The Life After War Collection

by Angela White

  “Find out if we killed it and get right back here.”

  Crista once again approached the corpse, but this time, she did it slowly, with her feet braced to open fire if she was attacked.

  “Please, don’t. I only took a little.”

  The weak voice stopped Crista’s shakes and she snorted at herself angrily. “Just a junkie. Looks like we all missed.”

  Kenn was sure he should scold them for the bad aim, but chose to let it go in favor of them shooting without orders. “Everyone who fired, head to the vehicles and switch out. We’ll wait here.”

  The harsh punishment had feet moving slower than they should have been, making the switch take longer than Kenn had anticipated. He was dismayed to find shadows lengthening on walls by the time the replacements made it in to them. They’d only gotten through the lobby so far.

  He waved Seth and Becky over to the groaning junkie. “Keep an eye on him and do not let her fire.”

  Kenn led the rest of the team through the double doors, noting that Tracy and Tonya were both still with him. They hadn’t fired and it was a sign of the progress that Angela was hoping for. He would be sure to tell Kevin so it would make it back to her. Kenn didn’t have much contact with Angela these days. He was still mulling over that when he realized the hair was standing up on the back of his neck.

  Damn, he thought. Pay attention!

  “Do you hear that?” Tonya asked.

  Members of the team who’d been in the train station when Seth was stabbed tensed, hands going to holsters.

  “Easy,” Kenn calmed, recognizing the sound and the feel. “We have company. Everyone get behind the doors and we’ll take a look.”

  The team rushed to hide and Kenn sent a quick plea upward for them to not kill anyone.

  The doors creaked open to reveal a short shadow wearing a hospital gown.

  “Was someone there?”

  Kenn saw Tonya start to leave the cover of the vending machine and shook his head.

  Tonya understood the child might not be alone and stayed where she was. She wasn’t sure where the urge to go to him had come from anyway. It was just another lost kid.

  “Please, my mommy needs help.”

  The team waited until the child grew tired of calling and went back the way he’d come.

  Kenn motioned for them to follow and the entire team slipped down the hall in the shadows behind the little boy. No more than eight, he had long brown hair that hung in thick waves and a deep cough that suggested he’d been a patient here before the war. The child slowly made his way up a rear stair, dragging a filthy blanket that had once been yellow. He muttered to himself the whole way.

  “She said they were here, but I didn’t see them. Maybe she’s wrong. There are no good people.”

  The team slipped along the dim corridors behind the child who was walking calmly through the body-littered halls like it was his home.

  “They won’t like it that I’m out again,” the boy mused to himself. “I’ll take the tunnel.”

  The boy stopped in front of the elevator doors and began tugging on them. The team was surprised when the doors opened to reveal another room and a long hall that resembled the sewer tunnels some of them had traversed in Little Rock.

  Kenn’s gut tightened.

  The boy went through the hallway and slid inside a small window that was meant to be for dispensing things to patients. The clipboards, clocks, and dusty files said this had once been a busy place. Now, it appeared deserted except for this one small boy.

  “Is he real?” Tracy whispered, drawing a frown from Kenn.

  Quiet, he gestured.

  The boy disappeared from sight and the team stopped, waiting for Kenn to decide how they would proceed.

  “Find the kid. We need to lock up for the night,” a loud voice called down the hall.

  “I will. Should I dose him?” another female answered from nearby.

  “Third time this week he got out. That’s probably a good idea,” came the answer.

  The team ducked behind anything they could use as footsteps echoed down the hall toward them.

  “Hey! Needle-teen is still roaming, too. Chase him my way.”

  “Okay.”

  A harried-looking woman with shoulders as wide as Kenn’s clipped down the hall in her sensible office shoes. Her freshly curled hair and healthy skin immediately angered the Eagles. The boy had been barefoot, with a rash on his hands.

  The nurse, assuming from her clothes, went by the hiding team without noticing any of them. When she vanished from sight, Kenn waved them all forward. If this turned out to be what he was now expecting, they would take it all down.

  Kenn didn’t spot any cameras, but there was still the sense of being watched. As they walked up the filthy halls, he realized it was coming from holes in the walls.

  Kenn paused to put his eye to one of them and recoiled as if stabbed. They wouldn’t be opening that room anytime soon. It was a body dump.

  Late afternoon tossed eerie shadows over the jumpy team and the cells didn’t help that feeling. There were people in some of them, most dead, but all hooked to machines and monitors.

  “What the hell is this place?” Tonya demanded in a gruff whisper.

  Kenn paused at the intersection, choosing their path. “A ward of some kind. Be quiet.”

  Kenn used the small mirror on his wrist to peer ahead of them before waving the team forward. The hall they were in had three exits. Two were steel doors that they would need a code to open. Despite the rest of the country having no power, there was a red light over both of them. The third set of double doors waited behind a large reception desk and rows of chairs. Kenn took them straight to it.

  “Concentrate on your intersecting fields of fire,” he ordered, getting into position.

  “On my count…three…two…go!”

  Kenn kicked the door open as he flipped on the light on his gun and the team followed him in, all shouting orders.

  “Get down!”

  “On your knees!”

  The two men standing guard immediately dropped to their knees, but the three nurses in the large waiting area ran.

  “Dart them!” Kenn ordered. He loved using the enemy’s weapons.

  Tonya and Tracy raised their dart guns and fired. Both missed. Their second shots hit the rear woman before she made it through the door, but not the other one. She took off running, shouting for help.

  “That went well,” Kenn commented sarcastically.

  He went to the kneeling men and decided who to talk to. He hit the man on the left with the butt of his gun and knocked him out.

  The other man braced for the same, but Kenn grabbed him by the shirt and tossed him toward the team. “He has one minute to tell you what this place is, where the CO is, and why you shouldn’t kill him. Starting right now.”

  Kenn let the team handle the information extraction, sure they could. The females Angela and Adrian had picked were brutal when crossed, and the little boy they were now searching for had already touched all of them in some a weird way. Kenn could feel it on his own skin.

  He looked through the paperwork on the desk as he scanned the monitors. Very few men were coming toward them, but nearly every cell had an occupant. That ratio of guards to patients didn’t add up.

  The cabinets on the walls yielded an array of medications and supplies, things the outside world hadn’t seen in half a year. As Kenn finished each bag, he pitched it into the arms of whatever team member happened to be closest. He also kept an ear out for the intruder response that would come, but he wasn’t overly worried. He was counting on light security after the way their patients were roaming freely.

  Across the room, Allan paused, a name catching his attention. Methylene powder.

  The XO on Zack’s team quickly began sweeping the small bottles out of the cabinet, one of which found its way into his pocket. He’d been waiting for the right way to perform his much-anticipated upcoming duty for the Eagles and Methyle
ne was perfect.

  “Are you the good people?”

  The little boy they’d followed was now standing by the doors.

  Tonya reached the little boy first. She knelt down in front of him with an odd tone that Kenn noticed, but wasn’t sure how to interpret.

  “Where’s your mommy, little man?”

  The child peered at her through layers of dirt and neglect. “Hiding.”

  Tonya dug a bottle of water from her pack and held it out. “Would she like some water?”

  The little boy was gone a second later, clutching the gift.

  Tonya hadn’t expected him to run off, but Kenn refused her request to follow.

  “We have to get set for the others.”

  “Shouldn’t they already be here?” Allan asked.

  “Yes, and that worries me,” Kenn stated. “What did you find out?”

  “It’s an asylum. They swear these are dangerous people who have to be under lock and key.”

  “And the kid?”

  “He came in with his mom right after the war. They were the last patients brought in.”

  “Where’s The Man?”

  Allan’s brow drew together in confusion. “What man?”

  Kenn grunted in resignation. POG. “Their leader.”

  “Oh. They think in a bunker in the west, but they don’t know where. All the guards here were sent in before the war and never relieved. Many of them went AWOL. There’s only a dozen men in this facility.”

  Kenn didn’t care for the lies they were being fed, but he couldn’t prove them unless he spent time here and that wasn’t something he was willing to do.

  “We’re loading up the supplies we came for and getting back to camp. Do it now.”

  The team broke into three small groups that held bags and doors, protected edges, and helped watch for soldiers. It was making all of them nervous that there hadn’t been any alarms or resistance. Even when they went through the third door and began grabbing surgical equipment and bags of hospital sheets, no one came.

  “This place is creepy,” Cynthia stated, holding the cabinet door for Tonya to sweep the bottles out.

  “I know, right? Like every cheap horror flick I’ve ever seen,” Allan answered. He was across the wide room, loading IV setups and bandages into his pack.

  “Stop it,” Tracy complained. “I’m already freaked out.”

  “Be quiet,” Kenn ordered, studying the doors and shadows.

  The team fell silent, listening, but there was only more quiet unease.

  Kenn waved at the groups who were fully loaded to go back the way they’d come. “If I hear a shot, and your life wasn’t in danger, you’ll be out of the Eagles. Control your reactions and get back up here with more bags. This place is still stocked.”

  “That’s because most of the patients are dead.”

  The voice was so casually evil that every member of the remaining group drew their guns.

  Kenn stared at the woman standing awkwardly behind the little by they’d followed. She looked like she’d viewed hell up close, but it was those glowing red orbs that told him what he needed to know.

  “You got a name?” he asked evenly.

  “Caroline Andert. When I had friends, they called me Linny.”

  “Well, Linny. You guys ready to go?”

  The woman didn’t look away from Kenn, clearly searching him.

  “Where would you take us?”

  Kenn liked the feeling of raw power. Adrian would be happy with this run. So would Angela. “To Safe Haven, of course. They’re waiting for you.”

  The woman gently nudged the quiet little boy ahead of her. “We can go once he makes sure you’re not lying. If you are, he’ll take your life force like he has others here.”

  Tonya sensed Kenn’s revulsion, but she’d never felt more connected to a child than this little boy and she had no idea why.

  Tyson was already sure of the new people, but he humored his mother and took Kenn’s large hand into his own.

  “You’ve been mean before.” The little boy glanced up. “Are you mean to the bad men?”

  Kenn felt another chunk of the ice around his heart break off and start melting. “Yes. Who would you have me take your revenge on?”

  The little boy startled them all with his immediate answer, “The men who made us stay here. They’re the ones coming for your special people, too.”

  Kenn gave the boy’s hand a careful squeeze. “My word on it. Get your mom and let’s go. This place feels all wrong.”

  It wasn’t until they made it downstairs that Kenn found out why. There was a line of soldiers in the street.

  The team froze behind Kenn and Tonya, not sure what to do.

  “Release your hostages and put your hands on your head,” the center soldier instructed, gun moving to target Kenn’s wide chest.

  Kenn slowly took his place in front of the others, motioning for them to stay back. “What’s the problem, Captain?”

  The man was surprised to have his rank recognized by a civilian, and it took him a minute to find the correct answer. Kenn took the opportunity to figure out how he would kill them all.

  “You, hands up! Come down here!”

  Kenn took a step out the door and felt Tonya place something against his hip that made him hide a smirk. If she kept coming through like this, he would ask to serve with her more often.

  “We were sent to pick them up. I’ve got the authorization right here,” Kenn stated happily.

  He grabbed the M16 and opened fire.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Sex and Power

  1

  “Shhh.”

  The two boys slipped closer to the private training area, carefully avoiding the security as they stayed to the trees and shadows.

  The murmur of male voices grew louder and the two teenagers dropped together, peering at the adults through the thick weeds.

  “Angela! You’re up.”

  Angela held still while the blindfold was tied on, hands hanging loosely at her sides.

  “On your mark, shooter.”

  Angela drew and began firing, moving right, then left. She dropped to one knee for the last, closest target, and heard a loud cheer that said she’d done well.

  “Four of four. Next.”

  Angela grinned at the surprised looks from the rookies that were waiting nervously for their turn.

  Adrian fell in as she started the running part of the workout course.

  “Should you be doing this yet?”

  Adrian grunted, sweating heavily. “No.”

  Angela didn’t nag him, but when she would have stopped, he insisted that she keep going.

  Angela did, respecting him for the determination to beat the pain. She understood that.

  “Ease up a bit,” she directed a few minutes later. She could hear his tortured breaths.

  Adrian ignored her.

  When Angela slowed her pace, he did the same without comment and she was glad of it. There was too much attention on them for her to help right now. The camp had to think he was recovering on his own.

  “Don’t want you to anyway,” he rasped out. The smell of the bleach they were using to disinfect the water with wasn’t helping his lungs as it wafted across camp.

  “When, Adrian? I’m getting tired.”

  Adrian slowed to a walk, unable to take the jarring any longer.

  Breathing already back to normal, Angela pushed in the silence. “They need you. The battle’s only a month away now.”

  He stiffened. “I know that.”

  “Then why are you hesitating?”

  He sighed, low tone wistful. “It only works if we share power.”

  “No. I don’t want this.”

  His incredulous expression pinned her in place.

  “I mean it,” she defended, trying not to squirm. “I may be good at it, but I hate these choices. Please don’t make me keep this burden any longer than you have to. I’m not perfect. I’ll get someone killed.
”

  “Not if I’m by your side.”

  “Brady’s by my side!”

  Adrian turned toward the water cleaning area. “I’ll take over when I can do the job. Not a minute sooner.”

  “What was that about?”

  The boys were still observing.

  Charlie’s voice was full of displeasure. “Sex and power.”

  Conner knew of his dad’s obsession, but hadn’t been sure that Charlie did. “She could do worse,” he offered hesitantly.

  “She has my dad!” Charlie stood up, not caring about those who came their way in surprise. Furious, he left Conner alone to face the scolding. Adrian had no right to do this while his dad was gone. When Marc found out…

  Charlie grimaced. His dad knew. He’d left her here in Adrian’s care.

  “Didn’t he know what would happen?”

  “Of course he did.”

  Charlie turned to find his mom leaning against the water truck, smoking and crying.

  “Are you okay?”

  Angela let the tears run unchecked. She needed the release and this was as safe as it got. “Life’s hard, boy. You get up and keep fighting.” She wiped at the tears. “After you soak your shirt a few times, anyway.”

  Charlie took a spot next to her as their shadows moved away to give privacy.

  “Why can’t he leave you alone?’

  “Why can’t you leave Tracy alone?”

  Charlie refused to answer, but he got the point.

  “Dad’s going to be mad.”

  Angela snorted damply. “He already is, boy. He was pissed as soon as we got here. Now, I think it’s because he caught a flash or had a dream. He knew we’d be split up and this would happen.”

  “What will you do about it?”

  “Survive, and make sure you do the same.”

  “You mean to give him what he wants,” Charlie accused, but he couldn’t find the rage he’d had only moments ago. Her sadness was smothering the flames.

  Angela wanted to swear she wouldn’t break, to promise she wouldn’t betray Marc, but she knew words meant little. She was actively fighting him now. In another month, who knew? The longer she and Marc were apart, the better the odds became on Adrian getting his way.