Nuclear Dawn Box Set Books 1-3: A Post-Apocalyptic Survival Series

by Kyla Stone

  As the Corvette drew almost even with the front of the Jeep, Julio scrambled backward and edged around the rear bumper on the right, until he was pressed against the rear passenger door facing the sidewalk and the office entrance.

  With aching slowness, the Corvette eased out of Logan’s line of sight. He strained his ears, listening as the sound of the rumbling engine faded.

  He couldn’t tell if they’d turned onto another street. He edged farther out and risked a glance out the window. They were fifty yards down the street now. The car had stopped.

  The thugs were all facing the front. One of them was pointing at the next traffic light. The two in the rear aimed their rifles and let loose a volley of gunfire. The center traffic light swung wildly, colored glass and metal shards spraying everywhere.

  Idiots. They didn’t even have ear protection.

  Logan glanced back at Julio, who was sweating and pale-faced and looked about ready to have a heart attack right there in the street. He frowned at Logan, giving him a what the heck do I do now? look.

  Waiting for the thugs to lose interest in target practice and move on before acting appeared to be the best option. If Julio and Shay tried to run for cover now, their movement could draw the hostiles’ attention.

  On the other hand, if even one bothered to look behind them, they would see Julio crouched on the right side of the Jeep. He was still exposed.

  It was less than ten feet from the Jeep to the office building’s front door. They could make it. If they were fast enough.

  Logan made a split-second decision. It was better to get them both to safety while the gangsters were distracted. Maybe it was the wrong choice, but sometimes indecision was the worst option.

  He gestured at Julio with the pistol. “Come on! Move!”

  Julio dropped and reached for Shay underneath the Jeep. She seized his hand and he yanked her roughly out from beneath the vehicle.

  “I’ll get them.” Dakota moved back toward the shattered front door.

  Hunched and bent double to stay low, Shay and Julio hobbled over the sidewalk. Dakota took one step outside the doorway and grabbed Shay’s other arm, dragging them in.

  As soon as she was a few feet inside, Shay leaned against the nearest wall, breathing hard. Dust and gravel clung to her legs, stomach, and arms. She brushed it off frantically. “Did they see us?”

  Logan didn’t take his eyes off the Corvette. “No, I don’t think so.”

  The music switched off.

  Abruptly, the only sound was the idling engine.

  “What are they doing?” Dakota hissed.

  Logan held up one finger.

  The tension wound tighter and tighter. He felt it in his chest, his guts. They stared at each other, eyes wide and white in the shadows.

  He counted the seconds in his head. Had they been seen? What the hell were the gangsters up to?

  Then came the sound of wheels crunching and crackling over the debris in the road.

  They were coming back.

  13

  Logan

  The thugs were coming back. Which meant they were in serious trouble.

  Logan wasn’t a match for three semi-automatic assault rifles. Not with his 9mm pistol and four measly bullets.

  Not with Shay wounded and unable to run.

  You could run. He glanced down at his Glock. He could escape easily. He knew how to be soundless. He had the speed and the endurance to flee out the back before these scumbags even hauled themselves out of their sweet ride.

  You don’t owe these people anything. Why was he even here? Because a pretty girl had begged him for help? Because of a ludicrous promise of safety and endless booze in some cabin in the middle of the world’s biggest swamp?

  He was out of his mind. The blast had shaken loose some core, elemental part of him and reset everything backward and upside down.

  Three days ago, he’d had his head buried in a bottle, sleep-walking through his days as a forklift operator, mildly disappointed each day he awoke and found himself still breathing.

  Now he was considering who he could stab in the back to get himself out alive.

  A shrink couldn’t untangle that level of crazy. There wasn’t time for navel-gazing, anyway.

  He wanted to live. If it came down to it, he wasn’t putting himself in danger for the waitress or anyone else. He was willing to leave them behind.

  “Take them and go—look for a back exit,” Logan whispered to Dakota. “I’ll follow. You need the head start with Shay.”

  Julio put his arm around Shay and hurried after Dakota into the darkened bowels of the building. Logan returned his attention to the hostiles outside.

  The Corvette stopped parallel to the Jeep. The engine switched off. Three of the thugs piled out of the car; the driver remained inside. Their bronze skin was red and patchy, like they’d been exposed to an awful sunburn. Or radiation.

  “What’d you think you saw?” one of them asked, a skinny kid of sixteen or seventeen with big jughead ears.

  “Here,” the second one said, taller but just as skinny, with a du-rag and a giant tattoo of a tiger spread across his shoulder and chest beneath his white tank top.

  He strode over to the wrought-iron table Dakota and the others had been sitting at not five minutes before. “Took me a minute to figure out what my brain was tryin’ to tell me. This table wasn’t like this on our last roll through here this mornin’, all pretty like. There ain’t no dust or ash on it at all. And lookie here.” He picked something up off the table.

  Logan sucked in his breath. One of Shay’s gum wrappers from the package he’d brought her. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

  “You think it might be them?” one of them asked.

  “What’re you waiting for? Go get ‘em,” the driver said.

  “They’re probably long gone already,” the kid whined. “It’s hot as hell out here. I feel worse than sh—”

  “And you look it, too,” the driver growled. “You heard Salvador. We’re cleanin’ this place up. This is Blood Outlaw territory now. No one steals from us or murders one of our own. No one.”

  “We’ll find them,” Tiger Tattoo said. “They’ll pay for what they did to Potillo.”

  Logan’s heartrate increased. The thug in Old Navy had been found. Or the escaped snitch had told his tale. Either way, the Blood Outlaws were searching for them.

  “And if it’s La Raza or the Syndicate?” the kid asked, mentioning two other well-known gangs with strongholds in Miami.

  Tiger Tattoo smiled, revealing a row of gold teeth. “We’ll take care of them, too.”

  “Spread out,” the driver ordered. “Two and two. You two take that side, we’ll take this one.”

  Two of them started across the street, assault rifles in hand, short-wave radios attached to their low-slung belts.

  Logan melted back into the shadows and moved swiftly and silently across the foyer. The front room was some kind of sitting area featuring padded chairs with a sickly green palm tree pattern from the nineties mixed with shiny brass coffee tables displaying dusty Human Resources Digest magazines.

  There was a welcome counter surrounded by toppled potted palms to the right, a water cooler and coffee station below a splintered giant mirror to the left, and a set of double doors straight ahead next to the elevators and emergency stairwell.

  He didn’t want to head to the second or third stories. It cut off their options for escape. Better to stay on the first floor. He hoped Dakota was smart enough to do the same.

  He pushed through the double doors to find a huge open area cluttered with cubicles stuffed with computer equipment and personal mementos, golf mugs, and family photos. Large offices for the bigwigs lined either side of the large room, placards announcing each name and title affixed to the faux wooden doors.

  He blinked to adjust his eyes. Daylight filtered through the opened doors of several offices large enough for exterior windows. The interior was still deeply shadowed, but there was enough l
ight to see by.

  This was his chance. He should go for one of the offices, vault through the shattered window, and make a run for it on his own…

  Noises reached him from the foyer. Voices. Something banging. Maybe the water cooler being knocked over just for the hell of it.

  He spotted Dakota at the far end of the cubicle maze, peeking her head out of a narrow door, searching for him. When she caught sight of him, she widened her eyes and gestured silently at him. Come on.

  His brain told him to run for the window. Get out while he still could. Wash his hands of this whole mess, these people he hardly knew and sure as hell wasn’t responsible for.

  But something else made him hesitate, something he couldn’t explain even to himself. He should run—but he didn’t.

  Before he could talk himself out of it, he ducked below the level of the cubicles and sprinted, half-bent, toward Dakota and the others.

  He passed a break room on the left and glimpsed a few round tables, a compact fridge, and several vending machines. It was a good thing Dakota was smart enough not to hide in there. The thugs would probably make a beeline for it.

  More sounds from the foyer. Closer now.

  His pulse roaring in his head, he reached the door labeled ‘utility closet’ and slipped inside. He blinked, but it was too dark to see.

  “Shut the door!” Dakota hissed.

  He pulled on the brass handle, attempting to close the latch as soundlessly as possible, but the door stuck two inches before closing. He yanked harder. No give. Something was blocking it.

  The Glock still in his right hand, he fumbled with his left, feeling metal shelving, bottles of cleaner and bleach, industrial-sized rolls of paper towels. A wooden mop handle. The thick fibers of the mop must be trapped beneath the door or in the hinge—

  The double doors burst open, followed by a cacophony of loud voices.

  Logan stiffened. There was no time to move the mop out of the way or make even the smallest noise.

  He glanced behind him. His eyes more adjusted now, he could barely make out a long, narrow room about seven feet by fourteen feet lined with metal shelves sticking out perpendicular to the wall. On the left, halfway in, Dakota, Shay, and Julio huddled behind three large, wheeled trash bins.

  Everyone was frozen, crouched and terrified, waiting for whatever was going to happen next. The only thing standing between them and two hostiles with AR-15s was a flimsy hollow-core faux wood door that wasn’t even closed all the way, let alone locked.

  There was no room behind the trash cans for him to hide. The shelving might provide enough camouflage, but if he attempted to move now, he might accidentally trip or knock something over and expose them all.

  The only thing Logan had going for him was the element of surprise. He sank silently into a defensive crouch, gun up, a bullet already in the chamber, and waited.

  14

  Logan

  Through the crack in the door, Logan watched the two gangsters make their way deeper into the interior of the room.

  The first guy was in his early twenties. He was barrel-chested with a square head and blocky features--a wide face and forehead, broad cheekbone, flat nose. The second one was the kid with the big ears. He took the right side closest to the utility door.

  They both moved slowly. The kid hunched like he was in pain. Squarehead breathed so heavily Logan could hear him panting from thirty feet away. He kept pausing to mop his damp forehead with a red handkerchief.

  Squarehead banged the muzzle of the AR-15 against several of the cubicle walls. “Come out, come out, wherever you are…” He paused to hack up something and spat it out on the carpet.

  The kid wandered down the far aisle. He glanced half-heartedly into each cubicle, ignoring the offices completely. He scanned the break room and made a face, as if the sight of food made him ill.

  Logan watch him shuffle closer and closer. He stopped at the last cubicle, not four feet away.

  The kid slumped into one of the padded, ergonomic office chairs and leaned his head back. With a sigh, he opened a drawer and banged it shut. He dumped a sheaf of papers from a rack and tossed them around on the floor. He knocked the computer off the desk with a thump.

  Whether he was simply too sick, bored, or lazy, his heart wasn’t in the hunt.

  Abruptly, the kid bent and heaved into a trash can. The sound of vomit splattered against plastic. He straightened with a groan, holding his stomach, the AR-15 swinging freely on its sling.

  Radiation sickness, then. At least something might go right for them, after all. Logan shifted slightly, just enough to support his gun hand on his knee. Whatever happened, he was ready.

  “Screw this.” The kid wiped his mouth with his forearm. “I’m outta here. Salvador can bag his own damn goons. They’re ghosts, man.”

  “Don’t let the Spider hear you talkin’ like that,” Squarehead snapped from across the room.

  The kid stood and swayed a little. “He said if there weren’t no ash, there ain’t no radioactive poison or whatever. Then why do I feel like this, man? Like my insides are turning out? Got this damn headache, too.”

  Squarehead shrugged and picked at one of the blisters forming at the corner of his mouth. “Stop talkin’. You’re just making it worse. You clear your side?”

  The kid kicked the trash can. It rolled across the carpet and bumped against the utility closet door, spewing its contents. The stench of vomit filled Logan’s nostrils. He clamped his mouth shut and stopped breathing.

  The kid stood less than three feet away from him. Through the crack in the door, Logan sighted his shoulder, adjusted the gun a fraction higher, and aimed at one oversized ear.

  He could take out this one easily enough, but Squarehead and his AR-15 would be trouble. And once they heard the shots, the others would come running.

  Don’t make me do this. Just walk away.

  The kid barely glanced at the offices or the utility door right in front of him. He looked at the stairs for a moment, then turned away. “Yeah. All clear.”

  “Let’s roll. This place is like a sauna.”

  Their voices faded as they exited the building.

  Logan and the others listened, unmoving, until the Corvette roared back to life and the car rumbled slowly down the road. Finally, the sounds faded completely. The eerie silence returned.

  “That was too close,” Dakota said as she untangled her limbs and rose to her feet.

  “Thank God we’re okay,” Julio said, letting out a shaky breath. “I nearly peed my pants.”

  “Good thing you didn’t.” Shay patted his arm with a gentle smile. “Thank goodness for gangbangers with a poor work ethic, I guess.”

  Dakota wrinkled her nose. “What’s that awful smell?”

  “You don’t want to know.” Logan pushed open the door and stepped into the room. “Let’s get out of here before they decide to come back.”

  They hurried past the cubicles, the offices, and the break room. No one felt like pausing to stock up.

  They pushed through the double doors and entered the foyer.

  A scuffling sound came from the right. Beside the elevators, the door to the emergency stairwell swung open.

  Logan whipped around, his pistol already out and pointed at the threat.

  15

  Dakota

  “Please—don’t shoot,” a man said as he thrust both hands in the air. “I’m unarmed. I’m not here to hurt anyone.”

  “Then who are you?” Dakota asked.

  “I—I work here. In accounting,” he stammered nervously. He pointed up at the ceiling with one shaking finger. “My name is Dave. Dave Spangler. A handful of my co-workers are still upstairs. We’re sheltering in place. You know…from the bomb.”

  Dave Spangler was a middle-aged, balding white guy with a bristly mustache and heavy jowls, his gut swelling over his creased khaki pants. He looked exactly like she imagined all accountants did.

  Logan lowered his pistol so it wasn’t
pointed at the guy’s chest, but he remained fully in alert mode. So was Dakota. Her heart was still hammering against her ribs from the near miss with the Blood Outlaws.

  “We just wanted to make contact with the outside world, to talk to another person, you know?” Dave said.

  “We know,” Julio said kindly. “Don’t worry, we’re not dangerous.”

  “Speak for yourself,” Logan muttered

  “How many people are here with you?” Dakota asked.

  “T-twelve,” Dave said. “We’ve been holed up in here since the blast. The first emergency broadcasts told us to evacuate, but I’ve read a few novels about potential nuclear attacks. It was science fiction, of course, but everything it said about sheltering in place made sense, you know? Most of our co-workers fled. We’ve stayed upstairs in an inner conference room.”

  “Smart choice,” Dakota said.

  “The others didn’t want me to come down to talk to you. But I know you’re not like those gangs. We watched what happened from one of the second-story windows. Those scumbags came after you. You’re lucky they gave up so quickly. The things we’ve heard…”

  He shook his head, looking ill. “People are already rioting and looting. We can hear them at night. Screaming and gunshots. Gangs are taking advantage of the power vacuum, I guess. They’re fighting each other for territory. We can hear them ransacking stores, banks, pharmacies, you name it. Haven’t seen a police car or heard a siren since it started the first night.”

  “Who’s doing this?” Dakota asked, her gut tightening. She already had a good guess.

  “The worst are the ones that call themselves Blood Outlaws. They’ve been a growing crime problem for years, but the governor never could contain them. Now, they’re trying to control the remaining food and whatever else they think is valuable, patrolling the streets like the police. They’re killing rival gang members or anyone who tries to resist them.”