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

by Nicholas Sansbury Smith

  A window shattered on the second floor, flames exploding outward.

  “Watch out!” Colton shouted.

  Dale Jackson was standing under the window wearing his volunteer firefighter turncoat, helmet, and gloves. The retired Marine had made good on his promise to change his ways after Colton had caught him waving a gun at Nathan and Sandra the night of the EMP attack, and since then he’d been one of the first to help out when anyone needed it. Dale jumped away, but the showering glass sliced through his coat and cut into his tattooed bicep.

  “Ah, shit!” he shouted.

  “Get back!” Colton yelled.

  Colton worked his way up to Lindsey. Her face was filthy and flushed. The heat intensified as the fire spread over the building. It wouldn’t be long before the blaze would force the group to retreat.

  “We need more water!” she yelled. “Where’s the fire department?”

  “What fire department?” Colton shouted back.

  Lindsey grabbed a bucket and threw the water on the building. She handed it back to Colton, and he passed it down the line.

  “Where the hell is Don?” Colton asked.

  Lindsey coughed from the smoke. “Don’t know.”

  The fire had spread up to the third floor. Another window broke. Colton grabbed a bucket, tossed it on the side of the building, grabbed another, and kept going, hoping that maybe the rain clouds would change direction.

  Over the commotion came a frantic shout. “Where’s my husband? I can’t find my husband!”

  Colton looked over his shoulder at an older woman with gray hair struggling toward the building. Hines was trying to hold her back, but she pulled from his grip.

  “Colton!” Hines shouted.

  Wood splintered overhead with a deafening crack. The roof began to cave in on the left wing, flames belching out into the sky. The blaze stung his exposed skin, and sweat beaded beneath the heavy coat he wore.

  “Everyone back!” Colton shouted. He pulled Lindsey away as she went to grab another bucket.

  “No!” she snapped. “We have to‌—‌”

  Colton dragged her back just as a piece of burning wood hit the grass where she’d been standing. Sparks landed on her jeans. She fell on her knees, beating out the embers, but he quickly pulled her back to her feet.

  “Come on!” he shouted. The other people working to save the Stanley dropped their buckets and ran. The heat of the flames hit Colton’s neck like a slap. They had moved just in the nick of time.

  On the other side of the lawn, the tourists were huddled in a group; some of them crying, others looking upon their temporary home in a state of shock. A man with a WWII veteran hat bowed his head, gripping the armrests of his wheelchair with arthritic fingers. The woman who had lost her husband screamed, pulling on Hines to let her go.

  “Get back!” Matthew shouted. Hands out wide, he corralled the crowd back across the lawn.

  “Damn it, Dale,” Lindsey shouted. Colton turned to see Dale still standing in front of the flames, holding two buckets of water, veins bulging in his neck. He tossed both buckets and then scrambled for more. Colton started toward him, determined to drag the man away before he got himself killed, when a hand grabbed his sleeve.

  “Chief,” said the gray-haired woman. “Please, my husband is still in there!”

  “All right, ma’am,” Colton huffed. “Where did you last see him?”

  She pointed to the second floor, just above the veranda. Flames danced behind the classic colonial windows.

  “Shit,” Colton muttered.

  Lindsey joined them, wiping soot from her forehead and then coughing into her sleeve. Dale finally retreated from the fire and jogged over, blood drenching his arm.

  “Someone still inside, Chief?” Dale asked. He coughed into his sleeve and then cupped his lacerated bicep with a glove.

  “Her husband,” Colton said.

  Dale jerked his chin at the building. “I’ll go find the old guy. I’ve been in worse than that back in Iraq. Once saved a kid‌—‌”

  “No, it’s too dangerous, and you need to get your arm looked at,” Colton said. “I’ll go.”

  “Like hell. Not without me.” This time it was Lindsey talking. She looked like she could barely stand, but there was a determined set to her jaw.

  Colton didn’t have time to argue. He took off for the porch before they could protest. A figure wearing a cowboy hat came running through the smoke around the east wing. For a moment, Colton thought it was Jake’s ghost, but then saw it wasn’t his old friend‌—‌or a friend at all‌—‌it was Don.

  “Where you going, Chief?” Don shouted.

  Colton pointed at the balcony on the second floor. “Got a man trapped inside.”

  “The building is a total loss. I’m sorry, but I can’t let you go in there, it’s far too dangerous.”

  Don put his hand on Colton’s shoulder, pushing him back from the hotel.

  “Get your hand off me, Sergeant,” Colton growled.

  Someone rushed by Colton and Don. It was Dale, and before anyone could stop him, the veteran loped up the stairs and ran through the open doors into the lobby, spearing the smoke with his helmet.

  Colton pulled out his gas mask and secured it over his face as he ran after Dale. The mask wouldn’t do much to protect him from the heat or carbon monoxide, but at least it would block the smoke particles as long as there was at least twenty percent oxygen. He had to make this quick. Without much thermal protection or an oxygen tank, he wouldn’t last long inside the building‌—‌and Dale didn’t have a mask at all.

  Keeping low, Colton moved through the smoke-choked porch and stepped into the lobby. Visibility was shit, but at least this part of the building wasn’t on fire. He took in raspy breaths, struggling for air as he moved.

  He hadn’t been inside the Stanley for a long time, not since he’d taken Kelly to the historic bar and restaurant for an anniversary celebration years ago. If he remembered correctly, the stairs were straight ahead.

  Colton walked as low and as quickly as possible, hands waving in front of him to stop from running into anything. The smoke was heavy here and he couldn’t see the staircase, but he could make out the reception desk to his left, and the golden elevator on his right. He crouched down and moved forward until he saw the bottom of the carpeted stairs.

  A cracking sounded like the earth splitting in two. Colton stood and then jumped back just as the ceiling gave way, dumping burning wood, plaster, and furniture onto the floor in front of the stairs.

  He shielded his face from the fire with an arm and looked up through the gaping hole to the second floor. A chair tumbled out of the opening, shattering at his feet. Colton frantically brushed off the sparks that stuck to his clothing.

  “Dale!” he shouted, his voice muffled by the mask. He couldn’t see much of anything through the plastic, and he knew he didn’t have long before it started to melt. Even worse, he could hardly breathe.

  Unable to stand it anymore, Colton tore off the gas mask and pulled his collar up over his nose. He coughed into the material and desperately searched for a way around the spreading flames to the stairs. His vision burned and blurred from the smoke and intense heat, but he managed to see a gap around the fire. Maybe if he could get around it...

  “Over here!” someone shouted. He whirled to look for the voice, but the curtain of smoke was too thick. Even with the sunlight coming through the front doors, he couldn’t see much. The walkie-talkie crackled on his hip, but he was afraid of dropping it if he tried to answer now.

  “Help me with him!” yelled the same strangled voice.

  A large, misshapen figure emerged on the other side of the fire at the bottom of the staircase. Two men, Colton realized, one of them leaning on the other as a crutch.

  Colton flattened his body and moved around the flames to help. Fire licked at his pant legs. He took a step back and then leapt over the burning floorboards.

  “Help me carry him,” Dale said.
He coughed violently and hoisted the man up with Colton’s help. The fire raged over the debris where the ceiling had caved in. Static crackled from the radio again, and then there was a voice that sounded like Margaret, but Colton couldn’t make out the words.

  “Let’s make a run for it,” Dale choked. They barreled around the section of burning floor. Moving as one, they carried the moaning elderly man through the lobby, out the front doors, across the porch, and down the stairs.

  As soon as they were outside, they dropped to the ground. Lindsey, Hines, and Matthew ran over with buckets of water. They tossed them onto Colton, Dale, and the unconscious man, dousing the embers that smoldered on their clothes.

  “You’re a crazy son of a bitch, Dale,” Colton said. He pushed himself up, shivering from the combination of the cold water and the wind.

  “Found this guy on the stairs,” Dale managed to say.

  Lindsey was on her knees next to the unconscious man. Air wheezed from his lungs. His wife came running over and dropped down by his other side.

  “Chief!” someone shouted.

  Colton looked over his shoulder at Detective Tim Ryburn. He bent down to put his hands on his knees, gut hanging over his duty belt.

  “Chief,” he said. “I...I ran here as fast as I could. Margaret’s been trying to get you on the radio.”

  “I’ve been a little bit busy,” Colton said.

  The flames had reached the right wing of the Stanley now. Another section of roof collapsed into the heart of the building, burying over a hundred years’ worth of memories, artwork, and history.

  The walkie-talkie on Colton’s belt buzzed again just as Ryburn finally caught his breath. “Chief, there’s been a jailbreak.”

  Colton coughed and shook his head. “What are you talking about? Who broke out?”

  “That thug, Theo,” Ryburn said, wheezing. “A group of armed men took him from the jail. They showed up right after we got word the hotel was on fire.”

  Colton looked at his other officers. He had ordered his entire department away from their posts, including the jail, in an effort to save the Stanley. He looked back at the inferno. This wasn’t some accident. This was arson‌—‌a distraction to get them away from their critical facilities. He felt the realization like a fist to the gut.

  They’d been played.

  He plucked the radio off his belt. “Margaret, do you copy?”

  “I’m here, Chief,” she replied.

  “Are you okay?”

  “Yes, but…” Margaret said. “Those men didn’t just take Theo. They took all our supplies, too.”

  THE RAIN HAD subdued the forest fires along the highway, but the flames had done plenty of damage to the terrain, burning all the way up to the treeline around the jagged mountains to the south.

  Nathan held up the Geiger counter to check for radiation. The reading came back minimal again. The rain had not only stopped the fires‌—‌it had also cleared a lot of the radiation. No one would be able to plant crops around here anytime soon, but at least the ground wasn’t completely toxic.

  He pulled out the analog radio from his bag, hoping that he would finally be able to reach his sister. He turned to the channel and said, “Major Sardetti calling Lieutenant Marco or Secretary Montgomery. Does anyone copy? Over.”

  No one answered.

  After a few attempts, Nathan put the radio back in his rucksack. “Haven’t been able to raise anyone for over nine hours. I don’t understand.”

  “You sure you’re on the right channel?” Raven asked.

  Nathan shifted his rifle from one hand to the other. His broken arm was killing him, but he didn’t want Raven to see it. “Yeah, I’m sure.”

  “This feels a lot like the night of attack, when we were completely cut off,” Nathan said. “I’m worried something else has happened.”

  Raven kept his gaze on the road, eyes shifting left to right. The man was on constant alert. Four hours of driving on Interstate 70 and searching the side roads hadn’t turned up anything but corpses. Nathan had lost count of the bodies. Most had died from radiation poisoning, but they’d found a few clusters of people who’d been shot. The Sons of Liberty must have moved through here, but it was impossible to say how long ago or even which direction they’d been heading in.

  “We need a new plan,” Raven said. “Following the bodies isn’t working.”

  “Maybe it’s time to let me come up with a plan,” Nathan said. “I say we set a trap and ambush these fuckers like they did the soldiers back on the bridge.”

  Raven wagged his finger back and forth. “I think I figured you out, Major. You want me to die, so you can have Lindsey. But she’s mine, man. Feel free to date my sister when I’m gone, though. As long as you treat her right.”

  Nathan wasn’t sure how to respond to that, so he forced a smile. He liked Sandra, but the last thing on his mind was dating.

  “You break my sister’s heart and I’ll break your other arm,” Raven said.

  Nathan laughed this time. “I’m not interested in anything besides finding my nephew and getting back to my sister, don’t worry.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” he said, looking at the dash. “I better fill up the tank after this hill.”

  Raven pulled off to the side of the road along a slope that descended to a lake. Thousands of fingers of smoke rose from the cooling timber all around them. The one good thing about everything being black was it was easy to spot any potential hostiles.

  Nathan stepped out and raised his AR-15 to scope the road. Three burned-out cars covered in ash remained where they had died six days earlier. He zoomed in on a single body that was nothing but charred flesh and bones.

  He stretched his aching muscles after finishing the scan. There wasn’t anyone out here. Not anyone alive, anyway. He returned to the Jeep, where Raven was preparing to funnel gas from a can into the fuel tank.

  “Need some help?” Nathan asked.

  “Nah, just watch our backs.”

  Nathan limped back to the other side of the Jeep to check the area Raven had already cleared. A patch of terrain to the north had survived the fires, leaving an island of green in an ocean of black. He pushed the scope to his eye and magnified on a red tent under a massive ponderosa pine.

  “You see that tent?” Nathan asked.

  “Yeah, but no people. I’m guessing whoever pitched that is dead inside.”

  He set the gas canister in the back of the truck, grabbed his rifle, and walked over to the edge of the road. Wind gusted across the two men, rustling their filthy clothing.

  “Think we should have a look anyway?” Nathan said. “If someone’s alive up there, maybe they saw something and can tell us‌—‌”

  The rattle of an engine cut him off. The sound rose over the wind, faded, and came again. Nathan and Raven darted for cover behind the Jeep.

  “Where’s that sound coming from?” Nathan asked.

  “South, I think.”

  Raven and Nathan shouldered their rifles and crept around the Jeep. The cough of the engine grew louder, and a Humvee crested the road to the south, zooming over a hill and speeding down the open stretch.

  “We have to hide,” Raven said. “Everything else on the road is covered in ash.”

  Nathan followed Raven into the ditch. They scrambled down the rocky side and got down on their stomachs. From this vantage, Nathan couldn’t see the road, but he could hear the diesel engine approaching. It didn’t sound like it was slowing.

  “Set a trap,” Nathan whispered. “Let’s see if my plan works.”

  “We don’t know if these are the guys.”

  “Yeah, but‌—‌”

  Raven held up a finger to his lips as the vehicle slowed on the road. The Humvee slowed to a halt just above them. Doors opened, and multiple pairs of boots hit the pavement.

  “Keep your eyes open,” said a man’s voice.

  “I’ll check the back of the Jeep,” answered another.

  Nathan slowly pushed his mu
zzle up, but all he could see was the top of the Jeep and the hazy sky. All he needed was a single thread of evidence that these were the assholes who had taken Ty. Then he was going to move in.

  The top of a shaved head and two bushy eyebrows emerged overhead. Another shaved head appeared. This one had a Swastika tattoo on the left side.

  Skinhead bastards.

  “I don’t see anyone out here,” one of the men in the truck said. He moved out of sight. The other man remained, the top of his head in Nathan’s sights.

  “There’s a tent over here!” someone shouted from the other side of the road. “We should check that shit out.”

  “Hold up, Jimmy,” came a new voice. “You got to check out the supplies in this Jeep. We hit the jackpot! The General is going to be really happy.”

  The man moved away from Nathan’s red dot sight, vanishing from view. He looked over at Raven. Despite their injuries, Nathan was confident they could take these Aryan assholes down right here.

  But that wouldn’t help find his nephew.

  Unless he left one of them alive.

  Nathan heard another new voice on the road, bringing the total contacts to five.

  “Check out this crossbow,” the man said. “That is freakin’ sweet.”

  Raven’s eyes widened.

  Five men was a lot to take down, even with surprise on his side, but Nathan couldn’t let them take their gear and the Jeep. Being stranded out here was as good as a death sentence.

  “Engine is still hot, boss,” someone said above.

  Nathan flashed a hand signal to Raven, directing him to take the two guys on the right. That left Nathan with the three on the left. They had to move fast, and they had move now!

  Nathan felt the pre-battle jitters as he mentally prepared to take their lives. It was different than flying his jet into combat. He would be able to see the men he killed, look them in the eyes, something a pilot didn’t have to deal with when dropping bombs or launching missiles.