Slow Burn Box Set: The Complete Post Apocalyptic Series (Books 1-9)

by Bobby Adair

  Chapter 43

  I found myself standing by some oaks near the edge of the water, looking at a dock that extended thirty feet out into the lake. No boats were tied to it. Anything of use had apparently been scavenged by the people of Monk’s Island. The dock was just a row of bare planks with three Whites squatting near the end, staring out into the lake.

  Off to my right, the shore curved into a cove. A few floating marina docks had come loose in the flooding and drifted. To my left, each of the neighbors had a boathouse or dock, each with Whites sleeping or looking around into the darkness. The closest of the structures was a boathouse with at least a dozen Whites on the roof, some sitting, some standing and looking in the direction of noises they couldn’t see. Most of them were looking in my direction. But I was wearing night vision goggles, they weren’t.

  None of the Whites I saw were naked, though their clothes were tattered and soiled. I wondered if these, like the ones that had come after us in the cove where we stole the big speedboat, were swimmers. I’d need to be careful even as I got into the water. Too much noise might draw them to me.

  The island lay four or five hundred feet off shore. The backside of the old Spanish mission faced me. From where the water lapped on the limestone shore, it would be a steep climb on my hands and knees up to the mission’s back wall. Halfway along the length of the back wall, it jumped to a height of twenty feet or so. That section was actually the back wall of the mission’s chapel building. On a front corner of the chapel a bell tower stood another twenty feet above the chapel’s flat roof. The bell had long since been salvaged for its brass, leaving the tower with only a single purpose, that of an observation post from where everything on this part of the lake could be seen—except for the blind spots behind the back wall.

  The islanders had bet their security on being able to see any threats far out in the water, and that bet depended on sufficient light.

  Of the two islanders currently tasked with that security up in the old bell tower, I saw one leaning over against a support pillar. He wasn’t moving, and I guessed that guard was sleeping. The other guard leaned on another support pillar and stared out at the blackness in the other direction. Both had hunting rifles of some sort, definitely not of a military style.

  My chances of getting to the back wall unseen were more than excellent as long as I didn’t arouse the curiosity of too many Whites while I was getting into the lake.

  I examined the shore for a spot to make my landing, and decided I’d observed as much as I was going to be able to observe given the distance. It was time to proceed. I took off my boots, tied the laces around my belt, and waded into the lake, careful not to splash. When I was up to mid-thigh, I sat down in the water and awkwardly put my fins on. Awkward is the only way to get that done, especially when dealing with a body’s natural buoyancy. I then put my life preserver in the water and lay on top of it. I kicked my way as quietly as possible toward Monk’s Island.

  I looked around at the world of greenish sparkles through my night vision goggles. I looked across the lake. I looked at the trees on the far banks and spotted Whites here and there. It was a wonderfully surreal moment that made it easy, for a bit, to forget about all the craziness.

  When I looked up at the tower growing more ominous as I approached, the two guards up there had changed position. They were both standing alert, looking—it appeared—in my direction. One held the rifle to his shoulder, pointed at me. But no shot came. No bullets splashed the water around me.

  The more I swam, the more I worried about the guards, but nothing happened, and I started to wonder if the night vision goggles were playing tricks with what I thought I saw. Could it be the guards were looking in the other direction and my brain was taking insufficient visual information and imagining the rest?

  When I swam into the blind spot behind the chapel I was no longer able to see the tower. Blind spots work in both directions. But with the tower and its curious guards out of sight, I felt confident that my stealthy approach to the island had worked.

  I arrived at the shore, but it turned out not to be a shore at all—just a very steep rock wall from somewhere down deep in the water to ten or fifteen feet over my head. I grabbed hold of a protruding stone and steadied myself in the water as I looked back and forth. From back on the shore, it hadn’t appeared steep.

  I checked the time. That hour I had when I’d gotten out of the Humvee had all but evaporated. There was no time to swim around to the side of the island searching for an easier point of egress. Climbing was my only choice. I reached down and pulled off my fins, letting them sink to the bottom of the lake. I put a leg forward and found a toehold. I grabbed some more rock in my other hand and slid off the life preserver, putting all my weight on bits of stone I held onto.

  Tentatively, I started to climb. It took only a few moments to get myself nearly out of the water when it occurred to me that I should have kept the life preserver. If I slipped off and fell back into the water without it, the weight of the revolvers, the machete, the full magazines, and the hand grenades might drown me. Oh well, I was out of choices on that. My only path was up.

  When I was nearing the top, a gravelly noise off to my right startled me and froze me in place.

  I listened.

  I waited.

  Nothing.

  I looked back and forth along the cliff and tried to see the wall above, but since it was set back from the edge of the cliff by several feet, I couldn’t see anything above me except the top edge of the wall.

  I started my climb again.

  Nearing the top, I thought I heard another gravelly noise. I stopped and listened again. But the noise didn’t repeat.

  Once at the top, I felt thankful. Prematurely.

  To my right, maybe ten feet away, stood a guard cast in green hues—one of the guys who had been with Rachel when Murphy and I rescued her. His name was Karl. He had a hand on the wall, one on a revolver, and he was staring into the darkness—staring at the sound of my breathing.

  He couldn’t see me, but he knew I was here.

  A quick glance to my left doubled my problems. Karl’s malcontent buddy, Bill, was doing the same thing not six feet away.

  Chapter 44

  Choices?

  Jump into the water, confirming my presence for Bill and Karl while putting myself at risk of drowning. What would my next step be after that? My life jacket and fins were gone. I’d have to shed all of my equipment to make the swim back to shore. Risky, but doable.

  Or, I could creep back down the wall far enough that the guards wouldn’t hear or see me in the near pitch-black night. But a cloud might move out of the way and let a little of the sparse moonlight through, enough for one of them to see me clinging precariously to the wall below them. Then I’d be back to option A, only with a much higher risk of being shot.

  Or, I could try to scramble up onto the ledge. It was covered in loose gravel and sand with nothing there to grip. It would be a slow and noisy endeavor, one that would lead to certain discovery. If I got lucky enough to avoid a bullet or a knife during that attempt, I’d likely end up back on option A.

  All of my choices sucked, but I still had an advantage—with my night vision goggles I could see in the dark. And I had a silent weapon that I wouldn’t mind using on Bill or Karl’s ungrateful skulls.

  So, I got a solid grip on a piece of rock, and with my left hand I slowly drew my machete while I listened to the crunch of cautious foot steps from my left and watched Karl on the right. The sound of tearing paper on my left caught my attention. When I looked at Bill, my intended first victim, his rifle was dangling from a strap on his shoulder and his hands were busy with what at first glance I thought was a stick of dynamite. But as the incongruity of that sank in, I realized it was a flare. Bill ignited it, flashing my vision to white through the goggles, blinding me.

  But, as I’d done on so many occasions, I skipped right through the panic step and chose risky, swift action.

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sp; Karl, surprised and still a dozen feet to my right, said something.

  Startled, Bill grunted, and I heard the flare hit the ground.

  Bullets would come before I was able to see again. I raised my machete and I leapt laterally across the face of the wall, swinging at the place Bill had been before my vision flashed white. Blade hit bone and stuck, a familiar sensation. For a fraction of a second, all my weight was hanging from my grip on the machete handle. I felt the blade wrench through a shinbone, and I heard Bill scream. Gunshots blasted through the air. I bounced against the wall, knocking the night vision goggles off my head. And in the red blaze of the flare, I fell as Bill fell over the side of the cliff above me.

  I splashed into the water with the machete in my hand and a lungful of air. Bill splashed in just to my right. I rolled in the water and grabbed at what I could get a hand on, the near severed leg.

  Under the weight of my equipment, we were sinking fast. My eardrums started to hurt, and I blew a bit of air through my nose to equalize the pressure. Bill was struggling above me. He’d hit the water while screaming. Screaming was just noisy exhalation when you stopped to think about it. Bill’s lungs were empty when he hit the water, and with me gripping his wounded leg, causing him even more pain, I heard his muffled scream continue under water until it cut short abruptly. Panic and habit overrode his logical processes, and he’d come to the end of his air and breathed in for another wail only to get a lung full of lake water.

  I let go of the dangling leg. My work with Bill was done. He’d successfully completed his first attempt at drowning all on his own.

  Professor Zed gives you an A, Bill.

  I relaxed and looked up at a red glow above the water’s surface—the flare. I heard a few pops of rifle fire and saw bubbled trails of bullets drilling three or four feet into the water above me.

  I wasn’t in need of air—well, not desperate need. I figured I’d been under less than thirty seconds. I took a moment to sheath my machete while I rolled over and started swimming into the blackness along the wall, feeling my way as I dragged my hand along the limestone cliff.

  Karl, I guessed, would keep an eye on the spot where I’d gone into the water, a spot illuminated by the flare Bill dropped on the ledge, and a spot I intended to be well away from when I came up for air. I swam in Karl’s direction, then guessed that I passed beneath him. Pressure on my ears told me that I was getting deeper, not something I wanted. I was already well deep enough to avoid bullets. I kicked a few more times and came to the point where I was running short on air myself.

  I reached out for the wall and started an underwater climb upwards. Patient and slow at first, I moved faster and faster as my lungs cried out to breathe. The blackness above glowed into a brightening red. I saw the underside of the wavy surface, and my head broke through. I inhaled.

  Looking up, and with my night vision goggles somewhere on the bottom of the lake, I couldn’t see Karl on the ledge above. The red glow of the flare was far to my left. A few men shouted angrily from somewhere. All along the lakeshore, five-hundred feet behind me across the water, Whites howled. The flare and gunfire had piqued their interest.

  I pulled a deep breath, let the weight of my equipment pull me under, and swam along the wall in the direction I’d already been going. Getting as much distance from my last known position would only work in my favor. When I came up for the second breath, I felt almost safe, at least from Karl, who I assumed was still up on the ledge looking in the other direction for me.

  An explosion rumbled on the other side of the island.

  I was out of time.

  Chapter 45

  Feet ran by on the ledge at the top of the cliff. Karl. Far to my left, the flare still spewed red fire and smoke. A fifty-caliber machine gun was peeling off volleys on the far side of the island followed by another explosion from the grenade launcher. Dalhover and Murphy were busy and probably both grinning like twelve-year-old boys with their first BB guns.

  Knowing I had to hurry, and having lost my fear of drowning under the weight of my weapons, I abandoned any thought of caution and started up the slanting cliff face as fast as I could move. I reached the top in what felt like seconds. The adrenaline was pumping, and I was surfing on a wave of confident invincibility.

  In the glow of the flare I was able to see up and down the length of the wall. I was alone. Out on the other side of the island, the shooting came to a stop. At least the shooting from the grenade launcher and the fifty-caliber had. A few other small arms popped off shots.

  Our plan had been to fire the MK19 and the fifty-caliber machine gun from boats out in the darkness, and then to reposition before any bullets came back their way. Of course, as it was explained to me, the range on both weapons was beyond the effective range of nearly every rifle on the island; moving was more a precaution than a necessity. The goal of the whole exercise was to sink a few of the houseboats in dramatic fashion in hopes of intimidating Jay with our firepower.

  From the cloaking safety of the darkness, Gretchen would then use a bullhorn to dictate the terms to Jay. The terms were simple. Free Steph, Amy, Megan, and any other islanders that might be disillusioned with Jay’s leadership style, give them as many boats as they needed, and let them go. The alternative, Murphy and Dalhover would systematically sink every boat anchored near the island. After, they would lay siege to the island, basically by floating offshore with their weapons ready in case anyone decided to make a swim for shore. Oh, and by the way, she’d tell him about the night vision goggles. Jay had no cards to play. He’d give up the girls. He’d give up anyone who wanted to leave.

  At least, that’s how it was all going to work out according to the consensus among the boathouse gang. Unfortunately, reasonable people often have difficulty anticipating irrationality from unreasonable people.

  I heard the sound of Gretchen’s voice, amplified by the bullhorn and carrying across the water. I couldn’t make out what she was saying, but I already knew the content, so it didn’t matter.

  With Gretchen’s voice booming, all eyes on the island would be looking into the darkness on the other side, and nobody was likely to be looking my way, depending on how disciplined Jay’s thugs were. Of course, Karl would be inside the wall by now, telling anyone who would listen about Bill and…and what? What would he tell them? A White attacked? A commando attacked? He didn’t know.

  He might come back with reinforcements if they suspected they were being attacked from the rear while Gretchen held their attention on the other side.

  I scanned up and down the length of the wall. It was rough in spots and looked—

  What was that sound?

  I looked out toward the lakeshore. All I saw was black. But I heard the splash of a few hundred hands clapping the water.

  The Whites were swimming toward the island.

  The gunfire, the flare, the fire from a houseboat burning on the other side of the island was drawing them in. That was a kink in the plan that nobody had anticipated.

  I decided that the best place to make my entrance into Jay’s compound was through a window on the back of the chapel, roughly ten feet up. The wall below the window was in rough shape with plenty of places to hold while climbing up. So, I ran down to the chapel wall and went to work as the sound of splashing in the water drew closer.

  I slipped a few times when stones gave way and came loose, but I didn’t fall. I got a hand to the edge of the window, got another hand up, and pulled myself up to the opening.

  A few candles burned inside the chapel. I saw the places where residents had made their beds on the floor, stacks of supplies, but no people. The old oaken double doors on the front of the chapel were swung open. The light from blazing houseboats poured in, dappled by the shadows of people moving around in the courtyard.

  A rifle cracked from somewhere relatively close by.

  Up in the bell tower.

  But what could he be shooting at? Gretchen, of course, but why shoot randomly into
the darkness?

  Another shot followed. It didn’t seem like a random shot at all. I guessed aimed patience. And that immediately led me to a guess as to why Bill and Karl were waiting for me at the wall. I’d been spotted. One of the guards had a night vision scope on his rifle. And now he was using that scope to shoot at my unsuspecting friends out in the boats.

  Null Spot the Destroyer was going to have to pay Mr. Sharpshooter a visit.

  I pulled myself through the window and tumbled, landing roughly on the floor. I rolled back up to my feet and ran across the small chapel to an open doorway at the base of the bell tower. Inside, a spiral staircase made of steel had been installed so visitors to the island could climb and see the lake from the high vantage of the tower.

  Another gunshot sounded from above.

  I pulled my pack off my back and knelt on the floor. I reached in, took out a pistol, and tucked it into my belt. I fished around for the hand grenades, four in all, and put them in my pockets—two in the baggy pockets on the front of my pants, two each on the large thigh pockets. Those would beat up my legs if I had to run, but if I found myself in the position of having to run, those grenades would likely already be in the air toward my pursuers.

  The rifle upstairs fired again.

  Still being barefoot turned out to be an advantage for silence. I stepped onto the spiral staircase, started up, machete in my right hand, grenade in my left.

  On the way up, I thought about whether a threat with the pistol from behind the snipers upstairs would be enough to quell their resistance, but my second thought won out. Some fucker was up there shooting at my friends, some fucker who knew Gretchen’s voice, who had survived on the island with her and Paul through all those weeks since the plague hit Austin. But despite all that, the guys had no qualms about betraying her to the point of killing her.

  So fuck those dudes.

  I pulled the pin from a hand grenade and slipped the pin into my pocket. I didn’t want to drop it and possibly alert the snipers with the tinkling of the metal pin bouncing on the spiral staircase.