by Hunt, Jack
He pulled back his jacket and could see the kid had a fresh wound to the shoulder but the worst was a round to the abdomen. It was bandaged, soaked in blood. One look at him and it was clear the chances of him surviving were low. All the blood in his skin had run out, leaving it clammy and gray. The kid groaned as Alex looked him in the eye.
“What happened here, kid?”
The boy looked confused, tired, and ready to let go.
How long had he been awake and fighting?
“You’re not with them?”
“Who?”
“It all happened so quickly. The gunfire. My parents are down there. They executed them, killed all my friends, took everything we had.”
It all made sense now.
“Please, take me down. I want to be with them.”
A shuffle from behind and Alex spun to see Garcia climbing over the lip of the roof. Once up, he reached back over and hoisted Sophie up. After brushing off grime they looked across to Alex who rose to his feet.
“It’s just a kid?” Sophie said, a frown forming. The senselessness of those murders hit him hard as Sophie hurried over and dropped down, her maternal instincts kicking in.
“I didn’t know,” Garcia said. His gaze dropped, a disturbed expression masked his face. The realization that he had fired upon a kid dawned on him.
Sophie looked up and Alex noticed the kid was now dead.
She ran a hand over his face to close his eyelids.
“What did he say?” she asked.
“A group executed them.”
Sophie looked at Garcia who was now in a crouch, both hands on top of his head.
The thought of killing a kid could break the strongest of them. After making their way down, they went from one store to another, hoping to find anything, but everything had been cleared out. Sophie wanted to bury the residents but that would have taken hours. Staying alive required energy and digging ditches would have been a useless endeavor now. Still, Garcia had assisted Alex in carrying the boy down to where the others lay.
Once they laid him to rest, they drove throughout the rest of town to see what they could find. They soon came across a few members of the group the kid was talking about. They were wearing sleeveless jean jackets with a biker patch on the back that read: The Brothers of Mayhem.
They were dead, still clutching their weapons.
Alex collected ammo and another rifle.
“You heard of them?” Alex asked Garcia as they got back into the cruiser.
He nodded, pausing for a second before firing up the engine. “An outlaw motorcycle gang that runs out of San Francisco but they have dozens of chapters throughout the West Coast. Usually involved in a lot of drug running, illegal weapons, and other moneymaking schemes. Probably heard the broadcasted message of a safe zone and figured they could sweep in and take whatever they wanted.”
“Except they encountered resistance,” Alex added.
They pulled out and continued, exploring a town that was now empty of people and supplies. There had been less than a thousand residents before the event, and it appeared even less after. Buildings were on fire, smoke drifted across the streets, many structures had been reduced to rubble.
“Everyone couldn’t have left or been killed,” Sophie said.
“Take Petaluma. Far bigger,” Garcia said. “Not many remained. Fear drove most out, the rest probably left because of a lack of shelter and protection.”
It was routine to search for food, although over the past few weeks their group had taken to fishing, while searching the back roads and smaller communities for creature comforts. Looking for canned food had become more than survival; it was a pastime, a means of occupying their minds, keeping them from losing their sanity. Besides, there was always the hope they would come across a community working together to ride this out. “There’s nothing. Let’s go home,” Garcia said, swerving the vehicle around and driving down Cedar Street. As they veered onto Pine Lane that would take them past the town square, Garcia slammed the brakes on and quickly killed the engine.
“What is it?” Sophie asked leaning forward between the seats.
Up ahead they noticed four people, one of whom was wearing a sleeveless jacket with the biker patch on the back. He was standing there looking around, while one of the three females with him was on her knees sprawled out over someone.
“Back up slowly,” Alex said.
Garcia didn’t move. He was locked in a stare.
“Garcia.”
“Those are young girls,” he said staring out the windshield.
“No, let’s go,” Alex said.
Even Sophie backed him up. They’d learned from their time on the road not to trust those they came across, especially after something like this. Instead of listening to them, Garcia got out and went to the trunk and took out his rifle.
“What the hell is he doing?” Sophie asked.
Alex got out and spoke to her through the window. “If this goes south, take the cruiser.” With that said he took off at a crouch.
“Garcia, what are you doing?”
“Just follow my lead.”
He burst out from behind a tree as Alex looked back over his shoulder to see Sophie in the driver’s side of the cruiser.
It all happened so quickly. Garcia ran toward them while their backs were turned. “Don’t move!” he bellowed. “Drop your weapon.”
The biker was holding a handgun. “Can’t do that, pal.”
Garcia fired a round near his feet. “I won’t ask again.”
As Alex circled to cover him, he noticed who the dark-haired teenage girl on the ground was hugging. It was the kid from the roof. She lifted her eyes and jumped up, scrambling forward and putting out both hands. “Please. He didn’t do anything.”
“Move away from him,” Garcia yelled.
At a rough guess, the two other girls looked to be about six and thirteen years of age. “She’s telling the truth,” they said in unison, backing her up.
“I’m going to turn around, okay, don’t shoot,” the guy said, still holding the handgun. Garcia allowed him to turn, that’s when he locked eyes with the man. His gaze bounced to Garcia. He was a strong-looking individual, broad shoulders, athletic, around forty years of age. He was sporting long hair and a goatee and had a skull bandanna around his head. “Look, I know what you’re thinking but…”
“Toss the gun and get on your knees,” Garcia yelled.
Garcia was going full cop on this guy.
Before he could react, the older teenage girl got in front of him. “He didn’t do anything wrong. He protected us.”
Alex jogged forward, appearing in Garcia’s peripheral vision. “I’d like to believe that but you have to see it from our point of view. A massacre has taken place and there are dead motorcycle gang members all over this town, and then you roll up wearing the patch.”
“I’m undercover ATF,” the man blurted out.
“ATF?” Garcia shot back. “Yeah right.”
“I work for the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives out of San Francisco. I’d been undercover for over a year now when all this happened. Look, just give me a minute and I’ll explain everything.”
Even Alex had a hard time believing the guy’s story. Either he was telling the truth or he was one hell of a smooth talker. He certainly raised an interesting point. What would happen to cops that were deep undercover when the shit hit the fan?
That’s when Alex chimed in. “Where are the others?”
“They left not long before you guys arrived. You’re lucky.”
“But you aren’t. Get on the ground,” Garcia said.
“Like I said, I can’t do that.”
Right then he made a gesture which made Alex think he was telling the truth. He placed a hand on the girl in front of him and pulled her behind him.
“The gun won’t be of much use to you if you’re dead. You’re outnumbered, my friend,” Garcia said.
“Lo
wer your gun, Garcia,” Alex said, lowering his barrel.
“What?”
“You heard. In all your years as a cop, have you seen a hostage not run if given the chance?”
“We don’t know who they are.”
“No, no we don’t. But her,” Alex said, directing his attention to the eldest teenager. He pointed to the dead kid. “Were you his sister?”
She nodded. Alex looked at Garcia as he approached them.
“Alex.”
“Lower your gun, Garcia.”
A few seconds of hesitation and then he complied.
“What’s your name?” Alex asked.
“Lincoln. Lincoln Shepherd.”
“Alex Reid.” He extended a hand and there was a moment of reluctance before he shook it.
3
Mendocino National Forest
It was the third intruder they’d been forced to kill and it wouldn’t be the last.
“Bury him with the others, and hurry back,” she told her boys as she adjusted the hunter’s rifle on her shoulder and trudged through the forest back to the resort. The attractive, dark-haired, forty-five-year-old woman was petite in stature but had more backbone than most men. Jodi Long owned the Mendocino Resort, a family-run establishment that dated back to the 1920s. The resort operated a full marina with rentals, boat slips, and summer supplies. A national treasure, it had been featured in numerous outdoor magazines as the go-to destination for outdoor enthusiasts and families looking for a vacation that offered both relaxation and sport.
Unlike the multiple campgrounds run by the forest service, it was the only recreational area that was perched on the west shore of Lake Pillsbury — an artificial lake created from waters that flowed in from Eel River by Scott Dam. There were only two main roads to the lake from the west and a small airstrip on the north side, making it a perfect location for those looking to get away from the hustle of city living.
The closest town was Potters Valley.
The seasonal retreat had been in the height of summer when America was attacked. Most of the guests had left in the days following the event, leaving just her kin and four families, two who were regulars, folks who’d flown in from out of state. They’d decided they would remain until the situation improved.
It hadn’t.
After losing her husband a few years earlier to prostate cancer, leaving her to raise three boys and manage the resort, an undertaking that wasn’t easy with so many flocking there every year between June and August, Jodi had considered selling but it had been in the family for generations and she just couldn’t bring herself to.
It was getting harder to manage even with her kids working around the clock. The huge property offered eight cabins, over thirty campsites, an RV hookup, rentals, a country store, coin showers, flush toilets, and plenty of fuel for cars, boats, and propane canisters.
Then the power went out and communications went down. It changed everything.
Sun glistened on the lake as she came out of the tree line and made her way up to the main two-story house, her heart heavy and mind distracted by taking another life.
While she was fully prepared to protect her own, she didn’t think anyone would try to steal what they had, and they hadn’t for several weeks. With over a hundred and sixty people booked for the summer, she’d stocked up the store and fueling station with everything they needed to last the season.
Two weeks into the chaos, two men had shown up in the dead of night. They’d killed their golden Lab who wouldn’t have harmed a fly and were loading up a trailer with propane tanks when she approached, rifle at the ready.
They looked amused, assuming she wasn’t a threat.
She gave them a fair warning.
A chance to walk away.
One of them went for his gun and she had no choice but to squeeze off a round. She figured the other would leave but he didn’t, instead, she spent the next thirty minutes engaged in an all-out war until her son took the guy out.
Killing had crushed her.
Contrary to what some of the hard-nosed survivalists might have said, taking a life wasn’t admirable, cool, or badass, and it sure as hell wasn’t in her nature. But she’d had to learn fast in the past few weeks that to survive, death was the only thing some understood.
Still, that didn’t make it easy.
A mix of emotions had overtaken her in the following days and she’d hit the bottle pretty hard, retreating into her bubble as she grappled with what she’d done. Like anyone, she expected the police to show up and arrest her but none came. Since the event she hadn’t left the lake, she had no reason to. It was home even when it wasn’t filled with smiling vacationers. Not that anyone was smiling anymore.
The only news they’d gotten was from a hand-crank radio, and the message that came back didn’t paint a pretty picture.
The nation had collapsed.
Martial law was in effect.
Drones were attacking.
Then it just stopped. Nothing. No news for weeks until they began to hear reports of safe zones. Safe zones? That had made her think. How safe was her property? In the twenty or so years she’d been operating the place, she could count on two hands the times the police had been out and that was mostly related to campers who’d had too much alcohol.
If she’d learned anything from her time running a resort that was spread over acres and acres of land, it was that there was only so much one or two people could do. Eventually her luck would run out and more men would come and take what they had by force and there wouldn’t be a damn thing she could do about it.
Unless…
“Jodi. You hurt?” Gus, an old-timer who worked as a handyman, came lumbering over. He had a limp in his stride. Bordering on sixty-four, he liked to think he could help but there was little he could do in a confrontation. He had no gun experience. Besides, he’d been on the north side when they’d got word of a man who’d broken into her country store. As soon as Jodi had shown up, rifle in hand, he’d bolted into the woods. She’d given chase with her boys only to shoot him in the back.
She found no pride in it.
It made her sick to her stomach to think that was the only way forward.
But if he’d escaped, who else would he have brought back?
The resort was in a remote location, cops couldn’t help her.
“I’m fine,” she said waving him off as he fell in step and they walked into the main house. The other families weren’t much use either. The father of the Braun family was a doctor from upstate Colorado, the other an engineer from Idaho. They had four kids, all of them were in their teens. The other two families were strangers, new to the resort, and certainly not hands-on individuals. To avoid any problems throughout the night they had brought the guests into the main house.
“Your boys?” Gus asked.
“They’re coming.”
“Did he get away?”
“No,” she said leaning her rifle up against the wall. He looked at it then at her as she went to the sink and pumped out some water. There were four one-gallon jugs underneath that were filled from a natural spring in the area. She downed a glass like she was putting out a fire.
“It’s getting worse, isn’t it?” Yvette Clarke asked. She was a timid-looking woman who hadn’t seen a hard day’s work in her life. Before the bombings she’d worked in an office fielding calls for auto insurance.
“We should tell someone about the attacks,” Scott Braun added.
“Yeah, and how do you suppose we do that, Scott?”
“We could take a trip into Potters Valley.”
“And who will look after the resort?”
“Your boys. Us.”
“As much as I have faith in my kids, this place is my responsibility and I’ll be damned if I’m leaving it. No, I have another idea.”
Gus followed her out of the building across the dusty ground to a separate outbuilding that was used for storage. Most of what was inside belonged to her departed husband.
Bicycles, hunting gear, boating equipment, and winter clothes that she still couldn’t bring herself to give away. As she fished through the jumbled mess, Gus continued. “You know, Jodi, the Brauns may be right. At some point we should go see some of the surrounding towns if only to find out what’s happening.”
“We already know. You heard the radio. Nothing’s changed, Gus. No, we are safer here.” She pulled hard on a large box. “Here, give me a hand.”
“What the hell is in this?” he asked.
“A ham radio.”
“It won’t work. There’s no power.”
“Steven put in a system that utilizes a backup battery and runs off solar so it can work off the grid.” Once she had it out of the outbuilding she carried it back to the main cabin just as her sons Danny, Ethan, and Shaun came jogging back.
“All good, boys?” she asked.
“Yeah, he’s buried. You want a hand?”
She handed it to Danny and he carried it in. He was the eldest one, twenty-two, fair-haired like his father, strong, almost six foot. Ethan was nineteen, long hair, he took after her, shorter, more athletic, less muscular. Shaun was the oddball of the family, at least that’s what Steven used to say. He was a wiry kid who had shot up early. His hair was buzzed off and he always had a grin on his face like he was ready to crack a joke.
Once they’d taken it inside, she set it up in Steven’s old study. She hadn’t been in there since he’d passed away. The room was dusty and still smelled like him. A mixture of books, the outdoors, and stale cigars still lingered. She looked at a few of his old military photos on the wall.
“Where do you want it?”
“Over there on that desk.”
As Danny set it up, she walked over to a library shelf of books and ran her fingers across the shelf. She blew the dust off a photo of them when they were in their early twenties. A deep ache formed in her heart.
“Is it charged up?” Gus asked.
“No, it’s dead,” Danny said. “Who are you trying to contact?”
Jodi looked at him. “I figure could talk to someone in the county. Might save us some time heading out.”