Long Road to Survival: The Prepper Series

by Lee Bradford

  Finch saw this too and aimed his silver .38 revolver at Paul for the killing blow. Tucked in the front of Finch’s jeans were two more pistols, making him look like a twenty-first-century version of Blackbeard.

  “I guess you got what you wanted,” Paul said, feeling terrible for letting Buck down and even worse for letting Finch finish them off like dogs.

  PJ appeared in the hallway then, studying the carnage around him with disgust. At his feet was Buck, who was moving slightly.

  “Kill the fat man,” Finch ordered PJ.

  But PJ didn’t budge. From where Paul was standing, he looked like he’d had enough of all this.

  “He’s your prize,” PJ said. “Why not kill him yourself?”

  A shot rang out and Paul’s heart stuttered in his chest, but it wasn’t Buck who got shot.

  PJ clutched his chest, his eyes growing wide in disbelief. “You killed me,” he said before crumpling to the floor.

  “I don’t tolerate insubordination,” Finch said. “Nor do I let the guilty go unpunished.” He squeezed the trigger of his .38 and the cylinder made a slow, lazy roll before it clicked empty. Finch looked down at his pistol with surprise.

  That was when Paul remembered the squirt gun in his pocket. In a single motion he jabbed his hand in, yanking the plastic water gun free just as Finch was busy reaching for his other two pistols. Paul pumped the trigger, driving a burst of urine directly into Finch’s face. Jerking his head away in pain, Finch clenched his eye shut just as he came up with both guns, ready to fire. Three shots rang out, but this time Finch’s head was thrown forward as a bullet passed through the side of his skull and exited at an angle through his one remaining eye.

  Down the hallway, not twenty feet away, stood Susan, a pistol in her hand and a trail of smoke rising up from the barrel.

  Chapter 35

  Paul stood staring at his wife in amazement as she lowered the pistol. She fell to her knees beside her father. Paul rushed to his side as well. They searched him for an entry wound and found one right below his collar bone.

  “It’s pretty close to his heart,” Susan said. She wiped some blood from his face and beard. Leaning him over, Susan felt for where the bullet came out.

  “There’s no exit wound,” she said with surprise. “Must still be in there. Dad, can you hear me?”

  Buck opened his eyes, looking groggy.

  “I was wrong,” he said.

  “Wrong about what?” Paul asked, puzzled.

  Buck motioned to Susan and back to Paul. “The two of you make a great team.”

  Paul smiled. “He musta hit his head on the way down, cause he’s never this nice.”

  “Fine, I take it back.”

  “There’s the Buck we know and love,” Paul replied.

  “Can you sit?” Susan asked, helping her father move his back against the wall.

  Autumn peeked into the hallway. “Is Grampa alive?”

  “Yes,” Paul said. “But go next door and make sure your neighbor’s okay.”

  “We’re gonna need to get him to a hospital,” Susan said, disappearing and then coming back a second later with a towel she used to help stem the bleeding.

  “Stop fussing,” Buck snapped. “I’ll be fine.”

  “No, you won’t,” Paul told him. “We did what we needed to do, now let’s make sure this doesn’t get any worse.” He turned to Susan. “I’ll get some water.”

  She began to protest as he left and it wasn’t until he got to the washroom in Autumn’s apartment that he understood why. The smell of decomposing flesh was horrendous. Lying in the bathtub wrapped in a shower curtain was a dead body.

  He ran back right away.

  “Uh….”

  “Yeah, I’ll tell you all about it when we’re on the road,” Susan said. “I never wanna come back here as long as I live.”

  Autumn appeared. “I just untied her. She’s really scared, Dad, but otherwise I don’t think they hurt her.”

  Paul collected all the loose weapons and threw them into one of Autumn’s soccer duffel bags. “I don’t wanna have any of these guns falling into the wrong hands.”

  “What about the bodies?” Autumn said, pulling her shirt over her nose.

  Paul looked at Susan. “We don’t have time or the muscle to move them all, especially the huge guy.”

  Slowly, the three of them helped Buck down the stairs and into the back of the Hummer. Autumn slid in next to him while Paul and Susan sat in the front. Paul would drive. He started the Hummer and peered back at Buck, who was looking pale. But that was only the start of their worries. Paul pointed to a yellow box at Susan’s feet. The Geiger counter.

  “Grab that thing and turn the black knob to X10.” That was the readout which would indicate the levels of radiation in the air.

  Susan did so and watched the needle flicker.

  “I’m reading four,” she said.

  Paul shook his head. “We need to hightail it.”

  “What’s it mean?” Autumn asked.

  “It means,” Buck struggled to say from the back seat, “that the radiation from the coast has arrived and it’s only gonna get worse. If that needle creeps any higher we’re gonna need to stop and get the hazmat suits on.”

  They started to pull out onto Edgewood Avenue when Paul suddenly slammed on the brakes, nearly colliding with a military convoy of Humvees. The rear vehicle stopped before them and a soldier in a radiation suit got out.

  He approached the window and removed the helmet of his suit.

  “Brett?” Susan said with surprise.

  Brett glanced in. “Ma’am, glad to see you and your daughter are all right.”

  Buck and Paul exchanged a glance.

  “I’m afraid I’ve got some bad news,” Brett told them.

  “Can it be worse than nuclear bombs destroying half a dozen American cities?” Paul asked.

  Brett ran a hand through his spiky hair. “It may be. There’s been a coup. General Perkins declared himself President with unlimited executive powers.”

  The four of them were speechless.

  “Isn’t that illegal?” Paul asked. In the rear view, he could see Buck fuming, but in too much pain to engage in his usual rant.

  “Sort of a moot point now, I guess,” Brett replied. “But there’s more. I can see by the looks of things you folks are on your way out of town. Only problem is President Perkins has declared all major cities be locked down. No one can come or go.”

  “That’s insane,” Autumn cried.

  “The radiation is getting stronger,” Brett said. “And there’s no outrunning it. One place is as good as another.”

  “But we’ve got a seriously injured man,” Paul said, motioning to Buck. “Is there a hospital somewhere we can take him to?”

  “I’m sorry,” Brett said and started to walk away. A second later he came back to the window. “Wait here a minute, will you?”

  Paul nodded, watching Brett walk back to his vehicle. “Is there something we should know?” Paul asked, referring to Susan’s familiarity with Brett. “I didn’t think we were gone that long.”

  “He saved us from crooked cops who were trying to break in,” Autumn told him.

  “Crooked cops?”

  Susan touched Paul’s knee. “I’ll explain later.”

  “What now?” Autumn asked fearfully.

  Buck took a deep breath. “I told you the government couldn’t be trusted.”

  They were being locked into what was quickly becoming a deathtrap. And there were only two hazmat suits in the back of the Hummer. Finch and his men had likely taken the others. They needed to find somewhere to hide until it was safe to travel outside again.

  Susan clicked the Geiger counter back on and listened to it click and chirp.

  “The needle’s moved up to five,” she said.

  At this rate, it wouldn’t be long before they all received a fatal dose of radiation. Buck’s untreated wound might eventually kill him, but that might make him t
he lucky one.

  A knock at the window startled Paul. Brett was back.

  “Our unit’s pulling out,” Brett said. “We’re relocating to a bunker outside the city. Seeing that you have someone in acute need of medical attention, I’ve managed to secure permission to bring you with us.”

  The smiles on Susan and Autumn’s faces were stretched from ear to ear.

  “Thank you,” Susan told him. “You’ve saved our lives twice now.”

  “Don’t mention it,” he said and put his helmet back on before heading for his Humvee.

  Could the bunker Brett mentioned be the same one Paul had seen the artifacts being sent to? Some kind of doomsday repository for the last of humanity’s hopes and dreams. Maybe they would be safe there.

  Paul glanced back at Buck and then Susan and Autumn. If they didn’t go, they’d be as good as dead. Perhaps afterward, once the radiation had begun to clear, they could set out on the road again and head for home. Paul was hopeful that would be the case and even more hopeful that when the time came, they’d be allowed to leave.

  Thanks for reading Long Road to Survival!

  Want to jump right into book 2? CLICK HERE!

  Want to try a different series? Try Last Stand:

  Last Stand: Surviving America’s Collapse (Book 1)

  Last Stand: Patriots (Book 2)

  Last Stand: Warlords (Book 3)

  Last Stand: Turning the Tide (Book 4)

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