Gray Skies: Book 3 in the Thrilling Post-Apocalyptic Survival Series: (Darkness Rising - Book 3)

by Justin Bell

  “I get it,” Phil replied. “I mean, I don’t. I had a decent childhood, my parents provided well. I obviously can’t really relate, but I know it can be hard.”

  They walked through the grass in silence, moving alongside the road, staying in the shadows. Phil wasn’t sure how long they’d traveled since leaving the crash site, but he hoped they’d get back quickly. The faster they could verify the kids had made it out of the wreckage and get moving to the Lakeview Mall the better. He couldn’t even fathom a scenario where the kids were still at the crash site. He didn’t think anyone would be.

  “It is hard,” she replied. “I don’t know why, but it is. Maybe because I know what kind of childhood is possible? Every day I see how our kids live and all I can do is be reminded of how I was raised and feel…I don’t know…cheated somehow?”

  Phil stopped and turned back towards her. “But look how strong it made you,” he said. “Look what kind of woman you are. You’ve almost single-handedly held this family together while I’ve been sitting my butt in an office chair in health care corporate for almost twenty years. You are the core of this family. When I was giving the kids credit for their strength, I was owing that strength to you.”

  Rhonda smiled weakly but not convincingly.

  “It’s okay,” Phil said, “you can pass the torch to me. I’ll be the gun-toting butt kicker from now on.” He held up his hand, wrapped tight around the Glock he was carrying.

  “Safety’s on, smart guy,” Rhonda replied, and Phil scrambled to check.

  She was right, like always.

  He flicked it off, and they walked alongside the road, the low, flickering blue lights of the barricade now starting to show in the distance. The RV crash site would be relatively close, and Rhonda hoped her kids would be there with it. From where they were walking she couldn’t see any other vehicles and saw no signs that the gunmen or the plow truck were anywhere in the vicinity. Darkness embraced them and they continued walking, thinking positive thoughts, but preparing themselves for anything.

  ***

  Outside the FBI building on Justice Park Drive, the sun was starting to rise, a resonant orange globe hovering low in the sky shifting purple and pink in the early morning. The parking lot stood mostly empty, the lights along the windows dark, but inside, in a records room on the seventh floor, Ricky Orosco remained huddled in a chair, poring through files and folders, a small flashlight clamped between ridged teeth.

  Fields had absconded a few hours before, trying to slip out before some morning shift arrived, but Orosco was beyond caring. He’d found the rabbit hole. He’d dug up the mouth of the tunnel and was starting to dig his way deeper, unaware of the early morning hour and the brightening sky around the building.

  There had been a skeleton crew working FBI headquarters in Houston ever since the event, many of the agents dispatched to remote offices to support boots on the ground with recovery and investigation, but still others had just stopped coming to work, either in mourning or caring for family impacted by the detonations. The true cost of the nuclear attacks was difficult to quantify, and considering nearly half of the federal workforce was spontaneously no longer coming to work, it created an effect that wasn’t going to show up in newspaper articles or on stats sheets. When civilizations in the future looked back on the crumbling of democracy at its core, they would have no idea that things happened so quickly because those tasked with responding to the issues stopped answering their pagers, or were no longer capable of doing so.

  Or they were working for the wrong side.

  Orosco tried to tell himself that it wasn’t possible, that there was no way there was a vast national conspiracy to destroy American infrastructure, but as much as he tried to convince himself that that wasn’t the case, he’d stumble across another frightening link. Another loose end tying off into another string, creating a web of coincidences that felt less and less like coincidences the more that he found.

  Consolidated Tool and Dye remained at the center of the web, with tendrils reaching out through the domestic underground, connective tissue linking illegal militia movements throughout the continental United States. Militia movements who had finally had their fill of the shifting perspective of American democracy and had finally decided to take things into their own hands. Many of these militia movements had links and connections to people at the top of key government agencies, the FBI included, until Orosco had created an intricate diagram of connected individuals. He kept track of the diagram in a series of notebooks he was quickly filling up on various desks in the records room, trying to track from one to another, but keeping them easy to hide and disguise if necessary. His teeth chewed on the pink eraser mounted on his shortened yellow pencil, and every few moments he had to put down the pencil and draw a breath. To think about what he was doing and how he was doing it.

  Had he really become that person? A crazed conspiracy theorist convinced that every dark corner hid a twisted government-sponsored secret? It wasn’t who he wanted to be. His whole life he’d wanted to work for the FBI, the gold standard of federal law enforcement, and instead he was in a dark records room on the seventh floor, looking for ways to tear down the very agency he had sworn to serve.

  Yes, it seemed that even the FBI wasn’t immune to the conspiracy. Even the assistant director of the FBI had connections to two separate secret militia movements, something that had somehow remained concealed until American infrastructure had been shattered. How had it escaped notice? That was a question he might never answer, but he suspected it was because the information had been forever scrubbed from digital reserves, strategically identified and eliminated from the Internet.

  But not from paper records. Not from the ancient and old school records system maintained in the vast, dark basements of two isolated government buildings. Funny how it took the national dismantling of the entire connected infrastructure of America to reveal the truth.

  If it was the truth. Orosco still wasn’t fully convinced he hadn’t lost his mind. Perhaps that explained it. The death of his family and destruction of his home had driven him insane, and he was spiraling down a psychosis-induced pit of delusions of grandeur and paranoia. His eyes drooped and he was feeling light headed, a lack of sleep and his obliterated emotional state taking a toll.

  A fist rapped on the door behind him, a rapid slamming jolting him to full awareness even as he was starting to slump over one of the folders opened in front of him.

  “Yeah?” he barked, a little too loud and abrupt. “Who is it?”

  “Agent Orosco?” the voice said from the other side of the door. “Can you open the door please?”

  Orosco slapped the folder closed and slipped it into one of the bank boxes, which he swept from the table and set on the floor next to the desk. He checked quickly to verify that his notebooks were all closed, then stood and walked towards the door.

  “Security saw you badge in early yesterday, but not badge out,” said Agent Lewis as he looked at his shabby looking fellow agent. “You sleep here last night, Rick?”

  “Not sleep, exactly,” Orosco replied.

  “Come on, man. You need to get off duty for a bit.”

  “I’m all right, Lewis.”

  “There’s nothing you’re dealing with that can’t wait a few hours. We need you at the top of your game.”

  “I said I’m all right.”

  “Seriously, Rick. Grab some shut eye—”

  “I’ve got nowhere to go!” Orosco shouted, louder than he intended. Lewis faltered somewhat, cheeks flushing at the outburst. Orosco wasn’t sure if he was angry or embarrassed.

  “Sorry, Lewis,” Orosco said. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have…”

  “It’s all good, Orosco,” Lewis said. “And I’m sorry. I know what you’ve been going through has been…difficult.”

  Orosco didn’t reply.

  “We’ve got something for you to work on,” Lewis said. “Something a little less intense, maybe.”

  “Le
ss intense?” Orosco asked. “The world is a little intense right now. I’m not sure we should be deviating from the mission.”

  “At some point we have to. The majority of federal response is focusing on the incident. You obviously need some separation.”

  “I don’t want any separation. I need to do this, man.”

  “Go get some rest,” Lewis said. “There’s a cot in the basement. Once you’re done we can think about more permanent housing. I’m sure there are people here who would be willing to help.”

  The reality of the situation struck him then. They were going to move him off of this. Segregate him, isolate him. They’d be doing it for his ‘protection’. He didn’t buy it for a moment. His eyes narrowed at Lewis and for a brief moment, he saw something sinister there. But was it really there, or was his sleep deprived paranoia kicking in?

  Paranoia or not, they were going to limit his access to the investigation, that much was clear. His time here felt like it was almost up. Or at least his useful time.

  “Okay, let me clean up here,” he said quietly. “I’ll go down and grab some sleep. Figure out what to do from there.”

  “Good man,” Lewis replied, putting a hand on his arm. “Come see me in a few hours after you’re better rested, okay?”

  Orosco nodded as Lewis backed out of the room and shut the door behind him. As soon as the door eased closed, Orosco whipped around and darted towards the banker’s box to the right of the desk, ripping off the lid. He scooped up all six notebooks from the table and piled them into the box, set the top back on, and threw it under his arm, making his way to the door.

  Moments later he angled left down the hall, his feet squeaking on polished linoleum, the hallway empty as he moved towards the elevators. His eyes darted left to right in tune with the rapid thrum of his heart, sweat pooling at the crown of his forehead. As he walked towards the elevator he twisted around, looking to see if anyone was following him—he was certain they were—then he looked the other direction, his breath coming in rapid gasps. He could feel eyes in the hallway, as if every door he passed had agents peering out from the window, as if the ceiling panels were being lifted up with agents glaring down at him from above. Nearly running as he reached the elevators, he punched the button repeatedly with the stub of his finger as he awaited the ding of it reaching the seventh floor. He hit it, hit it, hit it, and hit it again, and a solitary ding signaled its arrival.

  Darting around, he verified that nobody was tailing him down the hall, then he plunged into the elevator and slammed the door closed button, closing him off from the rest of the seventh floor, his heart finally slowing. Breath stung in his lungs, a lack of sleep pulling at his thoughts, peeling them away, revealing the dirty, paranoid undergrowth as the elevator continued on past the lobby and dinged as it hit the second sub-basement.

  Orosco took several deep breaths trying to steady himself and ran an arm over his head to wipe away the sweat. The door slid open, revealing a pair of agents in khaki pants and button-up shirts, waiting for the elevator. His heart leaped up into his throat and his eyes widened as they glared at him.

  He stood there for a moment, lock still, everyone looking at each other uncomfortably, shifting on their feet.

  “This your stop?” one of them asked, looking around.

  “Uh. Yeah,” Orosco replied. “Thanks.” He exited, slipping past the two, clutching the banker’s box close to his chest. The two entered the elevator as he wandered down the dimly lit hallway and he heard the distinct slide of the car raising up to higher floors.

  Orosco stopped and set the box down on the floor, looking at the door marked “Wiring Closet 47.” He took another quick look up and down the hall, then swiped his badge over the reader, unlocking the door, and swept inside, dragging the box in with him.

  There was a single wiring rack in the closet where several copper phone lines had been terminated along with a few fiber lines which were punched to Cat 6 cables plugged into a pair of Cisco routers. Wedged into the rack between the two routers was a single darkly colored workstation, and Orosco eased it out and checked the modem card in back, making sure all of the cables were securely connected.

  The Remote Access Server he’d configured and deployed down in the wiring closet looked the same as it had since he’d initially staged it over a week ago. Rewiring just a few of the various twisted pair copper lines, he’d developed a rudimentary internet service provider, though connectivity was restricted to just a pair of endpoints. Looking back at the locked door, he slipped his modified cell phone from his pocket and fired it up.

  Sure enough a new message indicator displayed.

  Landed south of Chi-town. Something stinks up here, but I know a guy. More later.

  Orosco thumbed his own response.

  Digging up dirt. Militias deployed to strategic locations to support rogue federal agencies. Chicago a hot spot.

  He sent the message and stared at his phone for a few moments. He wasn’t necessarily expecting an immediate response, but he got one.

  Acknowledged. Ambushed and separated. Heading to Lakeview Mall N of Peoria to rendezvous.

  Orosco nodded at the reply, glancing down at the banker’s box sitting on the floor. He thought about Lewis and about his new role at the FBI. His days of having a long leash appeared to be swiftly dwindling.

  Stay safe. Keep me posted.

  He slipped the phone in his pocket and turned to pick up the box. Lewis wanted him out of the way, so he’d get out of the way.

  ***

  The engine roared as the bright orange truck crested the low slope of paved hill, then veered downward towards the off-ramp, the tall, wide sign for the Lakeview Mall looming up over the two-lane highway.

  “I don’t think Karl’s gonna be real happy,” growled Nate Prescott from the driver’s seat as he eased the large, cumbersome vehicle into the entrance and towards the vast, four-section parking lot.

  “Karl will just havta learn to get over it,” replied Bruce Cavendish. He sat in the passenger seat of the huge truck, his arm bent and resting on the opened sill of the window. Bruce glanced out the rearview mirror and saw two pick-up trucks cruising along behind them, the vague shapes of men in the front windshields.

  “We leave our van behind?” Cavendish asked.

  Nate nodded. “Yep. Leaving no stone unturned.”

  The truck was construction vehicle orange, a bright and visible swath of Detroit steel, the dual angled plow on the front bolted into a “V” shape. Shreds of plastic and torn metal were wrapped around the blades of the plow, a thick, ragged chunk of what looked to be exhaust manifold wedged in between the blunt face of the hood and the sloped blade.

  “Well, then sounds like Karl can kiss our asses, huh?”

  “Man, I dunno, Bruce. The guys that run with him…I don’t scare easily, but they kinda give me the willies.”

  Bruce didn’t reply, but secretly, he’d been a little intimidated himself. Karl Green wasn’t someone he’d run into much, even with his work in the West Plains Militia, but he was the kind of guy who had a reputation. A reputation so outlandish that it made him seem more like a made up boogey man designed to frighten fresh-faced preppers, and less like a real person. But he was real, and on the face of it he appeared just as hard and sharp as the rumors suggested. From what Bruce had heard, he’d had family in Waco during the standoff with ATF, and he thought he’d heard that one of his older brothers actually died in that conflict. What role that played in his shift towards anti-government Bruce wasn’t sure, but it likely didn’t help.

  The plow truck eased to a stop in front of the main entrance of the shopping mall, which had been heading towards desolation even before the nuclear attacks from over a month prior. Most of the anchor stores had long since left, and the smaller shops struggled to pay rent and finance their continued survival without the huge draws there to pull in foot traffic. Bruce jumped out of the passenger side, the large truck sitting a few feet off the ground, and walked
around the plow, letting his rifle dangle over his shoulder on a loose strap. Nate slid down from his seat as well.

  “What store was this, anyway?” Bruce asked, looking up at the large square slab of concrete at the front of the store where a sign used to be.

  “Circuit City, I think,” Nate replied. “Who knows? Does it matter?”

  Bruce shrugged. “Just another failed byproduct of this junk heap country we’ve turned into. Landscape of broken box stores and fourteen restaurants for every five civilians. Shame.”

  He plowed his shoulder into the door, forcing it open, and squeezed through while the two pickups following them swerved around the plow truck and parked.

  Cavendish’s tan boots squeaked on the polished and checkered linoleum floor, marked and damaged by water stains and drag marks where shelving units used to be. Glass cases sat empty along one wall, and the skeletal remains of cash registers lined the far section of this first flat square area. At the door between the large anchor store and the rest of the mall, a handful of figures emerged. They each wore clean shaven heads, and two of them had tattoos on their scalps. One of the men sported a jet black leather jacket above tight dark blue jeans, while two others had plain white tank tops stretched taut over muscular builds. A third one wore dark sunglasses even though they were inside and the emergency lighting already wasn’t exceptionally bright.

  “Karl’s asking for you,” one of the men said in a deep, southern drawl, dragged out as if it were carved in stone.

  “I’m right here,” Bruce replied. Nate came up on his left and three others on his team brought up the rear. Everyone in the room was carrying some kind of weapon, though Bruce had far and away the most potent one, a tactically modified M4A1 automatic. If the bald-headed goons were intimidated, they made no sign of it.

  Bruce followed them out into the single-level mall, a sprawling structure in the shape of a cross, lined with shops. Every shop was long since abandoned, the entire mall a throwback to the days of rampant, aggressive capitalism. Glass window store fronts still persisted all up and down the wide aisles, and in some stores, the bare remains of shelves and displays still sat. At one point the mall must have been beautiful—the patterned floor, an ornate decorative fountain near the center of the crosses, and what was, at one point, a fancy digital mall directory stood where they entered the larger structure.