served the same purpose as Pip—oh shit!
“Piper!”
Gunshots echoed from the other side of the building, lighting the end of the hallway behind Alex. He scrambled to his bare feet and sprinted for the lounge, arriving to find the door closed, perforated by several bullets.
I killed her.
He kicked the door in and rushed inside, ready to engage any target without long hair. He caught a glimpse of a figure with a rifle crouched near the far wall, but his night vision flared before he could react. Gunshots erupted, and he dropped to the floor, firing blindly at the other side of the room.
“I got him!” screamed a female voice.
Alex raised the NVGs and stared upward at the voice. Piper stood over him, aiming a pistol and flashlight at the other side of the room. A bright red, clumpy stain covered the brightly illuminated wall.
“That’s all of them. Turn off your light,” he said, standing up.
He took the flashlight out of his pocket and guided her out of the lounge.
“You all right?” he asked, handing her the light.
“I hid inside the lounge when the shooting started. I’m sorry. The door opened, and he got halfway across the room before I fired. I couldn’t move. We couldn’t see each other. We just kept shooting,” she said, crying.
“You did great, Piper. You’re meant to lead this group, and that’s not a bullshit, motivate the youngsters speech. Take a minute to get your shit together, and start working on a plan to secure the floor. You hear me?” he said, grasping both of her shoulders and forcing eye contact. “You have three points of access. Two on the stairwell back here and one by the elevators. You need to make it impossible for anyone to open one of those doors. Move the desks out of the rooms and pile them up. With four rifles and plenty of ammunition, you should be able to discourage any attempts to breach those barriers. Pick your shooters wisely. Anyone with prior shooting experience is preferred. Call of Duty does not count. Keep one rifle on each access point at all times. You carry the fourth to reinforce whichever door is under attack. Never leave a door unguarded. Ever. Good to go?”
“I think so.”
“Search the bodies for a radio and listen. If you can talk to these people, do it. Let them know exactly what happened, and that I’m no longer here. Tell them that you’ll defend the floor with your lives. Drag the bodies into the back stairwell vestibule and respectfully lay them side by side. They might leave you alone.”
“What if they don’t?”
“Then you know what to do,” said Alex, picking up his boots and socks. “I guarantee your dad would be proud of you for this.”
“You really think I’ll see my parents again?” she asked.
“Not a doubt in my mind,” Alex lied.
Ten minutes later, he sprinted across the Massachusetts Turnpike, seeking refuge in the maze of tightly packed west Boston neighborhoods he needed to traverse to reach Ryan and Chloe.
Chapter 4
EVENT +47:14
Middlesex Fells Reservation
Stoneham, Massachusetts
Charlie Thornton put the key in the ignition and paused, his hands trembling. He’d somehow picked up a transmission from Ed on the primary broadcast frequency, after several hours of sheer radio silence. Ed’s sudden, desperate report of an all-out attack had jarred him into action. Little of the report made any sense. Ed had used Alex’s radio call sign, and they were clearly having a conversation, but Charlie could only hear Ed’s side of the exchange.
Ed’s report painted a horrible picture of the situation in Boston. From what Charlie could tell, Ed was in some kind of besieged perimeter with other survivors. How did that evolve? Why was he able to hear Ed? Did he turn back? Was he nearby? He’d lost contact with them in Medford, which was less than four miles away. Too many unanswered questions. He lacked the bigger picture, which was why he closed his eyes and took deep breaths until his hands stopped shaking. He pictured Linda and his girls, safe at the Fletcher compound, and the key came out of the ignition, his hand resting in his lap. He’d come perilously close to making a disastrous decision.
They’d barely navigated the tight roads and fallen trees in full daylight. Even if he somehow managed to miraculously get the jeep onto Route 28, then what? Drive south in the middle of the night until he made radio contact again? Alex reported that the exodus along the main roads leading north had intensified, with travelers looking to put as much distance between themselves and the city at night, while the temperatures were reasonable. How long would he have lasted driving through that desperate herd? He knew the answer.
Charlie opened the door and stepped onto the soft forest floor, taking his rifle and backpack with him. He took a few steps and lifted his rifle, using his night vision attachment to locate the IR chemlight that marked his makeshift camp. He’d taken Alex’s advice and set up about twenty-five yards into the forest. Far enough away to avoid drawing immediate attention to the Jeep, but close enough to respond to one of his trip wires set across the forest road. He’d tied the ends of the two trip wires to thick sticks, which he kept under his armpits when he felt sleepy. For the most part, the night had been uneventful. Alex had been wise to bring the Jeep here.
He’d torqued his back carrying their packs to the Jeep. He knew better than to heave all of them at once, but he’d been in a hurry to finally sit his ass down and give his heart a break. One last chore, he’d told himself, and wham! He’d felt the telltale twitch, and his lower back muscles started to spasm. He popped a thousand milligrams of ibuprofen and laid flat on the ground for an hour. Surprisingly, the combination of drugs and rest kept his muscles from locking up and pulling his back completely out of place—for now. He was borderline useless when his back “went out.” Linda could attest to that.
He chuckled at the thought of Linda chastising him for lifting three packs at once. She’d hover over him, pointing that finger, reading him the Linda Thornton Riot Act and setting a time limit on his recovery period. One day for a self-inflicted back pull. Two days if it wasn’t his fault. He’d never received two days.
God, I miss her.
The thought of his family gave him the idea to check the satphone.
He powered the device and studied the screen. Eight satellites registered within line of sight; two more than earlier that evening. The government must have “asked” the major satellite communications companies to move a few of their more redundant satellites into geostationary orbit over the United States. Satellite bandwidth represented the only viable long-distance communication network available in the United States—for government use only. He autodialed the Fletchers’ second satphone and pressed send. “Connection Unavailable” flashed on the muted orange display. He noticed a new message in the phone’s inbox and sat up. Adrenaline flushed through his body. It could be a message from the wives! He navigated to the inbox and opened the message. Not the wives, Uncle Sam.
“Department of Homeland Security Bulletin DTG 210500Z AUG13—Effective Immediately: Citizens required to observe curfew from evening civil twilight (sunset) to morning civil twilight (sunrise). Citizens to remain indoors within personal dwellings or Military/FEMA designated shelter zones. Check with law enforcement, military or local government representatives for a list of approved zones if personal dwelling not available. Citizens in violation of the MANDATORY curfew may be detained and returned to their personal dwelling or held in a nearby detention facility until curfew hours have expired. Situation Update: Power outages persist nationwide. Authorities continue work to restore power to critical infrastructure and key population centers. Check with law enforcement, military or local government representatives for instructions regarding the distribution of emergency supplies.”
“That’s it?” he muttered, followed by a wide yawn.
How on God’s green earth did the government expect to enforce a curfew when half of the population had taken to the road? Idiots. The latest government broadcast told him everything he needed to know about the state of affairs in Washington, D.C. There was a one hundred percent clusterfuck in progress. Only the most obtuse bureaucratic stooge would approve a nationwide sunset-to-sunrise curfew given what he’d seen on the approach to Boston. Didn’t the government have any way to receive reports from the field? Was it possible they didn’t know the cities had already started to empty? They had clearly hijacked all of the available satellite bandwidth—wait a minute! What if the government wasn’t in control of the satellites?
His heart rate started to increase, followed by heavier breathing. None of this made sense. Either the government had purposely ignored incoming reports, or they hadn’t received them. Either scenario carried chilling implications. Staring at the starry sky through the moonlit branches, Charlie couldn’t shake the image of a sky blanketed with Chinese paratroopers. It beat the other image; a convoy of heavily armored DHS vehicles rolling into town.
Chapter 5
EVENT +47:45
Brookline, Massachusetts
Alex low-crawled along the hedge, fixated on reaching the corner of the narrow yard. Traversing over one hundred fifty feet of dew-covered grass along the apartment building’s frontage had left him soaked. He arrived at the corner and lowered his head into the wet grass, thankful that the low hedge still held enough leaves to provide adequate concealment from the intersection. The cool, damp clothing felt refreshing against his skin. He’d spend a few minutes lying prone and taking in the ambient sounds at the intersection before poking his head over the bushes to confirm the road was clear.
The GPS receiver told him Stedman Road emptied into Harvard Road, but it couldn’t know that the intersection rated a stoplight. He’d taken pains to detect and avoid traffic signals, having spotted militia patrols hidden at two major intersections in the past mile and a half. He’d started crawling toward the intersection of Stedman and Harvard long before detecting the stoplight. In all truth, he’d slipped up. He could have used his NVGs to scan from a distance, but he’d started to conserve the unit’s batteries and had forgotten.
By the time he stopped to check, he’d already traversed half the distance and couldn’t raise his head fully to scan the intersection. He decided to press onward and gamble that it was clear. If it were guarded, he’d have to crawl back. Not a big deal, but with morning twilight approaching in forty minutes, he wanted to put as much distance between himself and Warren Towers as possible.
Militia activity had been steady but not overwhelming in the areas south of the Massachusetts Turnpike, confined to obvious intersection outposts or easily detectable vehicle patrols. With little background noise beyond distant, sporadic gunfire, the sound of an approaching vehicle was impossible to miss. He’d effortlessly avoided several vehicle patrols within the first mile of his journey, decreasing markedly after Pleasant Street. With 1.4 miles left to reach 42 Orkney Road, he anticipated smooth sailing, as long as he didn’t get sloppy.
He heard the repeated click of a disposable lighter and froze. A fit of hacking followed, drawing Alex’s attention to the park across the road to his left. A small orange glow appeared through the hedge’s foliage, quickly fading.
How did I miss that?
He couldn’t determine the precise location, but based on the position of the glowing cigarette, someone had decided to sit his or her ass in the small park bordering the intersection. He’d caught a serious break.
Now what?
Crawling the same one hundred fifty feet didn’t seem like a good idea anymore. The militia team had an unobstructed view of the hedge along most of its length. Rationally, he knew the result would be the same, but his mind had already closed off that route to further discussion. It didn’t leave him with a ton of options.
The hedge turned at the corner and ran about fifteen feet along the sidewalk on Harvard Street, ending at the apartment building. If he could quietly squeeze through the bushes and crawl past the corner, he’d be out of their line of sight. Alex crawled the length of the bushes, reaching the building’s rough sandstone foundation. The entire hedgerow appeared thick and well maintained. There was no way he could push his way through that without waking up the entire neighborhood. This left him with one guaranteed option. Eliminate the sentries.
While definitely the “tried and true” solution, killing militia this far from Warren Towers carried risks he’d prefer to avoid. Warren Towers to the corner of Harvard and Stedman in thirty minutes? A simple game of connect the dots on a city map would give militia leadership a fairly accurate prediction of Alex’s intended travel route. Worse yet, a straight line drawn between the two locations terminated less than a quarter of a mile from Chloe’s apartment at the Chestnut Hill Reservoir. They had no way to determine how far he travelled, but they could focus their search along t
his projected path, effectively trapping him in Chloe’s apartment until nightfall. Based on Ed’s report of the attack in Harvard Square, they couldn’t afford to wait until sunset to cross the Charles River. Boston sat on the verge of a complete civil breakdown.
He pointed his body at the sentries and lowered the NVGs, peering through the bushes. Leaves broke the image, but he managed to form an actionable assessment. Two armed men sat on top of a picnic table, facing the intersection. The smoker was partially obscured by a tree stump, his head and legs visible beyond the lead edge of the table. He stared down the length of the hedge, wondering if he shouldn’t try to crawl back. If they spotted movement and decided to investigate, he could take them down with little effort. If they skipped the investigation part, he’d be in trouble. The bushes would do little to protect him from a concentrated barrage of projectiles travelling at 3,200 feet per second.
He didn’t have the time to dick around with crawling back and approaching another intersection, and the sun had no intention of waiting for him to figure this out. Alex crawled along the hedge and stopped, reevaluating his line of fire to the targets. Both men sat in full view.
Let’s get this over with.
He started to rise, but stopped to reflect on his surprising indifference toward the prospect of preemptively killing them.
The sentries had been reduced to objects. Dehumanized for his emotional convenience. They fell into several convenient categories: Enemies. Targets. Obstacles. All true, but oversimplified—the way it had been done for millennia. Warfare relied on dehumanizing the enemy, no matter how “justified” the conflict. Raw human nature didn’t embrace wholesale slaughter. It had to be manipulated, which wasn’t an overly difficult task.
Alex had already convinced himself it was necessary and justified. He didn’t stop to consider why these men sat here watching the intersection. Were they doing their part to protect family and friends? Did they believe they were connected to something bigger and more important? Defending their city from the government? Alex didn’t care about the answers to any of these questions, because he was sure of one thing. If he stood up and tried to identify himself, his journey to reach Ryan and Chloe would come to an abrupt end—and that was the only piece of information that mattered.
Event Horizon (The Perseid Collapse Post Apocalyptic Series) Page 4