Dark Days of the After (Book 5): Dark Days of the Purge

by Schow, Ryan

  “Much larger than Quan thought. Reports from our people on the East Coast are favorable to your scenario, Skylar. They let the EU Army and the African Army clash in Pittsburgh. The patriots laid low, waited for the two forces to obliterate each other, then came in and massacred the remaining troops.”

  A change of state hit them all. For a moment, there was an air of hopefulness.

  “They were also able to get word out to the abandoned militaries all over the world, letting the generals know the President was dead, and that the nation was under attack. With the military bankrupt, and nearly all of America’s ranks deployed and long since marooned, it’s going to take time for the men to return. When they hit land though, they’ll marshal whatever resources they have and mount an offensive worthy of driving out the nation’s last aggressors.”

  “We could actually take our country back,” Boone said.

  “I’m told the first regiment is preparing to leave Afghanistan,” Longwei said, looking directly at Boone. He knew the connection with Afghanistan and Clay.

  “So how does that help us now?” Ryker asked.

  “It’s a turning of the tide,” Felicity answered. Her face was gaunt, the emptiness in her eyes as deep as any ocean floor. For a moment, Logan wondered about Rowdy, if the baby even had a chance at survival in such a dark, loveless world.

  “Logan’s right,” Boone said. “What if the SAA doesn’t know where the Chicoms are hiding? You said they’re tucked in Yale, which I personally know is a valley flanked by two steep ridges and a lake. If that’s true, the SAA will never find them.”

  And this was the point Logan knew Longwei wanted to get to, the thing he wanted them to think about. Logan said, “Not unless we steer the SAA right at them.”

  “That’s insane,” Boone said.

  Logan grinned.

  “If we can shove them right up the ass end of the Chicom stronghold,” Skylar said, weighing in, “then we pit our enemies against each other and sit back for the show.”

  “Quan’s contact has infiltrated the internal Chicom stronghold, but we need to shape the external war. That’s where we come in. We need to catch the SAA, infiltrate them, then steer them to the Chicom HQ in Yale.”

  Ryker laughed and said, “Does anyone know where we’re going to get the balls necessary to pull this off?”

  Longwei’s mouth was an unamused slash. “I think there is an easier way, Ryker. We’ll use our brains instead of our collective balls.”

  “And how do you propose we do that?” Harper asked.

  “Very carefully,” Longwei said.

  Down in Five Fall’s cemetery, the town was gathered around several very large funeral pyres. Logan couldn’t take his eyes off the piled bodies. The scene was surreal, torturous to the emotions, the saddest day of Logan’s life. He held Harper close, fought like hell to keep from coming apart.

  As the sun fell into the western sky, they burned the scores of dead, watching in long moments of silence as the flames engulfed generations of Five Falls residents. These were families, friends, loved ones. All reduced to carbon, sent back into the heavens by which they came from.

  Logan saw Stephani try to hold Boone’s hand. At first he moved his hand away, but then she took it and held it. He didn’t resist this time. Instead, he just stood there, but not with any vigor, almost like a weed hanging onto a chain link fence it happened to blow into.

  When the people began to leave, Skylar called them all around and said, “I know this is not the time for this, or perhaps it’s the perfect time, I don’t know. Actually, I’m not sure now that I think about it.”

  No one said anything. They were mentally drained, their souls wrung dry.

  “We are amassing an army,” Skylar continued. “Anyone who would like to come with us to Roseburg to ready more men and take the fight to the SAA and the Chicoms would be welcome.”

  One teary eyed woman said, “You’re right, this isn’t the time.” She walked past Skylar, leaving the grounds, hand to mouth, her body trembling with grief.

  In the midst of this, however, a handful of men and some women raised their hands.

  “What about the rest of you?” Clay asked.

  “This is our home, our land,” one person said. A number of heads shook in agreement, Stephani’s included.

  Orbey said, “This is my home as well, but if we don’t do this, America will be Chicom land, or SAA land, and we’ll never truly be free. For some of us, this is bigger than our backyards, or our lineage. We may not return, but our fight will be noble, patriotic and unrelenting.”

  Logan just stared at her, half in awe, half grief-stricken for this woman who meant so much to all of them. Having lost everything, she was pledging her body and her soul to go to war with them.

  “We got our asses kicked,” someone said. “They burned down most of the town and left us behind like we were nothing.”

  “No war is without casualties,” Harper said.

  “These casualties are personal,” a woman argued. “You didn’t grow up here, but most of us did.”

  “If there’s any guarantee in all this,” Logan replied, “it’s that we’re going to have a lot more casualties before this is over. People both you and I know and care about.”

  Several of the kids stepped forward. They pledged themselves to the war. The bigger of the boys said, “We’ll fight.”

  Clay said, “For some of us, war is in our blood. For others”—he said, looking at Logan—“vengeance and retribution darken our hearts. Whatever your reason, we’re going to go and kill those commie turds, and those SAA nightmares, but only after we let them kill each other. Then, God willing, we can take them out, then return here and rebuild.”

  Skylar said, “Or perhaps we will do to them what they’ve done to us. We roll in with the axe of justice, show them whose house they’re in.”

  “The what?” someone asked.

  Logan couldn’t take his eyes off Skylar. The firelight look of her was enchanting and scary. He was attracted to her, sad he’d lost her, even sadder that he never really had her in the first place.

  “We split their skulls open, burn their houses down, leave everything important to them in ruin,” Skylar replied, harsh and unrelenting.

  Logan cleared his thoughts and said, “We’ll meet here tomorrow. Bring what weapons you have and say good-bye to everyone you love.”

  “How can you be so cold?” one of the younger girls asked Logan. She was sixteen if a day. He was a block of ice, supercharged in his determination to win.

  “Everyone soft and warm dies,” he said, looking at her so long she looked away, clearly nervous.

  “See you tomorrow,” Skylar said. She turned to Logan. “Let’s get our things, then head back up to the barn.”

  He nodded, glanced over at Harper.

  “So I guess we’re doing this,” she said.

  “Were we ever not?” he asked her in return.

  He and Harper followed Skylar, Ryker, Stephani and Orbey up to the bug out location. They collected their tents, what few things they could later use, and then they returned to the Madigan property.

  The smell of the barn was too much. They left the doors open, slept just inside it, wanting the roof overhead to protect them from the elements, but not the burned smell that was prevalent deeper inside it.

  Stephani took her sleeping bag with her, saying she wanted to be near her bees. Logan knew she was distraught. She lost her father, now she was supposed to just leave her bees, too? She didn’t want to abandon them, and even though she was so pissed off that their homes and her family were destroyed, she couldn’t bring herself to leave the hives, even if it was to fight with them. Part of him blamed Boone for Stephani’s behavior. The man had a treasure in his midst, but he couldn’t see it. He refused to. Everything she worked for was in ruin and all he could think about was himself. As they were all tucked in for the night, he heard Stephani approach Orbey. The woman got up and the two of them walked out to the d
ying flames of the campfire.

  “Please don’t go, Mom,” Logan heard Stephani say.

  “They took everything from us,” Orbey explained. He could hear the emotion teeming in her voice, like she was barely hanging on.

  “Not everything,” Stephani said. “We still have each other, the land, the chickens, my bees.”

  “I’m going to Roseburg,” Orbey said, resolute. “I want to kill these people for what they did to us. For what they’ve been doing to us, to their own people…they’re the scourge of the earth, Stephani. These…communist turds, as Clay calls them. I hate them.”

  “Dad wouldn’t want to see you like this.”

  “Your father will watch over me,” she said. “Then, he’ll come for me when the time is right.”

  “I’m not coming,” Stephani said, standing her ground. “I can’t just leave here.”

  “It might do you good to leave,” Orbey said.

  “Dad’s dead, our house is destroyed, the town…burned down. But my bees remain untouched. Same with the chickens. I can’t leave them. Not yet.”

  “Come when you can,” Orbey said, unyielding.

  When the older woman came back to her sleeping bag and crawled in for the night, Logan felt guilty for listening to them, but this war was inevitable.

  It was all inevitable.

  Chapter Seven

  When the shooting began, Quan and his team sprinted for the closest building. Gang hit the wooden door first, crashing into it with his lead shoulder. The framed wall cracked and shook but didn’t give way. Gang let out a pained oof, but rolled off fast and got out of the way as his bigger, stronger brother, Chang slammed into it like a bull. The door broke in half, Chang plowing through the middle of it and landing sideways on the floor on the other side. Everyone piled in as gunfire tore up the outer frame and the busted door.

  Quan had a small, battery-operated penlight out quick, followed by Lienna. Fai and Gang picked up Chang, dragging him out of the line of fire. They scrambled up a nearby set of stairs, finding themselves in a building full of hallways and lofts. On the fourth floor, they moved from door to door, checking handles until they found one of the units open.

  Everyone moved inside.

  With the crew lined up inside, weapons ready and in firing position, Steve borrowed Quan’s light, checked the windows and the grounds below and said, “We can get out here, if we need to, but it won’t be pretty.”

  “Let’s make sure it doesn’t come to that,” Quan said.

  Steve returned to his position and waited in pitch blackness with the others. No one came after them. It was so quiet, you could hear a rat yawn, if they did such a thing. You could also hear the guys and Lienna getting tired of holding their guns. They got really heavy when you were juiced and on edge and aiming them for forever.

  After what felt like ten minutes, one of them lowered his gun. Gang. He said, “They’re not coming.” Everyone relaxed their weapons and their positions. And then they all found something to sit on, or lay on, as it were.

  “Who’s awake?” Quan asked.

  “I am,” Lok said.

  “Me, too,” Steve said.

  To Steve, Quan said, “Really?”

  “Really, Boss.”

  “Lok, you’re sure you’re awake?” Quan finally asked.

  “I’m good, Boss,” he said.

  “I said I was fine,” Steve argued. “I wasn’t joking.”

  “I need you fresh for driving tomorrow,” Quan maintained. “Lok you’ve got first watch, everyone else get some shut-eye.”

  “I think maybe I need a few hours sleep, but I can spell him off when he’s ready,” Steve said of Lok.

  “You sure you’re okay, Lok?” Quan said.

  “He slept half the way here,” Chang said, rubbing his big shoulder like it hurt.

  “I’m fine,” Lok replied. “Honestly.”

  “He’s fine,” Lienna echoed.

  “How do you know that?” Gang asked Lienna. “You both slept the trip through.”

  Ignoring the tired banter, resolute with his decision, Quan said, “Get cozy everyone, but keep your weapons close, and safeties on for you twitchy sleepers. I don’t want to get shot because one of you decides to have a bad dream.”

  “Someone check the lock on the front door,” Gang said.

  Lienna stumbled through the dark, fumbled with the door for a few minutes, then came back and said, “The lock’s broken.”

  “Which is why it’s open,” Quan muttered under his breath. Louder, to Lok, he said, “Inside or outside?”

  “Outside,” Lok answered.

  Lok was in Beijing before he managed to get out of China, and though he was small and couldn’t fight very well, he was surgical with a Glock, decent up to a hundred yards but completely useless on a long rifle. “I’d rather patrol ahead of an ambush, maybe scout the floors above and below.”

  “Don’t stray too far,” Quan said, “and don’t fall asleep.”

  Lok set out into the hallway, weapon ready. He waited a moment for his eyes to fully adjust to the dark, but by then his ears were on high alert, the better of his two primary senses. He walked the hallway in silence, moving on the balls of his feet, doing his best to control his breathing. He tried all the doors on the fourth floor before venturing down to the third floor and eventually up to the fifth. There were no other doors open. There was, however, a distinct emptiness to the building.

  He had the feeling there were residents there, or squatters, but they were dug in like him and his crew. What he didn’t feel, however, was the prickle at the back of his neck that alerted him to others. Were they being infiltrated at this very moment? Surveilled by shooters? He didn’t think so.

  Lok returned to the fourth floor, then tucked himself into the back corner of the hallway by the elevator. There he had a good view of the floor, but he was out in the open to anyone coming up the stairs. Quietly, he pulled a large potted plant in front of him. He touched the big leaves with his little fingers. They were plastic, coated in layers of dust. Wiping his fingers on his pants, he settled in and waited.

  As he sat alone in the dark, he worked out possible ambush scenarios in his mind. Not him ambushing the Chicoms, but the Chicoms ambushing him and his team. The room with the broken lock was halfway down the hallway, almost at the middle point in the building. Tactically, he wasn’t sure if this was to their advantage. If Chicom troops snuck up the stairwell and passed him, he could shoot them in the back from behind the plant. They wouldn’t pass him, though. The Chicoms were thorough. But civilians? With them it could go either way. That got him thinking about the other end of the hallway. If anyone entered from there, Lok would have to cover the ground quickly and quietly, but by then it would be too late. He could shoot a lot of them before they realized they were being hit, but he couldn’t get everyone. Lok stiffened his upper lip, shook his head at the idea of ambushing the ambushers, then settled into the corner until he was as comfortable as he could be.

  Drowsiness set in. An hour passed, maybe two. The darkness was unrelenting, the silence lulling him into that tired, syrupy state of no return. Sleep seduced at him, beckoning him to just close his eyes, to let go, to give his body the rest it needed. So he did at first, but then he woke himself back up. By then he was more tired than ever, his eyelids weighing a good ten pounds, maybe even a hundred pounds. Soon it was impossible to keep his eyes open. When they finally closed for the last time, it wasn’t on purpose. He didn’t even know it happened. It just did.

  Sometime later, he woke up with a rifle in his face and some big white guy saying, “Get up, you Chicom skin bag.”

  Chapter Eight

  Quan had fallen into such a deep sleep he felt like he’d gone someplace from which he’d never return. But then he was touched by an unnatural stirring, something otherworldly rousing him from his slumber. The sensation he felt wasn’t any outward sound or an intrusion; rather it was a feeling, a presence, a sense of something…hostile. He
opened his eyes, gave a little jolt, quickly reached for the gun that was not there.

  The shadow of a man standing over him grinned and said, “Do you speak English?”

  “Of course we do,” Quan said, slowly propping himself up on an elbow.

  “What the hell are y’all doing here?” the stranger asked.

  “I was sleeping, but you went and ruined that,” Quan answered.

  The toe of someone’s big boot kicked him just below the sternum, knocking the wind out of him. He folded forward, collapsing back down as he fought to catch his breath. Several more lights turned on. Yellowed bulbs from very old flashlights. All around him were what looked like angry Americans. When his constricted chest loosened and he could breathe again, the big white man with the gun on Quan said, “How long have you been in this country?”

  Quan looked around and saw his team bound, gagged and grocery-bagged at gunpoint. He counted his men, realizing Lok was in there with them.

  Lok…

  He’d failed to protect them.

  Looking up at the white guy, he said, “You are doing something really—”

  A strip of tape was roughly pulled over his mouth, cutting off his words. His hands were wrenched behind his back and zip-ties bound his wrists just as hastily. But the big coup de grâce was the plastic grocery bag some asshats pulled over his head.

  “Wow, real professional,” he mumbled into his tape.

  “Shut it,” someone said as they stood him up.

  Quan and the team were hustled out of the room, down the hall, down the stairs and out into the night. None of his crew said anything. Probably because their mouths were taped closed like his.

  The Americans marched them three blocks, maybe four, before perp-walking them into another building, up several flights of stairs and into a room. There they were slammed down in chairs, the bags were jerked off their heads, and the duct tape ripped from their mouths without consideration.

  Artificial lighting gave Quan an idea of his captors, but he didn’t look at all of them. He found he didn’t want to look away from the big man standing before him. His mouth was a cruel slash, his face nothing but white scars and hard eyes.