The After Days Trilogy

by Scott Medbury

  “Don’t worry, Isaac. I think scars are sexy,” Indigo said, and I felt my cheeks start to burn. For a moment, I wondered if a blush would be able to melt the frozen blood on my cheek. Maybe having a scar on my face wouldn’t be so bad after all. “Now slow down, we are almost to the freeway on-ramp.”

  We had not been on the freeway long when the fog began to thin out rapidly and, before we knew it, we were driving through a cloudy and frigid New England day. Checking his mirror frequently, Luke reported that the motorcycles were still following us, but had dropped back quite a ways.

  “I hope those persistent bastards don’t chase us all the way to the safe haven,” Luke said, eyes locked on the mirror.

  “I won’t lead them there, no matter what,” I replied. “Hopefully, they give up well before we have to do anything drastic.”

  We rode in silence for a few minutes, our light mood at our temporary reprieve from the Tigers suddenly dampened by what we were witnessing. The freeway was totally free of vehicles, but not through any stroke of luck. It looked like quite a few vehicles had been abandoned ... or not ... as people attempted to escape the city. It must have been an almighty gridlock. The vehicles were now piled and heaped in the gullies to the sides of the road, as if a petulant child had swept his toy cars off a track in a fit of rage.

  That wasn’t the worst. There were bodies, too. Some hanging out of cars, some half-buried in the snowdrifts that were building on the wrecks. I glanced at Indigo and saw tears in her eyes as she took in the horrible sight. I didn’t try to comfort her this time, as I knew we would probably see plenty worse than this before we reached the safe haven.

  I wondered why the Chinese had cleared the freeway and guessed they were clearing all the major roads between cities for their repopulation. It only made sense. Luke looked into his mirror.

  “They’re still stalking us. I’m just glad their little convoy of motorbikes didn’t bring the Chinese Army down on us,” he said. “Speaking of which, they’ve been awful quiet today. Do you think they know we’re listening in?”

  I glanced at the CB unit on the dashboard and my stomach did a flip-flop as I saw some of the bullets that had come through my window had torn through the side of it. “Radio got hit in the ambush,” I grunted. “We’ve been driving deaf for at least a half-hour now. The whole damn Chinese Army could be waiting around the next bend for all we know.”

  “Shit,” Luke said. “Oh, well. It’s not like we have anybody who speaks Chinese up here anyway. Brooke is in the back.”

  “Gee, thanks, Luke,” Indigo said, giving him a harsh glance and wiping tears from her eyes. “I’m sorry I’m so useless to you.”

  “Hey, now ... sorry. I didn’t mean ...” He looked mortified she thought he was taking a swipe at her and I found myself taking a sort of perverse enjoyment out of his stammering.

  “It’s okay, I like the company of the people up here right now,” I said, intervening and shooting Indigo a small smile. That was a mistake; the act of smiling caused my cheek to hurt more than it already did. Serves me right for trying to score a point off my friend.

  “I hope the others are okay,” she said, her gaze dropping to the floor of the cab, and I remembered the sound of the nine-millimeter bullets slapping into the side of the cargo area.

  “We can’t stop to check on them as long as the Tigers are stalking us,” I said. “Luke, grab your atlas. See if there is a way we can lose them up ahead.”

  “Will do, man.”

  He reached under his seat, where he seemed to have stored everything but a kitchen sink. A few seconds later, he was opening his atlas to Massachusetts. “Indigo, we got on here, right?” he asked, pointing to a spot on the map.

  “Yeah, that’s the place,” she said.

  “I think I see a way,” Luke said. “Take the next exit and turn left off the end of the ramp. That should put us on highway 12 and we can follow that up to 140 and take 140 back to I-190.”

  “I’ve been that way before,” Indigo said. “It won’t take us that far out of the way.”

  “Alright then, maybe we can lose them on the way.” I saw the exit coming up and slowed to take it and, as I did, the motorbikes closed some of the distance between us.

  Glancing back over my shoulder, I saw about eight bikes, some of them with two Tigers on them, but most with one. Ten or 12 Chinese gangbangers were not something we were equipped to fight it out with, not even if everybody in the back was still in good shape and ready to rumble. We just didn’t have the firepower. The Tigers would easily outgun us. My attention snapped back onto the ramp ahead of me and I pulled us off of the freeway.

  The off ramp was forested on either side, but almost as soon as we turned onto highway 12, we passed an Ace Hardware and a grocery store. I would have liked to have stopped and looked for more supplies in both places, but with the Tigers on our asses, that wasn’t an option. Continuing up the highway, we passed a CVS pharmacy and after that a couple of strip malls and an RV dealership as we left the outskirts of town. Worcester was finally in our rear view mirror and, according to Luke, so were the Red Tigers.

  With the fog lifted I could open it up a little more, but I didn’t get above 50 or so. That seemed to be the speed at which the truck began to protest by shaking and whining. I knew there was no way that a rental truck was going to outrun the Tigers’ motorcycles, not for long, anyway.

  “We need to get far enough ahead so we can find a place where there is a corner to hide the truck. Hopefully, they will zoom on by and we can go the other way,” I said.

  “I don’t know if that’s going to cut it,” Luke said. “These guys are hardcore gangbangers and they are not letting us out of their line of vision. I can’t believe that wasting a couple of them pissed them off this bad.”

  “Yeah, about that,” I said. “You remember the guy I killed in the alley, back when we saved Indigo?”

  “Seriously, dude? You’re asking if I remember the guy you machine-gunned down in front of me?”

  “Yeah, well ... he was ...”

  “What?” Luke and Indigo asked at the same time.

  “The younger brother of Chen, the leader of the Tigers,” I said, not looking at them and keeping my eyes on the road.

  “Really?” Luke asked.

  “What’d I tell you?” I said. “If it wasn’t for bad luck ...”

  “Well, I don’t care who he was, I’m glad you did it,” Indigo said. “You guys are my knights in shining armor. Even if your shining armor is a bloody, stained parka,” she said to me. “And your lance is a crossbow,” she said, looking at Luke, who grinned.

  “So, what, are they going to hunt us to the ends of the earth now or what?” Luke asked.

  “I hope not,” I replied. “But back at the parking garage I came face to face with him and he looked mad ... no, more than mad. He looked psycho. I’m pretty sure he will keep coming after us until one of us is dead. Since we left the interstate, have they shown any signs of giving up the chase?”

  “No, in fact, they have started creeping closer again.”

  The road swerved to the right and I could see we were coming up to a long bridge over a stretch of water. “Just on the other side of this bridge, you want to turn left. It’ll take us back toward the freeway.”

  “That’s a big lake,” I said when the trees to the side thinned out as we approached the bridge. I realized I could only see part of the lake as it stretched out of sight to my left and I could see places where it bent around, forming large coves.

  “That’s the Wachusett Reservoir,” Indigo said. “My uncle used to bring me and my cousin fishing here sometimes when we were little.”

  There was a sign that proclaimed the bridge prone to icing in the winter, but I ignored it and kept up my speed as we hit it. I could hear the motorcycles again and the roar of their engines was getting louder. It occurred to me they meant to take us while we were crossing the lake. I got my revolver ready and lay it on my lap in case any of the
m pulled alongside, and saw Luke was likewise preparing his crossbow for action.

  “They’re coming,” Luke said, looking in his mirror. I nodded grimly. The roar of bikes told me that they were getting very close now.

  “Oh, no!” moaned Indigo, beside me.

  Following her stare of horror, I saw in front of us our worst nightmare ... a roadblock manned by Chinese soldiers at the end of the bridge.

  PART 3 - END GAME

  17

  Wooden barricades were placed across the end of the bridge. An armored vehicle, topped by a wicked looking cannon, and four Humvees were parked behind the barricades. Standing at the barricades, watching us come toward them, were at least eight Chinese soldiers and I could see more behind the vehicles. We were trapped between the Tigers and the Chinese Army ... with no way out.

  “You gotta be shitting me,” Luke said, shaking his head in disbelief.

  “Figures, doesn’t it?” I said, through gritted teeth.

  “What are we going to do?” Indigo asked.

  “Die, probably,” I replied. I could not hide the hint of despairing anger in my voice. “But I’m not stopping. They’ll have to kill us ... that’s the only way they’re stopping this truck.”

  “This reminds me of that old country song about the convoy,” Luke said.

  I had never heard it, of course, and I wondered how, just seconds from death, Luke could be spouting crap about songs probably written before he was born. Maybe it was a coping mechanism? Mine was anger. I stomped the gas pedal hard into the floor.

  “You guys might want to get down as low as possible,” I said. “The engine block should give you some protection.”

  The Chinese soldiers in front of us suddenly took notice and began scrambling to ready their weapons and take cover behind their vehicles.

  We were maybe a hundred yards from the barricades when the Tigers opened up with submachine guns and pistols behind us. I heard a few hit the truck, but most seemed to be missing, probably because shooting and riding a motorcycle at the same time isn’t easy. The effect on the Chinese though, was amazing; they seemed to think the Tigers were shooting at them and responded accordingly.

  The last hundred yards to the barricade took forever to cross. If you asked me later, I would have sworn it took the truck at least five minutes, but I know, given how fast I was driving, it had to have happened in no more than a few seconds. It's funny how time can seem so elastic depending on what’s happening.

  Indigo put her hand on my thigh, but I hardly noticed. We all scrunched down, Luke and Indigo below the level of the dashboard and me with just my eyes and forehead peeking over so that I could see where I was driving.

  A few shots hit the windshield, high on the passenger side and I felt a couple hitting the cargo box where it rose above the cab but, for the most part, the Chinese fire seemed to be concentrating on the motorcycles behind us. If they think we are a Chinese military truck, we might still get out of this, the hopeful thought shot through my head like a bolt of lightning.

  The soldiers manning the barricade were not like the ones we'd been captured by. They wore simple gray-green trench coats rather than the urban camouflage with padded armor points, and they carried old style rifles. I later learned they were conscripts and had no choice about whether they wanted to be in the army or not, and that the Chinese Army was mostly made up of soldiers just like them.

  The armored personnel carrier actually looked like a small tank to me and, to my horror, as I examined it, the turret started to turn in our direction. I saw it inching around in slow motion, wondering if we'd make it to the barricades before it fired.

  We did, just barely. We crashed through the makeshift wooden barricades and Chinese soldiers leapt out of our way as we careened through. The armored personnel carrier started firing at the motorcycles behind us. I realized that rather than a cannon, the gun on the turret was more like a giant machine gun, and right now it was spitting rapid death at the Red Tigers on our tail.

  The truck bounced into the air as it smashed the barricades and I slammed on the brakes as it came down hard. We started to skid sideways, sweeping up three Chinese soldiers who hadn't jumped out of the way quickly enough. They were crunched between us and the personnel carrier as I passed it with a sideswipe that caused both vehicles to shudder. Bouncing off it, the truck slewed to the left and came to a screeching stop in the intersection, where the road we wanted to follow veered off the highway we were on. Luke risked a look in the one remaining rearview mirror.

  “Damn, the Tigers are getting massacred, man,” he said. “We should get the hell out of here while the Chinese are distracted.”

  I peeked over my shoulder and out of the window. Luke was right. The Tigers were getting massacred, but not all of them. Well back from the bridge, where the road was still on a slight incline which protected them from the angle of the machine gun’s withering fire, an all-too-familiar figure straddled his bike. Chen, with the last two of his crew on their bikes flanking him, stood sentinel as they looked down upon the destruction of the Red Tigers.

  I knew it was impossible, but I felt like Chen was staring right at me and I shivered. Finally, as the gun began to whir and slowly raise its muzzle toward them, the remaining three Tigers gunned their bikes and spun around, racing from the scene. I finally snapped out of my trance. It was only then that I noticed movement to my left.

  “I think it might be too late,” I said, glancing out my window.

  A group of six Chinese soldiers were approaching from the rear of the truck on my side, waving their hands and shouting, although their words were lost in the roar of the gunfire going on around us. “Indigo, hand me the rifle behind you,” I said, although I was sorry that her hand would be leaving my thigh.

  I slid the revolver back into my parka pocket. Three soldiers, two with rifles and one armed only with a side arm, approached the cab of the truck, while the other three stayed by the back corner. I ducked down as they approached. The pistol armed soldier - I think he might have been an officer of some sort - shouted something in Chinese just outside the driver’s side door. I tensed as the door handle twitched and was yanked open.

  There was a look of surprise on his face when he saw me scrunched down there with the assault rifle aimed straight at him, at least I tell myself there was when I think back. In reality, everything happened too fast for me to notice.

  At this range, I couldn’t miss, and my first three rounds went straight through the officer’s body and into the soldier behind him and both crumpled to the ground.

  The third soldier began to bring his own assault rifle up, when suddenly there was a spitting sound next to my head. The soldier, wearing his own look of surprise, dropped one hand from his rifle and scrabbled in a futile attempt to remove the crossbow arrow embedded in his larynx. He dropped to his knees and slowly fell forward, squeezing his trigger as he fell. One bullet pinged into the metal of the dash right by my head, another into the floor, and the last of the three round burst triggered by his death spasm slapped harmlessly into the roadway beneath the cab.

  Reeling, I saw Luke rack another short arrow into the crossbow. I shook my head to clear it, and leaned out of the door to see one of the soldiers by the back of the truck aiming his rifle my way. There were three flashes and the open door jerked behind me. I brought my own rifle around and returned fire. One of the three rounds of my burst found its mark and the soldier fell, grabbing at his thigh. Behind me, there was another spitting sound, and I heard a body hit the bitumen heavily. Luke pulled back from his window and yelled, “Go!”

  I slammed the driver's side door and tried to restart the truck – it had stalled when I'd skidded to a stop. Despite my sense of impending doom, the truck turned over on the second try, and I slammed my foot on the gas. We shot down the road that would take us back to the freeway, leaving the firefight behind.

  I couldn't hear it but Indigo told me afterward the gunfire on the bridge had started to die down, s
o we probably got out of there at just the right time. The truck wobbled just as we were losing sight of the Chinese checkpoint. It felt as if a gust of wind had caught the side of the cargo box, but then we were clear. My head hurt from the roar of the gunfire and constant adrenalin, but I knew the others were feeling it just as much as I was.

  “We need to stop and check on those in the back,” Indigo yelled over the cold wind howling through the broken windows. I nodded my agreement, but kept my foot planted on the accelerator. “We will, but not yet!” Stopping this close to the checkpoint didn't seem like a good idea.

  “We need to do it soon,” she insisted.

  I drove another 10 minutes at full speed, which didn’t actually seem very fast in the damaged truck. From the road signs, I could tell we were getting close to the freeway. I could see the on-ramp in the distance as we neared a boarded up old gas station with a larger garage behind it. I slowed the truck.

  “Is there anybody following us?” I asked Luke. He said something I couldn't hear, and shook his head in the negative. I turned into the driveway without further consultation, but I hadn’t slowed enough, and the truck pitched dangerously. For just a brief second I thought it might tip onto its side. Indigo gave a short squeal as she slid hard into Luke, squashing him against the door. Being inexperienced, I braked hard and we were all propelled forward in our seats as we jolted to a stop.

  “Dude! What the hell?!” yelled Luke. “I think I might have to relieve you of driving duties.”

  “Sorry,” I said, looking sheepishly at them.

  I put my foot carefully on the gas again and eased the truck behind the gas station to the garage behind the building. Its doors were open and it was mostly empty. Driving the truck inside, I stopped and jumped out, motioning Luke to do the same. We ran back and pulled the doors shut, concealing our truck from the road. Turning, I got my first look at the cargo box of the truck, and my stomach lurched.