Winter's Edge: A Post Apocalyptic/Dystopian Adventure (Outzone Drifter Series Book 1)

by Mike Sheridan

  He trained his weapon up toward the roadside, to a house less than two hundred yards away where he spotted a muzzle flash. Peering through the rifle’s scope, he tracked across to an upstairs window.

  The window was open and a man stood in full view, a bolt-action hunting rifle at his shoulder. Brogan made him out clearly through the eight-power scope, a skinny guy wearing a filthy baseball cap and a week’s worth of gray stubble on his sallow face.

  It was an easy shot. Brogan did a quick calculation to account for the upward elevation, aimed the reticle crosshairs at the upper part of the man’s chest, exhaled slowly, and squeezed the trigger. There was a sharp crack, then he felt the soft kick of the rifle’s recoil in his shoulder. Through the scope he watched the man stagger back, then fall, dropping out of sight below the window ledge.

  Years of training kicked in as Brogan went through a series of well-practiced moves. Less than a hundred yards away, two men broke cover from the back of a house built halfway down the hill and started running down the slope, rifles clutched in their hands.

  Brogan knew where they were going. Thirty yards away, he spotted the rusting body of an old 8-wheeler truck. It had been stripped down, its wheels, windscreen, and doors all removed. From its position, a shooter would have a clear view from the entrance of the shack all the way to the door of the bus. Anybody running out would be ripped apart.

  Cool and smooth, he shifted his aim and targeted the front man’s center mass. He shot…and missed, shot again, and a bullet caught the man under the ribs. His legs buckled and he stumbled on the uneven ground, somehow managing to stay on his feet. Brogan adjusted his aim. Crack! He hit him in the neck. A pink mist of blood and body tissue sprayed into the air. The man was dead before his body hit to the ground.

  Next target. Brogan swiveled his rifle to the left. He had the range now, squeezed the trigger, and another 7.62mm NATO round spat out of the HK419. It caught the man in the thigh. He fell onto one knee, then got up again, began half running, half hobbling toward the abandoned truck, his face jerked up toward the sky in a painful grimace.

  He made it three more yards. Brogan caught him in the reticle’s crosshairs, aimed, and pulled the trigger. A moment later the man fell face forward on the ground and didn’t move again. Not even a twitch.

  Three men dead in less than sixty seconds.

  “Holy shit, mister. That’s some shooting!”

  Brogan turned to see a lean young man with a tight crew-cut squatting down on his haunches in the aisle, staring past him out the window. Brogan recognized him as one of the two released convicts. The prison pallor gave it away.

  “What is it, kid?”

  “I was thinking maybe you could give me a pistol….” The young man turned his head toward the back of the bus. “Somebody’s already given my brother one. No point us just sitting here twiddling our thumbs.”

  Brogan thought quickly. There were plenty of armed men on board to make sure he’d get his pistol back if any trouble arose later. He pulled back the Velcro fastener on his holster and pulled out his Glock.

  “Make sure to get that back to me,” he said, handing him the weapon.

  The ex-convict grabbed the Glock. “Don’t worry, there’ll be no trouble from either of us. That’s a promise.” He turned away. Keeping his head low, he hurried back down toward the rear of the bus.

  The shooting had subsided somewhat. With several of their men dead, the bandits were taking stock of their situation.

  Brogan called Staunton down from the front of the bus, handing him his rifle when he arrived. “You know how to use this?”

  “Of course,” Staunton said, taking it from him.

  Brogan handed him a spare magazine from his case. He pointed out the window. “Don’t let them get to that old truck there,” he said. “They’ll be able to pick anyone off coming out of the building, got it?”

  Staunton nodded, and took his position by the window.

  Brogan made his way to the front of the bus to where the conductor crouched behind one of the seats.

  “Time to open the door,” Brogan said to him. “The people out there can make a dash for it while we lay down some covering fire for them.”

  The conductor gave him a glowering look. “How about you open it?” he said. “Seeing as you’re the hero around here.”

  Brogan stared back at him, his upper lip twitching. “How about I open it and throw your ass down the steps?” he said. “We could do with some bait.”

  The conductor looked at him a moment longer, then crawled along the aisle on his knees. When he reached the top of the bus, he turned by the front seat and went down the steps. Brogan heard the bolts slide back, and a second later the door opened and the conductor came running back up the stairs again.

  Without a word, Brogan brushed past him, down to the entrance step. Crouching on his heels by the door, he cupped his hands around his mouth and hollered out.

  “Hey, you guys! We can’t get any closer. You’re going to have to make a run for it!”

  A man’s voice responded almost right away. “One minute!” he yelled. “We’re coming out!”

  “Send the women out first!” Brogan yelled back. “We’ll give them some covering fire!”

  He went back into the cabin and crouched down on one leg.

  “Okay, everyone!” he shouted. “Let’s give these people a fighting chance to get on board! We need to lay down some suppressing fire for them. Give it everything you got!”

  A moment later the sound of gunfire intensified around the bus as every man and woman on board began firing simultaneously. Brogan went down the steps again and waved his arms. “Come on out!” he yelled. “Start moving!”

  A woman stuck her head tentatively out the door of the shack, then began running. She turned around and beckoned to somebody inside. A moment later, the teenage girl followed her mother out. The two sprinted as fast as they could, running side by side. The third woman came out next and hurried after them.

  The first two covered the initial sixty yards quickly. When they reached the waterlogged hollow they slowed down dramatically. After a few yards, the mother stumbled and fell onto her hands and knees. Her daughter stooped down and pulled her to her feet, and the two started running again. They were out of breath now, both tiring and panicky, struggling to make progress through the thick mud of the hollow. From inside the bus, a steady stream of fire kept the bandits pinned down.

  “Keep going!” Brogan bellowed.

  Moments later the two women made it to the door of the bus. The mother shoved her daughter ahead of her. Brogan reached down and pulled the exhausted girl inside, practically dragging her up the steps, and her mother clambered in after her. Moments later, the third woman joined them.

  Two men made a break for it next. They burst out of the building and began running with their heavy packs on their backs. Brogan shook his head. All the possessions in the world wouldn’t mean a thing to either of them with a bullet in the head. There was no sign of the tall man yet.

  In the bus, the girl lay on the floor leaning against a seat. Between heavy sobs, she tried to catch her breath. Her mother sat beside her, her face buried in her hands, crying desperately.

  Brogan squatted down beside them. “Where’s your husband?” he asked the mother. “Why didn’t he come out with you?”

  The woman looked at him, tears streaming down her face. “He’s…he’s hurt bad,” she said. She stood up and ran over to the window. “He promised he’d follow us. I don’t see him.”

  Brogan pulled her down again quickly. “Keep away from the window,” he ordered. “You’ll get your head blown off.”

  The first of the two men reached the bus and stumbled up the steps. Brogan saw a seeping red patch on his left shoulder where he’d been hit. Grimacing, the man dropped his pack from his shoulders, then flopped down on a seat and lay back on it, his chest heaving from exertion.

  At the front of the bus again, Brogan peered around the door. Th
irty yards away, flat on his back in the waterlogged grasses, was the man’s companion. He lay there moaning feebly. With the pack still on his back, his arms and legs writhing weakly, he looked like a giant overturned insect. It was a gruesome sight, but Brogan wasn’t prepared to go out there to help him. Around the bus the gunfire had intensified again. From somewhere, more bandits had crawled out of their holes.

  Brogan turned around and went back down the aisle. He sat down opposite the injured man.

  “You alright?” he asked.

  “I’ll live,” the man said through gritted teeth. He looked up the aisle toward the entrance. “How about my buddy. Is he going to make it?”

  Brogan shook his head. “What’s going on inside?” he asked. “What’s up with the big guy?”

  “He’s hurt bad. Shot twice in the belly. He’s not fit to run, that’s for sure.”

  The daughter, who’d been listening to their conversation, got up off her seat and pulled at Brogan’s arm. “Please mister, help my father,” she said beseechingly. “Don’t just leave him there!”

  The driver sat on the floor by the seat next to Brogan. He had been listening to the conversation too. “Look, we got the women out,” he said, an anxious look on his face. “If we don’t get out of here right now, none of us are going to make it. I’m serious.”

  Brogan knew he was right. If he wasn’t prepared to help a man lying on the ground thirty yards away, he certainly couldn’t go all the way back to the shack. There was nothing that could be done for either of the two men now.

  He turned back to the girl. “I’m sorry, miss,” he said. “We can’t do anything more. We have to leave.”

  A look of anger flashed in the girl’s eyes, then she dropped her head into her hands, sobbing helplessly.

  Brogan nodded to the driver. “Okay, get us out of here,” he said. Then, turning to the conductor, he pointed up the aisle. “Hey you, get down those stairs and close the door.”

  Chapter 10

  The bus remained under fire, plowing its way up the hillside. Brogan ordered everyone to flatten themselves onto their seats as all around them bullets thudded into the vehicle, taking out a couple more windows for good measure

  When they reached the top, the bus flew over the brow of the hill, skidding and swerving back onto the road, the driver pulling hard at the wheel. For a couple of heart-wrenching moments, Brogan feared the bus might turn over on its side, but with perfect timing the driver eased his foot off the brake, straightened out the wheel, and all four tires gained traction on the road’s surface as the bus righted itself.

  Behind them, the bandits continued shooting, and a stream of bullets took out the back window. Hunched over the wheel, the driver slammed his foot down on the pedal, the bus picked up speed, and after another few hundred yards the firing thinned out, then stopped altogether.

  Staunton turned to Brogan. “Boy, that’s a helluva introduction to the Outzone,” he said, a look of relief on his face.

  Brogan put his weapon carefully back in its case and snapped the cover shut. “Just a regular morning here, Dan,” he said, lifting the case and putting it back up onto the overhead rack. “Wait till you see the shit that’s coming down this afternoon.”

  Staunton grinned. “Oh brother. What the hell did we get ourselves into?”

  On board the bus, everyone quickly settled down. After all the drama, it became surprisingly quiet as people talked to each other in low voices, reflecting on all that had occurred.

  A woman stood up and took out a first-aid kit from her suitcase, then she and her husband attended to the man who’d been shot in the shoulder, carefully disinfecting the wound and patching him up as best she could.

  The man had been lucky. The bullet had punched a hole clean through his deltoid muscle and passed out the other side. There were parts of the shoulder not even a skilled surgeon could ever fix properly. When they got to the city, he would have to find a doctor to stitch the wound up.

  Brogan stared up the aisle at the young girl sitting beside her mother at the front of the bus. Her head was bowed, resting against the seat in front of her, and her whole body shook with her sobs. Brogan couldn’t see the mother, but heard her crying too. He felt bad for them, but knew he had done all he could.

  Life was like that. Not everybody got to live. The impetuousness of the tall man had cost him his life, and nearly that of his wife and daughter too. The Outzone had rules. You had to learn those rules before deciding to break them. That was the key to survival in any dangerous environment.

  “Say buddy,” he said to Staunton, “why don’t we stick together till we figure this place out? First couple of days in the city, we’re going to walk around like we got targets pinned to our backs.”

  “That’s fine by me,” Staunton said, sounding pleased with the arrangement. “It’ll be good to have someone I trust watch my back.”

  Behind them, the third surviving woman was being comforted by the couple who had helped the injured man. Brogan could hear them make arrangements for her to accompany them when they arrived at the city.

  He pointed up the aisle toward where the mother and daughter sat. “We better take care of them too,” he said. “They won’t make it twenty yards on their own.”

  ***

  Fifteen minutes later, the bus swung due north. A short time after that, they arrived at Winter's Edge and wove their way through the city’s southern defense line: rows of felled trees, old railroad ties and bollards; long metal rods driven deep into the ground with sharpened ends, between which coiled razor-wire had been laid. In front of the city walls, piles of rain-sodden sandbags had been stacked to serve as gunner positions. As they got closer, Brogan saw that the side streets leading into the city had been barricaded as well.

  Though to the untrained eye the ragged-looking defenses might not appear that impressive, Brogan knew just how deadly they could be. The perimeter obstacles would slow down any would-be marauders without offering them much in the way of cover, while from behind the sandbags and above in the windows and rooftops of the houses, a slew of armed city dwellers could pick them off at will. From the side streets, men on motorcycles could be released to outflank the attackers on either side. Years of battlefield experience had taught Brogan that defensive positions didn’t need to look particularly dramatic in order to be effective.

  He stared eagerly out the window as they entered the city’s South Park district, using John Cole’s maps he’d memorized to get his bearings.

  The bus drove north along 20th Street, a broad unpaved road where to his left, through gaps in the buildings, he caught the occasional glimpse of the Reclamation Area. Originally marshland, the swamps had been drained then built upon by recent settlers, and this was a rapidly growing area now that space was at a premium within the main city itself.

  The houses along either side of 20th were bigger, more robust than anything he’d seen out on the plains, though still made from the same cheap materials: cinderblock walls, plain timber-framed windows, corrugated tin roofs.

  Some had been roughly plastered and painted in bright colors, many with graffiti and murals sprayed on them. They reminded Brogan of the inner-city barrios he’d come across in Central America during the war, and were far removed from anything in Metro New Haven, which was all built from modern sleek-looking materials and painted in subtle, understated tones.

  After a few blocks, the bus slowed, then turned right onto Diagonal, a street that cut through the city at a forty-five degree angle that would take them to the Barrio T, the city’s original district. Though predominantly Latino, its full name, the Barrio de Los Triguenos—the triple gene—signified the racial mix of its early settlers during the war.

  Deeper into the city, the streets became narrower and passersby stared up at the bus’s shot-out windows, some laughing, others mouths agape when they saw the full extent of the damage. Brogan stared back at them, equally curious.

  “Looks like we’re here,” Staunton re
marked a short time later.

  The bus slowed down to a crawl, arriving at a small square backing onto the Barrio T’s west wall. Three-story tenement buildings surrounded the square on all sides, and hanging from the balconies, clothes flapped in the wind. In the middle was an unfenced park where a group of children played. The bus pulled up along one side of the park, and a moment later the driver cut the engine.

  The conductor stood up, went to the door, pulled back the bolts, and flung it open. Inside, people got up from their seats and began collecting their gear. Brogan grabbed his pack and his rifle case, then shuffled patiently along the aisle behind the passengers ahead of him.

  When he reached the driver, Brogan put his hand on his shoulder. “Nice driving, amigo,” he said. “That’s four lives you saved today.”

  The driver couldn’t help but smile. “Just hope my next trip turns out quieter than this one. I wouldn’t want to do that again in a hurry.”

  Brogan grinned back at him. “You ever do something like that before?”

  The driver shook his head emphatically. “Ooh no. Not like that.”

  Out on the street, the children had stopped playing and now swarmed around the group descending from the bus. When Brogan’s foot touched the ground, one of them tugged at his arm. He looked down to see a small kid around twelve years old staring up at him. He had sharp brown eyes and wore a pair of faded jeans and a baggy windbreaker, several sizes too big for him.

  “Amigo, amigo. You need a hotel? I can take you somewhere cheap. It’s clean. Got hot water too.”

  Brogan stared over the boy’s head, watching the mother and daughter walk away uncertainly from the bus, a couple of girls skipping alongside them toward a narrow archway leading into the Barrio T. Brogan hadn’t expected them to take off like that. From the corner of his eye he spotted two men walk along the far side of the square, heading casually in their direction.