The End Time Saga Box Set [Books 1-3]

by Greene, Daniel

  “A little help?” she said to the two men that were hunting for a release lever.

  The two men in business suits, probably former military by the looks of their closely cut hair, gripped the sliding doors on either side. She strained her arms and back. Damn, this door is heavy.

  “Come on guys, put some back into it,” she grunted. The men laughed a bit and pushed it harder.

  She strained again, and a pair of hands shot through the space, wrenching it open from the outside. With a roll, the train doors shifted apart. Eager hands cupped her armpits as she jumped down onto the tracks. She stared upward at a tall black police officer in full tactical gear. Sweat drenched his face, and he had the wide-eyed look of someone who was clearly under a tremendous amount of stress.

  “I need everyone to move quickly to the next Metro station. Walk down the tracks and stay to the right. The tracks are offline,” he said in a low voice. He gestured in a westerly direction with his gloved hand. “Hurry,” he urged.

  Gwen turned and shielded her eyes in the direction of the District. She could make out the hazy outlines of people down the tracks, heat quivering as it rose up from the ground. There must be another train out. The whole metro system must be down. Thousands of people could be stranded.

  “Ma’am, you’ve got to keep moving. NOW,” he said, his voice rising to a shout.

  “Okay,” she said, feeling a bit admonished. Dang, what’s this guy’s deal? She walked at a brisk pace towards the next station, turning every so often to see the growing mass of people gaining on her.

  After five minutes of crunching through the gravel lined tracks, a man sprinted past her, holding a briefcase above his head. Then another.

  “Wait, why are you running?” she called out. The man didn’t even turn to acknowledge her question. What’s wrong with these people?

  More and more people ran by her until she found herself caught up in the running. The hard gravel packed train track made it difficult to maneuver in her two-inch spike heels. Afraid she would turn her ankle, she kicked up her heels one at a time.

  She jogged alongside a man. “Excuse me, sir? What’s going on?” Sweat stained his collar.

  “Some sort of riot. A lynch mob more like. They are ripping people apart back there. Haven’t you been watching the news?” he said, breathing heavily.

  “Oh my God, why?” she stammered.

  He waved her off. “Stay away from me,” he picked up his pace and ran faster away from her.

  A mob? Why in the hell would there be a mob on the train tracks? It angered her to have to sit and wait on the metro, but this was ridiculous.

  Every step, made her more fearful. People ran on the highway abandoning their cars. Who is doing this? What is happening? Her mind ran circles of dire scenarios. Gunfire boomed in the distance, adding to her angst. Sirens sang away further down the road. A helicopter circled above them. A man climbed the Metro fence in an effort to get onto the tracks. So many things were happening at once, she could hardly take it all in. Nails, rocks and glass littered the tracks, and she spent almost as much time dodging those as she did half-running.

  Mark and she had discussed the necessity of fending for oneself in disaster scenarios, but she never thought of it as real. After all, when she went to a disaster, she helped people.

  An elderly woman, probably in her sixties and wearing a visor with an American flag T-shirt, toppled over in front of her. Tourist. The crowd diverted around her without stopping. Grown men in business suits ran by without a second glance.

  Mark’s voice screamed in her head to run. Gwen stopped anyway, ignoring him. Had these people no hearts? Gripping the woman’s hands, she pulled her to her feet. She was heavier than she looked.

  “It’s going to be okay,” Gwen reassured her.

  “Thank you so much. What’s happening? Some men attacked my husband, and he told me to run. I’ll never visit D.C. again,” the lady stammered.

  “I don’t know, but we have to keep moving,” Gwen said, wrapping an arm around the woman to help her walk.

  “I’m so scared. Is he all right? I can’t leave him,” she cried, turning back to search for her husband. Gwen ushered her forward with a hand on her back.

  “We’ll talk to the police at the next station,” Gwen said, trying to comfort her. She moved as swiftly as she could, but the older woman slowed her down.

  The pack of metro riders dissipated in front of them as they escaped up the tracks. Gwen chanced a glance behind her. The crowd of rioters had closed the gap. She didn’t care to find out what they were upset about. After a few minutes struggling forward, she finally saw her oasis: a large concrete building with a long platform running alongside the tracks.

  “There,” she pointed. “The platform.”

  Sweat drenched her gray pantsuit, creating dark patches under her armpits and around her collar. Great, I’m going to have to get this thing dry cleaned again.

  The humidity had to be up over a hundred degrees, and there was no shade out in the middle of the Metro rail.

  “Just a little further,” Gwen said to the dazed woman, although she really said it to reassure herself that this would all be over soon.

  The woman stopped and pointed down the tracks, forcing Gwen to stop with her. “Well, there he is.”

  “There who is?” Gwen asked, easing the woman forward step by step.

  “I see him down the tracks there. He’s wearing a T-shirt just like mine. We are on a tour from Ohio.”

  Gwen shaded her eyes. A large, older man lumbered forward in a group of people. A crimson coating covered his hands and face.

  “I think I see him. Let’s wait for him in the shade of the platform,” Gwen said, still edging the woman forward worriedly. She did not want to meet him or any of his friends.

  She was so distracted by the pack of people gaining on them, that she didn’t notice the man in dirty khakis stumbling from the platform. Dragging his foot behind him, his office ID badge still hung from its Virginia Tech lanyard. His foot bent sideways collecting gravel as it dug uselessly into the earth. Blood ran down the side of his face as though he had fallen head first onto the pavement. His eyes were pale. Before she could do anything, he reached out as though he knew the old woman and seized her arm, wrenching her from Gwen’s grasp with a battered hand.

  “Hey, what the hell are you doing?” Gwen yelled in alarm.

  The man continued to scuffle with the woman.

  “Please stop,” the woman cried out as the man clumsily pulled her to the ground.

  Gwen gawked in awe for seconds as the man took the old woman down. On his knees, he pinned her arm down and ripped a huge chunk of shirt and flesh with his teeth, jerking his head backwards.

  Blood sprayed through the air. “Wha-?” Gwen uttered. She could not wrap her mind around what was happening, aside from the fact that it was bad.

  Chewing with pleasure, the man tore into her American flag T-shirt digging his hands into her stomach.

  “Oh my fucking God.”

  Gwen’s response was a reaction to pure terror. She ran forward planting a foot into the man’s face. Blood, saliva and flesh flew from his mouth as he fell backward, his security badge slapping the concrete.

  “Stay away from her,” she hollered. Hoisting the woman up, she half-carried, half-dragged the bleeding woman to the platform.

  The woman held her stomach, blood oozing from between her fingers. “It hurts. It hurts,” she sobbed.

  “It’ll be okay,” Gwen said, practically shoving her up the ladder onto the platform.

  At the top of the ladder, Gwen and the woman collapsed. The woman gasped for air suddenly going into shock. Hundreds of people still made their way toward them.

  She pulled her phone from her purse and dialed 911, applying pressure to the wound with her free hand. Nothing happened. Cell phones were almost always obsolete during natural or man-made disasters, because the network is overwhelmed by the sheer volume of callers. She cursed
everyone.

  “Stay with me,” Gwen said to the woman, whose eyes were starting to glaze over. The woman needed emergency care fast. Gwen dropped the phone in her cleavage putting both hands on the woman’s stomach, trying to halt the flow of blood with pressure.

  “Somebody, please,” she cried out up the Metro stairs. Blood escaped from beneath her hands. “Please,” she mumbled again. No one is coming to help.

  She checked the woman’s pulse. Dimly holding on. As she did, a bloodied man in a police uniform pulled himself up onto the platform.

  The officer from the train didn’t even look at her as he jogged toward the exit.

  “Help us,” Gwen cried out.

  He faced her and let out a growl. Lunging at her, he pulled her upward, gripping her shoulders like his hands were made of iron.

  “Lady, get out of here now. People are killing each other,” he said, shaking her. “Run, goddammit.”

  Isn’t his job to serve and protect the public? He should be administering first aid and contacting medical first responders. Gwen would get him back on track. She would make him see that his duty carried importance. People needed him to take charge.

  “But this lady’s dying. A man attacked her. Look,” she said, pointing a finger toward the woman. “See. She’s getting up.” The anomaly of the dying woman on her feet did not register in Gwen’s mind.

  Distracted the officer eyed the woman. A pair of gory hands wrapped their fingers around his ankles, and his eyes bulged out as he toppled forward, knocking Gwen backward. She managed to fall onto her backside, a jolt of pain reverberating through her spine.

  “Shit,” he exclaimed. His firearm spun out of his grasp, clattering onto the concrete. He rolled off his stomach kicking out at the snarling faces of dozens of disgusting gore-covered people. More hands dragged him to the edge and pulled him off the platform onto the tracks below. He reached for Gwen as he went over the edge and his screams punctured the air as they butchered him.

  Covering her mouth, she scooted across the slick platform. She only stopped when her back slammed into the concrete wall. The old woman shuffled for her, reaching out an old speckled hand.

  “Join us,” she seemed to say, but it came out as an eerie moan.

  STEELE

  Somewhere over the Atlantic

  “What are his vitals?” Dr. Jackowski asked Steele.

  “His pulse is weakening. Respiration is low,” Steele said as he applied pressure to Wheeler’s chest wound with a white towel that rapidly turned red. He was bleeding out so fast; faster than Steele ever thought a person could. Blood had drenched Wheeler’s clothes and pooled in the notch of his neck.

  “Is the wound making a hissing noise?” Jackowski asked.

  Steele removed the towel and listened hovering his ear close to the hole in Wheeler’s chest.

  “Yes.” Steele replaced the towel pushing down hard on Wheeler.

  “Damn it. He may have punctured a lung.”

  That soldier had helped me earlier. Why would he betray us now? I should have disarmed him. There might be more onboard. Sleepers. Securing Wheeler’s handgun and the soldier’s blade in the back of his pants, he felt like a walking arsenal.

  “Mauser, you got that chest seal?” Steele shouted through the first class cabin. A chest seal would keep air from escaping the hole in his chest which may lead to a collapsed lung.

  “It’s in the front pocket of my bag in economy,” Mauser shouted back, handgun in the high ready.

  Steele had to make a game-time decision. “If we don’t stop the bleeding, he’s gonna die before we hit the ground.”

  Gunshots rang out from the aisle opposite them. Crazed passengers were climbing over the drink cart in front of Jarl. He physically shoved them back with a hand the size of a Christmas ham.

  Jarl called out: “Down to my last mag.” He threw a former Marine guard, still wearing a bloodied combat uniform, into the skin of the aircraft with one hand. He used the other to shove the muzzle of his gun point blank into the man’s mouth.

  The infected guard attempted to bite him with inhuman ferocity, mouth gnawing the slide of his gun. Jarl’s hand engulfed the man’s neck holding him in place on the wall. Spraying the Marine’s brains into the cabin wall, he let the body drop into a first class pod.

  “Why don’t you take a seat?” he said to the corpse.

  More infected crawled over the makeshift barrier. The lack of coordination harried their assault.

  Steele’s heartbeat thundered in his chest. This is it. He knew people he cared about were going to live and die based on the decisions he made. Gulping he steeled his nerves.

  “Jarl, hold your side. Take these mags.” He tossed Jarl extra magazines, and he snagged them out of mid-air, shoving them into his waistband. “Mauser, take Nixon and get the med kit. I’ll cover your side.” He was choosing to send his best friend into the jaws of death. Wheeler looked up with fevered eyes. He was fading fast. No time for second guessing.

  “Steele,” Wheeler breathed and then turned his head to the side unconscious.

  With an icy stare, Steele called over to the only flight attendant who was not in shock. “Crystal, we need to get on the ground now. Call the Captain and tell him we’re dying out here.”

  Her lip quivered with fear, but she nodded and stepped tentatively over the terrorist’s body, as if she expected him to reach up and grab her. She picked up the galley phone.

  Steele stood up, drawing his handgun from its holster. “Mauser, moving to you.”

  “Move.” Steele stacked close to Mauser’s back. He glowered over his partner’s shoulder at the chaos unfolding in business class. Blood and gore blanketed the seats and aisle, and legs stuck out of the mid galley. The legs twitched and disappeared. Jesus Christ.

  A few people in business class were still buckled into their seats, squirming against their seatbelts. Where the hell was Andrea’s body? He shuddered at the thought of his teammate being one of these monsters.

  Steele kept scanning with his eyes. A pile of bodies lay in front of the beverage cart on the other side. Jarl’s lethal contribution to the mission; it would take an army of these things to bring him down.

  Lead and smoke hung heavy in the air filling his lungs, making it harder to breathe. Combined with the stink of death, it made him want to gag.

  It was like non-lethal simulation training, when the team had to wear thick helmets. The instructors had scratched the clear eye protection to impede vision, and after a few minutes of breathing inside the confined space they naturally fogged up. Anything to throw you off your game.

  To add to the discomfort, the instructors would block the masks’ air holes to restrict airflow, making the scenario even more stressful. The higher the heart rate is allowed to climb, the quicker the degradation of a person’s fine motor skills, trigger control, complex movements such as dialing a cell phone and complex demands such as reading a paper. This decline in skills can be accompanied by auditory exclusion, tunnel vision and freezing up, all of which can get a person killed in a force on force situation.

  Steele gestured to Nixon. “I need you to watch his back. If we don’t get the med supplies, even more people are going to die. Do you understand? Here’s Wheeler’s piece.”

  Nixon took the blood-covered weapon and looked it over. He press-checked the slide to make sure it had a round in the chamber. It was imperative to know the status of one’s weapon. If you pulled the trigger and it went click, that might just be the last thing you heard.

  “Here’s an extra mag,” Steele said, handing him one of Wheeler’s secondary magazines.

  Nixon shoved it into his belt. “Thanks. We’ll be back in a jiffy,” Nixon said with a little smirk, as though he didn’t believe it.

  “Don’t take too long, now. We have a plane to land,” Steele said.

  They switched positions and Nixon stacked up on Mauser. “I’m up.” Squeezing Mauser’s shoulder, he gave a physical indicator that he was ready to
move any time Mauser did.

  In a tactical stack, if the team, whether a two-man or larger team, became too spread out, it would leave lapses in sector coverage, increasing the risk of danger for the team. The more people in the stack, the less coverage individuals would be responsible for, but communication would become more difficult and even more important.

  The two moved rapidly through business class to economy. Speed was a key tactical element, creating confusion amongst the enemy. Steele firmly stepped into place in the aisle and resumed his watch on aircraft right.

  He calmed himself with a deep breath, trying to get his heart rate under control. Keeping his heart rate steady was paramount to his success. Countless hours in the gym doing high-intensity interval training with weights and the treadmill gave Steele that edge.

  The flight attendant called from the front: “Captain says we got thirty minutes before we land.”

  “Copy that,” he responded while maintaining his coverage of the cabin.

  What a cluster fuck. The FBI Hostage and Rescue Teams better be ready to meet us when we land because this is one hell of a shit show we got ourselves tangled in. He gripped his handgun and took aim at a woman groaning as she crawled over a row of seats.

  GWEN

  Dunn Loring Metro Station, VA

  Gwen pushed herself upright against the cool concrete wall. The old woman ground her teeth together as she got close. They locked arms wrestling for a moment. The elderly woman’s hands felt stronger than they should as if she may have been undergoing some sort of anabolic steroid therapy.

  “Get away from me,” Gwen shrieked. She brushed the old woman to the side, knocking her to the concrete and instantly feeling guilty. She had just beat an old woman to the ground, an old woman in need of her help, probably somebody’s grandma. Hopefully, no one captured that act of kindness on camera. The woman awkwardly tried to stand, slipping in her own blood and collapsing on the slick platform.

  It was like the whole world had gone insane, and Gwen was stuck in the middle. She needed to get out of here.