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

by Stu Jones

Jenna Gregory stood in silence, pressing her ear to the door. She had been eavesdropping for the last five minutes of a conversation between her husband, Charlie, and Gavin, the director of the fuel reserve. People were outside the main gate. She pressed her ear further and strained to hear the muffled words.

  “Are you serious? We don’t know those people,” Charlie was saying.

  “I am serious, Charlie. We are almost out of food. What do you want me to do?”

  “I want you to know who we’re letting in here.”

  “They said they would trade us food and water for fuel. We need that food and water.”

  “Yes, Gavin we do, but these men look like pirates or bandits, not peaceable travelers. We’ve got to use a little common sense.”

  “Pirates? What century are you living in?”

  The voices in the room became more muffled as Charlie and Gavin continued their argument. Jenna could no longer tell what the two were saying. What was it they were saying about pirates?

  Jenna moved with Charlie and their unborn child to the fuel reserve over ten months ago. Charlie had taken a position as the assistant director of this facility owned by American Oil Products, a company contracted by the government for emergency fuel storage. The walled-off compound initially seemed cold and alien when they had first transferred but had soon enough become home. Only the unrelenting security measures upon entry and exit had worn on her. About five months passed before everything went gone wrong and the world fell apart around them. It was then that her attitude changed about their new home. The place was built like a nuclear blast shelter.

  Jenna pulled away from the door at the slight whine of her sleeping infant daughter, Lynn. Hearing Gavin’s voice raising, she resumed her position.

  “Because, I don’t need your approval to do this, that’s why,” Gavin said.

  “Gavin, listen. I’m not arguing this just for the sake of it. We have ten families here on site. We need to make sure that whatever we do is the right thing for everybody. The world out there is different now, and those men don’t look right to me,” Charlie said.

  “Okay, well, I think you’re being a bit childish worrying about pirates.” Gavin indicated quotations with his fingers. “We need to worry about real problems like food and water. Besides, our security contingent can handle any problems we might have. When you’re ready to be realistic, let me know. I’ll be downstairs speaking with the others.”

  She heard Gavin open the far door and shut it hard behind him. She was just pulling away from the door when it began to open.

  “Oh….You were—” Charley started..

  “I was listening,” Jenna said.

  “Do you spy on all my conversations?” He kissed her.

  “Not all of them,” she said with a small smile. “What’s the deal?”

  “Gavin wants to barter with a couple of men outside the gate. They have an old truck filled with canned goods and water tanks, and they said they’ll trade the food and water for fuel.”

  “So what’s the problem?” Jenna asked.

  “I dunno.” Charley sighed and ran his fingers through his short red hair. “Something just doesn’t seem right.”

  “Phooey. You see nothing but conspiracy.”

  “And you pretend it doesn’t exist,” he said and kissed her again. “Jenna, I just want to make sure everyone is safe. I don’t think the world out there is the one we remember.”

  She made a face. “Alright, but I still think you’ve seen too many science fiction movies. We should help those people out in any way we can. That is what Christ would want from us in times like these.”

  Charley smiled at his young wife.

  “Yeah, I know,” he said with another sigh. “I’ll talk with Gavin and maybe we can work something out. Okay?”

  Jenna smiled and nodded. She was a born optimist. There was something good to be found in everyone, and no one was beyond the grace and mercy of the Lord.

  She smiled again. They would help these travelers, paying kindness to their fellow man, and do the Lord’s will in the process.

  Through the red swirling dizziness, he crawled, slithering like a salamander on his belly. In an action controlled completely by his subconscious, his elbows and knees continued to writhe in the red fog. He gasped, choking on the dust as he tried to take in a breath devoid of the red thickness. His mind spun as his vision slowly returned to him.

  As though swooping in from a great distance, Kane began the descent back into his body, his senses reactivating. It was all coming back to him as he crawled—the highway chase, the crash, the bandits, and his separation from Molly. Kane continued to crawl, the corners of his vision revealing fire and smoke. He could hear the wild yelling of his pursuers. He hadn’t been out for long.

  He dragged himself to his knees and then to his feet, testing the strength of his body as he stood. Other than beyond some pretty decent road rash, he was okay. His heart began to pick up speed at the realization that the pursuit was still underway.

  The dune buggy and two rusted sedans slid to a stop in the red dirt. Kane looked left and right, taking in the scene. These three vehicles were the only ones left, except for the ambulance, which had rolled on its side against a nearby hill, fire pouring from under its hood.

  Kane directed his attention back to the occupants, who were now exiting and rushing toward him with screams of rage. He still couldn’t see Molly.

  As the thugs rushed in, Kane took a deep breath and exhaled it out, his muscle memory gearing into action. In the blink of an eye, all the years of diligent training in hand-to-hand combat flashed through his mind. Kane, not being a large man, had devoted himself to a complete understanding how to use what he had as a weapon. He had spent a considerable amount of time over the last fourteen years training in traditional Okinawan karate as well as police defensive tactics. His senses became ultrarefined as the adrenaline dump landed in his system. Amid the chaos, he had the perception that time slowed as his vision became ultra focused. This would be the final fight of his life.

  He took a defensive position as the first crazy thug came in, howling at him with a crude short-bladed knife raised high. Kane sidestepped and deflected the knife, and slamming his forearm into the side of the thug’s neck. The offender pinwheeled to the side with a grunt. Kane turned to his next opponent, stomping the heel of his boot into the man’s pelvic bowl, knocking him off balance and backward.

  Two painted thugs came at him from either side with their barbaric weapons. Kane ducked, dodged, and spun as he evaded the attackers, eliciting screams and jeers from the small mob.

  The thugs now surrounded him, and his muscles burned with fatigue. He ducked another swipe from a primitive club and came up inside the thug’s guard, twisting his hips and slamming his fist up under the man’s jaw. The thug’s teeth crackled, breaking against each other inside the confines of his head as his knees buckled and he collapsed to the ground.

  Spinning to his right and chambering his leg, Kane threw a devastating back kick, slamming another attacker in the chest like a crazed mule. The thug groaned and flew backward off his feet, striking the ground on his shoulders, toppling end over end to slide across the dirt like a rag doll.

  Ducking to his left, Kane threw his body into another man, connecting with the force of a linebacker. He was moving faster than he knew possible, riding his flaming surge of adrenaline. He continued to punch and kick, dodging and evading his enemy’s attacks, his only purpose to deliver blow after crushing blow to his opponents. But there were too many of them. Kane turned to his left just as a goon behind him drove a rusty blade through his left bicep. With a raging scream of pain, Kane jerked the blade from the muscle and slashed it backward across the thug’s neck, nearly removing the man’s head from his body. He immediately lunged again, thrusting the blade into the chest of the nearest marauder, and tore it back out again, blood and dirt mixing beneath the stomping of furious feet.

  Kane spun to find his next target, but b
efore he could, he was struck with a savage blow to the head from behind, and his legs gave way beneath him. Exhaustion taking over, Kane tried to stand, but his muscles quivered and shook as the mob closed in around him. His head was stomped against the ground by the angry thugs as what was left of his energy and resolve began to leave him. He was finished.

  “Stop! Back up.” The voice came from above him. “Tie his arms and legs and draw him up,” the tattooed leader commanded his soldiers. “We’re not going to end this quite yet.”

  Kane’s wrists and ankles were tied with chords, and a thin rope was looped around his neck in the fashion of a noose. Sharp and swift pressure on the noose brought him scrambling to his knees, gasping for air. Kane sat back on his heels as the thug behind him kept strong upward pressure on the rope.

  Kane slowed his breaths and tried to clear his mind of the fog and fear of battle. The thugs that were left numbered about seven, not including their leader, the tattooed man they had called Ashteroth. Those that remained stood in a semicircle facing him, nursing their wounds with hate in their eyes and evil smiles on their lips.

  “Well,” the twisted voice said with enthusiasm, “I don’t know who you are or where you’ve come from, but you’ve made the boss man mad. And after this little demonstration here, I can’t say I like you much either. Pretty impressive, though, for one man to nearly take out my entire crew.”

  The tattooed man stepped forward, pulling a crying Molly by the hair. She had taken another beating. Kane winced and tried to swallow.

  “I’m sorry, Molly. I tried…” he croaked over the tightening noose.

  “I’m sure you did,” Ashteroth said. “But because you tried to move against the Coyotes, we’re going to have to do some pretty nasty things to you and your friend here. We have a reputation to uphold, after all,” he added as he gave Molly’s hair a significant jerk.

  A small amount of blood streamed from a small wound, a 00 buckshot pellet wound, in his left side.

  “The thing is, I’m a terrible person, and I admit that I do enjoy doing murderous things to people. You see, I’m more animal than man, and I have learned over the years to obey my savage instincts.” He smiled with wicked intent, the tattoos across his face contorting in animated gestures. “I’m going to enjoy helping you understand why you don’t cross the Coyotes.”

  Kane remained stoic, observing his tormentor.

  “Nothing to say? Neither does she, but she will. She’s going to beg for us to stop.” Ashteroth said as he licked his lips and gazed at Molly. “It’s been a long time since I’ve put my hands on a clean woman. We’re going to start with her, and you’re going to watch,” he said, a psychotic grin on his tattooed face.

  The engine compartment of the ambulance exploded in a hot shower of flame and burning electrical equipment, the force of which caused the side of the hill next to it to cave in. Though confined to such an intense moment of impending doom, Kane found himself watching the side of the hill as it crumbled away under the blast. It was as if the hill was hollow altogether, crumbling and disintegrating inward, revealing an odd honeycomb-like structure.

  What he saw was strange enough to distract the mob of sociopaths surrounding him—for something black was now tumbling out of the gaping hole in the hillside. The forms rolled and spilled from the hillside, tumbling over each other like a sack of dried black beans turned on its side. As the objects flowed from the hillside, they began to animate, moving independently of each other. Their movements were swift and erratic, jerking this way and that. Kane’s mouth hung open. The rope around his neck lay loosely across his arm. The goons that had surrounded him were scattering, fleeing in a wild hysteria.

  What the hell?

  He looked again at the hillside as the strange creatures continued to boil from it, moving quickly on their long black legs and swinging their anvil-shaped heads from side to side.

  Kane was frozen in place, his limbs bound by more than just rope. He tried to yell in disbelief, but nothing came from his throat. It was not possible, not what he was seeing.

  Ants.

  Thousands of swarming ants, twice the size of men, were coming from the side of that hill.

  DAY 38

  EMERGENCY FEDERAL FUEL RESERVE SOUTH OF ATLANTA, GEORGIA

  Jenna held Lynn close, rocking her baby and humming a light, sweet tune. As she sat on the bench and rocked, the baby girl wiggled and grunted.

  “Shhhhhhh. It’s okay, sweet girl. Shhhhhhhh,” Jenna cooed.

  She looked up from the edge of the courtyard as Charlie and Gavin walked together toward the main gate. She watched Charlie, noticing that his lanky stride was goofy and confident all at the same time. In his younger years, he had always been the one who stuck up for the other kid that was bullied, only to receive a beating himself. He was a beautiful man, a balance of strength and weakness. She smiled and whispered a few more sweet words to Lynn. They had enjoyed a wonderful marriage and even through the horrific recent events they had grown stronger in their faith and in their relationship with each other.

  She succeeded in persuading Charlie to help the people outside the gate. Gavin was pleased because it had been his idea in the first place, of course. Jenna wanted to take every opportunity to create something purposeful from something terrible. Helping people in need was a wonderful way to witness to others of the love of Jesus, especially in the wake of such terrible events. If the United States was as ruined as she had heard, then all the people of this country had left was the fragile bond of brotherly love and the message of the gospel.

  With a grinding slowness, the heavy steel doors began to crank open. She was able to gather her first glimpse of the two men and the truck outside the entrance. They eased the truck in but stopped a little short, leaving the vehicle between the two sliding doors. The men exited the truck and met with Gavin and Charlie. Looking to the left and right she noticed the small security contingent with their handguns drawn, that escorted Charlie and Gavin.

  Definitely Charlie’s idea.

  As Jenna watched the silent exchange on the other side of the courtyard, she squinted her eyes at the entrance. She saw movement. Was that another person waiting outside the gate?

  Jenna stood up abruptly, cradling her baby tight. Something wasn’t right. Suddenly a volley of gunfire erupted with small clouds of dust in the courtyard, and the security detail collapsed to the ground.

  Gavin was waving his arms in front of him as the man across from him raised a handgun.

  No.

  She watched, helpless, cold terror creeping into her heart as Charlie stepped in front of Gavin. He was holding his arms up, palms out as if interceding. She heard a crack, and red jet ejected from the back of Charlie’s head as he dropped to his knees and slumped over.

  An awful, unrecognizable sound forced itself from Jenna’s throat.

  They were storming through the gate. Ugly, savage raiders were entering one after another. Now the gunman was shooting Gavin again and again as the man begged for his life. With a piercing shriek, the emergency lockdown triggered, sending the heavy doors sliding shut. Jenna looked left and right, unsure of what to do. She had to do something, but she couldn’t move. The doors slammed shut on the truck and began crushing it until they stopped completely, leaving an opening only big enough for a man to fit through. And fit through they did; man after man crawled over the crushed truck and into the compound.

  Jenna couldn’t think, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t act.

  The sole words uttered from her lips, “Oh Jesus, Lord Jesus.”

  Forcing her right leg forward, she stepped into the courtyard. She had to get to Charlie. Thugs ransacked and raided all around her, kicking in doors and dragging innocent people out into the courtyard. A man on her left was screaming as two bandits held him down and sawed at his neck with a rusted machete. On her right, several half-naked goons were sodomizing a woman. They had been in the compound less than forty-five seconds. Jenna forced her left foot forward, drag
ging it from its place like a snagged anchor.

  “Father God in Heaven…be my shield,” she said through the tears that cut fresh paths down her face. She had gone unnoticed and had made it to within ten paces of her husband when a man stepped in front of her.

  Jenna continued to look at the ground.

  “Please, I need to see my husband.”

  The man waved his hand in the direction of Charlie and Gavin.

  “Now, would that be the red head or the fat guy?”

  “Please,” she repeated as if in a trance. “I need to see my Charlie.”

  The tears in her eyes blurred the vision of her husband lying on his side with a long red trail leading from his head.

  “Well,” the man said in a casual tone. “Whichever one he is, they are both dead, so, look and see.”

  She looked up at the man for the first time, her gaze one of fear and confusion. She took in his dark hair and angular features and saw that his face displayed an emotionless mask.

  “Why have you done this? We were trying to help you.”

  The man stared back, his face unreadable. “Why, why, why. Why does everyone ask that? Maybe it’s fate, or karma…or maybe God hates you. Maybe that’s it.” The man smirked. “Making sense of it doesn’t change a thing.”

  Jenna stared in sorrow at the man’s cold features as the tears rolled down her cheeks. With all the murder and rape happening all around them, the man spoke with a smoothness finer than silk.

  “My name is Dagen. And you’re going to help me.”

  Jenna bit her lip. “Jesus loves you, even though you do this,” she said with a calmness that transcended her situation.

  Dagen gave a smile that was sincere and evil all at once. “That’s sweet, but Jesus doesn’t love me, and he left us to our own devices long ago.” He glanced away at the carnage and then back again, his face as serious as the grave. “You’re going to want me to hold your baby.”

  Jenna stuttered, “What?”

  As he spoke, he slipped his hands between hers and under the baby. “I said, you’re going to want me to hold her,” he said, cocking his head slightly to the left.