by Holly Hook
The sound stopped. The grass rose around us. We had landed in a thick area. A single cricket chirped somewhere like it was begging us to keep going, to keep trying. Jerome looked at me and grabbed my hand. His pulse was pounding. So was mine. Then I glanced at Alana, who lay there with wide eyes. She was panting, but not bloody. She was still alive. The gunfire had gone over our heads.
“Show yourselves!” the commander ordered. “This is General McElroy. You are better off if you get this over with quickly.”
There was no mercy in his voice even if his words were a bit kinder than David’s had been when he proposed throwing me in the sewer system. But I knew it could be a lie. The general would want to see the person who tried to kill his son suffer even if he had almost no relationship with him. There might even be torture involved.
“Show yourselves!” he ordered.
“I can’t see them,” a man said. It was Hudson. He had turned against us and joined the killing team.
I lost all faith in people right then. I almost went to stand, but Alana and Jerome kept me down. I kept my hands in theirs. I wouldn’t make them watch my body fall to the ground next to them, just in case they survived.
“Crawl,” Alana said. “We have to crawl.”
“They’ll see the grass moving,” I whispered. We might be dozens of feet away, but that spotlight on top of the jeep or Humvee or whatever was all too good at seeing. Around us, nothing moved. A second cricket joined in. Things were still alive out here.
They would find us soon.
And then they would kill.
“Fan out,” the general ordered his soldiers. “Locate them. Do not shoot at them yet.”
“Yes, sir,” Hudson said.
And then grass shifted and hissed. They were coming. The sound came from all around us. The smell of smoke, left over from the gunfire, filled the air.
“I found them!” a man shouted from the left. “Stand up. Both of you.”
“No,” Christina wailed. “No!”
“Stand up!” the man ordered. He sounded nervous.
Jasmine full on cried. Grass shifted. The General cleared his throat.
“Ex—“
I stood up, losing my grip on Jerome’s and Alana’s hands. The spotlight glared at me like a giant dragon’s eye, leaving the General a dark shadow that stood in front of it. The other soldiers--there must have been eight of them--stood around me in a loose group.
“Don’t. They didn’t have anything to do with throwing David in the sewer. It was me. Christina and Jasmine never wanted to hurt your son.”
Silence followed. The engines of the vehicles—both of them big military jeeps—continued to idle like they were impatient and waiting for blood.
“It’s the truth,” I said. “It was all my idea to do it. Isn’t that what David told you?”
The General took a step back. “He left your group,” he said. “You were all taking too long to decide what to do on your field trip and you weren’t letting him have any of the food. I heard the truth. What is this sewer story?”
David had told his father that we were the bullies and the idiots, that he was the smart one who decided to bravely get to Colton on his own. He had lied to protect his ego. I should have known. And now I had admitted to something much worse than General McElroy thought I had done. If he was willing to execute us for withholding food from David, things were going to be so much worse now.
The spotlight was on me. I still might be able to make a difference.
“David didn’t tell you the truth,” I said. “He took over our group, General, when we were trapped at the Visitor Center. I guess you should be proud of him and the cruel way he treated those of us who didn’t agree with him. Well, he tried to kill me because I bruised his ego, to tell you the truth.”
A third vehicle was rounding the curve now, one of the trucks that had come through the now-shattered front gate. They were leaving to go get another shipment. General McElroy remained still, waiting to give an order. I was exposed. It was only a matter of seconds.
“I raised a well-rounded son,” the General said. “I wanted David to have the skills needed to survive in this world.”
“You raised a monster. And you treat him like baggage. No wonder he has problems.”
General McElroy held up one hand. The roar of the truck got closer as if it were rushing to get past us before the shooting started. It didn’t have much time.
And then it swerved into the grass.
I jumped back. One of the soldiers cursed. It might have been Hudson. He jumped out of the way as the truck roared right for General McElroy, who looked to the side just in time to watch as it bore down on him.
A horrific thunk sound followed and the General went down underneath the giant truck’s hood. Blood droplets flew. Bones crunched and the truck lurched, then stopped. The passenger window was down but unbroken.
And Dr. Marson sat inside. He waved us towards our own truck.
I didn’t think about what I had just seen. “Get up!” I shouted at Jerome and Alana. Shots fired and sparks flew off the side of the Dr. Marson's truck. The soldier guarding Christina and Jasmine had decided to fire at the man who had destroyed his beloved leader now. But Dr. Marson ducked, turned the new truck around, and plowed for the soldier as Christina and Jasmine scattered to the side.
“Over here!” Hudson shouted, waving us towards the road. He had his gun at his side and he was backing towards the pavement. “We’re leaving. Grab your truck and I’ll get the other!” Hudson turned away from us, pointing his gun at another fellow soldier who stood in the dark. “Don’t think about it!” he shouted. “What kind of coward shoots at kids? Drop your weapon!”
I didn’t wait to see if that happened. The world sharpened again and I grabbed Jerome’s hand and Alana’s. Another gunshot followed, metal screeched, and the soldier who had been guarding Christina and Jasmine cursed. The world was all red and white lights, metal, grass, blood and smoke. The back was still down on the food truck Jerome and I had driven. I climbed back into the open door and Jerome took the passenger seat. Thuds followed as people climbed into the back. Hudson stood outside, holding the other soldiers back, turning back and forth with weapon raised to make sure no one moved. Hudson was one against the six others still standing and he was doing it for us. Dr. Marson continued to drive his semi in a big circle around them. He was coming around again, making a ring around the soldiers. The two of them were giving us a chance to get away.
More thumps followed and I waited several tense seconds for the pounding to signal when we could move. I put the truck into drive and at last, the pounding came.
“We’re free,” Jerome said.
I gunned the truck forward, leaving Dr. Marson and Hudson behind. They made no motion that they were going to follow us.
I couldn’t look back to see if they were going to survive, but the unmistakable sound of a gunshot followed and a part of me died inside all over again. I imagined that Hudson had just died a hero and his family would never see a medal.
But still, I drove. A sign ahead told us we were near the Kansas Turnpike and the Missouri border was close. We had made it across several states.
We were on our way.
Chapter Sixteen
Not all people were rotten. Some wanted to help each other the best they could.
Not all hope was gone.
The thoughts made me tear up as I continued to drive, this time without the truck's ramp dragging on the freeway. Out here, on the other side of Oklahoma City, there were a few working cars out there in the night, many of them moving west to areas that were no longer inhabited, that might still have some food and supplies remaining. People were alive out here but they were far fewer than they had been. But there were some beginning signs of life. These were the people who had survived the radiation. It hadn’t slammed into this part of the country as badly.
“This is a relief,” Jerome said, looking behind us to see if Dr. Marson was fol
lowing in his truck. The answer was always no. Dr. Marson had remained behind. He might know he was too wanted, too dangerous to come with us and he hadn’t wanted us to know that until now. “Some sane people are left. As soon as we find our people, we should get back to the west side of the country. I think we should go to Oregon where it rains all the time. There might be less sun.”
“Oregon sounds great,” I said. We had been driving for hours. “But you don’t know where your father is.”
“I’m not that worried about finding him. I’m fine if we don’t. I don’t even know where he is. But I have a cousin in Kentucky. We might be able to stop and see if she's there tomorrow night.”
He was right. We had driven across half of Missouri by now, maybe more. We only had a few more states between me and Dad.
The cars grew more numerous as the night wore on. I counted two or three each hour. Everyone was moving, trying to find safety. It was a welcome change from the desert. These people would take over the places I knew as a child. They might even make a new life there. The thought wasn't entirely sad. Scattering might be our best way to survive. People would need to get out of the cities and hide for a while unless they were part of the important group of people.
But we still had enemies. Lots of them. Davids were everywhere. David was still out there and alive. So were those men. They'd be waiting to prey on unsuspecting people who tried to colonize the dead areas. Things would be rough for a while.
Jerome cleared his throat. "Laney, can I hold your hand?"
It was such an innocent request after we had kissed back in the military base. I knew that I shouldn't, but for right now, death had backed off a bit and a bit of life had crept back into its place. We passed an off ramp for a town and there were even a couple of houses that had some lights on. People had found generators. A candle flickered in another window. Most of the houses remained dark. We weren't completely away from the bodies yet and wouldn't be for a long time, but we were getting closer.
"Yes," I said. "You can hold my hand. Well, the one that's not driving."
I promised myself it would just be for tonight. That I might be able to thaw a bit before I froze over again.
Jerome slid his hand over mine and I kept driving into the night, towards where Dad might be waiting.
Thank you for reading The Storm! If you enjoyed this book, you may want to leave a review. If you want to follow me and know when I release my next series, and also when I have something cool like a free book or sale, be sure to sign up HERE for the latest news. You also just might get some free stuff just by signing up...and you can also visit my website at www.hollyhookauthor.com to contact me or see my other titles!
--Holly Hook
If you liked what you read, be sure to check out the next book in this series, The Freeze.
-----
You can find it by tapping HERE for the US, HERE for the UK, HERE for CA, and HERE for AU.
-----
www.hollyhookauthor.com/books
Holly Hook is the author of several Young Adult fantasy, science fiction, fairytale, post-apocalyptic and adventure series. She has been writing since very young and publishing her work since September of 2010.
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Title Page
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
End