by Ryan Schow
“Can we talk about him later? I’m still trying to figure out how you are real, and why you’re here with him.”
“He saved my life,” she said, looking at Rider
“Is this true?” she asked. He gave a humble nod. “Well thank you, Rider.”
“You said you have a doctor?” Hagan asked, looking at Rider and not Cincinnati.
“Yes, we do.”
“And you’re a nurse?” he said, now turning to Cincinnati.
“She is,” Rex said for her. “In the ER.”
“So between the two of you, do you think my mom will be okay?”
“What’s wrong with your mother?” Rider asked. Hagan told him and he said, “It all depends on her injuries.”
“So this doctor you have,” Indigo asked, “is she any good?”
“Sarah’s her name. Doctor Sarah Richards. And yes, she’s good.”
“You trust her?”
“She’s the one who’s been caring for me,” her mother said, catching Indigo’s attention. “So, yes.”
“I think it’s time you and your friends relocate,” Rider said. “Strength in numbers and all that.”
“Where to?”
“City college down on Masonic, on the other side of the Panhandle.”
“We’ve been there,” Stanton said. “Met a guy in an old Chevy truck with an arsenal in the bed.”
“Waylon.”
“Nice guy,” Stanton says.
“I can go with Hagan,” Rider said, “get his mom and younger brother. But after that, you guys should come with us.”
“I’m going to stay here,” Indigo said. “Just in case my father comes back.”
“Where’s he at?” Indigo’s mother asked.
“San Diego,” Indigo replied. “Sales conference, or something like that.”
“Then I’m staying,” her mother said. “If that’s okay with you.”
She held her mother’s eyes, then slowly nodded her head and said, “It is.”
25
The former hitman and new head of The Ophidian Horde sat comfortably at his desk deep inside the half-destroyed Sutter Medical building reading his Bible under the light of an open window. A knock at the door pulled him from this brief utopia, but he didn’t stop reading until he’d finished his passage. After that, he closed the book and said, “Come in.”
Gunderson, his chief enforcer, entered with a black garbage bag in hand. “What can I do for you?”
“Chandler Diggs and his boys learned of a community meeting in Balboa Hollow—it’s just above the park on 8th and Fulton—”
“I’m familiar with the area,” he said, his eyes dipping to the bag he had in hand. “I don’t know this Chandler Diggs though.”
“He’s a convert. Goes by the name Blood Pig.”
The hitman gave a nod of recognition, allowing Gunderson to continue. “They were slaughtered a few days back. A former soldier of his went looking for them. Found a massacre.”
“A massacre? Who’d they find, besides Blood Pig?”
“There was a community meeting. I sent Chandler and his men to handle it, per your orders.”
“So the community killed them?”
“That’s what’s unsettling, sir. Everyone’s dead. Chandler, his men, fifty or sixty members of the community. It’s a blood bath.”
“Where at?”
“Frank McCoppin Elementary, on 6th and Balboa.”
The hitman frowned, truly disturbed. He went to Frank McCoppin as a kid. Before he became…what he became…he was just a boy and that school held many fine memories for him.
“Who did this? And why wasn’t I told you were moving on the elementary school?”
“You said handle it, sir. So I handled it. From this point forward, I’ll be sure to apprise you of all movements in detail. We’ve got several more planned over the next few days, but…”
“But what?”
“This one gives me pause,” Gunderson said.
“Stop sounding so formal for Christ’s sake. I’m not going to shoot you for lack of manners or an improper usage of the English language.” Then: “What’s in the bag?”
Gunderson sat the bag on a chair facing the hitman’s desk, reached inside, fidgeted a little, then hauled out a decapitated head by the nostrils, almost like it was a bowling ball and not attached to a body a few days ago.
“What does that say? On his head? Indigo?” He studied the head, then looked up and said, “What the hell is ‘Indigo?’”
“We think it’s a name,” Gunderson replied, “but it could be a new faction, too.”
“So they cut his head off?”
“I cut his head off.”
“Why would you do that?”
“His body was turned into a pin cushion in the worst way. Besides, it was easier to bring him to you like this rather than drag back an entire body. I can retrieve the rest of him if you want.”
“No, but I do want you to go back and burn the bodies. All of them. Burn the school down, too. No sense in having someone stumbling in on that.”
“There are houses all around the school, sir.”
“And if they burn?” the former hitman asked, raising his voice, perturbed. “If this whole city burns? What will be the difference from now?”
Gunderson lowered his head, humbled.
“You did good, Gunderson,” he said, his calm returning. “I see now that I was right about you. You’re going to make a fine enforcer.”
“Thank you, sir.”
Reaching his hand out, he said, “Let me have him.”
Pulling his fingers out of Blood Pig’s nostrils, he handed the head over, setting it on the desk on the bloody flat of the cut-off neck.
“Not on the desk,” he said, sliding the Bible over. “Use a coaster.”
Hesitating, Gunderson set the man’s head down on the Bible, steadying it, then standing back while the hitman looked it over.
The new head of The Ophidian Horde turned the head so he was eye to eye with it. Then: “This Indigo, whatever it is…a gang, a person…whatever, apparently this was some form of retaliation.”
“We believe so, too.”
“Gunderson, your first order of business on this sad day is to find out who or what Indigo is, and then report back. I’d like to head up the matter myself when the time comes.”
“Yes, sir.”
Making a fist and popping his knuckles, he looked at his chief enforcer with the deadest of gazes and said, “We’re literally going to rip the spine out of this Indigo thing and hang it from the nearest lamppost so people know who we are, and what we’re capable of.”
“Indeed, sir.”
“Good,” he said. “Now get on it.”
END OF BOOK 2
NOTE TO READER: How did Indigo come to be, what are her secrets, and how did she first encounter Rider? Meet Indigo in her insane rise from obscure teen to the consummate badass in a new thriller, titled The Zero Hour, written exclusively for readers of The Last War series. Indigo’s story is action packed post-apocalyptic survival fiction at its finest. Not only do you get to know this young huntress on day one of the fall of San Francisco, The Zero Hour dovetails in with critical events that will take place in The Ophidian Horde. CLICK HERE to get your FREE copy of The Zero Hour delivered to your eBook reader of choice, an exclusive link to the cast pictures on Pinterest, and news of the latest new releases from this author in both The Last War series, and the Swann series (which is wrapping up with book nine in the Spring of 2018).
***Read the first two chapters of The Zero Hour at the end of this book***
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Zero Hour: Indigo’s Story
26
Zero Hour: Chapter 1
Some people are always talking about how when you need someone, anyone, that when your friends fail you and your family abandons you and humanity sinks into a mire of its own making, at least you have God.
But what if you need Him and all He’s got for you is closed lips and a cold shoulder? Well, the answer becomes simple: you’re on your own.
I tell myself it’s better this way. But it’s a lie. It was a lie when the world was normal and it’s a lie now that it’s not. Every so often, when I think back to the beginning, to just before all this happened, when I think about all the drama that used to breed, gestate and grow legs not only in school but between my parents at home, I think I might actually believe in the high merits of solitude.
At one point I might have even told myself the apocalypse would be a welcomed reprieve from real life. That if civilization fell, I’d no longer feel so alone. That the threat of extinction would bring us all together not as one social group or another, but as human beings.
I allowed myself the indulgence of these grand, foolish thoughts because the unthinkable had happened and I suddenly found myself grappling with a new reality, one with ragged edges and the everyday promise of death.
The pillars of this once cultured world shuddered and disintegrated. Much to my dismay, to my absolute horror, people didn’t turn to each other the way I had hoped, rather they turned on each other with a sort of sick desperation. Now that I’m up to my teeth in it, my perspective has shifted. I am no longer that naïve girl from before. The world is different, I am different, and nothing is guaranteed, not even the survival of our species.
My name is Indigo, and this is my story.
27
Zero Hour: Chapter 2
My dad is leaving me, and honestly, it feels like the worst time ever. This day was coming, I knew it was, and I knew it would feel like this, but still…
“I won’t be gone long,” he says. “Two days for sure, three tops.”
I give my father my big empty eyes; I show him my most neutral face. This will be my first time at home all alone and though I’m eighteen—certainly no child—a first is a first.
The truth is, when my mother fell for some high society knuckle dragger pitching her the dream life, she left creating a gaping hole in our lives, this big, sad vacuum me and my dad felt swallowed in. It left us raw, but at least we had each other.
Now he’s leaving, too. Unlike my mother, however, he’s coming back. Which is good, because most people have a few someones they can lean on, just not me. All I’ve got is him.
“What am I going to do with myself for the next three days?” I ask.
He shrugs his shoulders and gives me a sheepish grin. He knows I don’t really have any friends. He also knows I’m not prone to getting into trouble, so perhaps he’s thinking that leaving me here by myself is a no-brainer. Well, it is for him. But it’s not for me, not at all. I make the face.
“What?” he asks with a laugh.
“I guess sometimes I just wish Mom were here,” I admit, although I know the weight behind this statement is too much to bear right now, for either of us.
His subtle amusement fades.
“Join the crowd, Shooter,” he says, gathering up his things—car keys, cell phone, wallet.
My dad calls me Shooter because it sounds better than archer. Mostly I’m into archery, but I shoot guns, too, therefore, I’m a shooter.
Shooter.
Mom split a few years back. She’s gone now, but not all the way gone. Every so often she calls to see how I am, how school is, how life is treating me.
“It’s amazing, Mom,” I answer, deadpan. “Just amazing.”
She once said she loved my dry humor. I’m still not sure if she was being sarcastic, or if she was for real.
Now when she calls, I say, “Hang on, I’ll get Dad,” to which she says, “You know I’m calling to talk to you.”
Of course she is. She doesn’t talk to my dad. Even though he’s super chill, good looking and usually on his game, she’s avoiding him like the plague. Even I know she doesn’t want to take responsibility for what she’s done, for how badly she hurt us.
When she first went and demolished our family for this promising new beau of hers, after a few weeks passed, she called and I asked how things were. To her, everything was fairy dust and rainbows. She was in love. Now two years later, she’s doing everything she can to hide the remorse in her voice. It’s there, though. I can hear it.
Beneath the reflective surface of those still waters, an undercurrent of discontent is churning. It’s a restless undertow she’s desperately trying to hide. Sometimes I think when she’s done with Tad (yep, the homewrecker has a name and it’s a really dumb one!), I wonder if she’ll come crawling back to my dad. Even worse, I wonder if he’ll take her back. I hope he doesn’t. She doesn’t deserve someone like him.
Anyway, I’m no psychologist and I’m not going to pretend I understand anything that has to do with relationships—especially marriage—but even I can see she’s not where she needs to be in life. The woman has no clue what she wants. If she hadn’t cheated on my dad the way she did, I would almost feel sorry for her. But she did, so I don’t.
So now she lives with her new boo a few miles from here. I’ve been to their home half a dozen times and I swear to Jesus, I don’t like it. It’s too large and too ostentatious and it’s really cold inside. Not cold like the weather, or ice cream—rather it feels cold the way you describe something as empty, something devoid of a soul. That brings me to Tad.
Oh, Lord…Tad.
I don’t like talking about him since he pretty much stole my mom from us, but whatever. He’s a small part of my life whether I like it or not. I’d tell you all about the guy, but I don’t want to waste too much time subject of Tad because teenage angst over your mom’s new squeeze is just a tad too juvenile and annoying, even for me.
After going to my mom’s new place for dinner for the first time, my father asked me how it was. What he was really asking for was intel, gossip, my most judgmental take on what has become enemy territory. Naturally, I embellished.
“Tad is a bit of a douchebag with a tad more hair grease than a man his age should have and he’s a tad bit condescending when he talks to me, acting like I should be more of a girly girl like mom and not some practically flat chested tomboy who likes to shoot things and drive muscle cars.”
The way I said it, honestly, I’ve never seen my dad squirm like that. Was I being a bit too dramatic? A tad too self-deprecating? Perhaps.
“That kind of language is unbecoming of a woman,” my dad said, completely ignoring what I thought was a brilliant play on words.
“Did no one ever tell you? Douchebag isn’t a bad word. It’s an adjective people like me use so we don’t have to say a-hole.
”
“Whatever,” he said, half amused. “And don’t say those things about yourself. You’re perfect the way you are.”
The one thing not lost on me was my dad referring to me as a woman. I’m a senior in high school and ready as ever to get out of the cesspool of bullies and narcissistic cliques and over-liberal teachers telling me how I should think rather than how to do math or science or where to properly place a dangling participle. I feel like an angsty teenage girl who doesn’t quit fit into the world around me. What I don’t feel like, however, is a woman.
To me, a woman has a job. She has bills and credit cards and appointments with the salon. She has a place of her own, a few different guys wanting to please her, and she has sex. Lots and lots of mind blowing sex.
So no, I’m not feeling so much like a woman. But if I’ve got to start somewhere, then staying home by myself for a few days will be the next step in the evolution of yours truly. It’ll be like a trial run of growing up. And I’ll tell you this…the first thing I’m going to do is not get up at six a.m. The second thing I’m planning for is more sleep!
Not that I’ll tell my dad any of this. I won’t.
Right now the two of us are standing in the kitchen with a morning chill pressed on our windows and the outside world black and silent. I’m in my pajamas with bed head and sleep crusted eyes not wanting my dad to leave.
“Will you let me know when you get there?” I ask, folding my arms. “Because San Diego is a long ways away.”
He’s eating toast, skimming his itinerary one last time.
“I will. You have a list on the counter. Alarm code. Emergency credit card. Keys to the gun safe if you need it. Plus there’s a hundred dollars in there for food and gas. And you know where all the emergency numbers are, so…”
“Yeah,” I whisper.
He glances up at me, gives me a look, then opens his arms and says, “Come here.” I go to him, and he pulls me into one of his amazing hugs. I won’t lie, I’m a daddy’s girl. He lets go after a minute or two, tells me he loves me then says, “Will you please, please, please make sure you go to school?”