Hunter Wars Omnibus Edition (Books 1 - 3)

by SD Tanner

  ‘It’s a fuckin’ sub, mate,’ Axel replied plainly.

  Looking confused, Dan asked, ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘It means we’re about to be fuckin’ boarded, yer moron,’ Axel replied rudely.

  ‘Settle down, gents,’ he said, hoping to avoid yet another pointless argument between the two men. ‘What do you suggest, Axel?’

  ‘Nuffin mate,’ Axel replied bluntly. ‘We couldn’t fight off a seagull right now much less the friggin’ United States Navy.’

  He agreed they’d reached their limit. With almost no food, no fresh water or ammo, they were sitting ducks and he said brusquely, ‘Well, raise the Union Jack. Let try a charm offensive.’

  Axel roared with laughter and Dan remarked dryly, ‘Best not bring, Axel.’

  As the submarine pulled alongside the ferry, he saw standing on the top of the submarine, was a tall, well-built man with a structured face and a Marine style buzz cut. Over the subs PA, and in a broad American twang, the man said, ‘You must be the fuckin’ British.’

  ‘Do you think he’s being friendly or hostile?’ Dan asked.

  He wasn’t sure either and shrugging, he said, ‘I really don’t know.’

  Over the PA they heard the man say, ‘We’ve been waiting for you guys. What took you so fuckin’ long? Did you take the scenic route or what?’

  Without a PA that worked, they couldn’t answer the man and he continued uninterrupted, ‘I’m Captain Ted, United States Marine Corps. Request permission to come aboard.’

  ‘How do we tell him he can come aboard?’ Dan asked.

  Shaking his head, he replied, ‘I have no idea.’

  Seeming to understand their problem, the man who now introduced himself as Captain Ted said, ‘Oh right, you can’t answer. Well if you’re okay for us to pull alongside, just fuckin’ wave or something.’

  Suddenly Axel appeared at his side carrying his SA80 and asked, ‘What the fuck is this joker doin’?’

  ‘Hey asshole!’ Captain Ted complained. ‘No fuckin’ guns. We’re friendlies!’

  Axel put his gun down on the deck and waved.

  ‘That’s friendlier,’ Captain Ted said. Chuckling, he added, ‘Gears is gonna fuckin’ love you. He’s been waitin’ for you guys to turn up.’

  Knowing they’d found the people they were looking for, he relaxed and said, ‘This guy is with Gears.’

  ‘Let’s get ‘em on board,’ Axel replied.

  Once Captain Ted understood their situation, he immediately radioed his base calling for supplies and a medical team. As he stood on the deck, watching three helicopters heading towards the flotilla, he mulled over what Captain Ted told him about the bases and island. Captain Ted warned him Gears and his brothers were hell bent on building an army to fight the hunters and super hunters. Where his mind was focused on survival, Gears and his brothers were focused on winning a war. He wanted to take care of his people and they wanted to take back the land.

  Captain Ted’s team worked their way through the flotilla, handing out supplies, providing urgent medical treatment, airlifting vulnerable people straight to the base and preparing others to be moved to the transport ships that were now en route to their location. He and Axel were immediately flown to the cruise ship that acted as a base for Gears and his brothers. Once there, he walked through the beaten and bruised looking cruise ship until he reached what he assumed must have once been a prestige suite.

  Walking into the suite, he was immediately confronted by a rough looking man with an untidy mop of sandy brown hair speckled with grey, who stood about six feet tall and was built like an ape. This apish man bounced over on the balls of his feet and said, ‘Hey, I’m Pax.’

  A taller, well-cut man, with greying dark brown hair ambled over and said, ‘Welcome aboard. I’m TL.’

  After introducing himself and Axel, he asked, ‘Where’s Gears?’

  Pax and TL looked at one another and TL said, ‘He’s umm…’ He trailed off and looked away.

  Sighing, Pax said, ‘Gears ain’t too happy right now. His girlfriend was murdered two days ago and he’s refusin’ to talk to anyone.’

  Unsure of what to say, he replied, ‘I’m sorry to hear that.’

  As he spoke, a large brutish looking man ambled out of a doorway and in a deep rumbling voice, he grumbled, ‘Shaddup Pax.’

  Immediately recognizing the man’s voice, he said warmly, ‘Hello Gears. I’m Philip.’

  Gears was a mountain of a man, six feet five inches tall, heavily built with huge hands, rough features and a deep scar that ran from his eyebrow to his chin. Walking over to Gears, he stuck out his hand and said, ‘Pleased to meet you.’

  Shaking his hand, Gears indicated he should sit down on the sofa and after introducing Axel, the five of them sat down to talk.

  With an honesty that surprised him, Gears said plainly, ‘I ain’t too happy right now.’

  Not knowing how to answer such directness, he nodded showing he understood and waited to see what Gears would say next.

  Looking tired and unhappy, Gears drawled, ‘I had a plan.’

  Shaking his head, Pax said bluntly, ‘Ya still have a plan, Gears. Yer jus’ grievin’ is all.’

  Gears shrugged and turned to him and said, ‘Ya don’t need me right now. Get your people settled at the bases and on the island. I gotta get my head straight.’ Looking at his brothers, he added, ‘We all gotta get our heads straight. Ip was not jus’ my woman, she was also a critical to our plans. Nothin’s gonna work the way we planned without her.’

  People died easy these days and he’d learned no single individual was critical to anything other than how other people felt about their loss. As far as he could tell, despite having lost billions of people, the sun rose and set as it always had and the world continued on without them. He thought it was unfortunate Gears lost his woman, but he didn’t understand how this could greatly affect a plan that based on the little he’d seen, seemed to be going very well.

  Curious about why Gears believed her loss changed his plans so drastically, he asked, ‘Who was she?’

  TL replied, ‘It’s not who she was, it’s what she could do. Ip had abilities. She could find super hunters and she carried a counter virus that meant she could kill hunters by touching them. Without her, we can’t find the super hunters that are controlling the hunters and turning them into an army.’

  Now he understood the significance of their loss. A person with those abilities would have given them an edge by making it easier to kill hunters and therefore access supplies and secure territory. In effect, they lost a key weapon and now he understood how that would affect their plans.

  Eyeing Gears, Axel said grimly, ‘It’s a little bit more than that, mate. Sounds to me like she was family. You’re grievin’ and you need to take it easy.’

  Axel could be unexpectedly sensitive to other people’s needs and picking up on his point, he said, ‘Axel’s right. I need to get my people settled, and then we need to work out how we can help you in return. Why don’t Axel and I head out to the bases and work on that. We can get back to you in a few days or so.’

  Sighing, Gears nodded and with genuine concern, hey asked, ‘Are ya sure ya guys are okay?’

  He shrugged and following Gears directness, he replied honestly, ‘It wasn’t an easy crossing, but we made it and that’s all that matters now.’

  Realizing this was not the time to ask too many questions and not wanting to impose any longer, he and Axel left to fly out to the bases. The bases were originally a Naval base and a Marine supply base. The Naval base was a spit of land that was blocked from the mainland by a string of stacked shipping containers. Next to one of the containers was a crane used to lift one container to create a gateway to the mainland during the day. Accommodation was provided by another set of containers that were designed to be used by Forward Operating Bases. These containers were prebuilt with living and kitchen facilities that, once connected to water, power and sewerage, created a fully
functioning site. There were several hundred containers on the spit of land and they supported over six thousand people at that base.

  More people were living in the Marine supply base. It was an inland island attached to the sea by a channel and to the land by a single manmade bridge. It was a much larger location with warehouses and offices and this base also used hundreds of containers to house and cater for the six thousand people. It didn’t really have the space for another ten thousand people, but Captain Ted assured them with the current mild weather, it was safe to sleep outside while they sorted out more accommodation elsewhere. There was another base some three hundred miles away in Atlanta, Georgia, but it was significantly smaller and run by a biker called Wolfie.

  He was told about a thousand of their people would be moved to the island. Apparently, due to a freak event, they lost over a thousand people there and now it could accommodate some of their people. The island was split in two and one was used for farming and the other for living. The island sounded like paradise and he worked with Kat, who managed the survivors, to send their most vulnerable to the island and he stayed at the Marine supply base with the majority of his people. He wanted to make sure they settled into this new environment before he was willing to abdicate the responsibility he felt for them.

  Once he and Axel had settled themselves in a four-person tent with Dan, Axel asked, ‘What do you think of ‘em?’

  Replying frankly, he said, ‘I think we made the right decision.’

  CHAPTER THREE: Life only moves forward (Gears)

  He awoke to the smell of coffee and as he stretched his legs, with his knees still deeply bent, his feet hit the end of the sofa. Jarred awake, he remembered Ip was dead and they’d buried her under the pecan tree, next to BD less than a week ago. Wishing he could escape back to the relative peace of sleep, he closed his eyes again, but heard a coffee cup bang down onto the low table next to his head. Opening his eyes, he saw Pax was eyeing him sternly.

  ‘When ya gonna sleep in ya own room again, Gears?’ Pax asked sharply.

  He grunted and grumbled, ‘I can’t sleep in there.’

  Pax sat down on the low table opposite his head and said, ‘Doan get me wrong, bro’. I get where ya at, but ya ain’t got time to mope. Yer needed.’

  Wishing Pax would shut up and go away, he sighed and closed his eyes.

  Kicking the sofa with his boot, Pax said sternly, ‘Doan ignore me, Gears. Jus’ ‘cos ya doan see me, doan mean I ain’t here.’

  ‘Leave me alone, Pax,’ he grunted. ‘I don’t need ya annoyin’ me right now.’

  ‘Yes you do, Gears,’ TL said, as he walked past the sofa to the kitchenette. ‘You need to get your shit together.’

  Feeling annoyed, he said bluntly, ‘If I don’t give a shit then I don’t give a shit.’

  ‘Whatdaya wanna do?’ Pax asked plainly. ‘Quit? ‘Cos if ya doan get ya shit wired then ya might as well.’

  He didn’t want to do anything. He didn’t want to get up, he didn’t want to be awake and he didn’t want to think. Deciding to quit their mission would mean he would have to think and that was one of the things he definitely didn’t want to do. Continuing to lie on the sofa with his eyes firmly closed, he hoped his brothers would piss off and leave him alone.

  Clearly realizing his question was going unanswered, Pax asked, ‘Why do ya think Mackenzie shot Ip like that?’

  Holding a cup of coffee, TL walked back from the kitchenette and sat down on the low table with Pax and said, ‘I dunno. The designer virus made him crazy. You saw him at the CDC. Lydia said he was talking to people who weren’t there. Maybe he thought Ip was someone else?’

  ‘Yeah, but where did he go?’ Pax asked. ‘If he was so crazy, why didn’t he shoot anyone else at the CDC? Why did he take Ip with him and only shoot her?’

  Sipping his hot coffee, TL said, ‘Shooting her so far away from the CDC did give him time to escape.’

  Pax snorted unhappily and said, ‘Yeah it did and that doan sound crazy to me.’

  Shaking his head grimly, TL said, ‘No it doesn’t. It sounds premeditated.’

  His brothers were getting on his nerves. Listening to them analyze how and why Ip was murdered somehow depersonalized her death and he said abruptly, ‘Will ya both shut the fuck up!’

  TL replied calmly, ‘No Gears. You can’t hide from what happened by going to sleep for the rest of your life. You have to wake up and face the truth. Ip was murdered and we don’t know why.’

  He swung his legs off the sofa, glared at TL and said, ‘I don’t wanna hear this shit.’

  Stalking out of the lounge, he went into the bedroom he and Ip had shared. Since the day he found her at the bottom of the hill, with the back of her head torn open by the bullet that took her life, he’d spent no time in their bedroom. The combat shooters saw Mackenzie leave with a Beretta M9 and holding Ip’s hand as led her away from the CDC. After they found her body, they brought fifty scavengers to the CDC to look for him, but it was too late and he’d vanished.

  It didn’t make any sense. Why would Mackenzie execute her like that? She’d done nothing wrong. He walked into the bathroom and looked at his face in the mirror. Dark rings circled his bloodshot eyes and his skin was grey, making the scar on his face even more prominent than it usually was. He vowed to keep her safe and yet everything in the universe seemed determined to kill her. From being infected at the CDC, to the shooters at the mall, being hunted by the super hunters and then kidnapped by Ruler, it was a question of time before someone would kill her, but he never expected she would be killed by one of their own.

  Losing Ip reminded him of how he felt when he found out his mother died. He had a strange history, being raised by his mother until he was five, then finding himself being moved from one foster home to another until he was ten when he, along with Pax and TL, were placed with Mom and Pop at the Ranch. When he was twelve, Mom handed him a letter, which he still kept with him. Walking back to the bedroom, he pulled out a small metal locker that contained anything he thought was worth keeping. It was only half-full and contained a few photos, certificates, medals, a sharp blade and at the very bottom of the locker, was a small yellowed envelope addressed to, “My Beloved Son”. Opening it, he read the letter even though he knew every word by heart.

  “My Beloved Son,

  You have been a great joy to me and it is with sorrow I must leave you. It is not by my choice, but it is God’s will. I need you to know that I love you more than I can explain, but you were not born to me. I was a Sister in the Dominican Order based in Detroit and, as part of our charitable work, I was in Culiacan, Mexico tending to an elderly woman who was near her time of death. I stayed in her apartment tending to her needs. In the same block of apartments was an American couple with a young baby. I never spoke to them, but one night I heard gunfire. I found you in their apartment. You were covered in blood and screaming. The people you had been with were gone but there was blood everywhere. At that moment, I believed God had led me to you and I was to take you and keep you safe.

  I left with you, crossed the border and I got a job and raised you as my own. I sent a letter to my Mother Superior telling her I would not be back and I registered your birth and claimed you as my own. For years I looked for news about the murders, but I never saw anything anywhere about them. You and I have led a simple and happy life, but now I am dying. I have been told I have only a few weeks left. I am going to a hospice and I cannot take you with me. I am so sorry I could not fulfil my promise to keep you safe and I wish I could be with you, to watch you grow into the wonderful man I know you will become.

  Stay safe and know I will always be watching over you.

  Love and blessings, Mama”

  He never told Mom and Pop what was in the letter. After reading it, he simply put it in his pocket and walked to the barn. Sitting high in the loft that day was the only time he remembered crying. His mother had been a soft spoken, gentle and sweet-natured woman and he felt utterly safe wi
th her. By the time he read her letter he’d learned life was never kind to the meek and it didn’t surprise him she died so young. Up until that moment, he hadn’t known where she’d gone or why she’d left him and it wasn’t until seven years later he felt his loss and it left him feeling drained and empty. He remembered Pax and TL found him in the loft and sat with him, but they never said a word.

  He supposed not knowing who they really were was something he and Ip had shared. Like her, his real name would never be known which was probably why he never cared what name he went by. When he buried Ip, he hadn’t known what to put on her headstone and he wasn’t even sure what to mark her grave with. For the moment, her grave was still unmarked.

  His emotions were a tangled mess. He loved Ip, but he knew they lived in dangerous times. He’d vowed to protect her, but he knew he was only a man. Most of all, he missed her. Something about her nature always brought a calmness to his mind and his life. Now all he could see in front of him were grueling days, bereft of joy and that wasn’t enough to motivate him.

  Staring at the floor and reflecting on his life, he felt a sudden surge of frustration and looking up, he said angrily, ‘Give her back, ya sonofabitch.’

  So much had been lost and they’d worked so hard to make safe was little was left. Ip was the game changer and the reason they believed they could beat the hunters, and he’d clung to that hope every day since he met her. He lacked direction before the end of the world and had even less direction after the virus hit, but when he met Ip, he believed they could change the dynamic. With her gone, he felt the dynamic was once again in the favor of the hunters. It depressed him and made him wonder if their mission was as futile as Pax so frequently told them it was. It’s a bad day in hell when Pax is right, he thought dourly.

  It was never in his temperament to cry and he didn’t want to cry now either, but he did wonder how he was going to let go of the heaviness in his mind. Not wanting to stay in the bedroom, he walked back to the lounge hoping his brothers had found something useful to do with themselves other than badger him. No such luck, they were still sitting on the coffee table waiting for him.