The Next World - RESISTANCE - Book 2 (A Post-Apocalyptic Thriller)

by Jeff Olah

  “I don’t know,” Owen said, “but I have a feeling we’re about to find out.”

  3

  Owen opened the hatch to the roof, scanned the late morning sky, and watched for a thumbs-up from Kevin. It was warmer than the previous two days, and although he could see for miles, he waited for the signal from his friend. With the all-clear, he climbed out, moved quickly to the northern edge, and dropped to one knee.

  “So?”

  Kevin handed him a pair of binoculars and motioned toward the upper floors of the building nearly one hundred yards away. “There’s something different today.”

  “Where am I looking?”

  “Uh …” Kevin ran his hand over his greying beard and tilted his head from left to right. “She dipped out on the second floor, I think we can catch her as she comes out onto the third.”

  “She … wait, are you sure? I mean I know we had thought that—”

  “Yeah, she came to the window and looked out, only for a few seconds. Couldn’t make out any details, just the fact that it was a woman.”

  “And?”

  “And that’s it. She wants us to know that she’s here, and now we just need to find out why.”

  Owen brought the binoculars up to his eyes and began looking for a point of reference. He ran over the street, up the sidewalk, and then quickly to a third floor window. He moved right, found the southeast corner, and then quickly backtracked to the window that sat closest to the stairwell. He blinked once and then steadied his hands. “Okay, here we …”

  As Owen’s voice began to trail off, Kevin pushed from a crouched position and started to straighten up. Even from this distance, he could make out the silhouette as it darkened the window. “That’s her.”

  “Yeah,” Owen said, “she’s moving a little slower than yesterday. You notice her limping before?”

  “Not really.”

  Owen watched as the shadowed figure on the third floor bent at the waist, retrieved something from the ground, and then turned to face the window. Dark skin, partially obscured by a thick layer of soot, large hazel eyes, high cheekbones, and full lips. She couldn’t have been much over thirty, and although she drifted back into the hall and disappeared, Owen had the sense that her stop outside the door was indeed intentional.

  Kevin looked back toward the hatch and then out over the parking lot below. “Now what?”

  Owen stared up at the sun for a brief moment and then yawned hard. He wasn’t sure what this was, but he didn’t necessarily feel the need to get overly excited. It was one person and for now they knew exactly where she was. What’s the worst thing that could happen?

  “For now,” Owen said, “I say we wait, see what she does.”

  “And then?”

  “Let’s just give it a minute.”

  “Uh …”

  “Hey,” Owen said, looking back over his shoulder, “where’s Zeus?”

  Kevin continued to watch the building across the street. “What?”

  “Zeus, I haven’t seen him since early this morning.”

  Kevin rolled the stiffness from his neck and reached for the rifle near his right foot. Turning to Owen he grinned. “You’re redirecting, why?”

  “Huh?”

  “What aren’t you saying?”

  Owen shook his head. “It’s nothing.”

  Kevin eyed him for a moment and then pulled the rifle into his shoulder. He scoped the roof across the street and moved his line of sight from the west to the east, slowing as he came to the door to the stairs. “Alright, whenever you’re ready.”

  Owen didn’t respond. There wasn’t nearly enough time to run through the things that were keeping him up at night, and for the most part there wasn’t really anything that could be done. This was the way of the world now, whether he liked it or not. Not the time, not the place.

  “Yeah, okay.”

  “And,” Kevin continued to look through the scope, but grinned as he turned slightly toward Owen, “I have Zeus on the third-floor office. He’s watching the lot behind us.”

  Owen wasn’t really listening and still only half in the conversation. His mind was already playing out what was happening in the building across the street, and why he suddenly felt the urge to reassess the situation. “Where is she, why’s it taking so long? She should have—”

  Kevin nodded. “Yeah, something’s off. She should have easily cleared the third floor by now.”

  That was the opposite of what Owen was looking for. He needed Kevin to be the voice of reason, the level-headed optimist who would bring him back to center. For once he’d hoped that his new friend would tell him he was crazy, that he was overthinking things. It was what he was hoping for, what he needed.

  Especially now.

  Owen stood. He checked the two-way radio and pulled the nine millimeter from his waistband. “I’m going over there.”

  “What?” Kevin’s voice echoed from the rooftop, filtering down into the street, and fading as it moved toward the northern end of the long city block.

  “I’m not playing games with … with whoever she is.”

  Kevin continued to scope the roofline across the street. “That’s not how we do things and you know that.”

  “But I also can’t just sit here, and you know that.”

  Kevin pulled his eye away from the scope, looked back toward Owen. “Listen my friend, I know you’re struggling. I’ve seen it for the past few days, but you need to get a handle on it. I’m not going to pretend I understand what it’s like to be in your head, but I’m here to help, to listen, to whatever.”

  Owen let out a stilted chuckle and then motioned toward the side of his head. “I haven’t even told you about half of what goes on up here. You don’t understand, you couldn’t, no one does.”

  “I get that, but you also have a responsibility to your family. You have to get it under control; you don’t have a choice. The decisions you make are bigger than just what happens to you at this point. I’m here to listen and for whatever else you need, but you’re gonna have to work at this, make it a priority to keep those voices from turning you into something you’re not.”

  Owen turned and looked out over the opposite side of the city, the part that was quiet, the part that still looked like it could have been free from all of this. He knew better, but liked how it felt finding something that reminded him of what the world used to be.

  “Thanks my friend, but that’s not exactly how it works. The voices in my head don’t have an off button. Sometimes it’s all I can hear.” Owen turned back, let out a slow breath. “I used to be able to quiet them with some pretty heavy-duty meds, but that was before. Now, when they start, it’s like running through a minefield … blindfolded.”

  Kevin turned his eye back to the scope, but only held it out in front. “Like I said, I’m here for whatever …”

  Owen saw it at nearly the same time. The woman from the building across the street had appeared on the roof and was standing at the southern corner, just behind the parapet, staring back at them. He turned and without saying a word, started toward the hatch, holding tight to the weapon in his waistband.

  “Owen, wait.”

  He reached the parking lot and sprinted toward to the gate as the two-way radio on his hip erupted with a burst of static, and then Kevin’s rushed voice. “Owen, don’t do this.”

  As he fingered the lock and dropped the chain to the asphalt, Owen looked to where he remembered seeing the dark-skinned woman with the hazel eyes. From his vantage, he had lost sight of anything above the roofline and would now be relying solely on instinct.

  Again, Kevin’s voice shot from the radio. “Owen, she’s gone. She turned back.”

  Owen started across the street, scanning the sidewalk ahead, and intermittently checking the windows along the second and third floors. He reached the front doors and, retrieving the nine millimeter, moved quickly through the storefront of what was once a family owned Italian restaurant.

  Unfamiliar wi
th the layout, he slowed as he found the exit leading to the stairs. With his head against the back of the door and his ear pressed tight, he could just make out the sounds of rushed footsteps growing closer. Before he was able to step away, the door shot open, knocking him off his feet and sending him backwards into an overturned table.

  As he was upended, his head skipped off the base of the table and the chairs he had reached for were brought down on top of him. Struggling to get back to his feet, a pounding started at the back of his head. He pushed up onto his right elbow and found the source with his left hand.

  A thin line of warm blood ran down his left index finger and into his hand as he tried to focus on the shadowed woman now standing over him. He quickly reached for the weapon on his waist, only to realize that he had dropped it during his collision with the table and now the woman standing over him had it under her right foot.

  She took a half step away, wincing as she pushed the nine millimeter back toward the door. “I’m sorry.” Her voice was soft, but throaty. Like a nightclub singer, but with a silky edge to it.

  Owen thought about reaching for her injured left leg, but figured that may send the wrong message. “Who are you? What are you doing here?”

  The woman standing over him quickly turned her head toward the front doors and let out an audible gasp. She then stepped into the threshold at her back, slid the nine millimeter in close to his leg, and lowered her voice. “You and your family need to leave. Don’t wait, just go.”

  Owen quickly pushed away from the overturned table and sat up, but before he could respond, she had disappeared into the darkened hallway and was gone. Reaching for his weapon, he turned back toward the front of the restaurant a half a second too late. The doors now sat open and a group of eight Feeders had stumbled in off the street.

  Maybe Kevin was right.

  4

  Jerome Declan sat behind a massive mahogany desk and peered out through a bank of floor-to-ceiling windows that faced east. The penthouse suite he now called home had the faint smell of lemons and was warmer than it had been in days. The blinds had been pulled back, and the remaining furniture moved away, revealing every last detail of the city under the mid-morning sun.

  He turned away, pushed back from the desk, and started toward a young, short-haired man at the opposite end of the suite. “Why are you here? Why haven’t you done what I’ve asked?”

  Declan stopped twenty feet from the short-haired man and leaned into a sofa the color of chocolate, waiting for an answer he knew wasn’t coming. To his right, a twelve-foot painting hung lifelessly on the wall opposite the windows. Some abstract expressionism that Declan had felt the need to avoid since taking over the suite six days before. At times he wanted to simply pull it from the wall and burn it, destroy something beautiful. However, there was another part of him that felt as though the painting needed to be there. That it wasn’t just another overpriced piece of canvas, that it served a deeper purpose—maybe as the heart of the sixteen-story structure. Whatever it was, he thought it better to avoid the bad karma and just focus on something else.

  “Well,” Declan said, “what is it?”

  The man now standing just inside the doors to the suite appeared to be grinning, but Declan couldn’t be certain. His face was abnormal, in the way a dog looks to be smiling, but no one is really ever sure. He’d spent less time with this man than any other on his crew, and hadn’t yet figured out exactly what buttons to push.

  “Uh …” The short-haired man’s voice was abrasive, like it hadn’t been used for a good amount of time. “We know where the woman is, and that there are at least four others. Three are children.”

  Declan took a step forward and reminded himself that the ends had to justify the means. With the limited resources granted by Marcus Goodwin, he needed to squeeze every last ounce of usefulness from each of the men who had decided to stick around. No matter how badly he wanted to give in to old habits.

  “We knew that five days ago. Now I need you to bring her back here. And by my count, this is the third time I’ve had to ask.”

  The short-haired man exhaled heavily. He rolled his head from left to right and seemed to be contemplating his response. “We haven’t been able to get close enough to get a reliable head-count. Those things have taken over down there; it’s like they’re drawn to that side of the city.”

  Declan began to nod, before turning and starting back toward the windows. “Kirk … it is Kirk, right?”

  “Declan, you know my name, and you also know what we’re up against. We don’t really have any options right now. Trying to get through that crowd would be suicide.”

  “Where are the others?”

  “What?”

  “The others,” Declan said, “the rest of the crew, where are they right now? The guy that wears that dirty ball cap, the guy with the leather jacket and that other—”

  “DECLAN.” The short-haired man he’d referred to as Kirk hadn’t moved from his spot near the doors. “What are you doing, what is this?”

  Declan didn’t answer. Instead, he continued to the windows and again looked out over the city. It had been more than four days and instead of marching Dr. Dominic Gentry through the front doors of BXF Technologies, he was still unable to complete his first objective.

  After a beat, Kirk let out an irritated sigh and started across the suite. “These head games aren’t working, Jerome. We all know what needs to be done, but if we can’t get through that crowd, it’s not going to matter.”

  With his heart now racing in his chest and his anger threatening to take the conversation in a completely different direction, Declan took a moment to remember why he was given the assignment and the consequences of failure. Taking his right index finger and placing it against the window, he looked to the south and traced a line from where the interstate met the coast, to the foothills thirty miles away. “What do you see?”

  Kirk stepped closer, leaned from left to right, and then backed away. “Same as yesterday … and the day before that. Nothin’ but death.”

  “No, there’s something else.”

  “Okay, you tell me. What am I looking for?”

  Declan smiled. He turned from the window and moved back to the desk. Sliding down into the high-backed chair, he motioned toward another on the opposite side and waited for Kirk to sit. “Do you have a family?”

  The short-hair man again looked irritated. “What?”

  “No,” Declan said, “I’m serious. Do you have any family, anyone out there that you haven’t been able to reach? Anyone that could still be alive, anyone you’ve been wondering about?”

  Kirk turned and looked back through the windows. He stared for a long while and then back to Declan, began to nod. “My aunt, she raised me, from the time I was eight.”

  “Cynthia Evans?”

  Kirk sat up in the chair. He wiped his face and cocked his head to the side. “Wait, how’d you …”

  “Your mother’s name was Mary Ann, your father was Bruce, and your older brother’s name was Tom. They died in a car accident on May 18th, 1994. You left your home in Memphis a few weeks later and were sent to live with Ms. Evans out here on the coast. You attended University High School and were hired by BXF Technologies just over two years ago.”

  “Yeah, that’s about it.”

  “Okay then, have you had any contact with your aunt in the last eight days?”

  “No.”

  “Do you have any idea where she might be, what became of her?”

  Kirk bit hard into his lip. “No.”

  “Okay, but what does your heart tell you?”

  “That she’s dead.”

  Declan leaned back in his chair, placed his feet on the desk, and crossed his legs. “But what if she isn’t?”

  Kirk stood and pushed away from his chair, leaned into the backside of the desk. “Listen, I don’t know if you get off on these games, or if you just have some sort of mental condition that turns you into an incoherent fool,
but I think you need—”

  “Look again.” Declan motioned toward the windows.

  “What?”

  “That line I drew, that’s as far as we’ve gone. Beyond that, those things have taken over. And we haven’t been able to get to Mrs. Mercer because of them. So, we need to come at this from a different perspective.”

  The younger man still looked agitated, his eyes darting from Declan to the window, and then back. “There’s no way, we’d need a hundred more men.”

  Declan shook his head. “No.” He then reached for a glass vase that held six bright red tulips and tossed it to the floor three feet from the window. “I want you to pretend that your sweet aunt Cynthia is on the other side of that line. How would you get to her, what would you be willing to do?”

  Kirk backed away from the desk. “You’re a disgrace.”

  “Maybe,” Declan said, “but it’s a valid argument all the same.”

  “You’re going to get everyone killed, including yourself.”

  “Again, you might be right. But that still doesn’t change what we need to do.” Declan motioned toward the half dozen tulips laying near the window. “I’ll give you till the morning to figure this thing out on your own, but if Mrs. Mercer isn’t standing here by the time the sun comes up, if I’m not able to hand her one of those sweet-smelling flowers, then we’re going with my plan. And I can guarantee that you’re going to wish you came up with something else.”

  5

  The main dining area was mostly dark, the sun now filtering through in short bursts as Owen got back to his feet and fumbled for his weapon. He moved slowly toward the kitchen, attempting to track each of the eight Feeders as more began to pour in off the street. He could get to the door with what remained in the nine millimeter, but would be left out to dry once he hit the sidewalk.

  He was going to have to find another way.

  Owen pushed back into the wall, looked toward the kitchen, and quickly placed three tables between himself and the approaching horde. He then watched as the bulk of the group continued toward him, their heavy footfalls seeming to shake the foundation.