Aftermath (Book 2): Chicago Calling

by Duncan McArdle

  “This would feed the whole camp for…”, John began, tallying up what was in front, “Weeks? Months? I don’t even know!”, he exclaimed excitedly.

  “We just hit the mother-load”, Harvey concurred.

  “C’mon”, John said, “Let’s get outside and get some shopping carts, start moving this stuff back to the truck”, he instructed, jumping down from the trailer and starting the walk back to the front of the building, stopping briefly to inspect the pockets of the most recently discovered body.

  “You don’t think we should try and jump the truck instead?”, Harvey asked, as he followed close behind.

  “The size of that thing, it’ll drain the pickup before it starts, and I don’t feel like getting stuck out here”, John explained, now getting back to his feet and moving quickly forwards.

  “Alright”, Harvey conceded, just as the duo passed into the corridor leading back into the main area of the supermarket.

  John made his way through the corridor, ensuring he remained cautious in case any new threats had emerged, but knowing that they were more than likely safe now. Soon enough he was moving through the main area, and back through the front doors into the outside world once more, the large concrete car-park stretching out in front. Moments earlier, the heavens had opened yet again and rain had begun pouring in, coating the solid ground in front in a layer of reflective liquid which danced and shimmered with movement. Harvey followed close behind, grabbing a nearby magazine to hold over his still precision-styled hair.

  John quickly surveyed the ever-empty car-park, but things seemed to be more or less the same, save of course for the rain, so he continued round the corner and head over to the rows of shopping carts, grabbing one as soon as he arrived.

  “God damn it”, he said under his breath as the chain trapped the first cart amongst the set.

  Harvey arrived just in time to see John crack open the lock by exerting an immense amount of pressure on it, and then pull the first cart free.

  “Didn’t have a dollar”, he joked.

  It was an action Harvey quickly repeated, after which he caught up to John and followed close behind.

  Just prior to arriving at the doors however, John halted, without saying a word. Harvey meanwhile continued on, blinded by the prospect of the haul they were about to begin taking, and was half way through the doors before he finally turned to check what was wrong.

  “What is it?”, he asked, noting the direction John was facing, itself indicating he was still inspecting the car-park.

  “Our truck”, John said, struggling to understand what he was about to say, “It’s… gone”.

  Chapter 24: Return to sender

  The two men stood there, twisting and turning, looking everywhere for some form of explanation, but finding none. To an onlooker, one might have expected the men to suddenly exclaim “Oh wait, we parked it over there”, or perhaps suddenly realise that the taxi they’d called was actually on the next road over. But this was no such case, and there was definitely no happy ending in sight for this situation.

  “You’re kidding me, right?”, Harvey asked, standing in the exact spot their truck had been parked when they’d gotten out just twenty minutes or so earlier.

  “Do I look like I’m kidding?”, John asked as he turned to face Harvey, his face contort with concern and disbelief.

  “Guess not”, Harvey conceded.

  “It’s gone”, John announced plainly, his arms falling limply by his sides.

  “How?”, Harvey asked.

  “My guess would be stolen”, John pointed out.

  “What!?”, Harvey demanded, “Who steals a car in this day and age!?”.

  “Clearly you’re forgetting how we got it in the first place”, John noted, as he took the walkie-talkie off of his belt and flicked it on.

  “We didn’t steal it from the living!”, Harvey argued, “And we didn’t-“.

  Harvey was cut short by John holding up his hand, his finger poised and ready over the talk button as if about to speak some grand statement. But he wasn’t pressing down the button, and was instead staring wide-eyed right at the plastic device, listening intently to somebody else on the other end.

  “I don’t know, some Nissan or somethin’, nothin’ good that’s for sure”, came the voice, “And it was empty, totally picked clean”.

  “Who the hell is that!?”, Harvey demanded of John, somehow expecting him to know the answer.

  John once again silenced him with a hand gesture.

  “Well get back here, soon as you’re here we’re gonna move on this place, you sure they’ve got no way of getting back?”, another voice asked.

  “Not one we saw boss, they’re just walking around in there, they don’t even know it’s gone yet”, came the first person again.

  “Alright, hurry up”, came the voice of the man the duo now knew to be the boss.

  “You got it Gerry”, the second person replied.

  With that, John suddenly and very noticeable went white as a sheet.

  “You don’t think they’re talking about our place do you?”, Harvey asked.

  John nodded, his mouth ajar but no words coming from it.

  “Well get on there and warn them then!”, Harvey insisted, pointing to the walkie-talkie.

  “No”, John said, “If we tell them now then whoever this is will hear us, and then they’ll move on the camp before we get back”.

  “And what if they move before then anyway, and our people don’t have warning?”, Harvey asked in a tone John knew meant he had little belief in their abilities to repel an attack without the two best shooters.

  “I don’t know”, John replied, “We have to get back there, now!”.

  “Oh alright, I’ll wait here while you go find a car that doesn’t need jumping”, Harvey said sarcastically, “Cause if you can find something that doesn’t have a flat battery and an empty fuel tank this close to the city, I’ll be fucking amazed!”.

  With that, John began surveying the area, searching out the best candidate for a car that might start, or for that matter, any form of transport better than running all the way back.

  “I have a better idea”, he eventually said, as his eyes rested on one particular subject.

  Suddenly John began sprinting towards the corner of the car-park, in the unmistakable direction of the Tesla, the only vehicle there with a big enough battery to still be able to start. Harvey remained where he was, waiting for the inevitable moment that John realised the car was locked, and had to return.

  Although cars on freeways had often been left with keys in their ignitions – and even in some cases, still running – this was no freeway, and nor was it some other place where the owner had become trapped and forced to abandon the area. This was just a normal parking spot where people locked their vehicles, especially when it was one as nice as this. Sure enough, Harvey watched as John arrived alongside the passenger side of the would-be-supercar, and tried unsuccessfully to open its door, just as Harvey had expected.

  What he had not expected however, was what happened next, as he watched John recline his arm.

  “Oh no”, Harvey said to himself, his hands reaching behind the back of his own head in disbelief and his mouth opening, ready to yell words of discouragement.

  But before he had time to say anything, Harvey witnessed John fire his arm forwards, punching clean through the driver-side window and sending glass flying, immediately igniting the vehicle’s alarm which howled out into the distance. Knowing the potentially devastating effect such a loud noise could have, Harvey too began the brief sprint over to the vehicle.

  “Are you kidding me!?”, he asked, his voice barely audible over the sound of the alarm.

  John said nothing in response, clearly preoccupied with other things.

  “Pop the goddamn hood!”, Harvey insisted upon realising he was being ignored.

  John had barely climbed into the seat at this point, having quickly swept as much broken glass out of the car a
s possible using his bare hands. As soon as he could, he unlocked the latch on the front of the car, and watched as Harvey immediately threw up the hood and disappeared behind it.

  Within seconds of Harvey going out of sight, the alarm abruptly halted, and the hood of the car once again dropped down. Its sight was replaced by the figure of a man, clutching a series of cables in one hand, and his knife in the other. Dropping the electronics used for the alarm to the floor, Harvey rounded the front of the car and clambered into the now unlocked passenger side.

  “I shut it up, but I can’t do anything about the lights flashing”, Harvey said angrily, to the man in the driver-seat that was currently hunched over underneath the steering wheel, fiddling away with a series of exposed wires, blade in hand. “Good talk”, Harvey added sarcastically.

  Before long, John emerged from the depths of the driver side foot-well, stomped his foot down on the accelerator, and held on tight as the Tesla abruptly jolted forwards.

  “Holy crap!”, Harvey yelled.

  The immense power of the electric vehicle fired it along the car-park, filling Harvey’s face with excitement at the sudden change of pace. Within seconds, the vehicle was banking round the corner with incredible control and then firing back out onto the main road, giving the very incorrect impression that John actually knew what he was doing.

  John was much less excited about the new acquisition. The last time he’d been out of the base during an attack, fifteen innocent people had lost their lives, and that was not a result he was willing to accept again, especially when he felt that he would be at least partially responsible this time. The joy of driving a fast car like this one could come later, all he needed for now was to get back, fast.

  Soon enough they were hurtling along East Capitol Drive, past building after building, covering a few blocks at incredible speed, occasionally veering out the way of passing debris and parked cars.

  “John!”, Harvey yelled, raising his voice not due to noise – as there was almost none coming from the electric motor – but due to the intense concentration on the driver’s face.

  “What!?”, John replied angrily, thinking he was about to be advised to slow down, an action he was more than unwilling to do.

  “Who’s Gerry?”, Harvey asked, immediately contradicting the assumption.

  John twitched slightly at the sound of the name, but his eyes remained solely on the road, the level of concentration on his face unchanged.

  “Who!?”, he asked back.

  “Don’t play dumb with me Parker”, Harvey insisted, “You were real worked up when you knew the truck got stolen, even more so when you heard them on the radio, but when you heard that name, I could see it set you off”, he explained, “So tell me John, who is he?”.

  The Tesla continued to launch itself along the road, now approaching the gas station they had raided a few weeks back, passing by long lines of houses they had been planning to hit later that afternoon.

  “I met him a few months back, before I’d found Michelle”, John began, “Him and his cronies were guarding the Stillwater bridge”.

  “Guarding?”, Harvey asked, “They Police? Military?”.

  “Just a bunch of ruthless assholes with a God complex”, John said, “And a whole lot of guns too, that being one of them”, he said, nodding to the M14 sitting on the back seat.

  Harvey turned to see what John was talking about, but upon seeing the rifle that had been gifted to John in return for helping clear a horde from the bridge, was left with more questions than answers.

  “What, did you work for him or something?”, he asked.

  “No”, John replied bluntly, “But I passed through a couple times, Andrew too. They weren’t very receptive folk”.

  “And yet they gave you a gun?”, Harvey questioned.

  “Long story for another day”, John said.

  A series of houses already raided by the group began to fly by the windows, signalling the duo’s fast progress back to base. First was the house on the left with an arrow still embedded in its alarm system, and then a number of properties with kicked in doors and smashed windows. Finally came a more luxurious number on the right, its past owner still left hanging inside the garage, just as they had found him. Passing by that final property, the Tesla turned onto Lake Drive, and began chewing up the remaining miles between it and the campsite at an incredible pace.

  “What’s the plan here John”, Harvey asked impatiently, himself very aware that pretty soon they’d be approaching a foe they knew little about.

  “I don’t know”, John said, “Keep listening to that radio”.

  “The radio isn’t going to help us once we start firing”, Harvey insisted.

  “Then we need to put off firing for as long as possible”, John replied. “The one advantage we have is that they don’t know we’re coming”.

  “Got it”, Harvey replied, as the car slowed down to navigate its way through a series of wrecks, not normally a problem when they were travelling at thirty miles-per-hour, but definitely a problem at nearer a hundred.

  “What about the lights?”, Harvey then asked.

  “What?”, John replied, confused.

  “The lights, on the front, they’re flashing because you broke the damn window, remember?”, Harvey said, repeating his earlier statement.

  “Shit”, John replied, before slamming hard on the brakes and bringing them to an abrupt stop.

  “WHOA!”, Harvey yelled as he was thrown forwards into the dashboard without warning.

  John sprang out of the driver’s seat and made his way round to the front of the car. In a matter of seconds, he had smashed the nearest light open with the metal handle of his blade, before breaking the various bulbs inside, and pulling the LED strips clean out. Without a moment of hesitation, he repeated the same tactic on the other side of the supercar’s front, and then quickly got back into the vehicle.

  “Little warning next time maybe!?”, Harvey yelled angrily.

  “Next time wear your belt”, John replied, before putting his foot down and surging the car into life once more.

  Harvey mumbled angrily to himself, before reaching over and grabbing the belt.

  “Team one in position”, came a voice over the radio after a few moments of silence, immediately grabbing both John and Harvey’s attention.

  “Team two in position”, came another, again after a short delay.

  “Sniper at the ready”, said a new voice after the others.

  “Alright boys”, came Gerry’s more familiar tone, “Let’s go”.

  The vehicle fell silent once more. They were only seconds away from being in the vicinity of camp, but those seconds could well make all the difference.

  “Head left here”, Harvey said, pointing to a road running adjacent to the main one, which he knew culminated in an elevated footpath near to the base.

  “What? Why?”, John asked, continuing on his normal course.

  “If they’ve got a sniper, he’ll be up there, where else is there?”, Harvey pointed out.

  John thought it over for the brief moment he had left until he was required to make a decision, and then very suddenly and without verbally acknowledging the advice, altered their direction. The Tesla skidded over the top of a grassy verge on the brief trip between their road and the one running parallel to it, and then began climbing up the inclined path ahead.

  “You better be right”, John said sternly, to which Harvey simply nodded.

  Chapter 25: Over and out

  On the edge of the bridge located adjacent to the car-park, a lone sniper sat on the ground, his body narrowly obscured by the concrete edgings of the structure he sat atop of. Occasionally popping his head up to check things were as they should be, the man known as Brock was awaiting instructions on when to move. For the time being, he waited patiently, his hands grasping his half-wood bodied M14, issued to him by his commander, known as Gerry.

  Brock was the sole sniper in the group that day, and knew h
e was responsible for watching over everyone involved in the procedure. From the group’s scouting, they knew their target had their own sniper on the roof, and so that had been designated as his first shot. Unlike most civilians taking part in such a task Brock had little sympathy for the situation, he might not have been one before, but he was now nothing more than a trained killer.

  “Team one in position”, came a voice over the radio sitting on the ground next to Brock, from who he knew to be the group’s first two-man team.

  “Team two in position”, came another, this time from the second two-man team, one of whom was Brock’s leader, Gerry.

  Keen to get the show on the road, Brock looked up to make sure his target – a middle aged man wearing glasses – remained on top of the roof. Upon confirming this, Brock picked up his own radio.

  “Sniper at the ready”, he said whilst holding down the button, before releasing it and setting the walkie-talkie back down on the ground.

  Not only was his target in place, but he was facing away from the assault, and was the sole individual on top of the building. This was almost going to be too easy.

  “Alright boys”, came Gerry’s voice over the radio, “Let’s go”.

  With that, Brock took a deep breath and slowly rose up, just enough to place his gun on top of the ledge in front. He lined up the shot – only iron sights available after his boss had given away the scoped model of his rifle – and placed his finger on the trigger. Here, in this moment, he marked the start of the attack, and he wasn’t about to mess it up. Brock exhaled, taking a moment to steady his aim, and to make sure he was targeting the figure’s head, and then fired.

  The round erupted from the tip of the weapon at some eight-hundred-fifty metres per second, and hurtled towards the intended target, slicing through the air as it travelled. The muzzle noise was loud, and was sure to travel for much further than the shot, but the bullet arrived first, embedding itself dead centre into the target’s head. Upon impact, the immense velocity of the round caused what could only be described as an explosion, sending the rooftop-guard’s head splitting off into chunks, splattering blood all over the clean concrete upon which his body fell.