America's Sunset: Final Days: A Post Apocalyptic Fight For Survival Read online

  Rick was part of the company of soldiers that were assigned to the hospital in Big Springs shortly after the terrorist attacks. That company went extinct from the sickness that swept through them. Rick was the only survivor, and they took him in. Jake wasn’t too happy about that at first, but given the amount of supplies and military vehicles they were able to obtain with Rick’s access, it was hard to say no. Especially when it became apparent that the disease that wiped out Rick’s company wasn’t contagious. Or if it was, Rick wasn’t a carrier of it. The jury was still out as to whether or not the sickness was naturally occurring or human-made and human-inflicted. Dawson was pretty convinced it was the latter.

  “Why are we idiots?” Chase asked quietly, feeling safer in the front of the vehicle.

  “It doesn’t matter where you live, or what kind of home you have. Fort Knox or a mud hut, wouldn’t make a damn bit of difference these days.” He fought to keep his voice at a civil level. Clearly, he was agitated by Jake’s ramblings. “What we saw back there was just the beginning. It’s only going to get worse from here on out.” He paused for a moment, rubbing his eyes. “That terrorist cell, or whoever it was grilling people, and whatever it was that wiped out my entire company are connected. I can feel it.”

  “How do you know that?” Jake said.

  “I just do. I can’t connect it all yet, but I feel it. In my gut. We have to deal with that first before you all go running back to hide in some hole in the ground or some solar-powered mud hut.”

  “And how would you do that?” Dawson asked. “That truck was nothing but a melted heap of plastic and steel.”

  “And body parts,” Chase said under his breath. Dawson pretended not to hear him.

  “That’s right, and whoever attacked my company is a mystery right now as well. That terrorist cell that’s been chasing you is our only lead. Or the closest thing we have to one. We need to find Harish.”

  “We left Harish for dead,” Jake said. “By the time we got back to him, there was no body. No sign of him. Coyotes could have taken him.”

  “Doubtful,” Rick continued. “There would have been some evidence. It took us less than a day to get back to him. We would have seen something of him if coyotes had been there.”

  “I need to know that the rest of my family is safe first,” Jake said.

  “As do I,” Dawson added.

  Rick wasn’t the type that liked to put things off, but he knew he needed help for what he proposed. He needed everyone to be in agreement if they were to find Harish. “I understand your concern for your family. Believe me, I do. I have a family as well back home, and that’s why I’m suggesting what I am. This country is in a dark and violent place right now. The sooner the good people still left start rooting out that evil, the better it will be for all our families.”

  Chapter 3 ~ Missing

  You know that feeling when you’ve lost something that’s incredibly valuable, that was just there a minute ago? Your heart races and your mind freaks out, hoping that in just a second you’ll find it.

  Like misplacing your passport when you’re just about to go through customs in a new country after a twelve-hour flight. You search every pocket and every bag. Nothing. You retrace your steps. Nothing. How will you explain this to the customs official with the big gun on his hip? Thoughts of tiny interrogation rooms and that horrible tongue scene from the movie Midnight Express come to mind.

  Or even losing your wallet when you’ve just walked out of the swarming crowd at the big game. All you have on is shorts and a t-shirt. The only place it could be is your back pocket, but it’s not. All your IDs. Credit cards. Driver’s license. You know you didn’t have that much cash in it, and the credit cards can be canceled soon enough. Thoughts race through your mind about that documentary you watched online last night about identity theft and the years of grief it can cause.

  How about losing your family? Everything else pales in comparison to that. You’d gladly choose to have your bank go under and every investment you have tank in the market over losing your family. Sometimes we forget that people are more important than things. We take them for granted until they’re gone. You’d left them here just a few days ago. Safe and sound in an underground bunker protected by electronic security, with enough food and supplies to keep them alive for months. So what if the country was facing the biggest disaster in its history? You knew full well that your family was tucked away and well cared for. You were the one taking chances, going out into the wild, facing terrorists and gangs that were hell bent on taking everything you had; maybe even your life. You were supposed to be the one at risk. But … right here and right now, they weren’t where they were expected to be. They were gone.

  Rick had insisted on making a stop at the hospital. His unit was stationed there at the onset of the EMP strike. They were subsequently wiped out by a mysterious sickness, leaving all sorts of military equipment at the site. Rick was the only survivor. It drove him nuts that they were stuck driving an old van from the sixties. As much as the rest of them were in a rush to get back home, Rick made a good argument for stopping. They had no idea what they’d find back at the bunker, and there was no point in letting perfectly good military vehicles go to waste. Jake only agreed to the extra stop, if they all kept their distance. They dropped Rick off a half mile out and let him hoof it in to see what he could find. Whatever had wiped out his unit hadn’t affected Rick, so it seemed like an acceptable risk. He procured a fully equipped Humvee like the one they’d left back in Taos. They rolled onto the property with two vehicles now.

  The first bad sign was the missing Humvee vehicle they had left on the property when they headed north less than a week ago. With the aid of Rick, they had managed to procure two of them from his old company. The four of them on the road were the only ones with experience driving the thing. Maggie, her daughter Beth and Beth’s husband Kyle were the only three adults left at the bunker. None of them had expressed an interest in driving the Humvee. Veronica was still just a child and wasn’t big enough to reach the pedals and see out the windshield at the same time. But, it was gone. Either it had been taken, or something desperate had come up, something that forced them to move it against all reason.

  The door to the shed being open was the second bad sign. They were all aware of the situation they lived in. Except maybe Veronica, but even she knew better than that.

  As the four of them made their way through the shed, Jake made mental notes of every room they went through. Nothing seemed obviously out of place. The supplies. The tools. Everything was fully functioning, including the main power room that housed the wall of batteries that hid the entrance to the bunker itself. That too was left open when they got there. Something was wrong. Deadly wrong.

  They raced through the narrow hallway to the bunker entrance as quickly as they could, the four of them bumping into each other and the walls in the tiny space. Their footsteps echoing was the loudest sound. That sound changed from concrete floors to boots on metal ladder rungs as they descended. No one said a word, while they imagined the worst. All of them except Rick.

  Rick was the only one that hadn’t left family here. Instead, his mind raced around what scenario made sense to explain how someone would infiltrate an enemy’s defense, break into their headquarters, but then desert it.

  The place didn’t appear to be occupied. The thud of their footsteps sounded desperate now. The place was as quiet as a library after hours. Or a tomb. They were the ones making a disturbance as they stomped around, looking in every nook and cranny.

  As they made their way into the main living quarters of the bunker, everything looked in place. Nothing was ransacked, and nothing was vandalized. The sleeping quarters were neat and tidy. Beds had been made. The dining area was the only area that seemed out of place. Breakfast dishes with food were still set on the table. Toast, cereal and pancakes. Milk and juice were just sitting out. Jake’s first instinct was to take the containers of milk and juice and put them back
in the fridge. Food was something that shouldn’t be wasted these days.

  “They’re still cold,” Jake said aloud as the others joined him in the dining room.

  “What are you doing?” Dawson said, puzzled.

  “Shouldn’t waste food,” Jake said, in a fog. “They’ll need it when they come back.”

  “Come back?” Chase said. “You think they just went out for a walk or something? Something’s wrong. Really wrong.”

  Jake’s stare remained on the open fridge after he had place the containers back inside. “I know that. I have eyes,” Jake said. “This doesn’t make sense. Why would they just leave?”

  “They wouldn’t, and I don’t think everyone has,” Rick said.

  “This bunker isn’t that big,” Dawson said. “We’ve looked in every room and storage cupboard here. They’re gone.”

  “Yes, they’re gone. Your family’s gone, but that’s not who I was talking about. They had help from or were forced to leave here by someone else. Something that someone else did or said convinced them this place wasn’t safe. Whatever it was convinced them in a hurry. There was no time for planning. This place is important to someone other than your family. They wouldn’t just desert it.”

  “I’m telling you, we’ve looked everywhere. There isn’t anyone else here,” Dawson insisted.

  “And I’m telling you that someone is playing a more subtle game than we realize. Most likely that terrorist cell that’s been tracking you all the way up to Taos with the EarthShip community. They knew you’d come back here eventually. Harish could still be alive. He could have gotten here ahead of us.”

  “No,” Jake said. “He was barely alive when we left him. He’d at least have needed time to recover before he could have made it back here. We left well before that.”

  “Then what?” Chase said. “Who could have?”

  “Harish wasn’t working alone,” Rick said. “He would have had superiors he reported to. Someone else is orchestrating this whole thing. That’s who we need to get to.”

  Suddenly, Dawson made a dash towards the ladder out of the bunker. “The old farmhouse on the property,” he said. “Our rental. That’s where they must be. If they’re not here, they have to be up there.”

  Everyone followed Dawson as quickly as they could up the ladder, and with their departure, the tomb-like silence of the bunker returned once more.

  Chapter 4 ~ Search

  Dawson was racing across the backyard, about to run past the main house and up the lane towards the old farmhouse, when Rick called to him. Dawson ignored him. I don’t have time for his paranoia right now, Dawson thought. I need to know Veronica is OK. Dawson felt like he was leaning in for the tape at the end of a long race. The other racers were at his heels, and if he just pushed a little bit longer, then he’d get there before they could. They were gaining, but he was close, so very close. Then, a hand on the back of his shirt grabbed hold and yanked him back hard. So hard, he felt his collar choking him. If not for that, he’d have likely kept running. Instead, he turned and pushed back at Rick as the man tried to slow him down. Rick leaned back, evading Dawson’s reach, and pulled them both to the ground.

  “What the hell are you doing?” Dawson demanded. He tried getting back to his feet, but Rick held his arm fast and kept him from leaving. “You need to let go of me now, before I put my boots to you.”

  “Hang on a second,” Rick pleaded. “We need to think this through for just a little bit. We don’t want to make matters worse than they already are.” He held his hands palms out, in an attempt to calm Dawson. “We don’t even know for sure what the situation is. We just know that the bunker is empty and it looks suspicious. We saw no sign of a scuffle or damage of any kind. We could just be letting our imaginations get the worst of us.”

  Chase caught up to the two of them, and was followed seconds later by Jake.

  “He’s right,” Jake said, trying to catch his breath. “We don’t know if there’s anyone up there or not. For all we know, they could be here in the main house, right now, watching our every move.”

  “Maggie and Veronica wouldn’t do that,” Chase said. “They wouldn’t hide if they knew we were here.”

  “Exactly,” Rick added. “If there’s anyone in the main house or the old farmhouse then it’s not someone who wants to be found.”

  Dawson grudgingly saw the sense of it and sat himself down on the back porch steps. “We should probably go through this place first.”

  “Yes, and don’t just assume the worst,” Rick added. “We could find something in either house that will help us understand what’s going on.”

  “They would have seen us pull up the drive if they were here. They wouldn’t be hiding from us. They’d have found us by now,” said Chase.

  “Yes. Either way, we need to look around,” Jake said. “We could find something that tips us off to where they might have gone. Not just in the houses, but around the property as well.”

  “I know where they are,” Dawson said, and everyone looked to him. “At least, I know where they’d go if they left on their own accord. They’d go to the old Williams farm. Bert’s place. They know about the old slave tunnels, and they know that Bert would take them in.”

  “He would, but he wouldn’t be happy about it,” Jake said.

  “He’s never happy about anything,” Chase said. “He’s just a grumpy old codger.”

  “Hey,” Dawson chided Chase. “That old codger’s smarts saved our butts not so long ago. Don’t forget about that. We wouldn’t be here right now if he didn’t lead us down into those tunnels.”

  Chase shuddered. “I don’t even want to think about those tunnels again.”

  “Tunnels?” Rick asked.

  “It’s a long story for another day,” Dawson said. “Let’s get to searching the place. I think we should all start here in the main house, then split up. Chase and I can check out the old farmhouse, and you two can do a sweep of the property.”

  “Sounds good.”

  Rick and Jake were just making their way up the stairs to the second floor when they heard what sounded like a dirt bike engine start up. All semblance of stealth was forgotten as everyone went charging out the front door. Dawson was already halfway down the lane when Rick and Jake made it onto the porch. The bike was headed down the lane towards them. The driver had obviously decided to take his chance on the trails that lay beyond the house instead of the main road. He headed straight for Dawson, who wasn’t making any attempt to avoid the biker. Dawson crouched like a football player ready to spring and tackle an opposing player.

  “I’m heading for the Humvee,” Jake said.

  Rick waved a hand in acknowledgment as he leaped down off the porch and over the steps. He knew that if the biker got past Dawson, then he’d have a clear run to the back of the property, and they’d never catch him. Even if the Humvee were fast enough to catch the bike, it’d never make it through the narrow trails in the woods.

  Dawson focused. Just like trying to rope a calf. Don’t blink, then grab him at the last minute and keep him off balance. Let him think that he’s got the upper hand, Dawson told himself. Keep your eyes focused on the rider, not the bike. It’s all about the rider. The biker was intent on avoiding Dawson as he charged down the lane, confident he had the upper hand. He slowed slightly, swerving to the right, and then back to the left side of the lane as he tried to squeeze between Dawson and the fence. Dawson sprang at the biker, aiming for his torso, just as the biker hit the gas, trying to accelerate past Dawson. It almost worked.

  Rick worked his way further down the lane while the biker was distracted with Dawson. He heard the Humvee start up, but hoped that it wouldn’t be required. Keeping his eye on Dawson as he moved down the side of the house, he saw Dawson get a grip on the rider’s midriff. That’s it. He’s got him.

  But, he didn’t have him. The rider was able to free one hand just long enough to punch Dawson’s clasped hands and break his grip. Dawson slid away from t
he bike and into the dirt as the rapidly moving chain grazed his face. Rick’s momentary loss of focus as he thought Dawson was about to bring the rider down took him out of position. The rider was going to blow past him. Then it was a hundred yards at most till he made it into the woods and disappeared. Worst of all, the rider would have a chance to report back to others. The enemy would know they’d returned from Taos, and that would put all of them in jeopardy.

  Rick could only watch as the biker moved past the main house into open territory. He saw the Humvee coming through the backyard at about half the speed of the bike. Jake wouldn’t be able to catch him. Damn it. This is going to cause us a whole world of hurt.

  Just then, Chase stepped from around the back of the house with a baseball bat in hand. The rider wasn’t even looking at Chase. The biker was looking backward towards Rick, grinning from behind his helmet’s face mask. At that very moment, Chase hit a home run across the biker’s midriff. All the air spewed out of the biker’s lungs as the bike’s whining engine revved loudly before spinning to a dead stop in the grass. The rider lay face down in the dirt, gasping for breath, and not moving a muscle. Not even a grin.

  Chapter 5 ~ Baseball

  Chase walked cautiously to the downed biker. He wasn’t moving. He wore jeans and a tattered green shirt. Chase noticed a strong smell of body odor as he got closer, but that wasn’t his primary concern. Tucked into the back of the rider’s pants was a handgun. Chase couldn’t be sure if the man was still alive or not, lying face down as he was. It was hard to tell if he was breathing. Chase didn’t think he’d swung that hard, but combined with the speed of the bike, the rider had likely suffered several broken ribs, and possibly some internal bleeding. Still, Chase approached slowly and poked the rider’s left side with the baseball bat. The same side that Chase had swung at to bring him down. The rider didn’t respond. Chase figured that if anything was broken, and the man was still alive, that poking should prompt some response. He tried again, but still no reaction.