Turning Point: Book 6 in the Thrilling Post-Apocalyptic Survival Series: (Darkness Rising - Book 6)

by Justin Bell

  Krueller clenched his fists and glared down at the concrete loading dock at his feet, measuring his words carefully. “Fault and blame,” he finally said, his voice low and even. “That’s all this nation has become. Finger pointing and accusations. The whole point of this operation was to set things back. Remind people where we came from. Remind a nation how strong and resilient we can be. Yet still you stand there, full of fault and blame.”

  Karl crossed his arms over his chest. “This isn’t what I signed up for, Krueller. I never agreed to any of this.”

  “So, what? You’re okay with killing millions of people, but the minute people you’re uncomfortable with show up, somehow that’s a step too far?”

  “I think we need to take a long, hard look at what we’re doing here. What we’ve done and what we might still do. It’s not too late to change course.”

  Feet scuffled on concrete, and Green looked around, realizing for the first time, that several of the commandos had wandered over from their posts and were now gathered around him, machine guns held across their bodies. Up close, he realized that the vast majority of this security force was made up of Koreans, a fact that immediately gripped his stomach in a tight fist and twisted.

  “Oh, it’s too late, Mr. Green,” Krueller said from behind him, and Karl turned back toward him. The large man held a pistol, a semi-automatic clutched in a tight clasp of fat fingers. “Too late for you, especially.” The weapon barked, a quick jerk and punch of white fire. Karl Green gasped, stumbled, and toppled to the concrete loading dock, falling like a garbage bag full of raw meat. Davidson started toward him, but held back as two of the Korean commandos made their way to the fallen man.

  “Put him in cold storage,” growled Krueller. “One less mouth to feed.”

  The echoes of the pistol shot drifted up toward the cloudless sky, then floated away, chased by the silent breeze.

  Chapter Two

  The wet slap of sneaker on pavement was the only sound in the mid-morning cast of pale light. Shadows from the warehouse complex drew long rectangles up and down the edge of the narrow side street, a shadowed figure moving within the darkened shapes.

  Three forms pulled around the corner of a building, a trio of joggers, moving along the left side of the road, almost as if actual traffic might appear at a moment’s notice. Force of habit, Lydia decided, as she allowed herself to drift out into the road itself, her two escorts trailing close behind.

  After a month, she thought she’d be used to the security by now, but in truth it always came as a surprise when she went out on her morning runs and noticed a quarter mile in that two other men were running with her. They hung back a short distance but matched her pace fairly well, especially considering they carried pistols in thigh holsters and wore armored vests. She slowed her pace and made her way closer to the west side of the warehouse, hopping a curb and stopping by where the parking lot met the sidewalk. Placing a hand on the concrete loading dock, she bent slightly, working to catch her breath as the footfalls eased up around her as well, the security guards taking their own break for recovery.

  She glanced up from under her locks of brown hair, seeing the commandos scattered along the surface of the loading docks, but none of them appeared particularly concerned with her, something that didn’t surprise her in the least considering her place in this world order.

  “You’re so dedicated,” the thin voice said as the shadowed form peeled away from one of the darkened corners.

  Lydia smiled at her grandmother. “What do you mean?”

  Jodi Krueller placed a warm hand on her granddaughter’s shoulder. “In the middle of all of this and you’re still getting your five-mile run in.”

  “Six, technically,” Lydia smiled.

  “Very impressive.”

  Lydia glanced back at her two co-runners who were walking away, stretching mildly as they meandered toward the loading dock.

  “The runs would be nicer if I could do them alone.”

  “Lydia,” Jodi replied. “You know your grandfather’s feelings on that. One can’t be too careful.”

  “Things are safe here,” Lydia said. “Or seem to be, anyway.”

  “Everywhere seems safe, until it isn’t, dear,” Jodi said, falling in next to the younger woman as they walked alongside the warehouse toward the small entrance door. An Employees Only sign hung on the darkened brick next to the blue door, though the metal sign was dented and flaked with dark rust.

  “After all, you were being held by those nasty gang members until we got you out of Chicago,” Jodi said.

  “They weren’t nasty, Grandma, I keep telling you,” Lydia replied. “They were fine. They really helped me out when I got stranded there. Gave me a place to sleep and some food.”

  “And I’m glad for that. But they didn’t seem too happy to let you go. Things got messy, unless you forgot.”

  Lydia looked down at the ground and clenched her fingers into fists. She hadn’t forgotten. She didn’t think she’d ever forget. Two men had died.

  Boys. Two boys had died. True, her grandparents were coming to rescue her and bring her to safety, and true, the kids who had sheltered her were fighting back with force, but as a suburban girl from rural Colorado, the sight of dead bodies in a wet, blood stained street was not something she was likely to forget any time soon.

  “I haven’t forgotten.”

  “So you can understand, then. See where we’re coming from. For some reason, your grandfather and I… we have a lot of enemies. A lot of people trying to stop us from helping rebuild this country. Family is the most important thing right now.”

  Lydia eased open the employee door and the two women walked in, stepping into a dimly lit hallway. The floor was a pale green stained linoleum, and as the metal door clanged shut behind them, they rounded a corner heading toward the administrative offices within.

  “Speaking of family,” Lydia said, “what have you heard from Mom and Dad? Anything?”

  Jodi shook her head softly as they walked. “They’ve been quiet, dear. We know that they made it out of Colorado, and we know they were moving east and may have even reached Chicago shortly after we left.”

  “So they should be on their way?”

  “That is our hope, dear.”

  They exited the hallway, coming out into a large conference room which had become a conduit of sorts from one part of the building to another.

  “So, what exactly are we doing here?” Lydia asked. “Every time I try to ask Grandpa, he gets all defensive. Secretive. You say you guys are ‘rebuilding’ the country, what does that mean?”

  Jodi stopped walking and turned toward her granddaughter, placing her hands on the back of a chair.

  “How much do you know about what happened a month ago?”

  “What happened? You mean the nuclear attacks?”

  “Yes.”

  “North Korea. They infiltrated our borders and detonated small nuclear devices. Pretty much wiped out the West Coast and permanently destroyed the port of Galveston. Ground our ability to communicate and import/export to a halt.”

  “All very true. What did you learn from your capacity to survive?”

  Lydia knew what she was getting at and she locked her shoulders, looking at her grandmother with stoic certainty. “Preparation is key. Planning is vital. The core tenets of self-sustainability can help get you through almost anything.”

  “That’s right. That’s what we’ve done here. What we prepared for. And people are still out there who want to tear down our way of life. They can’t blame North Korea, so they blame us. Look inward.”

  “I don’t get it.”

  “You’ve looked around,” Jodi continued. “You’re a smart girl. I’m sure you’ve seen who we’re surrounded by.”

  Lydia nodded.

  “We’ve come together with many of our Korean friends. People who are being persecuted. Persecuted like us. All we want to do is rebuild our society, restart our way of life. Encourage others
to follow those tenets of self-sustainability.”

  “I get it,” Lydia replied softly. “I understand.

  Jodi smiled. “Good. I’m glad you do. This isn’t where any of us wanted to be, my dear, trust me on that. None of us wanted this, but now that it’s happened, we need to do our part. Play our role in the rebuilding of America.”

  “And so far, I think we’re doing a pretty good job of it,” a voice echoed from the far side of the conference room. Lydia looked toward the voice and smiled.

  “Good morning, Grandpa,” she said.

  “Morning, little bug,” Gerard replied. “You know what time it is?”

  Lydia looked for a clock on the wall, but there was none. When she looked back at her grandfather, he lifted a hand holding a semi-automatic AR-15 rifle.

  Lydia nodded and strode toward him, reaching for the weapon.

  ***

  “How’s it feeling?”

  Agent Swift leaned against the cool brick wall, resting her head backwards, her eyes pinched closed. “Hurts like crazy. Is the bullet still in there?”

  Jacques twisted the torn sleeve of his shirt, tying off her left arm, trying to adjust the tourniquet. “Nah,” Jacques replied. “Tore up the muscle pretty good, but I don’t think any bone is broken and I found an entrance and exit wound. Bleeding’s almost stopped already.”

  “Lucky me,” she said, lowering her chin back down and drawing in a deep breath. They huddled in a dim corner between two buildings on the east side of Philadelphia after walking most of the night to escape the group that had spontaneously attacked them.

  “I think we are pretty lucky, actually,” Jacques said. “Things could have gone a lot more sideways last night. A lot more.”

  “I know,” Julie replied. “Still doesn’t make my arm feel any better.”

  “Good news is, I think we left those dudes behind, and if we cross over into Jersey I think we can find a place to shack up for a bit. The way things are going in Pittsburgh and Toledo, I gotta think they’re running low on resources here. They’re probably not wanting to stray too far from city limits.”

  “It also might make them desperate.” Swift pressed her back against the wall and forced her way up into a standing position, using the brick as leverage. “Desperation means danger. These people are already deadly dangerous, we don’t want to make them more so.”

  “What are you worried about?”

  “Well, I can’t help but notice they’re ramping up these patrols right before the First National Summit. Does that seem like a coincidence to you?”

  “Hey, I just got here. Took me almost two months to get from Chicago to Philly. I don’t have a clue what’s going on.” Jacques stepped back, crossing his arms. “Lay it on me.”

  Swift nodded. “The president is trying to begin the process of rebuilding. He’s gathering together representatives from remaining state governments to try to develop an infrastructure plan. Security plan. Start to take steps toward rebuilding the federal government.”

  Jacques nodded. “I can see why these people may not want that to happen.”

  “Precisely.”

  “So what are we going to do about it?”

  Swift shrugged. “What can we do about it? By all reports they’ve got a warehouse complex full of gun-toting goons with enough left over to do roaming patrols throughout the city. What are the two of us going to do about any of it?”

  “How many friends you got left in the FBI?”

  “Less and less every day.”

  “Is there anyone you can call? Any resources at your disposal?”

  Swift looked at him, her eyes narrowing. “And who can we trust, do you suppose? They dismantled the task force. Our Homeland contact vanished without a trace. This stuff they’re doing here… in the city. What they know? They’ve got people inside. Maybe lots of people.”

  “But why? What possible benefit could insiders have to further decimate an already decimated America? What could be in it for them?”

  “You may have answered your own question,” Swift replied. “The country is ravaged. At the brink. They could envision themselves as heroes, knocking the broken foundation down to rebuild, and they could see themselves as playing a major role in the process. Maybe they’ve been promised a place in this new world order?”

  “Money and stature? Political movements? Over what? Burnt rubble?”

  “What else is war besides political movements and stature? Many would argue the whole reason North Korea did this to us was because they felt insulted. Slighted. This wasn’t a move to protect themselves, this was a vengeful punch in the throat just because they didn’t like how they were treated. It was a twenty-megaton playground brawl. It sounds stupid, but it’s true.”

  Jacques lowered his own gaze and closed his eyes, drawing deep, regular breaths. “I don’t even know anyone out here,” he said quietly. “No family. No friends. We got nothing.”

  Swift’s own face hardened. “We’ve got life. We’ve got knowledge. We’ve got the element of surprise. Maybe the rest will come together.”

  ***

  Her arms locked tight, fingers clamped around the contoured handle of the pistol, a Smith & Wesson SD40, which felt light in her grip along with packing a .40 caliber punch.

  “Like a tree, Lydia, roots from your feet into the ground.”

  She listened to the words, having heard them dozens of times before, yet remained standing stock still and straight, her arms an intertwined branch of old wood, thick and immovable. The brushed metal pistol sat in her grasp, equally immobile and she drew a deep and long breath, letting the triangular sight settle on the silhouetted target. Standing in the narrow alley behind the warehouse, it was a long and straight dead-end passage, a simple target hanging from a far, brick wall.

  “Settle,” Gerard said quietly. “Still. Frozen.”

  Lydia listened.

  “Double tap,” Gerard said. “Center mass.”

  Her finger jerked twice on the trigger in robotic fashion, a mechanical motion, the pistol kicking in her grip. Two loud shouts of gunfire echoed in the slender hallway, and the target thrashed, two holes punching into the thick, meaty shadow of the paper. Gunshots echoed in the still air of late morning and Lydia remained in her firing stance.

  “Eleven o’clock, double tap, one chest one head!” Gerard shouted. Lydia torqued her waist, swinging the pistol around and hammered the trigger once, sending a .40 caliber round spanging off of a metal trashcan, then she shifted her aim up and fired again, the second round smashing into an empty cardboard box with a smiley face drawn in crude marker.

  “Two o’clock! On the ground!”

  She shifted again, whirling around, quickly seeing the uneven lump of gathered garbage on the ground of the alley, vaguely in the shape of human form. Narrowing her gaze on the box head, she fired twice again, keeping the jumping weapon in tight control, the box thunking as stray scraps of cardboard tore away, fluttering into the air.

  Gerard stood there, watching Lydia, letting the fading rebound of gunfire drift up into the sky.

  “Nicely done,” he finally said. “Three hits, all dead targets. Relax.”

  His granddaughter’s shoulders sagged and she lowered her arms, pointing the gun toward the ground.

  “Proud of you, girl,” he said, smirking.

  Lydia nodded. “Thanks, Grandpa. It feels a lot more natural than it used to.”

  “The weapon has become an extension of your arm, as it should be. Your feet stand still, joined with the ground. Your stance is good, your arm position is right. You’re a natural.”

  “Thank—”

  “Don’t thank me,” he interrupted. “You can thank me by staying alive.”

  “I understand.”

  “You don’t,” he replied, his voice turning gruff. “You don’t understand. You’re starting to. You think you do. But you don’t. What you still need to learn isn’t something that college was teaching you. It wasn’t something your mother was t
eaching you. She wouldn’t even let me teach her.”

  Lydia nodded.

  “Don’t nod at me, girl,” he growled. “Speak to me. You’ve got a voice don’t you?”

  “Yeah, Grandpa, I’ve got a voice. I can talk.”

  “I know you do,” he replied. “You’re doing well. But in this world, you need to do better. You need to be perfect. If you’re not perfect, you’re dead, do you understand me?”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “Do you remember those bodies you saw in the streets in Chicago? Do you remember those two dead boys? Like really remember them?”

  Lydia opened her mouth, but the words caught in her throat.

  “Do you remember them?” Gerard asked, his voice rising slightly.

  “Y… yes.”

  “Is that how you want to be remembered?”

  “No.”

  “Is that how you want to be remembered? Laying in the streets? Skull shattered? Bleeding in the gutter?”

  “No,” Lydia said more firmly.

  “Good. That’s not how I want to remember you either. That’s not how your grandmother wants to remember you. If you don’t want to stay safe for your own sake, stay safe for her sake.”

  “I do want to stay safe.”

  “Then get better. Get perfect. You did well tonight. Next time, I expect better.”

  “Understood.”

  Lydia turned away from him just as a car emerged from beyond the building to their left, easing to a stop in the parking lot past the open mouth of the alley. Gerard stepped up next to her, placing a firm hand on her arm and easing her backwards.

  “Hold tight, girl,” he whispered. “Hand on the Smith.”

  Lydia froze, moving her hand back to the holster and swiftly sliding the pistol from its holster. She rested her finger on the trigger guard and kept the weapon at her side, the thumb clicking off the safety.

  “I don’t know who you are,” Gerard said, striding toward the car. “But I’ve got two dozen armed men who are following your every move right now.”

  “So overdramatic,” a voice echoed from an opened passenger window and the door swung slowly open. Rita Kramer slid from her seat as Hyun Li Park removed himself from the opposite side of the vehicle, both of them approaching the alley.