The Systemic Series - Box Set

by K. W. Callahan

  But the Su flu had swept through in a matter of weeks – in some instances, days – wiping out whole communities, towns, cities. With it, it had taken all the services and amenities that society had come to rely upon. Even simple things like turning lights on and off, making phone calls, filling up the family gas-guzzler with fuel, or stopping in to pick up steaks for dinner at the local grocery store suddenly and irreversibly become impossibilities. Overnight, such conveniences that had been taken for granted for so long suddenly became the luxuries of a bygone era. Grocery store shelves and gas station pumps were emptied in less than 48 hours, never to be refilled again. After a week, utilities became spotty and then were gone completely…no water, no electricity, no phone service, no cable, no internet, eventually no radio, and then…nothing. There was no communication at all with the outside world from the lonely existence atop their mountain retreat.

  At first they had felt safe enough on their isolated mountaintop, but that quickly turned to an overwhelming feeling of isolation. After several days without power, Aaron had made a trip in to town. The trip was made largely out of curiosity and a desire to find out what news there was on the situation in the outside world. But it had been a more than useless endeavor.

  The tiny town of Tipton, Tennessee lay about ten miles from their home, and it was the closest thing to civilization they had in this remote region. It was a small village of just a few hundred people. There were two gas stations, a tiny grocery store, a pizza joint, and several other small businesses. It was also the home of the medical clinic that Aaron had founded in an effort to offer the low-income rural residents of the county some basic health and medical services. It was there at his office that he’d hoped to find out something about what was going on. He held out hope that maybe one of the clinic’s employees would still be there and might know whether a cure had been found for this disease that was ravaging the country and abruptly bringing the world to its knees.

  Instead, he’d found armed marauders barricading Main Street. They promptly commandeered his vehicle and sent him packing, leaving him to make the long journey home on foot. However, he hadn’t come away from the trip completely empty-handed. After losing his vehicle and starting back up the road from which he’d arrived, Aaron took a chance and backtracked, doubling around behind the roadblocks to the rear of his clinic. There he’d found his office empty but not yet looted, and he’d managed to fill up a bag full of supplies. Among those supplies were the antibiotics that he hoped would eventually be crucial – whether to use for his own family or potentially to barter for food – later on. Unfortunately, looking back on it now, those supplies had done little good helping his family survive when it actually counted.

  They had actually stretched their food supplies quite well. It was their fresh drinking water that had given out quickly. They consumed the case and a half of bottled water they had in their vast mansion within two days. Aaron had never realized just how much water people consumed until the taps stopped running. It was something he had definitely taken for granted.

  It was Jolene who had the bright idea of emptying the massive home’s several hot water heaters of their contents to bolster their supply. They rationed this water better and it had lasted them nearly two weeks. But then they were again left with a dwindling drinkable water supply.

  This was when, without his knowledge and while on a trip to hunt for berries, Jolene and Sarah had drank from the mountain stream, assuming it pure and relatively safe.

  As he thought about it now, it made him so angry. If they had just asked him, everything would have been fine. In the supplies that he had taken from the clinic, he even had iodine that he could have used to help purify the water. But they hadn’t asked. They assumed. And in a world without modern conveniences and the physical fortitude of their not so distant ancestors to combat the bacteria swimming in that water, even all the medical supplies that Aaron had been able to carry home with him were not enough to save his beloved girls.

  They fell sick at nearly the same time, and their fevers had caused swelling in their brains that Aaron had been unable to relive.

  Aaron stared down before him at the two freshly-covered graves that he had just finished in one corner of their flower garden. He was glad he was having these memories. They tortured him. As he moved his eyes up and out over the range of distant mountains that peeked through the morning mist, he realized that they made what he was about to do much easier.

  Having found the generator – which could have powered their well pump for clean drinking water – in the garage earlier that morning when searching for a shovel with which to dig the graves, was the final straw. He could have easily saved his family with it, but hadn’t. He had forgotten he even owned the stupid thing. His memory had failed when it counted most…and he had failed as a father and husband.

  He stood staring out across the mountains in the early morning silence. The silence was why they had initially moved here – a chance to escape the noise of the outside world. But now the entire world was silent. Today, the silence on Frost Mountain would only be broken by the sound of chirping birds, the gurgle of the mountain stream far below their stone mansion, and a lone gunshot by a man who thought he had the world in the palm of his hand but quickly realized that the world still very much had him.

  CHAPTER 2

  MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 16th

  9:17 a.m.

  SOUTHERN ILLINOIS

  We were all down to our last few rounds of ammunition. Whoever these guys were, they weren’t going away just because we were putting up one hell of a fight. They were here to win, and if that meant killing us to do so, than so be it.

  I just couldn’t bring myself to believe that we’d escaped Chicago, escaped the Su flu – the deadliest pandemic the world had ever seen – and escaped the death and destruction it had wrought, only to be killed by these unknown invaders of our safe-haven camp in the vast forests of southern Illinois. This wasn’t how it was supposed to be. I had been prepared. I had stockpiled in readiness for just such a situation. I had mapped out where we’d go, how we’d get there, and who would come with us. I’d even thought about how we’d build and develop our camp and how we’d live our new lives. I just hadn’t planned for this.

  Brian, my wife Claire’s teenage brother lay dead just a few yards away. Steve, her father, lay dead beside us in the same small sinkhole in which we were making our last stand. My only hope was for me, Dad, my brother Will, and his young son Paul, to hold out long enough and inflict enough casualties so that the rest of our family back at camp could escape meeting a similar fate. But things were looking pretty bleak. Eight-year-old Paul was here by mistake, unfortunately led here by Brian due to the idolization he held for the older teen who seemed to have thought this whole situation more a summer camp adventure than a life or death situation.

  Brian had learned the hard way that people were no longer people, at least not how we used to know them when the vast majority still conformed to the standards of civilized society. His education had cost him his life; and in the process, he’d brought poor little Paul along for the ride.

  Now we were completely encircled by whoever these people were. There had to be at least a dozen of them, probably more, and there seemed to be no limit to their ammunition.

  “I’m out,” Will called to me over the hail of gunfire we were taking. Rain poured down upon us and was filling the tiny divot in the earth in which we hunkered with muddy and now bloody water.

  “I’m out too,” Frank, our father, called.

  I was down to my last clip as well, and I was trying to conserve as much ammo as possible while still maintaining some semblance of a defense to keep our attackers at bay.

  Suddenly I was overcome by a wave of anger. I was mad – mad that I’d made it all this way, managed to get not just my own family here but most of my extended family down here with me, form our camp, and begin to build our new way of life safe from the reach of the flu’s horrific effects only
to be tracked down by these unknown assholes. And for what? Because they wanted our land? Because they wanted our supplies? Because they wanted our pitiful little camp? For as much as this place meant to us, I had to admit, it wasn’t much…certainly not enough to die for. I wondered if this was how the American Indians had felt as the Europeans encroached on their way of life. Wasn’t there enough for everyone? Couldn’t we just live in peace with one another? Hadn’t this horrific pandemic reaped enough death and destruction? Did we as humans now find it necessary to finish off the few remaining souls who had managed to survive this catastrophe?

  I guess it didn’t matter. It was what it was, and this was the end. If I was going out, I was going to take a few of these bastards with me.

  I fired off a few more precious rounds. I knew I had to be down to my last few bullets. Will, Dad and Paul crouched behind me. As the rain began to break, I could see several of the attackers moving even closer to our position as their cohorts covered them. There were at least two in a nearby cluster of trees about 40 feet from us and another one just to our left behind a fallen oak tree maybe 30 feet away.

  I saw the two in the cluster of tress as my best opportunity for a kill and maybe even for Will, Dad, and Paul to escape. The two were close enough to present good targets with my limited ammo, far enough away that I wouldn’t immediately present too easy a target; and I hoped that with two of them, a little confusion might help with my last stand.

  From behind the protective cover of our nature-made foxhole, I watched as one man would cover the other as he ducked out from behind the tree, took aim, and fired off a few rounds toward our position. They seemed to have perfected this action in previous firefights and appeared almost to conduct it automatically in a sort of orchestrated rhythm. I counted. There was a five second gap between each of their appearances. I watched as one appeared in a knelt crouch from around the tree. Then I’d see the flashes from his rifle’s muzzle as he fired a few rounds. Then the counterpart would appear, standing over him, exposing himself almost fully. As his friend continued to fire, he would take aim and unleash several – more effectively placed rounds. Then they’d both disappear again.

  “One Mississippi, two Mississippi, three Mississippi, four Mississippi, five…” and then I saw the gun barrel, followed by the kneeling guy, followed moments later by his standing buddy. I watched it happen again with similar results as I formed my plan. I noted that they acted from behind the same side of a cluster of trees each time.

  I knew I could cover the 40 feet or so easily enough in five seconds. I hoped that by the time I reached the trees, the two would have entered their routine. I could catch them just as they were focused on shooting and unprepared for someone rounding the other side of the trees, flanking them in a surprise attack.

  I recognized that I had little chance of success with so much fire pouring down upon us from other directions too, but I hoped that even if I got one of them or could draw fire away from our sinkhole for just several seconds, it might buy us enough time for the others to get out.

  It was a long shot, but it was our only shot.

  “Okay,” I yelled. “Will, get Steve’s shotgun. You should have a few rounds left, so make them count. Give me ten seconds once I leave the sinkhole and then make a break for it right behind me.”

  Will frowned, shaking his head.

  “Don’t argue with me now little brother. It’s our only chance. Just be ready to go…all of you.”

  I looked over at little Paul and tried to smile. “Time for you to be brave, little big man. Just stick with your dad here and you’ll be alright.”

  I felt Will’s hand on my arm. I looked over at him and our eyes met. I nodded. “Trust me,” I said.

  He swallowed hard but didn’t say a word, moving to gather Steve’s shotgun as I’d told him.

  I gave him a minute to check and reload it, and then said, “On my mark.”

  I paused for a second, took a deep breath, held it, and then maneuvered into a crouched position. I made sure I had good footing for my break from the hole and braced myself against the ground with one hand while cradling my rifle in the other. I waited as the pair of attackers went through their firing routine. As soon as they stopped shooting and ducked back behind the tree, I made my move, bursting from the sinkhole.

  The other attackers must not have expected anyone to emerge from the pit because it seemed their fire remained concentrated on the sinkhole rather than following me. A couple bullets whizzed past, and a few pounded into the wet earth around me, but otherwise the fire remained focused on the muddy, leaf-filled pit.

  I ran like a man possessed, tearing across the open space with speed I hadn’t known since high school. One Mississippi…two Mississippi…three Mississippi…four Mississippi…I made it across the gap between our sinkhole and the trees just as the two armed men were moving back around to fire off their rhythmic rounds. They might as well have been automatons with the way they were mechanically set into their firing groove. They didn’t seem to have any real desire to fight their way into the mix and were just biding their time until someone else in their group took the initiative and finished us off.

  I grabbed hold of a mid-sized branch that jutted toward me from the side of one tree with my free hand to slow my progress, using it at the same time to pivot me around toward the two men who’d yet to spot me.

  My timing was perfect.

  I was behind the cluster of trees and facing their backsides just as they were in the process of shooting again, my approach masked by the sound of gunfire. My plan had been executed perfectly to this point. I just hoped the others would make it from the sinkhole as quickly and as safely as I had, but with a small child and a senior citizen in tow, my expectations remained realistic.

  I lowered my rifle, took aim, and squeezed the trigger.

  Nothing happened.

  The whole of my hopes for Will, Dad, and Paul’s escape hinged upon my neutralizing these two gunmen. Without doing so, in seconds, my family members would be dashing directly into these two jokers’ methodical, yet deadly line of fire; and at my direction no less. I had to do something; otherwise, I would just have ordered the death of my brother, father and nephew, and likely myself as well.

  I frantically squeezed the trigger again, and again, but nothing happened. Just as I began to raise my rifle butt to strike the guy closest to me, the two men must have sensed the movement and turned. The one nearest me grabbed my rifle stock, rendering it useless as any sort of weapon, and as I struggled to free his grasp, the other pulled a handgun from his waistband and leveled it at my chest.

  Time seemed to stop as I waited for the inevitable impact from his shot while at the same time continuing to play tug-of-war over my rifle with the other guy. I thought of my loving wife Claire. I thought of Jason, my sweet little boy. And I thought about the safety and security of our happy camp just half a mile away in which our family had grown over the past few weeks, and how it would now be torn asunder.

  Suddenly, I was falling backwards, not from the force of the bullet that I was expecting, but because the man who was gripping my weapon had released his grasp and shifted his attention to something behind me and to my right. His partner did the same, moving the aim of his handgun away from me as I fell and hit the ground just milliseconds before seeing the two men riddled with bullets through the chatter of automatic gunfire.

  There were flashes of light around me and loud bangs as I grabbed my rifle and scrambled back to my feet on the forest floor’s wet leaves.

  CHAPTER 3

  MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 16th

  8:40 a.m.

  AVERS, ILLINOIS

  Joanna was surprised at how quickly the fire spread through the house. She moved from her spot at the bottom of the basement stairs and over to an area near the rear of the home. There, she slid a large slab of thick steel out and away from the wall so that she could climb into the small cave that they had carved through the side of the home’s foundation a
nd into the soft soil of the backyard.

  They had taken several days the week before Robby – an ex-army veteran and Joanna’s boyfriend of the past few months – had died in order to create this bug-out hole. Robbie had knocked the hole in the concrete foundation and then Joanna and Janet had worked to carve out a bunker of sorts that was big enough for them to easily move back from the expanse of the basement a good seven feet.

  The bug-out hole was their escape of last resort, enabling them to hide and even exit the house unnoticed by intruders. Robby had described similar dugouts his unit had discovered in Iraq and how useful they’d been to insurgents in evading enemy capture.

  Joanna used a rope to slide the slab of steel back into place up against the basement wall, concealing them and protecting them from the raging fire that was rapidly consuming their home.

  She found Shane, her five-year-old son, and Janet, the 16-year-old they’d taken in after the flu had killed the rest of her family, already there. They were pressed up against the tiny chamber’s cool dirt walls that Joanna had helped shore up with pieces of plywood and two-by-fours. They hadn’t wanted to use too many materials, preferring to utilize them to support the smaller tunnel section that ran another 10 feet from the bunker out and up into the backyard, its entrance masked by leaves, pieces of sod, and Shane’s sandbox.

  “You okay?” Joanna asked, as she settled in beside the two.

  “Yes,” came their quiet responses.

  Joanna pressed herself in between the two huddled figures, wrapping an arm around each of their shoulders and hugging them up close.

  “We’ll be alright,” she tried to convince them.

  She had no idea just how hot the fire would get or whether they’d be cooked alive, suffocate, or die from smoke inhalation. This was a plan she’d never hoped they’d have to execute and one in which the final outcome was largely unknown.

  There was a muffled crash somewhere outside as portions of the basement ceiling gave way and heavier objects like the stove or refrigerator forced their way down though the weakened support timbers. About ten minutes after this, there was a rumbling and huge crash that seemed almost on top of them and that jostled the protective steel plate so hard that Joanna though it might come loose – but it held.