Trackers 2: The Hunted (A Post-Apocalyptic EMP Thriller)

by Nicholas Sansbury Smith

Tommy tried to keep the wheelchair in place with his firm grip. A few minutes into the drive, his voice spoke softly next to Ty’s ear.

  “It’s okay, kid. Just hang in there,” Tommy said.

  “Shut up, Tommy. I told you not to talk to those kids,” Carson said. “Half of ‘em probably can’t understand you anyway.”

  Ty stayed silent and thought about his mom. She would come find him soon. And when she did, the Sons of Liberty were going to pay.

  Lieutenant Jeff Dupree sat in the belly of a Sikorsky UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter, trying to get his thoughts in order. It was the third chopper he’d been on that day, having been transferred from a Sikorsky SH-60 Seahawk to a Sikorsky HH-60 Pave Hawk, and finally to the Black Hawk that his team was hitching a ride on now. Logistics since the North Korean attack had been a nightmare, and finding working aircraft and equipment had been a huge hassle.

  He had a dozen things on his mind, but today he needed to focus on saving the son of the new Secretary of Defense. Knowing his own kids were safe in Key West with his ex-wife helped alleviate some of the stress of the mission, but it hurt to know they were better off with her than him. He wasn’t the best dad‌—‌he knew that, he accepted it, and he kept saying he would make up for it.

  He’d already missed too many birthdays. Once this mission was over, and Ty Montgomery was back in his mother’s arms, Dupree was going home. It might be too late to patch things up with his ex, but maybe there was still time to be a father to his boys.

  During his last tour in Iraq, he’d saved the lives of a dozen men. He had expected the airstrike he’d called in to kill him, and it nearly had. His left side, left arm, and part of his chin had scars from the blast. But while his men called him a hero, his wife just called him a lousy deadbeat dad.

  The earpiece inside his helmet transmitted a message.

  “LT, we’re coming up on Cedar Rapids. It’s pretty bad down there. That high-rise to the east looks like it swallowed a passenger plane.”

  Dupree joined the other men as they maneuvered in their tight-fitting CBRN suits for a better look at the city. Tendrils of smoke rose from the skyline. He quickly saw what the pilot was talking about. The wing of a plane stuck out the charred side of the building like a fin on a shark.

  “That city is cookin’ like bacon in a skillet,” said Staff Sergeant Erik Emerson. “Good Lord, this shit is crazy.”

  “Keep us clear,” Dupree ordered. “I don’t want any survivors taking potshots at us. Not everyone is going to be happy to see a military helicopter.”

  “If there are any survivors,” said Sergeant Dusty McCabe.

  Dupree hadn’t said it out loud, but he had wondered the same thing during their flyover. The view below was a constant reminder that life in the United States wasn’t going to return to normal anytime soon. It was only five days after the North Korean attack, but civilization was falling apart. Riots, looting, violence, and radiation were killing hundreds of Americans by the hour. There was no telling when this place would be habitable again. Dupree scanned the highway snaking through the city. Cars and bodies littered the asphalt.

  Corporal Nick Sharps let out a low whistle as the bird turned to the west. “Man, I would not want to be caught outside without one of these.” He brushed off the shoulder of his CBRN suit.

  “These suits will protect us, right, LT?” asked Emerson.

  “Long as you got that shit on tight,” replied Sharps before Dupree could answer. “You don’t want to end up glowing in the dark. We’d hafta put you in the latrine as a nightlight, brother.”

  “Cut the crap,” Dupree said. “Do you even know what radiation does? Do you shitheads have any idea what those people are going through?”

  “Sorry, sir,” Emerson said.

  Dupree directed his gaze at Sharps. The man had given up a basketball scholarship at Duke to join the Marines after his brother was killed in Iraq. Dupree liked him, but Sharps was a jokester.

  “No, sir,” Sharps said a beat later.

  “That’s what I thought. Ever had a bad case of diarrhea?” Dupree said. “Add internal bleeding to that and gangrenous ulcers. You start puking up your guts, literally. Then it’s going to be a race to see what kills you first: blood loss or a terminal coma, assuming you don’t go crazy from delirium and blow your head off first.”

  Sharps looked at the floor, and everyone else in the troop hold fell into silence. The mind-rattling thump, thump of the rotors was the only sound as they pulled away from the city, but the quiet didn’t last long.

  “So those people are screwed?” Sharps asked. He pointed to the interstate cutting through cornfields. It took Dupree a moment to find the ancient boat of a Cadillac weaving through the minefield of abandoned vehicles scattered across the road.

  “Wonder where they got a working ride?” McCabe said.

  “How about some peace and quiet?” Dupree said. “We got a mission to focus on. Chances are we’re going to find a bunch of...” He stopped himself short of saying exactly what he expected to find.

  “Bunch of what?” Sharps pressed.

  “This is a camp for disabled children, and Command said we need to prepare for the worst,” Dupree replied.

  Each helmet dipped in acknowledgement. They were all business now, prepared to do what Marines did best‌—‌save lives.

  If there are any left to save, Dupree thought.

  “How are we doing on fuel?” he asked over the comms.

  “Good, sir. We’ll stop for a drink after we secure our targets,” the primary pilot replied.

  Dupree grabbed a handhold and stood in front of his men. It never hurt to go over the mission one more time. “Remember, our orders are to locate Ty Montgomery. If the boy is still alive, we will bring him back to the USS John C. Stennis. If he’s not, we’ll at least be able to give his mother some closure.”

  “Sir, yes, sir,” all but one of the men said in unison.

  Sharps gave Dupree a cockeyed look.

  “You got a problem, Sharps?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Spill it, Sharps,” Dupree ordered.

  “Sir, it’s just...” Sharps hesitated for a moment. “What’s so special about this one kid? I mean, we all got families out there. I’m worried about my little bro and sis, you know?”

  Dupree had prepared to give Sharps a dressing down, but the kid had a point. If he could, Dupree would have turned the bird around and flown straight to Florida to check on his boys.

  “Life’s not fair, Sharps,” Dupree said, his voice raised so that everyone would hear him over the rotors. “This mission comes directly from President Diego. Our job as Marines is not to question orders. It’s to follow them. Got it?”

  This time every helmet dipped in acknowledgement.

  Dupree turned his attention to the checkered fields below. It was easy to get bored with the view, but it was a welcome and peaceful distraction. Iowa looked like flat, empty land, but it was important to the country’s economy. He came from a long line of farmers, and he knew that land was ideal for growing staple crops. Iowa was number one in corn, soybeans, hogs, eggs, and ethanol. The radiation would kill most everything down there.

  Another hour or so passed before they saw the snowy tips of the Rocky Mountains. McCabe gave the order, and in seconds the other men were doing their final gear and weapons checks.

  “Remember, your CBRN suit is your lifeline,” Dupree said. “One tear could kill you, so be careful once we hit the ground.”

  Dupree did a quick once-over of his own suit and then pulled a magazine from the vest he wore over it. He palmed the mag into the rifle, but didn’t chamber a round. The only time he’d used his weapon stateside was during training, and this sure as hell wasn’t a training mission. Killing enemies in Afghanistan and Iraq was one thing, but he couldn’t imagine firing on an American citizen.

  “All right, listen up, everyone,” he said after the men had finished their prep. “We’re splitting up into three teams. Sharps
and Emerson, you’re on me. We’ll take the dormitories. McCabe and Rodriguez, head east. Snider and Runge will go west.”

  “Target in fifteen minutes,” said one of the pilots.

  “Remember, Ty Montgomery can’t walk, so be prepared to carry him out of there. If he’s alive, he’s going to be scared. Try not to give the poor kid a heart attack,” Dupree said. “His mom gave me a password to use: Falcon. You got that? The first word out of your mouth should be ‘Falcon’.”

  “What about other survivors?” asked McCabe.

  “We will take as many children as we can,” Dupree said.

  “Ooh rah,” Sharps said.

  A light rain pattered against the aircraft as the pilots flew toward the mountains. Dupree nodded at Crew Chief Joshua Locust. The man hadn’t said a word the entire flight, and he silently opened the troop hold door now, revealing a sea of green trees shifting in the wind. The cornfields were long gone, replaced by a forest of ponderosas blanketing the mountains.

  They passed over another road blocked by several abandoned vehicles. Nothing looked out of the ordinary‌—‌if you could call the apocalypse ordinary‌—‌until he spotted several crumpled bodies in the center of the lane a few hundred feet from an overpass. Something about the way they were sprawled pinged his curiosity. Dupree brought his scope up to his visor just as the voice of the main pilot came over the open channel.

  “You seeing this, Lieutenant?”

  “Get us closer,” Dupree said.

  “Radiation must be really bad here,” Sharps said. “Poor bastards.”

  Dupree scanned the road as the pilots hovered. A pool of blood surrounded one of the bodies.

  “Damn, you weren’t kidding, LT,” Emerson said. “Those people really bled out!”

  He centered his red dot sight on a man lying on his back. As he zoomed in, Dupree saw the bloody hole in the middle of the dead man’s forehead.

  Radiation hadn’t killed him after all.

  “Get us the hell out of here!” Dupree yelled over the thumping rotors. He lowered his gun to scan the road with his own eyes. There weren’t any hostiles visible, but he couldn’t see into the shadows beneath the bridge.

  The pilots craned their helmets from the cockpit. “Come again?” one of them said.

  “NOW!” Dupree screamed.

  The bird pulled up and away from the road, jarring the Marines in the back. Dupree grabbed a handhold, but remained at the open door. It was possible that the man had shot himself rather than face a slow death from the radiation, but Dupree hadn’t seen a gun anywhere at the scene. And those other bodies, all haloed with blood…no, something bad had happened down there. Something worse than radiation poisoning. He’d seen too many ambushes in Iraq and Afghanistan to miss the signs. Those people had been executed‌—‌and whoever had done it might still be around.

  The Black Hawk leveled out, and Dupree found himself reaching for the charging handle of his M4. He chambered a round and put his weapon on safe as he watched the road below. He’d hoped to make it through this mission without having to etch more crossbones on the barrel of his rifle, but it looked like war had followed him home to the United States of America.

  “THANKS FOR THE ride, Detective,” Nathan said as he climbed out of the back end of the pickup. Raven had offered him a hand, but the Major was too proud for help.

  And a major pain in the ass, Raven thought.

  “See ya around,” Lindsey said with a wink and a toss of her red hair.

  Raven rolled his eyes. First his sister, now Lindsey? What did all these women see in Nathan Sardetti?

  “Good luck out there,” he said to Raven.

  Raven reached through the window and shook Nathan’s hand. “Just in case your flight comes before we get back.”

  Nathan smiled. At least Raven thought he did; it was hard to tell with how bruised his face was.

  Lindsey pulled away from town hall. By early afternoon the sun had poked through the dome of gray clouds, covering the terrain with a golden glow. Raven watched the mountains in silence on the ride out of town. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to talk to Lindsey. Normally, he would have jumped at the chance, even though she was a cop. Red hair, feisty, funny: she was practically his dream woman. They were only about nine years apart, which wasn’t terrible. Or so he kept telling himself. He hadn’t been sure which way she swung, but she had definitely been flirting with Nathan.

  Cut it out, Raven. You got assholes to track down.

  He snuck another look at her cute profile. How was a man supposed to concentrate with a woman like her around?

  “No, I don’t have a boyfriend,” she said suddenly. “And I’m not interested in one, either.”

  Raven felt his cheeks warm. “What?”

  “For a former Force Recon Marine, I’d have thought you would be a little bit more subtle when checking me out.”

  “Lady, I ain’t‌—‌”

  “Detective. And save it, Sam. You’re not fooling anyone.”

  Raven smiled and turned back to look out of the passenger window. At any other time, he would have enjoyed the banter, but today he didn’t feel much like his charming self. It wasn’t because he was exhausted and covered in bruises and cuts from the showdown against Brown Feather. The events of the past five days had changed Raven. The injuries to his body were going to leave scars, and the horror inflicted by the wannabe Water Cannibals would stay with him forever. The stories from his childhood had given him nightmares for years. Seeing them come to life was enough to make him crave a stiff drink.

  Too bad he’d quit drinking.

  The old Raven would have tried to drown the memories in a bottle, but he didn’t do that anymore. He had a family to protect‌—‌hell, thanks to Colton, he now had a whole town to protect. Sandra and Allie, along with the rest of Estes Park, needed him sober. And at the moment, they needed him to track down the junkies who had put Officer Nelson in the hospital.

  “You okay over there?” Lindsey asked. “I didn’t hurt your feelings, did I?”

  Raven straightened his Seattle Mariners baseball cap and tried to sound convincing. “Lady...” He corrected himself when she glanced in his direction. “I mean, Detective. It takes a whole hell of a lot more than that to hurt my feelings.”

  “I’m just giving you shit.” She met his gaze for a moment before looking back to the road. “I heard what you did up on Prospect Mountain, and I’m glad to have you with me. With us, I mean. The Estes Park police force.”

  Raven felt his smile return. He wasn’t used to being flattered. Especially by a cop. And never by a pretty cop.

  “Creek and I are happy to help.”

  “I just wish I’d been up there with y’all. Maybe I could have saved Captain Englewood.”

  Raven’s smile folded to a frown. He was sorry for Jake and his family, but the man’s sacrifice had helped save Sandra and Allie. There was no telling what Brown Feather would have done to them if Jake and Nathan hadn’t shown up.

  “The Stanley sure is a blessing,” Lindsey said after a long pause.

  “Huh?” Raven eyed the red roof of the iconic hotel in the distance. “Oh. Right. How many people are staying there?”

  “Hundreds, I think. I’ve lost track. There are over one hundred and fifty rooms, plus there are other buildings on the property, but we still don’t have enough space for everyone. We’ve moved some of the stranded tourists to other hotels and resorts. I can’t imagine how they’re feeling, stuck here and away from their homes and family.”

  Raven wanted to ask her about her own family, but this wasn’t the time or the place. He continued to look out the window at the Stanley. It was amazing how things had changed nearly overnight.

  “I always thought it would take longer for society to collapse,” he said.

  “Without power? Without smartphones?” Lindsey lifted a brow. “I’m surprised we’re not hearing about more shootings.”

  “Like the one that Don found? I bet there are
more cases like that. We just aren’t hearing about them.”

  “Yeah,” Lindsey said. “You’re probably right. And you know what else? I really don’t like the way Don talked to Colton. It’s been a long time coming though, to be honest.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “Colton and Don have always butted heads, ever since I got hired. Jake was the buffer between the two. Now that he’s gone….” She shrugged, never taking her eyes from the road. “I don’t think Mayor Andrews likes Colton much, either. I wouldn’t be surprised if the administration tries to push Don into the Chief of Police position.”

  “I never liked that little prick,” Raven replied. “He wanted to toss me in jail and throw away the key when I got arrested for poaching.”

  “Yeah, I know.”

  Raven rubbed his forehead and smirked. “Then again, I didn’t really like Colton at first, either. He’s kind of a prick, too.”

  Lindsey chuckled and shifted the aviators higher on her freckled nose. “He means well. The man has a big heart, but he’s one of those old-school, hard-ass cops. I hope I never get like that.”

  “Really?” Raven said. “Because I already think you’re kind of a hard-ass. You’re definitely a firecracker. Pretty terrible combination, if you ask me.”

  “Very charming, Sam.” She laughed and turned onto Devils Gulch Road. The engine rattled as the truck shot down the open road. Fences separated the shoulder from grassy fields, and the houses were fewer and farther between out here on the edge of town.

  To the west, bluffs dotted with Douglas firs, aspens, and ponderosa pines separated civilization from the wilderness. There were a few stalled cars ahead, but the only person Raven saw was a guy walking his dog along the shoulder. They were lucky the radiation had mostly passed them by up here, and people could go outside without fear of being poisoned.

  “Any idea where we should start?” Lindsey asked.

  “I say we canvass some more folks,” Raven said. He pointed to the man walking his dog. “Starting with the guy in the Estes Park hoodie.”

  “That’s Allen Dixon. He’s a retired school teacher and a pretty nice guy,” she said, bringing the vehicle to a stop.