by Jordan Ervin
Headlights suddenly flooded the dark tunnel from the direction they had come as at least six vehicles stopped a hundred feet behind them. Adam shifted his gaze from the vehicles in the tunnel and those blocking the exit in front of them, watching as armed men piled out into the passageway, standing at the ready.
They were trapped.
Adam and the others shouted at one another from inside the Humvee, trying to decide what to do as thirty tense seconds passed. Lev pulled the Humvee a hundred feet or so up toward the tunnel exit before a few of the men popped off a few rounds, striking the hood of the armored vehicle.
“Stop!” Gene shouted before Lev slammed on the breaks.
“What the hell do you mean stop?” Lev demanded as his eyes remained glued on the armed men at the entrance.
“They’re not attacking,” Gene replied. “They’re waiting for something.”
As the words left Gene’s mouth, a few of the headlight beams behind them began to move—shifting across the tunnel from right to left as they made way for a Jeep that pulled to the front of the pack. Adam squinted, staring through the thick bulletproof glass, trying to figure out who had just arrived. Two men stepped out, each shouldering long cylinders that could be nothing other than rocket launchers. Suddenly, a voice filled the air through a megaphone.
“Quite a pickle you boys are in,” Roger’s voice shouted. “Can’t say I envy you assholes. They said they want you boys delivered alive, but I doubt they’ll need to do much questioning to figure out that you’re enemies of the state. Now, I recommend you don’t do anything stupid, unless you want my friend here to use this here RPG and blow your truck to kingdom come.” Another voice—one that was much more elated—demanded the megaphone.
“Now it’s your turn to get out of the truck!” Gary bellowed, trying and failing to mask the pain in his voice. “Step out with your hands up and I promise you’ll live until the Imperium arrives to pick you up—everyone but the son of a bitch who shot me!”
“Can that RPG take out the Humvee?”
“It’ll burn a hole clean through the armor,” Gene replied.
“What do we do?” Adam asked.
“We most definitely don’t get out of the truck,” Gene said, looking around the Humvee for anything they could defend themselves with.
“Now I’m going to give you until the count of ten to get out or die,” Gary shouted before counting down.
As he counted down, everyone started shouting. Gene grabbed Lev’s rifle and Marc started pulling grenades from a duffel bag. Adam cursed, glancing beside him at Tanker who slumbered idly on an elevated cot. Adam had nothing but his side arm. His rifle was back in the cab of the truck and the rest of the ammo was in the bed next to fuel cans and….
“…six, five, four…”
Adam stood up, throwing open the hatch and grabbing the handle to the Pulsar weapon—thanking God silently that it was pointing in the direction of Gary, his men, and Gene’s wrecked truck—and pressed down on the two-pronged trigger.
The air crackled and thunder roared as the canisters of fuel in the back of the truck a hundred feet away exploded. Fire engulfed the tunnel behind them as Adam tugged the hatch shut, ducking back into the vehicle. An intense wave of heat burst into the vehicle as the Humvee shook, rising up onto its right two wheels. A rocket emerged from the blaze behind them—launched by the surprised rocketeers who were now consumed in flames—and passed a few feet to their left. The missile struck the front of a large SUV at the exit, sending it catapulting backwards and onto its roof. It all happened before Gary could have managed to say three, and by the time the Humvee fell back onto all four wheels, Lev had floored the accelerator.
The Humvee’s engine snarled as men who had been thrown to their backs at the exit from the blast quickly regained their feet. They raised their weapons and fired, bullets striking metal and glass as the windshield began to fill with peppered cracks.
“Don’t stop! Hit ‘em hard!” Gene shouted as he threw the turret open, letting in a biting chill that strangely mixed with the intense heat of the raging fire behind them. Adam could hear bullets hiss overhead as Gene grabbed the turret and took aim. Bullets finally broke through the front windshield—snapping as they passed through the vehicle from front to back. Gene cursed loudly just before letting loose another surge of deadly electricity—hitting the men in front of them and sending their bodies rigid with the shock, the ice below their feet quickly let loose a cloud of steam. Gene ducked back down just as they struck a man who stood upright from the jolt, sending him flying in the air as the Humvee slammed into the first truck. The speed and momentum from the large military vehicle sent the first pick up smashing into the second truck behind it as everyone in the Humvee was violently thrown forward.
A loud ringing filled Adams ears as he coughed the dust from his lungs. The hollow boom of a few more explosions thudded from outside, causing a slight vibration to pass through him, shaking the steel under his body. He looked around the cab—nearly everyone was just as disoriented as he was as they slowly gathered themselves. He sat up as Gene opened the door.
“Is everyone okay?” Gene asked.
“I’m fine,” Adam said. His voice sounded distant when he responded. He took a deep breath, grabbed a pistol that had been strewn about the floor, and pulled himself out of the truck. A cloud of thick black smoke rose from the tunnel exit not thirty feet behind them. One of the trucks—the one that had been hit by the RPG—lay on its roof with fire rising from the underside of the mangled engine compartment where the rocket had hit. Adam glanced over at the Humvee and breathed deeply. It was completely wrecked. Steam and dark oil poured from the crushed engine bay while one of the wheels had buckled inward, bursting the tire and breaking the axle. The truck they had hit headfirst had crumpled like an old accordion between the Humvee and the truck behind it before rolling across the pavement like a discarded penny.
“Is everyone else—”
“Tanker’s dead,” Marc mumbled as he pulled Max from the wreckage. Blood slowly stemmed from a bullet wound beneath his jaw. Shock glazed over Adam’s eyes as he gazed at his friend. They lowered Max to the ground beside Marc and Lev. Silence reigned, no one willing to talk, until Gene finally grumbled, storming off.
“Damn it, Max,” Adam said, pulling his fingers over Tanker’s eyelids. “I’m sorry. I should have—”
A gun shot rang out behind Adam and he ducked impulsively. He turned around and nearly gasped as he watched Gene moving away from a man with a rapidly growing pool of blood around his head toward another man who crawled across the concrete.
“Drive nine days to save our friend and you think you have the right to take his life?” Gene aimed his pistol at the back of the injured man’s head and pulled the trigger again.
Adam winced as the man’s head fell to the ground lifelessly. Gene scanned the wrecked blockade, looking for anyone else who still lived. Adam quickly rose to his feet and ran past the smashed front of the Humvee, shouting at Gene just as the furious man found his third victim.
“Gene stop!” Adam shouted, flinching as the gunshot signaled another life lost. Gene looked around him frantically—not at Adam, but for anyone else who might still live. Gene glanced to the side of the road behind Adam—his eyes tightening as he did so—and began to storm forward, not sparing Adam a moment. Adam turned around and saw a man slowly crawling out of the burning SUV that had been struck by the rocket.
“Gene, don’t,” Adam pleaded as he ran past Gene and stood just in front of the injured man. “It’s over.”
“It’s not over until every one of those bastards are dead!” Gene bellowed as he tried to move around Adam.
“Wait!” the injured man shouted as he looked up and saw Gene. “Don’t! I was a prisoner. They took me when I was passing through town and—”
“Bullshit!” Gene roared as he stepped around Adam, aimed the pistol, and pulled the trigger. Instead of a gunshot, the gun simply clicked. Adam looked
over at the gun and saw that the shell from before was lodged between the slide and the chamber. Gene cursed as he racked the slide back and took aim again as the man cried out. Adam grabbed Gene’s hand and shoved it upward as Gene pulled the trigger, the round whistling through the air and into the highland shadow. Rage filled Gene’s eyes as he looked at Adam.
“Gene, stop,” Adam whispered defiantly through gritted teeth. “It’s over. You can’t murder these men.”
“I can’t murder them? Adam, wake the hell up! What exactly did you think they were going to do to us? What kind of world do you think we’re living in now? You think it’s time to let men go who will put a knife in your back as you turn to walk away?”
“Please,” the unknown man said from behind them. “I’m one of you. I’d never—”
“Shut up!” Gene yelled. “Your world is gone, Adam. This is war. This is reality. This ain’t the time to turn the other cheek.”
“Gene, we can’t kill him,” Adam said.
“And why the hell not?”
“Because I can’t lose this part of me!” Adam shouted back. “I’m on the cusp of becoming one of the men we’re fighting. I’m trying to hold on to the good inside me, but all I see is death and all I want is vengeance. I have to think there is another way.” Adam paused, before slowly turning to the man on the ground. “You say you weren’t one of them?”
“No!” the man shouted.
“Then listen carefully. I don’t want to kill you but my friend here will if you don’t convince us that you are not, in fact, one of them.”
“I swear to God I’m not one of them!” the man yelled.
“You say you’re a prisoner—how did you get here?” Adam asked.
The man hesitated just a moment—his eyes darting about in front of him—before looking back up and shouting as he tripped over his own words.
“I got here two days ago with a friend,” the man said. “We fled Norfolk after the Imperium took it over. We made it to a town back there called Princeton and they welcomed us in. They gave us gas and food and a place to stay, winning over our trust before stuffing gags in our mouths that night. They locked us up and told us they were shipping us south to some town called Wytheville, or whatever. I heard one of them talking about how the Imperium was going to pick us up and they were going to be eating well for the next month.”
“So how did you get here if they were going to ship you out?” Adam asked.
“They did ship us out,” the man replied. “They held us through yesterday before leaving with a handful of others this morning about an hour ago. We’d just made it through the tunnel ten minutes ago before someone radioed from one of the other trucks and said they had trouble coming our way. I heard it when I was in the back. They turned around and set up an ambush about fifteen minutes before you came. I was sitting in the back of that SUV with a gag around my mouth when it lit up like a firecracker.”
“Then where’s your gag?” William asked, stepping forward. Adam hadn’t realized William had approached while the man was telling his story. A few fresh cuts crisscrossed the scars that had begun to heal on William’s face, but they didn’t seem to bother him.
“I cut my bonds with a sharp piece of the SUV and pulled the gag off when my ears stopped ringing,” the man replied.
“And where is your friend?” Gene asked.
“Over there,” the man said as he motioned over toward the wreckage of the other trucks. “You just put a bullet in his head.”
“How convenient for your story,” Gene said.
“Please, you got to believe me,” the man pleaded, fighting back tears as Gene raised the pistol. “I haven’t killed anyone. I’ve never hurt a soul in my life! I’m one of you!”
Gene paused, glancing over at Adam before slowly lowering the pistol with a sigh. Adam shook his head, praying to God that he was making the right decision, and approached the man.
“First of all, stand up, stop crying, and look me in the eye,” Adam said. “I need to know if you can walk.”
The man nodded his head reluctantly and stood up, though fear still furrowed his face.
“Second, how badly are you hurt?”
“I’m fine,” the man said quickly as he glanced his body over. “Cut up and bruised—hungry and tired like everyone else—but I think I’m fine.”
“Good,” Adam said with a pause. “Cause we can’t bring you with us if you can’t keep up.”
“What?” Gene whispered as William echoed the same. “You can’t be serious.”
“I am serious,” Adam replied. “Do you think we can just go around, killing anyone we meet because we don’t know them? We can’t make this trip alone. I said I want peace, you said you want vengeance. Well, you won’t ever find this vengeance you want so badly unless we find those who might help us.”
“I meant soldiers, Adam. Not strangers who might have been trying to sign our death warrant.”
“Gene,” Adam began, “all I’m saying is that we can’t hope to kill Lukas Chambers if we can’t help those who share our common enemy.”
“You’re going to kill Lukas Chambers?” the man asked, nearly stunned. Gene looked sideways at William before shaking his head and beginning to raise his pistol once more. “No, stop. I hate Lukas Chambers! He’s the reason this all happened. Listen, I know you don’t know me, but I hate that son of a bitch. I’ll do anything to prove it!”
“Now it sounds like you’re just trying to convince me that—”
“I’ll do anything you want,” the man replied. “You let me live and you let me come with you, and I swear I’ll do everything you ask me to until he’s dead.”
“Bold words for someone who’s never hurt a soul before,” Gene replied.
“Doesn’t mean I can’t,” the man said. “Especially the president or whatever the hell he calls himself now. Like you said, it’s the world we’re living in.”
“Adam, we don’t know this man,” Gene said, shaking his head. “We can’t—”
“We’re not going to kill him,” Adam interjected. “I said it before and I’ll say it again. I can’t lose this part of me.”
“And how do you know he’s telling the truth?”
“I don’t,” Adam said, shifting his gaze toward the man. “But he’s going to have weeks to convince us all. Now until then, we’re going to retie his wrists, wrap his fingers so he can’t use them, and stick a pack of our gear on his back—but not until he helps dig Max’s grave. We can’t let him hold a gun but he can be a mule for the time being. It looks like we won’t be doing much driving in the near future unless we find a new ride. I say we head southwest toward Bryson City and get the supplies Elizabeth had hidden there. We can stay in the mountains and out of sight until we find a vehicle to get us there.”
Gene paused before murmuring a curse under his breath. “He’s your responsibility,” Gene said harshly. “And if we have to put down another sick dog, you’re the one who’s pulling the trigger. Lev! Get the blocks of Semtex out of the back of the Humvee. We’ll need to block the other side of the tunnel before we….”
Gene’s words faded as he walked back to the wrecked Humvee. William shook his head and began to follow. Marc and Lev were carrying Max’s body over to the side of the road.
“Thank you,” the man said. “I promise I’ll—”
“Shut up and listen to me,” Adam interjected harshly. “I didn’t save you for your own sake. I’m on the verge of losing what little good I have left in me. Now you’re going to help us bury our friend and then we’re going to zip-tie your wrists and bind your fingers. Once we’re done with that, you’re going to do everything I tell you.”
“Okay,” the man said. “I owe you my life.”
“You just might,” Adam replied coldly. “Now you said you’ve never hurt anyone?”
“No sir,” the man said as William returned with some cord and began to tie the man’s wrists.
“Have you ever killed anyone?” Adam asked.
“No!” the man shouted. “I’ve never hurt anyone.”
“Well that might change if you become one of us,” Adam said. “I’m not one to kill in cold blood, but I’ll do what it takes to survive the heat of battle. And make no mistake, with the enemies that we have, you’re going to live in the heat of battle more than you care for. We’ve been through a lot and it’s only going to get worse. Now you think you can handle all that?”
The man nodded his head slowly as William finished. William rose, nodding to Adam, before walking off to join the others. The others were scavenging through whatever supplies they could from the ruined vehicles and dead men, but Adam could tell they were about ready to set out.
“Last thing, before we go,” Adam said, turning back to the stranger. “What’s your name? And don’t lie to me cause’ we have ways of finding out the truth. The moment we find out you’re lying is the moment I have to tell my friend back there that he was right about you.”
The other man swallowed hard, fear filling his eyes as he glanced over at Gene. He turned back to Adam, clearing his throat.
“Edward,” the man said. “Edward Christoff.”
Chapter Five
Every Beating Heart
Sarah slowly ambled forward, glancing around tiredly as she shivered with the cold night. Her blackened shoes stirred the ashes and snow underfoot as they neared the burned out ruins of the Medical Center at Robins Air Force Base ninety miles southeast of Atlanta. The bright moon overhead cast shadows across a landscape of undistinguishable buildings, illuminating the steel skeletons that dotted the base like unburied corpses. Her eyelids fluttered heavily as she shuffled onward, her legs numb from the constant walking and occasional running. Her body was begging for a break from the eighteen days of hard travel since leaving Fayetteville and the old world behind.
Eric, Rick, and Judah entered the building first through a hole in the outer wall. Fire had darkened the brick above the jagged gap. While the fires had likely stopped smoldering a couple of days ago, the pungent odor of smoke continued to linger in the air. The men flipped on the flashlights that had been attached to their weapons, scanning the dark corridors inside. After a few moments, Eric turned back to the girls and motioned for them to enter.