The Age of Embers {Book 3): The Age of Reprisal

by Schow, Ryan

  “You’re fine,” he said. “Sundown.”

  He didn’t want to invite the tweeker down the street to family dinner, but he had to give the kid a chance. Maybe he was the gamer and his roasted buddy was the tweeker. Maybe they were both dead—the tweeker from blowing up his meth lab and the gamer from being inside and dying there.

  He saw Ice across the street, looking at the bus.

  “How soon ‘til it’s ready?” he asked.

  “Probably now. We can button it up over the next few days while we wait on Orlando. But that’s not the issue. We can’t just up and go. We need food, supplies, camping gear not to mention fresh water stores and our essentials.”

  “What about us?” Draven asked. Half a dozen people had invited them to go, but did they even have the room for the extra bodies and a wheelchair?

  “What about us?” Eudora countered, looking at him from out on the Dimas’s porch. “This is our home.”

  “We rent for God’s sake.”

  “So?”

  “So I don’t want to stay in this mess for a house I don’t own that’s been attacked already. Bad stuff happened in there.”

  “Hello,” she says, slapping her hand on the side of her wheelchair, as if he somehow forgot she was paralyzed from the waist down.

  “We’ll make room,” Adeline says from behind her. Fire and Brooklyn are coming out front, too. Looking back at them, Adeline says, “Right?”

  “Absolutely,” Fire told her.

  “I’ll just be a burden,” she said. “And before you all start feeling sorry for me, don’t. I’ve dealt with worse than this in my life.”

  “But you’re our matriarch,” Ice said, not far behind Fire.

  With a reassuring smile, Brooklyn added, “To be honest, Eudora, it would be a burden not having you with us.”

  Chapter Twelve

  Jill Murdock was never a girl’s girl. She didn’t do dress up, or act overly emotional, or even get clingy. And she especially didn’t get jealous. Now she stood out under the open sky, exhausted from no sleep and the unrelenting push and pull of her feelings.

  When she thought Rock was dead, she began to privately mourn for him. When he showed up alive, looking all but dead, she felt her prayers were answered.

  The second she saw him, that breath she was holding finally emerged, causing her heart to beat again. Then he saw her. The girl he’d come in with.

  In the back of her mind, where instincts trumped logic, she knew the two of them were together. She saw the concern in Rock’s eyes and she just knew. To what extent they were familiar with each other she couldn’t be certain. All she knew was her senses were flaring.

  At first, she tried ignoring this feeling. Even though they had problems, they were a couple. They were a couple even when they weren’t.

  But were they?

  The second she tried to kiss him and he didn’t kiss her back, she got the overwhelming feeling that they weren’t a couple at all, that Rock had treated their break as a real break, meaning he was free to see and sleep with other women. It was this sad, sick feeling that caused her to eavesdrop on Rock and Maisie. She needed to know.

  That was when her worst fears were realized.

  They’d slept together.

  She was right.

  She didn’t know much about the people who were staying around the house and helping get the compound ready. She knew them, but she didn’t really know them. But guys like Gregor and his buddies? These were the kinds of guys she knew because of her past.

  When Gregor started asking how prepared the group was for long term survival, Jill told them all they needed to know.

  “When are you guys heading out?” she asked Gregor as the others wandered off.

  “I’m divorced with a kid who hates me and a wife who keeps us apart,” Gregor answered. “Chad has a girlfriend he was planning on breaking up with when he got back and Alphonse has been single for a few years. He says he’s happier that way.”

  “What about the other two?” Jill asked.

  “Oscar and Kane?”

  “Sure.”

  “Kane keeps to himself quite a bit and Oscar might be gay, but we don’t know. He could be a man-whore to older woman, younger women or both. He just likes everyone, which makes him the weak one. He’s like the den mother to us all.”

  Jill laughed, but there was nothing funny about anything.

  “Well grab two of them and let’s go. I want to make a run to Sutter Hospital. If there’s anything we’re weak on now, it’s medical supplies.”

  “Do you know exactly what you need?” Gregor asked.

  “I have a list.”

  Gregor rounded up Kane and Alphonse, then the four of them jumped into an old ranch truck, one the EMP didn’t seem to have affected. Jill drove and Gregor rode up front; Kane and Alphonse sat in the back, AR-15s ready should they need to defend themselves.

  Everyone had weapons and ammo, but Jill said she didn’t think they’d need them.

  Most of the stores and gas stations along the way looked either destroyed or looted. There were people on the street, scavengers, survivors, corpses laid out in droves, many of them having expired from starvation, from bullet holes, from being hit by cars and left to die. What they didn’t see much of, however, were other active vehicles. Because of his, Jill felt that no one really seemed that dangerous.

  The EMP ruined everything.

  It saved them from the unrelenting drone attacks, but it also put humanity at risk of massively depleting numbers through starvation, violence, sickness and eventually death.

  When Jill allowed herself to think outside of a two day window, she saw the future and it looked so bleak it could have her sobbing in a corner for hours. The complications that came with their current situation were too vast for even her to consider.

  That’s why she operated on a forty-eight hour window as much as possible. Anything beyond forty-eight hours scared her.

  When they worked their way into Roseville, they navigated their way through and around the haphazard gridlock of traffic, making pathways where they could and over what they could, all to get to more manageable grounds and to the hospital.

  Sutter Hospital was bombed early on in the attacks, but that didn’t mean there weren’t supplies to be had. The four of them poured through the debris collecting medical supplies and anything else they thought might be of use. When they emerged from the other side of the building, they saw a Humvee with a large horse trailer attached to the back.

  Two men in military fatigues were hustling a group of three people into the back of the trailer. Jill couldn’t tell if the people were resisting or not. No one seemed overly agitated or on edge. Her eyes fell on the driver. Standing outside the Humvee’s front door, he was armed, but he didn’t go for his pistol when he saw them.

  Smiling, he said, “Afternoon.”

  His cool demeanor put Jill at ease. She said, “What are you guys doing?”

  “Checking for survivors,” the soldier answered. He looked clean cut, early thirties, very military. “Found a few more here. We’re getting these people to a refugee center to get them checked out.”

  “Are they going willingly?” Gregor asked, his posture a little taller, a little more aggressive but without posing an obvious threat.

  “Of course.”

  “And if I ask them, will they say the same thing?” Jill added, her voice calm, still not much reason for concern.

  He laughed casually, then said, “Well I hope so.”

  Jill felt Gregor’s anxious energy start to soften. No one was entirely at ease because of the situation, but everyone seemed capable of rational conversation. Gregor went to the man, reached out and offered a hand. The man shook it.

  “I’m Gregor, this is Jill.”

  The solider gave a polite nod Jill’s way, but neither of them moved toward the other.

  “I’m Lance,” he said, somewhat distracted. He pointed over Jill’s shoulder and said, “What about
them?”

  He was referring to Alphonse and Chad. The two men were emerging through the rubble, making their way outside the blown open end of the hospital, their arms filled with boxes of supplies. Jill didn’t want to say they were the mules, but they were.

  Gregor turned, saw them and said, “That’s Alphonse and Chad. They’re with us.”

  “Are you from here?” Jill asked.

  “Beale Air Force Base, down in Marysville,” Lance said. “We came here to assist.”

  “Who are you assisting?” Gregor asked.

  “Our CO.”

  “So you’re operating on your Commanding Officer’s orders, but whose orders is he following?” Jill asked.

  “That’s on a need to know basis,” he said, casually, almost yawning, “and apparently I didn’t need to know. What I do know is that Beale is gone. The drones turned on us. They bombed us, pretty much sniped everything that moved. We lost seventy-five percent of our people, easy.”

  “Has your CO heard from the President?” Gregor asked.

  “Not that I know of.”

  Alphonse and Chad sat the boxes down, introduced themselves. They all shook hands. It was all very civilized.

  “Are you from around here?” Lance asked.

  He was quietly sizing up the guys, doing very little, it seemed, to keep his head. Jill didn’t trust most people, and though she had every reason to trust Lance, it was the other two she was worried about. But if there was a problem with those two, she reasoned, she would see traces of it in his expression.

  “We’re LAPD,” Alphonse said. “Looks like we’re stuck here for more than the short term.”

  “You’re LAPD?” Lance asked, not surprised, more like impressed.

  “Yeah,” Gregor replied. Looking at Jill, the ginger cop said, “She’s former military.”

  He gave another nod, this one of approval. Now everyone felt better. Jill relaxed. Even as she heard the people walking inside the trailer and the doors being shut and locked, the hair on her arms weren’t standing up.

  This was a positive indicator.

  The two guys with Lance came around the side of the Humvee. They saw Jill’s group, but offered nothing in the way of an expression. Apparently Lance was the polite, congenial one.

  “They coming with us?” one of them asked.

  A cloud of thin smoke blew through there, not so heavy they were left choking and rubbing their eyes, but enough to leave a sharpness in their noses and in the backs of their throats. It smelled like a wood fire rather than a gas or oil fire.

  “Not unless they want to,” Lance said. His two co-workers jumped into the vehicle.

  “If you need a place to stay, a home<” Lance said, “you’re more than welcome to come by, see what we’re doing.”

  “What are you doing?” Jill asked.

  There were fires still burning and the smoke was getting a touch soupy. She wished she hadn’t asked the question. She just wanted to grab their supplies, make a final sweep, then get home.

  “Same as you,” Lance answered. “Just trying to put one foot in front of the other.”

  “Where are you taking those people?” Oscar asked now that the smoke started to thin again. He’d missed the part of the conversation where Lance said they were taking them to a refugee camp.

  Lance told them they’d constructed a sanctuary out of an old Walmart, one that had been closed down and converted into a warehouse. The military had requisitioned it now and was using it for people who couldn’t help themselves.

  “So those people you put in the back of a horse trailer, they’re going with you on their own accord?” Alphonse asked.

  “Did you ever serve?” Lance asked, his tone subtly shifting.

  “I served my city.”

  “That’s not the same thing as killing people,” Lance said, “or being trained and licensed to kill people.”

  “That doesn’t make me any less lethal,” Alphonse challenged.

  “This is true,” Lance conceded. “But it does mean your mindset is different than ours.”

  “What are you doing with them?” Jill asked.

  “I already told you.”

  “You spoke in generalities,” Gregor said, his tone matching Lance’s. “Perhaps you could entertain us with specifics.”

  “We can’t get in touch with any kind of central command, so we’ve set up our own chain of command. We’re working on a humanitarian basis, but this is also a clean-up op.”

  “What’s the big picture?” Oscar asked.

  Lance gave a small snort, looked back at his buddies who gave the hurry-up-already gesture, then turned back to him.

  “There is no America left. We’re done. As a nation, as a people, our military and infrastructure. No one wants to talk about this, but this is a reality we’ve come to face.”

  “We’re clear on that already,” Alphonse said. Then pointing to the horse trailer, his tone obviously escalating, he said, “But what about them?”

  “We need good people for a community we’re starting.”

  “In the city?” Jill asked.

  “We don’t want to be in the city long term, but for now we’re trying to clean up sections of it, see what’s salvageable. Half of us will gather as many resources as we can while the other half will head into the countryside and start several homesteads. It’s all we can do. We need to think about the future of mankind or we’re going to be extinct.”

  “Why are you in Roseville?” she asked.

  “For the hospital.”

  She wondered if there was a thread there, something she could pull to get more information out of him. The hairs on her arms may not be standing up in warning, but she wasn’t buying his story. Then again, she didn’t have a reason not to. What she cared about most was that something in her gut was telling her things were slightly off.

  “For the hospital?” she asked.

  “We’re one of several groups scavenging the local hospitals. The horse trailer is for supplies, not people. But we have the room, so we can take these people. We’re a humanitarian group, Jill. I told you that already.”

  Behind them, one of the guys hit the Humvee’s horn, startling them all.

  Lance turned around and said, “Calm your tits!” Back to them, red in the cheeks, he said, “The point is, we’re moving forward, and that means setting up a perimeter around the city on major thoroughfares as well as a perimeter around our central command.”

  “What are you going to do with the dead bodies?” Oscar asked. “Because that’s not a problem now, but it’s going to be when they all start to rot.”

  “We’re using them to establish our perimeter,” he said matter-of-fact.

  “You’re making walls of bodies?” Jill asked, aghast.

  “It encourages people to go another way. This is a big job and we could use able-bodied people like yourselves, so seriously, you should come check it out. There’s food, shelter, a sense of community…”

  “If I opened the back of that horse trailer would the people there say they are helpless and you’re helping them?” Jill pressed.

  “What’s with you and the damned people in the trailer?” Oscar hissed.

  “Let him answer,” Gregor barked back.

  “Why don’t you go ask them?” Lance finally said. Tapping his head, he said, “But right now their brains are a little scrambled and they don’t really know what’s best for them until it’s too late. But you want to hear that from them? Go ask. We’re not taking them against their will if that’s what you’re not so subtly suggesting.”

  “How many of you are there?” Jill asked. “Not here, but there. At your camp.”

  “About forty so far. Men and women of all talents and inclinations. Capable people like you four. Plus about fifty or more we’re caring for. So maybe ninety total? A hundred tops?”

  “So you’re saying we can come by?” Gregor asked. “See your operation?”

  Looking at Jill, he said, “Do you know the
Walmart center they turned into a boat storage facility out in East Sac, just off Northgate Boulevard?”

  “That was about two years ago, right?”

  “I think so. Anyway, we’re out there. If you come by, tell them Ham Sandwich sent you.”

  “Why not just ask for Lance?” Jill asked.

  “No one there calls me Lance,” he replied.

  “Ham sandwich?” Oscar said.

  “It’s a short, embarrassing story, but that’s how everyone knows me. It’s also how you can get in and tour the facility.”

  Lance got into the truck, gave them a wave, then started the Humvee and backed out of the lot and drove off.

  Jill looked at Gregor, then the other guys and said, “Do you believe him?”

  “Not all the way,” Gregor said.

  “Me neither,” she said. Looking at Oscar and Alphonse, she asked, “What about you guys?”

  Oscar and Alphonse looked at each other, then both said, “Nope” in perfect unison.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Of the twenty-some refugees that now called Rock’s five acres “home,” Jill had about seven of the older men under her charge. These were guys in the community who lost everything. Guys who needed others. With Jill, they were pulling their weight managing compound projects, one of which was the newly created water collection and treatment process.

  There were also other people working the crops Jill made Rock plant when they first got there. The harvest was still a little ways away, and it wouldn’t be much in the face of so many people, but it was a start.

  They were now expanding the fields, tilling the soil, planting what seeds they knew would grow into the early winter months. After that they inventoried the seeds, tried to anticipate long term survival based on what they had if the power didn’t come back on.

  A big part of growing a garden was watering it. Most days Jill and the guys brainstormed ways to deliver water so they wouldn’t have to hump it in daily, or rely on the occasional rainfall.

  Jill knew they had more than just consumption to think about. After the watering of the crops, there was a gallon of water a day for every person there. When she started doing the math on that, her brain went into overload.