The Survivors: Book One (18 page)

The Storm Tracker stumbled back up the metal stairs, trying not to gag. After that, it was a struggle just to make herself open the next door, let alone explore the two or three tunnels off each one. She found closets and storage areas, a lot of offices and strategy rooms, but the damage was complete. The blood was so thick on some floors that the Presidential seal was no longer visible.

She'd found a lounge that had been stripped of everything, two burnt-out cafeterias, laundry rooms without a sheet or blanket, and three medical bays that were heavily damaged - not even a box of bandages spared. The men who had done this had made sure that anyone who survived, would find nothing to help keep them alive.

Back on the ground floor, her eyes were drawn to a small painting of President Clinton. It hung askew, revealing another dark shadow. Set into the stone, it was a "throw room", a secure area where the Secret Service could literally throw a person so they’d be safe, while the agents guarded the hatch, the only way in or out. This one had a bloody handprint on the rail that she avoided as she hefted herself into the 4x4 opening, thinking it clearly hadn't held.

The hole dumped her out onto a thick mat, in a narrow hall with seven doors. She listened intently before opening each one, but heard nothing. Although constructed with comfort in mind, the Presidential retreat contained no little treasures with which to line her pockets. Nothing had survived, and the smells had her covering her mouth as she explored the site of her country's last stand.

The sixth door was a secondary war room; computers destroyed, communications equipment lying broken on the carpet, bodies of uniformed men that Samantha vaguely recognized draped across chairs and desks. The blood puddles and spatters were impossible to avoid as she checked stacks of papers and books. None of the intact electronics responded to her fingers.

Samantha realized that the dark red Spanish writing on the walls wasn’t marker, and backed out of the room with her stomach in a knot. There was nothing here.

Scratch…

Sam spun, fingers fumbling for her gun. She stopped when she saw the big rat, thinking if not for the noise, she would try to kill it anyway to keep it from doing what the insects were. Scowling at the alert rodent, she slapped at a fat fly and moved on.

The last door led to a lavatory. When she saw no bodies, not even blood smears, she allowed herself to use one of the dusty, cobwebbed stalls, thinking peeing had never been so bittersweet. Even taking paper from the almost empty roll hurt, and it was a struggle not to cry. It was all gone.

A shadow, dark and small, dropped suddenly from the ceiling above her, landed on her bare knee.

“Damn!” She slapped at the mutated freak as it ran upwards, missing its extra legs. It was very fast and she gritted her teeth as the arachnid bit her, sending a rush of pain up her leg that shot straight into her spine.

Sam squashed the fleeing spider against her jeans, grinding the 12 legged and more than 10-eyed mutation into little pieces, and she wiped the remains down the dusty stall wall with a smirk of short-lived satisfaction, “Serves ya right!”

She wiped the bite with the last of the paper on the roll, a bit uneasy at how sore the wound already was, and then put it from her mind. She would check the lounge she had passed on the ground floor, and then get the hell out of this mausoleum.

The climb back out of the bunker took her longer, made her even more anxious, as she half waited for someone to jump out of one of the doors she was passing. She breathed a sigh of relief when the open tunnel came into sight, able to see the faint, dim glow of daylight at the other end. One room and she was outta here!

Sam stepped into the smoky, vomit-smelling, vending machine room, eyes spying unbroken glass. She went to the three tall dispensers eagerly, but every ring was empty.

She slapped her hand against the dirty glass in frustration. “Damn it!”

“Help..."

Sam jumped, turned and fumbled for her gun with shaking hands.

“Yes, please."

Samantha drew in air, glad her bladder was empty as she raised her belt light for a better look at the man dying on the dark brown and white striped sofa.

“Please."

There was total awareness in those dead eyes and Sam wished her peripheral vision would disappear as he begged her silently as well.

The gore and blood was everywhere, and she began breathing through her mouth to keep from gagging. As she stepped closer, trying not to look at his emaciated body, she realized it was a white sofa. The brown was his blood and rotting body that had begun to dry into the material. He had the sickness. The oozing, bald head and open, leaking sores were undeniable, and her eyes filled with tears, with pity.

“Please… help me."

The pitiful whisper made the man seem more human and she slowly moved closer. “What can I do?"

“Kill me," came the immediate answer. Before she could tell him no, her hand had raised her gun.

She couldn’t do it though, and the man moaned. A wet, liquid sound, she heard the grinding of his jaws as he coughed violently. Scarlet flew from his mouth, ejecting one of his teeth, and reddish drops of agony rolled down his distorted face.

“Please!" he begged.

She raised the gun again as his gasps for air filled the room. His body was no longer responding to his commands, the radiation destroying him from the inside out. She pushed past her horror to talk, voice shaky.

“Where else can I go?"

He struggled to answer. “Only a base... in Cheyenne still taking calls. All gone...faulty air valves.”

“What about the Essex?”

 “No! Ground... Zero. Evac'd after the hit... No transportation made for... radiation.”

His eyes had begun to run with reddish-green liquid in thick clots, but she could still see the hell in them.

“There must be someplace. What about all the Joint Chiefs and Secretaries?”

“Breached... Burned alive... wouldn’t touch me.”

Samantha’s mind went to the only locked door and the smell of gasoline she’d noticed, and she shook away the horrible images. At least their struggles were over now.

“What about the men who did this?”

The dying man on the gory couch began to heave, coughing, and Sam took a step back as thick blood and puss sprayed from his grossly-swelled lips.

“Mexican... Guerrillas... came during the... storm. Hit Ft. Carson first. Attacked the refugees... and took all females... doors opened, malfunction... retaliation for the War.”

Sam couldn’t think of anything else to ask, and the man raised a finger, skin sliding nauseatingly to the side of the bone. “Please…do it now. Don’t know... anything else.”

She tried to smile as she raised the gun. “I’m Samantha Moore.”

“Pat...Mi...Michaels.”

 She smiled in horrified recognition, and when he closed his eyes and tried to nod, she pulled the trigger.

The shot echoed, his body jumping like Melvin’s had when she hit him with the Taser, and then Sam was running, her steps echoing, mocking her flight. She had no idea where she would go, only that she shouldn’t have come here. These were not her people anymore.

Chapter Ten

February 6
^th
, 2013

Ohio

1

She definitely needed help.

It had taken Angela a while to convince herself that calling Marc was what had to be done to get her son back. The voice of fear was constantly warning of past punishments, but now that she’d called, it was a struggle to keep from doing it again. She hated being alone, hated being scared.

Angela was dreading the journey she was about to make, but most of all, she worried about the edge of panic in her dreams that said it would all be much worse than her life with Kenny, if that were possible. Her nightmares said she would face dangers that made the Marine look like an amusement park ride and if not for the deep love in her mother’s heart, she wouldn’t go.

The woman frowned at her thoughts. None of her fears mattered. Only her boy did, and she could wait no longer to leave. The circled day on her calendar was still over a week away, but she was going now and needed to know where Marc was, had to be sure he was really coming this time. Without his help, her plans stood little chance.

She wasn’t looking forward to telling him her story, planned to put it off as long as she could, but the odds were against her making it alone. And then there was Kenny. He wouldn’t just hand her son over and let her go. Between her Marine and the terrain, she would definitely need help, and Marc Brady was the only one she had left to turn to.

"You can’t!"
her fear shouted, telling her Kenny would kill her for it and the door in her mind stayed firmly shut.

Angela stood stiffly in the dark hallway of her apartment building, fear preventing her from making the call. Once she did this, once she left, there was no turning back. The urge to go inside and keep waiting was incredibly strong, but she shook her head, heart taking control.

“I’ll kill him if I have to! He won’t keep us apart!"

The rush of angry energy blew her fear aside and the door swung open. Her breathing became shallow, hair beginning to gather static, and power ran through the mud-tracked hall as the Witch gathered the energy needed to find the right doors that would cover hundreds of miles. Her eyelashes fluttered shut as the memories washed over her, strengthening the connection.

Jet-black hair, long and feathered, and soft on her fingers as their mouths touched.
He was the only man she had ever loved and she called for him now, releasing a powerful vibration that rattled like an earthquake as it went.

“Marc!"

His hands had been light, gentle magic as they crossed forbidden lines.

“Marcus!"

He had loved her and walked away, and she had never recovered.

“Marc!"

“I’m here, Angie."

He sounded older, used, and she winced at the pain of having him in her head. It reminded her of when it had been just them against the world.

“Are you still coming?"

Fear of the past made her hold her breath, whispered,
"No,”
that she would be alone forever.

“Yes. I should be in Cincinnati in less than a week.”

Angela let out the breath, ashamed of the grateful cry from her anxious heart. Five to seven days away. She had been afraid he wouldn’t come, and was still worried he wouldn’t care once he found out what she wanted. She didn’t know what kind of person he had become and she was depending on a debt that was very old.

“Will you tell me what’s going on? I picked up a few things, but I can be better prepared if I know more.”

"But, you do know what kind of person he is or you wouldn’t have called him,"
the old Angela, the one the War had almost freed, stated flatly from her twisted cell door.
"Tell him what he needs to know
.
"

“Angie?”

“I’m here, Brady.” She could almost feel him wince this time and it surprised her to find she didn’t enjoy it. She owed him much worse.

“Can you tell me?"

The caution in his voice allowed the old Angela to open the door between them a little wider and the words fell with a simple awkwardness that made her cry huge, silent tears of loss.

“My...son is somewhere in the middle of the country. I need you to get me there and help me steal him back, if it comes to that. I’m leaving now. We can join up on the road.”

There wasn’t even a thoughtful pause after her request. “It’s really bad out here, Angie. I wish you’d wait for me."

She could feel him immediately wanting to take it back, but her rage was quick, harsh. “I tried that already!"

Suddenly, she was sixteen again, hurt, betrayed, and alone, with no one but Corporal Kenny to turn to. She slammed the door on his incoming protests, but the old Angela was stronger now and she was forced to listen to the muffled apologies and explanations he labored to push at her. She heard the words and his remorse, but no matter what he said, Angela refused to answer. She was ready to go and could deny her mother’s heart no longer.

In the dawn’s early light, the doctor approached the shiny black Blazer waiting in the secluded garage. Her anxious blue eyes went over the extra tires on the luggage rack, the rear area neatly crammed with boxes, and of course, the tiny grave she had spent time at almost every day since the War. Leaving her baby boy behind was hard, and she had to force her grief back. She couldn’t abandon the living child to stay and mourn the dead one.

Angela wiped away her tears and looked at the Blazer again, finishing her comparison of the contents to the long list in her hand. Did she have everything? After another minute, she put the paper in the mailbox, along with an envelope in plastic and the door keys from around her neck. It would have to be enough.

Her eyes looked over her Tempo, making sure the wind and weather hadn’t moved her notes. She had also written on Charlie’s bedroom wall and left the keys in the ignition of her car - just in case. Her quiet, respectful son was becoming angry and inpatient, and if he slipped off on his own
(and survived! Please, let him survive!),
she would change course to intercept him.