American Dreams | Book 2 | The Ascent

by Parker, Brian

  The explosion was massive and loud. The fireball created by the Tannerite took him by surprise and the resulting fire would likely burn the building down. He’d thrown hundreds of Army grenades over the years, but this was his first experience with the exploding rifle target indicator. He liked it.

  “Go!” he shouted, urging his team on. They surged to their feet and he saw one of them stagger sideways, attempting to steady themselves on the wall. Probably had a blown eardrum, causing their equilibrium to be out of whack.

  Rogan pushed his way through the wreckage beyond the front door. Pieces of mangled desk cubicles, chairs, and other remnants of metal had torn through the police officers who’d been foolish enough to attempt to return to the fight. It was a bloodbath, something more suited for a battlefield than the streets of a modern American city. The sight saddened him. It wasn’t supposed to be this way. The goddamned NAR was a scourge on humanity.

  The will to fight had left the remaining officers of Austin’s South Precinct and they dropped their weapons, raising their hands in surrender. The explosion had been a demoralizing surprise to them, but Rogan was thankful that the officers gave him another option besides fighting.

  “Round them up and handcuff them outside,” he ordered as he grabbed a female police officer by the arm, pulling her roughly from the group of officers shuffling dejectedly toward the front of the station past the building flames. “Where is your weapons storage area?” he barked into her face.

  “Wh—what?”

  “Weapons locker. Arms room. Gun safe. Whatever. Where do you keep the extra guns and ammo?”

  “Is that what this is about?” she asked.

  He pressed the barrel of his M-4 into her ribcage. The flames had already covered several walls and were beginning to lick the ceiling tiles. “I’m not asking again. Where do you keep the additional weapons?”

  She led him to a locked door off the main room. There was a severed hand on the ground that still clutched a set of keys. Rogan bent down to get them and the female kicked him hard in the ribcage and then mounted his back, slipping her arm around his neck to put him into a chokehold.

  “I’ll choke you the hell out, you hear me?” she whispered into his ear, likely trying to stay quiet since they were alone while the rest of his team gathered up the other cops.

  He liked her determination. Too bad she fought for the wrong side. She just simply did not have the size or strength required to put down a healthy male. It wasn’t anything against her, it was just genetics.

  He stood quickly, the small of his back screaming out in pain at the movement as he straightened upright. I’m too old for this shit, he grumbled in his head as he slammed backward into the wall, crushing the female officer.

  She grunted, but still held on. It took two more times of slamming his body backward violently into the wall for her grip to relax. Once more, he shoved backward and felt her body shift, sliding to the floor. She was out cold. Must have hit the back of her head on the wall during the struggle. He flipped her onto her stomach and used her handcuffs to secure her hands behind her back.

  Rogan pulled the keys from the severed hand and opened the padlock securing the arms room. Inside, there were sixty or seventy rifles, about twenty shotguns and a few pistols. Cans of ammunition lined the walls. It was a veritable goldmine for the Resistance.

  He yelled out for the team that he’d found the weapons locker and the men and women rushed in. They grabbed armfuls of guns and jogged toward the waiting truck outside. They’d emptied the room in under three minutes and the truck pulled away.

  Rogan carried the female officer outside and dumped her unceremoniously onto the pavement away from the building as the rest of the team piled into the van. “Did anyone get the body?” he shouted.

  “Shit. No.”

  “Let’s go get him,” Rogan said, rushing from the running van back into the burning building.

  They found their deceased team member, still upright where he’d been when he was killed. The body had taken several more bullets and had absorbed the concussion of the Tannerite blast. As he lifted the hand away from the handle, Rogan noticed the slight weight of the body and he finally paid attention to who it was.

  His heart sank. Rowan. The man who’d been killed was Rowan Haskins. The kid had been so fired up to prove that he was a man that he’d put himself right in the line of fire. Stupid.

  He carried the body outside and dropped him into the cargo area of the van and slammed the doors. Rogan started to go to the driver’s side, but noticed the brake lights were on. Somebody was already sitting there. He ran around to the passenger side and got in.

  “We need to get out of here before more cops show up,” he directed. The driver nodded and shifted into drive. Then the van’s back window shattered and Rogan heard bullets tearing through the sheet metal. “Go! Go! Go!” he shouted.

  Already, the sounds of nearby sirens could be heard over the revving van engine.

  SEVEN

  “You hear from Bodhi today?” Bella Haskins asked. Her voice was strong and sweet, reminding Cassandra of her own mother. Bodhi’s mom was in her mid-fifties, but the physical labor and clean eating of farm life had been good for her body and she certainly didn’t look like it.

  Cassandra looked up from her nearly empty plate of biscuits and gravy, heavily-laden with sausage from the pig they’d slaughtered last month. She wiped at her mouth with a napkin before replying. “Not today. He was pretty out of it yesterday when I talked to him. The lady he’s staying with is keeping him drugged up for the pain in his ankle with all of those horse pills.”

  Bodhi’s mother nodded. “It’s a shame about his ankle. He had such a promising career. Did he say anything about Rowan?”

  “Um, not that I remember.” She frowned. “Sorry, Bella. When I spoke to him two days ago, Rowan was supposed to be going on a mission soon to get weapons for the Resistance. That’s all I know.”

  “It’s okay. We understand that you only get a few minutes to talk,” John, Bodhi’s father said, picking up his fork. He pointed at Cassandra’s plate. “Little guy must have been hungry, huh?”

  She grinned, embarrassed that she was almost finished with her plate while the two of them had barely made a dent in their meal. “Yeah. He—or she!—was kicking and punching like crazy. Saying, ‘Feed me, momma!’”

  In addition to the physical changes in her body, it had been an amazing mental transformation over the last few weeks. She’d always felt a connection to the life growing inside of her, but after the baby began to kick and move where she could feel them, it was like a switch went off in her head. She was going to be a mother, responsible for another human being besides herself. It was both terrifying and exciting, but she would embrace motherhood and do everything in her power to keep her baby safe in this crazy new world.

  “Well, if he’s anything like Bodhi, he’ll be begging for more food in twenty minutes.” John stared off across the dining room table toward the front door. “That boy could eat,” he mumbled.

  “What is it?” Bella asked.

  “You two stay put,” he said, pushing himself to his feet. “I thought I saw a head peek through the glass in the door.”

  He picked up the rifle he’d set down beside the doorway and slipped into the hall leading to the front of the house. Cassandra watched as he slid along the wall, keeping his body from silhouetting and giving someone outside a target to shoot at.

  “Were y’all expecting anyone?” she asked Mrs. Haskins.

  “No. We weren’t going to trade anything this week. And even when we do, we always meet up at a central location, not out at anyone’s homestead.” She frowned and pointed at John. “You know how the boys get all territorial.”

  That was all the confirmation that Cassandra needed. It was the CEA. She knew it for certain. They’d finally decided to come after Bodhi, but he was gone. Now it was just her and his parents. She was here illegally and the Haskins were unregistered illegals
as far as the System was concerned.

  Cassandra pushed away from the table and lifted her butt first, then pressed down against the arms of the chair with her hands to stand up. “Where are you going?” Bella asked. “John said to stay here.”

  She gestured with her head. “I’m gonna guard the back door, Bella.”

  “Cass, baby, don’t!” Bella cried. “Just stay in here where it’s safe.”

  She ignored the woman’s plea. It would do them no good to stay “safe” in the dining room if the CEA came in through the sliding door off the deck. Hell, they wouldn’t be safe at all until every last one of the bastards was dead and gone.

  The sliding glass door was unlocked when she got there, so she quickly flipped the flimsy lock into place. She peeked around the frame onto the deck and saw a figure dressed in olive drab clothes with black body armor over his chest coming up the stairs. Her heart pounded thunderously in her chest. It wasn’t supposed to end like this. They were supposed to be safe off of the grid. That’s what Bodhi promised her.

  But that wasn’t how things were going down. They were here. Bodhi wasn’t. It was up to her and John to stop them. She looked around frantically for a weapon. There was nothing there. Dammit, why hadn’t I insisted on learning where they keep the guns, she chided herself as her eyes settled on the only thing within reach. A white can of wasp and hornet spray sat on a heavy chest of drawers beside the door. There was the start of a hornet nest up near the eaves of the second floor that John had wiped out with the spray the other day and he shot a few sprays toward it each afternoon to finish off any remaining hornets before he risked going up on the ladder to clear it away.

  Would that work? Would wasp spray do anything? She knew it could shoot out to twenty feet or more in a straight line. She’d seen him use it. A quick shake of the can told her it was more than half full. This was it. This was the moment they’d dreaded for months.

  Gunfire erupted from the front of the home. Rapid, back and forth volleys between John and whoever was out front. It sounded like a lot more rounds coming in than were going out. She ducked back behind the chest, using it for cover as bullets riddled the walls around her.

  For two full minutes, it seemed as if the air was alive with the ghosts of angry hornets from the nest John had destroyed. The heavy caliber bullets that the CEA fired into the house tore through windows and walls, raining plaster down onto her. Somehow, the heavy, handmade chest stopped any of the bullets from striking her.

  The sounds of gunfire slackened, then ceased. Cassandra waited for a few heartbeats, then poked her head above the chest. There didn’t seem—

  The glass on the slider exploded inward as the end of a battering ram appeared near the handle. She readied her only weapon, the stupid wasp spray. She’d vowed that she would keep her child safe. Hanging at the end of a CEA rope wouldn’t allow her to do that.

  Glass fell to the floor as the ram hit it once again. Then a hand appeared through the opening and flicked the little lock up, disengaging it. The door slid sideways and two men rushed through. When one of them turned toward her, she let loose with the spray, sending the blinding fluid directly into his face.

  He screamed as his partner turned slowly, getting hit in the face as well. The second man began firing his rifle, causing her to duck behind the chest. One of the men cursed heavily, screaming about his eyes, the other was silent. She peeked around the side of the chest, aiming the wasp spray again. The first man she’d hit with the spay, the one closest to her, lay sprawled out, blood leaking from his body in various places where the second one had shot him. The other man thrashed wildly, pawing at his face with gloved hands.

  She blasted him with the wasp spray again, then quickly took cover as the gunman fired blindly across the room, toward the interior of the house where he must have thought the attack originated. Her stomach and back screamed at her in protest due to the awkward movements she’d put them through. Then the agent’s weapon clicked on empty and he cursed.

  Cassandra knew she only had a moment to act. She made the split-second decision to go for the first agent’s gun. It was only three or four feet from her. She surged to her feet, using the chest to pull herself up. Her body screamed at her to stop, to lay down and rest. She was seven months pregnant, she shouldn’t be doing this.

  But she had no choice. If she didn’t stop these people, they’d kill her and the baby.

  The CEA agent grabbed blindly for his pistol on his belt. It had twisted away underneath him during his wild thrashing. Cassandra dove on her side to the dead man’s body, keenly aware of her baby pressing against the front of her stomach. It took her less than a second to bring the man’s rifle up across his body as the blinded agent finally wrestled his pistol free. She fired rapidly, the first round hitting the man in the crotch, the second in his stomach, while the third and fourth impacted uselessly against his body armor. He fell, screaming in agony, less than a foot from her.

  She fired point blank into the man’s face, ending the threat from him. Then she realized that she was completely exposed to anyone who was on the deck and rolled over onto her back, bringing the rifle up and over to point out the open sliding door. No one appeared to be out there. She scurried back, tears pouring from her eyes as the broken glass dug into her elbows and hands.

  Behind the chest once more, she waited for a long time. She wasn’t sure how long she sat there, willing her body to respond to her desperate pleas to begin moving once more. If she stayed put, she was a goner. She knew it in her heart. She had to get out of there, get back to the RV for her stuff and leave.

  But she couldn’t abandon Bella and John. They’d done so much for her and Bodhi. She had to make sure they were okay. They had to be alright.

  Cassandra used the chest to pull herself up once more, the rifle clanging loudly against the wood. Movement was excruciating. Everything hurt. She was bleeding from several small cuts and scrapes as well as one larger one in her palm that looked bad. Later, she told herself. She had to keep moving.

  She limped toward the dining room where she’d left Bella. The older Haskins was still seated at the table, but her head was thrown backward and blood covered her shirt. Bullets had torn down the hallway and she’d taken several direct hits to her chest. The floor was slick with the dark, viscous fluid as Cassandra made her way cautiously to Bodhi’s mom. There was no life left in her eyes. She’d died right there at that table.

  Cassandra made her way around the table and up the hallway, attempting to copy what John had done by sliding along the wall. Daylight shown through what seemed like hundreds of holes in the old farmhouse walls around the front door. The big square glass with the inlaid rose in the front door that Bella had loved so much was shattered, the remnants of it littered the floor around John’s body alongside five or six empty magazines. He lay awkwardly against the wooden stairs, his head lolled to the side.

  She dropped down beside him and he smiled listlessly. “Cass,” he sighed.

  “Oh, John. I’m so sorry.”

  “Bastards didn’t get us,” he said. He twitched his hand toward the door, but the rest of his arm no longer responded to his orders. “Got all them. Safe now.”

  She risked a quick glance outside and saw four bodies lying on the porch. They must have been planning a breach. Further out in the yard, she saw three cop cars and several bodies lying near them, including one that was attempting to crawl away.

  She stood and brought the dead agent’s rifle to her shoulder, ignoring the pain in her lower back. She fired twice, hitting the man in the back with the first one and causing a puff of red dust near his arm with the second. He stopped moving.

  Cassandra dropped back down, half-expecting return fire, but none came. John had been true to his word. He’d gotten them all.

  “Bell—Bella?”

  “I’m sorry, John,” Cassandra sobbed. “She didn’t make it.”

  He nodded. “Go. Go to Bodhi and… Rowan.”

  She loo
ked at him in horror. “I can’t leave you here.”

  “I’m done for.”

  He’d been shot multiple times in the upper body and legs. They’d done a number on him. “No. No you’re not. I can take you to the doctor.”

  He shook his head. “You. Go.”

  “John. Oh, John. I’m so sorry.”

  “Take guns,” he said. “Leave. Take care of…my grandson.”

  She wiped at the trickle of blood from his lips and smiled. “I will. I promise you. He’ll be the biggest and strongest. He’ll be a patriot, just like his grandpa.”

  The corners of John’s lips curled upward for a moment before he died.

  Cassandra allowed herself a solid fifteen seconds to cry. Then, she pushed herself up and picked up John’s gun. He had an open ammo can by the side of the door, half full of magazines loaded with thirty rounds each. She scooped up the empty ones and put them into the can before closing it. She picked it up and carried it to the sliding door in the back where the two bodies of the men she’d killed lay sprawled awkwardly in death.

  They had weapons, ammunition, and body armor. All of it would be extremely useful to the Resistance. Rogan was raiding police stations to get the exact same stuff and here was what, fifteen sets of the gear, just laying around for the NAR to reuse against them?

  She carried her haul out onto the deck and walked gingerly down the stairs to where an old deep-bodied wheelbarrow sat off to the side. They’d used it hundreds of times over the last few months to carry seeds, bags of fertilizer and grain, and bales of hay. She placed the items into the wheelbarrow and climbed the stairs to strip the bodies of the CEA agents.

  The gruesome task was completed in less than fifteen minutes. In all, John had killed fourteen CEA agents and she’d killed the two. The wheelbarrow was heavy and awkward, loaded down with the supplies she knew the Resistance desperately needed. It almost tipped over several times on the worn footpath back to the RV, but she made it without the contents falling out.