The Abandon Series | Book 1 | These Times of Abandon Read online

  “I’m gonna get going,” Pete finally said. “Just wanted to let you know what’s up before the wife starts freaking out and demanding I don’t leave her side.”

  “Thanks, man.”

  Back inside, Hudson stewed over the breakup, tried for the hundredth time to feel like he’d done something wrong in shooting those anti-American scumbags a couple of weeks back. Unfortunately, it was too easy to justify his actions.

  Maybe he was a murderer.

  Was Em right?

  A few hours later, an unexpected knock shook his front door. His first thought was cops, and his second thought was Hayseed Rebellion. Should he grab the gun again? If it was the cops, they’d confiscate it. From there they could compare striation marks from bullets, or whatever, to prove he was the killer. But if it was the dreaded HR, he’d want that gun locked, cocked, and ready to rock, so to speak.

  He grabbed the XD9, went to the front door, saw who it was. He sighed with relief, but only for a second. The look on Pete’s face wasn’t good.

  “Bro,” he said pale-faced and scared, “they’re back.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yeah, man, the Hayseed Rebellion. They came back quietly this time, but that means they’re probably gonna get real loud.”

  “The Hayseed Rebellion isn’t quiet,” Hudson said. “They like noise, cameras, all that six p.m. media attention. Every burned building, every dead cop, every beaten citizen is a recruitment ad they run for free.”

  “So who is it then?” Pete asked, confused. “Because they’re doing what the HR does, just not with the burning, yet.”

  Hudson stood a little taller, irritated a little further. He drew a sharp breath in through his nostrils, then said, “It’s probably just opportunists. I forgot to ask, did anyone say anything about the power outages?”

  “I told you what Johnny Crappleseed said. He thinks it’s Electronic Magnetic Pulsing, stuff blowing like atom bombs in the sky.”

  Pete was no rocket scientist, and Johnny Crappleseed was really Johnathon Rapplesee, a Nebraska transplant and no rocket scientist either. Not that he was wrong…

  “I think you were right about the EMP,” Hudson said.

  “I know I’m right, but that ain’t the issue now. No power on anything means there ain’t law enforcement, which means there ain’t such a concept as ‘breaking the law.’ There’s only survival of the fittest. And Hudson…compared to them, we aren’t the fittest.”

  “We’ve been watching society devolve for going on two years now, and day one into a power outage—which is what this probably is—you’re losing it? Get a grip, bro. Just grab your hunting rifle, make sure you have plenty of ammo nearby, then keep Judy safe.”

  “It ain’t that easy, Hudson,” he said, the panic back. “We should kill them. We should honestly just start shooting them before they start shooting us.”

  “I’m not starting a war,” he said.

  “Too late,” he said. “Man, it’s already too late.”

  “Just go home and look after Judy,” Hudson said. Shaking his head, he added, “If we stoop to their level, we’re no better than them.”

  “Says the Chuck Manson of Silver Grove. I mean, seriously, why should we follow the laws when they aren’t?”

  “Because civilized society depends on one side not devolving with the other.”

  “So what should I do if they try to burn my house, or loot me of my…steal my things, or whatever…start looking at my wife funny?”

  “Everyone looks at your wife funny,” Hudson said.

  “No, they don’t.”

  “They do, too,” Hudson grinned. “No one can figure out what she sees in you.”

  “It’s my Southern charm.”

  “It’s your daddy’s inheritance. The second Judy finds out you dropped fourteen grand in the last six months at the strip clubs in Cincinnati, she’s going to leave you—”

  “Only one to tell her is you!”

  “—and she’ll be right to.”

  “What are you going to do?” Pete finally asked.

  “Actually, I’m going to tell you that you’re right. That you should start following my new rules,” Hudson said, certain things now clarifying inside him.

  “Which are?”

  “If you see something, shoot something.”

  Pete narrowed his eyes at Hudson, then cocked his head and said, “Clever, man. Very clever.”

  That night, Hudson saw something. And just like he had told Pete he would do, he shot something, too.

  He killed it in its tracks.

  Dead.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Will Bennington

  Will Bennington never thought he’d see a gun battle in his front yard, let alone see his son get shot. Niles was losing blood from his calf, and the side of his shirt was soaked with it. Even the back of his pants was soaked red.

  His immediate thought was to get Niles to Jacob Riley’s house up the street. He’d known Jacob for years now. Jacob’s only child, Kenley, was in nursing school, so she was the go-to fix for his son if they could somehow make it there. But with what just went down, that was a no-go. He still had no idea who was out there, or if more of the men would be coming back for retribution or revenge.

  Realizing he couldn’t move Niles in his current condition, he looked at his wife, who was trying not to freak out.

  “Ramira, get me my trauma kit, please. Not the travel kit, but my personal kit from the barbed-wire accident.”

  “I know the difference,” she said, worried. Of course, she did. She was the one who made him put the kit together in the first place.

  A few years back, Will had strung two-hundred yards of barbed-wire fencing around a section of his yard to keep out a group of vagrants who had taken to their land. In the process of stringing it, he had slit open the inside of his wrist. He’d staggered home, trying but failing to use his belt as a tourniquet. The blood loss was steep and he felt himself first losing color, then losing consciousness.

  By the time Ramira got him to the hospital, he’d lost enough blood to put him in critical condition. After emergency surgery and a much-needed blood transfusion, Will was given the all-clear. Ramira changed that day. She became afraid of so many things. He understood why she would feel this way. For a while it had been touch and go, which forced her to consider the possibility of life without him. When they returned from the hospital—when Will got back to his former self—Ramira made him assemble the trauma kit.

  They were now using that same kit not on him, but on Niles. Will had no experience with gunshot wounds, but he knew wounds, so he did what he could knowing there was no power, no way to get him to a hospital, nothing to do but try to save his son’s life right then and there.

  Will examined the calf wound first, not sure if what he was considering was the right move, but ready to make it anyway. He pulled up the pant leg and saw the exit and entry holes pooling with blood. Holding the material away from the wounds, to Ramira, he said, “I need a square of gauze first, then maybe one of those packs containing the quick-clot granules. I also need the applicator, which should say Celox-A applicator or something like that.”

  “I got it,” she said, removing the two items.

  He used the gauze to soak up the blood pooling inside the wounds. He then put the quick-clot granules inside, which wasn’t fun for Niles. The boy kept his composure, though.

  “Is it working?” Ramira asked.

  “Yeah,” he said. “Hand me two of those pads, then the roll of gauze.”

  She gave him what he needed. He dressed the wound, wrapped it with gauze, then thought about it for a moment. Taking no chances, he said, “I need a tourniquet,” he said to Ramira.

  She already had one ready.

  Will quickly affixed the tourniquet to Niles’s calf, pulling it tight, then turning the windlass rod to really compress the wound. Niles was not quiet about his pain, but he didn’t exactly start howling either. The leg was taken care of f
or the moment, but there was still the matter of both Niles’s side and his backside.

  “Hand me a few squares of gauze so I can clean this up,” Will said as he lifted his son’s shirt. “I’m also going to need the Celox gauze. It’s the one in the foil pack.”

  Ramira handed him the regular gauze, then began to search for the treated gauze. He mopped up some of the pooling blood in the wounds, then looked over at Ramira. She hadn’t found the treated gauze yet.

  At that moment, Will was almost as concerned for her as he was for Niles. He watched as she nervously went through the trauma kit with one hand while holding the candle in the other. The flame was both flickering and dancing. The dancing was from her unsteady hand.

  This was why he worried.

  In times of great crisis, survival often depended on having a level head and forward movement in the right direction. From past experience, Will knew he could count on Ramira, for she saved his life. But they were both older now, tired, not really prepared for this kind of snap situation.

  He checked on Niles, trying not to be upset at the boy for getting shot in the first place. Then again, he was also proud of him for taking out so many of those murderous cowards by himself.

  “You doing okay?” he asked.

  “So far, yes,” Niles answered through clenched teeth.

  “I see the Celox Rapid Hemostatic Z-fold gauze, is that it?” Ramira finally announced, reading the item’s package word-for-word.

  “It’s in a foil pack, right?”

  “Yes.”

  She showed it to him.

  “That’s it,” he said. “Open it up for me, please. There should be about five feet of packing gauze. I’ll need you to cut the length in half.”

  “What are you going to do with it?” Ramira asked as she used a small pair of medical scissors to cut the gauze.

  “I’m going to stuff it inside the entry and exit wounds in his side. The gauze is treated, so it should create a solid barrier within sixty-seconds, forming a fast clot.”

  He looked at Niles in the candlelight. He was clearly in pain.

  “You’re not going to pass out on me, are you?”

  “Don’t think so,” Niles said, tears standing in his eyes. “Does the tourniquet on my calf have to be so tight?”

  “It does for now. I’m no doctor, but I know from experience that rapid blood loss can lead to death pretty quickly, sometimes within a few minutes. So I’m going to keep it tight until we can deal with these other wounds. Then we’ll see what we’re dealing with there.”

  “Okay,” Niles said looking wan. “Just check on my foot from time to time in case I lose feeling.”

  Ramira handed Will the first half of the gauze, then took Niles’s hand and looked at him the way a mother would look at her injured child—like she wanted to take the pain, make it her own. She would willingly suffer the agony herself so that her child didn’t have to. That was the sacrifice every good mother would make. But alas, she could not do that.

  When Ramira saw the first bullet hole for the first time, Will saw her trying not to tear up. He said, “Ramira, why don’t you go and get my pistol, my spare magazines, and a fresh box of ammo.”

  She nodded, then left the room to get the gun and, perhaps, to compose herself.

  Will said to Niles, “This is going to hurt.”

  “It already hurts.”

  “It’s going to hurt worse, but it’ll save your life.”

  “Hopefully.”

  Ramira came back with the weapon, dry eyes, and a clear resolve to keep herself together while they saw their way through this. Unfortunately, it wasn’t going to be easy for any of them, not with what Will had to do.

  As carefully as he could, Will started stuffing the gauze into Niles’s wound, packing it in tight with his thumb. Niles gritted his teeth, barely able to hold back the growl now rumbling in his throat. When the gauze was packed in tight, Will turned and said to Ramira, “Go grab me the duct tape, please.”

  She hurried from the scene, returning moments later with the silver all-purpose tape.

  “Tear me off a strip about four inches long,” he said. “If you need to, start the tear with your teeth, then it’ll rip easy.”

  “I know how to use duct tape,” she said.

  He kept maximum pressure on the wound. Ramira handed him the first strip, which he used to tape the gauze-filled hole shut. He looked at Niles, whose face had paled even further.

  “You still with me?” Will asked.

  “Roger that,” Niles said, his face now drenched in sweat.

  “Time to turn you over, but just slightly,” Will said. “I have to get to the exit wound.” To Ramira, he said, “Get me a clean washcloth, please. Roll it like a Tootsie-Roll so he can use it as a bite.”

  Ramira came back with the tightly-rolled washcloth. She slid it in between Niles’s teeth, then said, “You’re doing so good, Niles. Bite down if you need to.”

  When Will started stuffing the gauze into the exit wound, fresh tears leaked down Niles’s face. His jaw looked strained, his teeth clenched into the cloth, his eyes wild and shaking. He started making fists at his side and little grunting noises, but this did nothing to deter Will from the task at hand.

  Gunshot wounds involved pain.

  Lots of pain.

  When Will was done packing the wound, he affixed another strip of duct tape, and said, “That should hold until we can get you to Jacob’s.”

  “Is Kenley even there?” Niles asked, looking exhausted as he referred to Jacob’s daughter. His voice sounded softer, the pain evident, the strain sucking so much energy from him. “I mean, have you actually seen her? Because I don’t want to walk all that way and find out she’s not there.”

  “The last time I spoke with him, Jacob said she was home,” Will said.

  “Can’t you just bring her here?”

  “If you can walk, you’ll walk with us. It will be harder to say no if you’re there. Plus, presumably, hopefully, Kenley will have what she needs to work on you there. We just need to make sure you get through the night okay.”

  What he didn’t say, however, what he was sure Niles understood, was that they needed to make sure they didn’t get ambushed or attacked either.

  “I can go, Will,” Ramira said.

  “No,” he replied, firm.

  “I can stick to the shadows, stay off the street.”

  He looked up at her and said, “You know what’s been happening outside lately, how dangerous it was even before Niles shot those men. These miscreants know where we live now.”

  “All the more reason to leave.”

  “Not with him like this, so stop asking, please.”

  She shrunk from the look of absolute horror. Will had never looked at his wife like that before, but these maggots and the chaos they brought threatened the entire family. More concerning than those creeps, however, was the lack of local medical services—temporary or otherwise.

  “If we don’t stabilize him, he could…you know,” Will said.

  He could die.

  “I know,” Ramira replied quickly.

  “If in a few minutes it’s looking like he can’t make it through the night, I’ll go to Jacob’s myself.”

  She nodded, reluctantly.

  Will looked back down at Niles. “Gonna need to take a look at your backside, kiddo.”

  Still perspiring but not sweating as bad as before, Niles nodded slowly, like he was contemplating both the pain and the humiliation to come.

  “Alright. Just do it.”

  He pulled the back of his son’s pants down, saw the entry and exit wounds, then asked Ramira for the regular gauze. She handed him the gauze. Fortunately, the bleeding wasn’t as bad as Will had feared.

  “Hand me more of the granules, and the applicator.”

  When he put the quick-clot granules in the entry and exit wounds, he felt Niles starting to fade.

  “Light another candle and bring it here, please,” he told Ra
mira.

  She did as he asked.

  As Will watched the wounds, he began to see signs of clotting. Instead of leaving things to chance, though, he said, “Hand me some of the treated gauze.”

  “No,” Niles muttered.

  “Yes,” Will insisted, despite knowing he’d be causing his son more pain.

  Without much warning, he started packing the gauze inside the entry wound, piling it in until it was just above the surface. He did the exit wound next, not saying anything to Niles, just working through it diligently.

  “This part is going to hurt,” Will told Niles. “But I wouldn’t do it if it weren’t completely necessary.”

  Niles was awake but not verbally responsive. When he turned him over, Will got on the table, then put a knee on the wound on his backside and shifted his weight over the boy.

  Niles’s face began to shake, a clear line of snot drizzling from his nostrils, his lips making little bubbles and sprays of spittle.

  “You’re hurting him,” Ramira said, concerned, anxious.

  “I know.”

  Niles started to groan, and then after a few minutes, he started to growl through the pain.

  “A few more minutes, son,” he said. “We need to make sure the blood clots, just to be sure.”

  “Will!” Ramira screamed.

  Will turned around and saw a face in the window, looking at him. He could tell right away the man was with them.

  “Shoot him!”

  Ramira picked up the pistol, racked the slide, then aimed and squeezed the trigger. The bullet shot through the window and put a hole in his face. He fell down, hopefully dead.

  “Get out front, shoot anything coming in on us!” Will said. “I’ll get out there as soon as I’m done here.”

  “Will?”

  “Get out there!”

  She grabbed an extra mag and hurried outside. A moment later, Will heard a short volley of gunfire. He took his weight off Niles, hustled off the table, then grabbed their shotgun, and hurried out front. The clouds were low and angry looking, the rain falling at a drizzle. A cold, gusting wind rushed at him from the north, slashing at them both. Fifteen yards up the driveway, Will saw two of them.