Tomorrow's Dawn (Book 2): Fractured Paradise Read online

  Tomorrow’s Dawn – Book 2 Fractured Paradise

  Chapter 1

  Jensen Carlson nervously raised his gloved hands above his shoulders as he peered at the older man with realization dawning on his face. He suspected the reason the little girl hugging the older woman’s legs seemed so afraid of him. Her eyes were fixated on the doll sticking out of the ammo pouch on his belly.

  The events of the scouting mission for electric vehicles in Dahlonega already haunted his dreams, but now they were haunting his reality. Jensen had been forced to kill a young boy who had starting firing at him. When they had investigated the car dealership the following day, he and his party had found evidence that the boy had a younger girl with him. The little girl looking at him with a fearful expression on her face while partially shielded by the leg of the older woman was clearly that same little girl.

  “You’ve got this all wrong,” he said, inching his hands even further away from his weapon and looking into the grim eyes of the assembled newcomers. They didn’t look like warriors, they looked like tired people on the run who had been wronged.

  They had. Months before, a superbug had been released into the wild when the annual flu vaccine had done something unexpected, killing almost 70% of the population within weeks. The societal structure had disintegrated quickly as citizens found that everything they had built their lives upon was gone. Almost everyone had lost family members. Their jobs no longer meant anything. Money was worthless.

  The pandemic was quickly followed by nuclear fire as panicked politicians launched a pre-emptive strike against two of the other world superpowers, China and Russia. It was a cowardly effort to damage those countries enough that the United States could rebuild without fear of invasion. The retaliatory strikes had turned most of the coastal areas into nuclear hot zones, along with other major cities and combat capable bases.

  Nobody knew the full extent of the damage. The major media markets were all gone—Los Angeles, New York, Atlanta. America’s command and control ability was gone. D.C., Norfolk, San Diego, Denver, all obliterated by high yield nuclear bombs carried over the Arctic Circle and the Pacific. The country had been decimated, and the population was rightly terrified.

  These thoughts weren’t going through Jensen’s head at that moment. Instead, he was fully aware that due process was no longer a right. The convoy he had just escorted back to his new home base had transformed into vigilantes in the blink of an eye.

  It seemed clear the young girl had been accepted into their group and told them her harrowing story. Jensen could only assume it had transformed from self-defense into a story of cold-blooded murder. If he’d been part of the group spread out before him, his trigger finger would be twitching as well.

  A slight rumble traveled through the ground beneath his feet as he stared down the barrels of those guns. Jensen weighed the risks of going for his own rifle. There were six rifles pointed at him he could see and there could be others. He knew that theoretically, his level IV ceramic plates should stop most small arms fire, but the vest only protected his torso. He also knew from experience that getting hit with one of those rounds would make him far less effective, even if he survived.

  Engaging them from his current position presented a very low probability of success, and zero chance if they shot him in the face, which was where most of those barrels were pointed. If he dropped his hands towards his own weapon, he probably wouldn’t even get a single shot off.

  Jensen was wound up and tense. The former Army Cavalry officer had developed a serious dislike for having weapons pointed at him. Just in the past couple of weeks, around a dozen others, including the little boy, had done so. They were all dead now.

  “Keep your hands high! We’re going to take your rifle and your pistol now,” the older man told him. His name was Brent, but that was about all Jensen knew about him. They met for the first time barely an hour prior when Jensen invited him to the encampment at the top of the mountain. Brent and his party were on the run to escape the flames pushing out from the Atlanta area.

  “Attention honored GUESTS,” a voice rang out, amplified by a loudspeaker very near. “You will put down your weapons immediately or six machine guns will cause you to drop them as you die.” Jensen felt relief upon hearing the strong voice. Daniel had clearly reacted almost immediately to the new threat and brought his tub into the fight. Each tub had two 7.62mm forward-facing machine guns, and there were now two of those tubs pointed at the small group holding Jensen hostage.

  Further away, Jessica and Dave had climbed into the turrets of the up-armored Humvees and swiveled those guns to point at the new arrivals while they were focused on Jensen. The massed firepower would be enough to chew through the assembled group within seconds, and Brent seemed to realize that. He slowly stooped and put his rifle on the ground. As he raised his hands, he spoke loudly so the others in Jensen’s group would hear him clearly, “You don’t understand. This man is a murderer. He killed Katie’s brother in cold blood.”

  Jensen shook his head and explained softly, “That’s not what happened, Brent. Her brother shot at me. I didn’t want to kill him. I didn’t have much of a choice.”

  The amplified voice boomed again. “If you would like to spend the night here, put down your weapons and pull your heads out of your asses. If not, you are welcome to climb back into your vehicles and leave right now.” Daniel paused. “One of my friends was killed today and I’d very much like to bury him. I don’t have the patience to listen to you assholes right now.”

  Several of the barrels lowered toward the ground, but two men still held their rifles pointed at Jensen’s head. If shooting started, he was still going to die.

  Brent raised his hands and turned slightly toward the older woman, but spoke to the little blonde girl. “Katie, is this true? Did Jamie shoot at this man?” When he didn’t get an answer, he turned fully to look and saw her with her face buried in Marta’s leg.

  Realization dawned on him and he turned back toward Jensen. “You have my apologies, sir. We only had part of the story.” He motioned his fingertips at the men who still had their rifles pointed at Jensen, who was careful to keep his hands fully above his head. “Boys, this is a misunderstanding. Please put down your guns.”

  Jensen felt the rumble in the ground again as the second tub maneuvered into position near the first, providing an intimidating backdrop to the scene. One more man lowered his rifle and set it down, but the last man held his gun high, unwilling to back down.

  “Cody, put your gun down,” came a woman’s voice from behind one of the cars, where she was hoping to find some protection if the mighty guns started to fire.

  The last man, who Jensen could know identify as Cody, turned to look toward the sound of the voice. “This man killed Jamie, and he’s not going to get away with it!”

  At that moment, Jensen was absolutely certain that this man meant to pull the trigger as soon as he turned back. He reckoned he had three choices.

  One, he could attempt to move. A moving target was difficult to hit, but that would result in shots fired and he was certain Daniel hadn’t been joking about lighting up the assembled crowd.

  Two, he could go for his own weapon and take out the threat, but he wasn’t confident he could find purchase on his rifle or pistol and swing it into position before the man turned his head the rest of the way and tightened his finger on the trigger.

  He chose option three and pushed his legs forward as hard as he could toward the man. Jensen dropped his head toward the man’s chest and bowled him over with his momentum, suddenly deafened by the sound of a large caliber rifle going off right next to his ear.
r />   In an instant, he had drawn his pistol to hold against the side of Cody’s head. He looked up at Brent, “Now you’re leaving. Get back into your cars and leave now.”

  Brent saw something terrible reflected in Jensen’s eyes under the bright afternoon sun. Death was as certain as if they’d driven south into the roaring flames of the nuclear fires instead. He nodded. “We’re leaving.”

  He hesitated briefly and turned his eyes toward his rifle on the ground. Jensen understood and nodded. “You can have your rifles. Just unload them first.” His left hand found purchase on Cody’s rifle and he tossed it toward Brent. “You can start with that one.”

  The man on the ground lay without moving. His face was pushed to the side from the force of Jensen’s Ruger against his temple. He was terrified. Cody had convinced himself that he was willing to risk death to enact vengeance on the man who had killed Jamie. He was no longer so convinced with a pistol pushed against his frontal lobe and no hope of damaging the dangerous man.

  Cody saw this moment as his chance to be heroic, and he desperately wanted to be heroic. As the owner of a craft store in Dahlonega, he knew the members of this group through his contacts with the small business association. He knew they didn’t respect him. He had felt unimportant since the attacks. He felt ignored by Brent and the other men who didn’t see the spark of leadership in him.

  Brent had that spark. “Will you release him, too?” The leader of the convoy wasn’t about to leave one of his people behind, even one as foolish as Cody. Cody’s face flushed with shame. He resented Brent, whom he didn’t feel was qualified to be their leader. The man didn’t even have a degree. All he could do was build things. He was at the mercy of a murderer, a man that was too stupid to have a career outside of the military. He was helpless. He was angry.

  Cody was smart. He knew he was smart. He had a master’s degree in Entrepreneurship, which most people couldn’t even spell. He spent evenings behind the keyboard writing long diatribes about foreign relations, welfare, and politics. He even had a small online following who regularly told him how insightful he was. Yet here he laid, prone on the ground with one Neanderthal pressing a gun into his temple and another seeking his permission to release him.

  He wasn’t going to take this kind of treatment. Cody decided in that moment he going to show the people that he was brave and worthy of their adoration, unlike the cretin they had been following so far. He tried to shove his arm up into the ex-soldier’s face, certain he could push his head back and cause him to release the gun.

  Jensen felt Cody’s body tense up sensed the threat. He slammed his pistol into Cody’s temple, causing his body to go limp.

  Chapter 2

  Dave watched through his scope as the convoy slowly passed through the intersection at the end of the road. He counted each car as they turned right, back toward Clayton. He watched intently, making certain that none of the doors opened and nobody was foolish enough to try to flank them from the south. He continued to watch the intersection for another hour, even as the sun dipped low in the sky to the west.

  He was angry, and hoped fervently that someone would be stupid enough to return. Someone had killed his friend, and even though it hadn’t been someone from this group, he wanted to lash out and make someone pay. Todd was zipped into a body bag back at camp, dead from a sniper’s bullet. Dave hadn’t been there to protect him. Instead, he’d been back at the cabin flirting with Sheila. For all he knew, Todd had bled out as he’d been teasing the attractive doctor.

  Dave especially wanted the one named Cody to come back. That man had come very close to getting his entire group killed. Dave’s finger was already tight on the trigger as Jensen tackled the idiot. No one from that group knew just how close they had come to death. The former Marine kept his scope on the intersection, almost willing Cody to come back so he could put a bullet through his head.

  He didn’t believe Jensen was a murderer, but something had clearly happened. He had killed some boy and these people knew about it. Dave just didn’t know the details. He felt that if the Captain had shot someone, he had a reason for it. He wasn’t one to kill indiscriminately. Hell, he could have killed them all instead of letting them leave. But he hadn’t.

  Back at camp, the second Humvees had been moved so both could cover the dirt road leading up to the cabin. Everybody was on edge after the armed standoff. Todd’s body now rested in the small clearing where the corpse of his father already resided. Jensen jabbed his shovel fiercely into the dirt as he dug a new grave, burning off nervous energy as he tried to walk himself through what had happened back at the college, where Todd had been killed by a sniper as he was loading books into Daniel’s tub.

  Why would someone kill another over books? What had really happened at the campus? Why was there an abandoned CDC decontamination center there? He was so distracted by his thoughts that he was startled when Dave appeared silently by the gravesite, holding out his hand for the shovel. Jensen knew the two had been close, so he handed it off to the grieving young man and respectfully stepped aside.

  Dave looked at him and quietly said, “I’ve got this. Why don’t you head back to camp?” Jensen, knowing Dave needed the solitude and work at that very moment, simply nodded and drove his tub back down the hill to where the remaining three members of their group awaited. By the time he returned, Daniel had already filled Sheila and Jessica in on the events of the day.

  “I can’t believe he’s gone,” Jessica whispered. She had known Todd for years, and even suspected he had a crush on her, but she’d seen him as a friend, not a potential lover. If she’d gone in his place, she might have been able to spot the sniper before she could shoot. Or perhaps she would have done something differently and the timing of events would have been changed enough to prevent this tragedy at all. She looked up at Daniel and asked, “Did he suffer much?”

  Daniel suspected that he had, judging by the trail of blood he’d seen where Jensen had pulled Todd’s body back into the protection of the library, but shook his head anyway. “It was quick.” The blood spray from Todd’s artery was splashed across the side of his multicam tub. He didn’t know if Jessica had seen it yet, but he suspected she might have. He tried to work out whether or not she had passed by the right side of the tub since his return, but couldn’t remember. The big man was going to make sure he got that cleaned up as soon as he could.

  As they spoke, he noted with watchful eyes that Sheila remained in the turret of the first Humvee, scanning the road for danger. The entire episode had taken less than an hour, from Jensen’s first call warning them of the convoy to their departure under hostile pressure. The peace of the once again quiet mountaintop was a stark change from the gunshot that had almost killed Jensen while the Dahlonega contingent looked on. It made her jumpy.

  She had climbed quickly into Jensen’s tub when she saw Daniel creeping forward in the other one. It had been hard for her to ignore the body in the passenger seat of the tub, and the bloody plate carrier at the feet of the body bag wouldn’t let her pretend her friend wasn’t inside. They’d all seen Todd just that morning, and to have his lifeless corpse next to her in the tub was disconcerting. It was a stark reminder of just how close to death they all were.

  Only days before, Sheila had been on the other end of these guns. For all she knew, she was in the turret with the same gun that had killed her boyfriend, Jerry. As much as she wanted to recoil from its touch, she felt safer behind its armor with the power of thousands of rounds of 7.62mm at her beck and call.

  Everyone on that hill felt the same way to one degree or another. They’d all taken heavy fire and seen friends die right next to them. The unexpected attack on Jensen by people they had thought of as friendly was just another reminder that nobody was safe anymore. Anybody could turn on you at a moment’s notice. So she sat in the turret, afraid they were going to come back. Excited for them to come back.

  Nighttime was coming, and she didn’t know if she planned to stay in the turre
t or move back to the cabin. They couldn’t very well leave the machine guns loaded and unmanned so far away from the cabin. To do so was like asking for someone to attack them using their own weapons. She noted that Jensen’s tub had returned behind her and was parked near the cabin. The only person not present was Dave.

  It seemed like only moments later when Jensen walked up to the Humvee and gently asked her if she was okay. Sheila felt herself start to tear up, but kept most of the quaver out of her voice as she answered, “I think so.”

  He looked concerned, but didn’t comment on her noncommittal answer. Not then. “Let’s move these back up to the cabin for tonight” he told her. Sheila nodded. that made sense to her.

  She climbed out of the turret and into the driver’s seat, flipping the lever that would start the Humvee. Sheila still didn’t understand why they didn’t have keys, just a simple lever on the left side to start the vehicle. She left it in the run position for a few seconds and waited for the red light to shine, as she’d seen Dave do. She knew it had something to do with glow plugs. Once lit, she flipped it to the right and held it for a moment as the engine rumbled to life.

  The general practitioner felt strangely out of place as she drove the hulking vehicle back toward the cabin, closely followed by Jensen in the second Humvee. The descending nightfall in the quiet clearing and the rumble of the big engine were in stark contrast to one another. As she passed Daniel’s tub, she took in the spray of blood across the flank, shuddering just a bit as she saw Todd’s life dried on the armored hide of the vehicle.

  If this was Jensen’s life, she wanted no part of it. But even less did she want to be away from him and his protection. She knew Daniel, Jess, and Dave all had some military training, but they had all been in intelligence, not combat. She didn’t have the same faith in them that she did in Jensen, who had killed five men at the ambush which had taken Jerry’s life. Sheila didn’t know if the military vehicles brought trouble to them or not, but she felt safer with them. She felt safer with Jensen around.