Dark Days of the After (Book 3): Dark Days of the Apostasy

by Schow, Ryan

  Boone was behind one of the burning transports when the spotter chimed in on all two-ways. “The incoming vehicles…they’re with us,” he said. “Identify first! Identify first! They’re all in Chicom uniforms, but I repeat, they are with us. Over.”

  “Roger that,” Boone keyed in. “All parties be advised, we have friendly support from the last three vehicles. Do not engage them, they are friendlies. Over.”

  “Copy that,” the voices said, coming on the line.

  And with that, the sniper began firing.

  Chapter Twenty

  Before all hell broke loose down at the I5 trench, when Harper and Logan were still up at the barn, not yet in the fight, Logan started to calm down. But the second he heard the call, he and Harper grabbed their gear, moving fast and with purpose.

  Logan’s legs were stiff as boards, his feet hurt and every ounce of exertion was murder on his body, but this was just one more thing he sought to ignore.

  I’ll have time to be in pain when I’m dead, he told himself.

  The hiking boots he wore were about as comfortable as it would get for him, so instead he focused on getting to the Jeep quickly. When he and Harper half ran, half slid down the hill dropping into the street, they found one of the Jeeps running, Stephani in the driver’s seat.

  Harper crawled in back; Logan sat up front.

  “That was quick,” Harper said.

  “I’m already set,” Stephani replied, weapon at her side, a mag vest strapped on tight to keep pressure on the area where she was shot.

  The fact that she was there after being shot and not complaining was impressive. In Krav class, Instructor Yoav beat the lessons of pain in their heads. He beat it into their bodies as well. Stephani hadn’t been in any of these classes, yet there she was, unconcerned with the state of her body, armed and ready to rock and roll.

  She got them going, driving mostly one handed, occasionally having to use the hand on the side she was favoring.

  What a trio we make, he thought. Out of the three of them, two had recently been shot. Logan tried not to think about this. He looked back at Harper.

  Seeing this, she took his hand.

  “No one dies out here,” Harper said.

  Logan shook his head, wishing she hadn’t said such a thing. He squeezed her hand instead. She leaned forward and whispered into his ear.

  “If we survive this, I’m going to…” and this was where she explained the sexual things she was going to do to Logan. He thought of it as taking a victory lap. She seemed to agree.

  Logan smiled, his confidence higher now, the will to live never greater than in that moment. “You just remember you said that tonight,” he told her.

  “Are we getting a room or going to war?” Stephani asked.

  “Hopefully both,” Logan replied. “But not in that order.”

  For as fast as Stephani was driving, and for her injuries, she actually drove quite well. Then again, the back roads were her home, and she’d driven them plenty. Far more than Logan or Harper.

  The beekeeper got them onto the main road in no time flat. Much of the freeway out in front of the Sheriff’s station had been cleared, but there was still ash all over the ground, and the speed bump piles of melted rubber. In the field were stacks of bodies, most of them just ash.

  When they reached the trench, Stephani pulled off the side of the road and up into the brush. Everyone piled out, the three of them running at a trot alongside the road until they could join the others. Stephani held back, staying out of the fight and hanging back with the kids; Harper and Logan joined Boone and Clay.

  “You okay?” Logan turned and said to Harper. She leaned forward, pressed her mouth to his and gave him a deep kiss.

  “You remember what I said,” she told him.

  “Cover our six until the bullets run out, then do your thing,” he said, seeing the knife at her side and knowing she was ferocious in hand-to-hand battle.

  “Are you worried about me?” she asked.

  He nodded his head, then said, “Please just let us do this.”

  She nodded, her body already showing the first tremors of an adrenaline rush.

  The first vehicles hit, everything else piling up around it in a spectacular display of chaos. Vehicles blew up and people burned to death; after that, the gunfight started.

  For a second, as he watched things unfold, Logan found himself somewhat impressed with the militia. He wanted to get in the mix, but he hung back with Boone, Clay and Otto, which was something completely contrary to his normal MO.

  “If we’re not running their game plan,” Boone said to him, seeing how anxious he was, “then we’re in the way.”

  He nodded.

  The militia at the tree line was handling the first surge, and getting in the crossfire was a real possibility if they were sloppy. These were men who could shoot deer and elk, rabbits on the run even, but none of these animals ever shot back. He decided Boone and Clay were right to hold fast.

  When it was time, with that beautiful, breathless feeling of his stomach crowding up into his throat, he found himself shaking with need. It was time to go.

  Time to smoke those dirtbags.

  On Boone’s and Clay’s signal, he moved down into the trenches taking the right side of the pileup while Boone moved through the middle and Clay took the outside edge nearest the militia.

  The impact of landing on the hood of the crashed Jeep sent bolts of pain through his feet, up into his shins and finally to his entire spine. He chewed on the pain like it was candy, the drug that lit the fuse. The first face he shot had him silently snarling; the second felt good, like stepping on a pair of Chicom nuts.

  In that moment he felt bad for Clay, for Logan’s side clearly had all the action.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  “Slow down!” Skylar told Ryker as he tapped the brakes. From a distance, Ryker felt the distance between him and the transport and supplies trucks closing quick.

  “Get the binoculars,” he said. She grabbed them out of the back. “What the hell is happening?”

  In the back of his mind, he knew what this was.

  Five Falls ambushed the convoy.

  “They’re starting World War III,” Skylar said, binos up to her face. He snuck a look at her, saw the smile curling her lips. He wanted to kiss her one last time, just to know the last kiss wasn’t a fluke, that maybe if they survived this there might be another.

  “Wait, holy balls!” she said, leaning forward, binos still to her face. “The guys in the troop transport, they’re firing on the Chicoms!”

  “What?”

  He sped up; Skyler kept the binos glued to her face, giving him the breakdown. They approached things fast, but when they were close, one of the guys from the transport turned and fired on them, forcing Ryker to hug the door and Skylar to duck down.

  “Why the hell are they shooting at us?” Skylar screamed.

  “Because they’re Resistance,” Ryker said.

  “But so are we!”

  “We’re dressed like Chicoms in a Chicom Jeep,” he explained, braking hard and sliding the Jeep down into a ditch and half out of sight. “Grab your bag and follow me! We need to change clothes or we’re dead!”

  They ducked down low, moving through the foliage as fast as possible, tearing off their hats and shirts as they ran. Bullets ate up the ground at their feet, stitching lines in the dirt all around them. They broke through the tree line, ran another fifteen yards, then started stripping fast. When they were done changing clothes, they jogged into the forest Skylar knew well, then circled around the troop transport’s firing squad.

  Not too far away, sounding like it was coming from the trees, Skylar heard a voice say, “I’m not sure about the Jeep, but I think they’re friendlies. I don’t know.”

  “They’re dug in now,” another voice returned, “you never know until it’s too late, or until they fall in beside us.”

  “They should have fired back, but they didn’t. Th
at’s why I’m thinking they’re Resistance.”

  Ducking down in the forest, Ryker and Skyler listened to them. To Ryker, it looked as though Skylar was about to alert them to her presence, but she chose to exercise caution, just in case.

  “Yeah, both of them were white, too,” the one guy continued.

  “That doesn’t matter,” the voice responded. “It was white Americans who sold us out to these commie assholes in the first place.”

  “Yeah, well the white guy looked hard, military maybe. Nothing like these soft-bellied Chicom creatures.”

  “Again,” the man said, “that means nothing.”

  Down the slight grade and in the interstate, the Chicoms began advancing, gunfire ripping through the forest. A wave of Chicoms followed.

  Whether they were on the attack or fleeing from the troop transport who shot at them, Ryker didn’t know. He had his gun at the ready, his eyes steely and determined. He wanted at these turds. And dammit, he wanted blood.

  “Ryker,” Skylar said, shaking him from his trance. “We need to go.”

  It became clear the horde of Chicoms were taking fire from all sides. In part from the militia farther up the road, the troop transport at their six, and sporadically from the friendlies in the woods who still had ammo and a slight advantage.

  From the road, the men and women from the troop transport were shooting at them, chasing the now retreating Chicoms into the woods. Before they could move, the two guys talking emptied their mags into the soldiers. Whether it was a plan or a fluke, the Chicoms had been caught in a trap Ryker didn’t see coming.

  Skylar raised her weapon, pointed it near the two friendlies. One of them turned, but the guy quickly said, “Resistance!”

  She held her fire.

  “Why did you shoot at us?” Skylar asked.

  “That was you in the Jeep?” the man called out. More gunfire caused him to duck instinctively. Looking back, then at them, they tucked their pistols away and jogged toward Skylar and Ryker.

  “We’re Resistance, too,” Skylar said.

  “Who are you?”

  “Skylar Madigan, who are you?”

  He stopped, froze, then really looked at her. For a moment he was studying her intently, but then recognition broke over his face.

  “I’m Quan Li and this is Zane,” he said, introducing himself and a fellow soldier. “What the hell?”

  “I know you,” she said, giving the Resistance fighter and his friend a knowing look. “We video chatted once.”

  “You looked different then,” he said.

  “Tell me about it,” she joked, glancing back toward the freeway where gunfire was erupting at a heavier click. “I felt different, too.”

  Nearby, a line of bullets pockmarked a tree, causing them all to duck for cover. More gunfire erupted, the shots sounding much closer than before.

  No longer interested in catching up, gun out and searching the heavier parts of the forest, Skylar whispered, “So are we going to stand here jaw jacking all day, or are we getting in this fight? Because right now you’re wasting my time.”

  “Roger that,” Quan said. To Zane, he said, “Let’s go!”

  She and Ryker moved toward the firefight when three Chicoms backed up into the forest, firing out to edges of the interstate where militia were after them. Skylar glanced over her shoulder at Quan, who had his sights on the trio. It took a moment, but then he gave a quick nod and they lit the three up. She moved toward them, eyes peeled, finding more rogue soldiers working their way up the hill.

  Overhead, somewhere in the trees, the heavy bursts of sniper fire made her wonder just who the hell was left out there in the street. And then another booming shot came from the road. She’d looked at Ryker with fear in her eyes when the sniper dropped out of the trees, his head blasted out, meat and viscus red fluid leaking out.

  Another shot tore through the trees and blew out the heart out of the man next to Quan, Zane. Everyone scrambled, looking for cover as another shot rang out, taking a gigantic bite out of the tree in front of her.

  “Get down!” she yelled and everyone hit the deck. Face down on the forest floor, she spun her head, looked at Ryker, whose eyes were calm, his expression neutral. “We’re pinned down.”

  “For now,” he replied.

  A group of Quan’s men joined them, all of them flattening out near Quan.

  “Welcome to Five Falls,” she said, her eyes dancing over them before landing squarely on Quan. To all of them, she said, “I hope your balls are big enough for this fight.”

  “They’re big as a fist, ma’am,” a white guy next to Quan said.

  She looked at him a bit longer than necessary. Then it hit her. He was the one driving the supply truck behind Quan’s troop truck. She’d passed them with barely a glance on the road sometime back.

  “Yeah, well don’t get those big balls shot off,” she said, pushing herself up. “Time to move!”

  They hustled out of the line of fire traversing farther into the forest. Much to Ryker’s relief, they weren’t chased by gunfire, or death.

  Whatever it was preoccupying the shooter down on the interstate was a real Godsend.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Noah sat across town in a makeshift nest, his weapon across his lap, field glasses helping out an old pair of eyes that didn’t see so well anymore. He didn’t want to think it was the alcohol, but then again, the tradeoff between suffering old age and accelerating it wasn’t so bad.

  That’s when he saw a Jeep heading their way.

  He spit out tobacco juice, then scooped out the chew and dropped it below, flicking the tobacco shreds off his finger before wiping it clean on his pant leg.

  “You got eyes on that?” Bronx McLaren asked over the two-way.

  “Roger that,” Noah said.

  Bronx “New York” McLaren was the spotter. Seeing what he saw when he saw it, Noah figured he was going to work out fine. Not that the job was a tough one. But when a man was out of sight, he could be picking his nose, squatting down and cranking out a steamer, or just plain daydreaming.

  Bronx, however, had eyes on the mark quickly. And to his credit, the kid hit the squawk box in seconds.

  “Two in the front, only air in the rear, over,” Bronx whispered, as if he was afraid to spook the insects in the forest around them.

  “Roger that, I’ve got eyes on the targets.”

  He overheard Boone’s conversation about friendlies being mixed in with the convoy. This was why he took extra long sighting in his targets. When you’re touted as being some kind of a legend—which he’d been in the day, back when he wasn’t tucking his balls in his sock and hacking up a freaking lung every night—you don’t want to miss the first shots, let alone the critical ones.

  “Holding for a closer look,” Noah said. “Will confirm target first. Stand down.”

  “Roger that,” Bronx said.

  When the vehicle was close enough, when Noah was certain the driver and the passenger had the looks of the Chicoms—and there was a look—he took the first shot. A bloom of red verified the kill shot on the driver.

  He worked the bolt action, his heart racing, a grin on half his mouth. He lined up the second target fast. The Jeep rolled off the side of the road, slammed into the guard rail, then moseyed to a stop.

  The passenger was tucked down in the front seat, only the hump of his back visible.

  If that had been the old days, he would have slid down the tree like it was a firehouse pole, then tac-walked up to the target and lit him up like it was nothing.

  Times had changed, though.

  Now, if he tried to slide down the tree, he was pretty sure he’d lose his grip, then drop down and land on his back. He was thinking broken back, broken hip, broken neck.

  That said, he stayed put and waited.

  “ROE?” Bronx’s voice came back. Noah waited, eye at the scope, the buttstock nestled like an old lover against his armpit. “I repeat,” Bronx echoed, “ROE?”

>   “Shutcher fugging piehole is the ROE, numb nuts,” he growled against the stock of the weapon.

  That’s when the passenger’s head eased into view.

  Noah fired, the shot entering the skull just above his right eye, the exit clean. Sitting up in his perch overlooking the road, he laid the weapon across his lap and keyed the two-way.

  “Gonna need a doggie-bag for leftovers, out,” he said.

  “Roger that,” Bronx repeated.

  Over the horizon, he heard the firefight raging, happy that he logged two kills—that putting on his pants that day hadn’t been a waste of time—but he was pissed off that he was all the way out here when the real fight was way the hell over there.

  He keyed the two-way again and said, “Northern end secure, targets neutralized.”

  “Taking heavy fire,” came the hushed reply. It was Clay. “We’ve got multiple casualties, targets in play, and friendlies mixed in the whole of it, over.”

  “I can leave Bronx here, double time it over there, over,” he said.

  “Roger that,” Clay returned. “Proceed with caution and don’t stroke out getting here, old timer.”

  By then he was already climbing down from his perch, mumbling under his breath all the insults he’d spew into the two-way if he had a free hand. When he was in his truck with the pedal to the floor, he raised Bronx on the two-way.

  “NY1, come in.”

  “This is NY1, over,” he said.

  “You’re in charge now,” he said. “Maintain visuals on the freeway, you choose your ROE. Nothing gets past you.”

  “Roger that,” he said.

  For a second, it sounded like he was on the move, but the truck was so loud he couldn’t be sure. All he knew was that the fight was up ahead and big enough that he didn’t want to waste his brain power contemplating the what-ifs of Bronx’s activities.

  Before arriving at the scene of the firefight—which looked like a grisly pileup, complete with a sky full of smoke—he keyed in Bronx and said, “Switch to main comms channel, just to stay in the loop, out.”