Through the Fury to the Dawn (Action of Purpose Book 1)

by Stu Jones

  He couldn’t though for the life of him recall what had happened inbetween. When they had found him, he had been in the middle of the burnt, blackened woods, lying on a ten-foot square patch of pristine green grass. He had been neatly dressed and unharmed during the attacks. They had said it had been the strangest thing any of them had ever seen, but Courtland knew stranger things were coming. Great and terrible changes were on the horizon. The United States was in shambles, and the wicked would rise to power without the constraints of the law to bind them.

  “Stand against the darkness,” he said again to himself, as he lay back down on the table. “To God be the glory, forever and ever.” He closed his eyes and lay still as the strength of righteousness began to fill his heart once again.

  “I will stand against the darkness.”

  Molly pointed toward the large blackened building with a half-toppled radio antenna on the roof and motioned for Kane to follow her. After checking the street, they stayed together, moving and scanning, vigilant in their security measures. Stepping into the doorway, Kane checked the handle on the door. Locked. He jiggled the knob a few times to get Molly’s attention. She nodded. They had agreed to limit any talk or verbal noise as much as possible to lower their chances of detection by Sicks.

  Kane made a climbing motion with his hands. After spending a few moments looking, they found a bolted drainpipe that showed possible access to several windows. Molly went first, scaling the pipe with ease. Upon reaching the height of the second-floor window, she leaned to the right, away from the pipe, to test it. She was going to have to jump for it.

  “Be careful,” Kane whispered.

  Molly leaped from the pipe with a cat-like grace that took her straight to the window ledge. She snagged it, pulling herself up and into the opening without using her bad ankle. The girl was capable.

  No wonder she’s survived as long as she has.

  Kane ascended the pipe with careful movements. It protested beneath him and the added weight of the pack made his movements clumsier. Molly reached out the window and caught the pack as Kane swung it over to her. He jumped and grabbed the ledge and, after a bit of scrambling, was up and through the window. In the twilight, the building was dark, and it stank with the smell of rotten death. Kane looked at Molly, who had her hand over her nose and mouth.

  “Stay here while I check it out,” he said.

  Molly nodded. Kane stood, rifle raised, listening for any sounds of danger. He checked his corners, sweeping from left to right and snapping the flashlight on when needed. Stepping through the doorway into a larger room, he stopped still, the smell of death overwhelming. On the floor in front of him was a pile of six bodies, lying all haphazardly on top of one another. One body lay off to the side. It looked like one of those strange suicide cults where everyone died all at once.

  Upon closer inspection, each person had a carefully placed gunshot wound to the back of the head, execution style—all but the one off to the side, who had a gunshot wound to the chest. The weapon lay a few inches from the lone man’s hand, a 9mm compact Glock. A dirty ID tag on the man’s shirt read Rick Morgan.

  “Radio Rick,” Kane muttered. “Did it have to come to this?”

  Kane picked up the weapon and checked it, only to find it completely empty. Rick killed the others, at their request, while they knelt in a circle. He saved the last bullet for himself. The death of civilization was not an easy thing to handle. Some people didn’t even want to try.

  “Rest easy, bro,” Kane said, stuffing the Glock into his pack.

  He called to Molly, and she appeared around the corner, still covering her nose and mouth.

  “It’s alright; you don’t have to look. Come on past,” he said.

  She slid past and moved to the stairs.

  “Think it’s up there?” Kane asked.

  Molly shrugged.

  “Okay.”

  They moved up the stairwell and onto another floor, which consisted of a large control room that looked to control the broadcast system. Kane let out a small sigh and shook his head. A fire ax protruded from the center of the main console, its handle angling up at a perfect forty-five degree angle. All the control panels were destroyed, their internal wiring and circuits gushing forth like the guts of some great robotic beast.

  “Come on, Rick, was this necessary?” Kane paused as he looked around. “Well, none of this equipment looks functional.”

  Molly shrugged again, a look of disappointment on her face. She turned and, scanning the room, stepped to the far wall and pulled down a map. Kane watched with interest as she stepped back over to him. He looked over her shoulder as she held forward a map of the Southeastern United States. Molly started tapping with her finger on the map.

  “What?” Kane said, taking a better look. The map appeared to be geographically detailed and had certain points located with stars. “Look at the legend. What do the stars represent?”

  She flipped the map over and brushed her finger over the different stars on the legend.

  “Okay, I see it. The small stars say EMRSS, or emergency radio substations, and this big star says EMRCS—emergency radio control station.” He looked at Molly and then back at the map. “The sub-stations are all inside cities, but this control station is on the coast between Savannah and Charleston. I even read in the news a while back that some emergency radio stations were being fortified to protect them from EMP radiation. It’s possible that this station could be functional.”

  Molly looked at Kane with questions in her eyes.

  “Okay, it’s like this: the United States has been brought to its knees, but there still have to be pockets of survivors out there,” he explained. “These people need to know that there are others out here too, others who are trying to survive in the wasteland. If we can make it to that radio control station, we might be able to broadcast messages to survivors over the emergency channels, or make contact with someone.”

  Kane looked at the map and thought for a moment, sighing. “What I want to do is go to Miami and look for my family. But how would I get there? How could I cross that distance on foot? What about the danger? Even if I had a working vehicle, many of the roads and highways are going to be in ruins, and fuel would be limited. It’s not logical. It might not even be possible.

  “But check this out, Molly,” he said, pointing at the EMRCS on the map. “This is something we can do. There is something happening here that’s bigger than you or me. I have to accomplish some purpose before I can move on. I know that sounds crazy.”

  Molly nodded.

  Kane hurried to add, “Don’t get me wrong, I haven’t forgotten my family. If they’re out there, maybe they’ll hear the signal that we broadcast. Right now, though, I know God has awakened my heart for some purpose.” Kane pointed to the EMRCS on the map. “And I think this is where I have to go.”

  Kane rubbed at his chest and then gestured with his hand.

  “We both know what complete isolation can do to a person. It’s the lack of hope and fear of that continued isolation that kills a lot of the ones who survive a catastrophe. We have the opportunity to spread some hope and reach out to others out there if we can make it and the equipment still works.”

  Molly nodded and smiled.

  “That is,” Kane added, “if you’re in?”

  Molly smiled but shook her head no.

  Kane smiled too. “No? Alright, I see how it is.”

  In a movement that surprised him, Molly put one hand over Kane’s mouth and grabbed him hard on the bicep with the other. And as they listened, a muffled coughing was just audible above the thump, thump, thadum-thump of many savage fists banging on the door to the outside.

  In an instant, the stern look returned to Kane’s face. “How weak is your ankle?”

  She shrugged.

  “Write,” he said. “Can you run on it?”

  Molly pulled out her pad and scribbled, “It hurts, but I think I can run.”

  “Okay,” he said.
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  Kane looked down and checked the rifle. There were six rounds in the Garand, and he had another reload of eight ready to go, but that was all the ammo he had left. The encounter when he had first met Molly had expended over half of his ammo supply. Unlike modern AR-15 style rifles, this rifle’s design made it impossible to reload midstream without firing dry or completely unloading the rifle first. That was valuable time wasted—time in which the fight could be lost.

  Kane looked at Molly again, saying nothing, and saw the fear beginning to creep back into her face.

  “It’s alright. We’ll figure something out,” he said. “Let’s go. Stay close to me.”

  They moved down the stairs and through the room with all the bodies on their way back to the window. Kane gestured for Molly to stop. He stepped to the window and peered out and down the side of the building to the door. He stood staring for a moment, then whispered to Molly, “There’s got to be at least forty or fifty of them down there.”

  Molly put her hands over her mouth and shrank back against the wall.

  “We won’t have a chance if we take them head on, so we’ll have to outsmart and outmaneuver them,” he said.

  Molly seemed to freeze. Kane looked out the window again, checking the surrounding area. “I’ll be right back,” he said, stepping away from the window. Molly grabbed his arm, the fear vivid in her face.

  “I’m coming right back. I’m not going to leave you, I promise.”

  He stepped away and passed through a few rooms to the opposite side of the building. Molly watched as he looked out the window on the opposite side for a few moments and then returned. The banging was growing louder as fetid bodies slammed against the door, now creaking under the blows.

  “Molly, I know you’re scared of them, but now you are going to have to use your fear to motivate you, not slow you down.” He looked her in the eyes. “Are you going to be able to kill one if you have to?”

  Molly nodded without hesitation.

  “Good. Remember they’re monsters. They’re not people anymore.”

  She nodded again.

  “Here’s what we have to do. Listen to me, because we don’t have much time before they get in here.” He pointed across the hall. “You’re going to go across the hall and climb out that window. There’s a large pile of junk below it, so you’re only going to have to drop about ten feet. When you hit, run to the body shop that you can see from the window. It’s built into the hillside and should provide you with a good hiding place. Do not stop running. You hear? Your ankle is going to hurt, but you are just going to have to leave that behind and push through it.”

  Molly nodded.

  “The garage looks pretty solid, so get in there and close yourself in. Stay there, and I will come to get you later. Oh, and you’re going to take the pack with you, in case…well, you might need it.”

  Molly began shaking her head.

  A splintering sound made its way to their ears, and the two could hear a rustling sound below them. They were in the building.

  “Molly, I’ve got to distract them from you, because you’re not very agile right now. I’ll meet up with you later when we lose them, okay? Now, take the pack and go!”

  Molly grabbed the pack from Kane and moved across the hall to the window. She popped her head out and glanced left and right. It was clear. Dropping the pack out the window onto the junk, she slipped out and dropped the ten feet and half stumbled, half rolled down the slope, coming to rest on top of a baseball bat, crusted black with carbon. She groaned as a swell of pain rushed through her ankle. She knew the bat might only be good for a few licks, but it was better than nothing. She snatched it and the pack up and began moving.

  On the other side of the building, Kane could hear them moving through the building, searching. Some were even coming up the stairs, and he could hear their deep, ragged breaths as they labored to find their prey. Kane slung the rifle over his shoulder and ducked out of the window, stepping onto the ledge. Now he had to jump back to the gutter pipe, which didn’t look so easy from this direction. He heard the scrambling in the hallway behind him and leaped from the window, snagging the gutter in the process and tearing it from the structure. It splintered away with a sharp metallic sound as the pipe folded in half. Kane rode it halfway down and released, tucking into a forward roll as he landed. The Garand smacked the ground, and Kane thumped hard on his back and slid a few feet. He began to raise himself as he heard the creatures’ shrill, moan-like screams from around the building. They had seen Molly.

  Flames of pain streaked up Molly’s calf and into her thigh as she ran.

  Don’t look back. You’re almost there.

  She ran as fast as she could manage, with each step bringing on a rollercoaster of pain that screamed up her calf, twisted around the back of her thigh, and drove up into her spine.

  Don’t look back.

  She was now within a block of the body shop, but the screams behind her were growing, ever growing. She could no longer stifle the urge to look back. As they closed in on her, she was able to see the hollow eyes and their sagging gore covered skin. Their lips peeled back over jagged teeth in a terrible wailing moan like the sound of a wounded soul. Molly let fly a wail of her own and pushed for the final stretch.

  Kane pulled himself to his feet and grabbed the rifle, its stock falling away from the broken frame.

  “Damn!” he yelled. Tossing the stock aside, he began running around the side of the building. The rifle still appeared functional. He rounded the corner and saw the mass of disgusting creatures converging on Molly as she reached the door. Only two of them had toppled out of his window and were now righting themselves in the street.

  “No way! Come on, Molly, get in there!” The two Sicks that fell from the window behind him were now scrambling toward him, mouths wide. Kane raised the broken rifle and supported it as best he could. A jarring crack, the first shot veered left, but the follow-up shots hit the first Sick in the chest, and it moaned as it toppled over. Acquiring the second target, he fired. The shot opened the creature’s head like a ripened melon, spilling its contents into the street as the ghoul fell.

  “Molly!” he gasped as he dashed around the corner.

  She slammed her shoulder hard against the garage door and turned the knob, but it did not budge. They were inside fifty yards now, closing fast, their screams heavy in her ears. Gunfire. Kane, please be okay.

  She rammed against the door again, still finding nothing but resistance. She turned and fled up the small embankment behind the shop. There a small two-foot-by-two-foot window was just visible right at ground level, but she could not see through it. There was no telling what was on the other side of that window. Maybe she could…but there was no time.

  The monsters flooded through the gate and crossed the yard at a rapid pace. Molly ran to the window and kicked it out with her good foot, shoving the pack through the small opening. She then stepped back as the monsters approached, cocked the bat over her shoulder, and bared her teeth. The first one came in, and Molly swung with everything she had, snapping the creature’s head back so hard she thought it might come off. It dropped to the dirt, squirming. She cleared the second and third out with hard licks to the head, but on the fourth creature, the head of the bat broke away with a snap.

  Holding the jagged handle like a wooden stake, she ducked the grasp of another and rose, jamming the spike up and into its chest. The dreadful moaning of the ghouls filling her ears as she turned and ducked, diving headfirst through the low window. Clearing the window, she fell across the top of a cluttered table before going to the floor. She was immediately up on her feet, grabbing and shoving a tall cabinet in front of the window, barring the hosts of groping shadows from entry.

  Two rounds remained in the Garand, and the reload of eight jiggled in Kane’s pocket as he ran. Molly had to have made it inside for the creatures to be swarming around the garage like they were. They screamed and banged and climbed all over it, and suddenly the
structure did not look as robust as it once had. He had to get them away from her.

  “Hey!” he yelled as he ran. “Over here! Look! I’m over here!” He continued running toward the mob, the creatures oblivious to his presence. Weaving through the junk and lifeless cars in the street, he continued forward.

  The garage was coming apart, crumbling under the force of the masses outside. Molly scrambled around in the semi-darkness, trying to find something she could use to protect herself. She stepped forward, bumping into something hard and metallic. Squinting her eyes in the dimness, she tried to get a better look at the large shape in front of her. She grabbed hold of the cloth covering; pulling the cover to the side, she dropped it on the floor and reached down to feel padded leather, metal, and…handlebars. She had found a motorcycle. Molly groped downward and felt the keys in the ignition, but there was no way to know if it would start.

  Kane stopped short and raised the broken rifle, firing twice into the crowd, the steel clip ejecting with a singing sound. He jammed his hand into his pocket, grabbing the other steel clip and shoving it into the top of the rifle. He raised the weapon again. Some of the mob had separated and turned toward him, but the others were remaining. They seemed to be congregating in front of the shop’s rollback door, banging and howling. Kane began firing again into the approaching fiends.

  More gunshots. Kane is still out there.

  She had to do something to help him. The dusty, aged cruiser rumbled next to her. It was holding up for now. She made a quick pass around the room and grabbed a large cylinder of compressed gas, pulling it by the top and dragging it to the rollback door. She paused; the banging was stopping, and she could hear them moving away. More gunshots sounded from the outside. Molly unlocked the rollback door and slid it open a foot. She groaned with the effort, pushing the cylinder out as it fell with a clang and rolled toward the street.