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

by Justin Bell

  Karl shook his head. “Such petty vengeance. There are so many more important things to be focusing on than revenge for your dirt bag brother, Bruce. He was killed before he could see our grand scheme come together. It’s a shame, but life isn’t fair, right?”

  Cavendish looked at him. “So I’ve heard.”

  Karl looked at the two vehicles, parked about ten feet apart, gunmen peeling themselves out of the vans and stationing themselves at or near the front door, many of them carrying M4A1 automatics.

  “Fine,” he barked. “Have it your way.” He looked up at the darkening sky. “It’s getting late; I’m heading back inside. Do what you must, but I swear to you, if you waste any of my men on a fool’s errand, there will be a price to pay.”

  “You got it, boss,” Bruce replied. Karl shook his head and walked inside the mall. The front entrance was two glass doors surrounded by several wide windows, showing the decorative lobby just behind. Even through the front doors you could see the fountain about halfway down the mall passageway, various shops branching off right and left. It would be night soon, and emergency lights were failing, leaving them in the dark.

  Did the Fraser group have lights? Or if they struck, would they need to do it before full dark? There were so many things at play and so many scenarios to consider.

  “Someone’s coming.”

  Cavendish turned to look at one of the gunmen who stepped around the blunt hood of the black van. He pointed out towards the access road and Bruce looked, following the path of his finger. Sure enough, a slender car was hurtling over the pavement of the parking lot, barreling towards them at a high rate of speed.

  “What is this?” he demanded as the car continued trucking towards them, the accelerator revving to a fever pitch. In the settling dusk he couldn’t make out anything beyond the windshield which looked flat and solid in the low light.

  “Open fire!” Bruce screamed, pointing at the car. “Open fire right now!” He backed away and darted towards the mall entrance. “I need to get my weapon!”

  Guns exploded all around the front entrance of the mall, chattering from automatic fire, interspersed with the loud, single-shot pops of revolvers and pistols, orange and yellow flame bursting from extended barrels. Gunmen were huddled behind the car and van, blasting off gunfire which struck the car with a series of scattered sparks and metal thwacks. The car continued to scream towards them even as bullets pinged and panged uselessly from the hood and windshield.

  “Wait a minute,” said one of the gunmen as the car careened closer. Squinting in the low light, he saw why the bullets were having no effect. Over the top of the windshield and the front hood of the car, a series of flat metal slabs were tied off like an armor plate, reinforced metal shelving units by the looks of things, all layered and strapped down.

  “How can they see—” he started to ask, but the car was already on top of them, already slamming into the front section of the van, sending it lurching aside, metal crumpling under the swift impact, sending gunmen sprawling. The right side of the car missed the sedan, but the momentum of the hurtling vehicle carried it through the front windows and doors of the mall’s main entrance, exploding into the structure in a whirling cacophony of the twisted metal door frame and broken glass. The noise was loud and sudden, the shattering burst of Detroit metal through flimsy protective glass, commandos scrambling and diving out of the way.

  As the car sat there, steam rising from the crumpled hood and the dead engine ticking like a spastic clock, two gunmen approached the driver’s side door, one of them with a pistol raised. The first one looked back at him, hooking fingers in the car door handle and the second man nodded, aiming his weapon into the vehicle. Gunman one jerked, flinging open the door, and the second man fired, the pistol bucking in his grasp as he blew through six rounds in a matter of seconds.

  The smoke cleared. The front seat of the car was empty. As the men glared inside, they could see the steering wheel tied down with a combination of bailing wire and bungee cords, and a large chunk of broken granite had been wedged into the accelerator.

  Nobody else was inside.

  The two men looked at each other curiously.

  From the back side of the mall, Greer charged forward, Max and Brad just at his heels, firing his AK-12 assault rifle. The weapon barked loud and long in the ringing din of the smashing car, and as the gunmen behind the sedan turned, two of them shouted in pain and went scattering to the cement.

  “Hostiles at nine o’clock!” screamed someone and the full attention of the men at the front entrance shifted to where Greer and the boys were running, weapons unloading in an orchestra of smattering bangs.

  From the same direction as the car traveled from, Angel and Winnie charged in the low light, Angel halting for a moment and shouldering his M4A1, then pulling the trigger three times, dropping one of the gunmen behind the van. He spun away, his weapon flying into the air. Winnie moved left past Angel, getting closer, her Beretta barking gunfire in a series of calculated shots. The window of the van blasted apart and a second gunman dropped behind the van, shouting in pain.

  The plan had worked! Distraction with the car, then a pincer move from two directions; it was coming together just like designed. Maybe they would be able to pull it off after all.

  As they moved forward, metallic bangs echoed near the rear of the van as two back doors swung open. Shifting movement burst from the back, a series of moving shapes, and as Winnie watched, at least a dozen gunmen hit the pavement, all armed with automatic assault rifles, turning to face their targets and preparing to open fire.

  ***

  Rhonda jerked upright at the sound, her eyes flying open. “Those were gunshots, Phil!” she screamed. “Gunshots! They’re actually coming after us!”

  “Why would they do that?” Phil asked, trying to work himself upright. “Why?”

  Rhonda knew. Rhonda knew the plan almost immediately and knew what they were asking of them. She’d known the minute Winnie had slipped her the knife when she had stopped in before. She’d placed it neatly in Rhonda’s hands behind her back and had said they’d need her help, and that was all Rhonda needed to know.

  She had cut through the tape, but remained in the same position, waiting for the right time. Two men stood guard, one in a t-shirt and one in a sweatshirt, standing lax but attentive, their pistols in their holsters. As soon as the first gunshots barked out in the parking lot, they removed their pistols and started towards the door.

  “Bruce told us to stay here,” one of them whispered.

  “Didn’t you hear that?” the other one said.

  Rhonda moved, pushing herself to her feet and moving in on the one in the sweatshirt. She thrust the knife around in a tight arc, drilling it hilt-deep under his right arm and he screamed, the pistol falling from lax fingers. Rhonda spun him away, then she charged towards the second gunman, slashing with the knife and gouging the inside of his forearm, forcing the weapon free of his hand, then slashed back the other way, tearing through the carotid artery at his throat. He was dead before he hit the ground. Rhonda now had two pistols and her knife, and she hurried towards Phil, who was glaring at her wide-eyed and slack-jawed. She moved around him and worked at the tape around his wrists with the knife, freeing him from his binds. She forced the pistol into his hands and he clutched it in spite of the raw and reddened flesh at his wrists.

  “What exactly is going on here?” he asked.

  “Winnie. She slipped me a knife,” Rhonda said, smiling. “That’s our smart girl. I wanted to tell you, but those two would have overheard.” She shrugged apologetically.

  “So, what are we supposed to do?”

  “Liu’s at the candy store. Let’s head over and get him freed, then figure out what to do from there. Sounds like a war is going on outside.” As they moved towards the entry to the clothing store, Rhonda peered out and saw the car’s nose burst through the front doors. It remained in the mall lobby, hood covered with shattered glass. Beyond th
e abandoned car, she could see the van doors flying open and a flood of gunmen vacating the vehicle, and her stomach pitched as she watched.

  “Oh no,” she whispered. “There are too many of them. Way too many.”

  Phil charged out into the lobby, swerved around the car, and darted into the candy shop, Rhonda following after him. Liu first, then helping their family—that was the only way things could go down. As she entered the candy store, the noise of what sounded like a hundred machine guns erupted outside, further amplifying the already deafening racket.

  “Come over here!” Phil shouted. “He’s cuffed to the leg of a counter. If we lift it, he can slip free!”

  Rhonda ran over, bending low and hooking her fingers around the bottom of the counter.

  “Can you do this?” Brandon asked. “Your shoulder…”

  “Shut up, Brandon. Let us do this.” The two of them curled their knees and pushed upward, groaning through straining muscles, the counter easing up off the ground, little by little. The narrow silver post leg came up about half an inch.

  “Can you do it?” Rhonda asked, her voice a strained shout.

  Brandon twisted and yanked, and pulled the other end of the cuff free, sending him rolling to his left.

  “I’m free!” he shouted.

  “Hey!” a voice yelled from the doorway. A gunman in a black tactical vest and with a rifle stepped into the doorway, swinging it towards them. “How did you—”

  Phil’s hand shot up out of reflex, the finger jerking on the trigger, firing three times. The first two shots smacked into the armored vest, but the third shot plowed into the man’s face, sending him sprawling and tumbling backwards, his weapon scattering across the floor.

  “Nice shooting, Phillip!” Rhonda said. “Brandon, grab his rifle!”

  Liu charged forward and swept the M4A1 from the ground, lifting it in a firing stance and preparing to charge out into the lobby to help clear the front entrance for the team.

  “Don’t even think about it,” a voice hissed from their left as they came out and Rhonda spun, her weapon aiming lazily as she struggled with the pain in her shoulder.

  Bruce Cavendish and Karl Green were both walking down the main aisle of the mall, flanked by half a dozen armed men, weapons all trained on the three.

  “You so much as exhale when you’re supposed to inhale, and we will open fire and tear you down. This game ends here and now.”

  ***

  “Down, down, down!” shouted Angel as he dropped back, his M4A1 barking fire towards the van, chunks of spent asphalt shooting up around his ankles. Gunfire peppered at him and Winnie, a dozen gunmen charging from the back of the van, and they both scrambled backwards, lunging for any kind of cover. Winnie twisted and blindly fired her Beretta back towards the van as they dodged and weaved, running back towards the access road, trying to make for hard targets. Angel placed a hand on her back and shoved, torqueing his waist and launching her from the pavement, over one of the concrete barricades on the border of the access road, half a parking lot away. She tumbled over the barricade as 5.56 millimeter rounds pelted it, whacking chunks of concrete from it and punching divots in the once smooth surface. Angel was just behind her, sprawling down onto the pavement next to her as rounds screamed just overhead and scattered across the surrounding ground.

  “Too close!” Winnie huffed as she checked her magazine.

  “Way too close,” Angel agreed, then rose up on a knee, aimed, and fired three times, dropping one of Green’s crew.

  Noise was everywhere, a constant whipping thunder all around them, and Winnie was having a hard time focusing with the sounds crashing down.

  “Winnie and Angel made it…barely!” Greer shouted, backing away to the left, adjusting the track of his AK-12 and firing again. One of the approaching West Plains Militia members caught a round and went sprawling over the hood of the car parked near the entrance.

  Max and Brad back-tracked to the corner of the mall and huddled there while Greer came back to join them.

  “There’s too many of them,” Greer spat. “Way too many. This is not good.” As if to signal just how ‘not good’ it was, a bullet flew by and spranged off the light post to Greer’s left, whining off into the darkness, barely audible under the rumbling shudder of noise.

  Greer looked around the parking lot. Even with all the gunfire and shouting, there seemed to be an underlying din of consistent thumping, a strange pattern of sound coming from nowhere and everywhere all at the same time. He pushed it out of his mind as he drew to the left, looking for a free shot and took one, but he didn’t hit anyone.

  “There’s at least fifteen or twenty guys out there,” Greer whispered. “Against our five. They’re barricaded in there really well. I don’t know how we can punch through.”

  “What about the passages Winnie was talking about?” Brad asked, taking a peek down the edge of the wall at a couple of the metal doors.

  “We weren’t a fan of that idea,” Greer barked. “Everyone is too close to the front! But I’m thinking that might be our best play. I don’t think any of us were expecting this much resistance!”

  “On it!” shouted Max.

  Max and Brad walked down the length of the wall, keeping it close on their left, Max actually touching it with his palm as they moved. The light grew dimmer as they moved deeper inside, and he wanted to keep them on a straight path. They were about halfway down the wall when a metallic bang sent the door ahead of them flying open and two West Plains Militia members spilled out.

  “Back here!” one of them shouted and opened fire with his pistol. He wasn’t a very good shot and the first two went wide right, the third glancing off the wall about three feet above Max’s crouching head.

  “Move back!” Max screamed. “Move back to the corner, pull back!” He brought his revolver around and fired twice but couldn’t tell if he’d hit anyone. Brad did the same with his Ruger .380 and had a similar result. They ducked back around the corner, coming up on Greer as the two men fired.

  “We’ve got trouble there, too!” Max shouted.

  “So I hear,” replied Greer. “Any other bright ideas?”

  A full parking lot away, Winnie came up above the barricade and fired her pistol, but dropped back down before she could see if she hit anyone. More return fire barreled down around her and Angel.

  She pressed her back to the barricade. “I think we’re out of options, Angel.”

  He was seated against the barricade as well. “I think you may be right.”

  He looked at her. “Sorry about this. I thought it was a solid plan.”

  “Hey, we all went along with it. And my bonehead idea got them all fired up in the first place.” They had to shout over the thundering sound of the chaos all around them.

  “Thank you for everything,” Winnie said quietly. “You didn’t know us. You didn’t have to save our lives at Vernon. No matter what happened in your life, you’re good people, Angel.”

  He smiled. “Thanks, chica. You, too, okay? But we’re not giving this up yet. I got six mags and plenty of fire left in my guts. I ain’t giving up nothing yet.”

  Winnie looked around, trying to isolate the noise, a faint, but rattling roar. It was a sound with a hint of familiarity, as if it was something she’d grown accustomed to hearing back during simpler times, but in this new world, she couldn’t quite connect the dots.

  All across the parking lot, nearly two dozen gunmen armed with automatic assault rifles set up a perimeter by the three vehicles at the entrance, securing their positions, setting up aimed emplacements, and Winnie knew with every passing moment, their chances of rescuing her parents, and yes, even their chances of survival themselves, got lower and lower.

  She’d done her best. It hadn’t been quite good enough.

  Chapter 10

  Angel waved and Greer noticed, returning the signal. The light was growing dim, and the constant roaring noise in the air was making concentration difficult, but the two groups sign
aled with brief hand motions. They were out of time and out of options and had to think of something. Anything.

  Suicide run? Winnie didn’t want to think about that. Were Angel and Greer signaling they would charge forward? Draw fire so she and the boys could slip away? There’s no way she’d let them do that. She would never allow them to casually throw their lives away simply so she, her brother, and her brother’s friend could live. How could they live with that knowledge?

  But, her rational mind kicked in; it was either just Greer and Angel die or they all die. Greer and Angel would be dead anyway, right? Did they owe it to them, and to their parents, to try to survive? To try to find Lydia? Play some small role in the rebuilding of America?

  No. She wouldn’t.

  Angel turned towards her. “Okay,” he said. “You’re not going to like this, but Clancy and I, we worked up a contingency plan in case this went south.”

  “And what’s that?” she asked.

  “He and I, we charge the gate, full auto, take as many of them down as we can. You, Max, and Brad, you turn and run, fast as you can, and get the heck outta here.”

  “No. Not going to do it.”

  “Winnie—”

  “Absolutely not,” Max snarled at Greer a full parking lot away. “We won’t let you two throw your lives away just so we can maybe live. Not going to happen.”

  “Either just Angel and I die, or we all die. Angel and I are dead regardless, kid. If the two of us charge the gate, we’ll take a few of ’em with us, but we’ll be in the ground.”

  “Don’t care. We’re in this until the end, okay? I’m not ready to give up.”

  “If you had any smarts, you would be.”

  “Good thing I don’t.”

  “Good thing we don’t.” Max looked over at Brad, who was reiterating his statement. “We’re not going, Clancy. We got your back, okay? I owe my parents that much.”

  “Your parents would want you to live.”

  “Who says I’m gonna die?” Brad asked. “We got this.”