The Changing Earth Series (Book 5): Dark Days in Denver

by Hathaway, Sara F.

  “I’ll hold the line with you, Bennet,” Eli told him.

  “You know I’m going with my wife,” Vince informed them.

  “I’ll stay,” Victoria volunteered as well.

  “It’s settled, then,” Bennet concluded. “Kyle, Phillip, and Hensley, you go with them and make sure they get back to Como in one piece. I’ll meet you there, cupcake.”

  “You make sure you do,” Erika told him.

  “Don’t worry about me. I’m just like a bad penny. I always turn up,” Bennet remarked.

  Erika smiled at him.

  “Now, when I give the signal. You guys retreat out of here as fast as you can. Get back to Sedalia. Find SSgt Merkley, get a vehicle, and go back to the homesteads,” he ordered.

  “I’ll take good care of them,” Phillip said. “Bring her home, Eli,” Phillip instructed, indicating Cassidy’s body.

  “I will,” Eli assured him.

  “Go!” Bennet told them as the three fighters popped up above the bags and drew the fire of the gunners just long enough for the retreating team to flee.

  The sky was a little brighter as they ran through the buildings and the flurry of volcanic ash seemed to be slowing. They left footprints in the white ground as the sound of gunfire became fainter.

  “Stay on guard,” Phillip reminded them.

  It was easy to sneak through this environment undetected because of the hazy air and the lack of vision in a gas mask. Erika wanted to stop and take a moment to mourn her friend, but there was no time. The team was driving her forward.

  “Maybe I should just give myself up, Vince. It would stop all of this,” Erika told him, in a moment of weakness.

  “The hell you are! Just keep going,” he told her.

  They passed the shopping center where they’d found the people that were being sold into slavery. The militia forces had it firmly under control. The town of Littleton was in view and Erika’s feet could not carry her fast enough. The orange haze was as sickening as the loss of her friend, and the mask was stifling her.

  “Just a little farther, Erika. Then we’ll be back with Nancy and Daniel. Just focus on them,” Vince told her reassuringly.

  Erika looked up at him. She loved him so completely. He always provided her with the support she needed to go on, to take the next step, and she felt so blessed to have him as a soul mate. Their relationship had been tested time and time again, but through every adversity they grew stronger.

  “I love you,” Erika told him.

  He looked at her. The stars in his eyes sparkled through his mask. “I love you too,” he replied.

  They ran though the ruined city. Erika was in awe of the destruction as the ash snowstorm calmed to a gentle flurry. The sun was still hidden and only the strange orange ball remained, faintly casting a dim light down on the Earth. Veering south, they began to relax a little, knowing that the threat was far behind them.

  Leading the way, Kyle and Phillip set a steady pace and Erika felt safe in their presence.

  “Isn’t that SSgt Merkley and his team coming down the road?” Erika wondered.

  “Looks like it to me,” Vince replied cheerfully, “Just the man we need to see.”

  “SSgt Merkley, we need a transport,” Phillip requested as they approached.

  “Phillip, I’m sorry to hear about Cassidy,” SSgt Merkley admitted.

  Before the conversation could continue any farther SSgt Merkley raised his pistol and shot Phillip in the throat. His men followed Merkley’s lead. They all had a target. Before Erika could even watch the spray from Phillip’s throat reach the air, the group surrounding her fell and she was in the clutches of a gigantic man. The man spun her around and she watched Vince fall to the ground.

  “Nooooo!” Erika screamed out in horror.

  She lifted her legs and threw them down as hard as she could to break the man’s hold but he was a trained killing machine. Erika threw her head back to break his nose, but he knew that move too.

  “Vince! Vince! You killed him!” she wailed into the air, kicking her feet at his knees. Her heart was breaking in half.

  “Shut her up, Swenson,” one of the men declared urgently.

  The man removed her mask. Erika’s cheeks tore as the man wrapped a rag tightly through her mouth and then put her mask back on. She didn’t care, though. Vince was down, and she was unable to respond. Still squirming and shouting through the gag and the mask, the men were fearful of attracting attention.

  The man referred to as Swenson appeared in front of Erika. He was an evil-looking guy with a bald head and deep-set dark eyes. He smashed the butt of his rifle across her head, and she felt blood trickling down her ear. Inside the helmet, she was shedding tears for Vince. She kept her eyes on him always, waiting for some sign of life.

  “Make sure she’s not armed,” the man giving orders commanded. “Merkley, we need a vehicle.”

  Merkley, the name echoed through her head as Swenson stripped away her gear. Merkley started all this, she thought, quickly snapping her gaze to him.

  “You traitor!” she tried to yell at him through the gag.

  “What’s that? I can’t quite hear you,” he laughed in her face.

  She brought her feet up again suddenly and double-kicked him in the stomach. Merkley folded in two and the other men laughed at him.

  “It’s not funny!” he snapped, smacking Erika across the head.

  “Merkley, the vehicle,” the commander reminded him.

  Merkley took off down the street with one of the other traitors. While they were gone, Swenson tied Erika’s hands behind her back with zip ties. Her mind worked frantically. I have to get out of this now! she urged herself, looking over at Vince’s body lying on the ground.

  The man holding her never let his grip go. She let herself relax in hopes that the man would follow suit. She waited to feel his muscle tension release. When the moment came, Erika didn’t act on it immediately. She needed to make sure he was not ready to tense up again. She waited for what seemed like an eternity. Then, fast as lightning, she dropped to her knees to break free of the man’s grip. Immediately, she rolled out of the man’s reach while putting her legs back through her arms and sprang to her feet. She ran towards Vince, but she could feel the man who was holding her, reaching for her arm. Erika swung around quickly in a low stance and snatched the man’s knife from its sheath. As he reached down to grab her, she sank the knife deep into his chest and rolled out to the side. She was up in a moment, running towards Vince, but Swenson cracked a whip and caught her leg mid stride. The wind was expelled from her lungs as Erika fell hard into the volcanic dust. Her face smashed on the inside of her gas mask and she lay there stunned for a moment. Swenson pulled her violently to her feet as the blood from a cut on her eyebrow filled her eye.

  “There’s something about this one, isn’t there,” Swenson hissed in her face, indicating Vince.

  Erika looked at him with horrified eyes.

  “Look, girlie, it’s over,” he said, standing over Vince and shooting a bullet into his heart.

  “Nooo!” she tried to scream through the gag, but Swenson didn’t have the patience of the man that held her before.

  He threw her to the dirt and then ripped her back into the air.

  “You try any more tricks and it will be a long trip to Kansas,” he hissed at her.

  Kansas? They’re taking me to Kansas? Her mind raced.

  Merkley pulled up with the other man in a black SUV. It was coated in volcanic dust but somehow it was running.

  “See, I told you it would work,” Merkley chided the commanding man.

  “Good thing too,” the man replied. “Load her up, gentleman. The Supreme General is going to make us national heroes.”

  Erika made one desperate try to break free and run to Vince’s side. He needed help, but Swenson knew she would attempt it and gave her a punch to the stomach for having tried. She watched Vince’s lifeless body lying in the dirt as Swenson stuffed her head int
o the vehicle and it drove off through the volcanic ash.

  Chapter 27

  Vince slowly opened his eyes. His head was heavy, and the ringing thumped through it painfully. He could barely breathe behind the gas mask still attached to his face. Wiping the ash off so he could see, he tried to sit up. There was a pain in his chest that matched the pounding of his head, yet somehow it seemed to make the ringing louder. He fell back on his side, unable to cope. His eyes focused on a body next to him.

  Is that Kyle? he wondered. His mind was trying to remember what happened through the endless throbbing. Vince crawled closer to the body through the thick layer of ash that coated everything. He checked the man’s pulse first. There was nothing. Then he pulled off Kyle’s mask. Vince stared into his lifeless eyes for a moment before his thoughts went to Erika. Where is she? his mind raced. His love for her pulling him through the pain, he frantically searched the bodies. None of them were her.

  “Erika!” he tried to scream but the pain in his chest was so intense he fell to his knees.

  What the hell is that anyway? he wondered, digging into his chest pocket. He found the watch his father had given him with a bullet stuck in the middle. “I’ll be dammed,” he mumbled to himself.

  “Vince?” he heard a voice calling through the hazy sunlight.

  “Yeah,” he answered out of instinct. His brain was still buzzing with pain.

  “Vince! There you are! I’ve been looking for you two everywhere,” Bennet called to him, as he approached.

  Vince stood there amongst the bodies in a daze.

  “Vince! What the hell happened here?” Bennet wondered, checking the pulses of Kyle, Hensley, and Phillip. “Vince!” Bennet called to him again, before he walked over to look him in the eyes. “Where’s Erika, Vince?”

  “I don’t know? My watch saved me,” Vince stammered, showing him the trinket. He was trying but his mind wouldn’t focus, and the pounding didn’t stop.

  “I think you got saved by much more than your watch,” Bennet remarked, surveying the man’s condition.

  Bennet removed Vince’s helmet and showed it to him. There was a bullet lodged in the front of it. Vince reached up and touched his head. Wincing in pain, his fingers ran over a large lump.

  “Oh shit!” Vince commented.

  “What happened, Vince? Where’s Erika?” Bennet questioned urgently.

  “We had made it through the fighting. We were headed to Sedalia…” Vince mumbled, trying to remember. “Merkley!” Vince said, looking at Bennet.

  “LtGen Merkley?” Bennet wondered.

  “No, his fucking son, SSgt Merkley and those guys. The new recruits. We asked him for a vehicle to get Erika out and he shot Phillip. They shot us all before we could react,” Vince explained.

  “But not, Erika. She’s not here, Vince,” Bennet said.

  “I know,” he admitted, thinking hard through the pounding. “They took her! Those fucking bastards took her, Bennet!”

  “But it looks like she got one of them,” Bennet commented. “I don’t recognize this man, and he was killed with a knife to the chest, not a bullet. From the looks of the angle it was someone small that stabbed him.”

  Bennet checked the man for signs of identification. He found a bar code tattooed on the man’s wrist with a number above it and Property of FROA written below it. Producing a small notebook from his pocket, Bennet wrote the number down.

  “We gotta go find her!” Vince said, walking off in the wrong direction.

  “The first thing we have to do is get you some medical attention,” Bennet commented, redirecting him.

  “Bennet, they took her!” Vince panicked. “They took her!” he screamed angrily into the air. The action made his head explode with pain and he fell to one knee on the ground.

  Bennet came over to console him. “We’ll get her back, Vince. They won’t kill her until they can make a spectacle of it and we’ll get her back before then,” Bennet assured him.

  “How do you know?” Vince despaired.

  “I promise you,” Bennet said. “We will get her back and we’ll do it together, but we have to get info and gear.”

  “She thinks I’m dead,” Vince realized, looking at Bennet. “Star told me in Montana, when Erika thought I was going to die, she had never seen her like that. She was headed out to die the day you found her.

  Bennet stared at Vince for a moment. “We’re not going to lose her, Vince. I promised I would protect her.”

  Looking to the sky, Vince and Bennet heard what they thought was thunder.

  “Are those planes?” Vince asked.

  “How the hell can they fly in this?” Bennet wondered.

  “They’re headed for Denver,” Vince commented.

  “We can take them down,” Bennet told him. “We won.”

  But the planes didn’t come to Denver. They flew out in a wider pattern.

  “Where are they going?” Vince asked. “Whoa!” he shouted as one of the planes crashed to the ground.

  “Guess they didn’t solve the problem completely,” Bennet remarked.

  “Where are they going?” Vince asked again, fearfully.

  The two men watched as the planes bombed a large pattern through the mountainous backdrop. Most of the planes crashed down along the way, but two of them flew back by, headed for the central region.

  “What the hell just happened?” Vince asked, hoping his instincts were not true.

  Bennet’s radio crackled with horrific chatter and then turned to static.

  “We got to get back to the homesteads!” Bennet insisted.

  Vince looked at Bennet in disbelief. His head pounded in between his ears. His wife was gone and now maybe his young son and his parents.

  “What just happened, Bennet?” Vince panicked, frozen with disbelief.

  “I think they bombed the whole route, Vince. All those people. The homesteads,” Bennet said, gasping with shared panic. Michelle was still back there. He looked at Vince, stunned from the headshot. “We gotta get you to a doctor.”

  Bennet half carried Vince towards the medical center.

  “Wait a minute, Bennet,” Vince said stopping. He was slurring his words a little.

  “What, Vince? The med center’s right up there,” Bennet told him.

  “I know, but I can’t go in there. You can’t either, for that matter. Everyone will be asking where Erika is,” Vince explained.

  “She’s gone, Vince and you need a doctor,” Bennet urged him.

  “I know, but if we go in there and everyone finds out she’s been captured, it might start dissention within the forces. Erika was just talking about the bigger picture. If everyone freaks out it may really screw up the big picture,” Vince told him.

  “I think you’re right, Vince,” Bennet admitted. “A lot of people joined to fight because of her. Cassidy died and Eli’s a fine leader, but Cassidy had charisma. If they find out Erika’s gone we could lose a lot of soldiers,” Bennet agreed, thinking for a moment. “Where’s Nickleton,” he mumbled, scanning the camp that was rapidly being established. “Over there,” he said, spotting the tent.

  Bennet supported more and more of Vince’s weight as he led him towards the tent.

  “1st Sgt sir,” the guard said, snapping to attention as Bennet approached.

  “Help me get him inside,” Bennet told the boy.

  The young man grabbed Vince’s other arm and wrapped it around his shoulders. They entered the tent. Nickleton was there, looking at a map with Virgis.

  “Bennet, there you are!” Virgis declared. “Is that Vince?”

  “You got a cot?” Bennet asked.

  “In the back,” Virgis replied, showing him the way. “He needs to go to the med center, Bennet.”

  Bennet laid Vince on the cot and came back out into the main area with the men. “Erika has been captured by the feds.”

  “What?” Virgis couldn’t believe what he was hearing.

  “Vince needs a doctor, but neither of us
can go in there without everyone asking about Erika. If they know she’s gone, how many will we lose?” Bennet asked.

  “I’ll go get one,” Nickleton volunteered, strapping on his mask.

  “There’s a doctor named Stan that I know. He came down with the merc forces. Find him,” Bennet instructed.

  “You got it,” Nickleton declared, leaving the tent.

  “What happened, Bennet?” Virgis asked.

  “They had us pinned, so half of us created a diversion and the other half got Erika out of there. Vince, Phillip, Hensley, and Kyle were with her. They found SSgt Justin Merkley and told him they needed a vehicle. Before they could do anything, Merkley and his men shot them all and took Erika. Erika got one of them, though. I found a tattoo on his arm with a barcode and this number. This must be their new refugee-tracking system,” Bennet proposed.

  “How did they get her out of here?” Virgis asked.

  “I don’t know,” Bennet admitted. “Vince got shot in the head and the chest. Thank goodness for ballistics and luck, but he was out cold.”

  The tent flap opened and Nickleton entered with Stan. Stan carried a medical bag and looked tired from too much work after the battle.

  “1st Sgt Bennet, how the heck are you?” Stan asked, seeing his face. “Well, you can’t be that good if I’m here,” he corrected himself, taking off his mask and shaking off the ash.

  “We’re in a pickle, Doc,” Bennet told him.

  “Who is it?” Stan wondered.

  “Vince, he’s back here. The feds shot him in the head. His helmet stopped it, but it left a gnarly knot and I don’t think he’s all there right now. They shot him in the chest too, but his dad’s watch and his vest stopped it.”

  “Where’s Erika?” Stan asked, looking around.

  “That’s why I asked for you, Stan, because I know you are loyal to her. She was taken by the feds. We’re not sure how the people will react, so we’re going to try to keep it a secret for as long as we can,” Bennet told him.

  “Oh no,” Stan sighed, looking sadly at the ground.

  “We’ve got to get Vince back on his feet,” Bennet told him.

  “Let me go check him out,” Stan said, heading to the back.