by Schow, Ryan
“This is where you live?” Hwa-Young asked. “Through there?”
He nodded, worried.
That’s when he heard several vehicles approaching, all of them closing in from different sides. He whipped out his gun, but by then, five vehicles had surrounded them. The guns came out of their windows fast, but it was only guns. He couldn’t see any bodies inside the vehicles, but that was because all of their windows were tinted.
“Rowan McDaniel?” a disembodied voice asked.
He wasn’t sure which car it came from.
“Yeah?”
“Tell the kid to take his hood down.”
“Why?” he asked.
“Just do it!” the man barked.
Rowan looked at Hwa-Young, nodded, then watched as she pulled her hood down.
The trunk of a long Impala popped open and the voice said, “You and the girl, both of you, get in.”
“I’m not getting in the trunk,” Rowan said.
“Do you love this nation?”
“Of course.”
“We do as well,” the man said. “So, get in the trunk.”
“No way, man. Piss off.”
“Your fiancée, your child, and your parents are gone. They are currently headed back to your parents’ home.”
“So you say,” he growled, concerned that they knew too much about him.
“Your house is burning down, Rowan. There’s nothing left for you there. Now get in the trunk, or we put her down. You don’t want that, do you? So please…just get in the damn trunk.”
By “her,” Rowan took it to mean they would kill Hwa-Young. He looked at her, then he looked back at the car the man was speaking from.
“Okay,” he said. “Put her down.”
Hwa-Young flashed her eyes, but said nothing.
“Get in the trunk,” he said, agitated.
“Why us?”
“Do you love your country?” he asked again.
“I already answered that question.”
“Then understand your family is safe, there’s nothing you can do to reach them now. If you come with us, when we’re done with you, we’ll get you and your friend back home, back to Watts Mill Road in Nicholasville.”
He felt the walls he’d built between them come crumbling down. Was he really going to do this? Was his family really okay?
Turning to Hwa-Young, the question hung silent in his eyes. She gave the barest of nods, to which he asked, “Are you sure you want to take this chance?”
“I don’t know,” she replied.
“Let me walk to my house,” Rowan said to the mystery man, “see if you’re telling the truth.”
“Get on the truck,” the guy said. A hand came out of the car, pointed to one of his comrade’s trucks. “Stand on the roof and look for yourself. I’m assuming you know where your house is from here.”
He thought about it, then said, “So, just jump up on the truck?”
“Yes, but understand we have our guns on her. So if you shoot one of us, we’ll shoot her, and then we’ll assume you can’t be trusted, and we’ll shoot you, too.”
“But you’re patriots,” Rowan said.
“Are you willing to die for your country?” the man asked again, this time without the anxiety he’d had in his voice before.
“If the alternative is to live under the thumbs of the Hayseed Rebellion and their benefactors, then yes,” Rowan said, “I’ll die for my country.”
“Are you willing to kill for it as well?” the voice asked.
“Been there, done that.”
“Get on the truck.”
Rowan went to the nearest truck, hopped up on the hood, then looked inside the cab. There were two men, both wearing full-sized masks. What freaked him out was not that they knew about his family, where he lived, or where he grew up. In that very moment, what freaked him out most were the masks they were wearing. They were full-sized replicas of babies’ faces. He stared at them longer than he should have, long enough for them to lay on the horn.
He finally got on top of the cab of the truck, stood up tall, then turned to where his home was. His heart all but stopped. The houses all along the street he lived on were burning. In and around the remaining homes, people were scattering, running for safety.
“Are you with them?” Rowan barked down at the man with whom he’d been conversing.
“No,” he said.
“Then why don’t you do something about it!”
“There will be time for them.”
“Right now is the time for them,” Rowan said. “Let’s make the time!”
“Get down and get in the trunk.”
He hopped off the roof and landed hard on the hood, hard enough for it to dent, and then he dropped down on the pavement.
“Satisfied?” the man asked.
He had no choice, so instead of fighting it, he gave a slow, solemn nod.
“So?”
He looked at Hwa-Young; she looked back at him and nodded.
“Get in the trunk,” he said again.
The two of them walked to the back of the Impala, and then they climbed into the trunk. A man got out of the car, the springs lengthening. The man who had been speaking to him wore the same baby-faced mask as the guys in the truck. Looking down into the trunk, he said, “Welcome to The Underground, Mr. McDaniel.”
And then he slammed the lid shut.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Rhett Jensen
Rhett made the trip to the new house just outside Lexington by motorcycle. He had his entire crew in tow, forty of them in all. Each man was hardened and ready to make his home wherever Rhett said it was. There, they’d stand their ground while riding out the necessary die-off.
With the dark military, their people in the White House, and the vicious on-the-ground forces all around D.C., killing off those loyal to the old ways of the country wasn’t just a hope, it was a forgone conclusion.
The culling was not without its complications, however. This was something with which he’d become all too aware.
His contact in Washington required Diesel to bring the decapitated head of the United States’ President to the table as his buy-in. This secured Hayseed Rebellion’s spot at the table. That was his chief objective. But if they failed in Washington, Rhett would have to hedge his bet. He wanted to survive the fall of the United States, which was why he needed to gather up as much loot as he could. That meant his men would need to move quickly and forcefully, first wiping out the commercial businesses, and then the rest of the community. Ninety percent of these people would be dead inside of a year anyway.
After a long drive, he and the posse rolled up the driveway and surrounded the barn that had been converted to barracks. He dismounted his bike, then told Paul and his two generals to come with him. To the rest of his crew, he said, “Stay out here, but stay frosty.”
He gathered Diesel’s men together in the barn and said, “Did Diesel Daley come home yet?” No one said a word. “Diesel is the head of the Hayseed Rebellion, right?”
They all nodded in agreement.
A few of them answered in the affirmative
“No,” he boomed when they all fell quiet. “Diesel Daley and Walker McDaniel are the heads of the HR. But Walker McDaniel is dead. Murdered by his best friend, a fellow soldier, his business partner. But that’s not all Walker McDaniel was to Diesel. This was a man Diesel once claimed to have been closer to him than his own family. I assert before you today that Diesel Daley has a strange way of expressing loyalty. But not me. I hold loyalty above everything else. Now I have to ask you, with Diesel doing what he did, with you now knowing this, who of you remains loyal to Diesel?”
Five hands went up. He turned to the guys who flanked him and gave a slight nod. They shot all five of those men in the heads. Of the others, no one flinched. They simply stood there, all eyes on Rhett.
Rhett’s men suddenly burst into the barn, guns ready.
“Come in,” he said to his men. “Br
ing them all in.”
When the ringing died down, the death knell passed, and Rhett’s guys were all in the barn, Rhett said, “We start with Kentucky. Then, if we don’t get a seat at the new table, we’re going to rise up and take charge of this nation the way someone should have taken charge of it decades ago.”
“What do you mean?” one of Diesel’s guys asked.
“We’re going to take over the nation. Not just from our failed government, but from those who tried to overthrow it. Everyone we worked with and worked for, we’re going to put them in the ground and piss on their departing souls.”
The guy who asked the question looked around the barn, saw about fifty people, then said, “So…you’re talking about…you mean just us?”
Rhett gave a conciliatory laugh, then said, “We are the start, my young unbeliever. But keep in mind, there were fifty-five delegates in the creation of the first US Constitution and thirty-nine signers. Now, most of you aren’t smart enough to create any such document, but fortunately for us all, I’m smarter and more vicious than most. So, under my governance, we will create a brand new document, a second Constitution, and then gentlemen, we will be the nation’s new founding fathers.”
END OF BOOK 3
Get ready for Washington D.C. in the next thrilling installment, These Times of Sedition.
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A Look Ahead: These Times Of Sedition
A group of fundamentalists embedded in the White House are planning a radical overthrow of the country. When Marley McDaniel, the deputy chief of staff of communications as well as the right-hand woman to the White House chief of staff, discovers traitors in the White House, she finds herself standing before the commander in chief all alone and way out of her depth.
Marley is too late. Time ran out, the enemy moved too quickly, and now Marley is with a woman she doesn’t like in a country under attack. As Marley and U.S. President Althea Kennicot run for their lives, Marley can’t help wondering what she has gotten herself into. Side-by-side, she’s taken flight with the most valuable target on the planet.
Isaiah Wright is the deputy chief of staff of operations and Marley’s colleague. He made his family proud with his accomplishments in Washington D.C., specifically the White House, but those days are behind him now. With the White House burning and the president MIA, Isaiah finds himself all alone in a dystopian landscape with no plan, no resources, and no direction. Only when he happens upon a familiar face with both resources and direction does Isiah see a sliver of hope.
To stop the post-apocalyptic chaos that has come with the EMP and the failed power grid, Isaiah, Marley and President Kennicot will gather up their resources, route out the traitors, then try to cut the head off this snake, not just for themselves, but for the sake of the nation.
The fourth, hard-hitting novel in the Abandon series, These Times of Sedition, follows the last of the McDaniel children through a nightmare of betrayal, catastrophe, and heartache, further proving that the resurgence of the human spirit and the need for community in times of distress might very well be the fuel she needs to survive the collapsing nation.
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Free Ebook: The Last Light Of Day
America is changing fast. Cities are becoming dangerous. Time to bug out…
Security Engineer, Logan Cahill, and a woman who may or may not be his girlfriend, Skylar Madigan, live together, but only because it makes their conspiring that much easier. Logan, like Skylar, is tormented by the notion that time is running out for America.
As the nation spins perilously out of control and foreign forces make their foothold in the country known, Logan is tasked with investigating the mysterious Harper Whitaker, a programmer he believes to be working under false pretenses. Is she caught up in cyber espionage, or something darker? And how does Skylar fit in with this? Has she been using him to get to Harper?
Things are not as they seem, and the lid is about to blow off the whole city, maybe even the country. The question that plagues Logan is the question of when, and how. When does he bug out? How will he survive a total collapse of society? The good news is, Skylar has a plan and Harper just might be a part of it. Will they be able get off the grid before all hell breaks loose? The apocalypse is coming, which means the end is near…
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Also by Ryan Schow
THE ABANDON SERIES (ONGOING)
THESE TIMES OF ABANDON
THESE TIMES OF RETRIBUTION
THESE TIMES OF CESSATION
THESE TIMES OF SEDITION (Jan, 2021)
THESE TIMES OF INSURRECTION (Feb, 2021)
THE COMPLETE DARK DAYS OF THE AFTER SERIES:
THE LAST LIGHT OF DAY (PREQUEL)
DARK DAYS OF THE AFTER
DARK DAYS OF THE SURGE
DARK DAYS OF THE APOSTASY
DARK DAYS OF THE ENCLAVE
DARK DAYS OF THE PURGE
THE COMPLETE AGE OF EMBERS SERIES:
THE AGE OF EMBERS
THE AGE OF HYSTERIA
THE AGE OF REPRISAL
THE AGE OF EXODUS
THE AGE OF DEFIANCE
THE COMPLETE LAST WAR SERIES:
THE LAST WAR
THE ZERO HOUR
THE OPHIDIAN HORDE
THE INFERNAL REGIONS
THE KILLING FIELDS
THE BARBAROUS ROAD
THE TERMINAL RUN
THE COMPLETE SWANN SERIES:
VANNIE (PREQUEL)
SWANN
MONARCH
CLONE
MASOCHIST
WEAPON
RAVEN
ABOMINATION
ENIGMA
CRUCIFIED
About the Author
Ryan Schow is a USA Today Bestselling Author who grew up reading anything from Robert Ludlum to Stephen King to Chuck Palahniuk. As a real life second-degree black belt and self-described adrenaline junky, he’s drawn to books, movies and TV featuring gritty, capable characters who are admirable but flawed, and eventually willing an
d able to go knuckle-to-knuckle with the most formidable of adversaries.
That said, the best characters are always rich with personality but struggling under the weight of some internal strife. Sprinkle in some chaos and muddy the waters between right and wrong, and to him you have a compelling tale. To Ryan, these kinds of impossible circumstances make for the best stories, and this is reflected in both his characters and the content of his novels.
For more information about the author or to chat with him about the current books, new releases and cover reveals, be sure to join the private fan page, called The Last War Fan Group.