The Departing (The End Time Saga Book 4) Read online

  Jackson smiled and gave Jarvis a deep nod. He kicked her in the spine, sending her body into convulsions of pain.

  The fat one frowned, looking from the woman and back to Colonel Jackson, only just comprehending what the military man was asking. “Wait, you talking about the cripple?”

  Jackson’s eyebrows rose high on his face. He held up a palm to Jarvis, who took a step away from the woman.

  Jackson cocked his head to the side. “Cripple? Did Agent Steele sustain injury?”

  “Yeah, he’s up there. Got a bum leg and a messed up arm. Leads some community of folks.”

  The woman looked up at the fat biker. “Shut your mouth, Nader. Can’t you see that’s what he wants?” Her eyes narrowed at the colonel.

  “That’s interesting information. Isn’t it, Major?” Jackson turned toward Ludlow.

  The bug-eyed major smiled. “Yes, it is, sir. Strike while the iron’s hot.”

  Nader looked confused. “Why would you want to do that?”

  Jackson tsk-tsked the man, walking forward, one boot in front of the other. “Nader. Nader. Nader. I’m not just going to kill him. I’m going to grind his deceitful little life out of him.”

  Colonel Jackson stopped close to the trio of bikers. He breathed in their scent. Their leather creaked as they leaned away from him.

  “This is gonna be a lot of fun.” Jackson looked down and fixed Nader’s jacket with a pat on the chest.

  Jackson licked his thread-like lips and Mauser shuddered. He hated when the colonel got like this. It made him question their mission or lack thereof. This isn’t going to be pretty.

  Jackson removed a pen from his sleeve pocket. “Let’s send Agent Steele a little message.”

  GWEN

  Illinois side of the Mississippi River

  Her feet squished in the wet mud bank that led down to the dirty water. She stepped gingerly, trying not to lose her balance on the slick slope. The hazel waters of the Mississippi rushed before her, sweeping over rocks and trees alike near the muddy banks. The second longest river in the United States ran almost from top to bottom of the U.S., north to south, basically dividing the nation in two. From where she stood in Illinois, it was over a thousand meters across to the fertile lands of Iowa.

  The engines of her vehicles idled behind her, waiting for her to make a decision. Her greenish eyes gazed across the river at a small town. The buildings in the town looked as cold and dreary as the sky above.

  Old one- and two-story buildings rose up in a cluster. The architecture was late 19th-century design of red and white bricks. Other buildings had painted wood sidings of red, blue, and green.

  Similar buildings peppered towns across the Midwest. Still standing, still in use for the most part, and from a forgotten time of prosperity and growth, a time that had disappeared leaving only its forgotten ruins behind. There was a chance before the outbreak that they could diversify their economies and make a comeback. Now, they were all that was left. These isolated small towns had only a natural barrier a couple thousand miles long to hold off the dead.

  A knot of short and stout two-story silver grain bins sat near the edge of town. Farther away, ninety-foot concrete silos stood, tops capped with white domes. Prevents the condensation from precipitating back onto the silage causing it to spoil, she thought. During her days as a little girl until the day she had left, her grandfather had always explained the ins and outs of farming to her.

  She shaded her eyes out of habit from an almost nonexistent sun. Her other hand instinctually rested on her lower abdomen. Her belly was already beginning to push out but only enough to make her uncomfortable. She couldn’t feel the being that grew inside her, but she knew it was there growing. A life that would be utterly defenseless in a world that was brutal, harsh, and short since the outbreak.

  Distant figures moved around the town. From her distance, it was hard to tell if they were alive or dead. Please be alive. She didn’t know if she could stomach the dead here.

  A man grunted next to her. “Is this the place?” The tall welder had muscled arms and held his AR-15 like it was a child’s popgun. His greasy long hair lay draped over his shoulders like he belonged in the Middle Ages.

  She looked up at the man. The town made her want to smile and cry at the same time. “Yes, it is. This is Hacklebarney.” Her childhood home. Home to roughly a thousand people, give or take. The last census was 2010, but she was pretty sure it’d be lower now. With the deaths of the elderly and the departure of the young, it was only a matter of time before it was filled with only ghosts and memories if that time wasn’t already upon them.

  “Looks like a good place,” Gregor said, his voice low.

  “It used to be. Not sure now,” she said, turning back to the convoy. “I’ll be glad to get a roof over my head.” She gestured with her head. “Come on.”

  A dozen vehicles sat waiting: a long yellow bus, a few pickups, two conversion vans, and some cars. Scared but hopeful eyes peered through glass windows in her direction. She opened the passenger side door of a green van and slipped onto the seat. Gregor lumbered around to the driver’s side.

  A woman leaned forward from the back seat onto the center console between the driver and passenger seats. “Is this it?” Harriet said. She kept an arm wrapped around a young boy and girl.

  Sitting awkwardly next to her on the edge of the bench seat was Hank, one of the Little Sable Point volunteers sent by Steele to protect the convoy of the elderly and young people escaping the lakeshore community. His .30-06 hunting rifle was wedged barrel down into the doorframe of the sliding door.

  Gwen turned around and faced them. More heads poked out of two more bench seats. A young mother, Joey and her daughter Pattie, elderly gray-headed Ben and May Clemens. Dr. Thatcher petted his nervous Pomeranian with a smile. She ignored the little blond boy sitting in the back next to the window. He stared outside as if he were bored. He’s not real, or is he?

  “This is it.” She smiled. The facial movement felt foreign to her as if her muscles had to strain to keep that position, but it was genuine. The passengers let out sighs of relief. “Iowa is just across the river, and grandpa’s farm is about ten miles outside of town.”

  Tears filled May’s eyes and Ben squeezed her tight. Harriet shook the shoulders of Freddy and stroked Char’s brown hair. The almost teenage girl stared out the window, not showing any emotion. Harriet’s eyes looked pained as she watched her and Gwen gave her an understanding look. Char had been adopted by Harriet. Both Char’s parents were dead. Her mother had died during the outbreak, and her father had been slain at the Battle of Little Sable Point. She was an orphan of the apocalypse.

  “We will be safe soon,” Gwen confirmed loudly, making sure Char could hear her. The girl would need so much love and patience to come out of her silence.

  Gwen turned back, facing the river again. “Take us home, Gregor.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” he said. He shifted the van into drive and they rolled forward down the road. It had been over six years since Gwen had been back to her hometown. It had been a lifetime in her mind. With each day a struggle to survive, it may as well have been forever. She watched the town as they drove closer. It seemed untouched by the tentacles of the war and the infected. No burnt-out buildings. No bullet holes covering the walls. No bodies in the streets. No tent cities where the leftover refugees fled while everyone else killed one another. Only a small town in the heartland of a dying nation.

  Gregor turned the wheel and the convoy entered a two-lane bridge. Rusted steel girders rose up and encircled the bridge, crisscrossing to create a stable platform. Gregor pointed a big finger and took his foot off the accelerator, letting the van slow down on its own.

  Two eight-wheeled combines sat side by side in the center of the bridge, blocking both lanes of traffic. One was green and one was blue.

  “Infected,” Gregor growled.

  “Keep driving. We’ll take care of them when we get close,” Gwen commanded. Sh
e turned and spoke over her shoulder. “Hank, get ready.” She slipped her Glock 43 9mm out of its holster and set the black handgun on her knee. She rested her hand on it as they grew closer to the blockage on the bridge. Her finger nervously tapped the slide.

  Gregor let the van roll to a stop in front of the hulking farming equipment. Gray-skinned infected turned in their direction. Dead white eyes longed for them. She exhaled forcefully.

  “Let’s move,” she shouted. Her hand ripped the door handle and her foot kicked the door. It flew open. Standing partially behind the open door as concealment, she lined up her three-dot sights on the nearest infected.

  The infected let out a low moan from a partially open mouth as it reached for her with its bony fingers. She silenced it with a hot round from her Glock. The shell casing clinked onto the bridge. Hank’s rifle boomed behind her followed by Gregor’s AR-15.

  She focused on the ones that were close, letting the other men take out the infected farther away. She had learned early on that trying a headshot with a handgun on a moving target from a distance of more than seven yards was a challenge for her. She notched another headshot from about five yards away.

  The last of the infected vanquished, she stared up at the massive vehicles. “Come on,” she called at the others, stepping over the recently slain infected. She kicked at the giant tire. Her foot bounced harmlessly off the side.

  “There’s no way we can move these things on our own,” Gregor said. He looked up at the driving compartment, almost in awe of the giant machinery.

  “Well, somebody had to put these damn things here,” she said. She wedged herself up onto the side of the bridge. She used a rusted steel girder to steady herself atop the beam. Ignoring the water flowing at a good speed below her, she looked past the combines toward the town. Nobody was there.

  She clambered up onto a giant combine tire and took a short leap from the tire to the driver’s compartment. Wrapping her fingers around the door handle, she clicked a round button. The door popped open.

  She hopped into the driver’s seat. The cushion was hard foam with a short back. Monitors, a wheel, buttons lined the inside. Glancing around, she smiled and placed her hands on the steering wheel like she was a little kid on the farm again.

  “Been awhile since I’ve gotten behind the wheel of one of these.” She scratched her head. Her grandpa’s had been a much older version. Not riddled with so much technology. It was a relic repaired and passed down from generation to generation. The family farm was never large enough or lucrative enough to purchase new equipment.

  Farming had changed drastically since the old man’s time. Farms had grown bigger and the small farmer had been all but plowed under by corporate farming techniques and their financial backing by big business.

  She felt around the ignition and then looked up at the visor. A worn picture of a family was stuck in the flap. She tugged on the visor and keys dangled from it, attached to the strap.

  “Whataya know,” she shouted down at Gregor. She leaned out and jangled the keys at him. The tall welder smiled and laughed.

  “Sometimes you get lucky,” he shouted back.

  “Or you make it yourself,” she said to herself. She stuck the key in and twisted it, bringing the combine to life. “Let’s get you in reverse.” She bent forward, checking her mirror. She squinted when the mirror brought into focus a man.

  A country voice spooked her as he shouted. “Now, I know you weren’t thinking of moving this expensive piece of equipment without permission, were you, girl?”

  Gwen turned over her shoulder and found herself face-to-face with the round barrel of a shotgun.

  The voice was slow and sure with a ring of authority. “Keeping your hands where I can see them, how ’bout you move nice and slow out of that compartment and go join your heavy-metal boyfriend down there.”

  Bit by bit, Gwen lifted her hands off the steering wheel. Baby steps brought her to the edge of the combine.

  The voice drove her along. “Go on, now, nice and easy get back down there.” The man gestured with his shotgun toward the ground. Gwen did as instructed, stepping and then jumping down to the ground.

  With her hands in the air, she turned around and looked up. Armed men in overalls, flannels, and trucker hats aimed guns at them from atop giant combine wheels and around the drivers’ compartments.

  A man in his late fifties with a graying brown mustache that could rival Tom Selleck’s, pointed a shotgun at them with one hand. A gold star was prominently featured on his breast overtop a khaki tan shirt and brown pants. A long revolver hung on his hip along with a pair of steel handcuffs.

  His words burst through his impressive mustache. “Just go on now. Turn those cars around and get on out of here. We don’t got room for ya, so don’t ask. That’s an official order from the sheriff in these parts.”

  Gwen eyed Gregor from the corner of her eye and looked at the cars behind her. The scared faces of the people depending on her stared out from the vehicles. I didn’t come all the way here to be sent away like a scolded child.

  “We won’t,” Gwen shouted.

  The sheriff’s mustache twitched under his long nose. “Miss. We don’t want to hurt anyone, but the bridge is closed. Hacklebarney is off-limits to the public.”

  “We’re coming across. I got family in these parts, Sheriff,” she said up at him. She was surprised at the little rural Iowan twang that had crept into her words.

  The sheriff brought the shotgun stock to his shoulder.

  “If you did, you don’t anymore. I won’t ask again. Get.” He glanced at his men. “Red and B.B. Get those guns up. What the hell kind of posse are ya?” The farmers hesitantly raised hunting rifles to their shoulders.

  “Wait,” Gwen shook her head and squinted. I can’t remember his name. “I’m from here,” she shouted.

  The sheriff pushed his brown cowboy hat back up on his brow. His gun lowered a bit.

  “Ha. I’ve heard a thing or two in my day, but nothing like that. And who might you be, missy?”

  “I’m Gwen Reynolds. John and Lydia’s granddaughter.”

  The sheriff’s eyes narrowed as he rubbed his mustache. “Gwen? Nah, that can’t be you.” The sheriff lowered his gun a bit and leaned forward, trying to get a better look at her.

  “Yes, sir, it is.”

  A big grin spread on his face. “Well, I’ll be damned. Let me get a look at ya’.” The sheriff helped himself down onto the road. He threw his shotgun on his shoulder and ambled over to Gwen. She let her hands fall to her sides. He walked within a few feet of her and looked down his long nose at her.

  “Gwen Reynolds?” he said inquisitively. He reached out and lifted up her chin. She let herself be inspected by the bushy sideburn-clad lawman. “You remember me?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Name’s Sheriff Donnellson. You must’ve been about fifteen or sixteen last time I saw you. Lucky for you, you took after Lydia’s side and not that dog John.” He looked past her at the line of cars. His face turned to concern.

  “These your people?”

  “Yes, Sheriff Donnellson. I am responsible for them. All of them.”

  Sheriff Donnellson nodded. “Town’s been under a strict curfew since the sick people started coming in, but I think Mayor Dobson will make an exception for you.” He smiled at her. “People said for a long time that it would take an act of God to bring you back to Hacklebarney. Just didn’t think it would be an act like this. Jake will be glad to see you.”

  Gwen squeezed her eyes closed and a surge of panic raced into her stomach. Jake Bullis. The mention of her former high school sweetheart made her cringe on the inside. The terms she had left on had been less than optimal for either party.

  “Are my grandparents still here?”

  His brow furrowed. “Well, of course. Where else would they be?”

  Gwen sighed, relief washing over her. Her family was here. Her childhood town was still here and she was home. She closed her
eyes for a moment. “Thank god,” she whispered to herself.

  The sheriff turned around and yelled at his compatriots. “Red, you and B.B. get those combines off the bridge. Gwen Reynolds has come back.”

  “Hiya, Gwen,” B.B. said. The wrinkled gray-haired farmer gave her a wave and a smile. “Thought that was you. Couldn’t have been sure though. Eyes just ain’t what they used to be.”

  Red grinned at her and moved his dirty ball cap up farther on his forehead. The seventy-year-old had the build of an old-time boxer with a large rounded jaw. “John’s gonna be mighty pleased to have you back. He’s been worried sick. Lydia’s been at the church every day praying for your safe return.”

  “I’m glad to be back,” she shouted up at him.

  The two old farmers turned on their combines, and one at a time, reversed them the other way on the bridge. They rumbled away, exhaust pipes pumping dark smoke into the air.

  Gwen walked back and sat in the van. The sheriff waved them forward, shotgun wedged into the crook of his elbow.

  Gregor stared at her. “Gwen, you all right?” His eyes darted from her to the sheriff.

  She sat in a daze, the whims of a small town crashing back onto her. She had ended up right back where she started, facing the very place she had fled.

  “Of course,” she said after a moment. She sighed. “Let’s get over the bridge before they change their mind.” She gave Gregor a short smile. Her stomach turned over. An uneasiness enveloped her where she should have been filled with joy at her homecoming. Why do I feel so out of place?

  KINNICK

  Peterson Air Force Base, Colorado

  Kinnick’s arm was asleep. He took his finger and brushed her long blonde hair off her shoulders. He gently rolled the naked woman off his arm by pushing with one hand and pulling his trapped hand free. She mumbled something and snuggled back into her white pillow.

  He rolled over to the side and sat up, his legs hanging off the edge of the bed. He shook his arm out to overcome the pins and needles inside and ran a hand over his head. The room was dark. The on-base lodging for military personnel had all the makings of a hotel room: a couch, TV, dressers, and crappy outdated carpet. The soundproof windows did enough to block out the air traffic of Peterson Air Force Base, but a faint rumbling could always be heard.