End World (Book 1): Dawn of the Corrupted

by David Peters

  “It’s just bad dreams. I keep having the same dream about Paradise Falls being overrun with those damn Corrupted. Thousands of them as far as the eye can see. It’s one of those that feel real when you wake up. I’ll be ok.” Dylan said quietly.

  “It’s just a dream Cowboy.” Niccole said as she put her arm around his waist, trying to comfort him but knowing it wasn’t working.

  “That’s not the issue; I’m not upset, I’m mad. Mad doesn’t cover it. I’m pissed off. I’m pissed off because we got there, and everyone was talking about packing up and heading somewhere south from there,” Dylan said, sounding like he was getting back into the dream.

  “If that happens, then we move south. I don’t understand what the problem is.”

  “When does that stop? When do we stop running? At some point I think we will have to fight these things. We will have to make a stand. They are organized and they are winning. We can run but eventually we will all be gone.” Dylan was visibly angry at this point. “We left everything we knew in order to find a new life somewhere we think will be safe. It won’t be. The Corrupted will come someday, sooner, maybe later. But they will come.”

  Niccole looked into his eyes, “Then we will fight. We will do what we have to do in order to rebuild our life. Of that I am sure. I have never seen you give up on anything Dylan. You haven’t yet and you won’t in the future. We will find a way. We always have and always will.”

  Dylan held her closer but didn’t say anything. The two of them could be polar opposites at times.

  He spoke as if to an audience, “Here before us is Niccole. She is the eternal optimist. I on the other hand am the permanent pessimist. If we were in a car flying off of a cliff, with the gas tank on fire and nothing but rocks hundreds of feet below us, I would be wondering how bad it was going to hurt, but Niccole would be smiling saying ‘wow, wonder how we get out of this one?’”. Looking at her he wondered to himself, will this hurt, or will they get out of it?

  “The car hasn’t gone off the cliff yet. It’s definitely on fire. A big one too, but it hasn’t gone off the cliff. We have more control over this than you think. I know you know that too, you wouldn’t take the risks you have to learn about them, understand them if you didn’t think there was a way to beat them.”

  Dylan looked at her long and hard. He did know that in his heart of hearts, they would make a stand and fight but it would be at a place of their choosing. Something defensible, someplace that didn’t have the open access of their previous home and cities.

  With that thought it was settled and Dylan was defused. He held her close and kissed her. “Alright Cowgirl Coco, lets saddle up and move ‘em out.” Dylan said as he made a mock whip cracking motion.

  “That’s my Dylan, fight on Cowboy.”

  They took their time breaking down the camp and stowing everything. After two leisurely hours they were finally underway and leaving the campsite. “Twenty miles a day should be fine, be about two hours before we are at a peak high enough to allow us to see into Pendleton. We will be at least eight miles away though, close enough to see, far enough away to not be seen.”

  They passed the two hours mostly in silence, occasionally commenting on some random thing they passed or this reminded them of that. Nothing was said that couldn’t easily pass as small talk only.

  Eventually the silence overtook them as their minds wandered to more internal thoughts. Niccole’s mind wandered to her parents, wondering and hoping that they were ok, possibly making their way south by now too. She wasn’t particularly close to her parents, but she wished them no harm. On one hand she desperately wished for them to be ok, on the other she knew there was a good chance they would never find out one way or the other. She had to fight within herself how to cope with that. Not knowing was worse than knowing they didn’t make it.

  Dylan spent his quiet times dwelling on his dream of Paradise Falls. He couldn’t get it out of his mind. It wasn’t so much the attack itself that concerned him, it was the nagging feeling that they were up against much more than what they had seen so far. In his mind he went over the differences they had seen between the several Corrupted in Viceroy. He wondered what they were talking about. Where they laying out an ambush? Searching for survivors? All of this weighed heavy on his mind as they trekked from ridge line to ridge line.

  “This next ridge should give us that look into Pendleton. It should be a good place to take a break and enjoy the view” said Dylan. It went without saying that he was hoping it would just look like a quiet town and nothing else.

  “As long as we are far enough away from it I’m ok with it. I don’t want another episode like Viceroy, just begging to have to shoot things again. To be honest, that is getting a little old.” warned Niccole.

  As they crested the ridge they got their first look at Pendleton. The valley below them was about two miles long and opened onto a fairly flat plain. Pendleton sat at the end of the valley. They were too far away to hear the battle but they could clearly see parts of the city burning. Several blocks were completely engulfed by the advancing flames. The boiling clouds of black smoke were being carried to the south and behind the hills.

  Dylan watched the city through his binoculars. There were figures moving, but if they weren’t stopping to shoot he couldn’t tell friend from foe. “It looks like National Guard or Army from what I can tell. I can see a burned out tank just east of town. A few military trucks here and there but other than that they are all on foot,” observed Dylan.

  “Dylan! Look!” Niccole was pointing towards the sky and north of the town.

  As they watched, an Air Force A-10 was reaching the top of its maneuver and flipped inverted before diving towards the ground. The ground attack aircrafts wings bristling with weapons. As the plane continued its dive the aircraft flipped right side up and continued a short distance further. Several bombs dropped from its wings and burst open filling the air with small bomblets. The plane then pulled nearly vertical as the rolling carpet of explosions filled the town behind it. What appeared to be a large mall was now a rolling cloud of fire and smoke. The sound took a few seconds to reach them but it lost none of its shock and awe. Roughly thirty seconds behind the first, a second plane swept in and repeated the event.

  “Holy crap, this is full scale war we are watching,” said Dylan in open amazement. He handed the binoculars to Niccole.

  They watched the battle for another hour handing the binoculars back and forth. A slight wind change allowed the distant sounds of battle to reach their ridgeline vantage point. The valley rolled with rifle and machine gun fire. Every few minutes a distant ‘crack’ could be heard from one of the tanks or a deep ‘boom’, possibly from a grenade. It didn’t have the order of what they thought normal combat would. The military wasn’t taking back the town, in fact it seemed like the fight was all over the town. At one point the north side would be quiet while the south side lit up like the fourth of July, then it would switch, or be both. During one lull in the battle, Dylan watched a tank roll slowly into a grocery store parking lot, burning from turret to tread. “What is all over that tank? It looks like napalm,” Dylan said as he handed the binoculars to Niccole and pointed.

  “I think I have seen enough, can we get moving please?” There was an air of desperation in Niccole’s voice. She didn’t want to see this anymore, any of it. Watching the home team get crushed wasn’t good for the spirits.

  “I’m with you, this isn’t a battle the good guys are winning, air support or not.”

  The two of them climbed onto their horses and continued south, neither one looking back towards Pendleton; they didn’t want to recall what they had already seen. Their extremely dark new world just became several shades darker.

  --2--

  The next morning was spent in quiet contemplation as they packed up the tent and ate their breakfast bars in silence.

  Neither one wanted to discuss what they had seen in Pendleton. There had been unspoken hope that the military
would be better suited to fight the Corrupted. From the looks of the battle that wasn’t the case.

  They had ridden for several more hours after leaving the Pendleton ridge. It was well after dusk before they finally stopped and broke out their camp. They had put enough distance between them and Pendleton that they couldn’t hear the fighting that had no doubt continued into the night.

  “We should hit a logging road in about two hours ride,” Dylan said pointing to the south. The two set out without another word.

  The hours passed in quiet solitude while both thought about what lay ahead and behind them. They had intersected with the logging road about an hour previous and it had been a welcome change of pace from the brush and animal trails they had been using. The obvious road ahead made it readily apparent to the horses where they were going so there was little for the passengers to do but sit and watch.

  Dylan was thinking random thoughts and mentally miles away from where he was physically when he was snapped back to reality. Both Dylan and Niccole were startled by an unseen voice. “Hold it right there folks,” the hidden voice commanded.

  As they watched, a camouflaged figure stepped out of the side brush aiming a particularly large belt fed machinegun in their direction. He was covered from head to toe in camouflage military fatigues. His face was covered in a grease painted matching pattern. The man was huge.

  “You folks are a long ways from, well hell, from anything. Step down from the horses and keep your hands clear of your weapons please.” Although the soldier had used the word ‘please’ it had not been a request they could decline.

  Dylan met Niccole’s eyes and nodded. The couple swung themselves slowly off their horses and cautiously approached the military man. Both had their arms raised.

  “This might sound a little odd folks but I need to smell your breath and take a look at your fingernails. And put your arms down, you ain’t under arrest.”

  Dylan walked towards the man with his hands held out in front of himself. “The breath thing I get but the fingernail thing is kind of new to me.”

  The soldier carefully looked at their faces and smelled their breath as they exhaled. He then looked over their hands, paying close attention to their fingernails. “We’re good Whitey. They’re clean.”

  What had appeared to be a bush another thirty of forty feet down the road stood up holding a rather nasty looking sniper rifle. It hadn’t even occurred to Dylan that there was more than one soldier.

  “This walking bush is Whitey, my name is Grossman. We are…“

  “Were” Whitey corrected him.

  “Sorry, Mr. Positive Outlook has corrected me. We were with the Idaho National Guard.”

  “Was that you at Pendleton?” Niccole asked.

  “Were you in Pendleton? How the hell did you survive that?”

  Niccole answered “No, we saw it from a distance.”

  “Ya, that was us getting our ass kicked.” Whitey stated flatly as he started returning to his position.

  “You will have to excuse Whitey. Them snipers are always just a little off the friendly side. Too much time spent pretending to be a bush I think. Listen, we need to get back into position. You will find our post another few hundred yards up and around the bend in the road. Ask for Grounder or the Captain.”

  Grossman saluted lazily and returned to his hidden position off the side of the small road.

  Dylan and Niccole got back on their horses and rode past the two soldiers. It was amazing how well they blended in once they had lain prone again. It was no wonder they hadn’t noticed them until they revealed themselves.

  As they neared the bend in the dirt road they could hear activity ahead of them. There was the occasional laugh, low talking along with the clang of tin camping dishes. There was also the low hum of an electrical generator of some kind.

  Dylan and Niccole dismounted as a man with camouflaged pants and a white t-shirt approached them. He didn’t look particularly happy with life in general but he had an air about him that implied that this was his natural state and no reflection on the current situation.

  “Uh, we were told to ask for Grounder or the Captain,” said Dylan.

  “Hello folks. Pickets didn’t kill you so you must be human.” The man said it with a smile and offered his hand out to Dylan, “Grounder is sleeping; he is on the next watch. I’m Captain Caperson but folks around here just call me Cap-Cap. Who might you folks be and what the hell are you doing way the hell out here?”

  “I’m Dylan Murphy and this is my wife Niccole. We’re heading south out of Colfax for Paradise Falls.”

  “Paradise Falls? Ain’t ever heard of it. You’ve done well if you gotten this far and ain’t been eaten or burned to a crisp or wound up crawling around on all fours. If you aren’t in a hurry you are welcome to join us for chow. Both of you look like you could use a hot cup of coffee.”

  “You have no idea,” said Niccole.

  They followed Cap-Cap over to a small group of military men and women sitting around a small camp fire between two large six wheeled trucks. Their small outpost camp was made up of two large camouflaged tents off to one side of the dirt and gravel road. There were four olive green ‘deuce and a half’s’, one bulky armored car of some sort and a Humvee with a number of massive antennae sitting on the other side of the road.

  Dylan and Niccole sat down next to the fire. Cap-Cap followed suit and sat down across the campfire from them. They received a few welcoming nods but for the most part the group seemed extremely distant. Dylan also noted that not one single person was without their rifle and sidearm. One had his squad automatic weapon ready with a belt of ammunition leaning next to him.

  “So you folks came from up north?” Cap-Cap asked. “How close did you get to Pendleton and when was it? What other towns have you seen? Have you seen any other military units?”

  Niccole sipped the strong coffee and answered “We missed the town by several miles, but we could see it from one of the high points several days ago. It looked like quite a battle was taking place. As to your other questions we have avoided any large populations and haven’t seen anyone, military or not, since running into you.”

  There were several grunts and nods around the fire. Cap-Cap sighed, “Ya, that was us getting our collective asses handed to us. We are with the Idaho National Guard, 116th. Well most of us anyway, we have picked up a few stragglers that managed to get out when their squads got cooked.”

  “I don’t want to sound callous, especially to a group holding this many guns but how the hell did you get your asses beat? You guys are armed to the teeth. We saw several tanks along with at least two passes by jets.”

  The mood around the fire tensed noticeably. Two of the soldiers got up and started walking across the road to the tents visibly bothered by the question.

  “Please. I don’t mean to be disrespectful. I’m really just trying to understand what is going on.” Dylan said to no one in particular.

  One of the soldiers that had started to walk away from the campfire stopped. He appeared to hesitate for a second then returned to his spot near the fire. He looked far more sullen the rest of the crew.

  Cap-Cap spoke quietly “You need to understand where my men’s heads are at. We started out this fight in Boise. Most of us left to rejoin just outside of Pendleton before we even saw fighting in Idaho. Boise was declared a loss before we were even fully spun up. Pendleton was the first major battle for this unit. We went in fairly organized, heavily armed, and looking for a fight. But we had no idea what we were up against. These people left their friends and family thinking there was some riot or something the local police couldn’t handle.”

  Cap-Cap began the story of the Battle of Pendleton.

  Cap-Cap was looking at the narrow street ahead from the copula of his armored personnel carrier. Wisps of smoke wandered across the street and the sounds of battle swirled around him without any order. Command was completely fractured. There were several units from different states
and even different branches of the military. There was no control on this battlefield. He was hesitant to even call it a battle. It was a slaughter on both sides. He ordered his column of vehicles to stop while he looked at his map. It wasn’t even a military grid style map. He had ordered the driver to stop a few miles back and broke out the front window of a gas station to grab the local travel map. This war just kept getting worse.

  They had fled Boise in defeat. They were told it was in order to gather with the Oregon Guard and try and present a combined front, carve out a ‘Green Zone’ where they could begin to get control of the situation. He knew better. They were running to Oregon hoping that the Oregon forces had done better. Their long convoy made the majority of the trip south with little enemy contact. They passed burned out town after town, so they knew the Corrupted were there. The damn things were just too smart to show themselves. Now here they were, making a hasty unprepared assault on Pendleton. The Oregon National Guard group they were meant to sync up with was now screaming on the radio for help. The majority of the Oregon forces were in the center of town at an outlet mall they had turned into a fortress. They had created a wall of armored vehicles to protect what the few refuges that had survived the previous few days of chaos.