The Abandon Series | Book 3 | These Times of Cessation Read online

  Right now, three of them had come forward in defiance while the rest kept out of range like the bum nuggets they were.

  He floated the crosshairs over the three clowns headed his way. Through the scope, he watched them approach, navigating their way through stopped-traffic while using the scattered cars for cover. When they got near the corpse and his toppled motorcycle, Colt went for the low hanging fruit.

  Trying a different approach than that of the beast, he fired a shot, winging one of the guys who didn’t realize his arm was out in the open. He put the shot right on the shoulder, blowing out half the meat and muscle. In the distance, he heard a blood-curdling shriek. Through the scope, he saw the arm hanging four or five inches lower than it should by strings of flesh, tendons, and torn muscle. A second later, blood sprayed out of the side of his head and a shot echoed his way. He made an uncomfortable roll of his shoulders. One of his buddies must have put him out of his misery. The two remaining men held fast, refusing to turn around.

  “It’s your funeral, fart knockers,” he growled.

  The beast was stomping the floor, kicking the walls, demanding to take over. Colt didn’t want to let it loose, but it was time to do so.

  He lay the Barrett on the hood of the car, went to the Jeep, grabbed his pistol and an extra mag. He wasn’t sure how much ammo they had after this, but it couldn’t be much. They weren’t a freaking armory after all.

  “Stay here,” he told Faith.

  “Where are you going?” she asked.

  “To put an end to these freaking jackwagons.”

  “Why can’t you just stay here and shoot the Barrett?” she asked, her eyes stormy with concern.

  He wasn’t talking though; the beast had taken control. “You’ll be fine,” it said. “Just keep your eyes on the mob behind us.” Colt and the beast moved into the scattering of cars, officially on the hunt.

  For too many years now, Colt had been relegated to farming and water management. But this assassin he carried inside him was the killing-spirit personified. It was an agent of slaughter and it itched for confrontation, for the wet, rusted steel smell of blood and death. Dealing with a soft hand, being kind, having dignity in war…these were fools’ errands, and the quickest ways to lose battles, entire conflicts, your very life.

  Colt was not this vile beast, not yet, but there was a comingling of spirits, the familiar rush of strength and vigor. It was as if he needed to marry the power of the beast with the core of his personality. Could he resist his old ways? Or was he an alcoholic in a bar, drunk on power rather than spirits?

  He clenched his jaw and moved deftly through the cars. Gun in hand, eyes looking for targets, he was primed to inflict blunt-force trauma. He loathed the beast, but he liked it more, which was why he’d tried so hard to bury it for so long. Now it was out. The beast had been loosed. If Colt couldn’t stop it now, if he lost himself to the butchery, could he ever find his way back again? He wasn’t entirely sure, but it didn’t really matter because in that moment, a bullet hit him in the face, irrevocably changing the course of his life.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Colt McDaniel

  The bullet smoked the side of his face, burning a line into his flesh right under his earlobe. It felt like someone had dragged a hunting blade across his face. Staggering back, silent, his mouth hung open in shock.

  He put his hand to his face, pulled back fingers dipped in blood. Summoning the beast’s rage within him, super charging it, he sprinted towards the two men. They shot again, but he was better prepared. Closing in on them, zigzagging, he fired two shots of his own. He clipped one guy but missed the other.

  They were too close for guns now and he wasn’t stopping. He collided with the first guy the way rams hit each other when they locked horns. The head-butt right out of the gate worked well, which was why he doubled up on the attack, catching the man flush not once but twice.

  The guy he’d just clipped was bending over to pick up his gun when Colt turned, rushed him, then drove a vicious knee into the hinge of his jaw. He toppled over. Back to the head-butted guy. He drilled him twice in the floater, the second shot cracking the bottommost rib.

  With this minor victory, he took a deep breath, then inventoried his surroundings. The guy on the ground was getting up while the broken-rib guy put his hands up and fought to keep the emotion out of his face. Neither man was dead, so the beast moved back and forth between them, the object of blunt-force trauma unleashed.

  Each punch, every arching elbow, even his knees—which he used as wrecking balls—bore fruit. The fight didn’t last long, but it was deeply satisfying.

  When both men lay there battered and pleading for mercy, Colt finally realized there was no difference between him and the beast anymore. He had become the beast. The transition was seamless, the bonds held in place by anger, injury, blood, and murder.

  He snatched up a gun one of them had lost along the way, shot one guy in the face, then turned to the other and said, “I’ll see you down there, bro.” And then he shot him, too.

  Colt dragged the bodies out in to the open where they’d be seen, and then he started stomping on their heads. He was a bloody, enraged nightmare. Doing what he was doing felt like psycho’s work, but it felt good to be in charge again, to not have to bow down to these oppressive cocksuckers like a coward.

  To his surprise, the mob stood their ground, either unconvinced or emboldened by their numbers.

  “Is that how you want to play it?” he growled, glaring at them for the longest time.

  Finally, he turned and walked back to the Jeep, grabbed the Barrett, then headed back to the waiting mob, never once considering the merits of maintaining adequate cover. He placed the weapon on its bipod, mounted up, then sighted them down.

  There was one man he could see who looked more astute than the rest. Colt put a bullet in this man’s forehead, then grinned as everyone watched him fall down dead on the ground. A few seconds later, the almighty horde turned and ran, abandoning their post.

  When the conflict seemed to be his for the moment, Colt shook off the hostility and tried to shove away some of the darkness. The darkness clung to him, though. He’d let it in, he had become it, and now he realized he had always been this ugly, violent thing.

  Trudging back to where Faith stood guard, he saw the horror in her eyes at the sight of his cheek. The blood had been running for a minute now.

  “I’m fine,” he said before she could say anything. “I’m pretty sure it’s superficial.”

  He stashed the Barrett in an inconspicuous car nearby, whittled down the load so they were working with only the essentials, then he stashed the rest with the Barrett.

  “We’ll pick this up on the way back,” he said. “For now, we’ve got a working motorcycle. We’ll have to figure out another means of transportation for Rowan and Constanza, but we’ll figure that out when we’re there.”

  Faith looked at him, scared of what had happened to his face, or maybe scared of who he had become. Either way, she nodded and said, “I’m ready.”

  When they got to the bike, he shoved the corpse out of the way, giving it a little extra kick to make sure it didn’t fall in front of Faith. He then picked up the bike and got on. Faith started to mount it, but he said, “Wait a second.”

  He unscrewed the fuel tank cap, looked inside, then cursed. There was about an eighth of a tank left. He dropped his head, irritated that he had to find gas the way he did.

  “Talk about a buzz kill,” he rumbled.

  “It’s okay,” Faith said.

  They searched more than a few of the cars on the bridge. They broke glass, opened doors, and crawled in and out of trunks, and then he found a gas can.

  “Yes!” he shouted.

  He gave the can a shake, guessed the contents to be around a gallon of gas, then crawled back out and poured it into the bike’s open tank. It wasn’t nearly enough.

  He went back to one of the nearby trucks, opened the hood, then dug a
round until he found tubing he could use as a “straw” for the gas tank. He ripped a length free, stalked around to the fuel tank cover, then opened it up.

  Over the next few minutes, he siphoned out enough gas to fill the motorcycle, and though his mouth had that gasoline taste he hated so much, he hadn’t swallowed any or inhaled any fumes.

  Faith handed him a chocolate protein bar when he was done. “This will hopefully kill the taste of gas fumes.”

  He wolfed the bar down, chased it with a bottle of water, then fired up the bike and told Faith to get her sexy ass up on it.

  Colt loved his wife, but the beast couldn’t get enough of her. The blend of the two took him back to his twenties, to when he first saw her, to when he first had to have her.

  Together, they made their way through the cars, both of them armed, neither all that ready for the kind of war they’d have on their hands if the mob planned an ambush for them farther up the road. Fortunately the mob wasn’t that smart, and they weren’t that courageous.

  When they cruised by the dead man Colt had shot, Faith said, “The time at Gator’s served you well.”

  “So did the Barrett,” he said.

  Thinking about Walker, he suddenly felt sad, but sadness was part of humanity, and right then, he decided he did not want or need to be humane. He was the beast, the beast was him, and there was no time for benevolence in an all-out war.

  He goosed the throttle and they roared up the road, quickly putting distance between themselves and the mob.

  With one hundred miles to go, and his face hurting like a mother, they cruised up I-275, which would take them around Cincinnati where they could get on I-71 and head straight up to Rowan’s place just outside Columbus. If they made good enough time, they could be there before midnight. Maybe even sooner if there weren’t too many obstacles along the way.

  The one thing Colt knew for certain was that when it mattered most, nothing fell apart faster or harder than a good plan. He tried to keep that in mind. But he was rock solid on the fly, flexible in a foxhole, and right now, pissed-off enough to be lethal.

  BOOK 3

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Gator

  Gator led half the caravan of survivors down the backroads leading to his property. There, he successfully managed to guide them up the rugged hillside trail. Once they were set, he went back for the others and did it all over again. They were safe, though, which was what Colt had asked of Gator. Well, mostly. Colt also said something about watching the house. Not watching the house burn, just watching it.

  Inside, Gator shrugged his mental shoulders thinking the McDaniel house was gone, he had done it, and he’d have to answer for that when Colt and Faith came home.

  “Why don’t you grab a lawn chair and take a load off?” Gator said to Leighton after catching her eye.

  She pulled a lawn chair in front of a fire pit full of ash, set it up, then lowered herself into the seat and went completely boneless. If she hadn’t been so traumatized, she might have actually smiled.

  Looking upon the lands, his gaze traveled to the horizon and back, drawing energy from the earth, taking nourishment from her bounty, finding so much love in all she bestowed upon them without ever even thinking about them. The open fields full of prairie grass moved in rhythm to the changing breeze while the shrubbery stood firm against such paltry gusts. And the trees…the endless, gorgeous trees! Gator loved the peace he found here, but trouble now danced across the lands, taking with it parts of that peace.

  “Walker was in trouble,” Leighton said. “We knew it, but we didn’t know it was like this.”

  “What do you mean?” he asked when she finally decided to look at him.

  In one way, Gator looked at Leighton’s loss of hearing as an ailment, but there she was, controlling the conversation, telling him when he could speak, speaking when she wanted without asking anyone’s permission. Gator had his hearing, but he was at Leighton’s mercy because she did not have hers. She was in control here and it was brilliant.

  “Trixie told me about Walker and Diesel Daley,” she said. “Diesel was the guy you and Trixie killed. Anyway, she said they both started the Hayseed Rebellion.”

  “Really?” he asked, taken aback. “Are you sure?”

  “They’re both dead now,” she said, “but I’m certain their nightmarish creation will continue to spread across the nation like a cancer. Now more so than ever.”

  The light burned out of the sky, but not before Gator could lay a proper fire. He sat down next to Leighton. He knew she couldn’t see his lips moving, so he just put his arm around her. She laid her head on his shoulder and started to cry.

  When she sat up and wiped her eyes, she said, “Those guys on the back of the truck, I was so mad, you know?”

  She looked at him, her face animated by firelight.

  He nodded like he understood.

  “They killed Niles. Back in Melbourne. And…and I did some really bad stuff, Gator. But for a good reason, you know? These guys, they just wouldn’t stop. I don’t think they’ll ever stop.”

  He wanted to talk to her, but he knew she couldn’t hear anything, that after the EMP, all she had left was her reliance on reading lips. This wasn’t an exact science, which made him sad. She had just started college, and she’d seemingly found her way out of the depression that had plagued her for years after the accident that took her hearing. And now this. All of her dreams had been dashed from her—lost hearing, dead boyfriend, that crazy McDaniel adrenaline coursing through her blood like a flash flood full of piss and acid.

  “You’ve killed people, right, Gator?” she asked. He nodded, one dip of the chin, an acknowledgement. “How many?”

  He held up two fingers, then he changed it to a four. Twenty-four. That was his count. He didn’t like it, wasn’t proud of it, never even told another soul about it. But for Leighton’s sake—for her sanity—he knew she needed to know. They were kindred spirits, in a way.

  “Well, I got you beat,” she said. He sat up straighter, took a breath. Oh, boy. “The guys who ran over Niles, I killed them at close range with a shotgun. I didn’t even think about it. I was numb, you know? But full of rage at the same time. I pulled the trigger and their heads were like meat soup. I’ve been having nightmares ever since.”

  Looking at her, unable to speak, he thought, Before this is over, if we even make it out alive, we’re going to make a lot more nightmares than two dead guys who lost their heads.

  “But then I got that taste in my mouth. I fell into a fever pitch. I needed revenge. So Hudson, Kenley, and I went into town and we found more guys like the ones we killed. While the Bennington’s house was burning, while Kenley’s father was lying dead in the street, and while Niles was being run over by lunatics, the Hayseed Rebellion was in the next town over, burning and looting Silver Grove. Hudson’s house. He couldn’t stand it and I couldn’t stand it. We needed to put an end to this, even though there will never be an end, I fear.”

  “They burned down Hudson’s town?” he asked.

  “They burned his house, too. We all tried our hands at vengeance, and though I can’t speak for Kenley or Hudson, to me it doesn’t feel good. In fact, I feel sick with guilt. After Silver Grove, though, I knew I wasn’t done. I’m still not done. I need you to know that. I need you to know that if the shit gets soupy, even if we end up eyeballs deep in it, I’m with you all the way, first to last breath of every battle, okay?”

  “Okay,” he heard himself say before he could really think it through.

  He felt such pride in his heart, but he was also teeming with fear for her. This was the McDaniel bloodline talking and it was wild and unpredictable. The fear wasn’t for her DNA, however, or even what it was doing to her. His fear was that when all of this was over, Leighton McDaniel will not have survived the battles, much less the war.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Sheriff Lance Garrity

  After being dropped off at the Sheriff’s Office by Gator
and Colt, Garrity walked into the busy Sheriff’s office where he put an terrible fright into Laura and Marilyn. It wasn’t anything he said, it was his God-awful condition. He was burned, beaten up, bloodied, and bewildered. Four Bs that pretty much summed up his miserable, crappy existence.

  Laura flew out of her chair—which was something to see for a woman of her size, and with a bum heel to boot—sat him down, and said, “What the hell happened to you?”

  He gave both of them the blow-by-blow of how he’d come to look so bad, which was concerning and unnerving at the same time. Laura’s response was simple and direct. “We need to get you looked at, Lance.”

  “This place is going to hell quickly. If we don’t get some people in here to back us in protecting the city, Nicholasville is going to tear itself apart. If we’re lucky enough to find such people, and if we can get things under control, then and only then, you can look at me as much as you want. But for now, I think we need to game plan the week, specifically the next twenty-four hours.”

  “What are you thinking, exactly?” Marilyn asked.

  “I’m thinking we need to be armed at all times. And we need to start thinking about how we’re going to proceed with our problem children, the ones we know about.”

  Derek walked in looking beaten up and embarrassed. He stopped, caught sight of Garrity, and said, “Whoa, what happened to you?”

  “I could ask you the same question,” he said. Before Derek could even answer, Garrity belted out a quick, but sharp cough, one that was likely spurred on by talking.

  Unfortunately, the hacking spell didn’t let up. Even as his eyes started to water and his throat began to feel so raw it hurt, he coughed up bits of ashy blood.

  Marilyn came to him, as did Laura. Laura rubbed circles in his back while Marilyn looked on with a sad expression.