No Sanctuary Box Set: The No Sanctuary Omnibus - Books 1-6

by Mike Kraus

  As Liam glanced at the large series of walls set in the center of the room he realized where they both must be and grinned. He circled around to the side again and aimed his flashlight through the window, revealing the mess of equipment scattered on the floor and the large wooden table pressed up against the window and door.

  “Hello in there!” Liam called out in a singsong voice. Linda ground her teeth together, still tucked away in a corner and waiting for the source of the voice to emerge. The flashlights that Liam and Reggie were holding were bouncing around the station and making it look like there were half a dozen people instead of just two. Linda didn’t dare to turn on her light to confirm how many there were lest she give away her exact position.

  “Hello!” Liam called out again as he advanced slowly on the broadcasting booth. “Anybody in there?”

  From the rooftop, Frank could barely hear what was going on inside the building. The fact that there weren’t any more lights or sounds outside, though, told him all he needed to know. He crept back to the hatch in the roof and lifted it slightly only to see a bright beam of light in the room below. He closed the hatch back and his eyes grew wide as he tried to figure out what to do.

  While Frank crouched on the roof trying to figure out what to do, Linda scrunched in behind a pair of chairs in the broadcast booth, keeping her pistol in hand and ready to fire. The light and mocking voice came from around the corner out of sight, and she could feel her heartrate increasing as the light drew closer.

  “Now come on, you two!” The voice was unnaturally cheery in a way that made Linda’s skin crawl. “You can’t stay hidden in here forever!” Liam punctuated the last word in his sentence with a gunshot that shattered the glass on a window. He laughed as shards of glass fell to the floor, waiting for someone inside the building to cry out or try to talk or fire back. His laugh dissipated as he realized that no one was responding to his attempt to rile them up.

  “Reggie.” Liam didn’t bother trying to be discreet, so confident was he that he had the upper hand in firepower and positioning. “Check the booth.”

  Several seconds before the gunshot and the sound of shattering glass cut through the still night air, Frank had been standing at the edge of the building looking down at the parking lot. Upon hearing the sounds he set his jaw, adjusted his belt and tightened the strap on the rifle slung over his back. He climbed up over the ledge of the side of the building and jumped off, steeling himself for the pain that was sure to follow.

  Not knowing enough to try and tuck and roll to dissipate some of the energy from his landing, Frank collapsed into a groaning pile as he hit the dirt and grass before slowly picking himself up, taking the rifle off of his back and charging in through the front door.

  Responding to Liam’s order, Reggie was slowly going around the left side of the broadcasting booth with his flashlight held high and his rifle ready to fire upon the first person he saw. Liam was still out of sight of the window and door to the booth on the right side as he kept an eye on the back portion of the building.

  When Frank charged through the door with gun raised and a guttural scream bursting forth, Reggie was taken completely by surprise. Frank fired two shots into Reggie’s back before the man could turn around. The second shot passed through his soft tissues and broke large chunks of glass on the front of the broadcast booth, sending Linda ducking and rolling to the side as she avoided the glass and any further gunshots.

  As Reggie collapsed to the floor Liam came running around the side of the booth firing wildly at the front of the building. Frank got one more shot off before ducking behind the receptionist desk to shield himself from Liam’s fire.

  “There you are!” Liam continued shooting at the desk, advancing on it one step at a time until he was out of line of sight to the broadcast booth. Linda, who had been watching the shadowy figures moving around with all the attention of a cat keeping an eye on a mouse, finally figured out exactly how many enemies were in the building. Once Reggie went down and Liam started firing, Linda rose to her feet, aimed and fired upon Liam.

  The glass and plastic were thick, but they still shattered from the impact of the rounds. The shot was easy enough and didn’t require every single round in the magazine, but Linda used each of them. She fired evenly, pacing each shot to ensure that every one was precisely on target. Her breathing was steady and she squeezed the trigger firmly with each pull, controlling the recoil with the ease of a practiced marksman.

  Liam screamed in pain as the bullets entered his body. Some passed through out the other side while others tumbled and rolled, tearing through and ripping apart his organs. He gasped fruitlessly for air as his lungs collapsed from the perforations made by the bullets and his legs rapidly turned to anchors that pulled him down to the ground.

  Blood oozed from the edges of Liam’s mouth. His tongue and lips moved but without air to expel from his lungs he could form no words to verbally express his anger. Even in death Liam was defiant, but defiance could not overcome the sheer amount of damage done to his body.

  Forgetting the pain in her leg due to a rush of adrenaline, Linda climbed out through the empty window and reloaded her pistol. She stood over Liam and aimed directly at his head as Frank stood up and shouted at her. “Down!”

  Acting on pure instinct Linda dropped to the ground and Frank fired two more shots, hitting Reggie in the neck and face. Liam’s accomplice had managed to pull himself to his feet and was aiming his rifle in Linda’s direction when Frank noticed what was going on and took the man down. Linda turned to look at Reggie’s body before nodding her appreciation at Frank. She took aim at Liam’s head again but when she saw that he was no longer moving she lowered her arm.

  Acrid smoke filled the air, playing in the light of the flashlights. Linda tried to stand up but collapsed back down to the ground as her leg buckled in pain. Frank stepped over Liam’s body and took her arm. He guided her into one of the chairs in the lobby and sat down next to her, all the while keeping his rifle pointed in the direction of the two bodies. Frank and Linda both remained quiet for several minutes as they took slow, deep breaths, each of them processing what had just happened. Frank was the first to speak, not taking his eyes off of the bodies as he did.

  “That didn’t exactly go like I had hoped.”

  Linda snorted and shook her head. “It’s your turn to play bait next time.”

  “Oh come on. You handled it perfectly.”

  “It was still an absolute shit plan.”

  “If it’s stupid and it works, then it isn’t stupid.”

  Linda was quiet for several seconds before she started chuckling. “Fair point. Come on. Let’s get the hell out of here.”

  After getting their bags out of the building and into the parking lot, Frank helped Linda get outside. He brought one of the chairs from the lobby out for her and she pulled her pants down partway before easing into the seat. Frank took off his jacket for her to cover her good leg from the cold while he checked her wound. It was bleeding moderately again and the bandage was thoroughly soaked. Frank pulled off the bandage, scrubbed around the wound with antiseptic wipes and slathered on another layer of antibiotics before applying another bandage.

  “How’s it look?” Linda shivered as a cold breeze cut across the parking lot.

  “You really need to stop moving around and let it heal for a while. It doesn’t look infected, though.”

  “Good. I’ll drive.” Linda chuckled for a second before frowning. “Speaking of driving, what are we going to have to—oh what the hell is that thing?” As Frank helped Linda to her feet she caught sight of the Corvette that Liam and Reggie were driving. She grimaced at the sight of the beaten up old car and shook her head. “Hell no. No, no, no. That thing looks like a death trap!”

  “At least it runs.” Frank held tight to Linda as they walked towards the car. The interior was worse than he had anticipated despite his already lowered expectations upon viewing the exterior.

  “Do you
think the top even goes up?”

  “I hope so. Otherwise it’s going to be a cold ride to Pittsburgh.”

  “Are you set on going there?” Linda leaned against the side of the car as Frank started loading their bags into the backseats.

  “You don’t think it’s a good call? It’s to our south and we’ve got a long way left to go before we hit Pigeon Forge. If the military’s there maybe we—well, maybe you can talk to someone higher-up and see about getting us a ride that looks like it won’t fall apart thirty seconds in.”

  “You do realize that I don’t know every single person in every branch of the military, right?”

  Frank shrugged as he slid the last bag into the back of the car. “I get that. But the alternative is trying to beg, borrow or steal another vehicle on our way to Pigeon Forge or taking this thing. And I don’t know about you, but if the military’s massing at a city I’d like to find out why. It might shed some light on what’s going on.”

  Linda sighed deeply and nodded. “You’re right. It’s on the way and shouldn’t take that long anyway. If we’re going to do that, though, I don’t want to make any more stops. Let’s get whatever fuel packs we can salvage from the back of the other car and stay on the road. No more stopping in cities, no more talking to people, no more anything. We get to Pittsburgh, see what’s going on, see if we can get a new car or something and then we continue on to Pigeon Forge. Okay?”

  Frank nodded. “Okay.”

  Chapter 15

  The drive through the rolling hills, back country roads and major highways took the rest of the day. While only a two-hour drive under normal circumstances, profound changes had taken hold in the few days since the attacks.

  Avoiding every small town and city was a tremendous chore and Linda and Frank spent more than an hour stopped by the side of the road while they studied a map they found in Liam’s vehicle. On the few occasions they passed through a city or town they did so at a high rate of speed, avoiding the main roads and cruising through as quickly as possible.

  The town of Brockway had, from what they had seen throughout the day, been an isolated anomaly. Fires appeared with alarming regularity as survivors struggled to stay warm in the rapidly dropping temperatures. Food supplies—nearly all of which had been bought or stolen in the first twenty-four hours—were completely gone. The discovery of a single can of food was enough to cause a fistfight to break out. If a vending machine stocked with snacks and drinks in the back of a building was found there would undoubtedly be more than one person who would die in an attempt to possess its contents.

  Bits and pieces of these fierce conflicts bled over into public actions that Frank and Linda picked up on as they sped along to their destination. Each and every one of them reminded the pair of how fortunate they had been in their journey as well as how fragile their existence really was. The tribulations they faced had been nearly evenly matched by the generosity shown to them. As they neared Pittsburgh in the late evening, it was this topic that weighed heavily on both Frank and Linda.

  “The commune makes sense, right? A small group who basically prepared for this exact kind of situation could certainly be friendly towards outsiders.”

  Linda nodded. “Yep. I kind of wish we had stayed there.”

  “Ha.” Frank smiled. “You and me both. Those people I understand. But those people in Brockway… how were they so well prepared and friendly and helpful?”

  “Eh.” Linda shrugged. “They weren’t all that friendly. Not Perry, anyway. Caroline was friendly, but I think she’s the reason why the town was prepared and functioning instead of devolving into a hellhole.”

  “How do you figure that?”

  “People naturally want a leader to follow, especially in a time of crisis. If there’s someone strong who they trust and look up to then they’ll follow that person to hell and back. I get the sense that Caroline was that type of person.”

  Frank shook his head and sighed sadly. “I hope they don’t lose her. Especially Perry. I think she’s the only thing holding him back from turning into some kind of post-apocalyptic overlord.”

  Linda snorted and laughed. “Post-apocalyptic, eh? Did you ever think you’d be living through the apocalypse?”

  “Are you joking? When I was a kid I would have killed to be in my position right now. Living on the edge and traveling across a destroyed country with no rules where only the fittest survive? I sure don’t like it but kid-version of me would have loved it.”

  “I was more into ponies when I was a little girl.”

  Frank bit his tongue at first but burst out laughing when Linda failed to contain her own giggle. “Ponies? Is that a common thing for every girl? Because all the ones I went to school with were obsessed with them too.”

  Linda pursed her lips and nodded thoughtfully. “Yeah, I think every little girl goes through a horse and pony phase.”

  Frank was about to make another joke when he saw that they were heading for an overpass. “Heads up.” He nodded at a sign above the road. “We’re a few miles out from the edge of the city.”

  “Hey, slow down and pull into the far right lane for a second.” Linda was craning her neck to see out her window as she tried to get a better look at a building below the overpass.

  “What’s going on down there?” Frank glanced out her window but kept his eyes mostly on the road.

  “It’s a hospital with… my God. Is that… are those bodies?” Linda’s eyes grew wide as she realized what she was looking at. The tone of her voice got to Frank and he slowed the Corvette to a stop and clambered out. He walked to the edge of the overpass and looked over the side at the building below. The main building was in the shape of a large “H” and there were several other buildings surrounding it. In front of the main building sat a large grassy area dotted with benches, walking paths and trees that—at one point in time—was most likely a gorgeous place to sit and relax.

  As Frank looked over the complex and the grassy area, though, he realized that there was something off about it. Instead of being covered in green or brown grass, the ground in front of the hospital was stark black. He squinted at the sight, trying to process what he was seeing until Linda’s words struck home.

  The grassy area’s walking paths and benches were left uncovered but amongst them—stacked three feet tall and covering the entirety of the grass—were rows upon rows of black body bags. The thick plastic barely moved in the evening breeze but every now and then as a particularly strong gust picked up Frank could see the edges of the bags shifting. As the wind turned toward the overpass for a moment Frank nearly doubled over, gagging from the smell of the rotting corpses. He hurried back to the car, got in and wordlessly took off, trying to push the sight and smell from his mind.

  Several more minutes passed before he felt confident that opening his mouth to speak would not automatically include vomiting. “How… how are there so many bodies?”

  “Without basic supplies even the most basic wounds could kill. Hospitals have been relying on just-in-time deliveries for a while now.”

  “That many people, though? In this short amount of time?”

  Linda shook her head slowly. “Maybe that’s where they decided to put the mass grave and they’re not all from the hospital. Regardless, though, it makes sense… in a very messed up way.”

  “I just don’t see how so many could have died already.”

  “It’s like we talked about before, Frank. We’re balanced on the edge of a razor and someone just pushed us off.”

  Frank sighed but didn’t say anything else as he and Linda remained quiet for the next half hour. As they passed through increasingly urban areas on their final approach to Pittsburgh, Frank began to notice that the occasional signs of people living in the area were no longer present. Trails of smoke that signified fires vanished and the sight of small clusters of people in and around various buildings grew less and less frequent. Frank was about to comment on the odd decline in the visible population when some
thing on the road ahead prompted him to slow the car.

  “What the hell’s that?” Frank pointed at a large metal object with a tall sign mounted on top. The metal object was armored and painted a dark green while the sign was tan in color with a large solar panel mounted on the side. The sign was at least thirty feet tall—though it appeared as though it could be extended even higher—and at the top was a large LCD panel flashing messages in both English and Spanish.

  ATTENTION

  BY FEDERAL ORDER

  ALL PERSONS

  AND VEHICLES

  SUBJECT TO SEARCH

  “Looks like the outer perimeter of a military cordon.” Linda pointed at the sign as they slowly drove past. “They probably set those up along all the major roads. I guess Perry was right about there being a—holy shit.”

  Linda stopped talking and stared as they crested a hill. The city of Pittsburgh was still off in the distance, but midway between their car and the tall buildings in the heart of the city sat a seemingly endless expanse of military vehicles, tents and soldiers. A pair of UH-60 Black Hawks flew low and fast across the city in a manner that made Frank feel incredibly uncomfortable. On the ground, outside the perimeter that the military had set up, Frank could see Humvees and APCs patrolling along streets and through empty fields, their spotlights swinging back and forth to illuminate the ground and buildings around them.

  Frank pulled the Corvette to a stop at the top of the hill and Linda opened her door and jabbed him in the side with her elbow. “Get the rifle and help me get out.” Frank grabbed their hunting rifle from the back of the car and pulled Linda out of the car. She took the rifle and steadied herself against the car before peering through the scope. As she swept it across the expanse of the city and military perimeter surrounding it, she shook her head.

  “Unbelievable.”

  “What is it?” Frank shielded his eyes from the setting sun beyond the city but couldn’t make out very many details.