by Ryan Schow
“We shouldn’t have made it out of there alive. The Walgreen’s yes, but not the school. That was a bloodbath.”
Thinking of all those people sprawled out on the elementary school floor—bleeding out, dying to the point of dead—drove a spike right through his heart. Her face seemed to pale at the memories as well. Standing on unsteady legs, she said, “I think I’m going to be sick.”
“Are you—”
Just then she turned, dropped to all fours and threw up. He knelt beside her, putting a hand on her back. When she didn’t shrug it off, he rubbed small circles into her back as she heaved and wretched up all her food and a few strings of bile. Before she was done, her body was shaking out the tears, the pain, entire universes of fear.
“He killed them all,” she was saying, her voice nearly incomprehensible.
“I know.”
“And Macy…”
She blew her nose into her hand, wiped it on the pavement, then turned into a seated position. Whatever she was feeling, Rex knew she wasn’t feeling as stable as she tried to appear. When people were pitched into dark times, impossible times, you fell to fight or flight, and she chose to fight. When the fight was over and you had time to consider the battle itself, that’s when you paid the price for everything you’d done, who you had become.
What kind of price will she pay? Is she paying it now?
“Rex, I’ve killed too many people already,” she said. The look on her face—how terribly vulnerable she was—he saw past the hardened young woman and found the girl beneath. She was scared, alone, in need of her father.
“We couldn’t have done anything else to save those people,” he said. “Or Macy.”
“I know.”
“But that’s why you’re doing what you’re doing. Why you are the way you are. We can’t let this happen again.”
“But it will,” she replied, closing down that well of emotion once more. He could already feel her going back into that shell and he didn’t want that.
“What are we going to do?” he said. When she didn’t answer, he asked, “What do you want to do?”
“Same thing I’ve always wanted to do. Get ahead of this thing before it gets too bad.”
“It’s too late for that,” he explained. He said this in a passive tone, but his words were sharpened with a truth that cut right through her.
Now looking up at him, devoid of the bravado he came to see so often in her expression, she said, “It’s never too late.”
“Do you really believe that?” he asked.
“I have to.”
“So what’s next?”
Not answering for a long time, not looking at him—but thinking about him too much—she finally let her eyes lift to meet his, but she couldn’t say the words. It was clear she was feeling so much, yet fighting to feel nothing at all. It wasn’t working. He reached out, moved a strand of hair from her face and said, “I think I just saw inside you, Indigo. It was an unexpected moment and now I know I want to love you.”
“No you don’t.”
“You can’t stop me,” he told her. Her guard was back down and her eyes bore the invitation of his company.
“I can,” she said, albeit without much conviction.”
“And if I persist?”
“Then you’ll force my hand,” she said. “Is that what you want?”
He smiled that smile, his eyes holding hers, gently. That was all the answer she needed. Nervously glancing away, she laughed like she couldn’t believe it, but then she turned back to him, to those eyes, to that look on his face.
“You’re serious?” she asked.
“I am.”
He saw her let go, slowly at first, and then completely. “Then I want you to stay with me tonight.”
Slowly he nodded his head, then he said, “Are you sure?”
“I am,” she said.
Chapter Sixty-Two
A scout for The Ophidian Horde returned to the fallen-down hospital, careful to watch for tails, not afraid to turn and put a round in a stranger’s head if that’s what was necessary. He met with Gunderson and the former hitman whose name he was not allowed to speak.
“It’s the National Guard, sir,” the scout said. “They’ve got Humvees with flatbed trailers. They’re transporting stacks of the dead to centrally located piles where they’re dumping them off.”
“How many are there?”
“Bodies or troops?” the hitman asked.
“Both,” Gunderson said.
“Probably five Humvees,” he answered, turning to the Hitleresque looking man, “and at least seven mountains.”
“Mountains?”
The scout furrowed his brow, then said, “Of bodies.”
“They’re piling them up?” Gunderson asked.
“More like throwing them out of the buildings into a pile.”
“They’re going to burn them,” the hitman said.
The scout turned his eyes back on the new leader of the gang and said, “They’re at least thirty feet high in some places. One pile is fifteen feet tall and spans half a city block. Inside the buildings, in some places, especially apartment towers, they’re throwing them out the window like old trash. You get four close buildings and that’s when you get a thirty foot pile of bodies.”
Taking a sip of his brandy, running the razor-sharp blade of a hunting knife over the stubble on his otherwise bald head, the hitman eyed Gunderson under heavily hooded eyes.
“I want those trucks,” he said.
The decapitated head of their former soldier, Chandler Diggs, a.k.a. Blood Pig, sat on the hitman’s desk, decaying. Ever since Blood Pig and his crew were slaughtered at the elementary school in Balboa Hollow, the hitman had been distracted. Consumed by this “Indigo.” Now his office bore the sour, hairy stench of death—a foul smell everyone but the hitman had commented on.
His boss gazed upon the head in a contemplative stare. It sat on his Bible, facing the hitman. Gunderson flicked a glance at the back of Blood Pig’s head and wondered about the eyes, nose and mouth, how they must be shriveled and pulling in like some sort of withered, forgotten Halloween pumpkin.
He tore his mind from the thought of it. Considered everything else.
“I can get a truck,” Gunderson finally said, breaking the silence.
Half of the hospital they now occupied had fallen down around them, the remnants of a massive drone strike. There were dead caught in the rubble, but they didn’t go in that wing. Instead, they remained where the building felt sturdy, untouched by the ravages of war.
The location was perfect in that it still held medical supplies and beds, and there was plenty of room to grow the gang, when it came to that. He wasn’t sure the hitman agreed. He’d said he wasn’t a fan of such embattled digs, but the cover it provided was something everyone needed right now. Gunderson knew he was right. No one in their right mind would come looking for them in such a ramshackle building, certainly not any of the remaining gangs.
That didn’t mean it was safe, or sturdy.
Gunderson often wondered if he would be walking around one day and the bottom would just drop out from underneath him. He didn’t show it, or speak of it, but the idea of this left him constantly on edge.
Now the hitman was saying he wanted one of the National Guard’s trucks. He was happy to oblige. Thrilled, in fact, to get out of this building and on to more interesting endeavors. Gunderson was bored out of his mind anyway, and not a huge fan of most of the new guys.
“So after you said you can get me a truck,” the hitman said, his eyes clearing, “I expected you to get up and leave.”
Gunderson stood and left, thinking he’d never stolen a military vehicle before.
How hard could it be?
Gunderson was now The Ophidian Horde’s chief enforcer and a competent man who was allowed to lead under the hitman. It was an awesome responsibility. One he never imagined having so soon. He was committed to earning the position he now had, one victory
at a time. The first victory would be over the National Guard.
Gunderson assembled a crew of twenty men from the fifty strong, and they armed themselves to the teeth. After that, they grabbed a half dozen five-gallon gas cans they’d been using for the generators and headed out.
Within an hour, they’d siphoned gas from enough cars to fill the cans, then they headed into downtown on foot, scaring practically everyone they came into contact with on the way. At some point, there were no more people. There was only destruction.
Within a dozen blocks of these body piles, the damage to the city looked otherworldly. And then they saw the bodies.
The scout said, “This is the tallest one I’ve found.”
Gunderson looked around. They were surrounded by apartment high rises, the windows blown out, their foundations pocked and peppered by small to medium artillery fire. At any minute, the earth could shift and one of them could topple. Gunderson sniffed the cool air, caught only the barest hint of smoke. A couple of birds chirped from somewhere above. He stood in the middle of an unearthed graveyard in complete awe.
“Burn it,” Gunderson finally said.
Six of his soldiers emptied the cans of gas around the massive base of dead people, shaking out the last drops of gas before standing back and awaiting orders.
“Get to high ground,” Gunderson told his snipers. “When they come, if they come, wait until they’re close, then head shots only if you can help it.”
To his ground forces, he said, “Fan out in case they miss. Don’t hit the trucks, just the men inside. But only when they exit the vehicle and only if our snipers miss.”
When his boys were in position, Gunderson removed a lighter, lit a long scrap of linen. When it caught fire, he dragged the linen around the base of the bodies until the entire pile took to flame. From there the gasoline-fueled fire snaked up the pile, ultimately engulfing the top of the heap in the loudest, most massive inferno Gunderson had ever seen.
When the man next to Gunderson said, “What’s next?” Gunderson simply replied, “We get to high ground and wait.”
Chapter Sixty-Three
Nineteen Days into the Attack. MCAS Camp Pendleton, CA
Nearly three weeks had passed since 1stLt Jagger Justus and 2ndLt Camila Cardoza had flown to NAS Corpus Christi for Tilt-Rotor advanced training. They hadn’t gotten their hours, not that it mattered now.
Really the only thing that mattered was surviving.
The drones struck the day he and Camila arrived, an attack neither of them would have ever imagined possible, not in a million years. None of the pre-war intelligence indicators were present. There was no chatter, no posturing, no advanced warning of any kind. The squadron of modified attack drones were quickly met with force by the Navy and the Marines. The drone’s forces dwindled over the first week. Smaller attacks followed, but none as lethal as the initial strike. After nineteen days and dozens of casualties, Jagger and Camila were ordered onto a Cobra gunship and sent to Oceanside, California, to MCAS Camp Pendleton where they were needed most.
“Would you have ever imagined the US could be turned into a war zone like this?” Camila asked.
“How bad to you think Pendleton is?” he asked, making idle conversation.
She shrugged her shoulders and held his eye.
Camp Pendleton sustained catastrophic damages and was still under fire when they arrived. At first blush, the assault was easily a dozen times worse than it had been in Texas. That didn’t make Jagger feel any better about Oceanside.
It wasn’t just the military bases, either. Word had it that major metropolitan cities were under attack as well. He knew from talking to Lenna that San Francisco was bearing the brunt of it, but he couldn’t grab a ride back home, and even if he could, his CO wouldn’t allow it. He’d call it desertion. He’d ask Jagger if he was really ready to turn his back on his country.
He wasn’t. That wasn’t how he was built. But he hated not being able to be there for his family. It churned his guts regularly, made him sick just thinking about what was happening back home. The push and pull of such a harsh reality left him pissed off and constantly on edge.
Plus he was tired. Not that he’d ever admit that. There was too much to do to worry about sleep or recovery.
Jagger tried as often as he could to find out what cities were hit, but the top brass said he was on a need to know basis and apparently he didn’t need to know.
Eventually he learned the assault on California was a highly coordinated effort and focused mainly on the most concentrated populations: San Diego, Los Angeles, Sacramento, San Francisco. The smaller cities and seaside towns were hit, too. Reports were coming in that the air strikes on these small towns were not as severe, rather most were simply hit with one pass. The problem was that one pass. According to some of the guys, entire cities were carpet-bombed and the loss of life and property was substantial.
He asked his superiors what other states were being bombarded and everyone decided to purse their lips and say nothing.
Later, after they’d settled into a new battlefield with a larger, more lethal army of drones, Jagger began to crack. He needed to talk to Lenna. He was convinced he wasn’t going to make it home. Amidst the constant noise and chaos, amidst the utter exhaustion, Jagger found a sheltered corner of the base where he used a stolen sat phone to dial the number. It rang a few times before Lenna picked up. He heaved a sigh of relief.
“Jagger?” she answered, hopeful, the line halfway crackling with static.
“Hi, baby,” he replied, one hand cupped over his ear to freeze out the commotion ramping back up outside. It’s like everything ridged in him finally loosened and he could breathe again.
“What’s all that noise?” she asked.
“We arrived at Camp Pendleton under massive drone strikes. It’s been going on since the night we first arrived, and long before that.”
“They attack at night?” she asked, like she couldn’t believe it.
“They do here. And we’ve been hit pretty hard. This place is buckling fast and I’m trying to evac, but right now it’s all hands on deck. I’m not even supposed to be making this call.”
In the hollow sounding background outside this closet of a room, in the midst of a barrage of heavy artillery fire, something big exploded, rocking the ground. The lights flickered. Plaster shook loose from the ceiling. Breathless, he stood back, studied the snaking crack.
Hunkering down, preparing himself for the ceiling to collapse on top of him, perhaps the entire building, he waited with bated breath. Much of the base hospital went down that way. There was nothing to say this building wouldn’t collapse, too.
“Jagger?”
“I’m here,” he said through gritted teeth.
“What’s going on out there?” Her voice was a rising pitch of concern, but it was also a bit choppy with static. When he didn’t respond, she said, “Are you okay?”
“I am.”
“No, I mean, are you really okay?”
He didn’t want to think about this because the second you started to fear for your own safety, you were pumping the brakes on forward mobility.
“Other than missing you and the boys,” he said, “I’m good.”
The truth was, he felt stuffed into a nightmare he wasn’t sure he could escape. Would the building collapse any minute now? Would the drones turn on this one building and eviscerate it with him inside? Seconds passed. When none of his fears materialized, he forced himself to unwind again.
The walls were holding.
For now.
“How soon until you can come home?” she asked, her voice cutting in and out. “It’s pretty bad here, too.”
A vision of her sprung to mind. Her beautiful face, her lithe body, how warm she was at night, curled in bed beside him. He missed her so much his heart actually ached. Outside the noise levels rose again and concussion bursts shook the building.
He wiggled his finger into his ear canal a little deeper, th
e noise of return fire outside making it near impossible to hear.
He was about to speak when the door to the room he was in flew open and the gorgeous, fear stricken Camila Cardoza said, “Lt, it is way beyond FUBAR out there!”
Jagger put his hand up, silencing her. Camila saw he was on the phone, so she stepped inside and closed the door to cut out the noise. Seeing the look he was giving her, she mouthed an apology and leveled him with a look of her own, one he understood perfectly.
On her lovely, worried face, 2ndLt Cardoza’s expression said the world was falling down around them and why in God’s name was he making personal calls?
She didn’t understand. He’d called Lenna to say good-bye. He didn’t think they’d survive the assault, so it was imperative he reach out one last time.
“Half the Super Huey’s are gone,” Camila harsh whispered. “And the hospital…”
He held up a hand, palm out, like he was trying to push everything away: her voice, his fear, the war, their impending demise.
Red faced and angry, his co-pilot couldn’t stomach his response.
Jagger now felt sheepish, abandoning his post in what he thought was a lull in combat. Clearly there was no lull. Still, he’d made the call. He had to. He needed to tell Lenna he loved her, that she must protect the boys at all costs.
“Who is that?” Lenna asked, shaking him out of his half-second reverie.
As fate would have it, there wasn’t an ounce of static. The receiver was so clear he thought the call had dropped and he was holding onto an empty line.
But he wasn’t.
Swallowing hard, he said, “We were almost overrun. It’s still pretty bad out there, but not as bad as it was. It’s going to get a lot worse if they’ve got counter-measures in place. Right now all of Pendleton is locked, loaded and on high alert. That was 2ndLt Cardoza telling me I’m needed.”
“Your co-pilot?”
“Yeah.”
“But that sounded like a woman.”
“You’re one hundred percent on that,” he replied, a subtle warmth moistening the back of his neck. Lenna was not a jealous woman, but he knew this was no time to test her resolve.