by JJ Holden
They ran through the forest and when they were only twenty yards from the cabin, they noticed several soldiers investigating the structure.
The man pulled the boy down behind a large tree. He whispered into the boy’s ear. “Don’t make a sound.”
They listened.
“Someone’s trying to trap something,” a voice said.
“Here are fresh footprints,” another voice said. “Maybe Roger killed them. That was his rifle, right?
“Maybe. I checked through the window over there but didn’t see anyone, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t hiding somewhere in there.”
The soldier closest to the door slammed the side of his fist onto it. “Open up immediately!”
When no answer came, he slammed his fist again.
Still hidden behind the tree, the man spotted a soldier with a large pack on his back. A hose ran from the pack to a gun-like mechanism in his hands.
“Either it’s vacant or they aren’t coming out. Burn it.”
The fire sprayed from the flamethrower and in no time at all, the entire cabin was on fire. The man stood and watched as everything he had left in the world was being reduced to ashes. Black smoke poured from his home and he knew that there was no way to stop its destruction without jeopardizing his own life. He remained hidden in the woods with the boy. He turned to the boy and saw tears streaming down his cheeks. The man contemplated using the assault rifle on the men, but he had killed enough that day.
After the soldiers were long gone and the cabin was smoldering, the man considered returning to attempt to open the bomb shelter to salvage whatever they could. But he knew that they could only carry so much as they searched for shelter.
“So where are we going to go?” the boy asked.
The man shook his head. “I’m not sure yet.”
The dark clouds above signaled the presence of another storm, perhaps one that would last as long as the previous one. The rain that was soon to come would drench the smoldering ashes of the cabin and make survival possible, but the man knew that survival was not guaranteed. Each day was a gift and he hoped to see tomorrow.
* * *
Two soldiers walked along the broken road that ran parallel to the forest. The rain that had concluded had soaked the outer layer of their trench coats.
“They’ll kill us, Jeff,” the one soldier said. “Going AWOL means being sent to the gas chambers.”
Gunshots rang out in the distance. Jeff gave his comrade a worried look as they slowed their pace. “We need to get off of the road then.”
The two men entered the forest, their boots sloshing in the mud as they went.
“So what’s the plan, Clark?” Jeff asked.
Clark opened his trench coat and pulled a compass from his coat pocket. “We need to head south. That’s where the rebellion is strong. We need to join them.”
“They’ll take one look at our insignias and shoot us in the head!”
“Then we need to pick up some civilian clothes, though we’ll be at risk of being killed by a regime soldier who thinks we are a part of the rebellion.”
“Well we are a part of it now,” Jeff said.
Clark looked to both sides for signs of any life in the forest. It was not the wildlife that he was on the lookout for, but other people.
More gunshots rung out. Clark cringed. Another one down, he thought. Another innocent killed. The army he defected from was still in the liquidation process and would stop only when all of the rebellion was crushed. He could barely remember why the war had erupted, but its aftermath was catastrophic and the United States he once knew and loved was no more. The old supporters of the democracy were long gone and in their place were the younger supporters of American Imperialism. This was the system that Clark wanted to fight against. Life under totalitarian rule was not worth living, in his opinion.
Clark and Jeff stopped when they found themselves in a clearing. Clark looked up and saw smoke billowing into the sky from an unknown source within the woods. “Look at that,” he said. “Let’s check it out.”
They walked in the direction of the smoke, veering slightly off of their intended route.
“Over here,” Clark said softly.
Between the trees, they saw and man and a boy walking away from a smoldering heap. The man carried a sack over his shoulder and a revolver in his right hand.
Clark crouched down and Jeff followed his lead. “Let’s not be too hasty,” Clark said. “Let’s just follow behind for now. If they get bothered by one of the Imperialists, then we will intervene.”
“Then what?”
“I don’t know,” Clark said. “But it might be beneficial to have others with us. Survival in numbers…”
Jeff shrugged. “I think we better just leave them be and worry about ourselves.”
“Remember all the years of training before the regime. It was all focused on team-building, not this every man for themselves crap. We need to meet up with survivors and build up a team if we want to ever make it.”
Jeff was silent for a moment. “Fine,” he said. “We’ll just follow them for a while…only if they happen to head in the direction we need to go.”
“Okay,” Clark said. “Let fate decide it then.”
The soldiers followed the man and boy, staying far enough behind as to not to be seen nor heard. Looking at their compass, they saw they were heading south-east, which was close enough for Jeff to not protest following them. They trailed behind them for miles until the sun set and the forest was dark.
No fire was lit that night. Neither party wanted their position to be compromised.
Clark slept while Jeff stood guard for half of the night and they switched roles several hours prior to dawn. Light rain pelted their trench coats throughout the night and when the sun rose again, they found themselves in puddles of water on the forest floor.
Behind thorn bushes and other vegetation, they waited. Peering through small openings in the brush, they watched as the man and the boy continued on. Clark and Jeff followed closely behind, like two phantoms.
* * *
“That was quite a storm last night, Peter,” the woman said. “The thunder was so loud I thought bombs were going off.”
Peter finished cleaning his shotgun and looked up at his wife. “At least our water reservoir is all filled up. And the storms keep the soldiers far away from here at least. Now’s the best time to forage and hunt. We need to find food.”
He rose from his wooden chair and walked past her to the metal door of their mountain-side shelter. His boots clapped against the stone floor of the small cave in which they lived since the fallout. In anticipation of the end of the free world, when most of his friends thought of him as a paranoid doomsdayer, he had built a wall along the cave opening and cloaked it with moss and other forms of vegetation. This structure, once a secret hobby of his, was now his home.
At the door, he looked out the peephole and saw the brilliance of the sunshine. Through the trees, he saw a man and a boy walking, their clothes dark with moisture. His stomach growled as he watched them.
“Sam,” Peter said. “There are people out there.”
“Soldiers?”
“No, a man with a child.”
“Step aside,” Sam said. She looked through the peephole and licked her lips. “Well what are we waiting for,” Sam asked. “Let’s let them in.”
* * *
Clark sat motionless in the woods, watching as the man and the boy talked with the large man with the shotgun. “I don’t know about this guy, Jeff. I think we should do something.”
“And risk that guy blowing our brains out? I think we should just forget about these two. We should focus on heading south.”
Before Clark could respond, he saw the man and the boy head towards the open door in which a pretty woman stood. Her legs were long and slender, and she wore a vibrant smile on her face.
“Well who do we have here?” Clark asked.
“See,” Jeff sa
id. “They should be alright. Now let’s get the hell out of here.”
“Let’s just wait a little bit,” Clark said, looking at the boy. He thought about his own son, who had died several years before the war in an accident. The boy that was now walking through the cloaked door reminded Clark a lot of his son. “We need to make sure they are okay.”
Clark and Jeff waited in the brush for what felt like hours. “Enough is enough, Clark. Let’s go now.”
“Fair enough,” Clark said. “I guess they are fine.”
Before they could stand up, they saw the cloaked door open and the man and woman emerge. They left the door ajar as they strode away from the shelter. The man held his shotgun, and the woman had an ax by her side.
“Where are the boy and the man?” Clark whispered.
Before Jeff could reply, they heard the woman’s voice. “Try to find dry pieces, dear. We need to get the fire started. Don’t want to eat them raw.”
Clark’s eyes opened wide. Eat them? Though he heard of reports of cannibalism from fellow soldiers, he had no idea that it would be at the hands of a woman so gorgeous as the one who wielded the ax. He knew people sometimes got desperate, but resorting to cannibalism was out of the question as far as he was concerned.
From the cracked door, Clark heard a muffled whimper. The boy!
“We have salt left, right?” the man asked. “We need to preserve some of their meat in case no others come around in a while.”
“That’s enough,” Clark said, reaching for his rifle.
Clark lifted his firearm and pointed it at the man. The man reacted by lifting his shotgun, but before he could fire, Clark squeezed off a shot that hit him square in the chest. The man tumbled to the ground with a thud.
The woman shrieked as she ran towards the open door. Clark sprang from the brush and aimed his rifle at her back. The first shot grazed her left leg. She screamed out in terror as the second shot hit her in the back of the knees. She smacked her face off of the forest floor and scrambled to get back to her feet, though her attempts were futile.
“Keep an eye on her, Jeff,” Clark said, running past the wounded woman.
At the door to the shelter, Clark peered in. A kerosene lamp sat on a table near the center of the room. He entered the space and saw the boy and the man tied to two chairs near the table. Both were bleeding from blows to the head. The boy looked up, but from the gag in his mouth, was unable to speak. Clark removed the gag and heard the boy’s voice for the first time.
“They were…they were going to kill us,” the boy said faintly.
Out of the corner of his eye, Clark saw the man’s head rise slowly.
“Let me get that off of you,” Clark said, removing a gag from the man’s mouth.
The man looked at the boy to make sure he was okay and turned to look at Clark.
“Are you okay?” Clark asked.
“As far as I know. Thomas, are you hurt?”
“I’m fine,” the boy said.
“Let’s get you out of here,” Clark said, pulling a knife from his pocket. He used the knife to cut both of them free.
Outside the cave, the woman still lay on the ground, writhing in pain. Jeff aimed his rifle at the back of her head.
“What are we going to do with her?” Clark asked.
“I’ll take care of her,” Jeff said. “Start heading south. I’ll catch up with you in a few minutes.”
Clark removed his compass and determined which way was south. “This way,” he said to the man and the boy.
They walked through the woods and heard a few birds chirping in the trees. Clark heard the man’s voice from behind.
“Thanks again,” he said.
Before Clark could speak, a gunshot rang out from behind.
Clark cleared his throat. “Don’t mention it.”
“So where are we headed?”
“To meet up with the rebellion down south.”
“And then what?” the man asked.
Clark turned around to look at the man. “Fight to get our country back.”
# # #
TO BE CONTINUED…
IN EPISODE TWO
About the author:
JJ Holden lives in a small cabin in the middle of nowhere. He spends his days studying the past, enjoying the present, and pondering the future.
Contact JJ Holden at [email protected]
For more information on this series, go to jjholdenbooks.blogspot.com
Be sure to check out an excerpt from Maxwell Cunningham’s Spells Murder (A Todd Williams Story) at the end of this ebook!
THE MOST IMPORTANT THING YOU CAN DO…
…to help this writer, anyway.
Thank you for reading Life After - Episode 1. You’ve already made your way to the top of my Favorite People list, along with George, Paul, John, Ringo, Dean Koontz, Kurt Vonnegut, Stephen King, and Stephen Colbert.
But there’s one more thing I’d appreciate if you have a few minutes.
If you enjoyed Life After – Episode 1 (even if you kinda liked it), please LEAVE A REVIEW TODAY.
For a new writer like me, reviews make a huge difference between finding an audience and writing in obscurity. I would write if I only had one reader. I’m a writer and writers write. It’s in my blood. But the better my books do, the more I can write for readers like you.
Please consider writing a review today.
Thank you,
JJ Holden
Enjoy the following excerpt from Maxwell Cunningham’s Spells Murder (A Todd Williams Story):
Spells Murder
A Todd Williams Story
by
Maxwell Cunningham
Todd Williams’ retirement is cut short when he discovers a mutilated corpse near his beachside home in Myrtle Beach. In a note left on the body, the killer vows to strike again each day. As the bodies pile up and body parts go missing, Todd teams up with a local detective to put together the pieces of a puzzle that will lead them to a shocking discovery about the killer’s true intentions.
* * *
Day 1
Todd Williams wiped the sweat from his face and listened to the squawking of the seagulls that flew overhead. His body baked in the sun, and the smell of the salt water filled his nostrils. He looked out at the crashing waves that glistened in the afternoon sun. It was the end of March, and North Myrtle Beach was still relatively void of vacationers.
As he looked out at the ocean, only a few people blocked his view as they strolled past, mostly people who owned the few houses that were not rental properties. Even some of the owners of the beachside rental houses would occupy their houses before the offseason had concluded and peak season hit. Even with the lower rates they offered, most people chose to vacation over the summer. As a beach-side homeowner, Todd did not plan to rent his house out during peak season. He wanted to stay there all year long, regardless of the astronomical rents that such houses commanded during peak season. Besides, it was his only residence, and he couldn’t imagine himself being anywhere else.
Todd left out a great sigh and turned to face his wife, Melinda, who sat to his left in a blue and white striped beach chair identical to his. “I know I say this every day, but moving down here was a fantastic idea,” he said.
Melinda smiled. Her brown eyes matched her wavy hair that flowed down past her shoulders. “It sure was.”
Todd returned his gaze to the Atlantic and could practically feel the stress drip from his body. He had learned from his most recent visit to his new doctor that his blood pressure was much lower since he arrived to the area. Though memories of his past lingered, he found solace in his new life.
They lay in their reclined chairs until their beachside home behind them hid the sun and they were left in the shadows.
“Let’s pack it in,” Todd said.
Todd folded up his chair, stepped into his sandals, and secured the straps around his ankles. Melinda did the same, and they walked the seventy-odd paces to their back doo
rstep. The warm sand tickled his toes as he walked towards the two-story house that they had recently purchased. A single flight of wooden steps led to the back porch that sat about nine feet above the rocks below. The wood of the porch was cracked from years of sun exposure. Todd knew the house was a fixer-upper, but now that he was in retirement, he was able to tackle one project at a time. He told himself that the back porch was the first thing to fix. He knew a coat of sealant would do the trick, but every time he was ready to start the job, he looked out at the calming scene, and every time, decided that the project could wait another day.
As they walked towards the sliding screen door that led to the kitchen, he saw Melinda’s hand point towards the chipping wood. “When are you going to—”
“—Tomorrow,” Todd said, smiling. “I’ll get to it tomorrow.” He was unsure if he would actually do what he had promised. In his mind, he was in retirement, so it can always wait till tomorrow. He had spent years doing today what could be pushed off until tomorrow. Now he would revel in the fact that he could do the opposite. He could procrastinate if he wanted to and nobody would die as a result. Nobody’s lives were in his hands, and he was glad.
Once unlocked, he slid the door to the left.
“After you,” he said.
“I’m going to take a quick shower,” she said.