Edge of Valor: A Post-Apocalyptic EMP Survival Thriller (Edge of Collapse Book 7)

by Kyla Stone

  Liam spoke simply since he wasn’t addressing trained soldiers accustomed to military jargon. “If the National Guard engages, don’t fire unless it is a last resort. We will not slaughter American servicemen while we have the choice. Not unless it’s saving a life.”

  The ragtag group gave grim nods. They wore jeans and work boots, wrinkled jackets and dirty coats, hunting rifles and shotguns slung over their shoulders. Their expressions were anxious but not panicked.

  They were bank tellers and teachers, waitresses and construction workers. Mothers and fathers. Neighbors and friends. Regular people who’d found themselves in extraordinary circumstances—and had risen to the occasion.

  “The National Guard boasts sophisticated DF—directional finder—equipment that will triangulate automatically and give them our bearings. I don’t know if that equipment was shielded from the EMP. Assume it’s working and keep radio traffic to a minimum and switch frequencies often. Perez is going to provide you with those frequencies, call signs, et cetera.

  “When you’re on duty, practice noise discipline. At night, we operate with light discipline. No cigarettes. Limit flashlights. No fires, which can be seen at long distances, especially with NVGs.”

  “It’s in the thirties at night,” Ralph Henderson-Smith said. “We have to stay warm.”

  Liam clenched his jaw in frustration. Not at him, but at the situation. “Do what you can. Try to shield the fires from the enemy’s potential line of sight. And do your best to stay in smaller, dispersed groups. Bunching in a tight group means one direct hit kills everything and everyone.”

  Their eyes widened at that, but they were listening. It was sinking in.

  “Other than the blockade sentries, stay as hidden as possible. If they can find you, they can kill you. We’ll improve our concealment from forward observers and drones.”

  He prayed the General didn’t have drones or a Predator.

  If they did, Fall Creek’s losses would be immense.

  “We know they have armored and aerial assets, so we’re augmenting our base cluster defenses with mobile patrols and concealed fighting positions. You might have noticed all the holes we’ve been digging. A few of you have already spent some time inside one. Those foxholes can save your life.”

  Liam glanced at Bishop. “Anything else?”

  “I think that covers it for now,” Bishop said.

  With a sly grin, Reynoso clapped his hands. “Who wants to shoot things?”

  Four dozen new recruits raised their hands.

  Reynoso had built a makeshift firing range and set up a dozen targets that varied from five to fifteen yards. Liam had the trainees practice firing while standing, kneeling, single handed, and moving targets. He showed them how to zero their weapons.

  Perez taught them to field strip, inspect, and clean their rifles and handguns, while Liam introduced them to the basics of firing and maneuvering, overwatch, and defensive strategies.

  Because ammo was critical, the townspeople practiced with unloaded weapons or used Reynoso’s extensive airsoft and BB gun collection to simulate gunfire on the targets.

  While they trained, Hayes organized the younger teens who weren’t ready for a watch shift yet and had them scavenge the town, collecting more sandbags and burlap sacks from barns, sheds, and garages.

  Little by little, Fall Creek’s defenses were coming together.

  13

  Liam

  Day One Hundred and Five

  That afternoon, Liam inspected the southern blockade located before the bridge.

  Every minute, he scanned his surroundings, listening for any sound out of place, any strange movement or shadow.

  The sun warmed his head and shoulders. A brisk breeze rustled the tree branches. The first buds had appeared on a few limbs, a couple sprigs of green poking beneath the matted grass and patches of dirty snow.

  The south part of town had seen better days. Bullet holes peppered the vehicles stalled in parking lots. Holes pockmarked the brick facade exteriors of several office buildings. Frag grenades had blown out the windows of Friendly’s Grocery Store, Vinson’s Pharmacy, and the Pizza Palace.

  Though volunteers had cleaned up the fragments of shattered glass, melted plastic, and shell casings, the entire block still had the look of a shell-shocked war zone.

  So far, everything was normal—the new normal.

  Didn’t mean it would stay that way.

  To his left, Quinn stood behind the barricade and studied Old 31 with a pair of binoculars. Whitney Blair huddled close to her—pale, scared, and out of place with a shotgun in her hands.

  Jonas Marshall checked and rechecked his rifle, wearing a line through clumps of snow with his pacing. Every chance he got, he wandered close to Quinn. As if no one would notice.

  Liam made a note to keep an eye on the kid. With those baby-blue eyes and that swooping blond hair, he was too handsome for his own good.

  Bishop and a couple dozen townspeople were also on duty. Most hid in buildings and crouched within the foxholes, nothing visible of them but the occasional rifle barrel poking out from the ground. Teams were busy digging more foxholes.

  Liam had directed them to build a split parapet foxhole. They’d compacted two large piles of dirt in front of each hole. The dirt afforded considerable frontal protection while allowing for a direct line of fire between the two piles and the flanks.

  It took three times the amount of firepower to take a fighting hole with frontal and overhead protection versus an open one.

  The fighting holes weren’t as invisible as he wanted, but they were serviceable. It camouflaged them from night vision and anything with infrared capability searching for body heat signatures.

  The covered fighting holes should prevent anyone—drone or human—from tagging body heat with infrared tech. Just in case the General had a few tricks up his sleeve.

  A few minutes ago, he’d checked in with Reynoso at the northern blockade. The reaction team was also standing by.

  Fall Creek was on full alert, but life still continued.

  Earlier, Hannah had dropped off a lunch of fresh deer jerky, some canned peaches, and water. Then she was off to plan another town hall meeting with Dave to organize the meal drops for the rotating security teams.

  Molly and Annette were busy scheduling volunteers to work the local farms while Evelyn manned the medical bay and Travis held down the fort while wrangling two dozen kids.

  Quinn let out a startled grunt.

  “What do you see?” Liam asked, his heart rate kicking up a notch.

  Quinn handed him the binoculars.

  Alarmed, he glassed the area. Movement in the middle of the road. In the distance, a figure appeared, heading toward them.

  “What do we do?” Whitney squeaked. “Do I shoot?”

  Liam tensed, reaching for the M4, but something stilled his hand. “Wait and watch. Keep behind the barricade.”

  They watched the figure approach. The size and gait suggested a male rather than a female. He moved in jerky, shambling movements.

  “He’s like a zombie,” Quinn said. “Please tell me our apocalypse hasn’t just shifted to a new level of horror.”

  “That’s impossible,” Jonas said, but genuine fear laced his voice.

  “Is it, though?” Quinn deadpanned. “These days, nothing would surprise me.”

  “That’s Albert Edlin,” Bishop said. “A farmer. He’s hurt.”

  Forty yards away, Albert Edlin limped out from behind a stalled blue Toyota. In his seventies, with a bent back and stooped shoulders, he wore dusty jean overalls beneath a ratty red coat.

  Liam recognized him as one of the men who’d confronted him at Fall Creek Inn, accusing him of antagonizing the militia.

  Corinne Marshall had chewed him out; Edlin had apologized after Liam cut his buddy down to size with a well-timed punch.

  For an instant, Liam thought of Rob McPherson, another old man in another town.

  Albert Edlin drew clo
ser. He dragged his left foot behind him as he clutched his right arm to his chest. Something about that coat…

  Liam squinted, dread coagulating in his gut.

  The coat wasn’t red. It was stained with blood.

  “Alpha Two is retrieving the old man,” Liam said into his radio. “Provide cover.”

  “Copy,” repeated several voices.

  “Go get him,” Liam said to Bishop. “We’ll cover you.”

  Bishop gestured to Jonas to aid him. The boy slung his rifle across his back as they jogged out onto the road and headed for Edlin. Each got an arm beneath his armpits. They turned and half-carried, half-dragged him behind the blockade.

  Liam kept his head on a swivel, checking for the threat they couldn’t see. He motioned to Whitney and Mike Duncan to keep watch while they tended to Edlin, even though two dozen pairs of eyes were already on the road.

  Bishop eased Albert Edlin down against a large wooden barrel. Aghast, Quinn and Jonas huddled on either side of him, their faces white.

  Edlin took in shallow, rattling gasps. A disconcerting gurgle bubbled up from his chest. Blood leaked from a wound beneath his broken arm. Fresh bruises marred his wrinkled face.

  This was no accident. The man had been beaten. More like tortured.

  “He needs a hospital,” Jonas said.

  Bishop knelt next to Edlin. “We can’t move him. He’s already lost too much blood.”

  “Call Lee and Evelyn!” Liam barked. “Get them here now!”

  Quinn nodded, already reaching for her radio.

  “Why didn’t our scouts warn us?” Jonas asked. “They should have seen him.”

  “He turned off Dean’s Hill Road,” Whitney said. “His farm is out on Dean’s Hill, on Range Road. The scouts are further out on Old 31. He’s between us and them.”

  Liam retrieved fresh bandages and Quick Clot gauze from the first aid kit in his go-bag and handed them to Bishop.

  After unzipping Edlin’s coat and unsnapping his overalls, Bishop tended to the man’s wounds. “Who did this to you?”

  “That damn…general.” Blood dribbled from Edlin’s cracked lips. “He sent his goons…they killed Wendy…they killed my wife.”

  Liam’s face went hot. A low, terrible fury roiled through him. “How the hell did they get inside the perimeter?”

  “Edlin’s farm is outside the town limits,” Bishop said. “Off the major roads. We can’t watch everything.”

  As much as he hated it, Bishop was right. Dozens of homesteads and farms sprawled outside Fall Creek itself. The area was too large to protect.

  Annette had sent out her teenage runners to warn everyone and suggest they move into the town proper until they could deal with this newest threat.

  The farmers were a stubborn bunch; none of them came. Not the Hadleys, Kroger-Myers, the Morrisons, or Chuck Wallace with his hundred acres of vineyards.

  There was too much to do to prepare for spring planting. If they didn’t get the farms going, come harvest time, everyone would starve.

  They had a point.

  “He sent me…as a message…” Edlin mumbled.

  “You shouldn’t talk,” Bishop said. “Save your strength.”

  Edlin shook his head dully. “I got to…last thing I gotta do.” With a tremendous effort, he raised his head and met Liam’s gaze. “He’s here for you.”

  Liam went rigid.

  “What do you mean?” Quinn asked in alarm.

  “The General says to tell you…to tell you he will spare Fall Creek. But he wants you…” He paused, wheezing, struggling for oxygen. “Twenty-four hours. He’ll give us twenty-four hours to turn you over. Bring you to the Boulevard Inn. If we don’t, he sends in the calvary…five hundred men, a dozen armored vehicles, machine guns...he’s got a Black Hawk, with rockets...”

  With growing horror, Liam imagined Fall Creek’s last stand—his friends behind their measly fortifications, trapped and helpless as a volley of targeted artillery came screaming from the sky. They’d be slaughtered in a minute or less.

  Quinn straightened and inhaled sharply. She stared at Liam; the blood drained from her face. “Holy mother of—”

  “The General said we were terrorists…that we turned against our own government…” Edlin coughed up a mouthful of blood. It leaked down his chin and splattered his gaunt cheeks. “That you murdered his daughter.”

  Whitney let out a dismayed whimper. Liam couldn’t take his eyes off Albert Edlin. “What else did he say?”

  Edlin’s bruised, shriveled face contorted. He raised his shaky left hand, grasped the lapel of Liam’s jacket, and drew him close. He stank of coppery blood, sour sweat, and impending death.

  A blade of fear slid between Liam’s ribs.

  He didn’t pull away. “Tell me everything.”

  “They shot my wife between the eyes.” His words were gritty and gasping. But his eyes—his rheumy eyes flashed with grief and rage. And hate. “They shot her, Coleman. Because of you. He will raze Fall Creek to the ground…and everyone in it…because of you.”

  Spent, Edlin slumped against the barrier. His withered hand fell limp to his side. His papery eyelids fluttered and slipped closed.

  Reeling, Liam rocked back on his heels.

  The General’s message had come through loud and clear. If he could torture an old farmer, he was capable of anything.

  They were facing an enemy with more men and more firepower. This man, this faceless enemy, was worse than Rosamond.

  Rosamond had been a knowable quantity. The General, however…

  He’d just made this conflict very, very personal.

  Dread settled like a stone in his belly.

  This was his fault. Instead of safeguarding the people that he loved, he’d put them in the crosshairs. He was only one man. All the training, skills, and expertise paled against an army.

  He could not protect them.

  He could not save Hannah.

  The sound of a distant engine rumbled. Several members of the security team whipped around, facing town as they half-lifted their weapons, nerves raw, tensions high.

  It was one of their own.

  Evelyn drove toward them, parked behind the bike rack, and leapt off the ATV.

  She raced toward the barricade, medical bag in hand. “What happened?”

  “It’s too late,” Quinn said, stricken. “He’s dead.”

  14

  Hannah

  Day One Hundred and Five

  “This is some place, right?” Hannah asked Liam.

  “It’s like a cave—but not,” Liam said.

  Liam and Hannah were at the Salt Cave, a hole-in-the-wall business on the northern outskirts of town, just past Fall Creek Inn along the river, just within the new security perimeter.

  Outside, the full moon cast everything in a silvery glow. Cold fog drifted between the buildings and trees, cloaking the world in a sinister white mist.

  Inside, two kerosene lanterns shed flickering orange light over a twelve-by-twelve room decorated to look like a cave. The walls were dark and textured with built-in benches.

  A fake fireplace in the corner boasted several brick-sized chunks of salt. Globe-shaped pendants—their lightbulbs long dead—hung from each wall. Six inches of coarse, pinkish salt covered the floor.

  Liam’s weapons leaned against the faux-cave wall next to his go-bag. Hannah was armed with her trusty Ruger American. Perez stood guard outside in case of trouble.

  News had traveled fast along the communication network Dave and Jamal had cobbled together. Within a couple of hours, every citizen of Fall Creek knew of Albert and Wendy Edlin’s grisly murders.

  The General’s threat loomed over the town like a brewing hurricane, the ominous storm clouds heavy with the promise of violence.

  Hannah felt the seconds and minutes ticking like a time bomb. Only fourteen hours until the deadline. The town had to provide their answer to the General’s demand.

  The council would meet tomorrow m
orning to make their final decision.

  Since Edlin’s death, she and Liam had hardly seen each other. Liam had interviewed the scouts for every ounce of intel that he could gather, then spent hours shoring up their defensive lines and working with the snipers.

  Hannah had also worked overtime, Charlotte in her carrier as she met with the council and various community groups to calm the people and explain what had happened.

  Everyone was alarmed, distraught, and terrified. Hannah couldn’t blame them.

  Finally, night fell, and the townspeople retreated to their candle-lit abodes.

  Milo and Charlotte were sleeping under Molly’s watchful eye, so Hannah had asked Liam to meet her tonight. He needed to talk, but she didn’t want to press him until he was ready. He’d bring it up on his own terms.

  Hannah breathed deeply. “We need more than bullets to keep us alive. I know what we’re facing, but we can’t afford to stop planning for the future. Not even now.”

  Liam leaned on the shovel and glared at the salt mounds like they might bite him. “I had no idea what this place was. Figured it was a new age shop that sold lava lamps.”

  While the small shop sold Himalayan salt lamps, essential oils, and bath salts, its key feature was a “salt room,” where customers breathed in the healing aerosolized air and dug their feet in the salt, like a sandy beach.

  “You ever heard the phrase ‘worth his weight in salt’?” Hannah asked.

  “I might have. Never knew what it meant.”

  “In ancient Roman times, salt was such a precious commodity that they used it as currency. Slaves were bought and sold with salt. Soldiers were paid in salt. Like then, salt will be in high demand soon. We’re getting a jump on things before everyone else realizes it, too.”

  “You read that in one of Molly’s books.”

  “I did,” she said. “But Evelyn using that salt solution to clean your wounds reminded me. Salt has so many uses. It inhibits bacteria in wounds, which is becoming more crucial as antibiotics get scarce. The body needs sodium to function. We need salt to preserve meat and fish without refrigeration.