As the World Ends PART 6 Read online

  AS THE WORLD

  ENDS

  Part 6

  Geoff North

  Copyright © 2015 by Geoff North

  www.geoffnorth.com

  Also by Geoff North

  Live it Again

  Last Playground

  Children of Extinction

  Thawed: CRYERS Book 1

  Tick LDV3

  This wasn’t happening. It couldn’t possibly be happening. Hayden considered slamming the steering wheel with both fists as Caitlan had done less than twelve hours earlier. He didn’t bother. Hayden didn’t swear at the old Buick either. It hadn’t done Caitlan any good with the Audi, and it certainly wouldn’t help him out of the jam he was in now.

  He was half a mile from Brayburne, and the car he’d stolen from the two soldiers wouldn’t start. Hayden had physically assaulted both of those soldiers, an attack that may have even left one of them dead. He had then marched into Brayburne and picked a fight with one of the volunteer recruits—a cock-sucking horse murderer—and broken every bone in his face.

  He hadn’t regretted his actions, and he would do it all over again given the chance. The only thing Hayden wished he’d planned better was his escape. But there had been no escape plan; Hayden had sent his son off with the others fully expecting to never see them again. The bombs going off for a second time had made escape possible—the same kind of bombs that had taken almost everything away from him weeks before, had saved his life. It was ironic as hell, but Hayden saw no humor in it. Another car had died in the post-apocalyptic nightmare of his life, and when night turned back to day in a few more short hours, Hayden would likely be discovered and taken into custody.

  Half a dozen nuclear detonations had lit the evening sky. When the sixth one’s terrible flame had finally extinguished, evening gave way instantly to full night. The only light Hayden could see now was coming from the fires in Brayburne. They’ll be searching for me now. Surprised they haven’t found me yet. He grabbed the military binoculars he’d found in the glove box and trained it on the closest fire. He clicked a button on top and the unit made a faint electric whistling sound. Everything lit up green. Night vision. Non-obtrusive digital displays targeted objects and told him distances. He settled in on the iron barrel that he’d kicked over hours earlier. It had been set back up, and the fire burning inside was a shimmering white ball surrounded in green wisps. A few more whitish-green blobs surrounded it—people huddled around the flames, warming themselves in the cold night. Hayden moved the binoculars slowly left, and then slowly right. No one was approaching his way from town. If he set out now, if he started walking north, he could likely put five or six miles between him and Brayburne before it started getting light.

  But then what? The gravel pit he’d instructed Caitlan to drive to was thirty miles away. It would take the better part of a full day to walk that distance, and even if he could make it without being picked up by the military first, what did he expect to find? Caitlan and Angela would no longer be at the gravel pit. Hayden had been very specific about that. If I’m not back with you guys by midnight, keep heading north. Find something... somewhere. Take care of the children. Hayden wasn’t sure of the exact time, but he knew midnight had already come and passed. They would’ve already started heading north by now.

  Hayden wasn’t going to walk. He was either going to get the piece of shit Buick he was sitting in running again, or he was going to find another vehicle. And the only other working vehicles around were in Brayburne. Hayden would have to sneak back into town and steal one of the commandeered cars parked in the outdoor lot.

  He threw the binoculars back on the seat and started to get out. He paused and picked them up again. Hayden would need every advantage at his disposable, and there were very few of those. The vehicle impound was further east. He tucked the binoculars into the back of his pants and set out.

  Tommy had never known pain like this. His entire face was in agony. He touched a cheek with his fingers, and winced. That created even more pain. The old fucker did this. He got me down and beat the snot out of me. The old fucker was in his mid-thirties, but anyone over the age of twenty-five in Tommy Boyd’s eyes was ancient. That wasn’t right. It was a goddamned travesty that someone as fit and young as Tommy had had the shit kicked out of him by someone so fucking old. The beating had been bad enough, but having all the others witness it had hurt much more.

  Tommy groaned and lifted his aching body up from the bed he’d been placed into.

  “Easy, son. Go slow. Your face is a mess, but I’m more worried about those ribs.”

  Tommy slowly swung his feet to the dirt floor and saw the white cloth wrapped around his chest and stomach. It was too tight. He tried a body stretch to the right and stopped. It felt like someone had planted a knife in his lung.

  “What did I just tell you?”

  Tommy looked at the man sitting on the end of a bed next to his. He was older than the asshole that had made mush of his face, a lot older. “Do I know you?”

  The man pushed the glasses up the bridge of his nose and rubbed a few strands of grey hair back over his mostly bald skull. “I’m Fred Gill. I was Brayburne’s only practicing physician up until about three weeks ago.”

  “You’re... like a doctor?”

  “Yes, I’m like a doctor.” He didn’t look at Tommy as he spoke. There was a woman sleeping in the bed he was sitting on. Most of her hair had fallen out, and it looked as though someone had taken a blowtorch to her face, neck, and upper chest. “I’ve worked in Brayburne for the last forty-two years. I’ve treated what seems like a million cases of flu in the very young and the very old, I’ve set thousands of broken bones straight, and I’ve delivered over five hundred babies.” He patted the woman’s leg gently and stood. “Never dreamed I would have to treat a thirty-year old kindergarten teacher for radiation sickness.”

  “It looks... it looks painful.” Her skin had a shiny, stretched look. It reminded Tommy of wax.

  “I’m sure it is. Thank heavens she’s too far gone to feel much of anything anymore.” He finally looked at Tommy with bloodshot old eyes under bushy white eyebrows. “I’m too old to be looking after people a third of my age. I’ve seen dozens like her in the last few days... folks wandering into town, suffering terribly. I’ve watched entire families slip away... fathers, mothers, sons and daughters... people supposedly blessed to have survived the attack. Some have recovered, sort of. Maybe they wandered off out of this tent and died somewhere else, I don’t have a clue. I tend to anyone that comes in here, no matter how much my old bones ache, and how tired my old brain gets. That’s my job, still, and I’ll do it until I drop dead. But you know what really pisses me off, son?”

  Tommy was listening and feeling the bandages on his face. “Can I have a mirror?”

  “No, you can’t have a fucking mirror. What really pisses me off is guys like you... guys like all the other soldier boys outside, marching up and down the streets like they own the place. It’s bad enough I have to try and treat people for something they didn’t deserve. Now I’ve got a bunch of goddamned macho idiots strutting about, getting into fist fights and having their ribs cracked. I don’t have the time to patch up idiots. I’m too busy looking after people that genuinely need my help. Do you know what I’m saying?”

  Tommy’s fingers had settled on his nose. “How bad was it? I’ve heard people say that it’s almost impossible to straighten out a nose once it’s been bust. Will it have one of those stupid looking bends in it?”

  Fred Gill wanted to break the nose again. A young soldier entered the medical relief tent before the doctor could do it. “There’s two more coming in from the east. The guards spotted them a few minutes ago maybe a quarter mi
le out on the highway.”

  “They’re driving?” The doctor asked.

  “Nope, walking, and sounds like they’re in pretty rough shape.”

  Fred wanted to smack the soldier’s face almost as much as he wanted to re-fracture Tommy Boyd’s nose. Half a dozen nuclear warheads had evaporated what remained of Winnipeg and the surrounding area. If survivors were coming in from the east, chances were the injuries would be severe. “And you morons are just watching them? Don’t any of you have any sense of compassion?”

  “Our commanding officer has set the rules of engagement clearly, sir; help those in need, but keep the base secure. When they’re close enough, we will bring them to you.”

  “Rules of engagement? We’re not at war with the poor souls out there, and the last time I checked, this was still a town, not a goddamned base.”

  Gill followed the soldier outside leaving Boyd in his bed to deal with his pains and to ponder over the state of his future appearance. Tommy glanced at the kindergarten teacher again, and looked away quickly. He feared she might wake up and call for help. What the fuck would he do then? What could he do for her, or for any of the other patients lying in their beds? He counted sixteen beds in total. Eight—including his own—were occupied. It must be late, he thought. Everyone was sleeping. This was a good thing. Tommy hated sick people. They were weak, and the longer you hung around them, the better chances were they’d give you whatever it was they were carrying. Is radiation sickness contagious? He wasn’t sure, and he didn’t want to find out. With considerable effort Tommy stood up. He remained stationary, swaying back and forth. There were no tables or chairs to lean on for support, and he sure as hell wasn’t going to rest against the teacher’s cot. The last thing he wanted to see was that shiny red face opening its eyes. She’d probably start screaming, or crying, or both.

  The stabbing pain in his side dulled to a throbbing ache and Tommy moved towards the tent-flap door Dr. Gill had exited through.

  The screaming started, but it wasn’t coming from the pink-faced kindergarten teacher.

  Hayden was halfway between the broken-down Buick and the east end of town. He stopped dead in his tracks when a scream cut through the night. The binoculars didn’t pick up anything out of the ordinary. The white blobs standing around the barrel fires looked about, but no one seemed overly concerned or motivated to investigate. A few seconds later the repeating crackle of gunfire erupted, and the blobs started moving.

  Hayden started to walk backwards. He knew he had been lucky slipping out of the town earlier. He didn’t want to push that luck under a hail of bullets. I don’t need a car... I can head northwest on my feet, make it to that gravel pit by noon tomorrow if I move fast.

  He continued watching through the binoculars as he made his retreat. The gunfire stopped, but someone was still screaming. No, it’s more than just one person now. People were shouting to be heard over the wail of others. Orders were being given, and mass panic seemed to be answering. The shooting resumed, and Hayden could see the white blobs merging together, heading for the east end of town.

  What the hell’s happening there?

  The sensible side of him said to run. Turn around right now and start heading for that gravel pit. The brave side—the lazy part of him that wanted to drive instead of walk—insisted he press on. Keep going. Slip into that vehicle compound and steal a car while everyone’s preoccupied killing each other.

  He stopped moving altogether.

  What are they shooting at? Why is everyone yelling and crying?

  He gripped the binoculars tightly, one of his fingers triggered a button he didn’t realize was there. The white blobs disappeared, and the shapes of human bodies became more defined. He’d inadvertently shut off the binoculars’ heat-seeking feature. Soldiers were gathering together in greater numbers, drawing weapons, and moving east. Bright flashes of white appeared in the moving throng of green and black, and the sound of their weapons firing met Hayden’s ears a few seconds later.

  He saw a body torn to shreds. Bullets punched through cloth and flesh, and a black mist of blood trailed out from behind. Another person standing next to it was mowed down in a second hail of fire. My God. They’re killing the survivors... They’re murdering the residents of Brayburne in cold blood.

  He had to do something. He needed to help those people. Hayden started stumbling forward, and then he saw the impossible. The first victim started to rise back up, the second one joined it moments later. The soldiers cut them down again. Hayden lowered the binoculars away from his face and stared at them dumbly. His hands were shaking terribly. He closed his eyes and forced himself to calm down. I didn’t see that. No one can rise back up after being shot so many times. Shots continued firing. People kept screaming.

  Hayden looked through the lenses again. The green and black shapes of the soldiers came back into view. They were backing up, continuing to fire at the corpses lying on the ground.

  The corpses rose again.

  “Why are you turning around?” Fred Gill asked. He pressed his left hand against the Jeep’s passenger dashboard and held on to the door with his right as the vehicle turned in the middle of Main Street.

  The soldier driving muttered something into the small microphone extending from his helmet and glanced over at Fred quickly. “There’s an incident occurring. I’ve been ordered to take you back to HQ until things have settled.”

  “An incident? You mean all that shooting? It sounds like World War III breaking out.”

  “That war started weeks ago, sir. This is something entirely different.”

  “Then turn this thing back around and take me there. Can’t you hear those people screaming?”

  “You’re the only civilian doctor we have on the base. We can’t afford to lose you.” They passed more armed soldiers running towards the east end of town. Most were men and women that had never picked up an assault rifle or saluted a superior officer in their lives. They were volunteers—survivors fitted into military uniforms with the sole purpose of helping other survivors.

  “At least take me back to the medical tent. Those people lying in their beds we’ll be terrified listening to all this.”

  “Not until the perimeter is secure.”

  Fred had lived most of his adult life in Brayburne. He had never once heard the term perimeter applied to its outer edges. The Jeep screeched to a halt in front of the Town Hall. It was the oldest building in Brayburne, constructed decades before Fred Gill had been born. It was shaped like a giant cube with only a few small windows set on each of the four floors. It had always reminded Fred of Uncle Scrooge McDuck’s money bin—a monstrous block of a thing, a fortress made of faded red brick. And it had been just that when it was built in the nineteen-twenties; Brayburne’s town hall had originally been a bank. Now that the world no longer needed money or small-town government, the Bin—as Fred and a few other Brayburne old-timers called it—was the military’s headquarters.

  “This way, sir.” The soldier had already run around the front of the vehicle and was pulling Fred out of his seat. “There’s a secure area inside where you’ll be safe until this is over.”

  “You’re throwing me in the clink?”

  “Sir?”

  “The only secure area inside there is the jail cell. It’s where we used to let the drunks sleep it off.”

  The soldier pulled insistently at the old doctor’s arm. “It’s for your own safety, sir.”

  He wanted to argue some more, but the screams and gunfire coming from the east end of town were getting louder, much closer. Let the army handle that, he thought. There would be time after to help patch up the wounded. “Lead the way, young man.”

  They were met at the main doors by a rush of men charging out carrying heavy artillery. One soldier had what appeared to be a rocket launcher nestled in his big arms. Fred stepped aside before they could trample over him.

  “Sorry about that, sir.”

  The kid was nice, Fred thought—a
whole lot nicer than many of the other soldiers occupying his town. “What’s your name, son?”

  “Corporal Stevens, sir.” They rushed by the main reception area.

  “Do you have a first name, Corporal?”

  “Adam, sir.”

  If any of them got out of this alive, Fred promised himself he’d put in a good word to the youth’s superiors. “How long have you served in the army, Adam?”

  “Three months, sir. I just finished training.” He looked embarrassed.

  “Hell of an initiation, hey?”

  They rushed past offices and came upon the jail cell at the back of the building. To Fred’s surprise, there was somebody already inside, sitting on the single cot. “Joanna Hensky?” He asked incredulously. “What is Brayburne’s mayor doing locked up in jail?”

  The middle-aged woman had a pinched look on her pudgy face. Her body appeared tense, her back ramrod straight. “I came here... it was suggested I wait here until whatever it is happening out there gets worked out.”

  Fred wasn’t entirely convinced of that. He had a feeling she had come on her own; the local politician wasn’t known for her bravery, or for being a particularly good mayor either. The corporal opened the cell door and Fred went inside. He sat beside Joanna and looked at the soldier questioningly through the bars as he clanked the door shut again. “You’re locking us in?”

  Joanna produced a ring of keys from the head of the mattress. “We can get out whenever we want. Whoever’s outside won’t be able to get in.”

  “Why would they need to get in when they can just shoot us from outside?” He stared at the woman. “Joanna... what the hell’s going on?”

  She placed the keys back on top of the flat pillow and set her shaking hands onto her lap. “They don’t have guns. I don’t think they have any weapons at all.”

  Corporal Stevens had slipped back out of the holding area without Fred noticing. “No weapons? Then why is there so much shooting? Are those soldiers just shooting down innocents?”